Sage is not MRP, and here's why

General
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Dear @Crossedfall and the powers that bee,

I was recently told that due to inactivity, I am on mentor probation. This isn’t meant to be a rebuttal to that, I think it’s entirely fair, but it did get me thinking as to why I’m not playing on Bee as much.
I didn’t want to just stop playing on a server that’s given me hundreds of hours of enjoyment without getting down in writing why I’m playing less on here and more on skyrat.

I can tell you it isn’t because I’ve suddenly decided to be a furry! My man is still Orion Galatea, still mainline human.

I’m not playing as much because Beestation isn’t actually MRP. it’s LRP. And here’s why:

Reason the first:
Player behaviour is downstream from mechanics.

In an LRP server, the spacemen are avatars.
In an MRP/HRP server, the spacemen are characters.

This is immutable fact. that is the core difference between LRP and MRP/HRP.

What’s more, beyond choosing what server to play on, the players do not choose if they are going to play LRP, MRP or HRP. Because regardless of how much you try to RP, if nobody else on the station is giving your emotes and/or attempts at in-universe narrative weaving the time of day, then you are quickly going to switch to playing LRP, or simply leave.

On skyrat and aurora, when you are told that you cannot join the server until you have written at least a tweet’s worth of info on your character, it forces you to think about your character as more than just an avatar. Additionally, when you are able to see what others wrote about their characters, it encourages you to think about their characters as more than just avatars as well. It puts the player in an RP mindset.

Every successfully RP based server is built in such a way to make the distinction between player and character clear:

  • editable character-linked background, medical and work history, exploitable info, etc.
  • deeper examine and tooltip functionality.
  • combat indicators and encouragement to let people finish RP before attacking them, even in tense situations.

all these mechanics encourage an MRP mindset.

It is not enough to call your server MRP and punish people for LRP actions. You also need to build value in the RP side of things through surrounding mechanics.
After a lot of thinking, I think this is why Bee gets shit on so much on other forums. The server is all stick and no carrot when it comes to roleplay.

Reason the second:
Bee is a beacon for new players looking to learn the game

image

When you represent beestation as the newbie-friendly server that it is, you are actively working against the notion that bee is a MRP server.

New players are not MRP. New players cannot be MRP. They lack the mechanical understanding to “RP” as anything other than someone that doesn’t understand how to operate their own limbs.

I will admit, here and now, to willfully breaking the rules when it comes to telling new people what buttons to press to do things in the game. LOOC doesn’t come up above character’s heads in game and new players will often miss advice written exclusively in the chat. This is LRP/NRP behaviour because it has to be, to get new players accustomed to the game.

In conclusion:
I’m not here to get you to choose one path or the other, but I honestly feel that the powers that bee need to decide on whether they want to focus on the “Welcome to the game” server that they advertise themselves as, or an MRP server.

This is why most bee mods play skyrat more than bee these days.

Unity of vision is important for any organised effort, and it’s clear that many maintainers and moderators fall on one or the other side of this divide.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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Of all the recent nerfs bee have made, MRP and HRP (and even ERP) servers still has more extensive and better armed sec.

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I don’t think I disagree with anything here. As far as my 2 months of being here can allow me to say, I think you’re right.
Does it bother me that it’s pretty much LRP? Not that much. MRP/HRP still scares me, after having 45 hours played. I do however think it’d be a step in the right direction to go down the proper MRP path, for the server overall. There is a reason so many people including stuff are moving to HRP servers like Skyrat.
:person_shrugging: This is my slightly awkward take on it

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Funnily enough, it’s not. The times I see it being used on SR (sr player point and laugh) is typically used when antagonists or the like are monologuing, talking to sec or doing a hostage situation, and with CI they know when they can expect when combat starts. Hell, even if people start beating eachother over personal disputes it lets them know that they’re gonna beat eachother instead of… just getting batonged out of nowhere or the likes.

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Labels like LRP, MRP, HRP are just smoke and mirrors. Fact is that this is a roleplaying server that tops off player capacity every day for multiple rounds, with way more immersive interactions than most available servers.

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This. Theres a reason we stopped identifying as “MRP” long ago. We classify ourself as “Roleplay” without the M.
Mainly we made this change because people would always go “ENFORCING MUH HRP RULE ON MRP” or shit like this, with evryone having diffrent visons of what “MRP” means. There is no one objective “MRP”. (Same for evry other classification obviously)

So yes, we aint MRP. We’re RP, not further classified.

To be clear tho thats mostly me arguing a technicality.
We want to be a roleplaying server, and there can verry much be discussion on wether or not our players behaviour meets our expectations, and what the causes of said behaviour might be.

Personaly i’d agree that the arcadyness of our TG based code is in some ways a hinderance to roleplay. Im not a maintainer or headcoder though so besides having a slightly larger box to yell and complain from, i have no influence on these matters.
There is certainly some RP features that’d be good to have, some that might be good eventualy - but also some that i can do without.
In the end this is WYCI moment though as with all code matters. (And the maints have to like it)

Lets be verry fucking clear though that while i agree that code is important in faccilitaing RP, it is mainly a mindset issue. If evryone playing on the server wanted to roleplay, they’d be able to do it just fine in the constrains of current code. Heck, you could RP on hippiecode if you have players that have a passion for RP.

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I disagree with this, players RP ability isn’t purely dictated if they’ve played the game before. While it does help to know how to light a cigarette without setting yourself on fire, people can get RP experience outside of SS13. Pretty bold claim to make that none of those new players knew how to RP before playing SS13.

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I think this is misunderstanding what I meant by that point.
If you don’t know how to emote, don’t know how to perform many mechanics, it’s going to hinder your ability to roleplay, and roleplaying, or trying to roleplay, is going to hinder your ability to ask questions, etc.

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I absolutely agree with this point, and I hope all these features will (sooner or later) be added to Bee.

I disagree with people who say “you should just RP them in character when they come up” (medical history, flavor text, etc.) because while this is technically possible, adding them would not only encourage players to craft a better story, it would allow us to further customize our characters beyond what a pixel sprite can do (add a tattoo, a scar, or a glass eye) and it would also validate the choice to put more effort into the character creation.

This IS being done! We now have an aiming system which is pretty good (if only people weren’t able to eat 10 headshots) and there is more to come!

There is some truth in this, but! As long as they can write, and the environment encourages them to interact on a deeper level with others, they can roleplay!

The path has already been decided, and it’s RP. The main “issue” is moving forward.

I don’t think security being underpowered is an issue.

I suspect it’s mostly about antagonist conduct.

I PERSONALLY believe the attitude of “sec and heads are valid” to be very toxic.

I get that people need to game, but overall it leads to an unnecessarily hostile environment that encourages exploiting metaknowledge. (revs, traitors, clock cult… strike first or die ganked)

Could I ask you why you think that’s the case?

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I can’t say much here that I haven’t said already. I also want to keep my account. Instead of spouting my opinions I’ll instead offer an objective view of reality.

Current Bee:

  • Trying to do things outside of your department, even if they don’t harm anyone, without getting bwoinked, is harder than ever.
  • Trying to survive a threat is harder than ever unless sec/command is arming you. (unless you play certain departments just to powergame)
  • Trying to rp is harder than ever. Between passive jobs and hyperactive threats, there’s little room.
  • Trying to help other people without getting shoo’d or attacked is harder than ever.
  • Rules are a clusterfuck. The number one problem is the definition of powergame and its intertwining with department items. An assistant with a baton will get bwoinked. A scientist with three maxcaps will not. (example)

I wouldn’t call Bee MRP, or even a roleplay server. Sure. Roleplay happens here and there, but it’s genuinely rarer for me to see it than not to, unless I’m heavily forcing it using some gimmick myself. In fact this is the main source of roleplay - one player coming up with something cool enough to steal attention…

Combat and combat scenarios are looked forward to. Players completely disregard RP when they happen. It has devolved to simply saying the required words, thus getting “RP” out of the way, in order for combat gaming to begin. I’ve actually seen a clown mess with the crew by constantly crying about a threat. Crew got armed for nothing.

Best part is that unless you go full LRP, you can also expect to lose to most roundending antags. Traitors are in a better position and I love it, but antags like nukies, xenos, cults and the like either get killed/captured by LRP crew, or win. You must stupe to their level to stand a chance.

In conclusion:

  • What I’m currently experiencing on Bee is heavily restricted, limiting gameplay.
  • Tons of rules, yet there’s nothing to urge us to obey them besides fear.
  • Our players are very obviously pretending to be on an MRP level while doing their best to have fun in LRP ways. Sometimes this is necessary, usually it isn’t.
  • I’m also noticing a trend of nerfs made to discourage this, which is misguided since the LRP issue stems from something far worse than just having access to strong gear. The gear is the means, not the reason. Thus the result is just a weaker crew.

Oh, and trying this as an actual newbie to ss13 can’t be pleasant. I reckon that 60% of the times I played assistant, people treated me as if I was playing just to grief, even when I was trying to help. I know we have some people who’ll gladly teach newbies, but I also know most won’t, and many will just call you shit for not being efficient.

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Current RP standards on sage are higher than they have ever been (not counting the recent influx of LRP TG players, most will either go away when ddossing ends, or get banned)

I absolutely disagree with this point.

“Powergaming” is considered to be the act of prioritizing “winning” rather than sensible roleplaying.

I realize this is a limited definition, but it has to come down to admin discretion, it can’t be otherwise.

Of course, how is that not powergaming?

It really depends on what they are doing with those maxcaps, but it’s part of toxin’s job to make explosives.

I don’t think the issue lays with people not being able to powergame, but instead in how antagonists will skip to maximum violence at any given opportunity.

I realize that this is a player attitude issue, so it’s hard to solve it.

I believe that’s an issue with all round ending antags, they are intended for LRP servers (clock cult, halo-blood cult, xenos, war ops etc.). I might be the only one in favor of this, but i’d like for them to be rarer. I don’t remember the last time I had any fun during these gamemodes.

Fear? I mean, these rules exist to enable roleplay to happen.

You should follow them not just because otherwise you get banned, but because they allow meaningful interactions between characters to take place.

You don’t just not go over the speed limit because otherwise you’ll get fined.

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Yeah our standards are nicer, but they’re encouraging people to do their jobs, usually in silence, not to interact with other crew. This goes for rules too. They’ll scare you out of griefing, but they don’t do much to get you to actually RP.

I guess the short of it is that there’s a lot of encouragement not to do bad things but none to do nice things. One of the worst feelings in the game is trying to rp and getting ignored or mocked.

I absolutely disagree with this point.
“Powergaming” is considered to be the act of prioritizing “winning” rather than sensible roleplaying.
I realize this is a limited definition, but it has to come down to admin discretion, it can’t be otherwise.

Our departments are basically allowed to powergame with their own items. Anyone can get away with it, be it through in-game deception or meta-level deception. Unless an admin really has their eye on you.

This turns a rule that should discourage playing to win in general into “don’t play to win with other departments’ stuff”. If we (wrongly) assume this is the intent, it makes certain jobs stupidly weak. If we (rightfully) assume that the rule is being sidestepped, this means the rule is failing.

The real solution is obviously for the playerbase to shift away from it. I think this is already happening, but it is quite slow. Meanwhile, some more admin attention in chem, botany, toxins, mining, xenobio, exploration, etc would be nice.

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We changed from MRP to RP because…
RP is less than MRP
*honk

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In addition to adding new features to increase RP for the love of god can we get a proper med system! I gurantee you the number of unga validhunters and general shittery will go down if death and injury were more impactful. Something like baymed would be neat.

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You’re thinking too fast. We need to add an hour requirement to medbay first. Current doctors sometimes struggle even with what we have now.

Otherwise, it’s a great change. I just don’t want to see most of the crew dead and/or veterans forced into med roles via conscience.

Armor also needs to prevent injuries or station threats get a mega buff from this (and they already win a lot).

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I think the best way I saw it put was:

Bee players are LRP players roleplaying as an MRP player.

I’d argue this is the way for it to be. If crew reliably can acquire gear that out performs security’s gear at the job of security’s gear, security becomes redundant as a department outside of confining people.

To be fair, scientists probably aren’t detonating those maxcaps with the same frequency as an assistant using a batong. Additionally, batons are fairly obvious outside of use(provided they’re holding them or on their belt) making for an easier catch. It’s far easier for the maxcaps to slip under the radar, leading to this issue.

Overall a poor example, I think xenobio gear(or other department gear) would probably make for a better example.

If you know of a scientist with three maxcaps absolutely ahelp them or write a report.

I mean I still think there shouldn’t be readily available or repeatably acquirable(between rounds) gear that is powerful. But this won’t fix that most departments are mechanically shallow(chemistry, xenobio for example) or lack a variety of goals(or a combination of both).

Goon provides a good example of deep mechanics and varied goals. Yes some are incredibly powerful but are exceedingly difficult to make, but these end goals are also not publicly visible and encouraged not to have the process shared.

As for RP, adding interdepartment reliance can go a long way for this. And with deep mechanics and varied goals, it’s not gonna be viable to pre-emptively just send whatever to the department that needs it(since what if they’re doing the thing that needs something else) additionally, if you need something that their goal isn’t producing you have to work something out.

This may mean nerfs will happen to some departments.

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I can’t agree more with this. The excuse of “RP them when it comes up IC” is also quite terrible. It makes other players incapable of knowing about things you are physically incapable of displaying in-game, e.g. an armband your character is wearing.

I don’t really see a reason why we can’t have editable sec/medical/exploitable records/etc. . If people use them for LRP shit or abuse them, We have admins to intervene. Exploitable would only be visible to antagonists.

Combat Indicator is a mixed bag, as the codebase it’s most well-known for is Skyrat, which has a reputation in our community. Can’t mention that name at all without people going “haha furry erp server bad lol”.

Personally I would still support an implementation of it, as it would allow sec/antags/players to expect when they should prioritize fighting over roleplay. E.g. A hostage situation where the antagonist goes on a monologue, while sec watches. Sec currently just rushes the valid with no attempt at RP or conservation of the hostage. With a CI, you could talk to an antagonist without immediately being murdered for having a typing indicator up. As soon as you’re all done playing out the scene, you could turn on CI, as a notice that you’re done with the talking part, and wish to move on to mechanical fighting.

This also doensn’t mean nukies will suddenly need to adapt to CI combat either. Skyrat’s solution for this issue was to just put them into a “permanently mechanical state”, i.e. you do not need to CI vs. them, they do not need to CI vs. you.

Genuine brand new players most of the time don’t know about RP mechanics we currently have, which would simply be LOOC. It’s a bit like attempting to communicate with a person whose brain was surgically removed, the only thing left of the person is their primal instincts and reflexes.

Security is still incredibly powerful here. It’s just that traitors/lings/fuckin’ any antag can just murk sec before anything else, even on green, where they are incapable of having lethals on them, barring the HoS.

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As for RP, adding interdepartment reliance can go a long way for this. And with deep mechanics and varied goals, it’s not gonna be viable to pre-emptively just send whatever to the department that needs it(since what if they’re doing the thing that needs something else) additionally, if you need something that their goal isn’t producing you have to work something out.
This may mean nerfs will happen to some departments.

This one hit really close to home for me. What departments can do is really limiting except for scientist, and even that is just because it has a few equally limiting jobs crammed into one for some reason.

I’d be livid if jobs could actually have different goals to go towards instead of just one or a laundry list of useful things to make (that will probably get ignored lmao).

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Yeah, balkanizing(for lack of a better term) the science department may not be a terrible idea.

Like good livid or bad livid?

I think there’s something to be said for making sure the bare minimum is readily available, that way these interesting side paths don’t have to be useful.

Goonchem is really the example here.

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This is my experience as well, unfortunately.

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