r/SS13 • u/cassyjenelle • 2d ago
General The Escalation Paradox
When it comes to escalating as an antag or doing something that involves murder, as many rulesets require. There's many ways people do this but I'm curious on how others do it. There's some antags like nukies/wizard that don't really require it since anyone will kill them on sight. But this is moreso for ones like traitor.
How do you usually play your antags? Discuss.
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u/Unremarkable_Chance 1d ago
start sending death threats via pda use an agent id to give yourself a funny name like "THE COLLECTOR" pda the QM tell em "You have 20 minutes to pay 100000 credits, or you will die in your sleep tonight"
Keep pressuring them throughout those 20 minutes with increasingly scary messages, once time is nearly up sleepy pen them tie em to a chair and start having a heart-to-heart talk about the economy
(preferably with a baseball bat for his shins nearby)
just be fuckin evil bro
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u/Turbojelly Grey 1d ago
When you try to create a hostage situation with Sec and a paramedic comes running in to shoot you with tri chlo syringes.....
3
u/SirBattlePantsTheII 1d ago
All the good LRP servers died so I stopped playing antag entirely.
The issue with roleplay servers is that roleplayers expect antags to carry the story of the round but most players are incapable of being interesting victims.
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u/asdfgtref 2d ago
calling it a "paradox" implies that playing an antagonist and escalating is seemingly impossible or run directly counter to eachother. Really it's just the case of "don't be boring". I'm someone who tends to get very argumentative in character to drum up drama or push things reasonably towards violent outcomes and have never gotten hit on any server I've played for poor escalation... unless we're counting fulp station like fucking 8 years ago where I got banned for poor esc and even then that was more a case of the admin being really pissy for whatever reason.
As an antagonist you should view yourself as a plot device, your entire reason for existing and having all these extra things is to create interesting situations for the round as a whole. You don't have to play passive, but you do need to have a satisfying path from A to B rather than just wordlessly killing someone which is fun for no one except you. even then IS that fun for you? Personally I don't find that enjoyable to do.
SS13 is a social game, interaction is the best part.
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u/cassyjenelle 2d ago
I know how to play antagonist - but I'm asking for how others play antag. Since a lot of people say this but don't actually make interesting antagonism.
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u/Stoned_Elf228 Host of Helmsguard 2d ago
God, antags were fun back before every server requires an esc RP, the paranoia was intensely good.
My favorite antag role has got to be the changeling if not traitor, for these roles, the strategy to win is mostly about deception and careful planning.
For traitor, depending on the objectives. I would usually be destructive, arming myself with silenced pistol, door jacker and a chameleon suit. I would usually cause a distraction somewhere on the station, either by causing an explosion, venting an entire room on the furthest side of the station and causing sec and engineers to rush there while I quickly make my way to my objective while everyone's distracted.
Or, in one case, I made a bunch of TTVs, hid them in maintenance lockers throughout the station, then making a radio announcement blackmailing the station on giving into my demands within 15 minutes or I'll detonate every bombs, I even took a few crew as hostages too for good measure. It forced the security into a SWAT sort of gameplay with them dispersing bomb squads to look for my TTVs and sending out a lawyer to negotiate with me over the release of the hostages.
For changeling, it's all about observing and mimicking. I would isolate, kill and absorb someone after observing how they talk and behave, then take over their identity and mimic their behavior as to convince their friend to follow me to a certain hidden room in the maintenance shaft that has no camera.