Server Rule: "Antagonists may not cause excessive death" is too vague

[WizardGoof]

The current wording for preventing Antagonists from causing “excessive death” is too vague and non-specific.

The Amendment currently being: > MRP Amendment

As an antagonist, do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable or otherwise cause excessive death, damage, or destruction to the Emergency Shuttle.

It is a good idea to prevent mass killings at the rounds end with this amendment, but its wording leaves too much open to interpretation.

The issue:
An Antagonist may deem “excessive” being 30+ kills to accomplish taking out their target, so if they only accidentally kill 29 people, but still take out their target, they could argue that they were following the rules.
If this rule is to stay in place, it should specifically list what counts as “excessive” in game terms, aka, how many people crit, killed, or spaced, when on the escape shuttle.
This change will allow Antagonists to plan accordingly so that they do not cause “excessive death”, while still attempting to accomplish their goals.

This should also apply to the “MRP Amendment”, “do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable”, as uninhabitability is a relative term, and is also not defined in game terms.
In game terms, it could specify, spacing the shuttle as making it uninhabitable, which would do well to clarify to potential antagonists what they should specifically avoid doing if trying to accomplish their goals at round end.

The main goal of the changes to the amendment is to define what is prohibited specifically in game terms, so the wording is less ambiguous. This will both prevent round end mass killings, and false bans from Admins/moderators who’s views on what “excessive death”, differ from antagonist players.

One Alternative:
Change the ruling to prevent Syndicate Agents, or thieves specifically from using explosives on the escape shuttle (exempting space dragon’s fireballs).
Banning the use of explosives on the escape shuttle is probably the easiest blanket fix, to prevent people from causing shuttle-wide death and destruction.

Side Note: Since this is such a large change, it should be included in update notes so that affected players will easily see that the rule is now in place.

Another Alternative:
Gameplay/update change -
This change requires a code update, which would automatically fail the kill/steal objectives for the target, once the escape shuttle leaves with the kill target still alive on board, or the steal target not on their person when the shuttle leaves.
This is a much more difficult change to make, as it requires the games code to be changed in order to automatically fail the antagonists objectives once their kill target is on the escape shuttle and it has left, or if their theft target is not on their person and it has left, but this would be the best solution, as it is an in-game objective, which would bypass the need for the shuttle explosion rule, or change to the amendment in the first place.
Side note: This would also require the orders for Syndicate and thieves to be changed, in order to reflect that they now accomplish their goal “before” the shuttle leaves.

Ultimately, in its current state, the rule is too ambiguous as to what “excessive” means, and it will cause both issues with people getting killed at round end en masse, as well as admins punishing players based off their own interpretation of what excessive means.

Love to hear dev/moderator feedback on this to discuss possible solutions. I’ll do my best to monitor the topic to help.

[AdmiralObvious]

The core issue here is that players have different expectations and understanding of the rules.

For example, on Lizard, a skeleton gibbing half the crew is just par for the course and “a robust skelly”, while them doing such a thing on Vulture for example will be met with rage cuz “murderbone skelly”.

This extends to antagonists too, but antagonists are actually given more tools that enable them to easily mass murder the station while sec tends to fall behind due to not having adequate tools to handle the situations they’re presented with.

For MRP specifically, we want players to actually do antag actions ON THE STATION. Not wait an hour and a half to two hours and just suicide bomb with a syndicate hardbomb. Plus on MRP we have an extended end round that’s intended to facilitate RP, which exploding the shuttle tends to prevent.

As a general rule, we don’t care who you kill if you have an even threadbare IC reason to do so. I, for example distinctly remember round removing a passenger because they tried to disarm my toolbox from me as a syndie for no reason.

We just don’t want antags that do not have Die killing literally everything that moves because it’s generally not interesting, and removing 75% of the server for no reason when you’re supposed to just steal some shoes makes the Die objective irrelevant to roll.

[DDDragoni]

The reason rules are a bit nonspecific is that in a game this complex, they kinda have to be. Spacing the shuttle would be making it uninhabitable, but there are a lot of other ways to do that- flooding it with poisonous gas, or superheating it, or irradiating it, or unleashing a horde of carp, or a lot of other things. Making only specific actions against the rules is inviting someone to find something that’s not among those specific actions and do it because it’s “technically not against the rules.” And even if every potential case is covered in the rules, future updates could always add more. Having a broad phrasing avoids the issue.

[WizardGoof]

I agree that the Antagonists should be performing their actions before the escape shuttle, and its true they should have gotten it done if they had enough time.
Its still possible for someone to join late and get Antagonist to kill someone, and sometimes rounds run short depending on the situations. There’s also just a lot going on sometimes, and it ends up being hard for people to attempt a murder when alot is going on.

I think the main issue is that, people are going to encounter situations where they need to kill someone on the escape shuttle, on occasion, and bombing is a possible solution to those situations.

The rule being outright do not “cause excessive death”, should probably be changed to, “As an antagonist, do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable or otherwise cause excessive death, damage, or destruction to the Emergency Shuttle, unless you can justify it IC.” or something related, to give the OK if you are trying to accomplish a goal, or do something your character would do in the situation.

I assume moderators refer to this rule when deciding whether or not to punish players for their end-round actions, so it should probably be changed in order to clarify for moderators, that if the player is operating under what their character or goals are, they shouldn’t be punished, or at least should be asked why they decided to blow up their target at the end of the round, before punishments are dished out.

In its current wording, there is little ambiguity that if a player does blow up their target and several innocents at the end of the round, that they should then still be punished, regardless of whether or not it was IC, or if they joined the round right as it was ending.

[Skycat99]

Ban doing bombs and the like on the shutter.

Explain the INTENT of the rule vrs the exact wording of the rule.
People will get hung up on the wording and will Rules lawyer the.heck out of it to justify their actions.

Explain that “avoid excessive death” means “please, focus on killing the targets that you have.”

I just had a thought of how to force game mechanics to help with this.
Antagonist role of Assassin. Goal is to kill target only. If you kill more than 4 other people, you fail. Killing members of Sec is allowed and does not against the limit.
“Remember, you are asurgerical tool. Clean and precise. If we wanted everyone dead, we would have strapped bombs to monkeys and laser guns to corgis.”

Anyway back to other thought I had.

“don’t singloose at start of round to kill the CE. Your goal is to kill the target. Not everyone on the station.”

"Want to poison food in the kitchen and serve it? Go for it. "

[DDDragoni]

“As an antagonist, do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable or otherwise cause excessive death, damage, or destruction to the Emergency Shuttle, unless you can justify it IC.”

That wouldn’t be rewording to clarify- that’d be changing the rule. As it stands in MRP, shuttlebombing or other similarly destructive acts on the shuttle (without DAGD) are against the rules. Even if you can justify it in character, or if that’s the only opportunity you have to complete your kill objective. If you can’t kill your target without blowing a hole in the shuttle, then you accept your redtext. Depriving 40+ people of end of round RP is not worth your little win.

[AdmiralObvious]

Yeah, there’s very little IC reasoning that I’d accept for splitting evac in half to kill one person potentially.

If you have to kill someone on evac for some reason, don’t kill everyone in the process.

[walksanator]

nocturine and throw them off the shuttle

[WizardGoof]

In that instance then, it seems like killing anyone besides your target at evac should be against the rules. Its highly possible getting into a shootout with your target could result in non-target deaths, but that should be defined in the rules, or ban explosives use at evac altogether.

Skycat99’s idea to make the goal of avoiding non-target deaths as a fail condition is a good idea, as that would require you to plan more carefully, and it would make sense roleplay wise to want to avoid unnecessary killing. That’s an in game change though, which would require alot more work than just making explosives against the rules at evac. Still, I think this idea is probably the best solution if its possible.

In its current state, its entirely possible for someone to read the rule, and assume its ok to blow up part of evac in order to kill their target, so long as they only kill a few people, but not too many. The wording is weird, as “excessive” is totally up to interpretation to both the player, and the moderator. I guess so long as everyone is on the same page that they shouldn’t blow up most of evac to kill their one target its ok, or that only 1-8 non-target casualties is the limit that’s fine, but I don’t think that is the case.

Also DDDragoni, As it stands in MRP, shuttlebombing or other similarly destructive acts on the shuttle, aren’t against the rules, unless I’m mistaken.
If there was a rule specifically against “shuttlebombing” somewhere, then its clear anyone who does it should be punished.
I agree shuttlebombing should be against the rules outright though, that way it avoids the issue altogether, but I didn’t see that listed in the rules anywhere. (again, could be wrong)

As it is, the rules aren’t super clear about whether or not you can blow up your target, (and possibly others) at the shuttle. It seems like its up to the player, and the moderator whether or not they blow up part of evac in order to try to kill their target.

I guess my main issue is the “excessive” part of the rule isn’t super clear. Ideally this would be patched with an in-game change like mentioned above, but as it is, we can only band-aid the problem until a more permanent solution is made.

AdmiralObvious, if I was trying to kill my target at evac, at what point would you consider non-target accidental killings “excessive”? Can I get a number? XD

[DDDragoni]

This is the MRP amendment to the excessive damage rule:

As an antagonist, do not make the Emergency Shuttle uninhabitable or otherwise cause excessive death, damage, or destruction to the Emergency Shuttle.

Shuttlebombing spaces the emergency shuttle, thus making it uninhabitable, and is therefore banned on MRP. When this rule addition was proposed, conversation about it from both admins and the general player populace was pretty clear that shuttlebombing was the primary reason for it. As I mentioned earlier, “shuttlebombing” isn’t explicitly named in the rules so that people don’t rules lawyer by, say, starting a plasma fire on evac and claiming “it’s not shuttlebombing!”

[WizardGoof]

This is the first I’ve heard about this. If the rule was set in place specifically to prevent shuttlebombing, why not name it that directly? I wasn’t around when the rule was written, so I don’t know its context.

New players, and new moderators who aren’t aware of the previous discussions about why the rule exists are going to be confused because they don’t have the context for what the rule is supposed to mean. The wording would really benefit to have an update specifically referencing what its trying to prevent.

Maybe I’m just too new to know the jargon, but uninhabitable seems like, so long as you have a space suit, oxygen, and something to stand on, its fair game, if even that.

I feel like referencing shuttlebombing directly in the rule would be helpful for new players. I feel like everyone can understand what “shuttle” and “bombing” means.

I’m less worried about rules lawyering players, and more just thinking, the rule as is, is confusing for new players.

[DDDragoni]

Maybe I’m just too new to know the jargon, but uninhabitable seems like, so long as you have a space suit, oxygen, and something to stand on, its fair game, if even that.

If you require a space suit and air tank to not die somewhere, its absolutely not inhabitable. That’s not jargon, its just common sense. I could survive for a while on Mars with a spacesuit and 02, but its still uninhabitable. And even so, most players arent going to have a spacesuit and air tank available on evac to use.

[Naomi37]

My personal rule of thumb has always been; If it would count as mass murder under space law, it is likely excessive death. Space law defines mass murder as killing 3 or more people. However, the vagueness allows for a case by case basis.