The future of medical roleplay

[Alyssa McCarthy]

8 minutes ago, queenie said:

Maybe the implementation of a more organised medical school at ULSA and resident doctors working in Pillbox to beef up the number of people active in the hospital on a daily basis. Illnesses also might be a good addition. Maybe to tie illegal rpers into it too, we could have Medicare fraud scripts, maybe for prescription fraud schemes the applicant might need to have a registered doctor involved in order for it to get accepted. I'm happy to see this area being expanded on because I've always been interested in rping around it.

 

Hi there!

We have tried in the past to create a med school at ULSA, but recruiting physicians with the interest to setup and run the project was very difficult. 

If there are players willing to put in the time/effort to set such up, I'm more than happy to have a chat and work with you to help set either a small clinic, and/or med school, or even just manage our pharmacy. It just it requires a player(s) who are fairly active and has the knowledge to manage a project of this nature.

As for residencies, with the multifaction script now working, we do have some players who do just this, so if you want to player who's got the best of two factions, then by all means, it's something ourselves and PHMC can probably help facilitate.

Seminars - If you're playing a physician, and want to do something a little different than hands on medical RP, consider reaching out and asking to use one of our lecture halls to give a public seminar - we can maybe help out with security for your event and by making it public, you'll attract a more diverse group of people than just students!

 

Overall, if we can help with medical RP, we're more than willing to ❤️

[ClaudeSpeed]

- Maybe revive pharmacies and make them have a use script wise to players, this can benefit both legal and illegal players. 
- if LFM is looking for complex scripts, then I would recommend that players can get certain sicknesses(flue, normal sickness that would probably lower health regeneration) for more variety of RP in hospitals. So far i only see accidents and gunshot related rp in hospitals and nothing unique. 

 

If there's no way to force players to get medical attention then i doubt hospital RP will be effective, it never was over the past few years.
 

[Barbary]

Look at the end of the day, the core of the problem is that an extremely large portion of the player base ultimately sees medical RP as an obstacle. Something they have to grit and bare through until they can return to whatever they actually want to be doing. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality. The only way we can improve medical RP as a whole is give people active reasons to engage, participate and enjoy it.

 

Problem is that unless it's something that gives a script advantage, I doubt people will do it. Which is kind of depressing when you think about it.

Edited February 15 by Barbary

[Paenymion]

Main issue in my mind:

 

1) Heavy focus on realism in treatments doesn't match what most players want.

 

Ok I know, you love medical RP and you are a doctor/medic/in medical school in RL and that's AWESOME.  But the fact is, most of the players are not.  They just got shot in a scene that will probably be voided anyway.  They do not want long emotes with excessive detail.  They don't wanna lay there answering questions they know NOTHING about.  Is your leg fracture a compound fracture or the other type.  Do the pupils dilate?  They didn't ASK to be shot because they love medical RP.  All they want is a sensible and reasonable conclusion to the situation of being shot - which most of the time is a bit of simple RP treatment in the street and then to be driven to hospital.

 

Suggestion:  Have one medical faction dedicated to detail and realistic medical RP (PHMC?).  Convert another one to being more "movie style", where yes they do RP at a scene but the main focus is to actually /ATTEND/ and whisk people away to hospital....therefore providing an actual conclusion to shooting scenes that isn't just NPCing it.  This faction might become popular as it would be more action style and less academic.  If people DO want the detailed RP, they could specifically request PHMC, who also have ambulances and can come and engage with you.  Everyone wins.

 

[Mjaf]

2 hours ago, Red Reika said:

A possible heavy script suggestion along with some rules changes in the process, but hey, a suggestion either way, won't hurt to drop it.

Here it goes:

Working a script where every time you're PK'd, you'll take permanent damage to your health that can only be recovered after a (script-based) medical treatment at a medical facility to recover your health to the regular full, where people will have to schedule and attend.

That'd tackle two problems at the same time, reducing reckless glorified DM'ing and giving medical roleplay some more importance. If you add costs to the medical treatment, then you also add another money sink to avoid inflation, so even better.

This is a great idea! It would allow a player to continue if nobody is online at PHMC at the time, but appointments can be made for doctors appointments, surgical appointments, aftercare etc.

 

The more times PKed, the worse the injuries. Adding elements of randomly falling down due to lost balance, being forced into a coughing animation, vision going blur and wobbley etc with increase probabilities of happening as higher levels of injuries are accumulated. 

 

This could also be added as part of an addition to the drug and alcohol script. Add vomiting, blurred vision,  passing out, after a alcohol binge. 

 

Don't make people pay for emergeny care, but make them pay to remove long term injuries and surgeries. 

[primera dama]

1 minute ago, Paenymion said:

Main issue in my mind:

 

1) Heavy focus on realism in treatments doesn't match what most players want.

 

Ok I know, you love medical RP and you are a doctor/medic/in medical school in RL and that's AWESOME.  But the fact is, most of the players are not.  They just got shot in a scene that will probably be voided anyway.  They do not want long emotes with excessive detail.  They don't wanna lay there answering questions they know NOTHING about.  Is your leg fracture a compound fracture or the other type.  Do the pupils dilate?  They didn't ASK to be shot because they love medical RP.  All they want is a sensible and reasonable conclusion to the situation of being shot - which most of the time is a bit of simple RP treatment in the street and then to be driven to hospital.

 

Suggestion:  Have one medical faction dedicated to detail and realistic medical RP (PHMC?).  Convert another one to being more "movie style", where yes they do RP at a scene but the main focus is to actually /ATTEND/ and whisk people away to hospital....therefore providing an actual conclusion to shooting scenes that isn't just NPCing it.  This faction might become popular as it would be more action style and less academic.  If people DO want the detailed RP, they could specifically request PHMC, who also have ambulances and can come and engage with you.  Everyone wins.

 

 

Seconding this.

Every time I get myself into some medical RP due to a car crash or gunshot or whatever, it feels nice to give them some RP... but god, I regret it immediately. Thanks for the details you guys put into your RP, but I don't understand what the fuck you're saying. The average person does NOT know what their heart rate, blood pressure, vitals, or pupils will be after a specific injury. They do not know what that specific device is that you're using either. You're asking me to open a tab and google 52 things at once that I know nothing about and suddenly I no longer enjoy their RP.

 

And from those of us who hate having to deal with health insurance, paperwork, co-pays, coverage, in & out of network clinic details IRL - PLEASE don't bring that heinous amount of realism into this game and force it on us.

[Mecovy]

I'll drop this here, but please have the place warning that its outdated information. But since discussions steered to pricing, the old system I was discussing during my time as head was a 4 tier insurance system. With the highest amount the player would ever pay would be between 10k-20k depending on injury. 20k would be the complete service with prolonged bed stay. Expensive? Yes. Prohibitively? No if you get insurance OR if you RP'd homeless and could be given an exemption depending on political will (ahahaha good luck). But given the primary clients are generally either cops, who can afford it. or drug dealers who need to launder but still could also afford it.

 

The new administration may look to take a softer or harder approach, but that was roughly where discussion got too in 2022. 

 

As for fixing the bridge between treatment and understanding. Whilst not mandated I encouraged players to do (([Healthy Ranges])) at the end of their request lines of RP / on their /do's. This can be automated by adding a cmd players could use upon entering the downed state that ELI5's all the basic medical concepts they're likely to be asked prior to being asked. 

Edited February 15 by Mecovy

[girl you a mess]

I feel like the script stuff is kind of meh af.. like before you can start doing any of that there has to be enough medical support available, unless OTC meds can just be added to 24/7s like the way Walgreens works in the US. 

 

I think before doing any of that the focus should be on increasing the RP that's already available.. for example, I had a whole court case with alot of people involved.. that had to be dropped, because the medical portion of the RP couldn't happen. Time zones.. being redirected to the PHMC appointment page.. getting told to shut up on Discord when nothing was happening.. a few days trying to schedule the actual RP.. not getting any of the follow on paperwork afterwards.. like it was just a total slog trying to deal with it so I gave up and the whole situation fell apart.

 

Visiting friends at hospitals who actually do RP gunshot wounds... and its a ghost town. Until a LEO gets rolled in, suddenly there's an ER full of people, who then disappear as soon as the scene's over. And we only made it to the hospital by throwing the guy in a car and driving there on our own to RP the injuries, because there's no one to answer 911 calls anyways.

 

So I don't think adding a bunch of script randomness really "adds" any kind of RP just more chores. I think what would help is having the hospital or medical facilities light up on the map when staff are around, and people can self select to go over and RP. Like figure out what the current faction can and can't support already before adding a bunch of random stuff. 

 

I also think private ambulances, and Doctors and even DNPs should be allowed to open their own general practices for non emergency related stuff, meds etc.. If PHMC is going to be tied more into the official government stuff then let private companies and individuals fill in the gaps like actually happens in the US. Have it light up like open businesses, and having things less centralized would let other people have opportunities.

 

Basically start with increasing the engagement of people with the types of medical RP that can already exist before even thinking about adding other stuff. Bc permanent injuries?? It'll just be a troll fest of people kneecapping each other with crow bars to force people to be stuck with injuries. Random sickness?? lol what.. just no

 

Anyways hate commenting on forums.. but in before I log in a couple times a week just to see I'm getting more stacks of covid and herpes while I'm offline.

 

 

[Twentybyte]

2 hours ago, Zetara said:

Maybe don't have the medical rp being numbers and measurements that most roleplayers have no idea about, if someone's injured they're injured. ALSO private EMS companies would be great. 

We actually teach people to not do this, the vast majority of prehospital providers do not ask vitals, and if they do, let the LSFD know and it can be corrected. 

 

There is also no longer an academy to join the LSFD, and its more of a field training/go at your own pace training experience.

 

Last thing tho. To the people who want one faction to be “hyperrealistic” and the other be a “movie style faction”, that is a terrible idea. Why do I know that? Because thats what was done before. One faction had awful roleplay standards and no one joined the other.

 

I think quality of roleplay in these factions can vary, but at the moment the LSFD has a great midground where we prioritize realistic paramedics who dont focus that much on the medicine unless it needs to be done. A lot of our guys are trained to read the room and do less or more depending on how the person roleplays and acts. What we lack is quality scripts to make this engaging for the patient.

 

I don’t think another hat in the ring will do jackshit to improve EMS. The LSFD is miles better than where it was a year ago, and that took a fuckton of hard work. Unfortunately it hasn’t been promoted very well as the same stereotypes of medical roleplay are being repeated on this thread ad nauseum. If you actually roleplay around EMS on this server, you know how it actually is.

 

We don’t have enough players who actually want to try this roleplay due to these stereotypes. I think some of the feedback we’ve gotten in the last few months proves that being in the LSFD can be a blast. We just have to prove that to the rest of the server.

 

Having cool scripts would be a start.

 

Having functional hospital scripts would be another great start.

[Martyn]

Private EMS companies would be awesome, would definitely throw money at them for contracts and the likes of that. Wheelchairs are a must as well.

Edited February 15 by Martyn