Gangs and Gang mode

[Frank_Stein]

I was in a round where gangs were being discussed but couldn't stick around, so I wanted to create a thread for just talking about Gang mode in general. While you should certainly feel free to dump ideas in here, I want this to be more about how people feel it should work in the broader context of things.

With that, here's my personal feelings on it:

     Gang in its current iteration has a lot of potential. Probably the most fun I've had with it recently was when I left to go to the bathroom and came back to find the round about 15 minutes in and myself as a Gang leader that hadn't done anything. I decided "Fuck it" and played it a bit weird. 
     Instead of being really public with my hideout choice, I spawned it in the Space Diner. Instead of announcing it's location, I personally found people and led them to it after talking with them for a bit. Instead of focusing on grabbing as much turf possible for points, we planned a raid of the station armory for maximum fun and danger. We ended up winning by a narrow margin to a gang about 3x as large as us, based solely on those points.
     It was picking a strategy that evolved from the necessity of my situation, working closely with a competent team, and having a clear goal and plan that really made it for me.

With that, I think what will really help the game mode is playing to it's strengths: Teamwork, resourcefulness, and flexibility

If we can make the gangs more tightly knit and communicative, with evolving goals that play to different strengths beyond overwhelming numbers, I think it could be a lot more fun for everyone.

With that said, here's some mechanics I think could help:

• Similar to Spy mode, gangs would have a list of timed objectives that updates as the round progresses. This could involve having the most turf, the most guns, or the most drugs at any given time. Completing an objective could provide a specific reward that changes your gang's strategy for the next round of objectives
  
• Different gangs could have different innate strengths. On top of the rewards you could give specific gangs specific bonuses on points gained when trying to meet objectives like double the value on guns. There could also be passive bonuses on speed, defensive, or offensive capabilities that you get just for being in a specific gang. This gives people a reason to join one gang over another, and informs players on which objectives they should prioritize
  
• Additionally, turf control could play a larger factor in awarding bonuses. Maybe controlling medbay provides you with a passive healing, Or having control of the bar makes alcohol boost your stamina. This gives players more reasons to care about where they set up, and where they should focus their efforts in expanding or defending
  
• There should be more reasons for the non-antags to care about gangs without belonging to one. Maybe there could be a bonus to the department employees from having a gang presence there, such as increased income or access to supplies and materials you couldn't normally get.
  
• Having a built in consequence to prevent wanton destruction. One idea is a GTA style wanted meter that rises and falls with the severity and frequency of the crimes you commit as a gang member. It could do things like make stationwide announcements of gang activity in areas, name members, automatically set you to arrest and send Beepsky after you, put icons above their heads, track your movements, or even Spawn T.U.R.D.S NPCs to specifically target you 
  

[kyle2143]

I like a lot of your points. I agree that gang does have potential, but in it's current form (which is still its original form) I think its the worst mode to play in partly because, as you say, the strategy component. IE the lack thereof.

> Additionally, turf control could play a larger factor in awarding bonuses -

Ilike the idea of controlling certain turfs actually doing something for you. I haven't been in a gang round in a while, but IIRC you can just tag wherever you want on the station as long as it's controlled. I would like it if you have to expand outwards from your home turf and could easily see what turf belonged to what gang, sort of like the Wizard's Corruption spell. And that there was a real downside to spawning a locker in the middle of the most trafficked hallway.

The other issue is the lack of clearly defined rules of the mode. Does Command and Civilians just treat them as antags? Are people just supposed to join a gang the second they see a locker? People don't all know that stuff on any given round. It might be on the wiki, but a popup on the round start describing the rules like for traitors would be useful to disseminate the information.

The other main issue for me, which you also mentioned, is how Gangs are supposed to function internally. It's a tossup whether a gang member will listen to the gang leader or a more senior gang member or just fuck all and start criming at random. I feel like they should be compelled to follow their gang Leader's orders mindslave/changeling limb like. On the opposite side, sometimes the Gang Leader sucks, which would really throw a wrench in that idea, but it already throws a wrench in this game mode so any negative effect would be minimal. I remember I had a gang mode where I was a doctor just minding my own business, and someone set up a locker in the medical foyer. He said, "Join my gang" and that was it. I tried engaging him, RP wise, asking him why he thought I should join and for what purpose and he said nothing and left me alone. Perhaps he was new, but it still leaves for a less fun experience with a mode that is somewhat dependent on a leader to take charge.

[Frank_Stein]

That's very true. I feel like some kind of mechanic for democratically replacing a Gang leader could be really fun

Like, maybe a gang member can "Call out" a leader if they think they could run the gang better, and it initiates a live results but anonymous vote amongst other gang members. If the Challenger wins, the current leader can choose to either peacefully step aside, or meet the challenge in a death until yield battle.

Even if you start as a gang leader, you can choose to defer leadership to a more experienced player, or you could have infighting and populism amongst a gang. It'll be gangs vs gangs vs themselves

[kyle2143]

I'm not so sure about that, it sounds fun on the surface, but gang infighting would lead to making the gang mode even more ambiguous in its goals. I think that to improve this mode, you need to make the goals more clear for everyone involved.