Wizzard do have desigh. In ss13 it`s either gimmick wizzard(Showcase power of wizzard federation\your power), which can RP. Be goofy and carry his thing if he have permit from Captain. If he goes to med with staff oh healing, become mailman with teleport, RP diplomacy half the game with Command. Also can be given missions by Wizzard federation(admins) during it
Or Grand Ritual wizzard, whos mission to finish rituals at points of power. Near which all tech goes insane to commit one of ascensions of his choosing. This one is pure antag and will make showcase wizzard look like lone OP. If this guy detected, Crew is armed, SOP is suspended, Space Law is suspended. And if he kills most of the station an Automatic ERT is sent.(this one is existential threat
Both are separate spawns
Showcase wizzard can be defeated by 2-4 guys with shotguns(yes shotguns).
Grand wizzard? If station have any money, all of it will go towards guns. Guy wearing bloodred? You better not waste time on that or you allready dead
More like the wizard is the WMD. Their mere presence is dangerous even when theyâre more or less passive, they could âgo offâ at any moment over what you see as nothing. Yeah NT wants them gone and off their station for many reasons, but merely shotgunning them in the back is, regardless of the reasons or how itâs justifiable, just plain boring. They do that, you may as well have not had the wizard show up at all.
I have had one good âfriendly wizardâ round as Captain. It was lowpop on mander, which helped a lot. In this case he openly stated he was coming as a diplomat to improve NT-Wizard Federation relations. I told him that since he was an uninvited guest, coming to my station and not neutral ground, and being ostensibly a walking nuclear bomb, he would have to abide by my rules or he would not be allowed on board. I told him he would have to dock at a port of my choosing and remain handcuffed for the duration of his stay unless CC faxed saying otherwise. As long as he kept these terms I would not allow him to be harmed. He kept his word and I kept mine. I let him leave the station when nukies were discovered and he left as promised. After nukie-zombie ops, a long op, and a tesloose, I even called out to him for help, and he came back and saved a few crewmembers.
It was a great round, but I think it only works if Captain, HoS, and security treat it with the seriousness it deserves. If Cap just goes, âOh a wizard! How fun! Letâs have him come aboard and show everyone some magic tricks.â Then you get situations where the only Sec officer willing to do the smart thing and go against the Captainâs orders has to shoot the walking nuke in the back and gets called a shitter for it.
northerndakotas is absolutely right. We also have electropacks(zapping backpack) that can be linked to remote and used the same way and if they work like 13 ones. Only another person can remove it from them
âyou may as well have not had the wizard show up at all.â
And that is the main problem. The wizard relies on people breaking server rules (you cannot, by rules, negotiate with antags or allow them to roam free unopposed) to be fun. If sec are actually chasing the wizard as they should, chances are it will not have the time to do any fun gimmicks. And this is why this role is not well designed. The expectations go AGAINST what it is supposed to be, only leaving room for murderboning, which the rules fully allow.
The wizard is simply such a ârandom bs goâ antag that i cannot even think of a way to fix it. They need a full rethink of their reason to be in the game and what they are supposed to be. They just do not work with official server rules as is.
Capturing a wizard could only ever be justified if the wizard is going non-lethal. Which is a BIG ask when they have 0 reason to not just blast everything to bits whenever they feel like it.
It is trusting the entire round on a single player, and thereâs usually 70+ players in a round.
And this is assuming thereâs no spell that could simply get the wizard out of the situation, like the body swap spell.
Maybe the goal of the wizard is too nebulous. âShow off.â How? Pull a rabbit out of someone elses ear? Turn everyone inside out? Both are showing off.
Perhaps the wizard needs to have something else to do⌠One or a handful of impossible to comply with âperfectly reasonableâ demands, like wanting the AI core or every departmentâs pets. Things the crew cannot or will not accept, but the wizard will not accept a no.
The TL;DR is, I would make it so that prolonged magic use on the station would caused increased natural disasters. It gives the crew a reason to want the wizard gone, but if they really want to keep him around, theyâd have to deal with the consequences.
Honestly, just making have an objective (âshow offâ is not an objective) would really do wonders.
Something like âCast spells on 90% of the crewâ or just âCast spells at least every X timeâ