A funny little idea for an admin-created antag

[JohnnyJohn]

This one is pretty simple. From time to time, admins like to spawn in antagonists with special properties to spice up an otherwise dull round. The antagonist could be challenging in the case of the hardmode traitor, or stupidly goofy in the case of the omnitraitor or adminbus.

Here, I suggest a funny little half-antagonist that essentially acts as a traitor, but with objectives relating to frustrating and inconveniencing the crew instead of destroying or killing them. Unique items would help accomplish this task, such as an endless harmlube dispenser, mustache grenades, rapid robot assembly machines to construct amazing duck clones or other robots that constantly vomit and get in the way, a special EMAG-type device that can make doors open and close rapidly or surprise crush people, give borgs a law 0 of something silly like having a mandatory dance party in the cafeteria, cause guardbuddies and securitrons to attack people with party poppers, medibots to inject honkfartium, buttbots to gain a speedboost and superfart at 1-minute intervals, etc.

So while this antagonist won't be bombing the station or assassinating the captain, it will cause significant disruption in a very clownly style, incentivizing people to kill it.
Security will also get a message of a "nefarious prankster" onboard, and will be authorized to either use execution or public lynching to deal with the troublemaker!

[Lefinch]

Here, I suggest a funny little half-antagonist that essentially acts as a traitor, but with objectives relating to frustrating and inconveniencing the crew instead of destroying or killing them. Unique items would help accomplish this task, such as an endless harmlube dispenser, mustache grenades, rapid robot assembly machines to construct amazing duck clones or other robots that constantly vomit and get in the way, a special EMAG-type device that can make doors open and close rapidly or surprise crush people, give borgs a law 0 of something silly like having a mandatory dance party in the cafeteria, cause guardbuddies and securitrons to attack people with party poppers, medibots to inject honkfartium, buttbots to gain a speedboost and superfart at 1-minute intervals, etc.

So, it's an idea for sure. It's a good enough idea that a form of it actually existed at one point here, Miscreants. 
To quote the miscreant entry on the goonstation wiki:

Miscreants were people who got a special miscreant objective, which were like crew objectives but with no win or lose trigger; "miscreant" refers both to people who received miscreant objectives (e.g. "those miscreants were actually kinda funny this time around") and the state of being a miscreant (e.g. "I got miscreant that round, but I decided to do something else.") These miscreant objectives could be extremely rude and included things like protection fees, swindling and con artistry. The idea behinds miscreants was to encourage people to act like creative hoodlums, but people often either misinterpreted their miscreant objectives as a license to act like an antagonist role or simply flat-out ignored them. Nowadays, you're unable to get miscreant, outside of one of those admin fellas gifting you one.

So in essence without direct admin support, it seems like people found it really difficult to find a good line between "being mildly devious" and "Being an antagonist in everything but name" and in essence the idea was fun but hard to put into practice.

In good news, admins do have the ability to give someone custom objectives and outfits so if they're about they absolutely can act on your idea in rounds they're directly in or observing. I've had that happen a few times too and it's a hoot, but it also seems like putting any kind of automated system will need to have very clearly defined goals and purpose to avoid slipping back into that grey area. There's also a general non-rule about ideas that are likely to generate a not-insignificant amount of ahelps is going to have to be really, really worth it to have any chance of happening. I'm not saying you couldn't bring miscreants back, especially with some kind of careful wording and clear goals and some specific tools like you've suggested, but this would need to be kept in strong mind.

So in summary: It's a good idea, it's actually been a thing in some form before but it didn't work out very well. It can still happen if admins are about, and that any new implementation of this would need to consider why miscreants didn't work out in the first place.

[Waffleloffle]

died 2022 proposed 2025 welcome back miscreants

[Kotlol]

As much as I like Miscreants as a concept.
The execution was AWFUL.

The line was too blurry or the miscreant was too BORING. Or people were missbehaving LIKE A MISCREANT already... without being one.

Essentially greytiders are miscreants.. but since every staff assistant greytides in someway shape or form.. to be a true miscreant you gotta stand out from it.
Wich pushes you into antag. Otherwise... you will be seen as another greytiding player or someone supporting greytiding.

So essentially it was killed 2022 cause.. a lot of the funny scenerios came from people who were already acting like miscreants... and the miscreants had to be borderline antagonists to even stand out. If we want it back... we;d have to change the culture and people do not want to give up their possible greytiding self defense.