A Meta-Friending/Clique Discussion.

[Bigbro175]

I can't speak on everyone else behalf but I have sadly seen a big increase of ingrouping on RP lately. For context, I went on a well needed break a couple weeks ago so I could get some burnout out of my system. When I had originally left I thought that we were taking step in the right direction to stomping this bit out of our community. IC I felt like it was safe to talk to just about anyone and try and make more passive light friendships. It was obvious to tell when someone was really engrossed in some RP or a situation and it was clear that they had a focus so there was no questions as to if they were available to talk or not. 

Post break when I came back it was a bit of a culture shock, I originally thought it was just because I hadn't been around a while and people needed to warm up to me. As time passes I am starting to think this isn't the case. The past few days have been really bad about this, I keep cryoing because I'll try to walk up to some more experienced players in the hallway or that are just chatting in security and try and spark a funny convo or something and I have been repeatedly been met with direct exclusion or being lightly dismissed by being ignored or looked at as if my character were behaving majorly aloof. 

The worst part? I'm not even that new to the community! I get greeted on a daily basis, I have my own group of friends IC and OOC and everything! I can't imagine how it is for an entirely new player right now. 

This isn't a pity me post. I'd like to try and spark a discussion about how we can try and limit this and make the bests experience possible for everyone who plays here. I don't think anyone wants others to feel excluded or out of the loop. This is less a talk about giving actual preferential treatment in RP since that itself is against the rules to my knowledge. 

What can YOU do to help with this issue? What are issues you have seen yourself regarding cliques, how does it make you feel when you get excluded or see someone else get excluded, what are some steps you can take to ease this issue, do you think/know you are apart of the problem? 

IS THERE EVEN A PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

(These are all great places to start if you don't got much too add, hopefully we can widdle down this stump we have wedged in out community.)

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Personally, I've made it my goal to reach out and try to talk to someone I've never talked to each round and try to spread the attention around to everyone when there is multiple people talking since I'v seen a "group convo" turn into two people talking with spectators.

[DioChasek]

It’s ok to have friends in game, I do draw a line though and try to interact more often with new faces whenever possible though, if for no other reason than to introduce them to some zany in game spectacle like cheese bombs, or rocket shoes.

Sometimes though you see a bunch of people you haven’t played with in a while and you can’t help but interact with them. Familiarity brings a sense of stability and community both of which we as social creatures crave.

[Flourish]

Yeah, it can definitely be really frustrating when you try to RP with other players and they ignore or exclude you. I don't think most people do this on purpose, but it can be an easy thing to fall into. For instance, if you're already occupied trying to roleplay out a certain scenario with a friend, you might not have enough attention or energy to devote to the person you don't really know who walks up to you and interjects into your conversation. You might even be annoyed because it feels like they're disrupting your roleplay. Or, before the actual roleplay even begins, when you're considering who to approach or who to pull into your gimmick, you may tend to only think of people you're already familiar with, since they're known and predictable and you can anticipate what you're in for. All of us do this to some extent or another, and I think it's natural and expected, but it does become an issue when when we're actively shutting down roleplay or excluding others.

In terms of steps you can take to ease this issue, you should ahelp when you see people being exclusionary or cliquey. While a single instance probably isn't enough on its own, if admins receive multiple reports and are able to identify a pattern of problematic behavior, we can and definitely will address it. Besides that, being the change you want to see and setting a good example for other players is also always good.

[Hollandaise]

Always sorta felt like this was the case even if people OOC were still super happy to see my character. It was actually partially why I retired my character Sarmenti for a while and sorta started to take a break from Goon. At that point I mostly played for RP since I already understood the mechanics pretty well but rarely ever got to actually interact with anyone beyond a simply hello unless someone directly brought me into a conversation. Always just felt excluded. My character was mute, granted, but I always felt like I was excluded from things.

Even more so, there were times I started my own little projects like building bars, little restaurants, gardens, etc. or tried singing or a few other gimmicks yet no one ever really went out of their way to see me beyond one or two random people/really close friends. This ended up being the reason I stopped doing these projects and gimmicks since it was just wasted effort with no real payoff. More so, I always felt like I'd go out of my way to do my job really well or somehow run a large portion of the station alone like being lone doctor, lone engineer, lone QM, etc. and get no praise for what I do. On the other hand, other people would get a lot of praise for doing simple tasks. One time as a janitor I got thanked out of the blue by someone via public PDA message and felt genuinely touched irl. It was the only real time anyone even just went out of their way to praise me.
Really felt like I was just being ignored at that point or actively excluded.

Might just be me whining or just a result of me not being super social but I still feel like this problem is pretty prevalent. It made me feel pretty bad going in to the game and made me want to leave Goon for a bit. Feels like a real problem to me honestly.

[Waffleloffle]

there's definitely a fairly broad spectrum of behavior with regards to the topics of ic friends, a metaclique, and where one becomes another. it's easy to take the stance of "well just don't let your character have consistent friends" but for a lot of people that removes a pretty significant part of the appeal of Playing A Character, of having them interact in different sorts of ways with different sorts of people. it's also very easy to get into the mindset of "I only want to rp with My Friends right now because I know I'll have fun with them" which isn't an irrational desire, but it does leave a lot of people excluded and without anyone to interact with if done on a regular basis. the best course of action is, evidently, at neither of these extremes, but you can very easily find yourself slipping towards either end. as much as I dislike it, I've swung towards both at different times in my rp career myself

the issue with fixing a prevalent clique issue is that, like a lot of the most difficult issues to fix with player behavior, it requires the perpetuators to break the current pattern and make an active effort to change it. it does require a bit more effort and creativity to reach out to new people than people you're already familiar with, and additional effort to keep yourself from automatically gravitating towards people you already know the intricacies of. it's also extremely not fun to have people you don't usually interact with completely brush you off when you try to reach out, or to have to tell people to give you space when you get absolutely swamped with people trying to interact with you like 4 minutes into the round. it's not a particularly pleasant or self-indulgent process, and I hate that it isn't as quickly and apparently rewarding, because it's what becomes necessary on some level to keep the server environment on lowpop healthy and fun for everyone

I personally think that, yes, there's definitely a problem, especially in the past month or two. I can think of several people who have decided to take an extended break because of the downright exclusionary nature of a lot of interactions on lowpop lately. I've sort of been doing that and I'm one of the people who you could argue benefits from the current cliques. hell, there's specific, consistent sources of exclusionary, ic cliquey behavior that I could privately point to, if needed. I just don't really have big concrete incidents I can point to as a reflection of patterns of behavior, just observations on patterns of behavior in general

[nefarious6th]

I've been straight up told to leave the room or else the RP between a group wouldn't continue. It feels like it's gotten worse because it HAS gotten worse.
Goon 3 on highpop feels better rn in that regard. I experience the most shut-down on Goon 4, tbh.

I just sort of roll over on it. Been bad for a year, not changing now.

[babayetu83]

having played various other rpgs (tabletop, warcraft, ffxiv) and experiencing RP there, i kind of feel like ss13's gameplay doesn't exactly mesh well with ss13, at least in my opinion. i've mainly been playing goon1 even since before the servers split so my mindset is always focused on "doing". or action, i guess. you can't really do things while talking, at least i've found. the perfect balance i've found with this is playing one of the civil depts (kitchen+bar/botany) or security (where you kind of can't really do your job without interacting with people) or mining where you're almost never alone unless on lowpop. so my playstyle is definitely more goal-oriented than people oriented but it's easy to work in the people element.

now as far as clique-y stuff goes, i haven't really seen it. i'm not saying it doesn't exist, i've definitely seen it on other servers and in the above communities i mentioned, i'm just saying i don't really engage as much with randos and so i have never experienced either side of what's being described here. i mostly focus on engaging with people within my own department first before i think about hanging with other people.

another thing i could think of is that maybe some people prefer to stay within their own comfort zones. they might just want to stick to the same few people because the element of worry/anxiety that you might not get along with somebody or that you might not get as much effort back as you're putting in. i can sort of understand that, but, that only works for so long until they've alienated themselves from others as they've done here

[Lord_earthfire]

Even more so, there were times I started my own little projects like building bars, little restaurants, gardens, etc. or tried singing or a few other gimmicks yet no one ever really went out of their way to see me beyond one or two random people/really close friends. This ended up being the reason I stopped doing these projects and gimmicks since it was just wasted effort with no real payoff. More so, I always felt like I'd go out of my way to do my job really well or somehow run a large portion of the station alone like being lone doctor, lone engineer, lone QM, etc. and get no praise for what I do. On the other hand, other people would get a lot of praise for doing simple tasks. One time as a janitor I got thanked out of the blue by someone via public PDA message and felt genuinely touched irl. It was the only real time anyone even just went out of their way to praise me.
Really felt like I was just being ignored at that point or actively excluded.

With elaborate gimmicks like that, i found this problem as well. What i found, though, is that people tend to oversee stuff and don't register different things happening. Like people arem't paying that much attention to the radios. They don't look much into the next room even though there are free ranging cluwne or raptor chickens there.

What i learned is that you actively need to grab attention. Don't set up the bowling alley in a seperate room, make it right in fromt of the bar. Don't send 1 PDA, send 5. Have a market? Fill the hallway in fromt of it with big crayon letters. Have a synthflesh rafflesia you want to provide to medbay? Run with it to the MD so they can see it in action (and call a janitor to get rid of the gibs everywhere). And if you have have any other gimmick: actively go out and talk to people in the wild.

People go very blind while they try to do their owm gimmicks or RP with other people. It's an uphill struggle.

I also saw once the chaplain scribbling all of chapel with lunatic religious ramblings.it was impressive, but they were simply not there to RP with. Sometimes people just miss each other, especially on low pop.

Although i still enjoy high pop far more then low pop. Maybe on low pop the problems become more apparent. On low pop people have tendency to cling on each other once they found someone for RP

[Bazhaar]

It's a problem I've noticed lately, especially on mid/low pop where the station can be a ghost town all round and you wonder where everyone's gone off to. These same people may say they are not part of the problem, but they don't realize that they actually are. I remember a time when people would regularly broadcast different azone field trips over the radio for everyone to experience, but I can't recall these in recent memory. There certainly should be a culture shift towards opening up similar RP opportunities to everyone.

As it stands, I try to chat up with lots of people. Some people are hard to engage with, yes. And both scenarios are tiring. At this point I've been vibing in Heisenbee, since a lot of times I can get light-hearted small talk with lots of different people and engage in the round without even having to secoff.

[Hollandaise]

Even more so, there were times I started my own little projects like building bars, little restaurants, gardens, etc. or tried singing or a few other gimmicks yet no one ever really went out of their way to see me beyond one or two random people/really close friends. This ended up being the reason I stopped doing these projects and gimmicks since it was just wasted effort with no real payoff. More so, I always felt like I'd go out of my way to do my job really well or somehow run a large portion of the station alone like being lone doctor, lone engineer, lone QM, etc. and get no praise for what I do. On the other hand, other people would get a lot of praise for doing simple tasks. One time as a janitor I got thanked out of the blue by someone via public PDA message and felt genuinely touched irl. It was the only real time anyone even just went out of their way to praise me.
Really felt like I was just being ignored at that point or actively excluded.

With elaborate gimmicks like that, i found this problem as well. What i found, though, is that people tend to oversee stuff and don't register different things happening. Like people arem't paying that much attention to the radios. They don't look much into the next room even though there are free ranging cluwne or raptor chickens there.

What i learned is that you actively need to grab attention. Don't set up the bowling alley in a seperate room, make it right in fromt of the bar. Don't send 1 PDA, send 5. Have a market? Fill the hallway in fromt of it with big crayon letters. Have a synthflesh rafflesia you want to provide to medbay? Run with it to the MD so they can see it in action (and call a janitor to get rid of the gibs everywhere). And if you have have any other gimmick: actively go out and talk to people in the wild.

The problem is, I usually would though. When I'd sing I'd decorate the bar or create a large stage area in a hallway. When I set up bars/restaurants I'd usually mess with the lights and keep everything very open and exposed. I'd often make seating areas in the hallways too and completely redecorate them. And more so, I'd constantly send PDA messages over the Party Line mentioning where I am and what I've set up, sometimes I even get a command member to annouce things. 

I've seen similar things set up before with far more attention even though I'd figured out about it late into a round. And again, I've seen people make and do similar things to what have with little recognition or attention. This seems to be a larger scale problem than just one person being ignored.

[mab]

I will anticipate that this post is going to be a little long. I've actually been thinking for a while whether to make a similar post, or a report directly to the administrators, about the situation with roleplay servers, so thank you for this post, because I think there is *a lot* to talk about. As someone already said, this is not a new situation, in fact it has been going on for at least a year. I don't know what the servers were like before a year ago, because I wasn't active (even on Discord) so I can't make a judgment on that. However, I think this is a big problem because it creates a toxic and hostile environment, for new players yes, but also for those like me who have been playing for longer and are very active in the community.

For example, we have people who help and defend antagonists because they are their friends. I have noticed this very often. Maybe they protect characters of their friends despite having committed serious crimes, or try to give an advantage to them. Even on Discord, I often see the "my character will protect X from anything because they are friends/siblings/partners" mentality, and I don't think it's healthy for the round, or the community in general.

Then, as you said, we have people who ignore anyone who is not their friend. I have noticed this kind of behavior very very often, especially when I use a new/unfamiliar character, or when I random name. It happens very often to be ignored, to not be able to participate in the rp, because "you don't have a known name." Specifically, it is really hard to get interactions and rp, with certain groups of people in particular. I totally understand that many players have connections, lore, stories that have been going on for many rounds, and it's great to see that people are building this! But it seems literally impossible to become part of these stories, these groups that are so closed. Players who are glued together to the point that it is impossible to stop them to talk or ask for help. This also applies to antagonists who mindhack/thrall or interact only with their friends. Something I see happening quite often and it makes the round static, in my opinion.

It's not an environment I really like on rp, personally. Interacting with everyone is impossible, of course, but ignoring people you don't know is-- just bad. In a multiplayer game where collaboration and communication are very important!

I also noticed how many people in cliques groups can be overly rude and mean to those who are not their friends. Roleplay servers are often described as a welcoming place, where everyone is helpful and kind and ready to lend a hand even to new players, but unfortunately I have noticed an opposite trend. Rude, mean characters, to the point where I think the *player* is actually angry at me. This is not the kind of roleplay I like. Little disputes can be fun, as somewhat grumpy characters can be, but being incredibly mean and rude, because of little misunderstandings, is not fun and creates an unwelcoming environment, especially for new players, in my opinion. This also extends to the Discord server, where I have often noticed disputes over what happens in the round. Yes, clarifying things calmly is okay, but discussions often get heated.

I noticed this stuff most often on server 4. For me, trying to have interactions there is very hard. I always feel that my characters (who are often very lighthearted, so that everyone can interact with them) are not appreciated, and that the way I do roleplay is not liked. I've had rounds where I would walk into my department and greet coworkers, and I would be totally ignored; rounds where people said about me "ignore it" so they could continue their roleplay. But I know that some people have been treated even worse. This is definitely a problem.

I also get the impression that some players want a certain kind of roleplay, oriented toward dealing with certain kinds of "deeper" themes, HRP rolaplay, maybe, and just don't want to interact with those who do more lighthearted, goofy roleplay.

Anyway, I do my best, I ahelp when I see these behaviors, and I try to interact with everyone, new players and not. But it is very sad to see that some friends of mine, who played in the server for a long time, have left the community because of this situation. I wouldn't know how else to solve it other than by reporting it to the administrators. Personally I'm a little discouraged because I don't see any changes so I'm playing on rp servers less and less. I hope this post and also my thoughts can help in some way

[walpvrgis]

Speaking on a personal level as a player and not like, as an admin;

Yeah, this is defs a problem (imo). I've actually gone from playing near daily in the past couple of months, to not playing at all, because the time investment for me, to spend 90 minutes feeling excluded, was just not worth it for my well-being. I've never really been in with cliques, either as a player or admin once I was hired, so this is kinda a longstanding issue that has plagued me for over a year. But it's definitely rough right now.

I actually wrote out a big letter to RP a couple of months ago about it, but never posted it anywhere because I was genuinely really upset about it at the time and didn't want to start a conversation on the subject while I was feeling hurt. But one thing from it that I do want to share in this post though is this; People who refuse to engage in anything that they don't already know or only engage in roleplay that suits their character's interests/friendships/relationships stifle the game and server culture. You are free to not participate in roleplay, but I implore you to give players you don't know well/at all a chance. We don't get new "regulars" if new players are consistently made to feel unwelcome and excluded.

I've been roleplaying in various games and communities for around 15 years. In my experience the most versatile roleplayers are the people who are always happy to try something new, and who want to not only have fun roleplaying themselves, but want to give other players (whether they know them or not!) a cool and memorable experience. To create scenarios for other players to enjoy. Etcetera.

I understand why it happens; it can be super overwhelming to have a bunch of people trying to roleplay with you in the moment, let alone paying attention to one scene you're involved in. You shouldn't feel guilty about this happening, bc SS13 is sensory overload: the game, lol. But if you find yourself consistently choosing to only pay attention to your friends, that's an issue.

Idk, I am a bit wordy about this subject, bc being excluded on the RP servers is something that's bothered me for a long while. I love RP, but I want this to change badly bc it honestly breaks my heart to see it happen over and over again to myself and others. I can't combat this on my own, despite my efforts (and it is EXHAUSTING when you spend all of your limited ingame time trying to make people feel involved, while not getting that in return).

Speaking as an admin:

Like Flourish said, please ahelp if you notice this happening to yourself or others. We don't want this to be an issue, and we absolutely keep track of patterns of behaviour like this, and we really can only act if it's a pattern (due to what I said above; everyone has days where they just want to hang out with a friend, or they want to comfort zone rp).

Even if you don't think any of the above applies to you, please keep it in mind when playing on our roleplay servers. If you see someone you think is being excluded, try to change that! We can only keep this a positive space if everyone is contributing to that positivity.

[swinglow20]

Whats shocking is, I've seen this kind of behavior on Goon 1. I was disarmed and beaten when trying to reclaim a secoffs body I was cloning because their friends "didn't trust me with the body." I was a secoff. Slightly different circumstances, sure, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. And it falls in to that same category of "expected behaviors" people expect the server to overlook.

[Emrsnn]

This is all my own personal opinion and experience and I don't intend to present it as universal fact.

I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I agree yes, cliquing is absolutely something I experience and in the past have been guilty of, and yes,  it's absolutely a problem.
 
I like to think I've been pretty vocal about it (mainly in the discord) that the reason I started avoiding reading the credits at round end is because I need to take away my ability to gravitate toward people I already know, an issue that I noticed I slowly developed without realizing it. I kept catching myself only approaching the same 3 or 4 people because I knew that they'd always be responsive and I wouldn't have a bad experience with them. My point being, even if you're forming one in response to being excluded from another, it's still a clique.

The majority of the RP community knows me just for my primary character, but I actually have five in total, the other four I do my best to not attribute to myself for the same reason. The issue is, it's much harder for me to have a round that doesn't feel- for lack of better words- empty when I'm not playing my primary character. (This could in part be attributed to my primary being in a faster paced role, but I think my point still stands.)

I have found that in situations where someone finds out I play a character, especially if it's several people at once in a well-meaning case of "yeah, I think Em plays ___" on discord, the way the character is reacted to in-game changes within the next round that I play them. 

It would be lying to say that I don't benefit from or even enjoy the feeling that people treat me like I'm in some way "vetted", however the bottom line is that new players don't hold the privilege of having some well-known "main character" personality that they can retreat to when they're tired of being excluded.

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I also get the impression that some players want a certain kind of roleplay, oriented toward dealing with certain kinds of "deeper" themes, HRP rolaplay, maybe, and just don't want to interact with those who do more lighthearted, goofy roleplay.

Thank you, this is a really great point that I've never seen brought up before. I've definitely been guilty of this in the past- acting overly "realistically" to the goofier/more outrageous characters, (i.e. "slowly back away, this person is crazy and dangerous") which I generally was doing under the guise of "This is Classic behavior and we are on RP right now". In retrospect, I should have just written a book if I wanted to control the tone of the story so badly. 

I think a good addendum to your point is a reminder that the Goonstation universe (cough cough Gooniverse cough) is inherently ridiculous. Yes, serious themes exist in it. People get murdered, you work in a corporate hellhole, etc, etc. But after you get murdered, it's just as possible to cut out you pancreas and turn it into a lightly-fried three-tier pancreas sandwich on white bread sandwich pie cake sandwich as it is to have a big somber hard-hitting funeral. Serious and goofy can be blended and it can and has been done really well. 
In my opinion, this isn't a soap opera. It's a dark comedy.

[Witherael]

It would be lying to say that I don't benefit from or even enjoy the feeling that people treat me like I'm in some way "vetted", however the bottom line is that new players don't hold the privilege of having some well-known "main character" personality that they can retreat to when they're tired of being excluded.

i dont even have the creativity to make a successful main character, i simply rip a name from elsewhere that i think sounds cool, and then work on game mechanics rather than some kind of personality

as what id consider to be a new player, the culture is very weird. everyone fiends over miss coconut, departments do tons of conflicting things at once without attempting to be additive to what someone else is doing, science in particular, and it seems that if someone doesnt do something the way that they are expected to, or the way they do it is disliked, its considered wrong.
i dont remember any specific examples, but its something ive definitely noticed in the short time ive played.

and though i know as an outsider looking in, it isnt my place to say, but the whole "just admin help it" thing REALLY detracts from what ss13 feels like as a game to me. shits gonna happen, and if you expect it, i dont see its value.