Remove captains ability to roll antag

[Trustworthy]

Title. Captain starts with very good armor, a very good weapon, and AA, as well as authority. In fact, an antag captain doesnt even have to buy any traitor items to be able to wipe out a good chunk of the station all on their own. I don't know, I just feel traitors should have to work to get the good shit, rather than yanno,  spawning with it. It's basically complete antag ez mode, and that doesnt sit well with me. What are other peoples thoughts on this?

[Mopcat]

completely agree, captain pretty much spawns fully decked with the best armor in the game, all access, and a powerful gun. antagonist captain is basically training wheels mode and have the potential to wipe out the whole station with just their starting equipment. plus, the ability to roll antagonist removes most if not all authority or trustworthiness the captain may have.

[aft2001]

Honestly... I completely agree with all of the points brought up. Hell, the HoS is trusted *far* more than the Captain. I get that it's kinda interesting to see at times, but a traitor HoS would be interesting to see and I'm pretty sure no one wants that.

[Frank_Stein]

I've got mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand I do think players need sources of authority they can trust. Sec and HoS being Non-traitors is proof of that concept. Captain, being one of the most powerful and technically the most important person on the station, makes sense for them to be someone you should trust not to be an antag

On the other, I kinda like the dynamic of not even being able to trust the people at the top, and the moments where Sec has to decide if the Captain has done enough wrong to warrant arresting them, and then having to decide who the new Captain is.

[aft2001]

This is true, Frank - that dynamic is very interesting.

As a possible compromise, perhaps limit the Captain to being a hardmode traitor? After all, they're at the top - they don't need help. They can change the AI's laws, they have all-access, they have armor, they have weapons and access to more, they have everything at their disposal. They do *not* need the extra help.

[Frank_Stein]

This is true, Frank - that dynamic is very interesting.

As a possible compromise, perhaps limit the Captain to being a hardmode traitor? After all, they're at the top - they don't need help. They can change the AI's laws, they have all-access, they have armor, they have weapons and access to more, they have everything at their disposal. They do *not* need the extra help.

Give the captain a unique set of traitor tools they can order, that are all just bits of flavor that don't have much power.

Stuff like the Traitor Hat, Or Fake Mustaches

[Sundance]

[Redacted]

[GORE]

The doubt of the crew asking themselves if the Captain is a true menace or not seems far too valuable for me to just plainly scrap the Traitor-Captain.

At most...I'd argue one should perhaps lessen the chance of a Captain being picked as a Traitor; thus not limitting any Traitor Roles he could spawn as and perhaps creating a more rare occurance of shady top-level shit is going on.

---

By the way - Vampire Captain is a whole load of fun - and I see no reason to topple this one...I'd dearly miss the early blood-drive AI law changes.

Captain ling is also alright...in all honesty I see no real reason to scrap those roles from the Captains possible Antag roles.

[Lady Birb]

Antag captains is 90% of the reason why everyone treats the captain as an assistant with all access and a gun and gives them no respect. How anyone can think this is a good mechanic is beyond my understanding.

[Trustworthy]

By the way - Vampire Captain is a whole load of fun - and I see no reason to topple this one...I'd dearly miss the early blood-drive AI law changes.

Captain ling is also alright...in all honesty I see no real reason to scrap those roles from the Captains possible Antag roles.

The issue is that ime, at least, it's only really fun for the antagonist, as vampire and ling are designed to be viable using only their abilities, and indeed, I've gotten nearly 3000u of blood doing exactly that. When you add armor, an egun, and AA into the mix, you've suddenly got an enemy that is basically unbeatable with no effort on their part. I think making the captain only able to be a hardmode would be an alright compromise,  although it's not my ideal solution. It would help make fighting an antagonist captain a bit less frustrating, which is what this post is really about.

[Wisecrack34]

While I do enjoy the fun of the mystery, I think it's just bad to have the top be so untrustworthy considering they're the targets of rev rounds and all. I think these cool "The captain is a syndie" moments could be better achieved with identity theft (Ling, a silent tator, etc.) as they'd be far less expected, think when you find out a sec officer is actually a ling who stole someone's identity.

While I see the merit of having captain role traitor, I think that in order for Command to be treated as more than "Department member + Access" they have to be completely removed from the antag pool. While I can see roles such as Medical Director and Chief Engineer warranting respect based on them being good at their jobs, the HoP and Captain have no basis to trust or rely on them on so they honestly get treated like a clown you get in trouble for slipping and farting on.

I rambled and it's 2 am so I'm gonna revise this tomorrow but the main idea that I'll believe till heat death is that Cap sucks poo and should probably not suck poo on behalf of the syndicate too.

[Carbadox]

This sounds more like a suggestion that's stemmed from an expirence rather than an inherent game design flaw.

A traitor Captain is a pretty dangerous threat because... well it's supposed to be. Space Station 13 is supposed to be about how anyone can be a traitor looking to kill you. It could be the chef that's making the food you eat, it could be the Janitor that can make evidence disappear or it could be even the Captain of the ship. Captain never has or had any trustworthiness to them. Hell, you can't even trust HoS' due to the fact of how much of good mindslave target they are. That's the whole dynamic of the game.

And even when there is a traitor Captain, that never implies that they're somehow good at they're good at what they're doing. SS13 is a sandbox. It's the game where the "deadly captain with all access and a powerful gun" could get slipped by the Clown and then beaten to death with toolboxes by a swarm of Staff Assistants. Or bolted and electrified in a room because someone set said Captain as a non-human.

Unless it's crew like Security, I don't believe any expections are neccesary what so ever

[zjdtmkhzt]

Hard disagree on this change. I feel like the nature of the game is just that some rounds antags have more stuff at their disposal and some rounds they start out with less stuff. You might just as well complain that Scientists shouldn't be antags because unlike Staff Assistants they get access to deadly artifacts, deadly chems, deadly bombs and the ability to teleport anything anywhere.
In addition to this I feel like I've had lots of fun rounds where the captain was an antagonist and the crew bands together against them even if they've heavily armed themselves.

[GORE]

Also...good point from Zjd......wouldn't the RD be even more powerful than the Captain in many regards?
Should all Heads roll no Traitor roles anymore?

I do not believe that the current roles being able to spawn as Antag are problematic.

In fact I would argue there are some roles...which sadly cannot role easily as an Antag or even an Antag at all,...

That is the nature of gimmick roles - still...it would be pretty cool of one could roll the daily roles as an Antag.

[Sundance]

I rescind my previous suggestion on limiting it to hardmode captain. I'm flip-flopping here, but consider this:

My lizard brain was not thinking straight as others have pointed out that this would also mean no other antagonist options such as changeling, etc. 

There's also the point of luck of the draw, sometimes you roll captain traitor and it's jackpot. But the same argument could be made about the HoP. Hell even the Detective. Don't like your roll and need more? There's a thing called mindslave.. the great equalizer. The game is all about intrigue, let's not lose sight of that. 

The point being made that the Captain is just an assistant with an egun.. well yeah. He's always been shown as a bumbling oaf, thats kind of the point? If players want something meaningful for the Cap'n then suggest stuff that the Captain can do, not take away his antag status. 

NB

I do believe in a softer approach to this suggestion, and that is the option as Captain to purchase a 12  "flex" item similar to the Syndicate timeforcrime hat, thus giving them the option to effectively hardmode traitor themselves, for style points.

Of course, as Captain, it would have to be the ultimate flex. 

A 12tc item that gives them a box containing:
 
- The Syndicate Commander clothing (or something similarly threatening) 
- A military PDA with a Value-Synd Cartridge
- The Value-Synd Cartridge contains all of the previous programs PLUS Detomatrix PLUS Syndicate command announcement.
- The Syndicate Command announcement is a remote announcement program that allows the syndicate captain to announce his evil deeds to the crew with an ominous jingle (with cooldown of course).

This would fit in nicely and hopefully encourage players to opt for the flex option as it would be outrageous in a similar manner to the Crime Hat. I know for a fact I would pick this if I rolled syndicate captain. Flex option err'day.