Allow Security Assistants to roll antag roles.

[aetherbe0rn]

Title says it all. I'd like to suggest that Security Assistants be allowed to roll antagonist roles.

Right now, the Detective can already roll antag with a gun, and they have significantly more autonomy and firepower with their .38 special. Meanwhile, secass is intentionally weaker: no stun (except the flash!), no full access, no real authority... basically a glorified staffie in red.

Allowing them to roll antag would open up more interesting RP and gimmick opportunities without significantly upsetting balance. Since secass has fewer tools and lower impact than most other security roles, the risk of abuse seems minimal. If anything, giving them antag potential might make the role more appealing and lead to more creative antagonist rounds.

I get that security roles rolling antag can be touchy, but considering the precedent set by the detective, I think it's reasonable to extend that privilege to secass, especially given how limited they already are.

Curious to hear what others think!

[Katzen]

It's intended to be a training role for new players. Command and security not being able to trust them would be counter productive.

[aetherbe0rn]

Yes, I know that it's a training role for new players. So are the other trainee, intern and assistant roles. And they can all roll antag.

[Flaborized]

Sec assistants are meant to be both for newbies learning how sec operates and also for people who wanna play sec but in a more relaxed role than regular sec officers.

In my eyes it's less about the actual power levels than it is about how sec assistants are meant to be trustworthy so they can do their role. The detective is a Special Case and people treat the det a little different because they can be antag, which I think is fun for that job but would change the vibe of secass a little too much. If you can't trust them anymore they kinda fail to be the sec officer-lite that they're meant to be. Plus it makes the det a little bit less Special

[Silent Majority]

I feel like this would eliminate the roll of a secass almost entirely.

The trustworthy assistant is now shifty. Hard disagree with me.

[Lefinch]

We already have enough of a polite and civil discourse every few months about the detective and their antag status, mindshields and putting them on or off secassistants/detectives, and the multiform complex impacts this has on the security environment so I openly admit my current objections to the idea get as far as thinking of how much a lit fuse this would be to security dynamics before waving the idea off even though I actually somewhat agree with the "Everyone could be a threat" concept, I end up thinking "is this going to make security have to second guess if a security assistant is just relatively new or being evil or just terrible" or "Will it influence officers in training new assistants in a way that sucks" and while I hope not, the idea is sad enough to make me think twice on this one even if yeah, I think enemies within can be fun.

And they still can be with a bit of effort, mindhack (which works on assistants) or cheeky consumption by the changeling. We now have some more potential for it (and even officers and the HoS) in the Broken on Neon, so maybe that'll go well enough to suggest this might actually work out okay but right now I'm pretty leery about it.

[JORJ949]

 "is this going to make security have to second guess if a security assistant is just relatively new or being evil or just terrible"

Its very important to know that a new assistant is doing something wrong because they are new and not because they are an antagonist.

[Skotcher]

Security can be a stressful position. You have a lot of eyes on you, your actions can have a heavy impact on the pacing of the round, and security (especially on the RP servers) has its own culture and community. These things make Security Officer an intimidating role to get into. A common sentiment I hear from players is that they would like to try security, but they're afraid of "x". X could be anything; they're afraid of messing up, that they might not fit in, or that they worry they're not good/robust enough.

Security Assistant serves two very important purposes: It creates a space where learning and mistakes are encouraged, and it helps foster a welcoming community.

On the former point, if you are new to security, people are much more forgiving of a security assistant's actions relative to a security officer. If you make a mistake, you are given a much greater amount of understanding and patience from friend and foe alike. People will use IC and OOC chat to help guide you. You get the opportunity to observe, take part, and grow from the experience. You don't have a lot of responsibility and are given the freedom to pursue what you are curious about. You can spend an entire round just learning how to use a barrier and flash effectively, all within the confines of the security department.

On the latter point, this game already has a bit of a sink or swim barrier and the security department used to have this problem the worst out of all other departments. I have seen people play security officer for the first time and quit the role for good because of a bad experience. I have seen fellow security officers give someone newer to the role a hard time for not being on their A-game, and I've seen crew/antags berate a security officer for a bad call. People get upset, and try as we might to temper our emotions, a heated moment from just one of us can sour someone's experience of the role for good. By having this introductory role, we're reminded that this may be someone who is learning. It gives us that little reminder that there is a person playing that character and what they might need more than anything is patience. It encourages veterans of the role to step back, lend a hand, and welcome new people into the community (the security department or the server).

It's for these reasons that I think allowing security assistant to roll antag is a bad idea. It ruins that trust and removes a space where players are encouraged to make mistakes and learn from them.

[aetherbe0rn]

Well, I guess I haven't really looked into that part because I personally have only seen a secass player once on Classic. And they told me that they went secass because secoff was full at the time, aswell as HoS. So I guess I haven't really looked at the RP part of things except what they COULD do as an antag.

There's a huge difference in communities with Classic and RP. I didn't really think much about how officers or crew would now percieve assistants with the fact they could be antags.

So to that, I say, maybe it'd be a bad idea to allow them to roll antag.