Unknown - Metagaming

[CS190]

Player Report

Your Byond ID?

CaptainStubbs

Date of Incident

September 21, 2019

Your Character Name?

Trip Howard

Accused Byond Key(if known):

Unknown

Accused Character Name

Oliver Bird & Anthony Hammonds

Approximate time and date of the incident (Central US Time for fastest results)

7:50 am

What rule(s) were broken:

Metagaming

Description of the incident:

Anthony Hammonds was the Chief MP, his friend Oliver Bird burglarized my office and insisted on not punishing him, then spending all of his efforts for the rest of the round trying to find any excuse to punish me.

I spent nearly an hour between questioning and being incarcerated for "treason" because of the events happening planetside.

All the while his friend Oliver was watching through the glass taunting me that I could be so easily abused.

Still thinking that this was all just roleplaying I got a silenced pistol and when he was alone I shot Oliver a few times in the legs, making sure to not kill him. I left no evidence and it was my word against his, ran back to my office before anyone else saw anything.

Anthony then says that he was able to playback the recording on the video surveillance and saw me shooting him. I am 99% positive that this is not a feature on byond to have recordings of all security cameras at all times and that his friend just told him to arrest me.

I was then dragged to the brig where there was no questioning, no searching for evidence, I was buckled to the bed and shot over and over again.

Evidence (screenshots, logs, etc):

https://i.imgur.com/pD7g0ar.png

How you would punish the accused:

Whatever the standard punishment is for cheaters like this.

[CS190]

You... you should've gone for the head...

Sounds like some self-antag to shoot a guy in the legs ngl, but this behavior is unacceptable for CMP unless you're not telling the whole story of what exactly happened.

Well it's been a while but I'll try to remember if I left anything out. After the CMP caught Oliver, who I noticed he convinced in the hallway to come to my office to surrender the stolen loot (kind of strange now that I think about it, I mentioned to him that I saw him near my office after the stuff was missing but otherwise I had zero evidence of who was actually in there) Anthony started insisting that it was all some sort of a misunderstanding and an accident that Oliver broke in an took my stuff and that I didn't need to press charges. I was getting bored with this so I was about to agree when Oliver started trash talking me, so I said you know what yes, I want to press charges, arrest him.

Anthony refused to do any such thing, can't remember what excuse he was trying to make at the time but I thought it was strange that he would offer me the choice and then denying me when I took him up on it. So I threw $5000 at his feet to "incentivize" him to do his job and actually arrest this guy, which he refused. By now he had completely lost interest in Oliver breaking into my room and burglarizing it, now I had just "attempted to bribe an officer" I mean, not that I should have to bribe him to actually do his job, it's not like I was saying "here's the money, kill him" I was basically saying here's a bonus to grease the wheels of the corrupt military police who aren't taking their job seriously, this got me jailed for 20 minutes while Oliver got off scot free.

On top of my time in the jail I got to spend time in a public interrogation room where Oliver just stood out there making fun of me the entire time. As a CL I would think from an RP standpoint that this couldn't be allowed to stand. Either shortly before or immediately after (can't remember exactly when) Anthony held me for another interrogation with one of the heads of staff because I think it was the prison map and they found a survivor that was rp-ing about WY experimenting on prisoners. This was a fun time to RP for a bit although it went on for a very long time and I was being held captive during it, not being allowed to leave despite allegedly not being a prisoner at this point. Anthony and the others kept insisting that I should be perma'd for treason for being an employee of WY. All the while Oliver taunting me over comms (this guy really had nothing better to do than try to torture me the entire round)

I finally got let go after nearly an hour of detainment, my only crime, barely, was 'bribing' and officer trying to get him to do his job. At this point I had no suspicion of metagaming but in retrospect it makes sense to me. I was thinking this was all just roleplaying so I wanted to continue the feud between myself an Oliver. That's when I got my pistol out of my safe and shot him in the legs, again, making sure to not even crit him. I get that this is surely a controversial point but I basically just did a driveby on him and kept running just to get him back for the incessant trash talking. This is when I realized that Oliver and Anthony were in metacomms together, or at least have some level of friendship outside of that round. Anthony almost immediately after I shot him says something like "You shot him within view of a camera, it was all recorded" and was at my office in seconds. By this point I had already stashed all the evidence, locked my safe, and was sitting behind my desk. I made no effort to resist being arrested by Anthony who didn't bother to ask me any questions or even search me (I was armed, with a different pistol, the intent was that he would find the gun on me, unfired and in the wrong calibur and have to let me go) but instead I got dragged to a cell and shot about 5x without a word.

[AcuteCircle]

Ok so I got the logs, they're pretty much a round worth of logs. I tried to sift thru them but it's a lot. Almost all of them are relevant:

Admins pms:

[Inzhuci]

Hey. I apologize for my delay in responding to this. As I was not named in the title, I only just now noticed that I had been mentioned. I was the CMP during this round (Anthony Hammonds).

During this round I committed two serious mistakes as the CMP, though only one is relevant to this report. Firstly, I delegated the management of a survivor to an MP, became distracted by the events of the round and failed to follow up to ensure that my MP had followed procedure. This resulted in Gerdy spending most of the round in perma, which while not strictly a violation of marine law (he was a prisoner of prisoner station, and to my knowledge there are no formal regulations for how formerly incarcerated persons should be handled under Marine Law) was certainly inappropriate. Secondly, I mistakenly believed that time in questioning counted toward time served. I applied this toward individuals in two cases during this round, firstly involving the theft and secondly when I was speaking with the CL in my office. I will, however, note that during my conversation with Trip Howard he was not officially detained, or cuffed. For these failures I sincerely apologize, and I have endeavored to do a better job in the rounds that I have played as CMP since.

To speak toward this report directly, I did not communicate with other players outside of standard in-game radio communications or the say box during this round, nor have I in any round prior to it, or since. I have been a member of this community for only a month and am not a member of any "clique" or meta-community, save that I have now played enough that I occasionally recognize the in-game name of other players that I have enjoyed roleplaying with, and therefore am more likely to wave them down and talk to them if I see them around.

When the CL reported theft, I collected forensics and then detained the MT for the theft. He did not resist, admitted his crime, and agreed to return the CL's belongings and apologize. Upon returning the stolen belongings I considered that the MT had received adequate punishment and released him, asking him to stay away from the CL for the time being while everyone's tempers cooled. While the MT was returning the stolen belongings, the CL dropped a pile of money beside me as encouragement for me to "do my job," which I considered to be bribery. I declined, and after the MT noted that the CL was armed, also noted that violation of SOP. I then went and spoke with the CO to report the attempted bribery, and that the CL was armed, and whether or not she believed it would be appropriate for me to detain him for those violations of Marine Law. The CO responded in the affirmative, and so I returned to the brig where I found the XO and the CL arguing, with the XO suggesting that the CL had committed treason. As the CO was exiting the CIC and I believed the discussion was non-productive, I asked for the XO to leave the investigation to me and return to the CIC as the aCO. He did so.

I then took the CL to my office, where we spoke for approximately eight minutes. I accused him of bribery and unlawful possession of weaponry, with the evidence being that he personally offered me the money in my presence, and was armed with the prohibited equipment in my presence. I confiscated the prohibited equipment and sentenced him to twenty-five minutes, fifteen minutes for violating SOP, and ten minutes for bribery. While attempted bribery is not, itself, a violation of Marine Law, my interpretation was that it would be Aiding and Abetting -- Neglect of Duty. I did not believe it would be appropriate to brig the CL, so I sentenced him to room arrest for twenty minutes in order to allow him to continue to participate in the round, as I prefer to avoid brigging people whenever feasible. This compromise is not strictly authorized under Marine Law, but I believed it to be the result that would allow the most people to have the most fun while still living up to the spirit of Marine Law.

Shortly thereafter, the MT reported that he was being shot by the CL. I had been discussing the XO's claims that the CL had committed treason (and that it was impossible to charge the CL for treason with the evidence that the XO was suggesting), and had been in the security office attempting to update security records, as record keeping had been inconsistent during that round. I responded to the call and discovered the MT bleeding from multiple gunshots. Once ensuring that he would be able to get to medical under his own power, I immediately headed to the CL's office, where I detained the CL pending investigation of Assault With a Deadly Weapon. During the search of the CL's office, one of my MPs reported discovering the weapon that the CL had been accused of wielding during the altercation. This combined with the MT's report of events was, by my reckoning, sufficient to charge the CL with the minimum punishment for Assault With a Deadly Weapon. My statement that the cameras had recorded events was an in-character fabrication, based on the fact that the CL literally gunned the MT down two tiles away from a security camera. My in-character justification was that such a record would be kept as evidence of the actual attack. As the logs show, the CL did in fact shoot the MT three times.

Shortly after moving the CL to a cell, the XO walked into the brig, stepped into the CL's cell and point-blanked him with a pistol. I flashed the XO, detained him and ensured that the CL was provided with urgent medical care. While initially I held the XO for a murder charge, I soon learned that the CL had survived the attempt, and so downgraded the charge to Assault With a Deadly Weapon. As he offered no justification for attempting to kill the CL, I believed that it was necessary to permanently confine the XO as he posed a danger to shipboard personnel. Command was transferred to the Chief Engineer.

While this was going on, I was contacted by a moderator and informed that a survivor named Gerdy had spent most of the round in permanent confinement. I immediately removed Gerdy from permanent confinement upon discovering that the MP that had detained him had both failed to get Gerdy a shipboard ID, and subsequently failed to create any sort of record mentioning why he had been permanently confined. I left an MP in the brig to watch the CL, and then escorted Gerdy to recover his equipment and took him to CIC to get his ID sorted. As I was getting Gerdy's ID corrected, the aliens assaulted the Almayer so I freed Gerdy to let him get to an escape pod while I returned to the brig to try to get the CL to an escape pod. I honestly do not recall what happened at the end of this particular round, but I did not meaningfully interact with the CL after the XO attempted to kill him.

For what happened to Gerdy's player, I profusely apologize as my lack of attention resulted in them spending most of a round doing nothing. I do not believe my conduct regarding the Cargo Technician or Corporate Liaison was inappropriate and while perhaps in the latter's case not strictly adhering to Marine Law, was in the best interest of the round. Regardless, I accept full responsibility for my conduct, and the conduct of my fellow MPs during this round. A lot was going on and I bluntly failed to keep up with everything.

[Inzhuci]

Apologies also for the double post. Cargo Technician is supposed to be Maintenance Technician. Too many damned acronyms flying around.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

I see mistakes all around, from ML violations to the CL violating improper escalation by shooting first. I don't see any definite proof of metagaming. I'm going to say everyone can learn from this.

Don't violate improper escalation, make sure you follow marine law, etc...