What is Roleplay ? (Discussion after Zeta Hive event)

[Kesserline]

This server is medRP.

MEDIUM-RP. Some of you think that they are heavy RPers.
Then, if you are heavy RPers, think about that way :
Roleplay is about playing a role. Incredible eh ? It's not playing YOUR role. It's playing the role of a marine, of a man or a woman that made a military career for different reasons. That had training. That has friends, brothers, bonds within the USCM.
That is the role you have to play. And you can add some spice (being a cunt, beign funny, being charismatic, being memey). That is roleplay. That is immersion.

Now, let's look at the Zeta Hive Event.
______________________

Zeta Queen named Experiment One arrived on Alamo at round start with HUMAN LIMBS and GIBS and HUMAN BLOOD everywhere on the shuttle.
According to the role that I explained to you, about being a marine, member of HUMAN KIND, when you see a big wild beast with dead bodies around, what do you do ? You kill it.
After that, when you fight for 2 hours against a steamroll of aliens that kill half your squad mates, friends, brothers of you. When you go back up and you see another juicy hive bred by Command, without them telling you that they did so, and without leading you while you were being steamrolled groundside ?

What would you do in that case ?

______________________

Here is Kesserline's POV.

After bleeding, getting infected once, killed, revived, went back groundside to fight every other single minute groundside. Killing xenos and seing buddies getting deccaped, dragged after being killed with no chance of revival.
I get up to see that there is a full hive alive shipside.
The same monsters that took part in killing my boys, my squad, the one that protected me, shielded me and followed me in the shithole that were Big Red caves and the rest of the map.

I decided to refuse orders from Command, garrisoning at R&R with the Deltas that stood loyal to me.
Then, decided to hunt the hive, Commander asked us to stand down, and refused to answer us. One single spark would have lit an fire and a gunfire inside Upper Engineering. Commander left, and I decided with volunteers to hunt the hive. Not a mutiny, just hunting the aliens. No matter what. No matter the cost.
Alamo arrived at that moment.
We robusted the former groundside hive, and then we saw the Zeta hive, and dunked it hard too.

_____________________

My character is a marine. Squad leader. That formed a bond with his marines, to lead them from the front. My character is the one that has every chance to die soon, relying both on the skills of his squaddies than his own skills. Going shotguns deep in the fight.
OOC and IC I hate losing my troops. Even more ICly, because there is a bond that ties me to my boys and girls from Delta.

That is Roleplay.
Other players got reasons to defend Zeta Hive. But from my point of view, it was clear that my goal was to shoot anything non-human.

____________________

What do you think ?
Because there is a barrier, sometimes, often, between what's COOL/FUN/CUTE and what's very RPy. Friendly Xenos ? They are not pets, they are wild beasts with heavy claws and teeth. Friendly xenos ? Or acting like a marine.

It should be time for those who calls themselves RPers to give a coherence between their actions. Each round is a new book to write, and each round, you have to make a good book, a good story to read.

[Renomaki]

I think the event was just not thought out all that well.

I think they had a certain plan in mind, where a strange alien comes aboard and the marines capture it for study, eventually breed it, and god knows what else?

But of course,the first Zeta queen, instead of trying to use her physic powers to convince the marines not to kill her or whatever, decides to just charge out the ship ROARING and scaring the shit out of everyone, causing everyone to panic and the event to be ruined, until staff decided to do a "reverse rocks fall" and make another queen on top of the old one, allowing research to get the RP they so crave.

But of course, that situation got out of hand as well, got really confusing, and ended with disappointment.

Although it probably didn't help that, as you mentioned, there were blood and guts all over BOTH ships. Like, what was the reason for that?

[Kesserline]

Best start would have been to put it DIRECTLY in research, with Researchers and CO being briefed already. Bam. Nailed it.

Easy set up. Easy reason. Background set.

[Omicega]

This is something I used to see (and hear) a lot about back in my old community, wherein a significant portion of the community thought that 'roleplay' constituted nothing but sitting around and talking, even when space terrorists and space naval forces were squaring up against one another. Whinging about 'PvPwhores' was commonplace and happened almost every day.

Those same subset of people never got it into their heads that sometimes, your roleplay becomes gameplay - in this case, also PvP. Gunning down the Zeta queen who's being supported by a wilfully silent and neglectful command is, in my opinion, 100% warranted from more or less groundside marine's character at that point.

[Build_R_]

I try to keep fun in mind when roleplaying, although there are times when there are barriers between fun and coherent roleplay, the intention of roleplay is to make things fun. However I completely agree with the reasoning for your roleplay in the round.

Also, the Alamo being full of severed limbs and heads did not help the friendly xenos' case. If they were friendly why did they slaughter those people?

[Simo94]

I know killing zeta hive was justified and was RPed and u have every right to do so, but I so wanted to see xeno vs xeno first before the purging happened, as I have never seen X vs X, I mean, marines outright ignore predators even when they attack ppl, so.

[Denied_Existence]

I was the CMO and one of the primary three interactors with the Zeta Hive. I feel most of the marines were completely justified in their aggression (Well, maybe Mason was a little overboard as a TC.). The blame for what occurred was on the CO and CMP for failing to properly inform the rest of the crew of the situation.

The CO never put out a sufficient announcement about the situation, and the CMP cryo’d without informing his officers.

As far as I’m aware the first Queen was intended to die; I later gave the assumed reason of it being likely fearful due to pregnancy, hence the gibs all over the DS. A larva was spawned from it once we had put it in research and we interacted with it in a non hostile manner as it grew.

Had I recognized I myself needed to go and take charge of sending out an announcement, things might have gone differently.

[Cry of Wolves]

I think the event was just not thought out all that well.

I think they had a certain plan in mind.

There was no plan, we only sent the dropship down to fix the shutter bug. Then we sent them up with gibs for just kicks and giggles.

As the for the queen. Grim can explain it better since he ran that part.

[Chaznoodles]

This entire round was pants-on-head retarded.

As one of the tankies, the Alamo came back up loaded with gibs, so we hop in our tank. The Normandy comes back up loaded with gibs and a Queen. So, predictably, we run it over after it breaks a MT's ribs. We have the MPs threatening to shoot us, the doctors keep getting run over because they keep standing on top of it while we're keeping it down. Eventually, a marine just shotguns it into oblivion. Problem solved. Back to round.

As it turns out, admins decided they couldn't let their event go and spawn ANOTHER queen in Research. This results in the XO and CO both deserting their role to go whack some lizard gack, meaning everyone on the ground has a balls-awful time because there's no leadership. Losing the tank, I do the best I can to keep everyone organised, and have everyone withdraw from the planet when we find out the CO and XO have been knowingly letting Research breed MORE of these creatures while the XO's screaming for my arrest for calling him a cockwomble.

Obviously, as someone who's just seen boatloads of these creatures slaughter marines left right and centre, I'm not exactly going to toss roleplay out the window in favour of soothingly stroking some scaly dong. The only good bug is a dead bug, etc.

Not to forget the CO threatening to BE anyone who shot at the giant creatures that had murdered their friends.

[LaKiller8]

As a regular MP during that round let me explain the hell I went through. There was a report of a researcher keeping an alien in research. CMO, CMP and XO were talking there behind closed doors. CMP then went to cryo when the aliens started reproducing without telling anyone anything. First CO also went to cryo. New CO joined, still not telling the MP's what's going on, neither did the XO after several requests.. Then a new CMP joined, first words they say? "lol". I knew this wouldn't be going anywhere. Since noone gave us any fucking information yet we decided to arrest the XO and CO for neglect of duty, breeding possibly hostile aliens and letting them escape. At no point did anyone tell us what's going on so we had limited information and important roles kept going to cryo, including the newest CMP. Even when XO was being arrested by me he refused to tell what the fuck is going on.

[Sicikat]

Gameplay within your (marine) role is a legit part of the roleplay.

[Blade2000Br]

As a regular MP during that round let me explain the hell I went through. There was a report of a researcher keeping an alien in research. CMO, CMP and XO were talking there behind closed doors. CMP then went to cryo when the aliens started reproducing without telling anyone anything. First CO also went to cryo. New CO joined, still not telling the MP's what's going on, neither did the XO after several requests.. Then a new CMP joined, first words they say? "lol". I knew this wouldn't be going anywhere. Since noone gave us any fucking information yet we decided to arrest the XO and CO for neglect of duty, breeding possibly hostile aliens and letting them escape. At no point did anyone tell us what's going on so we had limited information and important roles kept going to cryo, including the newest CMP. Even when XO was being arrested by me he refused to tell what the fuck is going on.

actually, the aliens breeding was being reported by other MP on comms several times, I just didn't know how to handle that situation.

Then I had to go.

[Denied_Existence]

As it turns out, admins decided they couldn't let their event go and spawn ANOTHER queen in Research. This results in the XO and CO both deserting their role to go whack some lizard gack, meaning everyone on the ground has a balls-awful time because there's no leadership. Losing the tank, I do the best I can to keep everyone organised, and have everyone withdraw from the planet when we find out the CO and XO have been knowingly letting Research breed MORE of these creatures while the XO's screaming for my arrest for calling him a cockwomble.

Obviously, as someone who's just seen boatloads of these creatures slaughter marines left right and centre, I'm not exactly going to toss roleplay out the window in favour of soothingly stroking some scaly dong. The only good bug is a dead bug, etc.

Not to forget the CO threatening to BE anyone who shot at the giant creatures that had murdered their friends.

Wait what? I got like 2 total, and brief, visits from the CO/XO in research. Heck, I kept getting told they were TOO BUSY TO SPEAK WITH ME when I first was attempting to inform them of the situation. It took AGES to actually get the XO to come down and take a look at all.

Definitely their fuckup then, I didn't require remotely the amount of time from them that should lead to neglect of the operation.

Also again, it was a larva that spawned then slowly became queen in research, not another queen straight away.

[Vispain]

Wait what? I got like 2 total, and brief, visits from the CO/XO in research. Heck, I kept getting told they were TOO BUSY TO SPEAK WITH ME when I first was attempting to inform them of the situation. It took AGES to actually get the XO to come down and take a look at all.

Definitely their fuckup then, I didn't require remotely the amount of time from them that should lead to neglect of the operation.

Also again, it was a larva that spawned then slowly became queen in research, not another queen straight away.

Welp you got it from the researchers/CMO themself. Command was too busy to deal with that shit.

Now In advance, I apologize for the paragraphs to come as I'll be describing the entire round from my perspective to my best ability.

Let me clarify here...I was the XO and while I've done Command roles before like SO a lot this was the first XO round I've done in a LONG time not to mention one of the few (around four total.)

Anyways, The round started with a Asian CO. He assigned me to Req once the dropship left. He wanted me to speed up the line by making another req line. At some point the queen came up and the tank with marines killed it. Then I get this message from a SO asking me to report to CIC so I head up there and realize after looking at the crew manifest that the CO cyro'd...Unbelievable. So I announce I'm leading briefing. I head down. No megaphone. Amazing. I do half the brief without one until some random marine hands me a megaphone they found. Then the marines go down and do their stuff. I end up commanding them for a decent while, lets say 3/4 the round, and then a civvie out of nowhere comes up to talk to me under MP guard. I take his statements from him and dismiss him to Research to tell them more. From there I end up leading squads around more, monitoring the situation and setting up a OB as fast I can while awaiting the MTs to get off their asses. MEANWHILE CIC power goes out. I end up having that fixed as well by some MTs.

Then the CO wakes up and gets his debrief from me. As I'm giving his debrief the marines are in full retreat AND news breaks Research has a docile xeno... the CO has me go check on it while she figures out the situation in CIC. I FINALLY go and check out the situation in Research (which no one had told me about up until that point) and am pleased. I tell them to not let the xenos out. (They later did AND bred them without my knowledge). I then head back to CIC and am diverted...again...have a talk with the CMP about the xenos. I tell him (the first CMP) it was not up to me, I'm a little worried about it but we need the research for HC, and if he really wants the zetas dead he should talk with the CO. Then I head up and talk with the CO about the xenos. I discuss perhaps sending down some docile xenos for aiding the combat or just plain old eliminating them. I even mentioned the CMP's eagerness to but she dismisses this. She (forget the name) and I switch places with me commanding from CIC and her checking out research. I monitor the situation some more and have a fallback to FOB due to mounting casualties and unstable position. At this point the CO is virtually fully out of the picture regarding me. They went off to do research stuff. No longer my issue at all.

Fast forward a bit the marines have fallen back and evacced off the planet. Meanwhile, Mason who has no idea of what happened fully and was arrested for some dumb shit he did earlier but is now released for is mouthing off to me, the CO, telling the marines to kill all the zetas and disregard the CO is running around and being generally disruptive. It gets to the point where the comms are so cluttered with his shit I can't even read things from people who have actual info beyond, "KILL ALL THE LIZARDS". The MPs, naturally, can hear the insults and blatant disregard of orders but fail to do their duty and arrest him for disrespect...even when its in front of them. By this point the first CMP is asleep and the second goes SSD halfway through the arrest of me for neglect of duty (Mind you I was in CIC and the CO in Research the whole time). A interesting development but likely just a coincidence.

Anyways. the MPs are discussing perma for my "neglect of duty". I inform them that is a gross miscarriage of justice and (via LOOC) that I'll admin help that as neglect of duty is not perma.
Halfway through their discussions of removing my rank the Alamo launches and I am released. I'd like to point out that asides from the neglect charge being BS releasing on a code Red unless it is a major enemy force is illegal (considering the distress was not activated the release was BS too but....that's semantics..)
Ok, So I'm released, Mason is still be generally disruptive to Command and repelling the hostiles, and the holding position is established as Hanger.
One hard fought battle later and we have won the round...oh and lets not forget...the marines realized just as the round ended that the zeta xenos were HELPING them and Mason was lying to them about them being completely hostile.

-snip

Hard to tell what's going on when I don't even know what's happening in research and am too busy preventing the marine battalion from collapsing.

I was run around in circles constantly having to get new sitreps because around the time the new CO woke up everything started happening at once and I just was doing my best to prevent a marine catastrophic loss.


Ok so to end this massive reply shit fest post...
I acted within my role. Once I realized things were getting out of hand with the zetas and popular marine support began leading to the self-destructive measure of mutiny over it I began looking out for myself and the rest of command by never taking a stance on the destruction of survival of the zetas as to do so would either pit me against the CO or marines. Both of which could've led to bigger events like a mutiny....which at that point in the round would've led to a loss.
My idea, from the second I learned about zetas in research became : Get information and research from them. Dispose if the situation gets out of control.

When the zetas began roaming around and not being sent to the planet my mindset switched to terminate the subjects. Naturally though I can't just say that as the CO ordered otherwise... and I'm trying to avoid starting a mutiny or be the cause of one. I was pleasantly surprised when not only did no mutiny occur, but that I got off scott free from the brig and we won on the Almayer.

[Build_R_]

I was a doctor during that round and let me tell you that there certainly was not enough communication regarding the research xenos, especially from the researchers. The researchers could have told command and maybe medical exactly what they were doing, what they intended to do and how they intended to do it. Instead they shut themselves into research and refused to say anything on comms even to the commander when they came by. They then breeded and released the xenomorphs, putting the cherry on the under-informed cake.

I see that the XO, CO and all of the command staff were under pressure but if they wanted to avoid the wrath of the marines upon the tame xenos they could have easily made a command announcement clarifying the issue such as "We have tamed and bred samples of the black lizards for combat purposes, they will be deployed soon to assist our forces. Don't kill them."

I personally believe that there wouldn't have been an issue if there had simply been more communication between departments and marines. If there was then the marines could have had more reasonable and roleplay-sensible reactions to the tame xenos.

[Denied_Existence]

I was a doctor during that round and let me tell you that there certainly was not enough communication regarding the research xenos, especially from the researchers. The researchers could have told command and maybe medical exactly what they were doing, what they intended to do and how they intended to do it. Instead they shut themselves into research and refused to say anything on comms even to the commander when they came by. They then breeded and released the xenomorphs, putting the cherry on the under-informed cake.

Both the CO and Xo were informed of our rough plans, see above post.

To answer the commentary on us ‘planning’ to breed more, didn’t tell them we were planning to breed them because at the time we didn’t have the IC knowledge that we COULD breed more.
Edit: In addition, we had an MP posted in research throughout; he was watching us create more.

The break out wasn’t long after that and was NOT by research decision. Someone broke in and cut the lockdown thus allowing them to escape and begin roaming the ship. I suspect the marines or CE were responsible. The XO had been into research once and the CO twice, and both gave no requirements on us not proceeding with any area of experimentation.

[Build_R_]

Both the CO and Xo were informed of our rough plans, see above post.

To answer the commentary on us ‘planning’ to breed more, didn’t tell them we were planning to breed them because at the time we didn’t have the IC knowledge that we COULD breed more.
Edit: In addition, we had an MP posted in research throughout; he was watching us create more.

The break out wasn’t long after that and was NOT by research decision. Someone broke in and cut the lockdown thus allowing them to escape and begin roaming the ship. I suspect the marines or CE were responsible. The XO had been into research once and the CO twice, and both gave no requirements on us not proceeding with any area of experimentation.

Surely after the second xenomorph burst you ICly had some sort of idea of how they breed. Also, if there was an MP posted in research throughout, how did someone get in and lift the lockdown on the cages? You were letting very few people into research in the first place so how would someone have broken in? Regardless of all of this, there was still barely anyone informed of the full situation outside of the researchers, the CMO, the XO and the CO. Any one of those people could have told the crew what was going on and put an end to the rumours about breeding xenomorphs.

Additionally, the lower medbay could have used the CMO's assistance with healing people, with an MP watching them I would think that the researchers could carry on with experimentation by themselves.

[Denied_Existence]

Surely after the second xenomorph burst you ICly had some sort of idea of how they breed. Also, if there was an MP posted in research throughout, how did someone get in and lift the lockdown on the cages? You were letting very few people into research in the first place so how would someone have broken in? Regardless of all of this, there was still barely anyone informed of the full situation outside of the researchers, the CMO, the XO and the CO. Any one of those people could have told the crew what was going on and put an end to the rumours about breeding xenomorphs.

Additionally, the lower medbay could have used the CMO's assistance with healing people, with an MP watching them I would think that the researchers could carry on with experimentation by themselves.

As I said, the later part when really quickly. The break in was in the outer lobby of research, and allowed the xenos to get through the doors with force. We were in the middle of trying to train them not to destroy lights when we realized the doors were being opened.

It is reasonable that I should have gone down to check on how surgery was going, but I hadn't heard any requests for my help over the medical channel.

That said, I should have taken it upon myself to make an announcement, but I had hoped that the CO/XO would do so.

[Dolth]

General biased ideas of roleplay and the poor usage of med RP and High RP roles is enough to prevent me from any attempts in teaching 'What is roleplay'. And as much as I know you and like you (which stands for more than 8 years now), you won't be able to force people into an understandish position. Sadly.