Goonhub
01-09-2017, 10:15 AM
I'd assume that you can trust the RP nerds to play antagonists in a way that's fun for the whole family, but from my tenuous experience with violent roleplayers on an entirely different platform from SS13, this isn't always the case. All it takes is one nerdy antag with a million points in robustness to take down a station full of roleplay dweebs.
The antagonist is a very important part of any good character-focused story. Without them, your good guys don't have anything to do other than *ugh* talk to each other. But, like with any major role, a bad antagonist can turn a dull story into one you never want to pick up again, especially if it takes three hours for the next story to arrive.
With that in mind, I have a few thoughts on how to make that work. Maybe not all-together, though.
1. Make the deadlier antags require an application. While being a badguy isn't *quite* as big of a responsibility as being the Head of Security, it still requires a level of trust that you'll use your powers of evil for good.
2. Make dying harder to do and healing take longer. This'll accomplish two things: Allow badguys to still be savage megajerks without their victim dying mid-sentence, and it'll let medbay be able to play doctor for more than a few seconds at a time (Or waffling around before slapping their patient with an all-better patch). This is because roleplaying with a corpse isn't much fun (usually), and there isn't much point to hanging around medbay once you're out of crit.
3. Give weapons a damage-toggle switch. Let's say you set your extinguisher to "fun" and whack someone over the head. Instead of the game forcing them to fall over, gasp like an idiot, and die, your victim gets to act out all that fun stuff through character interaction! Maybe even record the injuries on a sort of RP medical record/flavor text, one that medbay could "treat" and that you could edit in case someone made a mistake.
4. Enable respawning. Being able to still play (as a different character) after you finish up a getting-killed-by-someone RP would be nice. Course, if the badguy's still on a killing spree, getting killed again might be kinda awkward.
5. Allow players to have multiple "shell" characters? This one's kinda out there. You'd have a couple other "active" characters that you could switch through like AI shells. You would be able to hear everything said around your shells (minus things "you" can already hear) and talk through them no matter who you're currently playing. If you're elsewhere and someone wants to play with you, they could request your attention through some kind of command. This way, you could go to jail for half the round and still lead a fulfilling life dicking around telesci.
The antagonist is a very important part of any good character-focused story. Without them, your good guys don't have anything to do other than *ugh* talk to each other. But, like with any major role, a bad antagonist can turn a dull story into one you never want to pick up again, especially if it takes three hours for the next story to arrive.
With that in mind, I have a few thoughts on how to make that work. Maybe not all-together, though.
1. Make the deadlier antags require an application. While being a badguy isn't *quite* as big of a responsibility as being the Head of Security, it still requires a level of trust that you'll use your powers of evil for good.
2. Make dying harder to do and healing take longer. This'll accomplish two things: Allow badguys to still be savage megajerks without their victim dying mid-sentence, and it'll let medbay be able to play doctor for more than a few seconds at a time (Or waffling around before slapping their patient with an all-better patch). This is because roleplaying with a corpse isn't much fun (usually), and there isn't much point to hanging around medbay once you're out of crit.
3. Give weapons a damage-toggle switch. Let's say you set your extinguisher to "fun" and whack someone over the head. Instead of the game forcing them to fall over, gasp like an idiot, and die, your victim gets to act out all that fun stuff through character interaction! Maybe even record the injuries on a sort of RP medical record/flavor text, one that medbay could "treat" and that you could edit in case someone made a mistake.
4. Enable respawning. Being able to still play (as a different character) after you finish up a getting-killed-by-someone RP would be nice. Course, if the badguy's still on a killing spree, getting killed again might be kinda awkward.
5. Allow players to have multiple "shell" characters? This one's kinda out there. You'd have a couple other "active" characters that you could switch through like AI shells. You would be able to hear everything said around your shells (minus things "you" can already hear) and talk through them no matter who you're currently playing. If you're elsewhere and someone wants to play with you, they could request your attention through some kind of command. This way, you could go to jail for half the round and still lead a fulfilling life dicking around telesci.