Rule Suggestion SCP breaches should have the option of being passive

[CherryBones]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:

I think the rule should be changed to allow SCPs to be passive to foundation personnel. It would provide more interesting scenarios if breached SCPs could choose to be passive without direct GM intervention. Examples such as 912 (who might still want to listen to GSD) or 049 (the old man just wants to go for a walk) could lead to fun RP.

This change would effect the following rules:



Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:

I didn't see a similar suggestion but I could be blind.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):

1. Natural RP. It kind of just happens. With the choice of being passive to foundation personnel it allows players to make split second decisions on who to trust or interact with. It would waive the specification of instantaneous deals and instead include long lasting deals that could evolve into RP.

2. The ability to pretend to be passive could make it so that smart SCPs can just lie. It still falls under the idea of 'natural RP' but allows a different avenue of trying to break out. Manipulation is possible for certain SCPs but isn't often used on the server. Granted, that may be because most people wouldn't trust an SCP, but SCPs also lack any way of doing this other than going back on their instantaneous deals.

3. Someone who's more focused on RP doesn't have to suddenly start killing people if they'd rather not. 912 is a decent example where they're on 912 for a few hours and having fun with interactions. Then suddenly they're breached. What are they supposed to do? Turn on the foundation and ruin the interaction? The ability to be passive gives them the option to do their own thing, possibly trying to hide/lie about the facts they have guns.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:

1. Elongates the breach queue.

2. Getting a GM and E11 auth isn't "that hard".

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:

The first negative is the only thing I worry about. I know changes are being made to SCP game loops and breach queue itself has gone through some changes. I'll be fully transparent that I don't think SCPs should be peaceful to GOC or CI. One wants to kill them, the other wants to use them to kill. I feel like E11 would enjoy the interactions of trying to persuade an SCP into being re-contained rather than having to run at them and die. RsD would benefit from more passive SCPs outside their cell as it makes certain tests easier. Dimensional testing comes to mind because dimensions can't be opened in most SCP's cells.

I personally think the second negative is just to get around the first one. Doing it via GM is the only way not to elongate the queue, but I still think it would be so much better if it just kinda happened. What if 7722 decided not to rampage the foundation today because a test concluded ten minutes before breach and said test ensured him that the entire foundation is holy or something? Possible peak.

 

[CherryBones]

Furthermore I have seen instances of people "passive breaching" but in reality they are just selectively breaching for benefits such as;
- 912 "passive" breaching and not attacking foundation but using his gun on D-Class (FailRP)
- 076 be used as an extra layer of security (FailRP + Teaming)
- 682 being a receptionist (This one is just FailRP and makes no sense)

I don't think people failRPing should be considered when discussing this because people will always be goofy. That's going to keep happening. The only difference is if they're in violation of failRP rule or in violation of passive breaching rules. Either way staff will get called.

The thing I disagree with is them using their breach to "passive" then expecitng everyone to go along with it, they are breached, unauthorised from containment, if they want to walk around the site, then they should work with the staff and people on site to be allowed to roam around, ive already made a ticket for leaving the queue for this

The rule that I made for reference says that foundation actually don't have to respect it. Foundation can say 'fuck you get back in the box'.

6.02(b) Some SCPs are allowed to claim they are passive when they breach, and are not obligated to harm foundation personnel. SCPs are only to be passive to foundation personnel, and cannot team with GOC or CI unless there is a joint initiative between these factions and the foundation. Passive breaches do not need to be respected by site, as it is up to the discretion of the foundation (E11, SA, ect.) on if they want the SCP to have any freedoms.

Most breaches won't change, but it allows the few people who can and will RP to use the unique scenario of 'huh, a containment failure, at this hour?' and waltz site without being rule-bound to be aggressive. Sure, it needs to be workshopped, but allowing passive breaches to happen without needing staff has led to amazing RP in the past.

 

[Evil]

They need to start warning and/or blacklisting player from scp job for passive breaches when they are actually breached, as you're basically fucking over the other players on SCP who are still stuck because you are breached, and during that time, you are halting any breach until you are recontained. In my opinion, it's just selfish.
Unless they change the breach system so SCP time continues even when SCPs are breached, get a GM or the appropriate leadership to handle your passive breach during no-breaches.
-support

 

[Emilia Foddg]

They need to start warning and/or blacklisting player from scp job for passive breaches when they are actually breached, as you're basically fucking over the other players on SCP who are still stuck because you are breached, and during that time, you are halting any breach until you are recontained.

Terrible idea. Hard to enforce, discourages organically occuring RP, very against the spirit of the servers.

In my opinion, it's just selfish.

Saying that wanting to do passive breach RP over regular-ass boring hostile breach #15532 is selfish, is honestly a wild take. What's selfish is demanding that other players play the server the way you want with severe consequences for not doing so.

For some reason, Yeke's point about people trying to get everyone else to go along with the passive breach didn't register with me before, but I agree on that front from the perspective of people trying to force it, them trying to force it being the operative part. I don't think the current approach is the solution.

The rule that I made for reference says that foundation actually don't have to respect it. Foundation can say 'fuck you get back in the box'.

This I think is the correct way of going about it. Give players the opportunity to naturally request it - Note, request, not "try and force." And Foundation get to accept or reject.

If anyone wants to try and bring GMs into the loop to try and make it even better, fine. But I don't think it should be a strict requirement.

Unless they change the breach system so SCP time continues even when SCPs are breached, get a GM or the appropriate leadership to handle your passive breach during no-breaches.

I agree that this shouldn't affect the breach queue and that changes to the breach system are part of the solve.

 

[Evil]

Saying that wanting to do passive breach RP over regular-ass boring hostile breach #15532 is selfish, is honestly a wild take. What's selfish is demanding that other players play the server the way you want with severe consequences for not doing so.

For some reason, Yeke's point about people trying to get everyone else to go along with the passive breach didn't register with me before, but I agree on that front from the perspective of people trying to force it, them trying to force it being the operative part. I don't think the current approach is the solution.

I will explain why it is selfish for the SCP player to do passive breach RP when breach can be done via the breach queue.

1. This still will halt RP as there are still other SCP that are hostile and passively breach happening at the same time, which will only just confuse people and don't usually end well (they become hostile after being shot a billion times)

2. This pauses the breach timer until all scp are RC, including "passive breachers" that actually breached, for example
- John went on 049 and needs to wait 1 hour till he breaches, but then 8837 gets breached and decides to passively breach and proceeds to make a 1-hour wait a 3-4 hour wait, and John has to leave because he has to go to work and wasn't able to have his time to have fun

3. This can cause toxicity issues, which usually end with either 3 paths
1. MTF just murders the SCP without mercy, and SCP and players or people who were RP get butt-hurt for MTF doing their job
2. Half of MTF don't murder SCP, and the other half want to murder the SCP, which will cause issues that can lead to toxicity.
3. In rare cases, mtf will not murder scp (higher telling them not to), which will end up fucking over the other scp players who are waiting for their breach time to be up, only to find it still paused because one individual wants to RP while breach instead of killing like it's supposed to, which can cause toxicity in the long run
I don't care if they do it when not breaching that is fine, but if they breach, they should be killing anyone that is not SCP and shouldn't be playing tea party with researchers.

Terrible idea. Hard to enforce, discourages organically occuring RP, very against the spirit of the servers.

1. How is it hard to enforce? All the staff has to do is literally see if SCP is killing people in front of them or not through spectate.
2. Explain how it will discourage organically occurring RP.

 

[Emilia Foddg]

1. This still will halt RP as there are still other SCP that are hostile and passively breach happening at the same time, which will only just confuse people and don't usually end well (they become hostile after being shot a billion times)

2. This pauses the breach timer until all scp are RC, including "passive breachers" that actually breached, for example
- John went on 049 and needs to wait 1 hour till he breaches, but then 8837 gets breached and decides to passively breach and proceeds to make a 1-hour wait a 3-4 hour wait, and John has to leave because he has to go to work and wasn't able to have his time to have fun

3. This can cause toxicity issues, which usually end with either 3 paths
1. MTF just murders the SCP without mercy, and SCP and players or people who were RP get butt-hurt for MTF doing their job
2. Half of MTF don't murder SCP, and the other half want to murder the SCP, which will cause issues that can lead to toxicity.
3. In rare cases, mtf will not murder scp (higher telling them not to), which will end up fucking over the other scp players who are waiting for their breach time to be up, only to find it still paused because one individual wants to RP while breach instead of killing like it's supposed to, which can cause toxicity in the long run
I don't care if they do it when not breaching that is fine, but if they breach, they should be killing anyone that is not SCP and shouldn't be playing tea party with researchers.

And as outlined by this discussion, the clear intent here is to change the approach from "disallow outright" to "enable in such a way that it's not disruptive to the other players in this manner."

These rule changes/additions came out of nowhere and without any reassurance that were are any plans for content-based avenues to engage in passive breach RP in a way that was fair to other SCP players. To most SCP players, this effectively said to the effect of "No more passive breaches, fuck you. If you really want to passive breach, open a GM ticket and see if they're available/willing to help arrange that. Otherwise, it's hostile or you're getting warnings." The standard rose for valid, yet discouraging reasons.

In a way, this is also kinda unfair to GMs? Even though it's only a couple commands to actually execute a passive breach, now everyone wanting to passive breach MUST go through them and they end up having to judge whether or not it'd be acceptable to allow that to happen based on whether they find the reasoning valid, whether they think the player must use the opportunity to try and disrupt ongoing RP, etc. This isn't a "I want to RP now, let me hit the RP button," this is basically bureaucratising access to RP.

You know,

I did attempt to passive breach the "recommended" way by creating a GM ticket and arranging for a passive breach to occur, admittedly with the malicious intent of acquiring a damning screenshot of "you can't passive breach as 096" and throwing a tantrum about that, but to my surprise, I had a pretty good back and forth about it and in the end, the passive breach as 096 could actually have occurred and generated some interesting RP - But it didn't, due to no-one being able to fulfil the request at the time

Now I'm realising that I did find another issue when I attempted this. The fact that I was given any other response than something along the lines of "sure, if you could wait a moment and we'll be able to do that for you" proves that there's a problem there. It's adding an unnecessary middleman to something that players should generally have easy access to.

How is it hard to enforce? All the staff has to do is literally see if SCP is killing people in front of them or not through spectate.

On the surface, yes. In the moment, you're not easily enforcing this, especially near the start of the breach - Because certain SCPs will have to make specific tactical choices between chasing F trying to draw aggro, trying to draw them to them to kill them or something like breaking a door. This usually applies to the most common breaches, reality benders, 049, 682, especially 035 who is weaker and more focused on not dying.

Obviously you can tell when a breached SCP is very obviously say, ignoring specific people that they could have killed to go for someone else, or is just straight up electing not to kill everyone attacking them and as things are, those specific aspects are enforced just fine, but the deeper nuance is that you cannot neatly and explicitly fit breach gameplay into just "if no killing is happening, SCP is teaming/failRPing." Contrary to the vision of the MRDM blender of how a hostile breach appears to be on the surface, for the most part that's actually not how hostile breach gameplay works.

There are plenty of circumstances where Staff could randomly spectate an ongoing breach and without context, see a moment that could appear to be teaming/failRP on the part of the SCP, without specifically knowing what that SCP is trying to do. I'm sure many false positives like that have happened. And if you want stricter enforcement on it, you'll just get more false positives.
There's also the SCP golden rule:

Do not kill farm. Kill-farming is sitting in a spawn area, e.g. D-Block or MTF Bunks, and repeatedly killing people when they spawn. Most SCPs are not mindless killing machines, remember that you have more objectives than simply killing humans (e.g. escaping to surface, killing specific members, etc).

SCPs explicitly have other objectives than just mindlessly killing everyone. Explicitly rulebinding SCPs to always be aggressive when breaching directly contravenes this idea.

Explain how it will discourage organically occurring RP.

We just had this whole thing about passive breaches. That's the organically occurring RP (if done well and not abused). If all natural breaches are now expressly "go kill everyone or you're teaming/failRPing," you are directly discouraging it. Additionally, you create the impression that there is no room for any RP during a breach, only combat. And having job blacklists as a potential punishment might make people not even want to make the attempt if they stand to lose access to the SCP entirely. God forbid anyone RPs on the RP server.

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The basic premise of this suggestion and discussion is "Hey, we don't think this change was acceptable, and here's why." The outcome does not have to explicitly be "reverse this change and make everything how it was." We've identified the issues with why that's not possible.

I've lost my train of thought, but it was derailing anyway. I think the general point still stands.