Byond Account: SinfulBliss
Character Name(s): Axle Brady
Discord Name (ie: Name#1234): TreyJ#0265
Round ID of Ban: 15092
Ban Message (Gyazo/imgur or copy and paste):
“You have been banned by Bampotio from the server.
Reason: Round ID: 15092 Powergaming, every single shift you have a full toolbelt and combat knife as sec, you have been warned about power gaming.”
State your appeal: So I was told to rewrite this appeal in a less inflammatory manner. I didn’t see it as inflammatory, just honest, but here it is rewritten. First I want to say this particular admin has a history with me. They bwoink me multiple times a round for petty things that aren’t even reported and that they have no reason to bwoink me over (thus the lack of notes despite having been bwoinked easily 10 times the last 2 days). E.g., I was ahelped earlier today because I grabbed (“powergamed”) a drake armor suit from the stasis bed beside me, and a jumpsuit – from a dusted miner that was right next to me. I was also nude, just murdered by poisons, and had reason to expect I’d be targeted again. But really I just wanted some clothes.
The “previous warnings” about powergaming include one legitimate case, on one of my first Fulp rounds, where I ordered an autorifle without approval. The second was not powergaming and I appealed that note. The short of it was: I stopped a contractor who had looted the HoS gun and had the contractor space suit. According to this ruling Screenshot by Lightshot (which the admin was unaware of at the time), armor is allowed with permission from HoS or cap. I got HoS permission, so after showing them the ruling they agreed the contractor suit was fine (although I never used it once). The discussion then moved to the baton (is it lethal and does it threaten station-integrity, or is it a defensive weapon)? We argued but eventually I just accepted he was the admin and I was the player, and I gave it to HoS. During this time I hadn’t once used it. I was sitting completely still dealing with the ahelp. Once he confirmed it wouldn’t be allowed, I ditched it. Again, not powergaming - the HOS gun was stashed away in a smuggler satchel for safe keeping until the HoS actually joined the server, since armory and brig were destroyed from rods. I didn’t use one shot from it, you will find, nor did I pull it out to wield it. I was noted anyway for this.
It is completely ridiculous that confiscating grand theft items from traitors is considered “powergaming.” Powergaming is when you intentionally beef your character up to the highest level possible with 0 visible threat. A friend mentioned they also ate a 3-day ban for this exact thing but didn’t bother appealing it. It’s just a really silly precedent to set.
Another situation (I think with this admin as well) occured when a chemist broke into tele-room with thermite to steal the hand-tele. Obviously I grabbed it before he could, and stowed it away, never to be used or abused or “powergamed.” I actually got killed while SSD that round by the same chemist and ahelped it, and the admin ignored it entirely and said “why did you have a hand tele” (cue 15min round-ruining argument about a hand tele confiscated being powergaming). Seriously, if I wanted to powergame the hand tele, why not take it shiftstart when it’s least likely to be gone, and keep it? Why wait until the 2 hour mark? It’s not some elaborate plot to stock up on gamer items by roundend.
Sec is safer throwing any traitor gear or high-risk items into disposals, or just spacing the stuff, or even just leaving it on the ground, rather than holding onto it to prevent others from using it maliciously. How the hell is that right? There are logs that show whether a player uses an antag item or not. Surely you don’t need to be “psychic,” in the admin’s words, to determine what the motive is behind carrying the item.
Now to this ban, the most ridiculous case of them all. I ordered a combat knife from cargo, since it’s in the goody-crate (i.e., any man can order one) and is extremely useful as a lethal option in a pinch without guns. I actually dehulked a guy in space and revived him as a human because I had the combat knife with me. As I already mentioned, I used this as a lethal option in my shoes since I wanted to mess around with a shove no-baton no-guns gimmick sec for a while (it worked quite well, detained 2 lings and a wizard). Cablecuffs don’t always suffice and sometimes you need something that does more than 10 damage.
I also grab a toolbelt most shifts, or at least some tools. Why? Because I have a lot of hours in this game and I know how common the following situations are: get stuck in a room without AI to help and doors stuck (hence welder+wrench to avoid shocks); need to adjust flashbangs times (hence screwdriver); need to unfuck doors that might be bolted open or shocked (hence screwdriver+crowbar+multitool); want to quickly uncuff cablecuffed prisoners or cut malf AI cams (wirecutters). So the constant question of “why do you need tools as a sec officer” has a very obvious answer. Tools are cheap as dirt in the autolathe, and you’re not doing any harm by taking them. Is it better for the game that people get stuck in vented rooms forever or have command doors hacked open until 10 min later when they drag someone from engi to fix them?
And EVEN IF you still think by some miracle a knife and secbelt are powergaming, this is literally the first I heard of this as “powergaming.” The admin is correct, I got these two items most shifts- shifts they themselves were adminning - yet was never told it was wrong behavior. Considering I obtain the toolbelt and knife very early-on, surely I would have been bwoinked and banned for it right after the offense, and not 30 minutes later. And why would they choose this round to give the bwoink about it, and not the dozens of others prior? I suspect their decision was at least partially influenced by their bias against me from earlier ahelps and general dislike of how I play the game, without being directly bwoinkable most of the time. But to say nothing all this time and then suddenly ban me for it because of my “history of powergaming,” which I argue and I hope you agree isn’t really a history at all, is really improper.
I also have direct evidence this admin was grudging me. A traitor had spaced perma and broken into armory earlier in this round. Since the rules state that battles in space call for lethals, and since it was reasonable to assume the guy was armed with some of the several guns he spaced, I asked warden for lethals to go out and get the guy. Upon giving me an egun, I was immediately smited. Here’s a clip: smited for given egun by warden as seccie (Fulpstation) - YouTube . At that point it’s just griefing - I’d love to hear an explanation for why they decided I needed to be smited here.
If I wanted to play like a powergamer I’d just go HoS and get every gun in the armory, load up a shotgun, get all my stuff, and be done with it. But I don’t - I never play HoS so I can learn the ropes of Fulp-sec first, and honestly, so far it seems like most of Fulp-sec is just terrified of getting bwoinked for the slightest miss-step. The HoS and cap are usually impossible to hunt down to ask about what to do with a confirmed traitor/headrev/mass-murderer-who-should-be-executed. And I don’t blame them - who wants to make that decision and risk getting banned over it?
The worst part about this is that the admin even admitted on the previous ahelp that I wasn’t banned right then because my “powergaming” didn’t ruin anyone’s rounds. Did me ordering a knife and getting a toolbelt ruin anyone’s rounds? No. If anything it helped peoples’ rounds since others benefit from the utility. The only rounds that were ruined were mine because of the constant bwoinking over things that didn’t deserve a bwoink. It’s just exhausting and unnecessary. The past several rounds I even removed stunbatons and ranged weapons to make myself as little power-gamey as possible. But still I’m labeled as a “powergamer” and will be orbited every round to bwoink over these sort of non-issues. I was bwoinked by this same admin, in softcrit, after a gunfight with a guy with a makarov. Why? First it was because I killed him instead of detaining him. I explained I did so because I was in soft-crit, and could pass out at any time while trying to detain. Then it was because I was using a shotgun to fight him. I explained it was given to me by the warden for suspected nukies earlier. Then it was because a mime got shot by me during the fight. I explained this was because they ran into the middle of the gunfight and got hit by crossfire (likely to troll). Finally the admin realized there was nothing there and immediately closed the bwoink without a response - but it was just an example of another totally unnecessary bwoink that didn’t require intervention, and which I believe was just them trying to get me for something.