Official rule on /showitems

[Apa]

41 minutes ago, Smilesville said:

I don't know how much clearer I can make this.

 

The robbery scenario is not "done" when your character leaves the scene. That's why you're not allowed to log out for thirty minutes. The items someone has can absolutely impact your decision making when you elect to leave the scene.

 

I'm not going to bother addressing the continual strawman nonsense.

You are still pigeonholing yourself into the effect BAD RPers have on the server. You are taking a genuinely good suggestion that will help provide clarity to the PROCESS of robberies. Whether or not the person performing said process is a good or bad RPer is a different topic of discussion and that's what reports are for. 

If you took the same approach to any suggestion on this section of the forums you could come up with ways to argue that bad RPers will ruin the suggestion and therefore it shouldn't be implemented. You just seem personally invested in this one because you don't like how robberies are generally performed. However in my opinion the benefits of this suggestion are not to make robberies more realistic, they are going to improve the understanding of the process of how robberies are carried out on this server.  The victim and the robber both being more aware of the due process will help reduce the confusion in /b or /pms and interruption of the scene in question. If people still RP it poorly, that's not the fault of the process. It's the fault of the players. 

[eTaylor]

I'd say it's safe to say the vast majority of people don't bother looking on the forums, this is especially true for people who are typically categorized as the "BAD RPers". There's no real reason to get so heated about these topics. I personally think that anything that minimizes the reliance on OOC communication is ultimately a good thing. Anything that clarifies anything is also a good thing. I can't think of anything more disruptive than people going full Tugg Speedman in /b or quit roleplaying all together. 

[Smilesville]

2 hours ago, Visceral said:

You are still pigeonholing yourself into the effect BAD RPers have on the server. You are taking a genuinely good suggestion that will help provide clarity to the PROCESS of robberies. Whether or not the person performing said process is a good or bad RPer is a different topic of discussion and that's what reports are for.

The rules are designed by their very nature to minimize the impact of (and provide redress from the actions of) bad RPers. If anything, you seem to be under the impression that nobody would dare misuse the information they've gleaned, which seems a tad naive.

 

By your logic, we wouldn't need a cash counter because everyone would appropriately roleplay their levels of wealth - and those who did not would be reported. We would give everyone the ability to /frisk others at will and report those who use the command incorrectly. We would give everyone the ability to select any car on the server and trust that they would make character appropriate decisions. The rules exist as a neutral standard by which players are held to prevent them from engaging in bad behavior without consequence.

 

I don't care how good of an RPer anyone thinks they are - gleaning additional pertinent information like the presence of a gun will impact your IC decision making, regardless of whether you're aware of it or not, and creates situations in which individuals can make unfalsifiable accusations.

 

From my example in an earlier post: Let's say /showitems reveals a victim still has a SNS pistol that was legitimately hidden from his negligent search, and the robber in question elects to ziptie that character to a structure before he exits. We've now constructed a scenario in which the victim could rightfully claim that seeing the SNS pistol impacted the decision making of the robber, while the robber could rightly claim he was going to go through this course of action before he'd even seen it. The OOC introduction of that information creates a scenario in which either or both parties feel rightfully aggrieved - nobody can prove whether or not someone would have done something without the introduction of more information. Nobody could adjudicate that fairly.

 

The stated goal of the original suggestion is to "eliminate any potential metagaming on the robber's end potentially seeing someone's inventory too early and forces the victim to stay honest during the robbery." While it certainly does the latter, my contention is that the only sort of metagaming it eliminates is in attempts to acquire the item - not in the behavior that follows the command. Robberies are already a needlessly antagonistic interaction, and you're not going to "clarify" anything by forcing use of the /showitems command.

 

The success of the suggestion you've proposed relies on the good will of every player engaging in robberies, which is a hilarious proposition. If you think the city streets are dead now, this would be a death knell.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Smilesville

[EffPee]

36 minutes ago, Smilesville said:

The success of the suggestion you've proposed relies on the good will of every player engaging in robberies, which is a hilarious proposition. If you think the city streets are dead now, this would be a death knell.

As it stands now, the margin for error is as follows:

• Victim is dishonest and doesn't /showitems to the Attacker, giving substance for a report or a forum report.
• Attacker doesn't believe Victim is being honest, roleplay is stalled until an admin arrives or they decide to take it to forums.
• Victim believes Attacker metagamed their items, roleplay is stalled until an admin arrives or they decide to take it to forums.

With the new proposed suggestion, the margin for error is as follows:

• Robbery scene goes through all the way to the end, due to the new rule the Attacker is encouraged to roleplay searching the Victim thoroughly and sufficiently, turns out the Victim has withheld items as now realised with the mandatory /showitems, roleplay stalled until an admin arrives or they decide to take it to forums.
• To entertain your perspective, with this newfound knowledge of the items that haven't been taken (an SNS pistol), the Attacker zipties the Victim or roleplays in a different way due to this new OOC knowledge. This is brought to an admins attention or to a forum report.

 

Now tell me, which one is better?

The rule as it stands that allows for slow, interrupted roleplay that ends with an admin situation most of the time anyway. Or the proposed suggestion, in which the roleplay goes through at a normal pace, with no interruptions; once it is over, any wrongdoings are found out AFTER THE FACT, to which both sides can agree to wait for an admin or take it to forums.

[Gryphboi]

Gonna leave this here.

[Smilesville]

1 hour ago, EffPee said:

Or the proposed suggestion, in which the roleplay goes through at a normal pace, with no interruptions; once it is over, any wrongdoings are found out AFTER THE FACT, to which both sides can agree to wait for an admin or take it to forums.

2 hours ago, Smilesville said:

From my example in an earlier post: Let's say /showitems reveals a victim still has a SNS pistol that was legitimately hidden from his negligent search, and the robber in question elects to ziptie that character to a structure before he exits. We've now constructed a scenario in which the victim could rightfully claim that seeing the SNS pistol impacted the decision making of the robber, while the robber could rightly claim he was going to go through this course of action before he'd even seen it. The OOC introduction of that information creates a scenario in which either or both parties feel rightfully aggrieved - nobody can prove whether or not someone would have done something without the introduction of more information. Nobody could adjudicate that fairly.

I'm just going to keep quoting this until you recognize that if you're still in range to use /showitems, the situation hasn't concluded. I'm not going to waste any more effort when the proponents of the rule change think it's alright to strip search someone in the middle of the highway.

[EffPee]

21 minutes ago, Smilesville said:

I'm just going to keep quoting this until you recognize that if you're still in range to use /showitems, the situation hasn't concluded. I'm not going to waste any more effort when the proponents of the rule change think it's alright to strip search someone in the middle of the highway.

Definitely hope that last line has nothing to do with me, because it's the first I've ever even heard of such a case.

 

If the usage of /showitems is completely OOC, after the robbery has concluded and the attackers are about to leave, that implies that the situation is concluded and the knowledge you learn from /showitems can ONLY BE USED OOC.

 

Your pretentious language choices aren't helping your perspective, you have still failed to give a good reason as to why this rule change is not better than the current rule. 

[eTaylor]

1 hour ago, Gryphboi said:

Gonna leave this here.

Pretty much settles it then!

[Apa]

3 hours ago, Smilesville said:

Spoiler

 

The rules are designed by their very nature to minimize the impact of (and provide redress from the actions of) bad RPers. If anything, you seem to be under the impression that nobody would dare misuse the information they've gleaned, which seems a tad naive.

 

By your logic, we wouldn't need a cash counter because everyone would appropriately roleplay their levels of wealth - and those who did not would be reported. We would give everyone the ability to /frisk others at will and report those who use the command incorrectly. We would give everyone the ability to select any car on the server and trust that they would make character appropriate decisions. The rules exist as a neutral standard by which players are held to prevent them from engaging in bad behavior without consequence.

 

I don't care how good of an RPer anyone thinks they are - gleaning additional pertinent information like the presence of a gun will impact your IC decision making, regardless of whether you're aware of it or not, and creates situations in which individuals can make unfalsifiable accusations.

 

From my example in an earlier post: Let's say /showitems reveals a victim still has a SNS pistol that was legitimately hidden from his negligent search, and the robber in question elects to ziptie that character to a structure before he exits. We've now constructed a scenario in which the victim could rightfully claim that seeing the SNS pistol impacted the decision making of the robber, while the robber could rightly claim he was going to go through this course of action before he'd even seen it. The OOC introduction of that information creates a scenario in which either or both parties feel rightfully aggrieved - nobody can prove whether or not someone would have done something without the introduction of more information. Nobody could adjudicate that fairly.

 

The stated goal of the original suggestion is to "eliminate any potential metagaming on the robber's end potentially seeing someone's inventory too early and forces the victim to stay honest during the robbery." While it certainly does the latter, my contention is that the only sort of metagaming it eliminates is in attempts to acquire the item - not in the behavior that follows the command. Robberies are already a needlessly antagonistic interaction, and you're not going to "clarify" anything by forcing use of the /showitems command.

 

The success of the suggestion you've proposed relies on the good will of every player engaging in robberies, which is a hilarious proposition. If you think the city streets are dead now, this would be a death knell.

 

 

"By your logic, we wouldn't need a cash counter because everyone would appropriately roleplay their levels of wealth - and those who did not would be reported."

... What?

"I don't care how good of an RPer anyone thinks they are - gleaning additional pertinent information like the presence of a gun will impact your IC decision making, regardless of whether you're aware of it or not, and creates situations in which individuals can make unfalsifiable accusations."

Again, false. If you care in any way about your RP you would know that this isn't the case. If it is, then GTAW has a much much lower standard of RP than I've come across so far in my months here. I don't buy it. I was literally in a position yesterday where I was meeting with a member of another faction, while I could hear other members of said faction talking about how they might want to jump me. I RPed it as if I didn't hear them because I wasn't sure if I should have or not, and continued the scene as I would have - had I not seen the text on my screen. Its very easy to do, trust me.

"We've now constructed a scenario in which the victim could rightfully claim that seeing the SNS pistol impacted the decision making of the robber, while the robber could rightly claim he was going to go through this course of action before he'd even seen it."

No, because the implication is the robber will have to commit to ending the scene BEFORE the /showitems request. They will know, because of the new clarity of the process, that they can't elect to zip tie them afterwards. They would have to have zip tied them BEFORE the request. 

"Robberies are already a needlessly antagonistic interaction, and you're not going to "clarify" anything by forcing use of the /showitems command."

How on earth are robberies needlessly antagonistic? Have you encountered or heard of many polite robbers in your time on this earth? People have the right to portray desperate characters who require thievery and robbery and other opportunistic crimes to portray those characters effectively. The same way every legal RPer on the server has the right to drive expensive cars and dress like a supermodel. There are going to be unrealistic exaggerations of many aspects of RP life, that's part of the game. This one just happens to grind your gears. 

I haven't once suggested that this idea will fix any of the issues you have with robbery RP, nor do I think it needs to. Other suggestions can tackle that. But if you scan through the reports section the amount of them that have stupid requests for /showitems with the reasoning being "I knew he was hiding something else and wouldn't RP it" bla bla bla - this effectively satisfies those concerns once you have committed to LEAVING the scene. If that person goes back after the /showitems request to further search them / ziptie them /offer them a cup of tea - then yes. Report them and they should be punished. The suggestion was first mentioned by an admin who deals with these reports constantly. You're rebuttal is essentially "robbery rp bad so no". 

Edited February 12, 2021 by Visceral

[Smilesville]

2 hours ago, EffPee said:

If the usage of /showitems is completely OOC, after the robbery has concluded and the attackers are about to leave, that implies that the situation is concluded and the knowledge you learn from /showitems can ONLY BE USED OOC.

I'll walk you through it step by step.

1. The rule says it can only be used OOC.
    
2. Someone uses the information IC.
    
3. How do you prove they used the OOC information IC?

State of mind is very difficult to prove.

 

That is why I do not recall is a favorite line of those on a witness stand. If he says, "no, I didn't shoot him" and evidence later suggests that he did, he's lying on the stand. If he says "I do not recall," the act of proving that he did indeed recall the events is monumentally more difficult.

 

Fast forward to the usage of /showitems after all the items have been handed over. Which of the following is better for the server?

1. A robber misses the SNS pistol an individual has in a concealed location.
2. The robber makes his escape and holsters his own weapon to get on his motorcycle/bicycle, making him a reasonable target for retaliation.
3. (Optional) The victim produces his weapon and gains the upper hand.

Contrast that with what would follow if the rules were changed.

1. A robber misses the SNS pistol an individual has in a concealed location.
2. The victim uses /showitems and indicates that he still had a pistol concealed on his person.
3. (Optional) The robber goes into /b to argue with the victim and demands to know where the SNS was.
4. The robber restrains the victim to a fixture with cable ties for fear of retaliation from the SNS.
5. The victim files a report, claiming metagaming has taken place.
6. The robber claims restraining the victim with cable ties post-robbery was always the plan.

After the second scenario, without knowledge of how the first would have played out, how do you propose an administrator determine whether or not metagaming took place without disenfranchising either party?

 

• To presume the robber metagamed because they restrained their victim could be unfair to the robber.
• To presume the robber did not metagame simply because you cannot discern intent could be unfair to the victim.

No matter how the staff member rules, there is no scenario in which you come out with a fair outcome for both parties.

 

The rule would be unique in that it could be taken advantage of intentionally with no way to discern whether or not you had actually done so. As the robbery meta evolves, it will be common practice to ziptie victims to things in the event they might have a gun that passes a search, further muddying the waters as to the frame of mind of an individual before /showitems happened.

 

You could only eliminate this issue by removing the range restrictions on /showitems; I'm much less (but still somewhat) opposed to that. While it would take deliberate contrivance, you could still conceivably metagame the information you obtain from the command - for example, if party A has robbed someone and notes to party B that a particular individual has a firearm (blatantly metagaming) and party B robs the same victim without any reference to party A seeking that item, how would you propose a staff member track that down?

 

No, if I have to choose between giving robbers the potential for unfalsifiable metagaming alibis versus a victim fibbing and requiring staff to check on their inventory to see if they've held something back, I'd much prefer the second.

 

I guarantee you if this is comes to be, victims will have all the more reason to report every single robbery that takes place - whether for poor RP, metagaming, logging early, or a combination of all these.