Game Rules Rewrite

[Grek]

Other feedback, then:

I feel like a big idea behind a lot of these changes could be summed up as, "If an admin says to stop doing something, stop doing it." which is a sentiment I 100% endorse. Likewise, the new sections on how to use adminhelp/mentorhelp/prayer/the forums is great.

One thing that might be added to "There is a difference between grife and jerkery" would be a mention that when certain jobs are trying to work, you really shouldn't be trying to stop them/interfere as a normal crew member. Examples include security making an arrest, doctors trying to save a life, engineers fixing a hull breach.

[Nnystyxx]

Yes, rework the confirmation rules. I've actually been pretty vocal about the whole "people are afraid to fight back because they'll get yelled at/banned" thing several times and the fact it actually got/could get worse due to the current incarnation of the write is １００％ ＢＡＤ.

(WARNING: NERD OPINION ZONE) Most times if you can get Really Really Sure about those things, you're already dead; visual contact with an antag that's gone loud, i.e. someone defibbing/stabbing you/a wizard fireballing you, without any means of protection is basically ensuring your death. Making everyone have to be goody two shoes who need to be TOTALLY SURE before they can do anything (also having no sec because sec is nofun for many people) is crippling them. Besides, even if you fuck up and hit the wrong guy, we have Ghost Drones now to prevent him from stewing all round. I dunno. It just feels unfair to whomp on people for trying to not die, even if they're misguided. It's intentional shittery that's the problem.

[Frank_Stein]

Honestly, I kinda hate "The Floorpill Rule" because it seems more often then not the Chef, Barman, Chemists Botanists, and Mechanics only make things to kill people dumb enough to consume/use them to the point that I'm surprised when it didn't kill/harm you.

Like, I feel there should be more accountability for creating situations in which people die.

A floorpill labeled "helldeath" is okay. Exploding strawberries left in the bar is another thing.

[Nnystyxx]

I would also contend there are more ways to punish people than banning them, too. Such as meat/shamecubing. (Not that those aren't already used, when appropriate.)

[APARTHEID]

I see that the Lord Doome rule is completely absent concerning total grief

throw 'em out, start all over

[popecrunch]

Rejiggered the 'when is it okay to kill people' rule to add 'they are rampaging', 'they are a cluwne', and changed '100% and provably certain' to 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. I'm not banning floorpills, people getting 47 different types of poison and Space Hepatitis from eating a sandwich they found is part of the charm of this game.

I'm trying to keep the rules as brief as they reasonably can, since the whole reason for updating them was that they're way too long. I intentionally left out some weird edge cases because the vast overwhelming majority of our playerbase already knows that stuff, and basically everything I ripped out entirely isn't TOO rotten so the station won't suffer the odd new person who stumbled into it by accident and gets a 'hey can you not' from whatever admin's logged in.

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also lord doome hasn't logged in in literal years, removing his rule means we don't have to deal with the occasional idiot going ham on the station because they've decided it applies to them

[Erik]

I wrote a large part of the rules that are currently used on Destiny, and I'd suggest a few changes to the "don't grief" rule, how about changing it into something like this?

Don’t be an awful person. 

• Try to have fun with other players too, and try not to be too much of a jerk if you’re not a traitor. Accidents may happen, but do not intentionally damage or destroy the station as a non-traitor, the game should be fun for all!
  
  
• Going out of your way to seriously negatively impact or end the round for someone with little to no justification without being an enemy of the station is against the rules. Legitimate conflicts where people get upset do happen however, these conflicts should escalate properly and retribution must be proportionate, claiming your character is someone with a mental illness is not a legitimate reason.
  
  
• What constitutes a good reason to injure, kill and destroy? One or more of the following 
  
  • You are an enemy of the station or one of their mindslaves.
    
  • The guy you’re killing is a confirmed enemy of the station or a cluwne.
    
  • You are the AI or a cyborg and none of your laws prevent it.
    
  • An admin has given you permission or told you to do it.
    
  • The guy you’re killing is a Monkey and is generally terrorizing you or the station.
    
• Never buddy up with antagonists when you aren’t one yourself. It is generally fine to help them within the limits of your job (e.g. providing medical assistance or cloning traitors), but don’t act like a brainwashed sidekick, actively attack other crew members for them or explicitly ask to be mindslaved.
  
• Forcing other players to eat/drink something, or removing the brain of an alive player and turning them into a cyborg without their consent is also considered bad. Furthermore, braindead players are not fair game - they may simply experience temporary connection problems or the like, you have no way of knowing.
  
• Chat spamming is a bad idea, don’t do it. Arguing like a prick with other players, spouting memes or behaving like an annoying idiot in general will get you removed. This includes being obnoxious about a fandom, in particular anime, furries or MLP. Spamming deadchat, even at the end of the round, is also not welcome.
  

[UrsulaMejor]

Confusing people into killing other people via confusing radio shenanigans is a part of the game and a major part of several antag abilities.

I think people should not only be allowed to be reasonably confused but also allowed to reasonably act on radio information. Communication is a central part of the game.

[Nnystyxx]

As I've brought up many times, there are objectives (miscreant?) to start a lynch mob, which would (on a bad day) perhaps be interpreted as a reason to ban everyone involved.

[popecrunch]

Erik, I like it, the only issue is length. I'd rather have something short that covers most cases than a ten-page monster that covers everything but a new player is just going to go 'lol' when asked to read it. I'm all for reworking the 'don't be an asshole' rule for clarity, but I'm going to fight like hell to keep it no longer than it is right now. A new player should be able to log in when a round ticks over, see the 'read the rules' notice, read the rules, and still have time to click 'ready' before the timer expires. The current rulespage, they'd be lucky not to miss the shuttle some days.

[Erik]

Erik, I like it, the only issue is length. I'd rather have something short that covers most cases than a ten-page monster that covers everything but a new player is just going to go 'lol' when asked to read it. I'm all for reworking the 'don't be an asshole' rule for clarity, but I'm going to fight like hell to keep it no longer than it is right now. A new player should be able to log in when a round ticks over, see the 'read the rules' notice, read the rules, and still have time to click 'ready' before the timer expires. The current rulespage, they'd be lucky not to miss the shuttle some days.

Should just make a TL;DR version of the rules then, the reason it's so lengthy is because it makes it clear for players whats considered bad or awful under the ruleset, whilst still being easy to understand for new players.

[ISaidNo]

Misdirection and intrigue are big parts of the game. I've never quite liked seeing adminhelps of BOBBY JERK IS STUNNING AND STRIP SEARCHING ME HE'D GOSH DARN BETTER BE A FUCKER, looking into it and find it's the result of a traitor spreading paranoia on purpose, knowing I can't communicate this in any reasonable way to the player without spoilers and end up just having to eat another THESE TERRIBLE ADMINS DIDN'T DO ANYTHING BLAH blah blah because i'm not going to ban someone for getting all jumpy trying to find who the fucker is. That just means the fucker is actually playing in an interesting way rather than CoD-ing it up and i'm not going to act against that.

By the same token i've seen certain traitors just automatically adminhelp anyone who puts them down even if they're on a crazy obvious wrestler-with-shotguns-for-legs rampage. Like it's not enough you wiped half the station out, now you want to get someone banned too? Come on.

I think one thing an agreement should be made on is making it very clear that it's the admin's perogative on whether or not they intervene in a round. Quite a bit of stuff we get adminhelped about is a matter for station security (assuming there is any) which is why we had that crackdown on tormenting security personnel a while back. We might not explode you into floor cluwnes if you start yelling at us to ban someone or whatever, but we'll certainly be a bit grumpy about having to see it.

EDIT:
As an addendum I will say our community is a lot sweeter and nicer now overall than it used to be, however. It's a very rare thing we detect any of those gross types who are constantly jonesing to see someone get punished or banned by the admins nowadays, more often than not our current player base tends to get grumpy because they're worried other folks are having their fun messed up.
Funny how the thing the Sploded clause was invented for (causing shit AND deliberately trying to get people banned) is a very rare case these days. Ya'll are cool <3

[UrsulaMejor]

One of the things that's always bothered me about the rules is that there are things the silicons should be and are held to that aren't explicitly written.

For example, the rules say the silicons are free to be dicks within the confines of their laws. However, technically, borgs can wall off passageways or kill other borgs / the ai under default laws, and I'm sure we all mostly agree that isn't acceptable behavior.

Personally, I think a clause specifically outlining that the default laws at round start come with the assumption that you're not going to cross these kinds of lines would be useful

[popecrunch]

Idea: Since there's probably not going to be a way to reduce 'here is when it is Okay to murder a guy vs. here is when it is Not Okay to murder a guy' into something that both satisfies my length preference AND covers everything that should be covered, would it be worth distilling the very basics of it to a sentence or two and splitting the finer points to a separate wiki page that has the room to expand more?

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Urs: Okay, can you reduce that to a sentence or two?

[Ed Venture]

Having a wiki page devoted to it may be best. Just put a link to it in the rules and say something like this (for more examples on when it's a good idea to kill someone click here)