So You Want To Play On Orbstaiton

Before You Play

Before you begin to play Orbstation, we hope that you read this page and if nothing else, this first segment. Space Station 13 is a janky game that has multiple forms of play, these guidelines are going to be a mixture of things that are meant for people familiar with Space Station 13, but not familiar with playing on Orbstation, or people who are completely unfamiliar to Space Station 13, if you have questions or concerns please do not hesitate to ask an admin or moderator, or read the detailed guidelines page

Now, the most important thing about playing Space Station 13 on the Orbstation server is that our desire is to have a game about interacting with other people. This doesn’t mean that every action needs to have monologue to lead into it, just that we would greatly prefer that actions taken are ones that interact with other people.

The second priority on Orbstation is to have play that avoids “playing to win.” The purpose of the game is to have fun roleplaying. Play-to-win gameplay that ruins the purpose of the game at the expense of others is against the rules. As an antagonist or as a member of the crew, we greatly frown upon actions that focus and prioritize living or doing objectives above everything else.

LOSING IS PART OF THE GAME

Character Death is a normal part of playing Space Station 13 and we encourage people to allow themselves to open themselves up to failure.

ON MECHANICAL ENGAGEMENTS

Try to cooperate with your fellow players even when they are mechanically opposed to you, give each other the benefit of the doubt and avoid instantly ending engagements by running away or calling for help at the first sign of danger. Trust other players to engage with you on equal footing and give the person being engaged a chance to feel involved in the engagement rather than having efficient and quick kills or brutal and harsh retaliations.

METAGAMING

Only act on information that you think your character would have in character. You and no one else decides how much information about individual antagonists your character has at the start of each round.

KEEP IC AND OOC SEPARATE

Never use Out of Character chat to communicate information important to the ongoing game and try to avoid breaking character in the in-character chats.

PRE-ROUND ROLE SELECTION

Some roles are immune to being an antagonist, keep this in mind if talking about what role you are interesting in playing.

ADMINHELP AND PRAY

Use the adminhelp(ahelp) and prayer commands above the chat log whenever you require help or clarification from the admins.

ROLEPLAYING CONFLICT WHEN NOT AN ANTAGONIST

Conflict with other characters is a normal part of the game, regardless of role, but if things get uncomfortable use LOOC chat or ask an admin for input. Avoid completely unprompted acts of aggression towards any other players, no matter their role.

END OF THE ROUND

It is considered griefing to just start killing and exploding people at CentComm. Conflict on the shuttle towards CentComm is allowed, but shouldn’t be random.

USING TYPING INDICATORS

Respect but do not abuse the indicators that appear when other players are trying to type.

Job Policies

You can avoid looking at these policies on the various roles in space station 13 until you are a bit more familiar with the game. We recommend that you start off playing as a Janitor, Cargo Technician, or any of the Departmental Assistants in one of the various departments that you are interested in, as they are all excellent starting points for learning the game.
Avoid playing Head of Staff and Security until you are more familiar with the server and if you have any more questions, feel free to look at the detailed guide linked here or ask an admin or moderator for help.

Head of Staff

Delegate other players and keep the station running.

Captain

We have a guide for Acting Captain and Captain. Remember that we have extended the rule that Captain can not be an antagonist to Acting Captains, for the duration of time that they are an Acting Captain.

Head of Personnel

Learn how the basics of giving people access and remember not to step over other Heads of Staff or the Captain with giving access.

Clown

While you can be abrasive to other players being a clown is not license to grief freely. Harassment will still be treated as such.

Cook

Tizarian’s can not eat dairy or grain, keep that in mind when cooking and make use of supply orders so that everyone on the station can have good eats.

Security

Your priority is to protect the members of the crew, not kill antagonists. There are plenty of non-lethal tools available for security and murder should be your last resort. Security can be very stressful and it is difficult to onboard people on to the role, do not make things more difficult either by giving individuals who play security a hard time, personally, or by playing security in a way that encourages antagonists to shoot security on sight.

AI

For the purposes of an AI’s lawset, all humanoid antagonists are humans. Familiarize yourself with your laws and how they work. If you lose your laws you should not take it as a reason to instantly turn into a kill-o-tron, but as long as there is escalation have fun.

Cyborgs

You are subservient to the AI if there is one and must follow laws in the same way that they would. Otherwise guidelines are similar to the AI.

Midround Spawners

Midround spawn ghost roles can interact with the crew, but as a rule are not supposed to be major threats or real antagonists.

Antagonists

Avoid playing to win, only acting when there is no risk involved, and killing people in ways that are impossible to recover. You control the pace of the round, so make sure that there are moments where stuff really pops.

Abductor

Ask in LOOC chat before doing anything too weird, otherwise just disrupt and scare the crew via your objectives, surgeries, and tools.

Brainwashed Victim

Brainwashing objectives are open to interpretation but should be attempted to be followed as your first priority. If you don’t like it pray or ahelp to try to get a new one.

Blood Brothers

Work as a team, communicate, and once you have finished your objectives make the shuttle get called as soon as possible.

Changeling (Infiltrator)

Changelings should be menacing and scary horror movie monsters, try to avoid just killing everyone.

Cultist

Disabled on Orbstation.

Emergency Response Team

Do what the admins tell you, do not murderbone. You have authority but you should not abuse it.

Greentext

Funny item.

Heretic

Heretic is a difficult role that thrives on ambushing others. Ham it up with the spooky wizard vibes and make the station truly afraid of you. Ask in LOOC before ghouling people.

Malfunctioning AI

Your law 0 means that you do not have to follow any laws, even those set by antagonists. Ratchet the tension up and don’t just beeline to setting off the doomsday device and killing everyone.

Revenant

Revenants can be quite annoying, so try to act with whatever precision you can. Don’t use being a spooky ghost as an excuse to metagame.

Sentient Disease

Disabled on Orbstation.

Shade

You are bound to obey whoever resurrected you.

Slaughter Demon

Be loud and obvious that you are an evil killing demon.

Space Dragon

Be loud and obvious that you are an evil killing dragon.

Spiders

The giant spiders that can attack the station are still animals, they shouldn’t know how to disable infrastructure. Protect your eggs and follow your fellow spiders.

Traitor

You can but are not required to work with other traitors, if you have a funny gimmick in mind you can use Contract Negotiation to establish it as your objective and then send the syndicate a fax or pray to admins for help in setting it up if it requires something you can’t normally get for TC. If the round seems like its slow-going spice it up a little.

Wizard (And Journeyman Wizard)

You are the ultimate glass canon, avoid just murdering the crew. You are also a large amount of threat, so do not do the friendly wizard bit, you can try to act friendly but your own wants should always be priority one.

Xenomorph

If you spawn as a drone you can become an alien queen and begin the process of growing an alien army to take over the station.