Does this include instances of committing crimes?
It happened to me constantly there for a while. SADAR especially. Would act like a shit and get wanted then start ahelping and loocing about ruining his spec round for arresting him… after he refused njp for the 6th time.
If so… great change. I havent played much mp lately
Squad Leaders, Specialists, Smartgunners and FTLs are now held to the standard that they must obey any and all orders issued to them by the commander outside of special circumstances. A special circumstance is something they would have to justify to an investigating staff member if questioned.
Its under rule 2, the exact quote is.
- Higher ranking squad marines (such as the squad-leader, specialist, smart-gunner and FTL) should be following the orders assigned to them by the commander instead of running off to go fight alone. Special circumstances exclude this requirement, but players should be prepared to justify their actions if contacted by staff.
I’m just stating observations of what I see. I think marines could do with being less unruly, but there’s little way I see that can change it easily (and the ‘easy’ ways I see would probably get inevitable pushback just because, for some reason, someone’s always gotta be autistic about such things).
Also, I want to clarify: I don’t mean that MP’s are antagonists, I mean that MP’s and Marines are natural antagonists to each other.
Speaking on crimes and natural antagonism, a LOT of crime happens simply because of incredibly stupid mechanical/mapping decisions like,
having to hack medical vendors to dispense basic medicine,
having to hack medical doors to use the medical labeler,
having to break into medbay just to get seen by a doctor,
breaking a window just to see if the alamo is in flight or landed,
needing to hack engineering vendors to get basic tools,
etc.
A majority of lawbreaking could be mitigated by the game not being designed almost with the express purpose of making things more difficult than they need to be. I can’t say I’ve ever actually seen someone arrested over hacking a medvendor, but they could be, which is a contributing issue to marine and MP relations, because I’m absolutely certain someone’s decided to be a hardass if only for the sake of having something to do as an MP.
I believe current game mechanics/design are the main driving force behind marine<>mp antagonism. In other words, if you replaced every single player with a totally new person - you would still end up in the same situation as right now. It’s systemic and not a person problem.
I wholeheartedly agree with Wintermote regarding some mechanics encouraging MP-marine hostility- Like, why in god’s name is the Weymed locked to medics and marines? People hack it every round. The supplies are infinite. Who cares? Make it accessible to everyone already. I’ve had engineers refuse to hack because “It’s illegal and the MPs might arrest me”, even when the only MPs who arrest for hacking Weymeds are powertripping shitsec wannabes who make up the minority
A rifleman was shitty to me once, should I let that incident dictate how I treat all riflemen in the future? No? Then why do I keep seeing this as an argument when it comes to MPs?
This makes me sad to read, because I see many, many instances of MPs helping people. I’m sure it can feel like that when you start out most of your rounds with a “I wanna greytide and don’t want anyone to stop me” mindset. But if you’re starting out with that mindset, some kind of LRP server would probably be a better fit.
This reminds me - some players just play every role as anti-MP - doesn’t matter if they are rifleman or SO.
–But anyways, my feelings on the overall situation…the marine-MP thing is complicated. Every MP plays differently, every marine plays differently, every situation has different variables. This isn’t a very satisfying explanation, and I get that. It’s much easier to say “I hate MPs, they’re powertripping assholes” or “Marines are goblins who have no respect for the law or anyone else” or “I hate Marine Law, it doesn’t work well” - when all of these are just generalizations. And everyone wants something different from MP interactions. For example, if my MP character gets kidnapped onto alamo and people start stunning them and taking their gear, I don’t mind. I’m not my character, I don’t consider it as “losing” (this is an RP game after all), it’s just shenanigans and I think it makes for a funny story for all involved. Whereas another MP player might hate it. So why do I enjoy this interaction but I don’t enjoy, say, someone gunning me down and leaving? Well, there is RP to be had in the first situation, and none in the second. Very frequently when I arrest someone quickly, it’s not because I care about the ML violation that happened, it’s because I don’t want them to quickly run away which just ends the RP scene once they are out of sight. Just because I cuff you doesn’t mean it’s jail - could be an NJP after we talk to whoever the accuser is (believe it or not, most arrests aren’t an MP just seeing something, usually a non-MP is reporting something. Also side-note: You do not have to state the reason for the arrest before you get to brig. I don’t care if they add that or not, but, it’s not in marine law at this moment. If I don’t say it, it’s usually because when I start typing, someone will free the person and everyone will be gone before the situation can be explained.)
If I were to change policy in any way, it would be in a way to encourage interaction, and discourage people just trying to escape or end the RP scene some other way. I don’t know the best way to do that, but that would be my goal.
-Sam L. Johnson
Edit: Also, just because it’s jail, doesn’t mean it has to be bad either… I will usually try to hang out with people while they’re in jail, unless someone is ordering me to not do that for some reason.
It’s not an argument, it’s a fact, most people just remember the times they got arrested, and not the time they broke every window in briefing and only got an NJP.
I have gold MP and have never even gotten an admin PM about any of my arrests or ML decisions.
Just actually read the SOP and ML and you’ll be fine.
Personally i have neither, but that might be because i never add things i think “might” be valid and only add charges i KNOW are valid.
My point was that it was being used as a justification for why MP’s get treated badly. And again, I’ve been treated badly by riflemen sometimes. I’m not gonna let that dictate how I treat rifleman in future, because that’s silly. And I would apply that same standard to any job.
I think something that people discard is that MPs in our ruleset are effectively IC rule enforcement. They have the ability to remove people from the game (temporarily) due to IC rulebreaks. This is preferable to god’s eye admins scanning for LRP bullshit 24/7. I’d much rather these sorts of things be handled ICly via MPs than OOCly via moderators. Hence why we have “timeouts” for law (read: rule) breaks.
With that said, the reason why MP rulebreaks are taken more seriously is BECAUSE you have the social power to remove people from the round (temporarily), great power great responsibility and so on and so on.
Whine all you want about MPs, but the fact of the matter is, if MPs get thanos snapped, the replacement enforcement is mods/admins who see all and can be everywhere at all times and result in complete removals from the round rather than a 10 minute timeout handled within the restrictions of the game itself. I dunno about you but I think the IC stuff is preferable to OOC intervention. For that to take place, we have to hold MPs to a higher standard.
Speaking of which - IC rule enforcement with no logs, which causes some of the MP hatred as MPs will get things wrong sometimes due to that (fingerprints are not a great replacement).
Honestly even as someone with a ton of MP hours I would be fine with a thanos snap because interactions with players are hit-and-miss due to the ‘I hate all MPs OOCly for no real reason’ attitude some people have, or people who think they know ML but don’t (this is very frequent), or sometimes you’ll just run into people who don’t care for whatever reason and have nothing to lose anyways by treating you like shit, etc. And mods would do the job with much more accuracy and it would give me an excuse to play doc/corpsman more.
That being said there’s still a ton of good interactions as well, so, it’s all good either way. 
-Sam L. Johnson
I love NJPing marines because 80% of them refuse to do it and wonder why they are in the brig a minute later.
Egregiously editted tack on
Anyway yeah I mean the worst MP experiences are usually when they don’t actually help because we’re not psychic and can’t find out which marine stab/shot first, and all marines lie to the MPs so who do we believe? The other generic rifleman who totally saw the whole thing pinky promise? Also most people won’t bother actually atesting to who did what because they have better things to do.
So either we just eeny meeny miney mo one of the possible perperatrators or bag both of you. Aaaand everyone’s salty.
Most of the time it’s just the shitters salting that they didn’t shit harder.
Oh and as for the actual topic? Uh no we should totally get bwoinked and noted for the times we don’t follow ML and SOP. Yes even for that time you forgot to yell you’re under arrest before tasing the dude.
Though I feel like arrest procedure should include asterisks for lethal force use, and actively running away from the MPs before we get a word out. Etc.
That is a good point and counter argument.
I agree because the amount of times I’ve seen or have arrested a specialist role only for marines to riot and NJP’ing them because they’re important ground side is too many times
I’m working on improving the force.
– Schofield.
I’m not going to read this whole thread, because I’m highkey in the #removeMP camp, but I do try and go easy on MPs who have made honest mistakes or are doing their best to play within the spirit of the role. I can only think of a few notes I’ve actually given out for improper MP behavior.
If you remove the MPs though they can’t make mistakes!!!
If you remove the MPs, who prevents CLs from making xenos, (clf)-survivors from shooting up the ship, windowbreakers from destroying everything aboard, chem ERTs from kidnapping researchers and so on?
I think they just want moderators to moderate more.
This is exactly why I DONT want mps to be removed.
Fighting, insults, property destruction, and even murder should be solved by the mps and dealt with in universe.
I am NOT interested in a game where MT is rule bound to only do maintenance and mop floors.
Where breaking a window gets you a bwoink to explain yourself.
This isnt a military sim. I want to act unhinged and stab a bravo for saying “Jones doesnt matter”.
And thats before you go down the line of giving some (not all) of the more powertrippy staff the responsibility to enforce marine law via moderation.
Fuck no