TheSenate

So the statistic that was alarming to us when I first got involved with the faction back in March/April 2023 was long-term retention. We'd get around 8-10 applicants, send about 4-5 to the academy, and retain almost nobody beyond that. This was before any changes to the training system when academies were still required. The only person who stayed up to the point of this initial review in about April was Sage Fowler, who has been with us since. Not a single other recruit stuck around past probation in that time period. The period in review was Jan 2023-April 2023 for reference. Compare that to the last four months (Nov 2023 - Feb 2024), we have retained 11 people so far, 8 of whom are off probation and have moved on to further training, and the 3 most recently hired in late January are still on probation. Of those 8 who have been retained and are off probation, 3 are already AEMTs, 1 is a paramedic, 3 are AEMT students, and 1 is a paramedic student in the final stages of training. That is a massive improvement by comparison. 2 of the current AEMTs are also paramedic students. It is also important to keep in mind when interpreting this information that we make it very clear to people that the training is at their pace, not everyone rushes their sign-offs and ride-alongs and that is purely by choice. EDIT: Missed your question about field deployment. The answer is 0 days, we put people into the field immediately and use a field training model where they learn as they go, both on actual calls and back at the station.

This is factually incorrect when it comes to our retention rate. Before the changes in the first few months of 2023, we retained -1- member recruited in that time period (Sage Fowler). After those changes our retention rate has improved from that baseline fairly remarkably and we have gained a fair amount of active members who have stuck around. If anything we've made an effort to simplify and streamline things for the reality of the server while still keeping an appropriate amount of realism in the mix because this is a heavy roleplay server. We do not require people to get anywhere close to the degree of knowledge you'd require to become an EMT or Paramedic in real life, we have never asked anyone to learn about the Kreb cycle or acid-base balance, or other complex anatomy and physiology because it is simply unnecessary for the server. In fact we actually reduced the EMT scope of practice to make it easier to learn, removing items that were previously included in it so the experience would be streamlined. LSFD has always used OPAs and NPAs so long as I have interacted with them going all the way back to my time in LSSD in 2020, along with every other medical faction and division including LSPD SWAT, LSSD ESD, and PHMC. EDIT: EMTs in the US require roughly 180 hours of education and paramedics get at least 1216 (from my own experience). Having seen people do our checklists in a matter of days through regular activity, I can confidently say nobody is putting in even close to 180 hours to get their EMT or paramedic on this server. Double Edit: This is also the same reason we recently brought back AEMT, to provide a simplified alternative to a full-blown paramedic that is in line with the reality of the server.

Echoing this as the LSFD/County EMS Medical Director. A lot has changed with the LSFD in the last year and while I understand a lot of people had negative experiences in the past with having a ton of questions thrown at them about vital signs. We focus very little on vital signs these days and we encourage EMTs/Paramedics to read the room and determine what level of interaction the patient is looking for. Some patients clearly are uninterested and just want to be thrown on the gurney with the bare minimum being performed on scene and rapidly transported off to PHMC, others offer up a lot more details and are a lot more engaged so we encourage our EMTs/Medics to do more for them. Personally I try to limit my questioning to the following with most patients (if I can't figure it out just based on how they're acting/presenting) What am I looking at? (If it isn't obvious) Are you conscious? (I want to know if I can talk/interact with you in dialogue, a medium most players understand unlike being spammed in /me or /do) Are you alive? Are you stable/unstable (Once again, only to be asked if this isn't obvious through your roleplay) Nobody should be sitting on scene for 45 minutes asking "What is your heart rate? 60-100 is normal!" or "What is your BP? 120/80 is normal!". That's painful for everyone involved, it slows the scenes down, and it has admittedly left some people with a sour taste in their mouth when it comes to medical roleplay. Ideally, we want people to be conscious whenever possible and engage with us through dialogue, we want to bring the roleplay to a place that the majority of players can participate and enjoy. EDIT: PHMC and all other EMS providers on the server are held to the same standards, all EMS activities are regulated by the LSFD for the purpose of keeping everyone on the same page operationally and to keep the experience consistent for players. The biggest thing we want to avoid is EMS roleplay becoming too slow or too painful because people might fall back on more classic methods that involve excessive questioning.

We don't run an academy anymore and we haven't for almost the last year, we only require people to learn via field training and occasional classroom stuff when we aren't getting back-to-back calls. You immediately get to jump in and start roleplaying with the faction as a probie, there isn't weeks worth of delays waiting for an academy like in the past. EDIT: PHMC also uses pretty much the same system.

Def not against the concept of a script, but it'd have to be well-made and tailored to giving everyone a role, prehospital providers, hospital providers, and patients. SS13 had a lot of really cool ones with limb damage, dynamic vitals, loads of drugs, radiological imaging, and surgery. That would take a ton of work from the devs side though and it would likely be prone to bugs.

I'm not against the concept of a medical script if it was well made, like a lot of SS13 servers have solid ones (albeit with a lot of fictional tech but that could be adapted) that give roles to prehospital and hospital providers. ACE is somewhat of a poor example though imho, it's generally inaccurate and only focuses on prehospital care. Showing up on scene and getting hit with /b "GIVE ME IV, SALINE, AND MORPHINE TO HEAL!!" would get old quick, at least the current system of roleplaying out injuries we get some level of variety.

Humans are social creatures and like everyone else here has said, you aren't going to get around the fact that the most enjoyable aspect of GTAW is the social aspect. For me personally that has always meant connecting my character to a business or faction, I did LEO roleplay for a number of years on SAMP/MTA and then GTAW, these days I stick to EMS. While LEO roleplay can be a ton of fun and you'll have a lot of opportunities to make connections with other players and create IC friendships for your character, it also comes with a lot of OOC baggage. I used to deal with admins on pretty much a daily basis as an LEO in some capacity, usually in instances where a player is unhappy with the outcome of a situation and is demanding one on the spot, often resulting in the scene being paused while the admin figures things out. Now I deal with them far less often, yes we still stumble upon paused scenes here and there, but because they seldom involve us directly, we are often allowed to excuse ourselves. As someone who spent years doing LEO roleplay near-exclusively, I find EMS to be a wonderful virtual retirement gig that offers me a lot of opportunities to make IC connections and to interact with a broad spectrum of different types of players (legal, illegal, etc) ICly in a non-hostile manner. I'm nobody's enemy. That being said, for those who haven't tried LEO roleplay before, I encourage them to do so, they'll either love it and it will be like a whole new game, or they won't and they'll know to move on and try something else. Also important to note all of the LEO factions offer different flavors of the LEO experience, don't judge them all based on one experience.

I’m fine with this as a member of FD. Car fires are usually very low stakes and we typically have better things to be doing. People need to remember that due to the dual role function of the fire department, we don’t always have the resources to respond to car fires even if we appear to have the numbers. It isn’t laziness so much as it is the fact we have limited resources and because Fire and EMS on this server are merged, focusing on one takes resources away from the other. That means even more R99 and NPC’d medical calls, all so we can go snuff out a fire that is going to go out on its own anyways. Full disclaimer however, I say this as someone who’s a lot more interested in the medical side of things in the faction. I am a dual role FF/Paramedic in the faction, but I place a lot more emphasis on the paramedic part. I’m happy to roleplay on fire scenes where we have players to interact with, but that isn’t really the case with car fires. And in my opinion if we have the choice between providing roleplay to a player directly (in the form of medical aid or some other scene) or going to a car fire, I’m going to the scene where a real player is actively involved.

Sometimes the most unique thing you can do on this server is be as normal as possible.

Just to point something out. Technically all sworn LEOs in California are sworn at the "state" level, meaning your status as a peace officer doesn't simply disappear because you happen to be in another agency's primary jurisdiction. So even if you're a cop from a small town on the far end of whatever county and you happen to witness a crime after dropping someone off at the county jail, far outside of your normal jurisdiction, you can still intervene and detain that suspect on scene, hence the legality of using units from other towns or counties as "mutual aid". This is not an ability that is totally unique to state agencies like CSP, CHP, California DOJ, or CDCR. And, just because an agency happens to funded and supported by the state, does not mean they simply patrol "anywhere". The state has specific areas in mind they want those agencies to focus on, areas they know are underserved by local agencies, or areas they know they can pull revenue from by issuing tickets (which is the level of interaction most Californians have with CHP). Our highways are busy and truthfully I rarely see CHP outside of them unless they're transporting a suspect somewhere or on a lunch break. There are times they're called in as mutual aid by local agencies, but they spend the vast majority of their time sitting at construction sites on the highway, doing speed traps, and doing traffic investigations for the 9,999th fender bender of the day on I-5. Personally, I think for aesthetic reasons it would be cool to see CHP in some capacity, but I also am fearful of what it would turn into in reality. Just like how many rangers have gotten bored with an opted to abandon the parks for the county, I can absolutely see an SAHP faction using every excuse to pile their units up in the city. If it does happen, I don't think it should just be SAPR morphing into SAHP, I think SAHP should be a very small faction (smaller than SAPR) representing a local sub station.

I answered that in my original post, it is all in the opinion of the faction leadership, if you think they are acting unreasonably or you can make an argument as to why your portrayal wasn't unrealistic, you should appeal to LFM. However, the provision exists as a quality control so faction leaders can remove members who hurt the public appearance of their faction.

Dude, I'm a faction leader, I'm speaking from direct experience here when I say that they either give you guidelines or direct advice. We don't always consult them for every single case, but the blessing to remove people for portrayal comes from LFM and it is based on the guidance provided either in writing or based on previous precedent. And once again, a lot of people will have differing opinions on what is and is not realistic. However, certain people do possess enough knowledge and/or experience to make those kinds of judgement calls, some people here are real cops, real paramedics and EMTs, real firefighters, etc. Speaking from my own experience, you can certainly pick out certain things from people here that a real first responder would never do or say, I won't give a specific example here, lest I be punished for unintentional faction bashing. But I can assure you that certain behaviors go beyond human variability and into the realm of making it abundantly clear that the player has absolutely no idea how to portray their role.

Portrayal concerns are rather straight-forward in the context of being part of a faction. If the character you're portraying is not realistic or at the very least feasible, then that is when you risk termination depending on how strict the faction is. Roleplaying is basically casual acting, and joining a faction is like auditioning for a particular role, if you aren't fulfilling their expectations for the role, then that is when people can start considering that poor portrayal. Now of course, you could bring your case to any random two or three people and almost everyone would have a different take on it, because every faction leader has different expectations. However, at the end of the day, I can speak from experience here and say that whenever anybody who gets fired for portrayal issues, it was usually run by their LFM first, or it met a specific set of criteria the faction leader was given awhile back.

Paramedic & Paramedic Student applications are now OPEN. Postions are limited, apply today! https://phmc.gta.world/viewforum.php?f=168 Program Information: Our program was founded earlier this year in response to the growing demands of the 9-1-1 system with the goal of providing Los Santos with the best prehospital emergency care possible. We exclusively provide advanced life support services as all of our employees are either licensed paramedics or paramedic students working under the supervision of accredited paramedic preceptors. Individuals with and without experience or prior credentials are welcome to apply, as we take pride in offering the most comprehensive paramedic training program available in Los Santos County. If you have any questions regarding the this posting or the program, please reach out to our Program Medical Director, Doctor Elizabeth Miller at [email protected] ((forum PMs)). (( This program was founded by people with real world experience working in EMS. We are welcoming of people from all walks of life and understand that jumping straight in on the path toward becoming an ALS provider can be daunting. Rest assured, you wouldn't be the first, and certainly will not be the last to achieve this goal. We will invest as much as we need into you in order to see you succeed, please do not let nervousness discourage you from applying and trying it out! ))

100% agree. If you get too deep into the community, it can seriously become a part-time or even full-time job, which isn't very healthy at all. This is why I personally have never believed in holding members who aren't in some position of power or responsibility to an activity requirement to be part of a faction. GTAW is a game, and like any other game you should be able to pick it up and play when you want, or not. Take some time off to do other stuff and play other games.