Excessive negativity and consent

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Hello esteemed perphead colleagues,

It's been a while since I did a big thinky post, mostly because I got bored of being totally negative. I want to try and encourage some positive discussion about how to allow creative people to do creative things. Today's topic, 2.5.

The first thing to understand with any rule is it's motivation; what problem is it trying to solve, what behaviour is it trying to discourage? For 2.5 I think it's in the name, excessive negativity. The capability for players to affect other players in a detrimental way is part of the perp experience, shitting on people in raids is satisfying and part of the core gameplay loop for many people, but it does negatively affect the losing side (money, time, dignity.) We allow for this because is has many positive upsides. On the flipside, pure randomly killing presents a net negative, with the perpetrator not gaining any advantage while the victim loses time and possibly money. This kind of net negative experience is what 2.5 is intended to limit.

While there are some IC aspects of 2.5 (preserving a reasonable level of realism for roleplay,) it is mostly an OOC rule to moderate how players can affect each other's experiences on the server. This is evident from the definition of the rule:

"You must not seriously harm someone else's experience unless it is a fair and reasonable response to their negative actions against you."

The rest of the rules are specific edge cases or boundary setting. With that groundwork established, here's my idea.

The players experience is subjective to that player alone and thus if both players agree to an event with solid roleplay motivation and limited impact on other players then that event should not be in breach of rule 2.5. The wording of the rule implies that consentual actions between players should be allowed unconditioned on the adherence to some of the more rigid framework in place.

For example, a criminal mayor. This mayor and his SS will kidnap and torture a player, interrogating them for information or something. If this was done against a player who did not consent it would be bad, because the ordeal will be purely negative. If the player consents, however, then the experience would not be negative.

I personally think that 2.5 should be seen through two different lenses depending on the consent of the two parties. The key difference between roleplay and PvP is consent of all parties (no good PvPer will ever consent to lose.)

P.S. this may perhaps be controversial but a third party reporting something just because they had to interact with it because of their job is not excessively negative unless there are other factors involved
 
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Professor Penelope Poisson, your ground breaking ideas of the nuance of 2.5 is ever so intelligent. Much to think on, much to deliberate.
 
This is a very good idea, there are many rp situations that would arise from this, a while ago we had a situation were a mayor wanted us to kidnap them for some rp and it became a very fun and hilarious scenario for us. I think this rule change is already in practice as friends wont report eachother for 2.5 but still would be cool if officially implemented since technically your never supposed to break the rules
 
This is a very good idea, there are many rp situations that would arise from this, a while ago we had a situation were a mayor wanted us to kidnap them for some rp and it became a very fun and hilarious scenario for us. I think this rule change is already in practice as friends wont report eachother for 2.5 but still would be cool if officially implemented since technically your never supposed to break the rules

Most problems arise when the event spills out and other people start interacting with it. As long as you surrender / avoid cops and don't try to seriously shoot back at any point then their experience is not negatively impacted, unless you consider doing the job you are signed up to as a negative in itself. Some people will report it anyway. They should be ignored.

LOOC interaction mid situation should be encouraged as long as it is to communicate consent / non-consent for certain actions.
 
Pretty bad idea in my opinion. If something is handled entirely in-character and doesn’t cross into genuine OOC harassment, then it should stay an IC issue. The server has slowly shifted away from people portraying actual characters and more towards people just playing exaggerated versions of themselves, and changes like this only encourage that further.

This addition would also create a massive amount of grey areas and loopholes. Situations involving Rule 2.5 are already heavily dependent on staff interpretation (rather they want to admit it or not), and adding consent-based exceptions or subjective intent standards is only going to make enforcement more inconsistent. One admin may see something as valid escalation or immersive roleplay, while another may view the exact same situation as excessive negativity. That inconsistency creates frustration for both players and staff, especially when punishments start relying more on personal interpretation than clear rule standards.

A big part of serious roleplay is understanding that negative interactions are sometimes necessary for story development. Conflict, retaliation, intimidation, betrayal, and consequences are what create memorable character arcs. Obviously there should still be limits to stop outright toxicity or targeted harassment, but overregulating every hostile interaction strips away immersion and turns roleplay into people trying to avoid upsetting each other rather than actually portraying believable characters.

Another issue is that the community already has a problem with people constantly namechanging and recreating the exact same personality over and over again. There’s barely any distinction between characters anymore because there’s no incentive to develop long-term identities, motives, or believable behavior. Instead of encouraging more systems centered around personal comfort and OOC interpretation, the focus should be on encouraging realistic character portrayal and meaningful RP consequences.

At the end of the day, the server benefits more from immersive and grounded character-driven roleplay than from adding increasingly broad rules that can be interpreted differently every time they’re enforced. We should be finding ways to add depth and substance to roleplay, not slowly turning the server into a sanitized sandbox where every interaction has to be filtered through OOC sensitivity standards.

A roleplay server thrives when people are invested in their characters, not when everyone is afraid that any intense interaction could instantly become an admin situation and a ban.
 
Pretty bad idea in my opinion. If something is handled entirely in-character and doesn’t cross into genuine OOC harassment, then it should stay an IC issue. The server has slowly shifted away from people portraying actual characters and more towards people just playing exaggerated versions of themselves, and changes like this only encourage that further.,,
Is this AI because your argument is incoherent and isn't really relevant to the idea posed in the thread
 
There's just one issue. We rarely act on behalf of another user without a report, especially when it comes to 2.5. So the argument that if consent is there this would be less of an issue isn't exactly the problem.

With what you mentioned with SS and the mayor, the actual issue there is that they must obey the law, not 2.5 itself.

Personally I won't ever punish for 2.5 unless a player actually says their experience was excessively negatively affected.

The problem isn't the staff team exactly. The problem is everyone and their mom's neighbor's cousins's mother in law's dog making a report in hopes they get a gun back. So unless players were to accept the fact they may get inconvienced sometimes to actually experience unique moments, this isn't likely to happen.

A common thing I get in reports (not 2.5, but just as an example of this culture) is "I want my car repaired because this random event occured and it's not fair", to which I respond "That's roleplay. Random moments, which mimic real life, which isn't always fair". To which I am obviously met with a barrage of messages how xyz staff member would repair their car and how I cost them 70k now (they went 100 in a 40 zone and crashed into someone slightly over the center line). Then you ask them if they tried to resolve it in roleplay and they will say "No, because they broke a rule" - they didn't.
 
2.5 is a necessary vague rule to have, as arbitrary judgement sometimes is needed when dealing with players whom are problem-causers or players who cause the server to stray away from a intended play style that fits the status quo.

I've done some insane shit on the server, but I always try and keep it within the confines of consenting parties.
 
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