Pretty much like the title says, I had this thought after seeing a recent player report and remembering a recent experience I had. I think there should be a minimum of some kind for round start antags at least, so it’s it’s like 10 players you don’t just have the antag(s) making the round a living hell. I think at a certain number of players join the round, it should trigger the creation of antags from pre-existing players (or just trigger a “early mid round” antag roll).
Essentially, at a low enough pop a new round will be a greenshift (slightly miss the random chance for those) so those players won’t likely get stuck with a power tripping antag recreating a hell that the fictitious AI: “AM” would dream of. After a certain amount of players join that round, antags are then created. ICly think of it as “This station doesn’t have enough resources for enemies to target it”
Largely unrelated to the main point of this post, however it’s still possible to have rounds that are pretty much identical to the old ‘secret extended’ rounds if the threat rolls low enough.
already the server has metagame-y issues with people not readying up before the roundstart to try and avoid being involved with antagonists. I don’t think limiting dynamic mode is the answer. If an antag sees lowpop as an excuse to just go Gamer Mode, I see that as a problem with that player’s conduct, not with the antag spawning system. I think that many players still don’t understand what Bee means by “RP server”, and I think that our policies regarding Conduct and RP should be the central focus of any discussion like this.
( also personally, i think that the permanent dynamic mode and the possibility of lower-threat rounds removes the need for greenshifts, which imo are always boring, but that’s not really on topic )
I second this in spirit, but I do see some catches:
Something quirky like a space wizard can be just as fun at low pop as high pop with a good player behind the wizard instead of someone just seeking to win. This holds true for many antags, but I don’t think it holds any stronger than in the case of the wizard, which even at high pop can easily completely overwhelm the station if they’re gamer focused instead of trying to be fun.
However, a nuclear strike team? There’s always room for some flexibility, but I’d be pretty hard pressed to sensibly RP what is essentially a deathsquad with the mission to kill everyone and completely obliterate the station.
This also increases staff burden to some extent - many antagonists get quite a bit more brazen when they know they can afford to be caught in open combat with the station.