Goonhub
05-10-2025, 07:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-10-2025, 07:04 AM by Lefinch. Edited 1 time in total.)
So, from my initial read of this idea that I'm still absorbing: It's kind of like a less cohesive conspiracist, or as you've posited it primarily for RP kind of like a rev without the revolutionising part, combined with a mindhack that costs 0 points but has more potential obstacles.
I think you've highlighted one big issue that'd have to be worked out: how would we handle contradicting orders? I'd add and say how do you think we could handle making sure this doesn't have the same problems that lead to conspiracists being taken off as a mode (primarily that they weren't great at actually organising, a lot of them just went off and did their own antagonism) or miscreants, another type of "grey area antag" we used to have that also got removed because people would not really keep to their lane on doing that.
There is a core theme of your idea that I do really like but I think has a lot of questions to answer to make sure it's implemented well:
"I would love the idea of being able to threaten someone into serving my evil plans or begrudgingly (in rp) work with someone...without making them or me breaking the server rules."
This is always a tricky area as is and it crops up all over: What's the line between signing a chaplain's faustian contract? What about someone using syndicate intelligence to coerce you? What about gangs using intimidation tactics to keep you in control? I've previously advocated that while it's complicated moments like this are very cool and I'd love to see them implemented in a way that makes the line less blurry for players. My personal opinion is with a bit of common sense it's actually possible right now as long as you're doing it in a way that's well RPd but I appreciate it's a commonly cited problem.
I think the fact you're putting a lot of caveats into the original idea (round limit for the role, specific to RP, openly saying we'd need to work out how they'd handle conflict antag orders) means you also get this is a difficult idea to actually implement in a way that won't potentially cause a significant uptick of ahelps. The way I've seen something like this work usually has involved admin intervention: specifically picking people or midround spawning them with specific objectives to aid a person, but I'm not so sure how viable this would be as a mechanical thing. Admins can supervise in ways the code/players with incomplete knowledge of the situation can't.
So, I'm not saying "this is a bad idea" I actually really like the idea, but I think it's fair to say anything that adds an extra layer of players having to balance their interaction with primary antags to help resolve an issue around players interacting with antags is going to be a tricky thing to balance.
I think you've highlighted one big issue that'd have to be worked out: how would we handle contradicting orders? I'd add and say how do you think we could handle making sure this doesn't have the same problems that lead to conspiracists being taken off as a mode (primarily that they weren't great at actually organising, a lot of them just went off and did their own antagonism) or miscreants, another type of "grey area antag" we used to have that also got removed because people would not really keep to their lane on doing that.
There is a core theme of your idea that I do really like but I think has a lot of questions to answer to make sure it's implemented well:
"I would love the idea of being able to threaten someone into serving my evil plans or begrudgingly (in rp) work with someone...without making them or me breaking the server rules."
This is always a tricky area as is and it crops up all over: What's the line between signing a chaplain's faustian contract? What about someone using syndicate intelligence to coerce you? What about gangs using intimidation tactics to keep you in control? I've previously advocated that while it's complicated moments like this are very cool and I'd love to see them implemented in a way that makes the line less blurry for players. My personal opinion is with a bit of common sense it's actually possible right now as long as you're doing it in a way that's well RPd but I appreciate it's a commonly cited problem.
I think the fact you're putting a lot of caveats into the original idea (round limit for the role, specific to RP, openly saying we'd need to work out how they'd handle conflict antag orders) means you also get this is a difficult idea to actually implement in a way that won't potentially cause a significant uptick of ahelps. The way I've seen something like this work usually has involved admin intervention: specifically picking people or midround spawning them with specific objectives to aid a person, but I'm not so sure how viable this would be as a mechanical thing. Admins can supervise in ways the code/players with incomplete knowledge of the situation can't.
So, I'm not saying "this is a bad idea" I actually really like the idea, but I think it's fair to say anything that adds an extra layer of players having to balance their interaction with primary antags to help resolve an issue around players interacting with antags is going to be a tricky thing to balance.