Staff Report
Your BYOND Key Settlerking
Date of Incident February 20, 2022
Your Character Name? Several, at the time Winston 'Zardoz' Rickshaw
Their BYOND Key Forest2001
Approximate time and date of the incident 22ish GMT
Which Staff Protocols (//showthrea...-and-Protocols) were broken Enforcement of the rules/failure to investigate
Description of the incident Was CL on a Kutjevo round which I intended to do a RP bribery/objective gimmick as CL. I planned on using the maint guns as rewards/bribes to marines to complete some objectives like getting a xeno egg or xeno corpses. I run a character that I like to play as a sort of firearms cultist religously obesssed with guns and death. I therefore felt that rewarding the marines with powerful weapons would be character appropriate. I speedran through maint to get em as quickly as possible so i could make arrangements in time for briefing and upon getting the ones i wanted including a UPP shotgun (which admittedly was way better than anticipated) alpha SL tried to steal it from me. I had no chance to RP the situation. I could only tell him a few times to "fuck off" to which he didn't. he started to loot the crate i was dragging and he dropped a shotgun, which i used to fire warning shots with into the wall to make him back off. He then took out his gun and proceeded to run me down as i had dropped the shotgun and was running away. He mag dumped me as i was unarmed and more than 2 full screens away from the initial scene with intent to kill me.
I overreacted by shooting and admit that firing AT ALL allows retaliation. my issue here is that upon ahelping the overstepping of escalation by running me down and mag dumping to kill me when he already was stealing essential stuff from me. I was responded with that I shouldnt "loot req" despite clarifying several times that i was taking hidden crate maint weapons. I feel as the spirit of the rules was broken as my ability to have an interesting roleplay scenario with marines in round was ruined. To bribe marines in any effective way you have to have something they mechanically want and is novel enough to be noteworthy, I had that perfectly through a UPP shotgun and allowing this player to take that while (by forests own admission) overstepping escalation and mag dumping me is a violation of the spirit of maintaining roleplaying and investigating incidents. There was no more than at most a minute of investigation and multiple errors in his assessment, after correcting him I was told to "drop it". That is a failure to investigate properly and act in a respectful manner in my opinion.
I was then perma killed by alpha squad after attempting to retake the items off the SL pre drop. Being deliberately pbed several times to make revival almost impossible. The CMP refused to do any action against the SL and I took to confronting him and when he refused to even speak to me I used non lethals to try and retake the items.
I'm mostly annoyed that my Ahelp was dismissed when I've seen people get far worse consequences for similar actions. All I asked for was a warning to the SL to not run after and deliberately kill someone whos running away unarmed and hadn't even hurt them. Especially after they were stealing items that I had just as much right to take as anyone else just because they felt more entitled to them.
I feel Forest in this case was neglectful and dismissive of the situation and wasn't investigating anything. Through PMs I got the distinct feeling he let it slide because I was according to his description "looting req" and "potentially angering marines", which is a stance to rulebreaking I feel is very out of place in such a highly regarded staff member as forest (an assessment I'm happily proven wrong on).
I spent significant time, effort and energy on planning a fun and engaging gimmick and felt low key griefed on it at roundstart and had it ruined, even ending up perma after attempting to salvage it IC. My ahelp was brushed off without any investigation. I don't like making reports like this and prefer to remain outside of the spotlight community-wise but I felt the conduct was sufficiently dismissive this was warranted.
I was somewhat argumentative in ahelps, and feel regretful about that. I wrote a lenghty PM and then promptly left, which was immature. I was however only like that because i was annoyed at having my already planned out round and RP idea ruined by someone almost immediately. Ontop of that having admins admit to ignoring a rulebreak, not even making a warning made me quite angry. Forest told me to drop it after I wanted a mere warning to the player in question, at no point did I ask or demand for anything more severe than that (didn't even want him noted, just warned) but was flat out denied with no further questions or investigation. He even acknowledged that the player overstepped, but still said he wouldn't warn him.
I can agree that I was salty and that the other player wasn't overstepping too far from the rules. That is fine. I only asked for a warning and I would've cryoed and not been making any report whatsoever if that was the resolution in this matter. I can take my round getting ruined by an edgecase situation, that's fine. What I take issue with in this incident is Forests dismissiveness and failure to take even the simplest action against a self admitted rulebreak that ruined my round. The implied reason for ignoring that felt very out of place amongst a staff member, and blaming me essentially for getting my round ruined and a player rulebreaking to do so. However edge case or wrong this assesment I've made here is there was a clear failure to take my statements seriously or even listen to them. I felt distinctly that the case was already decided on before I could explain it and was dismissed when I replied with my version of events and what happened. It felt like Forest had already decided that no rules were broken and even if they were that I was some self antagging CL who propably did something that deserved that response. I feel like such dismissveness is unbefitting of a staff member, especially someone as high up as Forest. I was not able to explain the situation at all to him before being dismissed and he was far more interested in why I took those items rather than what happened. Something that was entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand.
I feel no animosity towards forest or anyone involved, I just feel like this was handled improperly. It was the first time I've felt staff being dissmissive on that scale and most of my interactions with staff have been positive or very reasonable. This one was so far outside of the usual interactions with staff i've had and felt very subpar.
From my experience with staff guidelines you should only look the other way when the rule break isn't hurting anyone in the round. Something that was clearly happening here, or potentially was since forest wasn't investigating it in any meaningful capacity (to my knowledge). I feel therefore this justified a staff report.
Evidence I have no evidence as I don't screen capture gameplay or have any ability to take screenshots on the fly. I'd be happy to have logs pulled on the situation as they hopefully give light to information I wasn't privy too or prove my case.
What resolution are you seeking? Nothing major, just acknowledgement of wrongdoing and lack of investigation. Ideally some sort of commitment to not pre-decide and rule on issues before investigating them fully. But acknowledgement or explanation is just as well to me. I don't care that much, as said, its more about the conduct and attitude in the investigation than the outcome. I didnt expect much then but at least being taken seriously and having it dealt with respectfully when ahelping a "griefy" situation wouldve been acceptable to me in that moment. I would also like to apologize personally for being a bit rude in ahelps, I was mad at having my round ruined and that was wrong of me.