Wizard’s Den Leviathan (US East) has been added as a new LRP server recently. In the time it’s been live, it’s maintained respectable player counts (30-50) for sustained periods. During these times, it’s also had a much lower rate of issues when compared to Wizard’s Den Lizard. There are multiple factors that I believe may be contributing to this, but I think a major factor is Leviathan having a different culture than Lizard. To try to create a server with a higher quality of playstyles by maintaining this culture as population grows, I’ve created the following guide for players to use. This can be applied to any Wizard’s Den LRP server, but it will be much more effective if players who apply it all play on the same server, Leviathan.
- This guide is not rules. Players are not required to follow this guide, not everyone will. Keep this in mind during player interactions, they are not necessarily breaking the rules by not following a suggestion in this guide. All LRP rules apply.
- LRP is the minimum, not the maximum. Leviathan is an LRP server, but that doesn’t mean you can’t RP at a higher level. Things like textspeak and OOC IC are not allowed by the rules, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop there. As long as you are still doing your job, you’re free to do things that you’d only expect to see on a higher RP server. Not everyone will match your level of RP, but people will often raise their level of RP to be closer to yours.
- Respond IC. Contacting admins to resolve an issue is always an option, but certain issues can also be very effectively handled IC, and handling them IC discourages others from repeating the issue. For example, by responding to people using emotes to bypass chat restrictions as if their character is doing something unexplainable, or by responding to people using OOC terms IC by acting as if they’re not making any sense or going crazy, you send a message to them and to anyone watching that it’s something that people on the server won’t respond well to. Again, these can all be done in addition to ahelping.
- IC issue doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. While many things can be described as “IC issues”, IC issue doesn’t mean you can’t respond IC. Minor theft may be an IC issue, but security is still free to respond to the theft, and repeated thefts can eventually justify permabrigging. Minor incompetence is also often an IC issue, but the chain of command has options for dealing with incompetent crew members.
- Take breaks. This isn’t a job, don’t feel like you have a responsibility to play. Space Station 14 is a game that’s easy to get frustrated in, playing while frustrated will make it much easier to get even more frustrated and will eventually reduce your quality of play, which is counter to the goal of this guide. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break from the game, or from joining GHOST GANG! for a few rounds.
- Avoid grey areas. You shouldn’t do things that violate rules like metagaming, powergaming, self-antagging, but to set the best example for other players you should also avoid grey areas. Try not to do anything that’s close to a rule issue to avoid giving others the impression that things that would actually be an issue are permitted.
- Ahelp rule issues. There is currently a much higher admin presence on Leviathan because I’ve been focusing heavily on it. Despite this, it’s not possible to be aware of everything going on. Ahelps are most useful close to the incident, but they can still be useful at any point during the round. Don’t feel like you need to stop everything you’re doing to ahelp. During the next week, feel free to silent ping me on discord or DM me if you ahelp something on Leviathan, don’t include any information publicly other than saying you sent a Leviathan ahelp. I won’t always be available, but I won’t mind the ping. The Admin Message section of the forums is available if you want to make sure admins are aware of any important unhandled ahelp from a past round of any Wizard’s Den server.
- Shitsec doesn’t exist. Don’t call security shitsec. Assume every player who isn’t playing security well is new to the role, even if you know they’re not. While calling security shitsec is a long time tradition in SS13, it’s become overused. Many people scream shitsec the moment security does anything. Avoiding it creates a much better environment for players to learn. If security is actually doing something wrong, don’t be afraid to tell them, but doing it without calling them shitsec can help stop the term from being so widespread and meaningless.
- Don’t let antags be friendly. Don’t be a friendly antag, don’t befriend friendly antags, treat friendly antags as hostile. Feel free to ahelp friendly antags, since they’re against the rules, but like textchat this is an issue that can greatly benefit from having IC discouragement. Rat kings are a special case and can work with the crew for mutual benefit. Releasing a caught syndie after some brig time and taking their contraband as “reformed” is an IC issue as long as they don’t keep reoffending.
- Don’t turn a blind eye to troublemakers. This doesn’t mean you should validhunt someone for hacking into the kitchen, or that you need to immediately do something about any issue, but if someone is being suspicious or doing something illegal, try to report it to security. If someone is trying to interfere with an arrest, consider helping security.
- Be an interesting antagonist. There are much more interesting ways to play antagonist that killing as many people as you can, avoiding unnecessary killing can lead to much more interesting experiences for everyone involved. For example, in one round a syndicate and their reinforcement captured the captain in the brig. They could have killed the captain, but instead decided to imprison them in perma. This choice had a minimal effect on the antags’ round, if any, but prevented the captain from being removed from the round.
- Focus on encouraging behavior that follows these guidelines rather than shaming behavior that doesn’t. People respond better to positive reinforcement than to negativity. If someone isn’t following these guidelines, but also isn’t breaking the rules, blame the rules not the player. Discourage unwanted playstyles by responding in a way that discourages it IC, and by talking about the good things that happened after rounds rather than giving attention to the bad things.
Command and Security
Command and security players have a much higher ability to impact the culture of the server. If you feel you can follow all of these guidelines well, I’d highly recommend you focus on playing these roles. Due to the difference in culture, these roles are currently much less stressful than they are on other LRP Wizard’s Den servers.
- Confiscate contraband and weapons. Unless there’s some major station emergency that calls for it, don’t allow crew, especially command and security, to carry weapons that they don’t need (spears, bats, guns, etc) or syndicate gear/weapons. Security/command use of contraband outside of extreme circumstances is ahelpable and grounds for demotion/arrest.
- Confiscate problematic items from prisoners. LRP rules allow security to confiscate “items used to commission crimes or items that prove problematic in possession of the detainee”. This means that if someone breaks into an area, security is free to confiscate things like insuls, tools, and welding masks from them.
- Don’t freely distribute department equipment. Random tiders don’t need insuls, tools, welding masks, plasma canisters, artifacts, etc.
- Coordinate with security. Security should be a department, not 5 people running around with stun batons. Security should try to work with other departments to keep them secure, and other departments should aid security when they can, along with communicating issues to security instead of feeling like they need to deal with security issues themselves.
- Use brig timers. While not completely necessary for good sec play, they set a good example for others, reduce the chance that someone will be accidentally overbrigged, and make it less likely that people will incorrectly feel that they’ve been overbrigged.
- Increase brig times for repeat offenses. If someone is brigged for a 3rd time during a shift, permabrig them. This keeps station issues much more manageable for security than having the same person constantly causing issues throughout the shift.
- Use Space Law as a guideline. LRP has no space law. Space law from Wizard’s Den MRP, or any other server, can be used as a guideline for things like brig times whenever it doesn’t conflict with LRP rules. If it helps you be more consistent, feel free to do so with the understanding that other may not follow it or may use a conflicting space law as a guideline.
I wrote up these guidelines over a few hours while adminning Leviathan, so I may update them in the future. Feel free to share guidelines you personally follow or your experiences on Leviathan on this thread.
). I’m hopeful that in the near future Miros will get stable like this one did and [EU West] servers will get their structure overhauled (one LRP and one MRP server, not clone 1 and 2; or just one server in general).