RP, chaos and antag density

[Lord_earthfire]

I'm a little late to the party, but as a mostly secmain I can probably weigh in a little bit here. Granted, whatever I say here is from the perspective of Goon 4, since that's pretty much the only place I play these days. I'll go over the points here:

I would respectfully have to disagree on this, although maybe it is again the server difference. There are mostly antags who get insanely creative and it oftentimes takes a coordinated effort to stop them, if we do in fact even succeed in stopping them.

I think it comes down to population. How many security members do generally run around on 4? I suspect its like 2? From the discussion, this is generally not a low-pop issue, but rather you see something at 30+ pop or more.

Because at very low pop, so around 15+, you got 1-2 antags. 30+ pop, it's still 2-3 antags. But instead of ~2 security members you suddendly got 7. It doesn't scale well.

As others have said, this makes sense to me from an RP perspective. Unless it's spilling over into their department, the department is targeted, or indeed, the entire station is at risk, it makes sense for folks to stay in their lane. Oftentimes, upon speaking with other departments when I make the rounds as security, they have their own RP and little stories playing out. I'm not saying they can't or shouldn't be interrupted, but it would make sense they would choose not to get involved.

Like you said, unless a department gets targeted. On 3 its happening even if the antag targets the department. The RP quickly gets shifted away from the department and back to an antag-security interaction.

I do see this happen, but honestly, if antag chooses to escalate that far, it sometimes takes that many people to pose a challenge to them. I've had my fair share of rounds that it took all of security to even mount a challenge, and sometimes they still get away with it...which either way, is a great story playing out!

Except it's not involving that much escalation. I was in a hivening in a round recently when the ling decided to eat a secass (with nice RP via card reading etc.). Was like their 3rd stealth kill that round pretty early. What then happened was 3 secoffs coming in (due to the death alert) and them meticolous searching the chaplain. Like each of them for whatever godforsaken reason needed to look at the backpack and the pocket and each box and even pressed the chaplain to give out their bible where they finally found a sec headset. Then they pulled them for interrogation. The whole procedure took 15 minutes and they left the ling going... but like neither the ling nor the people in the hivemind really enjoyed that.

And the thing is, it's not because of malice or the need to won. But simply a result of boredom, which is reflected in other comments as well:

From a security standpoint. Sometimes you can only go so many circles around Donut before you're waiting for ANYTHING to happen.

Respectfully again, imo, I believe this is the wrong approach and idea of RP. I don't see the goal of RP as the antag bringing the entire station down around everyone's ears and mass chaos everywhere. It's about good stories playing out, which sometimes could very well very be the result of mass chaos. But it can also mean a story playing out in the bar, with two old buddies reminiscing about the good old days. It could be security officers bonding or offering a self defense class to the crew. Maybe there is a station accident and it's large enough everyone gets involved and pitches in, or it could be as simple as holding a service in the chapel for the fallen with candles (which I try to do every shift, which has inspired RP from people that is still going on!) This is the RP aspect I love about Goon so much...it's all about the story. Sometimes it's many small stories going on, sometimes it's a big one with lots involved, sometimes chaotic, sometimes not.

I think you misunderstood me there. I agree that it should not be the goal to always have chaos and make the shuttle call early. But these scenarios which, like you said, also offers good RP opportunities and a good story simply... happen extremly rarely. I have spouted out that 80% shifts feel like extended for the common crewmember at some point in the thread, and that accessment hasn't changed, really.

I do notice a HEAVY direction to Validhunting certain antags.

We once had a wraith who was appearing to well "scare" people but like 5 people were smacking them.
Where even the security had to say: "Yea don't do this"

I seen people kill a disarmed antag cause antag. Don't get me wrong.. I get you want to fight the antag when they are around.. but don't... then roll security.
If you may only fight in self defense. Technically when you see an antagonist with a gun out.. Don't chase em.

I have seen the tendency for some validhunting from an antags point of view recently. We kinda got some AI's snooping around all the time for antags again. But really can't tell to have seen it from other crewmembers. Then again, i barely interact with antags to have an idea how often they get validhunted by other players.

[Frank_Stein]

Respectfully again, imo, I believe this is the wrong approach and idea of RP. I don't see the goal of RP as the antag bringing the entire station down around everyone's ears and mass chaos everywhere. It's about good stories playing out, which sometimes could very well very be the result of mass chaos. But it can also mean a story playing out in the bar, with two old buddies reminiscing about the good old days. It could be security officers bonding or offering a self defense class to the crew. Maybe there is a station accident and it's large enough everyone gets involved and pitches in, or it could be as simple as holding a service in the chapel for the fallen with candles (which I try to do every shift, which has inspired RP from people that is still going on!) This is the RP aspect I love about Goon so much...it's all about the story. Sometimes it's many small stories going on, sometimes it's a big one with lots involved, sometimes chaotic, sometimes not.

Very much agree with this. I'd encourage an antag to spend sometime trying to see if they can find some of these stories playing out, then figure out how they can add conflict to them. Maybe it's being disrespectful at the funeral, or sabotaging a repair effort