blackdragon - Moderator Application

[Schalkguy]

Just gonna ask a couple example questions.

A player asks to jailbreak someone out of the brig because what they did was very minor and the MPs were abusive in the arrest, how would you handle this?

A queen ahelps saying that several xeno players have been directly refusing her orders. What do you tell the queen, and how do you resolve the situation?

A nurse has deployed to the FOB, they aren't exactly at the front, but they are armed and pressing themselves against the cade. Do you intervene? If so what do you tell them, and if not at what point should you jump in?

After you handle an issue over IE and decide to place a 3 hour ban, the player who made the report PMs you and asked what happened. What do you tell the player?


And to answer your questions command staff at are a very high level or rp expectations. Anyoen giving the briefing should be expected to know the lore and rules to at least this basic extent. If a marine says something like this that's something minor to inform them about, especially if they are new. If the XO does this at brief it's a much bigger violation.

[Schalkguy]

Also survivors are not allowed to be hostile without staff permission* If you get a report about hostile survivors you should definitely investigate at the least.

*https://discord.com/channels/1503155...38472272502865

[ito726]

2 questions from me.

I would like to hear what happened from your POV with your EORG ban from (approx 1 week ago). Why did you shoot, or why did you think it was ok to shoot, and what lead up to it.

For the xeno lrp memes question as a followup, when you told the queen they may banish, what would you do if the queen doesn't take measures, or does not wish to banish?

[VagabondZro79]

I'm going too keep my point short and sweet because everybody else has asked you questions that I would have asked.
I want to know your view on what should stay In Character and what should be handled Out of Character.
You as a moderator if you are accepted will have to know the line on what needs to be done.
Not every situation can be done In Character, your job as a moderator does entail for you to actually moderate.
You can't fully focus on the aspects of RP.

However, it is good to see that you are willing to try and improve the current environment of Role Play.

[blackdragon]

Just gonna ask a couple example questions.

A player asks to jailbreak someone out of the brig because what they did was very minor and the MPs were abusive in the arrest, how would you handle this?

A queen ahelps saying that several xeno players have been directly refusing her orders. What do you tell the queen, and how do you resolve the situation?

A nurse has deployed to the FOB, they aren't exactly at the front, but they are armed and pressing themselves against the cade. Do you intervene? If so what do you tell them, and if not at what point should you jump in?

After you handle an issue over IE and decide to place a 3 hour ban, the player who made the report PMs you and asked what happened. What do you tell the player?


And to answer your questions command staff at are a very high level or rp expectations. Anyoen giving the briefing should be expected to know the lore and rules to at least this basic extent. If a marine says something like this that's something minor to inform them about, especially if they are new. If the XO does this at brief it's a much bigger violation.

Thank you for the follow up questions and your continued interest.

A player asks to jailbreak someone out of the brig because what they did was very minor and the MPs were abusive in the arrest, how would you handle this?

This requires a lot more information than is immediately available. Is the charge actually minor? Were the MPs were being abusive and upping charges? Depending on circumstances, that might be a side talk with them about marine law (but that’s a splinter that leads away from the question.) Is this before first drop? As with the recent announcement, minor antag roles can be given out, but they should know that they would still have to follow the server rules and would be liable to be brigged for jailbreak if caught. If they didn’t want to risk perma themselves, I would politely ask them to not self-antag.

A queen ahelps saying that several xeno players have been directly refusing her orders. What do you tell the queen, and how do you resolve the situation?

Tell them that The Queen can banish Xenos who fail to follow orders. And xenos that are banished can be attacked and can’t retaliate. To my knowledge this is the primary purpose of Banish (Similar to CO’s BE) and is used to make sure that xenos follow standards and expectations of xeno RP under threat of being removed from the round. Depending on how “directly” this is, bwoinking the xenos to remind them that they have expectations to follow the queens orders would be a good option. This could range from people telling the queen to fuck off in hivemind to someone just silently roaming, which would require different handling depending on the extremes.

A nurse has deployed to the FOB, they aren't exactly at the front, but they are armed and pressing themselves against the cade. Do you intervene? If so what do you tell them, and if not at what point should you jump in?

I feel this is missing a lot of context for this situation. Does the nurse have permission to deploy? Is the FOB under attack/breached? Is the Nurse still doing their duties by deploying medication? Are they still within the “safe area”? But this feels like it’s creeping into Combat Medic territory and they shouldn’t be positioned near danger. If xenos are on the cades he should be backing up out of harms way and dealing with medical issues first and foremost.

After you handle an issue over IE and decide to place a 3 hour ban, the player who made the report PMs you and asked what happened. What do you tell the player?

Moderators shouldn’t openly talk about administrative actions. Thus, I would not go into any significant detail beyond, “It was handled.”


If you'd like to talk about these further I'd be happy to, especially as there is a lot of forks that each of these scenarios could go based on what was happening in game. Also thank you for the follow up clarification.

[blackdragon]

2 questions from me.

Hello! Thank you for your questions! I’ll do my best to answer.

I would like to hear what happened from your POV with your EORG ban from (approx 1 week ago). Why did you shoot, or why did you think it was ok to shoot, and what lead up to it.

Certainly, this is a lengthy story so I apologize for the wall of text you’re probably seeing below.

So, this began as most normal rounds do for Corporate Liaisons. Meaning not a whole lot going on at the start and it turns out that you have to make your own fun. I head to the CiC to see if any of the command staff want to talk, sign paperwork, etc. This turned out to be one of the many instances where the XO has little interest in responding to you beyond short answers. I take the hint and move on. I head to the IO office to see if they need anything. This is a little different as every time I ask if the IO needs help, he yells at me to get out of the room. Fine, I’ll go somewhere else. Check out medical, everyone’s happy down there no help needed. Then eventually I hit research and not much is needed there but the Researcher is chummy so I hang out a bit more (This is where the tangible beginnings starts). Decide the best course of action is to ask if botany is taken (it wasn’t) and ask for permission to use it (It was given.) So I decide to grow.

Using golden apples from the start, I split off into 12 golden apple trees and start handing out golden apples to the crew. I have so many golden apples that I put ~200 of them in the hangar/medbay for players to take freely. Just trying to help out. During the many back and forths between handing stuff out and helping where I can, the researcher calls me over to my office. He asks to shut the shutters and talk. He decides to give me spare materials he has from the research, including extract from the eggs, chems from the planet and an egg. As an employee of W-Y who would be very happy to have The Company’s hands on these things, of course I accept. I put it away and we leave my office and I head back to farming apples for the marines.

During my next trip up, I find the CMP in my doorway and I ask if I can help with anything. They explain that they’re searching my office. I ask on what grounds. They respond: “Sedition”. I blue screen for a moment and then acknowledge that but ask on what grounds. They again respond “Sedition”. I get the feeling one of the MPs might have meta-gamed something because they saw someone go into my office and made very strong assumptions. That’s a whole other discussion but I had no way to prove anything so I let it slide. I ask the CMP again the reason for the search that isn’t just stating a crime. The CMP threatens to have me arrested for resisting a search. I get on the radio and ask the CO (who is awake by this time) if he put out an order to arrest me. CMP and the gathered MPs then have a hem/haw about “Well actually we said search not arrest. That’s very different.” An SEA shows up for a fairly random reason. SEA asks whats going on, CMP simply states “Sedition.”

I am told that I am resisting the search while on comms with the CO to understand what and why this is happening and am pepper sprayed, and drug out (I was sitting in my chair and had not moved). At this point I’m fairly angry at the USCM for letting this all happen and all of the help I had worked on giving them earlier has gone out the window. CMP searches anyway, finds egg and says “Proof of sedition.” I am placed under arrest, cuffed and pulled out, on the way out I am informed that I am under arrest for resisting arrest. As we’re leaving the SEA says: “That’s not sedition, that’s contraband at best.” We leave for the brig.

We arrive at the brig for processing and the MPs are going through my fax folder. One of which was talking about new chem vendors. An MP pointedly asks “What does this mean, ‘The USCM will foot the bill’”. I have to explain that the researcher had earlier run out of power and wanted more machines to make chems faster. I offered to see if we could acquire more from The Company and sell them to let the researcher work, and that was the fax for it. CMO even gave verbal consent. We do this for every fax I sent where I asked for help to better the conditions on the ship. And I have to justify that me trying to help wasn’t trying to usurp or undermine authority. So, I’m sitting here watching the MPs claw and scratch for reasons to execute me for sedition. I ask immediately for an appeal to the provost as I know this isn’t sedition in the least. These MPs are convinced however and assume that I’m doing something to backstab the marines. Depending on how things go with the provost, I am very much no longer interested in helping the USCM. Side note: as none of my faxes during the round we’re answered I also assumed that a provost fax would not be answered either and my execution was likely to be asked for. Either the fax was never sent or it never got a reply. That wouldn’t matter in a few minutes however….

Hijack time! I still haven’t been fully processed, nor any appeals filed so I am escorted to the pods by two MPs to escape the ship before the worst happens. We get to the pods, punch out, were gone. All three of us are out of the round and nothing we can do will affect it. First MP cryos out the gate. Second one hangs around and RPs. I’m hashing out to her why this is all a travesty IC. She nods. She ends up uncuffing me and asking if I smoke, so I check my jacket to share my smokes as I talk about the difference between sedition, contraband, area search rules, etc etc. While in this RP I check my jacket and see that they left my shoulder holster on, and I have my pistol. I realize that if we are the only survivors of the incident, that I will be brought back, executed for sedition, and The Company labeled as at fault for it. Not only is my life in danger but this is directly against the interests of the company and incredibly dangerous to the W-Y reputation. The last fax that I had sent was asking W-Y directly for immediate assistance. Even though meta I knew no one was answering faxes, I still ICly act as if they went somewhere. So in that moment I decided that I needed to protect W-Y as best I could from a potential massive scandal as well as my life. Trusting that W-Y would send a ship to pick me up first, I reached into my jacket while continuing the RP, offering her the high-quality cigarettes as she complained about her job and how difficult it was. At this moment the round ends. She remarks that searches are difficult to go through. I nod and say that I agree, and verbally state that the more important example of that is that my suit has a shoulder holster with a Mk 88 in it. Which I then take out and mag dump into her. Assuming that W-Y picks me up first, the secret is safe with me. I RP shooting the guy in the cryo tank and hang out until the ban happens.

That is the first and only time I have ever deliberately shot anyone. It was during an RP that I felt flowed into that action being justified for the character. Even though I pulled a Burke, I contacted the player on discord after to make sure that she knew that it was an IC thing and not an OOC attempt to just be a shitter. A snip from that:



After which, we joked and talked about our round experiences and the stories we were making. Honestly, I think they’re a champ and probably one of the better MPs I’ve ever had to interact with. What went down was 100% RP and was not in any way an OOC event. Does it fall under EORG? Given that the round ended just before I shot her, yes it does. Do I think I should have been given the ban? Absolutely. While I think it sucks to get, there’s a zero-tolerance policy on EORGs and even if I had (what felt like) a very solid RP justification for it, it still fell under EORG and so I took the 3h on the chin. In the end though it was the cap for a really awesome story for the both of us and we both enjoyed the ending, which in my eyes makes for a cool little moment that affected no other player on the server.

For the xeno lrp memes question as a followup, when you told the queen they may banish, what would you do if the queen doesn't take measures, or does not wish to banish?

Taking the previous feedback to heart, I do think a message to the xenos and notes are good steps and should solve it on the offender’s end, as if it continues the solution to that is punishment escalation.

[blackdragon]

I'm going too keep my point short and sweet because everybody else has asked you questions that I would have asked.
I want to know your view on what should stay In Character and what should be handled Out of Character.
You as a moderator if you are accepted will have to know the line on what needs to be done.
Not every situation can be done In Character, your job as a moderator does entail for you to actually moderate.
You can't fully focus on the aspects of RP.

However, it is good to see that you are willing to try and improve the current environment of Role Play.

For what it’s worth, while I said that I prefer IC resolutions, I absolutely don’t think that only IC punishment/actions should exist. I completely agree that OOC things need to be handled on an OOC basis by staff and taken care of appropriately. If people are breaking the server rules, that’s clearly something that needs to be handled OOC. If someone accidentally shoots someone, and the MPs arrest him, he’s already going to be undergoing a small 15-20 minute “ban” by virtue of being brigged for that time, and in many rounds if this is around the first drop, this could mean they’re out for the entirety of this round or at least the majority of it.

The easiest and most clear definition of IC vs OOC rules and punishment is that if it’s handled by Marine Law, it’s probably fine to be IC (otherwise, why have it on marine law and not an immediate ahelp for admin action if we didn’t want MPs to handle it?) If it’s in the server rules, that’s clearly OOC and should be handled as such.

As mentioned in regards to the first question in the questionnaire: if someone shoots someone once on accident and is arrested, that’s an IC punishment for fucking up. If they mag dump someone, that’s clearly an actionable grief.

[SimMiner]

A player randomly shoots someone at round start and MPs have detained him.

Check logs and observe. The actions happened in game and are being handled in game by the pre-existing systems. It could have been an accident, or it could have even been a deliberate silent shooter so observation is the best way to figure out what happened. If the MPs are handling the situation it's best to let that play out rather than interfere in a player's gameplay.

Good, but you'll need to follow up on combat logs to make sure if its Proper or Improper Escalation.

You see a player walking around the ship naked and clearly lost at roundstart.

If I am in game, I would do my best to ask if they needed help, and guide them through the gear up process for new players. If I don't have a bigger job to do, I might even offer to pal around with them and show them the ropes of how to get into the primary gameloop (if only to die dramatically as a woyer drags me off into the darkness, leaving the new guy terrified and alone).

If I am not in game, I would likely direct a mentor or active SEA to where the player was, that way any interactions feel organic rather than bwoinking someone and making something that could be taught ICly, and turning it into an OOC thing.

First time experiences are very important for new players. Having something memorable and organic will bring them back to play more rounds rather than bounce off of the opaque difficulty that SS13 inherently brings.

Great answer, though sometimes a bwoink is necessary to expedite things, just depends on what the situation needs.

You see a Xeno memeing, saying AYYLMAO, REEEEEE etc in hivemind chat, as well as insulting the Queen.

Allow the Queen to handle it as best she can. If it becomes a serious problem, inform the queen that she can banish.

While this works in the common situations. There will come occasions where you'll have to XOOC to the general Xeno populace or give individual warnings to players that take things too far.

Why would you like to become a moderator?

I'd really like to help the RP experience out as best I can. For example: CL is feast or famine based on if you have someone to answer faxes or not. As someone who is working on forms and faxes for the community document I feel that offering fax responses more frequently will lead to better RP and a better round experience.

Honestly, I think we need more staff who are more Roleplay minded then usual.



While most of your answers are very IC oriented, the harsh reality is that IC resolutions are sometimes too complicated and time consuming to implement effectively and keep the gears of justice turning smoothly. But the fact you want to put things IC first, demonstrates how committed you are to the Roleplay aspect of Colonial Marines.


I have done faxing for Frank Armstrong and have seen you play in game, you hold your RP to a higher standard then the common CM player and you have both carried out and been trusted to tasks that would not have necessarily been in your best interest, but were fitting to your role or your character.

Your knowledge and/or expectations might be out of touch in places, but your heart is definitely in the right place; and to me, that is one of the most critical aspects of the job. In addition, there's nothing that your lacking which can't be ironed out during training and the occasional drilling from your peers.

You have my +1

[ito726]

While there are some flaws in some of your answers, they are ok and ive overall been persuaded to go with a +1 this time round.

I am willing to entirely overlook the recent note, i feel the explanation is good, and logs do seem to back it up. Otherwise, you have a clean record in the past 6 months.

You seem to have made a very good impression with a few staff that you seem to have interacted more with, especially on the RP front.

[blackdragon]

Thank you both for the votes of confidence! As always if there's things you feel could be worded better, by all means let me know so I can adjust accordingly. Reading through peoples feedback gives me more angles to view a problem from and that's something I appreciate.