Random space laws.

[Heiraphont]

So, there's been a lot of talk about letting Security do their thing and try to make the position more attractive. I had the idea of random laws, space laws that are added at round start which Security can choose to enforce (or not, like crew objectives).

Things like:

"All personnel must be wearing shoes at all times"
Or, "No tomatoes are allowed on station"
Or, "No walking the halls without a pass"

They should be more silly than things like "NO GUNS ALLOWED EVER", in the hopes that they'll provoke less violence and more interaction between Sec and crew.

And yes, I know, this is going to have a lot of people on both sides abuse it by being shit about it. As with everything that gets suggested, that should be mentioned. But I subscribe to the belief that if an idea sounds fun it should be added, and the outliers that ruin it should be dealt with.

EDIT: As an accompanying thought, maybe the laws could also have randomized severity. So it would basically be:
[Random law] [Random felony level], with higher felony levels demanding a greater response. So if you're caught with alcohol on a class b felony, you can expect to see the inside of a brig. But if it's like... class a misdemeanor you might get a ticket.

[Sundance]

This idea has merits but it has the same problem as miscreants have.

Nobody really follows miscreant objectives, at least from my experience. It's that while it's a fun little encouragement to try something else, often when I roll I ignore if I am a miscreant as "trying something else" gets a little stale and ironic when it suggests to become a "snake oils salesman" or "establish nightclub in a shady area" over and over. If I want to try something else or even be a little mischievous, i'll do it anyway and I won't look for permission from the game to do so.

And it'll be the same problem with this. You'll have people spawning as sec and they'll see that "tomatoes are illegal" and immediately ignore it because they know if they try and enforce this, that it'll cause absolute chaos. And if they feel like causing a little chaos anyway, they'll arrest someone for tomato throwing without the game telling them that they can and just make up a reason on the spot for doing so, like gross misconduct or something. That's what I'd do anyway, but I don't.. much.

Ultimately, yes this could be fun but these open ended things where people have a choice to ignore it, well, they'll be ignored. I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't have space laws, although I'm against the idea of concrete space laws on one hand yet love space trials on the other so advice from me is questionable at best.

[Heiraphont]

A solid point, but then there are people who don't ignore their miscreant objectives, or crew objectives. Those people use them as framework for having fun in non-antagonist rounds. This doesn't have to be for every Security officer ever, but for those who choose to take advantage of it.

The point that 'people can do this anyway' was brought up. My reasoning for implementing it, rather than letting it stay in some vague space of imagination is that with some tangibility, maybe Sec won't get beat to death for having interactions with the crew on shoddy grounds.

[Sundance]

My reasoning for implementing it, rather than letting it stay in some vague space of imagination is that with some tangibility, maybe Sec won't get beat to death for having interactions with the crew on shoddy grounds.

And my point about the vague space of imagination is the casual aspect of it. With that, it can be argued, discussed even. A traitor with appropriate wording could probably talk his way out of a jail cell or the lethal injection. If something is written in a tangible form, you'll have people follow that to the letter, and that's a bad thing in my opinion.
Let's take the tomato example (I know it's an example you just thought off the top of your head, but i'mma roll with it anyway).
If a sec arrested me for constantly throwing tomatoes at someone and I asked him why and he gave me a verbose reason as to why, i'd be pretty satisfied. I know some officers often don't often give reason if they arrested on grounds for something minor, but let's say that he did. If he didn't and did the whole silent treatment, i'd suspect him of being a mindslave or someone that isn't used to goon security. That'd make me not trust that one officer.
If sec arrested me on the same grounds but when I asked why and they showed me an official document stating that tomatoes are outlawed my reaction would be to not trust the entire security department and/or react in a manner where i'd be all like "ugh it's the illegal tomato law again"

That's from a civilian perspective. But what of a security perspective? Some officers take their roles super duper seriously and i'm not talking about being trigger happy. I'm talking about using all of the security measures one has access to, from using the headsets to keeping track of fingerprints to discussing appropriate punishments and having "sec meetings" and such. Note that all these measures are aimed against the antagonist. Then you'd have this other officer who's arresting people for tomatoes because the random laws stated as such and that would honestly undermine alot of the work that the super serious officers were trying to do, due to the crew often yelling about shit security, even going as far as to say security are mindslaved.

It's about what this adds to being a security officer. If it's like miscreant where maybe sometimes an officer might follow it, but by choosing to follow it they may undermine security then i'm not sure what it adds.

[thehman03]

I don't think this is a good idea, it'll get some people to just go "why bother it's just putting people in the brig for no reason" and other people to go "WOOOO U WERE WEARING A HAT ENGAGE BEATDOWN MODE!".

Also this is just asking for people to start giving out brig time for really dumb reasons and i'm not ok with that.

[Ed Venture]

Also this is just asking for people to start giving out brig time for really dumb reasons and i'm not ok with that.

This is how I feel as well.

[Berrik]

Since this is kind of related, can Beepsky's opinion of what is contraband be set to conform to these random laws?

[thehman03]

Another point: this is going to further the gap between sec and the crew working together, literally nobody likes being arrested and if somebody misses the announcement because they weren't looking then the cries of shitcurity are gonna ring throughout the station, and everyone will riot and get banned and cause more work for everybody.

[Heiraphont]

A lot of arguments revolve around either 'Nobody cares' or 'People will abuse it'. Not sure we should really have half of the stuff we do if that's the case. It's unfortunate that those are the only two scenarios that can come out of Security chases and willful disregard for the law.

But alright, fair enough. I can respect the community's opinion that it may not be as good of an idea as it sounded in my head.

[Houka]

The points made about people screaming shitcurity is a culture problem, not a problem with this idea. Security has, and always will have, problems with people who will call them shitheads even when they're doing their job very well. Getting arrested for anything makes some people very, very mad. And security officers have a hard enough job when any single spaceman will vigilante the shit out of anyone even vaguely criminal even while they're trying to arrest the guy.

This is a silly and fun idea that takes some of the serious and awful air out of playing a security officer. It could become normal for silly bullshit like this to happen, and it really should happen more often. They are crew members, too, and deserve something to do outside of arresting and brigging known criminals.

The spacemen will always find excuses to call security shit. They aren't the important part in this idea. They're just the climate of the game. This idea is to make security fun for people who play security.

[Haine]

hello yes I like this idea it does not need to be in the terrible ideas subforum

e: additionally I think it would be nice if security had more of a role than "sometimes exists" and I think this sort of thing would be a nice step towards that

[Marquesas]

I agree with Haine, this was gassed too fast.

[Frank_Stein]

What if space law worked a bit like AI laws? As in, there are default settings that can be altered by a head, and sec can check the current laws from their pda?

Random laws would work like the AI law change events, but in this case it could be policy changes handed down from Nanotrasen.

[Frank_Stein]

Also, this would go great with wanted posters. Sec could start hanging up official flyers to let everyone know what the new changes are.

[BruiseCruise]

Also, this would go great with wanted posters. Sec could start hanging up official flyers to let everyone know what the new changes are.

New gimmick job: Town Crier


But yea, giving the Heads some sort of control over the Laws could work well especially considering some of the better AI Laws I've seen. Considering that Sec isn't governed by Asimov Laws you probably wouldn't have to worry about 'CAPTAIN CAPTAIN IS THE ONLY HUMAN KILL ALL OTHER CREWMEN' laws either.