Let's talk about Antag Captains

[nefarious6th]

hello, yes, curious about the discussion on benefits of antag caps vs. nonantag caps on classic; it's been on my mind a little and while i haven't had any memorable remarkable Bad moments with caps on classic, i haven't had any memorable remarkable Good moments either. it was brought up today and i was interested in hearing more about people's perceptions of the role as antag; but to a greater extent, people's perceptions of the role. tangentially, i also was poking around on the ai/captain wiki pages and hoping to try and solidify a level of difficulty new players might reasonably expect in these roles, but obviously high access + good starting tools + cool cosmetics means your experience is either potentially very Hard (as a nonantag), or very Easy (as an antag? maybe?). anywho, that's all aside, some thoughts people brought up:

in favor of antagonist captains:

• part of the game dynamics and paranoia; anyone can be subverted
  
• aa is not a deciding factor when discussing capability, since HoP specifically can also attain aa with minimum effort (where does this discussion end and discussion on ALL heads begin, you know?)
  
• does making captains nonantags mean they only are going to be relevant to rounds if it's Nukie or Revs where they are Needed:tm:
  
• captains don't receive any tools through uplink not available to other traitors; unlike other Head counterparts
  
• antag caps give a different, unique and fun dynamic from many other servers
  
• does otherwise changing captain antag status make the role into something that is only paralleled by whitelisted roles, and is that too far for something like captain?
  

less in favor of antagonist captains:

• captain being antag may contribute to hos always being treated as the de facto head of the station (does this unnecessarily uphold hos players in light we may not want, or is this  reasonable since they're whitelisted? do people who play as cap then get ignored in these scenarios?)
  
• too many roundstart advantages with aa, lethals, armor, potentially trust
  
• make it easier to differentiate when someone is engaging in abusive and bad behaviors without the shade of "maybe they're doing it because they're an antag"?
  
• are people antag fishing just as captain and maybe this reduces that?
  
• does this better fill a niche related to (1) where nonwhitelisted players can take on a role with responsibility and respect if they desire to?
  

old threads:
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=15258
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=15551
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=14444

people also added in discord that they liked antag captains, "EXCEPT for x or y antag type". if you have any thoughts like that to share, please do. maybe captain is only a hardmode traitor? maybe it's not a role for antagging at all? maybe it's perfectly fine as is?