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Main Roleplay Rules
Additional rules made for our roleplay servers (Manuel/Campbell). If roleplaying isn't your style, every other server still abides by only the Main Rules.
Please note that a ban on the low roleplay servers is a ban on the medium roleplay servers, and vice versa.
1. The roleplay servers have a higher expectation of roleplay.
The purpose of the roleplay servers is to provide a higher quality environment for roleplay. The roleplay rules are intended to promote more interactions between players so more roleplay moments can happen. They are not exhaustive, and admins have a very broad discretion to intervene where behaviours or actions could, if left ignored, contribute to a lower roleplay environment.
2. Escalation and roleplay.
Modified standard escalation applies to instances of player conflict. Players may escalate as per standard escalation policy on MRP where they have legitimate in character reason to do so. Players acting without legitimate IC reasoning (for example: randomly or unnecessarily attempting to steal items from departments or other people) void the right to escalate to lethal self-defence if it is employed reasonably by the wronged party.
3. Chain of command and security are important.
If you're in the Chain of Command or in Security, you're expected to put in the effort and do your job as a departmental leader.
If you're not in the Chain of Command, your department head is your boss and they can fire you. Security officers can arrest you for stealing or breaking into places. Demotions and short brig sentences for actions that would get you fired or arrested in real life are roleplay opportunities.
4. Non-security may only actively hunt global or round-ending threats.
You should not act like a vigilante if a security force is present unless you have a good in-character roleplay reason to believe a global or round-ending threat exists. Restricted antags that are not automatically global or round ending threats may still become so through their actions in the shift, the stronger your reasoning the more action you can take against them.
You can always defend yourself and others from violent antagonists.
Players that choose to act as security will be held to the same standards as security.
5. Antagonism and roleplaying as an antagonist.
The goal of antagonists on MRP is to create stories and make rounds interesting, for both antagonist players and crew-sided players alike. Antagonists are expected to put in at least some effort towards playing their designated role, though may break with it given sufficient in character reason. Some antagonists are restricted in the ways and quantities they may lend themselves to visiting death and destruction upon the crew.
6. Deal with the bad guys in proportion to their crime(s).
Restricted antagonists (or crewmembers) should be handled in proportion to their committed crimes. The decision to execute an antagonist should have good in-character reasoning based on their crimes and the state of the shift. Punishments against antagonists that repeatedly commit minor crimes may be escalated. Only antagonists that have committed the most severe crimes may be met with immediate execution.
Security members are expected to consider the full range of punishment options available when dealing with antags. This includes (but is not always limited to) pacification, implants, timed brig sentences, gulag sentences, permabrig, forced borging and execution. Forced borging is considered equivalent to execution in punishment severity.
Explicitly friendly antagonists do not have this protection and may be treated as the crew or admin team see fit.
7. Do not powergame.
Powergaming is using an in-game mechanic or game knowledge to give your own character an advantage at the expense of everyone else. Powergaming can take several forms, but it is generally rooted in playing-to-win or a focus on playing the game instead of roleplay. Playing your character should always be more important than playing the game.
8. Play as a coherent, believable character.
Space Station 13 is a space opera parody. You're on a space station that employs clowns and mimes, has cargo gorillas, people are eating deep fried clothes and sometimes there's a dozen Captains. Your character should fit within this game world.
Childish or infantile characters should be avoided, whilst silly characters should be roleplayed properly. There's a good chance your character still wants to have a job at the end of the day, so you should probably act like it.
9. Stay in your lane.
This means that you should do the job you signed up for and not try and do other people’s jobs for them or lay claim to their department. If you need something from another player you should attempt to ask them to get it for you instead of just taking it. Straying from your lane at the expense of another player should only be done where strictly necessary.
10. Roleplay and Repetition.
There are a great many gimmicks, dramas and plans that result in excellent stories beloved by many, and part of idea of the higher roleplay environment is to make space for this to happen. Many of these experiences fade with replication however – constant repetition of the same tired jokes and stories is both boring and stifling to new ideas. The administrative team collectively have the discretionary power to request that players, or the server collectively (in the case of mass spam of the same high impact strategies such as plasmafloods) find new gimmicks or make changes to their playstyles in the name of keeping experiences fresh for the server.
The not-so-secret rule of sticky situations and mayhem.
Please be considerate of other players, as their experiences are just as important as your own. If you aren’t an antagonist and yet you really want to play out a hostage situation, or turn someone into a living cake-cat abomination, or just dick around a little, confirm with the involved and affected players ICly first. If everyone agrees to being subjected to whatever terrible atrocities you have in store, then you’re good to go.
Keep in mind that this rule does not protect you from IC consequences, such as getting arrested by security. If you are going to RP as a rude dude, given that your victims have given you the okay, you still have to own the responsibility that comes with your decision. This means, no, you can’t kill a security officer because they tried to arrest you for murdering the clown, even if the clown agreed to being murdered.
Precedents & exceptions: Examples and exceptions to the main rules.
Rule 3 Precedents
- The internal chain of command for security is Head of Security > Warden > Officers & Detective.
- Security are expected by default to follow the orders of their superiors, especially when determining the punishment of those you apprehend. When determining severe punishments such as permanent incarceration or execution, make an effort to contact a superior if the situation permits it.
- You are allowed to disobey a superior's order with appropriate in-character roleplay reasoning. Complete disregard for the chain of command as a member of security is not tolerated.
Rule 4 Precedents
- Actively hunting a threat involves seeking out or pursuing that threat outside the bounds of your normal reasonable play area. Players are not expected to ignore antagonists during the normal course of play and may engage with antagonists who are active within their sphere. (Examples: A medical doctor knowing the identity of an active traitor could attack that traitor if that traitor came armed into medbay, likewise an engineer could attack a traitor they spotted breaking into the engine room). Players choosing this route should not attempt to chase down or finish antagonists who retreat from these engagements (unless they have reason to believe that the antagonist constitutes a global or round-ending threat or have a personal reason to do so under other precedents)
- The dead dog litmus test: Players may hunt specific threats or antagonists who have identifiably done something to wrong that particular player, the Ur-example being that players may seek revenge against those who harm their departmental pets. Players who choose this path are empowered to act as security in regard to that specific threat, but as per the main rule must also follow related restrictions on security play. This can also be applied to an assault of a character you've had significant interactions with, in the current round, and it does not apply to cross-round or OOC friendships.
- Security are freely empowered to deputise players as they will or to declare states of emergency if they believe themselves unable to handle ongoing issues within the round. These calls should be backed up by the chain of command where possible, and non-security players are free to enquire with security to see if they require assistance if concerned. As per the main rule, deputized players are acting as security and held to security’s standards. (Players consistently asking to be deputized or doing so with little in-character reasoning may be asked to knock it off and just play security)
Rule 5 Precedents
- Objectives are suggestions, and antagonists are free to ignore them if they have a preferred or more interesting idea for their course of action.
- Actions as an antagonist do not have to be nefarious or evil, but should make an effort to influence the story and meaningfully impact the shift. Explicitly friendly antagonistic play or siding outright with the crew is restricted – players must have good in-character reasoning behind the decision or an antagonistic goal in mind by doing it.
- Roleplay rule 10 applies to the actions of antagonists – extremely repetitive antagonistic actions repeated over the long term may draw an administrative request to tone it down or try something new, if most of the people on the server can immediately guess what you’re going to do when made an antagonist, it might be time to come up with a new plan.
Rule 7 Precedents
- RPR 10 applies to powergaming, cool things that have a side benefit of player-character empowerment, or just cool methods of empowering your character are acceptable when done sparingly, with an understanding of the health of the community at large, but when repeated to excess have serious negative impact on the health of the server.
Rule 8 Precedents
- RPR 10 applies to character design and roleplay, drug-addled assistants, kleptomaniac mafia cargo technicians and somewhat negligent station engineers are all a core part of the tone of the setting, but playing these stereotypes continually is detrimental to the experience of the setting – if you’re screaming about your meth factory over common enough times to make a habit of it, it’s probably time to stop.
Rule 9 Precedents
- This rule is rooted in the experience of the players behind the characters you will interact with, remember this when playing and avoid justifying stamping on other’s experiences for personal gain.
- The total absence of someone working the job which you require is always a legitimate reason to stray from your lane. Players simply being busy or unwilling to assist is not, however.
- Where possible players straying from their lane should hand off their assumed responsibilities if another player becomes available to do it instead (if for example a missing roboticist returns to the lab after being revived while a paramedic is trying to handle a cyborg related issue)
- Players are free to seek alternate routes that do not impinge on the games of other players to obtain the things they want where normal routes are closed to them. (An assistant that wishes to help a cyborg get upgrades while a roboticist is busy making mechs for security or augmenting patients may freely make use of a maintenance robotics bay, for example)
Rule 10 Precedents
- This rule is not intended to result in application of bans or general hard restrictions against players – invocations should be limited to preventing specific actions, not actioning against players in general unless they’re ignoring previous directives.
- This rule should be invoked with the backing and/or consensus of other admins, opinions will always vary in a game as freeform as this and this rule isn’t intended to stamp on player creativity and freedom.
Security Policy & Precedents
Security and Punishments.
- When dealing with the crew and antagonists, make sure their punishments are in proportion to their crime(s). Minor crimes such as departmental break-ins, stolen equipment should be met with short, but increasing sentences depending on recurring visits by the apprehended. Stealing critical station equipment and items such as the hand teleporter, Chief Engineer's hardsuit, or AI upload boards are more severe crimes and should be met with longer prison times, or potentially permabrigging if the crime is deemed severe enough.
- Murder and Major Sabotage rank amongst the most severe of crimes and can generally be met with permanent imprisonment or death, though leniency can still be offered. These are all general guidelines, and the particular context of a situation can vary greatly, so you are given some leeway as to how harsh or lenient you can be.
- You should make an effort, if the situation permits, to contact a superior as to their thoughts when a situation arises in which a prisoner may be executed or permanently imprisoned.
- The overall status of the station factors in to the severity of committed crimes and the proportionality of security response, an assault on an officer resulting in an arrest is unlikely to be worthy of execution while the station is in perfect shape and security are otherwise unoccupied, but is reasonably worthy of an on-the-spot field execution if it occurs during active assault by war-ops with comms down and half the station torn in half by explosions.
5. Security are fully allowed and encouraged to use non-standard or lesser punishments such as community service, mandatory psychological visits or other interaction-focused less punitive punishments where relevant and fun – crimes do not have to be met with standard punishments where other options are more interesting.
Restricted Antag Death and Destruction
With Objectives
Antagonist objectives are the core of what antagonists are allowed to directly do with no or limited roleplay reasoning. Actions taken to directly accomplish an objective do not have to be proportionate.
Causing death and destruction to help with indirectly accomplishing objectives must have an in-character roleplay reason. If questioned about a chain of events involving indirect actions, the antagonist should be able to clearly explain what events in the current shift led them to their course of action without resorting to hypotheticals.
If a player or department directly interferes with the completion of an objective, this is no longer a hypothetical as the antagonist can now point to specific events in the shift to justify their actions.
Without Objectives
When wanting to cause death and destruction not related to objectives, restricted antagonists may instead rely on extremely relaxed escalation.
They may escalate lethally sooner and with less justification, may use more lethal methods to escalate and may rely on antagonistic reasons for escalating. Such reasons may include escalating against people who are excessively polite or helpful as well as being mean or rude, escalating against groups of people who exclude them or escalating against people who ignore or avoid attempts to communicate entirely.
They have no obligation to treat their victims but escalating over minor issues should not result in the antagonist taking steps to permanently round-remove the other player unless escalation policy would otherwise permit it.
Mass station sabotage that is likely to kill people is allowed so long as the antagonist does not take any direct and specific personal actions to maximise the bodycount beyond what the sabotage itself causes. Examples of mass station sabotage include plasma flooding, causing a supermatter delamination and spacing the station.
Is this antagonist role restricted in how it can deliver death and destruction?
This table covers which antagonists must abide by restrictions in how they deliver death and destruction to the station under RPR 5, as well as any partial or grey-area exemptions.
| Antagonist | Restriction exempt? |
| Traitor/Blood Brother | No. |
| Changeling | No. |
| Malfunctioning AI | Yes. |
| Nuclear Operative | Yes. |
| Wizard | Yes. |
| Blood Cult/Revolutionary | In general no, conversion should take priority, however if the situation is dire you are allowed to kill as many as required to accomplish your goals. |
| Ashwalker | Yes, however the nest should remain defended. |
| Revenant | Yes. |
| Blob | Yes. |
| Abductor | No. |
| Space Ninja | No. |
| Xenomorph | Yes. |
| Pirate | No. |
| Nightmare | Yes. |
| Obsessed | No. |
| Heretic | Yes, however it should only occur after ascension. |
| Lavaland Elite | Yes. |