Who can be RDMed, and who might already be ruining this game mode.

[Harry]

so if anyone's trying to force down rules which apply to the entire gamemode, they may be slightly biased.

Agreed

My take on the matter:  As RDMing becomes enforced more and more the variety of player personalities drops.  As a server is created they should have only one rule to prevent RDM: "You must have a reason to shoot them."  And tell people why when people ask why they were shot.

Players can then learn and plan for other peoples personalities and change tactics accordingly.  Thus, a proper psychological game.

this guy totally gets it. The only thing i'd maybe disagree on is the wording of the rule you've proposed, but given we're just spitting here its not a big deal. The important part is, there seem to be plenty of us who agree that with an increase in enforced RDM rules comes a decrease in psychological strategies and variations of them.

[PenisColada]

Look at it this way. Innocents are supposed to kill traitors. An innocent figures out that someone is a traitor and kills him, thereby winning the game. WHY should he be punished for winning?

[ball2hi]

Agreed

this guy totally gets it. The only thing i'd maybe disagree on is the wording of the rule you've proposed, but given we're just spitting here its not a big deal. The important part is, there seem to be plenty of us who agree that with an increase in enforced RDM rules comes a decrease in psychological strategies and variations of them.

You'd have to be more clearer on the rules though, otherwise it would be a step backwards to what it was on ZM (From what i heard), and people will kill people with the reason of: "They were looking at me."

Also it depends on HOW they found out he/she was traitor. If she/he had a good reason of: "He seemed to be at every unidentified corpse, he/she has the same weapon as what everyone is being killed by. I suspect him as traitor!" where as "He kept following me." is not a good reason.

[PenisColada]

"He kept following me even when I told him not to and I felt like he was lining up shots on me and acting suspiciously when I accused him" is a plenty good reason.

[Harry]

You'd have to be more clearer on the rules though, otherwise it would be a step backwards to what it was on ZM (From what i heard), and people will kill people with the reason of: "They were looking at me."

Also it depends on HOW they found out he/she was traitor. If she/he had a good reason of: "He seemed to be at every unidentified corpse, he/she has the same weapon as what everyone is being killed by. I suspect him as traitor!" where as "He kept following me." is not a good reason.

Well, first of all, I don't think it's a TERRIBLY big deal for someone to kill someone with minimal information. If the kill was truly random then the odds are that it will have been an innocent, and someone killing too many innocents can veritably be said to be random killing. Being followed, in the right circumstances, is definitely an indicator. Someone following a single other person around would have no reason to do so other than if they were a traitor. If they were innocent, then there's no telling that their companion isnt a traitor who will simply kill them the moment they're sufficiently separated from the pack. Travelling in threes or more allows reports to be made when the traitor starts his work.
But this also opens up the possible tactic of traitors working together and associating themselves with only one innocent, and actually working together to murder them, after giving them a sense of security in numbers. If you punish someone for killing someone who is clearly stalking an individual, there's no reason for the traitors to work together in this way - Just follow someone to a secluded area and dispatch them, without any fear of his companions opening fire on you. I know it sounds arrogant but I really feel like i can say the enforced "evidence rule" (i wont call it RDM rule because random deathmatching isn't what we're examining here) subtracts from the depth and possible strategies that can emerge from the game.


edit: It also near-destroys the possibility of people pretending to be a traitor, even when they aren't. While it sounds dumb and certainly wouldn't score points, I'm sure there'd be people who would like to give it a shot to break things up a bit. I think I would, as it'd be interesting to see how you could actually provoke people into suspecting and even killing you without actually killing anyone youreself. This wouldn't work if people were punished for killing on suspiscion.

[Blitzy!]

You've also gotta consider the flare gun when looking at evidence. If someone goes "Hey, he killed me and yeah I was a traitor but there're no corpses here!", there's still the possibility of those corpses being removed from the scene in some way.

This really needs to be dealt with, the whole gamemode's being spoilt because of this "RDM" issue. I guess the only way to deal with it is to be strict.

Maybe a suggestion for tGB, but kill 3 innocents as an innocent and you're forced to sit a round out? Unless of course, an innocent fired at you first in which case self-defense is legit, but is there anyway of determining this using code?

[Bad King Urgrain]

Maybe a suggestion for tGB, but kill 3 innocents as an innocent and you're forced to sit a round out? Unless of course, an innocent fired at you first in which case self-defense is legit, but is there anyway of determining this using code?

Theoretically, perhaps, but it will become a clusterfuck of edge cases. Just one example: for how long after the attack is a self defence kill valid? 2 seconds? 5 seconds? Let's say 5 seconds. People will find this out within about 5 minutes, and then start abusing it. I could shoot you and quickly duck away, so that you can't start firing until 4 seconds have elapsed. So you kill me after 6 and you get a strike. Here's another one: I shoot you once with a pistol, you reflexively return fire and hit me, and I can kill you in self defence. Okay, so we track aggressors for a few seconds. Well, I'll just shoot just over your head to get you to fire at me (because I might be traitor), then when you do I kill you in self defence.

I could think of a few other cases. Sure, you can set up an elaborate system to track this, but I don't think a long list of complex rules are what we want here. In practice, it's not feasible.

Personally, I side with those who say people scream "RDM" too quickly. Assholes who just kill people for no reason are obvious enough. You can't require people to do discuss/vote/explain before every kill. If someone is sniping at me, I run into a building, and a moment later someone runs past the window with a rifle out and comes into the room I'm in, I don't have much choice. If I discuss my strong suspicions he will have killed me if they were correct. It's perfectly legit for me to shoot him and explain why after the fact. If I was wrong, perhaps the rest will decide to execute or isolate me, perhaps not.

(When this exact thing happened to me on ttt_cluedo I didn't kill him. I shot him as he entered but he did not immediately return fire and I doubted. I leave the room and a minute later he kills me, because he was the traitor.)

Recently on downtown, I was the traitor with about 6-7 players. Things went badly, everyone was holed up and people suspected me for trying to follow people. So when I went to the furniture shop with my sniper rifle and pointed it at those inside, judging whether I could kill them, one of them just shot me. Kind of "random" when you consider the fairly thin evidence? Yes, but I was directly threatening them. So I didn't mind, it was a reasonable kill.

Is it better if people discuss their suspicions, vote, etc.? Yes, but I don't think it should be strongly enforced, because it is not always possible. So traitors might get killed more, and innocents might get killed more by other innocents. But innocent players will not be as defenceless as they can be now. Rounds will move faster, people will get traitor later on again. It's not all bad.

edit:
I should note that my word is not law on this issue, everyone can admin their servers however they want. That's why I did not post here earlier.

[Blitzy!]

Theoretically, perhaps, but it will become a clusterfuck of edge cases. Just one example: for how long after the attack is a self defence kill valid? 2 seconds? 5 seconds? Let's say 5 seconds. People will find this out within about 5 minutes, and then start abusing it. I could shoot you and quickly duck away, so that you can't start firing until 4 seconds have elapsed. So you kill me after 6 and you get a strike. Here's another one: I shoot you once with a pistol, you reflexively return fire and hit me, and I can kill you in self defence. Okay, so we track aggressors for a few seconds. Well, I'll just shoot just over your head to get you to fire at me (because I might be traitor), then when you do I kill you in self defence.

I do indeed see what you're talking about, and I pretty much agree.

But what if we don't time the validity of self-defense? I mean, someone can shoot you and then run away just as you described, but even by the end of the round, that person STILL shot you, and maybe he was just wearing you down until you were an easy kill. Maybe he doesn't run away, maybe he says he flinched or whatever. It's your call then whether to buy it or kill him, because even if you're wrong, he DID shoot you and it would probably be allowed by an admin and the majority.

As for the "shoot over the head" case, traitors are allowed to kill since it's their job, right? I wasn't saying traitors get affected by this system since that's just inappropriate, and if an INNOCENT did this, well, just shooting over a person's head gives reason to kill that person since it's threatening. And he can't do it several times in a row because the only way it'd count as self-defense is if he was hit, so he'd be killed before long if he was trying to exploit it.

I was just spitballing about a way to punish innocents for killing other innocents with this "random-guess" kind of ideology. If there was an automatic punishment, maybe people would think twice about just "killing people on a whim".

[Harry]

I still think it's in the spirit of the game to have any kicking or sit-outs be decided by vote. Everything else about the game is about appeasing the mob and pack mentality, why not the actual rules as well? Whether you act like an asshole in a game like this should be up to the individual, whether you get away with it should depend on your cunning... Just like the rest of the game

[Bad King Urgrain]

As for the "shoot over the head" case, traitors are allowed to kill since it's their job, right? I wasn't saying traitors get affected by this system since that's just inappropriate, and if an INNOCENT did this, well, just shooting over a person's head gives reason to kill that person since it's threatening. And he can't do it several times in a row because the only way it'd count as self-defense is if he was hit, so he'd be killed before long if he was trying to exploit it.

It gives a reason to kill him, but you would get punished if you did so, because he did not actually attack you. It was an example to illustrate how you cannot track all acts of aggression, and it's very easy to be threatening/aggressive without it being detectable. People love abusing limitations such as that.

Even assuming a perfect self defence detection mechanism, you would not solve random kills. In fact, you'd give people a buffer of how many people they're allowed to kill before they'd get punished by the automatic system. More often than not, those who randomly kill a traitor have not killed many innocents. Yet if you set the max kills before you sit out to 3, then I can safely kill 2 suspicious people. How many people act suspicious each round? Often, 2 will be plenty to weed out at least one traitor. So you could lower the limit to 2, ie. one unpunished kill. Still not a bad deal, considering how often I get killed without having shot anyone. Yet at that point you're already changing the game in a massive way, and the issue still exists (perhaps even more than it used to).

I still think it's in the spirit of the game to have any kicking or sit-outs be decided by vote. Everything else about the game is about appeasing the mob and pack mentality, why not the actual rules as well? Whether you act like an asshole in a game like this should be up to the individual, whether you get away with it should depend on your cunning... Just like the rest of the game

A sit-out vote is an interesting suggestion. A successful vote would of course be void if the person turned out to be the traitor.

[Blitzy!]

Even assuming a perfect self defence detection mechanism, you would not solve random kills. In fact, you'd give people a buffer of how many people they're allowed to kill before they'd get punished by the automatic system. More often than not, those who randomly kill a traitor have not killed many innocents. Yet if you set the max kills before you sit out to 3, then I can safely kill 2 suspicious people. How many people act suspicious each round? Often, 2 will be plenty to weed out at least one traitor. So you could lower the limit to 2, ie. one unpunished kill. Still not a bad deal, considering how often I get killed without having shot anyone. Yet at that point you're already changing the game in a massive way, and the issue still exists (perhaps even more than it used to).

Ahaha, yes, I see now. Agreed.

As for the sit-out vote, seems cool, but how would you do it? I mean, if everyone could see the vote, couldn't you abuse it and bring up a vote for whoever just killed you? So what, can only dead people see it or....?

[worbat]

Note people may have picked up traitor equipment off of dead bodies. Though normally they announce that.

[Harry]

TGB - IT might also be worth considering leaving the vote up to the innocents. Surely a traitor who has been sniffed out when he thought he was being really clever would be a biased vote. The innocents have nothing to gain from kicking out good detectives, so it seems ideal to consider the game to be disrupted if they feel the accused RDMer was being disruptive?
I might also add, that I think it dumbs the game down in another way that hasn't really been mentioned. There's plenty of discussion for how to do treacherous things and not get caught, but what of a traitor and his need to use his keenest observation skills to avoid appearing to have done something wrong, even if he hasn't? If there's no penalty for a traitor (or an innocent, for that matter) hanging around unidentified bodies, or carrying around a confirmed murder weapon, or opening fire unprovoked, surely it removes skill, observation and intuition from the game and replaces it with methodical stimulus and response?
What I believe is ruining the game mode is individuals who claim something was an unfair "RDM." Since when was "fair" one of the cornerstones of the game? If you fail to avoid suspiscion, it's your balls on the chopping block. The cutt-throat mob execution shit is the very charm of the gamemode.

As has been said before, we need to think about what makes a kill RANDOM. If any deliberation was involved whatsoever, it was not random.

Traitors should avoid suspiscion altogether if they want to succeed, and I don't think there's any reason to make it too easy for them.

[worbat]

. The cutt-throat mob execution shit is the very charm of the gamemode.

Ah yes, because we all love to be on the receiving end of a justice squad.

[Erscheinung]

Ah yes, because we all love to be on the receiving end of a justice squad.

I do, as it's usually funny. Also, if you make a sit-out vote. Please for the love of god make #1: No. Most people always press #1 regardless what the vote is. Or, even make #1 not an actual vote, make it #2 and #3. Although with that feature, I see changing weapons and voting becoming a problem.

[worbat]

I do, as it's usually funny.

Depends on how it's done. Joking jovial fashion ones are normally amusing. A single man with untolled theriors isnt.

[Bad King Urgrain]

I do, as it's usually funny. Also, if you make a sit-out vote. Please for the love of god make #1: No. Most people always press #1 regardless what the vote is. Or, even make #1 not an actual vote, make it #2 and #3. Although with that feature, I see changing weapons and voting becoming a problem.

I don't think it's even possible to do sit-out votes, due to some of the reasons Blitzy mentioned.

[Harry]

having only the dead vote could work imo. They're more likely to have seen what happened, and don't have anything immediate to gain from a biased vote. If there aren't enough victims to kick the vote off, then the RDMer can't be all that disruptive, right?

[Swiftfreddy]

Sit out vote wouldn't work.

Would become like DarkRp or one of those shoddy spin offs with their vote demote function.
People would just vote to sit out people who killed them.

RDM is the reason I prefered playing Serial killer on ZM on a private server with a bunch of people I know.
I definitely don't think it should be solely Self Defense or if you see someone kill another person, the whole detective mode would become useless. I tend to talk for quite some time about my reasoning why I suspect someone before I plan to kill them, as an innocent.

Traitors can be RDMed. That person is randomly killing, that person could have easily been an innocent. The fact it was a traitor was chance and the traitor isn't a DMer, they aren't gonna take everyone on, they wanna be subtle to win.

[Harry]

that person could have easily been an innocent.

Could someone please explain to me in what way that is not the point of the game?