Panic Button Roleplay

[Duke]

Hello, 

 

Faction management allegedly recently banned panic button roleplay, the act of a player pressing a button in a business or property in order to alert a security company they're under duress, even though the panic buttons were fully RPed and fitted by technicians working on behalf of the security company.

 

I just wanted to know the reasons behind this and perhaps for other members of the community to pitch in and share what they think of this. Personally I see no reason why this should be banned, they're incredibly common in real life, in homes and in businesses, and don't put thieves at any real disadvantage except they need to complete their task with haste. 

 

The security company's response would be to immediately alert the authorities. 

 

Just to add: Panic buttons aren't only for robberies, but other emergencies too, staff may not always have access to a phone. Panic buttons, their fitting, operation and maintenance provide monumental amounts of RP for security firms and their employees, limiting legal roleplay should be avoided as much as possible I think.

 

I've heard from the grapevine that it was banned due to panic buttons being down to the police which isn't necessarily the case in real life. 

 

Tagged FM/Management @Ethanol @SpawnMatrix @Rukka

Sources for further reading

 

https://www.verisure.co.uk/burglar-alarm/panic-alarm-button

http://www.alarm-monitoring.co.uk/emergency-response

 

Examples of an armed response service provided by a U.S private security companies;

 

https://www.pspsecurity.net/armed-patrol-response-1

 

http://www.electronixsystems.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&page_id=40

 

https://www.acssecurity.com/solutions/central-alarm-monitoring/

 

https://jbmpatrol.com/incident-response.php

Edited June 29, 2019 by Duke

[pateuvasiliu]

I'm glad someone opened a thread so I can tell staff just how moronic banning Panic buttons and telling Securo to go guard nightclubs is. Like do you realise how lame/boring that being 100% of your job is?

 

The Police already gets to do everything else, did you really have to shoehorn another exclusive feature into their hands?

[Duke]

Just now, pateuvasiliu said:

I'm glad someone opened a thread so I can tell staff just how moronic banning Panic buttons and telling Securo to go guard nightclubs is. Like do you realise how lame/boring that being 100% of your job is?

 

The Police already gets to do everything else, did you really have to shoehorn another exclusive feature into their hands?

A very passionate response let's try to keep it civil haha.

 

If the reason was truly because police wanted to deal with panic buttons solely on their own I'm dumbfounded really, emulating realism should be a big priority, PD are involved in panic button activation stemming from robberies anyway, I don't see why they think security companies have nothing to do with panic buttons since most panic buttons are designed to open a connection to an operator working for the security company or a partner company. 

 

Seems a bit of a petty reason.

[JustAnM43]

From what I've seen, SecuroServ had panic buttons in garages and they had, hear this. Motorcycle Response Units. Dudes on sport bikes running around responding to panic alarms which is fucking dumb. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons why the panic button thing got shut down.

 

Other than that, I don't see how the panic button system hurt anyone. Should have stayed. That's my two cents on it.

[Law]

1 minute ago, pateuvasiliu said:

I'm glad someone opened a thread so I can tell staff just how moronic banning Panic buttons and telling Securo to go guard nightclubs is. Like do you realise how lame/boring that being 100% of your job is?

 

The Police already gets to do everything else, did you really have to shoehorn another exclusive feature into their hands?

That’s quite a bold reply when you’re relying on staff to answer your questions seriously. You’ve pointed out the obvious but I think you’re misguided at the fact that police officers and security don’t go hand in hand. Their job is to enforce the law, your job is to observe and prevent.

 

Personally I feel like panic buttons should be allowed if they are roleplayed, managed and moderated well. I don’t see many people having a need for this other than EMS and Security.

[Duke]

1 minute ago, JustAnM43 said:

From what I've seen, SecuroServ had panic buttons in garages and they had, hear this. Motorcycle Response Units. Dudes on sport bikes running around responding to panic alarms which is fucking dumb. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons why the panic button thing got shut down.

 

Other than that, I don't see how the panic button system hurt anyone. Should have stayed. That's my two cents on it.

Does seem a bit silly to be using sport bikes to respond to panic alarms, each to their own though. Arguably motorbikes can lane split and get to a property quicker than a conventional 4x4. 

Just now, Law said:

That’s quite a bold reply when you’re relying on staff to answer your questions seriously. You’ve pointed out the obvious but I think you’re misguided at the fact that police officers and security don’t go hand in hand. Their job is to enforce the law, your job is to observe and prevent.

 

Personally I feel like panic buttons should be allowed if they are roleplayed, managed and moderated well. I don’t see many people having a need for this other than EMS and Security.

Yep, would prevention include security companies attending incidents at their clients' addresses do you think? 

 

I'd say it's up to the company and the employees to use their prerogative if they want to put themselves into harms way to stop a robbery. 

[Mitch]

Panic Alarms have always been outright banned iirc anyway? And where did FM ban it, can't find any public posts about it.

[Duke]

Just now, Mitch said:

Panic Alarms have always been outright banned iirc anyway? And where did FM ban it, can't find any public posts about it.

Not sure, if they were always banned I'd have thought there would be a post about it, I don't think they were.

 

FM allegedly told SecuroServ's CEO to not RP panic alarms anymore. 

[Keane]

For the record I haven't heard of any Faction Management decisions on this as I am in another subteam. I had no input on a decision if there was one made. I will however give my opinion on the topic based on what I know.

 

There isn't any scripted panic alarm system, so it falls under the powergaming rule. All of the involved parties have to agree to anything that does not exist scriptwise to be used. It's like me roleplaying a gun that I do not actually have. If there was a command and script support for panic alarms it would be fine. Inventory items using /createitem don't count. I'll use the gun example again. I can't /createitem a gun and use it to RP shooting people.

 

The method SecuroServ was using falls under metagaming too. Each panic alarm was posted in a Discord channel. Discord is completely OOC so each person responding to the panic alarm and posting in the channel should have technically been ajailed for metagaming. The only approved IC Discord channels are pagers for the LSPD and the LSFD. Unless you have approval from FM and admin supervision, IC Discord channels should not exist. 

 

I recommend making a suggestion in the appropriate forum to get a proper panic alarm system in place that is fair for all players involved.

 

[Duke]

Just now, Keane said:

For the record I haven't heard of any Faction Management decisions on this as I am in another subteam. I had no input on a decision if there was one made. I will however give my opinion on the topic based on what I know.

 

There isn't any scripted panic alarm system, so it falls under the powergaming rule. All of the involved parties have to agree to anything that does not exist scriptwise to be used. It's like me roleplaying a gun that I do not actually have. If there was a command and script support for panic alarms it would be fine. Inventory items using /createitem don't count. I'll use the gun example again. I can't /createitem a gun and use it to RP shooting people.

 

The method SecuroServ was using falls under metagaming too. Each panic alarm was posted in a Discord channel. Discord is completely OOC so each person responding to the panic alarm and posting in the channel should have technically been ajailed for metagaming. The only approved IC Discord channels are pagers for the LSPD and the LSFD. Unless you have approval from FM and admin supervision, IC Discord channels should not exist. 

 

I recommend making a suggestion in the appropriate forum to get a proper panic alarm system in place that is fair for all players involved.

 

I don't know what conversations SecuroServ's CEO had with FM, but apparently permission was gained for the panic button discord channels prior to panic buttons being banned.

 

SecuroServ would also use a dedicated radio channel for customers to relay panic alarms in game. I don't think it's fair to say using something not scripted can be perceived as powergaming, although that's a minor technicality in this case and pushing a panic button doesn't force any RP onto the character robbing the store in the same way RPing shooting them with a non-existent gun would. 

 

I'm sure police officers use panic buttons on their radios when in danger, although not scripted or existent script-wise they are still allowed to do so because we know that police-issued radios have panic buttons on them in real life, we have to make exceptions where the scripting hasn't caught up. to avoid powergaming all together the panic button could be RPly pressed and the thief asked in /do if anything would prevent that.