Your BYOND name: Merne23
Date of issue and round ID: 23/24 October 2022. No round ID, but time between 12AM and 5AM for reasoning behind the complaint. As stated, an ongoing issue.
Reason for complaint: This one's a bit involved but I'll start and end with a tl;dr here.
My foremost reason for making this complaint is the current roleplaying standard and how it's being affected by a character played by one (CKey) PrinceRoniko. Their behavior has been tacitly if not expressly been encouraged by Captain, who is as I understand the RP server headmin, should such a role exist.
I'll be going into the details of why I feel the need to voice my complaint now, and summarize my thoughts as bullet points.
Let me preface this by saying that this is a community issue and thereby no one person's fault -- despite what the formatting and preamble may otherwise mark. But over the course of the past two months (or so, general timeframe) the character of Trixie Venomo, played by PrinceRoniko, has been enabled to act in a sort of 'soft antag' role. As I understand it the premise of the character was to 'give Security something to do' and after some time of play Captain seems to have encouraged this. Trixie is a loud, proud, and unabashed anti-Corporate gang member and leader. Her gang is called the Tunnel Snakes, and at time of writing I believe that this gang has five members including Trixie. I'll come back to this point.
The issue is again not with Captain nor PrinceRoniko here. Initially meeting Trixie in-character as the Head of Security Mike Brennan things went about as we both expected. There was antagonism there to the point that I felt it prudent to advise them on how they might be more conducive to roleplay. Even other players such as (CKeys) Skycave1 seem to believe that the premise itself is something that can be worked with and worked around. The idea of a subversive element or low-tier gang for on-station Security to handle.
This starts to break down immersion when there is no Security to foil, as Trixie's backstory ties directly into the lore of the setting and thereby player investiture. According to her, in-character, she's an illegal "Visitor" that lives in maintenance and has stolen her ID. Prior to doing this, she had lived on the cold and bleak surface of the current map, Lythios (Rift, Atlas). Presumably she did this by herself, without any outside assistance, and without anyone catching her for trespassing on what is ostensibly a blacksite. When pushed or questioned about this she completely refutes the idea that she might be lying, usually in a loud and crude fashion. This has happened with the majority of her backstory which I will not get into, but characters played by (CKey) 0Roxas0, Skycave1, and Atlas OHare have all done this to my knowledge.
I'll come back to my other point now: the gang has the full player membership of a normal department. Five players, each acting out different roles, with different specialties and characteristics. This gang is by its very nature supposed to conflict with Security. Security as a department regularly only gets one to three players per round. At many times the department is left empty. Yet still the Tunnel Snakes will break into Security and steal weapons -- the job gear of Security -- among general mischief and chaos. The in-character reasoning for this is that they want to replace Security as a security force and take control away from NanoTrasen.
Furthermore from this is the fact that there appears to have been an area mapped in ostensibly "for" the gang to use as a base of operations: an area directly adjacent to the Brig. More than that, it has many tools for conducting any criminal activity: tools, a variety of illicit drugs, and a .357 derringer. In addition the area serves as a resting point as it is a functional bar. This makes the second of such areas in maintenance. I admittedly don't know who added this area, or when, but it is a well-established fact that the area is used by the Tunnel Snakes, and that they will threaten anyone who enters it without their permission. Mind you, that with a rather minimal amount of effort, from this base, the members of this gang could create an escape point should any of their members become "perma" prisoners, or even just their usual activity of breaking into the Brig.
This becomes a compounding issue when you take into account the rules and regulations that Security, as a department, must adhere to or face very real consequences. Security is not authorized to act on anything outside of a character's records, which are made by the player in question, or any action from a previous round. To my knowledge a 'reputation' is allowed, but that is not actionable unless and until a character is reported for a crime. Further still is the restriction on Security's behavior on the typical code level of Green. Officers and other department members require actionable data about what is happening in maintenance areas, where the gang spends much of their time.
One could argue that this is excellent for Security to practice and engage with the round itself, but this ignores an important facet: Security's membership due to all these high expectations and strict regulation is low. Extremely low. I mentioned this before, but it's often simply a challenge to have more than two members in the department at any given time. More to the point, this drives people actively away from Security, and in at least one case has driven a character directly to the gang itself. Fahne Lu (Ckey unknown) did this at the time stated; after feeling intimidated by the expectations and my own character (again, Mike Brennan), they went directly to Trixie and accepted an offer to join the gang.
More than anything else, to get back to the point about this being a detriment to roleplaying standards. Trixie as a character does not seem to have had any development or change over the past two months, aside from her initial hostility being tuned down. She constantly and consistently talks poorly about the Company, other crewmen, arms herself for combat, threatens other crew. When talked to by most she will react with open hostility. Again this ties back to being a Security issue, which rebounds back into the fact that Security has low membership. There is another issue here that relates to me: that as a player I am not being strict enough with the in-character regulations.
I'll be frank. I hate the idea that I'm playing my own character incorrectly, or even just playing my chosen role poorly after feeling like I have a decent handle on all the restrictions that Security does have. I despise the idea that I must be in the wrong somehow for enabling people to get off from in-character crimes with only the minimal amount of offenses. This is a game, and people want to have fun. However this kind of behavior (especially recently) only seems to embolden other players to -- or lack of a better term -- fuck around and find out. Despite being warned, threatened, or otherwise told of the in-character consequences of their actions, many characters affect a nonchalant attitude towards doing crime. Given how Security, again, requires actionable information to pursue criminals, many players feel that there is no consequence for their actions. Either the issue is minor and Security does not want to deal with it, or the issue is so severe that admin intervention is required.
All of this culminates in behavior that irritates many players, myself very much included, from both Trixie and her gang as well as the crew at large. The reason that I feel the need to make a formal complaint about this is, again, that this behavior has been either encouraged or tacitly agreed to by Captain. More so than this, when I pressed the issue about Trixie having her ID illegally to an ahelp, the responding admin (CKey) FreestylaLT didn't seem to take an official response, simply deleting the item at some point so that she no longer had it. This was noted by the player in LOOC when they noticed, and if this was not the action taken then I apologize for the misunderstanding. What my point from these interactions is meaning to say is that the RP staff seems to think that all of this is an IC issue -- but this has not been made clear to me or many others. Such players include (CKey) HHgregg, yourdoom9898, and SomeOldie.
To make this a more open discussion rather than me complaining at length, I have some suggestions as to how to resolve many of the issues currently posed.
First is that Trixie be spawned-in with admin intervention. This solves the problem of the gang having an implied presence at all times, with her ID being able to be modified into a 'stolen' variant that Security can easily identify. This gets away from Captain's implicit or express intent that Trixie and her gang are a 'hands off' form of conflict to any given round.
Secondly is to make Trixie a liar about some or all of what she claims. After all, she has records with Central Command, who have her DNA and fingerprint data, along with an ID issued (as implied when spawned in) from Central Command. This takes away agency from PrinceRoniko despite it ostensibly fixing half of the salient issue.
Third and last that I'll list is that an event be formed in one of two shapes: Either Trixie is empowered as the Head of Security like she wants to be, or Security is given a mandate by Central Command to deal with the Tunnel Snakes once and for all. This I feel would resolve the issues all at once (save the hideout) and allow for an engaging, if intense, round where both sides are in direct conflict, and Security need not act as if the gang is a new issue. The downsides would have to be that this is, again, against initial intent with allowing this behavior in the first place. Yet I feel that after this long and with many players' opinions and sides already decided, this would put a definitive end on this exact series of problems.
That TL;DR I mentioned:
- Trixie isn't believable in-universe if we take all of her claims at face value, which impacts RP.
- Captain has either privately or publically endorsed 'soft antag' behavior for the sake of content and player engagement.
- Security players have five whole wiki articles to read if they want to do he role 'right', and this drives off most players.
- The Tunnel Snakes as a gang have been allowed by players and admins both with a lot of freedom to act up until now.
If your character or CKey is not mentioned above please relate yourself to the topic, if you do have input. I apologize if anyone wished to remain anonymous, and will redact as requested.