Goonhub
11-15-2022, 04:24 AM
I whole-heartedly agree that there has been an issue on RP with antagonists not realising that the greatest power they have is to drive the round forward. Eating humanized monkeys in a corner for 60 minutes is pretty uninteresting for everyone involved and causes no buildup of tension or dread.
There's something to be said about a question i often see on the RP discord channel, and it's about people wondering if they escalated enough when usually a few sentences to provide a quick or silly explanation as to what is happening is plenty enough to make it an enjoyable fight. Kills have so much more lasting and interesting impact than a simple mild inconvenience and allows things to naturally escalate. The vast majority of the most fun interactions i had interacting with an antagonist was with them trying or suceeding in killing me or my crewmates.
When the antagonist cap was higher on RP, it tended to be very chaotic on pretty much any shift and i think this is due to antagonists using the chaos that other antags caused as an excuse to add even more mayhem. Now that the antag cap is lower, if a single antag decides that they want to remain "friendly", it kneecaps the pace of the round and also makes it harder on their antagonist allies since it means that security wont have to spread their attention and they only have to check in on the antagonists posing an actual threat.
An example that is sometimes stated on the rp channel of a fun justification for backstory is;
"Hello. I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
It's short, to the point, explains in less than twenty words who you are, what your story is, and what your intent it. It can be more complex than that, but i think that you can just as well use a simple explanation like this one to have fun.
As silly as it may be, i like mark's "casserole" example alot. It's simple, but it feels personnal and fun.
Other examples of fun justifications i've seen:
- "I'm a clown and i have no concept of good or evil. If people get hurt by my pranks, that makes it even funnier."
- "I've been drunk all shift at the bar and someone DARED ticket me for it. I'll show them the extent of my drunken fury."
- "I have a vague description of someone i have to interrogate and kill for the syndicate. I'm going to ask them a few questions, realise they aren't the one, then kill them anyways for wasting my time."
- "My eyes have been open to big pharma's tricks and i see that medbay is actually corrupt. I'll try to get doctors to quit their job, or end them if they refuse."
There's something to be said about a question i often see on the RP discord channel, and it's about people wondering if they escalated enough when usually a few sentences to provide a quick or silly explanation as to what is happening is plenty enough to make it an enjoyable fight. Kills have so much more lasting and interesting impact than a simple mild inconvenience and allows things to naturally escalate. The vast majority of the most fun interactions i had interacting with an antagonist was with them trying or suceeding in killing me or my crewmates.
When the antagonist cap was higher on RP, it tended to be very chaotic on pretty much any shift and i think this is due to antagonists using the chaos that other antags caused as an excuse to add even more mayhem. Now that the antag cap is lower, if a single antag decides that they want to remain "friendly", it kneecaps the pace of the round and also makes it harder on their antagonist allies since it means that security wont have to spread their attention and they only have to check in on the antagonists posing an actual threat.
An example that is sometimes stated on the rp channel of a fun justification for backstory is;
"Hello. I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
It's short, to the point, explains in less than twenty words who you are, what your story is, and what your intent it. It can be more complex than that, but i think that you can just as well use a simple explanation like this one to have fun.
As silly as it may be, i like mark's "casserole" example alot. It's simple, but it feels personnal and fun.
Other examples of fun justifications i've seen:
- "I'm a clown and i have no concept of good or evil. If people get hurt by my pranks, that makes it even funnier."
- "I've been drunk all shift at the bar and someone DARED ticket me for it. I'll show them the extent of my drunken fury."
- "I have a vague description of someone i have to interrogate and kill for the syndicate. I'm going to ask them a few questions, realise they aren't the one, then kill them anyways for wasting my time."
- "My eyes have been open to big pharma's tricks and i see that medbay is actually corrupt. I'll try to get doctors to quit their job, or end them if they refuse."