Gamemaster Information

Introduction

This page outlines the key responsibilities, policies, and expectations for all members of the Gamemaster team. It contains both policies and notes/resources intended to be useful for all members of the GM team at varying levels of skill and ability.

Definitions

Positions

• Supervising GM - The GM supervising the round being run, supervises rounds run by Jr. GMs. Works alongside the Lead GM for the round to ensure quality.
• Lead GM - The GM who wrote the script for the round being run.
• Senior GM - A senior member of the Gamemaster team. Trusted to supervise Jr. GMs and first time trial rounds submitted through tickets, run rounds without supervision without assistance, and mentor members of the GM team.
• Jr. GM - Newer members to the Gamemaster team. Someone who has submitted a round through the ticket system, ran it, and been entrusted to stay to run more rounds. Expected to ask questions of Senior GMs to learn and grow as they run rounds while being supervised by a Senior GM.
• Trial GM - A user who has submitted a script through the ticket system, has had it approved, and is now invited temporarily to the GM team (Granted permissions as a Jr. GM) for the purposes of running that script under supervision of a Senior GM.

Round Information

• Props - Roles that are not a part of the “main” faction. These are spawned by hand as either ghost roles, console command, or manual “Spawn as Job” verbs.
• Primer - A string of text which is posted as an announcement / “brief” for a session, giving some lore or detailing into what might occur. GMs must disclose any non-standard ‘tags’ related to their round. (Ex: A greenshift, a first contact, a meme operation, large amounts of HvH etc.)
• HVH - Human vs Human
• Xai - Xeno AI
• Hai - Human AI
• Meme Operations - Self explanatory, anything that is meme-y / joke-y in nature. This is different from an operation with a silly concept - An operation where a group of pizza delivery drivers are sucked into a xeno infested hive is not the same as an operation where you’re space wizards fighting interdimensional crows, monkeys with laser swords, and goblins that crawl in the walls.
• First Contact - Primary faction is unaware of what they will be facing groundside. (Ex: Unaware of any information regarding xenos, their abilities, or life cycles.)
• Slowburn Operations - An operation that has a large period of buildup and prior to action, with said buildup taking up more than half of the operation’s expected time before combat.
• Greenshifts - Operations with no threat, with GMs having minimal action in the round and the emphasis of the operation is on having fun, roleplaying, and developing characters. Extreme fights should be dissuaded by GMs.
• Blueshifts - Greenshifts that will slowly develop into threats depending on GM / Player action. GMs should not ‘bait’ players by calling a round a blueshift then instantly dropping people into combat - You should have reasonable buildup and allow players at least 1-2 hours of RP beforehand.
• Colony Fall - Players start as colonists and undergo the fall of their colony due to whatever threat the GM desires  - You should have reasonable buildup and allow players at least 1-2 hours of RP beforehand.
• Isolation - Players start as colonists and must survive against a GM-controlled xenonid. The map must be modified to accompany this, such as removing survivor equipment and restricting weapons. Players are meant to focus on telling stories and hoping for survival, as these sessions will rarely see survivors greater than one.
• Re-run - Hosting a previously ran and approved session again.

General Policies

• Upkeep a positive reputation in the overall community, meaning both in-game and out.
• Maintain kind, respectful, and positive behavior both in-game and out.
• PII and Other Sensitive Information (Ex: Knowledge about admin action in a round, tickets, etc.) must be delicately handled by all members of the GM team. Any such information must be kept within admin chat ingame, ahelps, or the pve-gm discord chat. Do not discuss any such information without extensive reason to (Use your judgement).
• When a Senior Gamemaster feels as if a Jr. Gamemaster is ready for possible promotion, they may bring the discussion up to the other senior members in a private thread. The starting thread message should include a list of their previously ran rounds (Pulled from the #round-organizing forum).
• Pings for individual rounds should be kept to only two pings; One for the primer, round information, start time, etc. One for notifying that the server is open to standard connections. Anything else (Ex: Votes for potential scripts or round modifiers, etc) should not be pinged out for but may still be posted in the announcement channel. The message containing the primer must also include the server's IP and a link to the PvE player guide. If the round is being lead by a Jr. GM or Trial GM it must also specify who the Lead GM and Supervising GM are.

Handling Problematic Players

If there is a problematic player present in the round the issue should be reported like normal (Ex: Mentioned in Admin Chat, using the ‘Admin Only’ ahelp toggle, mention in the GM vc, etc) to allow for game admins to handle issues as they arise. Ideally, you will have a member of the game admin team with you to handle issues without you needing to set aside time to significantly document them. Non-Admin GMs are not able to provide warnings to players or enforce rules, unless it is in relation to round conditions (Ex: Do not gather equipment to deploy until briefing has been given to the vessel). If a pattern of behavior is found where there are consistent issues of a player not meeting RP expectations or failing to follow clearly stated round conditions then this can be reported through the above means.

Whitelist Roles

Do not spawn non-whitelisted players in whitelist roles. In rounds where whitelist roles are potentially present (CO, SEA, etc.), the only people who may play those roles are whitelist holders for those positions. Due to this, all scripts involving these roles must have alternate plans for the potential absence of qualified players. If required, you can ask a whitelist holder in the GM chat, or ask an admin to ask the whitelist holders in their private text channels if any would be able to be present for your round.

As for roles that will be whitelisted in the future but are not currently whitelisted (IE: Synthetics and Preds); the hosts have asked that we avoid spawning them outright unless absolutely required. These roles are unfinished and unpolished, so they should be avoided. If a role is absolutely required, it must be someone highly trusted and knowledgeable about that role (Like a game admin or whitelist holder). Avoid writing scripts that entirely hinge around the presence of these roles.

SGM Policies

• PII and Other Sensitive Information (Ex: Knowledge about admin action in a round, tickets, etc.) must be delicately handled by all members of the GM team, but especially Senior Gamemasters. Do not discuss or share PII (And Other Sensitive Information) outside of the Senior Gamemaster Chat.
• Do not use your admin permissions on the Alamo server in any form.

Remaining Admin’d In-Round

• Generally speaking, once you have received a role or prop in a round, deadmining is expected as normal. In situations where direct access to tools like admin chat is required by the player anyways (For things like round flow or reducing Gamemaster workload), the Supervising GM can grant permission to remain an admin while playing in the round. This permission must be explicitly given on a case by case basis.

VC Policy

• Do not remain in VC when given a role unless explicit permission is given by the supervising GM present. You are free to ask for permission, which can be granted in the case of roles where it is crucial to have a direct line of communication to the lead GM  and/or by the judgement of the supervising GM.

Other Policies

Round Submission Procedure

• The ‘#round-organizing’ forum is for when you have become a member of the GM team to submit your scripts and have them go through a similar process to your initial ticket. Be certain to label your post at least with ‘Yet to be run’ for ease of review as required.
• Even for short scripts, still post them in the form of a google doc. All rounds, no matter how simple, must be submitted in a post in this forum, with the exception of Whiskey Outpost rounds.
• As a Jr. GM, the person who approves your round does not necessarily have to be the Supervising GM for the round. However, if it is a different member of the team, ensure that they are well informed about your intent and contents of your script.

Trial GM Rounds

1. Script approved by SGMs after review.
2. Host(s) notified 48 hours (Minimum) in advance to provide permissions required.
3. SGM and Trial GM join the pve-gm voice chat half an hour in advance to the server being open to connections in order to discuss GM/Admin tools and anything else required for the specific round.
4. Post round; review thread made internally with the SGMs to discuss if the user should stay. Mandatory 48 hour discussion period on the user/round, to be extended as required.
5. Hosts are notified of decision ahead of time to manage permissions.
6. Users are notified of SGM decisions once consensus is made.

Jr. GM Rounds

• All rounds ran by a Jr. GM will receive a private review thread (Locked to just those with the SGM Discord Role & Whisper) in the Senior GM chat. The purpose of this is to discuss both the good and bad of the round in more detail and track the progress of each Jr. GM. The end goal of these threads should be to gather information to pass on to the Jr. GM of what went well and poorly. Be certain to be able to present this information in a positive manner. The first message in this thread should include some basic information about the round and the message link to the round organizing post for it.
• After rounds ran by a Jr. GM conclude, the Supervising GM should discuss the round with them. This discussion should include what went well, poorly, things that could be improved upon if the round was to be rerun, and so on. Do not just focus on the negative of the round where possible, discussing what went well is just as beneficial for all involved.

Miscellaneous

Upcoming Gamemaster/Admin Tools

• Selectable Job Presets Without Requiring Uploaded Files
• Ability to manage job slots for selectable jobs in the lobby, without requiring prototype uploading.
• Warning/Confirmation on the ‘Spawn Here as Job’ verb for if someone is not whitelisted to the role or has a role ban in that role.

Resources

• A guide to writing and running your first script, including some basic commands and expectations. While primarily for Trial GMs, there is possibly helpful information in this document.

Command List

• uploadfile /<filename>.ogg - Uploads a sound file to the server, under the name you specify. (Opens your file explorer to actually select which file to be uploaded)
• playglobalsound /uploaded/<filename>.ogg 4 - Plays an uploaded sound globally. 4 is an interchangeable volume variable, with 4 being loud enough to hear above standard SS14 ambient tracks in most cases.
• aresannounce <Message> - Sends an announcement by’Ares V3.2’
• (setooc, setlooc, setdchat) - Toggles on and off access for non-admins to speak in the respective chat.
• weather <MapId> <WeatherPrototype> <Duration> - Sets the weather on the specified map. Duration is optional. WeatherPrototype should automatically fill with options.
• marineannounce <Sender> <Message> - Sends a marine announcement from the specified sender.
• > hive:alldefault - Sets all ‘rouge’ (Admin Spawned) xeno entities (Structures and Xenos themselves) to the default hive.
• Fixpower - Fixes power on the map you are currently on. Forces power to be ‘on’.
• Loadplanetmap <mappath> - Loads a planetmap with the ‘RMCPlanet’ and ‘Tactical Map’ components automatically attached. Runs fixpower automatically.
• Rmcannounce:xenopopuptomarines <Message> - Sends a popup from ‘????’, plays the xeno bioscan sounds. _{(Disclaimer, below are commands that require full gamemaster perms.}

SGM Perms are required to be able to run the below commands;

• Showmarkers - When active shows hidden markers (IE: Spawns, LZ Destinations, Tactical Map Markers, etc.)
• self nearby <#OfTiles> with Ghost select <#OfGhosts> spawnhereasjob <JobPrototype> - Spawns #OfGhosts, chosen from #OfTiles from you, as JobProtoype.
• Roundend:settext - Command to manually set the end of round text displayed on the end of round screen. Can also be set through the Gamemaster UI.
• > ent <id> icon:set “<icon_state>” -  Changes an entities’ icon if they have the Marine component. Icon_State must come from a file in `Textures/_RMC14/Interface/cm_job_icons.rsi`
• vvwrite /entity/[id]/Rank/Rank <rankprototype> - Changes the target id’s rank. Currently doesn’t autofill so get rank prototypes from the code.
• > stations:get jobs:job <job> jobs:adjust <amount> - Adjusts the amount of jobslots for the specified role. (In place of ‘adjust’ there is also; ‘isinfinite’, ‘set’, ‘amount’). Currently doesn’t autofill, so get job prototypes from the code.