Game Rules Rewrite

[Roomba]

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?

How about

'The rules about griefing still apply to the silicons, even if not expressedly prohibited by default laws. Don't blow up the station or kill the AI on default laws, for instance.'

Might have to be reworded but it should get the gist across. You can't cover every edge case, though.

[Boa Jacque]

I'm glad that folks chimed in about ID theft and other such minor crimes. In my experience, BnE, Theft, even light assault have all been security issues and not admin issues. I seldom steal ID's, generally if somebody annoying keeps breaking into my department and causing trouble. I know stealing their ID isn't going to do shit in terms of preventing them from breaking in, however they're being a jerk and if extra access is what they desire, then they can ask for it while the HoP prints them a new ID (maybe)

[popecrunch]

I added a bit about 'walling bots of the station off' to the no grife rule, I don't think it's really necessary to add a 'this applies to silicons too' bit since there's nothing else in the rules that implies it doesn't.

[Huff H Law]

you come face to face with "X" and he starts attacking you

This is the issue with that rule, and why people seem to be "so passive about antags."
Confirmation rules need to be a lot more lax.

Wait this is the entire reason people are passive about antagonists? Well shit, turns out I'm extremely out of touch, I always took that rule to mean "don't kill someone who punched you or who stole your shit" and minor stuff like that instead of what people seem to have thought was "if a person is killing the entire station and you know this do not act until they get out a csaber and kill you"


Also how about this for silicon law rules (might as well put this in the game as a AUXILIARY LAWSET):

Despite your laws giving you a lot of freedom we still do not allow synthetics to kill the other AIs/borgs, wall up the station for fun or otherwise imprison people for extended periods of time. (I guess since sometimes traitors get bolted into rooms, though I dunno if that's bad.)

You also aren't required to open doors for people who don't have access to them and being an asshole as a borg/AI is not against the rules as long as you follow your laws. If a borg/AI is actively harming/hindering you you are allowed to destroy them, regardless of their laws.

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I added a bit about 'walling bots of the station off' to the no grife rule, I don't think it's really necessary to add a 'this applies to silicons too' bit since there's nothing else in the rules that implies it doesn't.

The implication of silicons only being beholden to their own laws instead of the game rules is clear since we allow borgs that weren't spawned in as an antagonist to act on laws like "You are the only human, screwdriver all non-humans".

[popecrunch]

OK I hammered out an example of 'here is an expansion of the GRIFE RULE' thing. http://wiki.ss13.co/Grief Feel free to suggest adds/removals/edits, as this is considered part of the ruleset we're discussing.

[Noah Buttes]

If walling off bits of the station is against the rules, what will happen to the miscreant objective to turn an area of the station into an impenetrable fortress?

Edit: This sentence should probably be emphasized in some manner: "There is a longer discussion of what is and isn't grief here."

[Roomba]

With regards to floorpills, but generally applicable to most of the stuff under 'exceptions', it might be a good idea to mention that you might still face in-game retribution, if not admin attention. I know some might think it goes without saying, but there are so many people upset about being arrested for serving glasses of piss and fire at the bar or being beaten to death by an angry mob for filling the station with exploding bananas. Probably a better way to phrase it, though.

Also there should be a mention that if someone's consistently pulling jerky but not quite griefy stuff every round they're on, like doing nothing but stealing IDs or breaking into the AI core to upload meme laws, it's okay to adminhelp them.

[popecrunch]

That miscreant objective is precisely why the actual text is 'walling off bits of the station without a good reason'.

Also I'm not really interested in codifying player reactions to things that aren't rules per se, because that's more Space Law than Game Rules, and I'd sort of rather suckstart an aircraft cannon than write Space Law.

[APARTHEID]

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

There was intense confusion in a round the other day where a rampaging traitor, finally subdued, was borged, but somehow was able to convince a roboticist to remove their brain, put it in another person's body, and successfully clone them.

All under the standard three laws.

[Noah Buttes]

I always assumed law 3 covered harming other silicons since the laws apply to the silicons as a collective unit.

[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

There was intense confusion in a round the other day where a rampaging traitor, finally subdued, was borged, but somehow was able to convince a roboticist to remove their brain, put it in another person's body, and successfully clone them.

All under the standard three laws.

Not seeing the law violation, there, personally.

[Frank_Stein]

Arguably it could be a law 3 violation since letting your brain get removed would go against self preservation.

Maybe Law 1 too, if their plan was to keep killing people as a human, allowing themselves to be turned into a human is conspiring to cause harm.

Kinda like leaving your upload open in the hopes someone gives you kill human laws.

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Also, regarding silicon laws, how would people feel about a default 4th law specifically for cyborgs that's something along the lines of "Obey orders from the AI, unless they conflict with laws 1, 2, and 3"

I've always kinda felt that the AI was more or less the Head of Silicons. I know that they could always just Killswitch borgs, but it might be worth codifying something like that?

[Grek]

I don't really think we need a huge page to explain what Grief is, and the current page has a bunch of problems. The parts about imprisoning people are unhelpfully vague. Changing who is human isn't an 'antag only law' if you're making monkeys human too as a Test Subject. Trying to codify these things is probably the wrong approach anyways.

1. Don't grief. Keep in mind, the other players are people too. Don't do anything that will ruin their round without a Very Good Reason. This isn't limited to just killing people: dismembering, stripping, crippling, force-feeding, force-borging, uploading murder laws to the AI, setting up death traps, wrecking or depowering parts of the station, anything that explodes, etc. are all griefy. As is whatever horrible thing you just thought of that wasn't listed. As a rule of thumb, if it's bad and takes more than 10 minutes for a normal player to fix, it is covered by this rule. If someone is confirmed (via game mechanics) to be an antagonist, is a cluwne, has agreed to whatever you're planning to do, or you've seen them griefing people this round, you have a Very Good Reason to go after them. If you're not sure if your reason is good enough, it's probably not. Feel free to adminhelp for clarification anyways. Antagonists and emagged cyborgs may ignore this rule whenever they want to. Mindslaves, thralls and silicons must ignore this rule if their orders/laws require it of them, but aren't allowed to grief otherwise. Note: braindead people still count as people. They might be coming back.

[Noah Buttes]

If I'm being totally honest, I actually really like the way the current, active ruleset explains griefing.


I don't really see why length is an issue regarding rules. They don't take that long to read, and other servers have even longer rules.

[TheNewTeddy]

I'm a bit iffy on saying this but I do feel that it is a valid point that will help discussion:

There seem to be two mindsets here. One that we need a long set of rules to cover more situations that ensure people fully understand the rules and don't accidentally get themselves banned.
Another that we should keep the rules short and sweet so that they can be easily digested so that nobody accidentally gets themselves banned after forgetting one line in a 5 page rulebook.

For my part, I lean towards shorter. We do have a wiki, and can just link certain terms and phrases to pages with additional content.

Example:

Don't Grief1, don't be a Jerk2, don't be an asshole3,
With 1, 2, and 3 being links to pages explaining what being an asshole etc is in the eyes of the admins.