PVE:Roleplay Standards

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Introduction

In PVE, good roleplaying is an integral part of the experience. As a result, roleplay standards are stricter than those seen on more action-oriented servers, such as CM-SS13 PVP, with the intent to facilitate better roleplay.
The following standards, though more loosely used than strict rules, are meant to describe what roleplay should look like during an average round. Unless explicitly stated otherwise by a specific round’s Game Master, these standards are the optimal standard you are expected to aspire to during a standard round.

If you are completely new to roleplaying, it is recommended to give the basic roleplaying guides offered by other servers a read through before reading these standards (see for instance: Paradise Station’s Guide.)

You are similarly recommended to engage with the PVE community on the discord and ask questions about roleplay quirks or standards clarification, the latter of which are best directed towards members of the GM team. It needs to be said, the roleplay standards are not here to daunt you from roleplaying, and we will always try to advise on ways to improve roleplay before punishing it. This is a roleplaying game and games are meant to be (first and foremost) entertaining: enjoy it!

A number of the standards below have collapsable sections containing further clarifying information to their initial points.

General RP standards

0. The main Game Master has final say over the roleplay standards in their rounds. No exceptions.

1. You should strive to play a character that would be believable to see in the Aliens setting.

2. You should attempt to maintain a basic level of literacy with your character.
Relevant punctuation and capitalization is similarly encouraged. Roleplaying out an accent with characters is more than acceptable, the purpose of this standard pertains more to overall literacy of posts. Even if accented speech is barely comprehensible, so long as emotes & similar are adequately intelligible, there won't be any issues.

3. Try to play as your character, not as yourself.

Interesting roleplay rarely comes from optimising gameplay. Put yourself in your character's shoes as best you can. Would your character do XYZ freely? Or would it require a significant contributing factor to spur them into doing such? For example, consider how your marine would react if offered the chance to surrender in a hopeless situation. Would they surrender willingly, trusting their captors to honor their offer? Would they fake their surrender, only to go down in a blaze of glory? Or would they refuse to surrender, being killed by the hostiles as a result? Another part of this is how your character feels at any given point, both emotionally & physically. Have they been wearing uncomfortable equipment for a long period of time? Is it chafing them to the point it draws out IC gripes/complaints? Are they hungry and in need of food? Things like this are worth thinking about during rounds to help add depth to your character & open avenues to interactions with others. An example of such in a 'me' (emote) would be; PFC John Marine scratches at a scabbed-over cut, asking his squad leader, "Hey, we breaking out the MREs yet?"

4. Always try to engage your character in roleplay.

A character that avoids talking or interacting the entire round is not a character that's good. Contribute to the scene! Even if ICly there are reasons for your character to not speak much or interact with certain other members of their unit, that doesn't mean you should spend periods of downtime in the round completely silent. Whilst talking is the most common way of interacting with other players, that doesn't mean a simple emote wouldn't work in situations either. Engage in chatter or post emotes reacting to what's ongoing with other players, build rapport with one another, it all serves to flesh out the characters and make them feel more than just two-dimensional caricatures. Engage with newer players! The first few rounds for someone new to PvE, and certainly SS13 as a whole, can be somewhat daunting. Help them acclimitize to what in-game interactions are like!

5. Your character is sane and rational enough to serve in the military. Exercise basic self preservation.

Don't willingly hurt yourself or commit suicide without good reasoning. A (mostly) sane, well-rounded character would not engage in actions that are overly painful, or put themselves in harm's way without consideration. Examples include; willingly stepping into the line of fire of a hostile sniper when they don't absolutely need to, stabbing themselves repeatedly (slip-ups with self-removing shrapnel is one exception to this), or continuing to run at someone with nothing but a knife after being shot multiple times by them.

6. Try not to use information which breaks character (metaknowledge.) The same goes for competently using skills your character isn’t good at.

Always attempt to convey information a character wouldn’t say/doesn’t need to know through LOOC. Restrict yourself to your character's knowledge. You, as a player, might know how the surgery system works in PvE, but that doesn't mean the Rifleman you're playing could walk someone through a procedure in-character! If your character does not know how to perform a job, don't go and do it yourself anyway! Instead, request the assistance of a character who does.

7. Inter-character relationships should be kept subtle, believable, and not significantly disrupt the flow of a round.

Excessive fraternisation is frowned upon in most militaries, and (between the chain of command) often a punishable offence. The less regulated discipline of a patrol ship can allow for greater relationships than would be typically allowed in most militaries (see the relationship of Drake and Vasquez in Aliens,) but there is still a discipline that even a patrol ship would be expected to pretend to keep. Marriages amongst personnel in the same company or aboard the same ship are not permitted.

Lore RP standards

8. Try to avoid using lore that directly contradicts the codebase or in-round statements of the Game Master.

9. Unless retconned by a Game Master, the events of previous rounds can be loosely recalled by your character in subsequent rounds. If the two contradict, the newer events should override.
For example, if you’ve died previously but are alive now, you’re alive. One caveat to this is for "first contact" operations, during which no player characters will have prior knowledge of the xenomorph threat.

10. As the Alien setting was culturally sourced from the 1970s to late 1980s, attempt to avoid Slang, references, and real-life history past 1986.
The internet as we know it never developed in the Alien setting, so avoid using modern internet slang ICly. Things such as "lol", "skibidi", ":3" and similar should not be said ICly.

11. References to lore should be used by virtue of the ranking in this Alien source list.

The only exceptions to this is homebrew PVE lore and the Technical Manual are ranked highest, with PVP lore just beneath, ranking higher than newer written sources, like elements of the Alien TTRPG. Similarly, in-round lore provided by the running Game Master ranks higher than even those sources. Some examples of this are the PvE renditions of the Union of Progressive Peoples, or the TWE's Royal Marine Commandos forces, both of which differ a fair bit from how they're portrayed in the Alien TTRPG.

Command RP standards

12. Attempt to play a character that could have reached that rank through adequate demonstration of command or leadership, theoretically or practically. Your character should not be solely incompetent, even Gorman had some redeemable qualities.

13. Unless explicitly permitted by the round’s Game Master, your character should be trying to perform their job to an acceptable standard.

This is increasingly strict the more important the job is (Corpsman, Section Sergeant and Platoon Commander (for USCM) are at the stricter end of job competency.) Understandable or minor failures at doing so may result in IC consequences, but constant, repeated failures without sense or reason can result in jobbans (The military would probably not promote your character or pass them as certified for certain military occupations if they were completely unable to do their job). Note that you are not expected to be a role model member of the armed forces, but you are asked to not use your role to grief and to also have an OOC understanding of what’s going on. Honest mistakes, short of them being a constant occurence, will not see you punished.

14. You should attempt to maintain some discipline under your command. Consequently, IC discipline is encouraged.

Be tough, but fair. As a career marine senior NCO, or officer, the enlisted and junior NCOs should afford you a level of respect (to your face, at least). Those who don't, it's more than fair to have them perform menial disciplinary tasks such as push-ups or cleaning up of a room. Just don't go overboard with it, disciplinary tasks given should not be manifestly unfun nor uninteresting for the person being disciplined if it is prolonged. Ultimately it's another player who is behind the controls of the other character. There may be an element of consequences for their actions that they'll be grudgingly fine dealing with, but pushing them past that point might make it just outright unenjoyable for them.

15. Even if its believable for you to do so, avoid collective punishment: only punish perpetrators.
Don't enforce needless punishment tasks on those who haven't earned them. Things like making the whole unit do mandatory PT, cleaning the entire ship, inventorying every little thing in the storage rooms, all of those largely draw back on the chances for the players to roleplay with one another before the 'main stage' of a round begins.