Destiny & RP on Goonstation

[BaneOfGiygas]

I'm sorry, I was being a bit of a jerk. I interpreted it as that he was annoyed people weren't RPing in the way he wanted.

What I'm trying to get at is, let's not sweat the small stuff of what people do and do not know. If, OOC, you think it would advance the round or make things more interesting by having a certain skill or knowing a certain thing, then go for it. An example would be finding someone who died of a heart attack; Maybe you'd be inclined to think the died of natural causes IC, but OOC you know it's probably initropidril. So you toss around the idea that it could be poison, not because you want to 'win' the round, but because that leads to an investigation, drama, paranoia, all of the good shit. Heck, if someone has a suspicious skillset, then YOU can call them out on it, accuse them of being a double agent, etc.

I feel like we want to keep a laid back atmosphere rather than having hard rules.

The apology's appreciated. I also apologize for any crassness on my part, it's just that your points looked like they were echoes of the same rationale some of the vigilante asshats have used in the past, and that's something I'm getting pretty sick of seeing on Destiny.

Anyways, I understand your point, but I don't think the rules are necessarily supposed to be hard and rigid. There's room for that leeway that you describe, and something like that wouldn't be too outside the realm of reason, especially if you're playing a medical doctor or scientist of some ilk. It's just that, as mentioned, that introduces the risk of people using it as an excuse to go antag-hunting and get into whatever other nonsense they want to get into. It's really subjective and probably the trickiest part of this whole RP thing.

Let's just put it like this. Before you decide that you have IC knowledge of something that falls outside of one's job description, it would be wise to ask yourself the following two points:
1. Will this knowledge encourage interaction between players and add complexity to the proceedings in a way that prompts investigation, or is it simply going to be used as justification for going after the antagonist responsible and beating their skull in with a fire extinguisher? In the situation you describe, bringing up the possibility of poison is a good idea, and it's okay to suspect people if you have reason to believe that they're suspicious. However, ignoring that and instead silently chasing after/murdering the antagonist without explaining yourself until after the fact is bad.
2. Does knowing this information make sense? If you're an engineer, you aren't gonna be able to perfectly diagnose someone with sarin poisoning without a reagent scanner. If you're a janitor, you aren't gonna be able to perform open-heart surgery. Now, that isn't to say that you aren't allowed to TRY these things, but make it believable. If you're not a surgeon and you're trying to perform surgery on someone, you're probably gonna fuck it up pretty badly. If you aren't an engineer and you're trying to set up the engine, you might forget to connect that plasma canister to the port before you release the vent. If you're doing something that your character isn't trained to do, it makes things more interesting and more believable if you make mistakes in the process.