Present security culture on rp (followup)

[arcticmog]

A follow-up to an hour long conversation I had with several folks on the discord. I am bringing my present criticisms of the current security culture on RP, specifically it struggling to deal with high stress rounds. I've played quite a few rounds at this point, as both Antag, silicon's, security and command, and generally speaking security does not adjust how harsh it is or it's punishments to reflect the current situation on the station.

I've witnessed HOS's let people go free after being verified multi murderers (alongside a string of either serious tier crimes like grand sabotage), in the middle of a round where a sarin bombing occured, a spy thief deployed a syndicate sawfly grenade (that nearly killed 2 sec offs), and a third person who was actively sabotaging the station including trying to rogue me as ai and nearly successfully murdered a sec off. This isn't the only example and this discussion I had reflected the sentiment both amongst some sec players and regular crew that sometimes harsher means are the go to. When sec is letting someone who actively murders or attacks crew go, they are burdenening the round of other people. Even an admin chimed in saying that this is probably a good bit too lax and a few others expressed similar sentiments. 

This was a high stress rounds for most of the station yet sec was letting people off like it was just a once off incident. Some sec players complained to me that there was not really a hard set of rules or advice to follow, space law being badly outdated for example. But as it turns out, there is actually a treatis exactly for RP, that is explicitly intended to guide RP. And it was an eye opener, minor crimes could get up to 5 mins Brig time and major crimes could get 15 mins or more serious punishments! The name of this text is frontier justice. This text is very much likely not known by a majority of HOS players or sec in general, but the scope of what you are allowed to do is incredibly eye opening. Remember, this is a space law book explicitly written for the context of RP. Security needs to remember that killing or borging very active antags is a necessary control mechanism, that is apart of the games design (it's why late join antags and other related features exist). 


Now, there are more examples I know personally of sec being too lax (including when I'm Antag), but I'd like folks to add them here, and I especially hope HOS and sec mains express their opinions, objections, counter points etc here to drive a conversation on this, ultimately I think for most rounds sec culture is actually fine! It's failings are exposed when the station is in chaos, but most rounds are calm enough that this is not an issue. I suspect one of the conclusions of this conversation will be that frontier justice may need a bit of an update but hopefully becomes a much more directly referenced text in game. 

Your's truly, Selna

[nefarious6th]

Frontier justice is space law

The full title is Frontier Justice: A Treatise on Space Law on the NSS Destiny

[babayetu83]

i'm usually the first one to recommend execution or being cyborged for serious crimes (murder, attempted murder, treason and most just roll their eyes or just "no i dont wanna" "why not? theyve done xyz" "because no "

personally i think people use the kid gloves because their friend might roll antag and don't want to be the one to kill them or take their toys away but that's just my humble opinion. i had a few round that stuck out to me when a fellow security officer chided me for confiscating a doctor's katana (that they swore up and down they'd only use it for surgery! promise!) until they got approval for it from the captain. i obtained said katana after they got stunned by beepsky with it, and that situation could have gone a multitude of different ways were it not for me and that other officer present on the scene. some people don't want to be buzz killington but ultimately it is a necessary evil and one i am glad to perform

[arcticmog]

Frontier justice is space law

The full title is Frontier Justice: A Treatise on Space Law on the NSS Destiny

Odd that there are 2 space law books then, with conflicting reccomendations.

space law


Frontier Justice

[Waffleloffle]

that first wiki page on space law [concept] is actually not a book in game, but rather an excellently written and comprehensive set of guidelines intended to help fresh sec players get their footing. the in-game book, the one most people are referring to when they say Space Law, is full of questionable advice and I don't know a single whitelisted hos off the top of my head who would advocate going by it

like seriously 15 minute brig time is fuckin ridiculous. I'm of the opinion that the worst thing you can do to someone as sec is to ensure that they aren't having fun for extended periods of time, and putting someone in a small, heavily watched secure area for that long without an inch of leeway is a recipe for agonizing boredom

[Lord_earthfire]

What is often missed in te equation on brig time is time while being interrogated/processed. Often, these parts of the process take more than the actual punishment. If you take these times into account, often times peopke served already their time out of the picture once a decision is done.

And in my opinion, if you come to the conclusion that 15 minutes are actually a valid punishment, i highly recommend execution. The respawn timer is 10 minutes and the dead person can at least watch the chaos on the station. And the execution is highly entertaining for everyone involved as well, especially when you look for a creative method.


Last but not least, the recommended brig times don't really help RP. But the reason is not that there is no justification for them, the reason is that on RP too few antags spawn. What some people forget: you want antags to be outside and do crime. It's their job to do drive the round. Once you brig them for far too long, that part is over. Of course you wanna end it if it goes too much out of hand or they escalated it properly.

[Kotlol]

As an actual security/detective player who has played ALOT of security over the last 2 years I can say this.

1: You don't execute someone over killing another or tricking killing another. It ends the antagonists round. Remember.. RP doesn't have MID ROUND ANTAG SPAWNS.
They have sleeper agents wich do not have fun tools of engagement.

2: You are the law, but also trying to cause a fun RP round for yourself and others. Simply batoning and brigging someone for 15 mins for attempted man slaughter is minimal activity.... and boring for security and antagonist, even during high stress rounds.

3: Security isn't there to just smack antagonists or law breakers. They can interact with others, solve disputes and even escort dangerous cargo or remove dangerous artifacts. These are things people don't seem to know. Detective especially can snoop on every department if they have a hunch.

4: Every antagonist has a 3 strike system. It's what most us veterans follow.
If someone is caught having syndicate contraband? You don't arrest them, you verbally warn them about the contraband or ticket them. Cause if you confiscate it... it kinda can end their RP and gimmick around it. Let alone sometimes contraband shows up anyway.
If someone has commited a murder? TWO STRIKES! Give them a long 5 min brigging, if they attempt again... execution or borging or banishment.
If someone assaulted another? One strike. Brig em for a minute.
Someone sabotaged? One strike.

5: There are exceptions to the "rules" where the HoS or Security or Captain iniates execution from the get-go.
For example, if an antagonist/player is simply trying to do damage to the station or murder without much RP and keeps getting away. It gets tiring for security to deal with it, so lethals are turned on. No one likes a silent bomber.
It depends on how much a nuisance the antagonist is... but here's the thing.. it only counts for a SINGLE ANTAGONIST.
If all antags that round are RPing and having fun.. security just executing them with what normally is a low stress round and let go... is unfair to that round's antag.

6: Always try to present options for the antagonist to follow a different story. Try to start a trial, try to have the rivalry with that antagonist, try suggesting therapy and such. Aka try to interact and engage. Even if it's a changeling murdering people....

7: Any non human confirmed (Changeling, Vampire , zombie or Arcfiend) doesn't have to murder on sight despite the rules saying it's okay.
Insted try to gauge if they are good or evil... learn their gimmick...
An arcfiend sucking energy can just be warned.
A changeling drugging players can just be interrogated.
A vampire drinking blood from a bag can be warned.
A zombie being all bloody and creepy can be told.
The moment they escalate is the moment you must act. Sure we could have arrested them for it, but that ruins the RP immidently. Sometimes these antags want to be known as they are for their RP insted of playing it stealthily.

ANd finally
8: Security may play aggresive mall cops and bust botany for weed under orders of the captain.
In the end.. security is also a RP role and while they have to fight antags as part of their job to stop damage and murder...
They can also be any type of officer they like as long as they don't cause human harm or falsely arrest someone (unless the other player gives PERMISSION in LOOC)

Heck one of the fun rounds I gave security was the fact I banned weed and meth from the station as a captain (I mostly use this so antags can give a reason to riot or interact to turn the crew against me) and LOOC the HoS , me and botany planned that botany will ignore orders and security would raid a foritified botany with tons of weed for security to bust.

So yes.. even during chaotic rounds... security will try to stick to these guidelines to give equal oppertunity to each antagonist on the station.
It would just suck for 1 antagonist being executed for murder, because 4 others are causing chaos. When normally they would be let go any other shift.
It's not THEIR fault every antagonist is doing stuff... (unless it's conspirators)

Insted I suggest that if command hits the "emergency button" is when security should just impose a two strike system insted and execute players if they done too much.

Also frontier law is not the book of space law the security officers can get.

[Silent Majority]

Unless you are told by a command member (HoS or Captain) security should only execute extenuating circumstances. Id what i have been told. A criminal with extremely high numbers of attacks or kills. A ling.who went shambler, a vampire.

Or if someone is too dangerous to leave go free. It's not securitys job to win, its our role to try to help keep the round going. And rp thats a mix of good will, best judgment and a bit of faith.

[nefarious6th]

I'm of the mindset that codified rules for engagement a la Space Law generally is more of a hindrance to non-new players than it is a help. Same idea if you wanted to go by Frontier Justice, however loose the recommendations in there for various crimes are. They just don't cover different contexts and don't encourage people to develop on their own intuition about how to resolve things.
Like, I'm probably not going to give the assistant that's throwing glasses at the bartender for the fourth time just a two and a half minute brig sentence because that's what assault + repeat offence is listed as.

Also Earthfire hit it on the head, if you're going to restrain someone for twelve minutes or fifteen or seventeen, do them a favor and space them so they can respawn.

[Kotlol]

Like, I'm probably not going to give the assistant that's throwing glasses at the bartender for the fourth time just a two and a half minute brig sentence because that's what assault + repeat offence is listed as.

At the fourth, personally I'll execute them probably.

Unless it was an engaging RP, the bartender doesn't want him dead or if all of this didn't happen within 30 mins.
That's when the benefit of the doubt comes in. (Also if command doesn't allow me the execution)

Otherwise... banishment, borging or execution. Since this guy is just causing annoyances.

[arcticmog]

As an actual security/detective player who has played ALOT of security over the last 2 years I can say this.

1: You don't execute someone over killing another or tricking killing another. It ends the antagonists round. Remember.. RP doesn't have MID ROUND ANTAG SPAWNS.
They have sleeper agents wich do not have fun tools of engagement.

Uhh chief, unless this was changed in the last few months, RP absolutely has late join antags, i explicitly got several of them through my time here, (and this not accounting for sleeper agents), I've even gotten them when having all antags turned off before. They usually occur if round start had a much smaller population then later in the round in my experiance.

[Kotlol]

As an actual security/detective player who has played ALOT of security over the last 2 years I can say this.

1: You don't execute someone over killing another or tricking killing another. It ends the antagonists round. Remember.. RP doesn't have MID ROUND ANTAG SPAWNS.
They have sleeper agents wich do not have fun tools of engagement.

Uhh chief, unless this was changed in the last few months, RP absolutely has late join antags, i explicitly got several of them through my time here, (and this not accounting for sleeper agents), I've even gotten them when having all antags turned off before. They usually occur if round start had a much smaller population then later in the round in my experiance.

Late join yes, not MID ROUND changes. But if no one late joins... no antag spawns and whats still there just gets sleeper.
Relying on late round joiners to become antags is not the same.
Also respawning may not give you antag as well... to be fair.. I am not sure if respawning can get you an antag role...

[CalliopeSoups]

I will agree that sleeper agents are not engaging enough to warrant killing antagonists earlier than you typically would, and from the last time I asked about it it seems the latejoin antag system is a mess, but I keep seeing people say this and that about the system and nobody's shown me numbers or code so feel free if you can, I'm still not sure if it actually has higher odds for dead antags or if it's round time based. In response to kotlol, respawning can indeed get you a latejoin antag.

Security desperately needs one, re-written and central space law guide.

In terms of current security culture I feel it's more complex than simply too lax or too hard as of late. Here's an example, I feel a form of being too hard on antags lately has been what I'll call spectator syndrome. Take this scenario. You get an alert and rush with three other officers to the scene, there has not been violence yet. You see two people speaking with the antagonist and it seems calm. Instead of focusing attention elsewhere, you stay with the officers you brought and watch. You don't say anything, just stand still and watch, and suddenly there's about four officers standing still and watching while interaction happens. How do this feel to you? To me as the antagonist, that feels like most of security silently waiting for action while backing me into a corner so they can win. Because of scenarios like these, lately I'm beginning to feel the need to go much much harder as an antagonist and make myself as powerful as I can, which yes can be a good thing but leads to bad escalation and a rougher time for newer players. I feel often, RP security (which already has a larger security to antag ratio than classic, especially if the captain is tagging along for arrests which I am not a fan of unless needed) forgets that a lot of us are very robust, communicative and know each other to boot, and this shines most with the alert system that leads to grouping and stomping, in my opinion. I'd like to see security alerts changed and more effort put into dividing officer work (I'll be trying to improve with this myself), at the very least the button removed from the HUD on RP as it's much too instant.

I could rant about 'spectator syndrome' a lot honestly, it's a habit I don't expect people to be conciously doing however. It's not limited to security as well, I feel sometimes people will notice subtly that you're an antag trying to RP with someone and will just. Stand there and watch, wordlessly, until you're forced to make a move or straight up tell them to give you space which is both very suspicious and could be seen as pushing people away in favour of meta friends (despite the behavior I'm describing being standing still and staring). It's not entirely relevant to the topic though past officers doing it in the example described, I'll move on.

Another thing I'd like to see RP security do less is jump straight to arrest. If you get an alert and come to a scene of the antagonist (that hasn't proved to be very desctructive or hard to catch yet) with their typing box out, maybe... Wait? I feel this is the point I'm the most passionate about, for the love of christ please respect the rule of the typing box. This doesn't come from a place of wanting a head start, if 4 officers show up to an alert and I'm not prepared to kill all of security I'm GONNA get arrested, instead letting some words come out FIRST leads to more fun roleplay simple as that. Getting some words between you and the antagonist then a tense "stand down or I'll be forced to take you in" is a much much more entertaining arrest than sprinting to the scene, batonning and throwing in the portabrig. It feels worse sometimes as you might not even get interrogation RP afterward. I just feel as though a lot of officers seem to take the "we'll RP in interrogation" approach instead of letting an actual stand off happen for at least half a minute. When the cops show up to a scene with a potentially violent person do they just look forward and break into a full sprint towards the danger?

On the flip side, RP definitely struggles with chaotic shifts where an earlier execution would be prompted. I think this is inevitable in some form, it's in your better interest to be laxer than execute someone when you're not sure it's needed in most situations I'd say. However, the precedant that executions should only be for large kill counts and only if you have a Captain or HoS is simply false. Don't get me wrong, I am a HARD believer that you should not be executing someone for one kill on RP, I understand the want to act realistically but I play RP specifically so there IS that leniency there. Of course, one kill doesn't always mean first offense, I would be more willing to execute if they had been sabotaging previously, or had promised to kill again. I also encourage people to let the antag KNOW if they are being executed earlier than you usually would, a simple explanation of the chaos on board or a quick LOOC if you feel it's needed.

I have some thoughts on what babayetu said. Contraband is a messy issue sometimes. I'll be honest, if someone's using an antag item for some gimmick or whatever and hasn't been violent with it, I don't see why you should take it (forever) before crime is committed. Obviously it depends on the item, I'm not letting someone keep a gun or something that's clearly syndicate tech, but katanas for example I feel are a part of a subset of items that... Shouldn't really invoke such a strong response from security as others, before crime is done with it. If a coworker showed up with a katana to show off they'd probably get chewed out by their boss but your first thought wouldn't be "this man is about to kill me with a japanese katana" unless they were a nutter or swinging the thing around. Similar items would be things like the football and bowling ball kit. That being said yes, confiscate it until they get a permit. The scenario presented just made me thought of the topic though, taking the katana after a beepsky attack and giving it back once they had a permit was the right move.

Here's how I do it. Execution decisions are based on time of shift, clear unfairness or rulebreaking leading to the capture, current threat and chaos levels on station (I do not think a chaotic round is an excuse to execute on a mild/moderate first offense), the antagonist's roleplay and amount of present security players. I might be less willing to execute for a murder if the roleplay showed it was not done in pure evil malice. (good example being a traitor Grup shift recently where she attacked medbay, but was not executed as medbay was continuously provoking her with dead monkeys. Conversely she murdered a bartender on another shift, blew up an officer and said she would kill more, and was promptly given the boot.) On the flip side, I might execute someone who's not harmed anyone at all, but has repeated incidents with no sign of remorse.

Apologies if this was rambly and hard to read, I have a lot of thoughts on this and they're hard to gather well while I'm tired.

[Silent Majority]

I've tried my best to stop the spectator thing. Unless there's just ONE person with a very hostile target or known hostile if things seem controlled I meander off after checking and leave it to whoever is on scene.

Likewise the 'straight to arrest' thing is an endemic problem....I try to always give someone a chance verbally first, and if they flee, fight, etc, then hey they go we fight. it sec. But likewise I think they 'approaching the antag verbally' methode is one that works best under most cases cause it gives the antag a chance. Myself and an increasing number of officers are happy to escort an antag along no cuffs no porta if they just agree to come. we often do less searching and give them an 'out' too.

I think when I first started there was a culture of prevention. Lately more are trying to move to a culture of addition, but, I think there's alot of work to go there.

I personally try to base execution on mood, damage done, time of shift, number of antags, station stability, an what the antag did. I generally unless there where murders invovled will always let them go. I think actually I was the capturing officer in that example. I felt you kinda got done dirty a little oocly, you hadn't actually DONE much, and you gave up your stuff willingly. Then you went back to medbay filled it with plasma and then tried to bomb security. I feel thats more the way I want most antags to go personally. If they're caught with an alibi an exscuse or the flimsiest logic give them one more shot if they don't have a body count to do one last big evil.

[CalliopeSoups]

I think actually I was the capturing officer in that example. I felt you kinda got done dirty a little oocly, you hadn't actually DONE much, and you gave up your stuff willingly. Then you went back to medbay filled it with plasma and then tried to bomb security. I feel thats more the way I want most antags to go personally. If they're caught with an alibi an exscuse or the flimsiest logic give them one more shot if they don't have a body count to do one last big evil.

You had captured me there yes but I don't think I was done dirty RP wise, you might have thought that cause I was very salty instead at the fact the bowling balls are kinda dooky, but off-topic just wanted to clarify.