Goonhub
12-31-2014, 12:58 AM
Really, as is evidenced by the heavily contrasted opinions on what security "should be like", I think that's our problem. Is security supposed to be the serious sams of the station and dedicating their existence to absolutely wrecking any antagonists on sight, or should they be every bit part of the wacky shenanigans as the rest of the crew? Should they permanently remove any antagonists they find or should they let them loose to potentially wreak more havoc even when they get to the brig? The balance between security being lax enough to remain fun but focused enough to actually be useful is really damn hard to make, and a lot of people have a lot of different thoughts on where that balance should be struck.
If you want my purely subjective thoughts on it, I'll provide this: Space Station 13 is a game. It is a game and its chief intent is to be fun. Of course, a lot of people have different ideas on what exactly is fun, but fun for the majority is the key intent here. To this end, security needs to be able to do their job in a way that encourages fun while still being useful. Cracking down and permabrigging/executing all antagonists on sight fifteen minutes into the round is not fun due to completely ruining the antagonist's ability to be an antagonist and see their plans to fruition. But on the other hand, doing all of jack shit about the guy chainsawing everyone they see pass through the bar is also not fun because that person is permanently removing a lot of people from the game, leading to frustration and bad times for all unless someone stops it.
I believe that the level of hardass-itude security should give to an antagonist should be inversely proportionate to the level of wackiness the traitor is exhibiting in their traitoring. If someone is just c-sabering and pipe bombing everything, then yeah, feel free to be a hardass and lay down the goddamn law before medbay gets completely depopulated. Letting out rampagey traitors will usually just lead to more rampaging about five minutes afterwards, so semi-permanently dealing with them tends to be a much better idea.
But if the traitor is...I dunno, running around and filling everyone with cat drugs, or subverting the AI into believing that it is a duck, or something else that isn't directly harmful and more meant to be inane, confusing, and/or disorienting, then security should give that person a bit more lenience than the aforementioned saberguy. Brig the cat-drugger and demand information on the infamous drug lord named Meow Mix, take the geneticist making everyone into epileptic swedes and turn them into an obese, constantly farting epileptic swede, try and fail to converse with your duck/AI through a series of quacks, whatever. When security responds to traitorous hilarity with even more hilarity, it escalates a funny round into an absolutely hilarious one, and is something a lot of people love seeing.
If you want my purely subjective thoughts on it, I'll provide this: Space Station 13 is a game. It is a game and its chief intent is to be fun. Of course, a lot of people have different ideas on what exactly is fun, but fun for the majority is the key intent here. To this end, security needs to be able to do their job in a way that encourages fun while still being useful. Cracking down and permabrigging/executing all antagonists on sight fifteen minutes into the round is not fun due to completely ruining the antagonist's ability to be an antagonist and see their plans to fruition. But on the other hand, doing all of jack shit about the guy chainsawing everyone they see pass through the bar is also not fun because that person is permanently removing a lot of people from the game, leading to frustration and bad times for all unless someone stops it.
I believe that the level of hardass-itude security should give to an antagonist should be inversely proportionate to the level of wackiness the traitor is exhibiting in their traitoring. If someone is just c-sabering and pipe bombing everything, then yeah, feel free to be a hardass and lay down the goddamn law before medbay gets completely depopulated. Letting out rampagey traitors will usually just lead to more rampaging about five minutes afterwards, so semi-permanently dealing with them tends to be a much better idea.
But if the traitor is...I dunno, running around and filling everyone with cat drugs, or subverting the AI into believing that it is a duck, or something else that isn't directly harmful and more meant to be inane, confusing, and/or disorienting, then security should give that person a bit more lenience than the aforementioned saberguy. Brig the cat-drugger and demand information on the infamous drug lord named Meow Mix, take the geneticist making everyone into epileptic swedes and turn them into an obese, constantly farting epileptic swede, try and fail to converse with your duck/AI through a series of quacks, whatever. When security responds to traitorous hilarity with even more hilarity, it escalates a funny round into an absolutely hilarious one, and is something a lot of people love seeing.