Crim Code Revision

[sjanimal]

CRIM CODE REVISION

It is my belief that the quality of roleplay on Armageddon could drastically increase were the crim code revised for playability.  Further, it is my opinion that revision to the Crim Code should be the highest priority article.

DISCLAIMER:  I actually think that the Crim Code is pretty good.  If you compare the Crim Code for Armageddon with the crim code for another "role-playing" video game developed at the same time, Ultima II,  you will see that the Arm Crim Code is infinitely superior.  It allows for characters to congregate in the urban areas and enjoy a reasonable degree of safety, while still allowing people who choose to do so the attempt to rob/harm/attack them.  Kudos.

However, numerous complaints about the Crim Code exist, so I want to take this opportunity to start a specific thread that will solicit raw ideas about how to fix it.  In reagards to my specific enjoyment of the game, it is my opinion, fixing the Crim Code should be priority number one.  
For those of you who disagree, try to remember all of the cheezy and arbitrary deaths you experience, and also the number of times NONCRIMINALS have accidentally gotten nailed by the code.


FORMAT:  Please, let the ideas flow.  I would rather you submit an idea that you're not sure about, and let the IMMs and Coders decide if its good or not.  Ideas flow freely in the best brain-storming sessions.

[sjanimal]

SJANIMAL CRIM IDEA NUMBER ONE

Tensors.  
I think that much of the problems with the Crim Code could be fixed if a probability tensor would be added to the front of each CRIM FLAG TEST action.  
I think the Tensor should range from .05 for a Templar, who can break the law with relative impunity, to .99 for your average joe.  This should reflect several things.

Status:

High Ranking Merchant -- .20
Mid Ranking Merchant -- .70
Noble House Guard -- .50

Annonymity:
Boring looking human beggar --.70
Elf with purple hair and neon green armor-- .99

Knowledge of escape routes:
Experienced Assasin-- .30
Experienced Smuggler-- .35
Stupid Half Giant-- .90
Average Joe Law Abiding Citizen with no need to plan-- .95

In other words, the probability of you getting noticed by the guard, which is already dependent on several factors (which I won't post here) should also be multiplied by a number between .05 to .99.

Note:  Those percentages that I made up are completely arbitrary.  Any feedback or complaints about the idea of tensors should relate to the idea of tensors itself.

[sjanimal]

SJANIMAL CRIM IDEA NUMBER TWO

KARMA DIFFUSION

Another thing that I think should be included is a command available to players with at least two karma:

Crimflag kill

I think that persons who have at least two karma should be able to roleplay, emote and think their way into escaping from the guard.  I think that anyone with two karma should be trusted to decide when they've had adequate opportunity to escape.  Maybe they're hiding at their boyfriends house while the heat dies down, maybe they suck off a Templar, I don't know.  

Please allow me to develop this idea further.  It is a very very expensive undertaking for a city-state to have someday crim-flagged.  What a crim-flag represents is a general "hue and cry," the response of a civilization to a criminal who must be immediately apprehended.  When someone is crim-flagged, all of the guards will recognize the suspect.  This means that all of the guards must be looking for the suspect.  This means that other criminals aren't being searched for, prisoner work gangs aren't being supervised, warehouses are not being guarded, training is not being conducted, overtime hours must be paid.  Hundreds of man-hours are getting used just to hunt down this one person, and that's if the search lasts for only a few minutes.  

Now, no doubt some of you are thinking, "Jeez?  Well, why have the CRIM FLAG at all?"  Well, a lot of times I myself wonder this, but I tend to forget how good the existing crim code is.  In essence, it protects serious/experienced role-players from noobs just APPing a warrior, and then wandering through the game PKing everyone.  

Thus, I think it is a very viable solution for new players to suffer the existing crim-code, and more trusted players to use their own maturity and judgement to figure out exactly how long it should take for them to avoid capture.

[sjanimal]

PUNISHMENT

I think that several different choices on punishment should exist for the player.  Currently, it seems that your only option for the most part is:

"Sit in a dark cell for one or two real life hours"

Yes, I've actually sat in a video game jail cell for two hours, and at the end of it someone (a staff member I think) animated a Templar and PK'd me.  

This seems like more of a punishment to the players than to the character.  I personally think that when you hit the jail cell, a menu should come up something like this

F) INE
I) MPRISONMENT
H) ARD LABOR
P) UBLIC BEATING
P (R) OBATION
Q) UESTIONING
S) EVERE PUBLIC BEATING
G) LATIATOR PITS

If you use that option, it should no longer appear for you.  You can't fuck up and get arrested all the time.  The only way to get the options back should be to get pardoned by a Templar, I think.

Fine -- fifty percent of your bank account and inventory money is deducted.
Imprisonment -- same as current penal system
Hard Labor -- guards drag character to coded rock yard.  Half giants drag in boulders every so often.  Characters split the boulders with a hammer, and put the chunks in a bin.
Public Beating -- this is more of a slap on the wrist, and characters will probably choose this option if they have it.  Maybe loose five hit points?
Probation -- Character gets two weeks probation, which they must spend with their families on House Arrest.  In essence, the character is forced to log off for twelve hours, but at least the player doesn't have to stare at the computer screen
Questioning -- a polite word for torture.  Character permanently looses one point of endurance
Severe Public Beating -- like the public beating, only character looses one point of strength or dexterity
Gladiator Pits -- Character is forced to duel a savage animal without much in the way of weapons.  If the character wins, they go free.  If not, they provide entertainment for whoever happens to be watching the games.

[Agent_137]

Obviously, delays need to be put inbetween the soldiers commands.

I don't have much experience with the crim code. that's all I've seen.

[Bestatte]

I prefer the KISS methodology: "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

What you propose is ridiculously complex, and the average player isn't going to take that kind of time to investigate all the possibilities and nuances of mechanics. In a game like this, they're more concerned with the RP to bother with much more complex than a paragraph of explanation for syntax. This, for an RPI, is a good thing and I'd rather not see it change.

The crim code has flaws. The flaws need to be addressed and fixed, but I honestly don't think they need to be rewritten. A single change to the nosave command can fix most of the problems with the crim code - the rest SHOULD be up to the players of templars and IMMs who animate NPC templars and soldiers and others to determine.

I wouldn't WANT coded complex punishments. This is a harsh and intensive RPI. Your character would consider himself fortunate to live through jail. Ranks of punishments aren't necessary. Let the players decide the justice - that's what makes it so much fun. Let the players decide when a criminal has had their "three strikes." Whether that's on the third offense, the first offense, the 99th offense, or just for the hell of it with no offense at all.

[Larrath]

The crime code can use some fixing, I suppose, though I have no issues with it myself.

With this said, law enforcement is very different between the city-states.

In Allanak, it is not uncommon for an elf to have his fingers, hands or head removed for stealing.  A criminal could also be tossed into the arena to feed a gladiator, or simply slain by the guards where they stand.  Or tortured, but this will likely be done in private and only with reason.

In Tuluk, on the other hand, everything is a lot more subtle; you don't see templars running around and dragging chained up people behind them, or bloody public executions where people are cut into ribbons and fed to a gortok.  In Tuluk, people just disappear without a trace.


To put it more shortly - a very elaborate system will be needed for this suggestion.


A second reason, the tensor issue...well, other than the fact that templars are above the law and will never ever ever be openly chased down by the militia (unless they're trying to run after committing high treason or something), how can this annonymity part work?
Characters have sdesc and mdescs...should they be given a 'noticeability' factor when they're approved?  Should all kinds of clothes change this?  Personally, this sounds like a lot of trouble for very little gain; more than likely, we'll just start seeing a bunch of medium-sized elves with brown hairs and eyes and all that.  Making equipment modify this is also difficult; there are thousands of items people can wear.

Giving this pardoning ability to karma players is simply giving them an unfair advantage.  They should wish up like everyone else, or find a coded way to escape their predicament, or whatever.  There is no reason why a 2 karma (or 5 karma) player should be able to elude the law every single time.


I'm starting to feel as though I'm really picking your post apart, and I'm sorry for that...but I'm afraid that I just can't see this thing working.


What I do see is something like this:

Code Select Expand


> backstab old_lady
The blind old lady stands in place but you miss anyway!  You are teh sux!
You are now wanted!

[moment passes]
You notice a shuffle through the crowd to the east as a cityguard runs closer.

Now, you can either run to the opposite direction and try to evade this cityguard (who may be joined by others and from more directions) using alleys that would hopefully be added and expanded and the hide code, or you can stand in place and give up, or whatever.

This system is not perfect either, but it does leave more room than the current thing we have, or from this very elaborate system that you proposed, sjanimal.


(Not to mention that we're going to have a very large number of people constantly picking Hard Labor and going off to idle somewhere).

[Avril]

I'm not going to submit new ideas for the criminal code, so I won't be using the format you describe. As it is now, there have been very few statements from the imms about the code, and these had such ambiguous messages that it's hard to say whether anyone's actively working on additions to the code.

On basing the percentile chance to get wanted based on your race and clan position: I'm all for that, if it hasn't been already implemented. I'd assume that elves would get a higher chance in the city-states, but less in the Blackwing outpost. Finally, templars and militia never get incriminated unless (to my knowledge - I could be totally wrong) they attack their comrades or superiors. The problem comes when trying to decide which clothes are "conspicuous" and which aren't... You'd have to either add in a stealth factor for all clothes, or just do the right thing and bump up the wanted % for people wearing footpads.

On de-crimming yourself if you have Karma: I'm not sure if two-karma players are as wise as you believe. I gained two karma in about nine months of playing, and I doubt I could've turned off my crimflags back then with a clear conscience. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't do that now, either, no matter how much I hate the soulless, emote-prohibiting crimcode.

Oh, and while sneaking doesn't work to get you past guards, you can try hiding out for as long as your crimflag stays up.

On the extra jail penalities: You can emote most of that. You might want to ask the staff for approval before getting a templar involved, but nothing stops you from role-playing out how you're "interrogated", dragged into the streets, covered in whip-marks and deprived of your 'sid (junk those coins). Also, you can still use the Way in your cell - if you've got buddies on the loose, there's no need to wait it out.

I prefer the KISS methodology: "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

I fondly remember how my high-school literature teacher once mentioned the "dumb" things that she struggled to ignore during her physics classes. As many of those who think complexity is stupid would agree, everything that went over her head had to be classified as "dumb".

Please don't remind me of that teacher. That is all.

On a related note, I actually consider these ideas fairly simple. This is mostly because they don't take enough IC and OOC factors into account   - for instance, why would someone want to lose endurance permanently when he can just stay logged off for twelve hours? For realism's sake? Perhaps, but how many players would do that?

[Delirium]

KARMA DIFFUSION

Another thing that I think should be included is a command available to players with at least two karma:

Sorry, but I don't like the thought of using Karma for anything but races/guilds.

[Criminal Mastermind]

* Breaking nosave into nosave and noresist.

* Making guards not get four attacks the first round. They should get one or two like the rest of the world. Otherwise it would be known the world round not to fuck with justice-dealing guards because they are magickally enhanced or are kept on war spice at all times.

* Bump up the gate guards subdue skill. They are subduing law breakers all day, right? I'd imagine only the best wrestlers would be chosen for the position. Why do this? Because if even one of them misses a subdue, you'll get to learn the hard way about the previous point.

* Seriously here folks. We're encouraged to roleplay when fighting creatures. We're encouraged to roleplay when raiding. We're encourage to RP during any other combat situation. Insta-death to justice robs everyone of a fun death, and any opportunity to RP it out. Criminal! Scroll mantis. The end. We can do better.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Not to rain on your parade, but it's been mentioned in the past that the crim code tends to devour immortals whole and spit the bones back out.  That being the case, I find it unlikely that we'll see a complete overhaul of it in our lifetime...

But like most people, I agree that a few tweaks would be nice.  Until I figure out the trick to anabolic respiration, though, I won't be holding my breath.  

[wizturbo]

This is the only thing i'd like added into crim-code.  Percentage chance militia ignores it.  If a templar uses incriminate, its ALWAYS 100% chance they respond.  Beyond that....


I think ITEMS could have percent chance reducers on them.  A noble signet ring for instance should have a large % chance reducer on it. House insignia items should also improve the chances the militia call your accuser a liar and ignore them.  The same would be true if they run into the room and have to decide which side to assist in a fight.  They should choose the one with the most items flagged for this.


This should then be closely monitored.  IF thieves start wearing signet rings from a merchant house they stole...or start dressing falsely in insignia gear to reduce the chance they are arrested...they should get bitch slapped hard by the staff for twinking.  But i dont think it'll be a problem.

[DustMight]

Only a couple of comments.

1. Templars should have a tensor of .0.  They never break the law, they are the law.

2. Being incriminated doesn't necessarily mean you will be captured or killed.

3. Being thrown in a jail cell isn't the only punishment available.  Personally, I hate it when I find a few PCs in the jail, all of them link dead while they wait out their terms.

[Trenidor]

*BUMP*

Here's an idea, only have a 90% chance (.90) of finding the scene-of-the-crime room. Have that percentage in 5 different groups, 1 for each city and it's corresponding influence (villages and the like) When you are sneaking, depending on your sneak level -past the actually being hidden point-, the chance will drop. Once they find the scene of the crime, they can use the hunt and scan command to follow and find you. You could varry the skill level of the guards could varry, and after a while (an IG hour?) they would break off the search.  

Chance of finding PC crimeroom:

Redstorm .9
Allanak .9
Tuluk .9
Luirs .9
Blackwing .9

Templars and Imms could change the level, if you're trusted they'd turn it down, if they tell their guards not to worry about you because your a templar's secret agent, they'd turn it down way low, etc. When a templar is made they'd set their level to low depending on how far ranked the templar is, the people at the very top would have 0 along with the king. And when a guard is hired for the city, they could lower it down. Respected nobility would have it turned down to way low. They could also raise that value for someone they don't trust.

With that, street fights could be started, and if it's that 10% of not making it, they can get it over with and leave without the guards knowing. If it is detected, the people could end the fight and run away trying to aviod being caught, hide, sneak off, and do whatever they can to get away.

Overall, I wouldn't expect the templar to go around setting trust levels on everyone, they'd just do it to people they associated with that would actually need it being done. Other than that everyone has around a 90% of having to deal with the guards, unless they are in a special room where no one is, then it drops down to way low, and sneaking even increases it more.

When you do evade the guards, and they break off searching for you, you could still be caught by going somewhere that you would be screened. Plus your chance of being caught the next time would increase because they know you've done something before.

Overall, PC templars would be the ones to influence this if it were implimented. It would be up to them to find shady characters and raise their suspiciousness (which means they actually have to RP it, and also means a little more responsibity on their part)

That's just an idea...I doubt it would work with the current way things are though.

[lazycritic]

Criminal Mastermind said what I want. Fix the guards and everything is good enough. Not exactly perfect, sure, but it works.

Guards should not twink-look in every direction every 2 seconds, or charge through 2 rooms, whip out a sword, and slay you in 2 seconds.

[Ghost]

Trenidor put it well.  It is really a good idea, involving PC templars and your ability to get away with it.

But I don't know how hard it would be to code it.

Other than that, guards twinking look around and walk and attacking you without delay and still twinking out offense and defense is a little bit of a problem.

[fearwig]

I hope no one will have the balls to defend the absolute, mechanical vigilience of Zalanthan guard mobs. It's really, truly scary. I realize that it's hard to fix, and that the "ever-watchful" NPC is a common coded problem in muds that I don't know of any solution to, myself (though there surely are some solutions out there).

I think the best fix, balancing ease of implementation for effective result (with emphasis on ease of implementation) would be to have a prompt when a soldier approaches a character, indicating a confrontation--the soldier is telling you to submit, and you have the choice of whether or not to agree. Now, we all know that this is what nosave is for--but nosave is not really a great option. If you turn on nosave, there are a lot of bad things that can happen to you, soldiers or no soldiers, and more importantly, not all players will consider it.

That said, the criminal system won't really be operative in my opinion until there is some way to limit the overall effectiveness of the guards in spotting you. Some of the systems recommended here would be absolutely lovely. If you are sneaking, if you are crafty or clever in general, and if your face is covered in some way, you should have a real, tangible chance of getting by one or two guards. More than that and your odds are going to wear thin, naturally, but you never know, right?

These soldiers, while well-trained, are human. My first few sneaky characters were just baffled when all of a sudden they see a guard and *BAM* opening screen, thank you come again. "Oh feck! Nosave!" Here you are in a literal MOB of people, walking down the street, and this soldier leaps out like a death-ninja, instantly vaporizing you with his unholy sword of super-bad doom. It's just not right, I say. Or rather, just not Armageddon.

[wizturbo]

If they implemented the "threaten" feature, this "prompt" idea could be implemented perfectly.

Guard spots you, and immediately threatens you,  which means if you try and flee, you then enter combat with whoever striking first being based on skill.  If you submit however, you go to jail, just like the nosave option.

[moab]

I'm not sure this is a real problem.

Recently I got wanted in the middle of the market in allanak for doing something really bad.  REALLY bad.

It was dusk and I was able to run by several soldiers, templars and others and make it all the way back to the 'rinth without getting my ass handed to me.

In fact, I wasn't even chased, as far as I could tell.

[lazycritic]

It was dusk and I was able to run by several soldiers, templars and others and make it all the way back to the 'rinth without getting my ass handed to me.

NPC soldiers? You weren't wanted.

[Agent_137]

I once had a rinthi.

I avoided this problem by never doing anything illegal southside.

ever. at all.

Not very good for playability. There's tons of fixes to this issue. i'd like to see one. my favorite is splitting nosave up into different things:
nosave vs PCs
nosave vs NPCs
nosave vs environment

[Angela Christine]

It was dusk and I was able to run by several soldiers, templars and others and make it all the way back to the 'rinth without getting my ass handed to me.

NPC soldiers? You weren't wanted.

Not necessarily.  I have also become wanted in the main bazaar and managed to run all the way to the 'rinth without getting tagged by the NPCs.  Hmm, actually, I think one of them did attack me, but I was able to successfully flee and run to the 'rinth.  No biggie.  And this was with a character who didn't know she was about to commit a crime (tried to sell a found bolt that was militia property) so I hadn't scouted out a safe route ahead of time.



I don't think the NPC soldier code is perfect but, like democracy, it is better than all the other alternatives I've seen.


Angela Christine

[Delirium]

I believe this is a somewhat recent change, but I have heard that militia soldiers usually have 'mercy on'. So you have a higher chance of surviving an encounter now - though it isn't a perfect fix, it's at least something.

[fearwig]

If they implemented the "threaten" feature, this "prompt" idea could be implemented perfectly.

Guard spots you, and immediately threatens you,  which means if you try and flee, you then enter combat with whoever striking first being based on skill.  If you submit however, you go to jail, just like the nosave option.

A great tie-in, and one I hadn't even considered. A command like the 'threaten' command that's been suggested (though I'm still not 100% sure of the name for that command, 'threaten' just doesn't sound right) would help the game in so many ways.

[Trenidor]

Derail to the old threaten code page after this post if you have a comment on this:

The threaten system is fun and all, but it's a waste of time. I don't see anything wrong with player to player agreement, instead of actual code that alows one person to take advantage of the other.

That doesn't work with NPCs, which is why the crime code has problems.

My major concern, is that pretty much everyone will say that they don't agree with the threaten, and will say no. Once they say no, the npc turns agro and all that submission stuff doesn't turn out fun. They always choose the hard way. On the side of PCs, they'll just say no, and the RP is over because you can't do something if you don't have coded advantage/player concent.
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