Bribes

[Spud]

Everyone has said that most Templar will look the other way if offered a bribe, or something of the sort. In reality, why would a Templar care about a bribe when they can just take whatever they want from you? I know if I played a Templar, I probably wouldn't care about something a dirty commoner offered me, when I could have whatever I wanted, if I chose so.

As for slavery, why would a bribe stop someone when they could take everything from the person and still keep them as a slave. Slave+slave's possesions seems better than just a bribe.

[Dracul]

Because if you give them a bribe, you can give them a bribe again...

It's less work to take a bribe...

If you have -any- standing, it could be bad for the templar to kill you...




Is this a serious question? Or is this more a prompt for argument?
Try giving a templar a bribe sometime. Make it big enough though.

[Nyard]

Yeah, it's easier to take a bribe.  First of all, it's less work.  Second of all, you're not hurting the person or anything, so you're giving them a chance to make more money and bribe you again later on.  Plus, just think of it like it is in real life.  People bribe cops, but the cop could easily just take the person into a dark alley, beat him senseless and take his money, or take his money in a more discreet way....  But they still take bribes, don't they?

[Qetesh]

Think of it like a bad cop. He could arrest you and fill out all that paperwork, or just take the money in his pocket and let you go. You win, you go free, he wins, he gets some extra cash and nobody gets hurt.

A templar could punish you for doing something bad, but then he would have to go the hassle of dragging you to jail, beating you up missing his noon time tea. Why bother, he can just take some coins/stuff from you and be on his way.

[jmordetsky]

Templar's love bribes.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

It's not so much the size of the individual bribe, but the number of bribes the Templar gets in a day.

[HardCarbon]

Because if you give them a bribe, you can give them a bribe again...

It's less work to take a bribe...

If you have -any- standing, it could be bad for the templar to kill you...




Is this a serious question? Or is this more a prompt for argument?
Try giving a templar a bribe sometime. Make it big enough though.

There is a point.. I've seen Templars turn down 2 large + bribes and then several games years later the city suffers.. (yea!!)

[Gaare]

Bribe does not only mean getting pieces of black rock. It also means connection and good relation which helps earning power. Even for a templar having a bunch of citizens who bribes periodicly is important, because they are people with skills who trust Templar to keep their position safe. In other words, there is a kind of mutually benefical relationship between those citizens and templar.

IMHO in Zalathans, unlike bad cop example, most of the bribes should be just for keeping Templar/militia happy in case of emergency when one may need them. Those coins are not always given for expecting work in return or get out of jail, stopping torturing etc.. Bribe is more like insurance.

Think an example for a mere hunter bribing 300 coins in two RL weeks to a templar. That hunter will be always winning side in simply cases like accusing an elf of being a thief, pointing a magicker of being raider, etc.. Also if templar needs a scout then probably he will call the hunter for the task (and hopefully will give some coins as a reward or gifts like the hunter's rival's hand). Templar will be happy of having a hunter under his control who gives bribe and doing some jobs for him, and Hunter will be happy knowing he is protected by laws to some degree.

Same for nobles or house merchants, think of a situation where a citizen insulted noble in public and walked away. If that noble's rival noble was bribing templar occasionaly more then the insulted one, then Templar who is just few hundred meters away drinking his wine, could simply say he is too busy at that moment.

[Cenghiz]

Same for nobles or house merchants, think of a situation where a citizen insulted noble in public and walked away. If that noble's rival noble was bribing templar occasionaly more then the insulted one, then Templar who is just few hundred meters away drinking his wine, could simply say he is too busy at that moment.

Err.. I don't think this is possible in Allanak. I know little about noble/templar/commoner relations in north, maybe possible in Tuluk.

[Adhira]

Cenghiz wrote:

Err.. I don't think this is possible in Allanak. I know little about noble/templar/commoner relations in north, maybe possible in Tuluk.

All things are possible.  :wink:

[Gaare]

Just want to bump this thread up. I had chance to speak with a lot of PCs here and there recently. I did not see anybody who really care of bribe.. Peh.. (maybe that's the right way really.. I do not know.. I simply find it un-realistic).

I think generally players look at bribe as some kind of trade. Like someone is offering something, and other is paying for what is offered. You get caught, so you should pay. Templar is angry and may kill you, so you pay.

- Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person's views or conduct.

-Something serving to influence or persuade.

Bribe is about influnce one's view. Person A makes a favour or pays some coins to person B to change the attitudes and influence on it a bit.

IMHO, this means.. If you are playing a soldier and while your PC is walking if someone hands you coins.. That's something. That incident tells a lot. That does not mean that person did something and want to make you forget it.. That's just a favour waiting for to be paid someday. You may pay, or you may not.

Or.. if you are running a merchant and someone hands you extra bones, or rocks. That does not mean that person is stupid. Just making a favour and expect you to behave accordingly in the future.

The examples can be in high levels. If a noble is bribing one thousand to a templar monthly, that does not mean.. that noble immediately wants something. It means -if- need arrises, noble expects templar to repay one way or other.

Surely, PCs do not have to behave like that.. but it is my opinion (as a player and which can be very wrong) that many Zalantians see bribe like that. I do not think it is very common in Zalanthas;

- Soldiers come and ask coins from exactly same person every time they see him, because he gave some coins before hand and others did not.

- Militia men and women got suspicious because a certain person paid a few coins.. thinking that person did something wrong.

- Templars ignorant to bribes, even after getting coins before, no attitute change to certain people.

Surely those all can be.. I mean, someone easily play like above.. but what I mean is, I do not think they are common in Zalanthas.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Everyone has said that most Templar will look the other way if offered a bribe, or something of the sort. In reality, why would a Templar care about a bribe when they can just take whatever they want from you? I know if I played a Templar, I probably wouldn't care about something a dirty commoner offered me, when I could have whatever I wanted, if I chose so.

I know this is an old topic but I'd like to respond to it.

If a templar is offered a bribe by a citizen, and rather than accepting it she simply strips the citizen naked and leaves her on the streets to beg, borrow, or steal, and word spreads of this, then that templar will quickly gain a reputation as an insane, hard-cased zealot with little or no understanding of the rules of polite society.  This is not a reputation that a templar will generally seek to cultivate.  The primary reason for this is because if a templar has this reputation, she will never be offered a bribe again, the seedier elements of the city (and possibly the merchant and noble elements as well) will bypass her and instead seek favors and leniency from her rival coworkers.  These rivals will then prosper while the templar suffers.

You might be thinking at this point "Then why doesn't a templar just mug a commoner and leave them naked everytime she's hard up for cash?"  Most commoners have very little money, and aren't worth the time to a templar who at times will require thousands of sid to conduct her operations.  Of the ones that have more money than this, some have them have that money for good reasons.  If a templar robs and humiliates too many commoners of any importance (or even one if they're important enough) then that templar will quickly find that she has been "reassigned."

Reassigned means shuffled off to some backwater where it's difficult to survive and impossible to advance one's career.

Another reason is that if a templar strips somebody naked, in a harsh world like Zalanthas they are effectively leaving them to die.  A templar should never kill anyone unless they mean to kill someone.  A smart templar will never kill anyone that they might still have use for.  Just about anyone might be worth keeping alive.  If a commoner gives you fifty sid today, then maybe you'll get another fifty sid when you run into him again in two weeks.  Eventually, it all adds up.

[Anonymous]

People are trying to overexplain this.

Templars can shake down commoners when they feel like it. I remember a Lirathuan templar, Ranna, that had the habit of demanding 50 coins everytime she ran into a PC. My character had to sweat trying to kill enough belgoi to sell their bells and have the fee the next time she came around. Eventually she stopped, probably because she had accumulated the money she needed.

Generally templars don't bother because making the average commoner turn out his pockets would only yield a few coins and they're already set with what they need. PCs are a special breed that way.

There's nothing to prevent a templar from just taking the bribe and killing you anyway, so far as I can see, other than he's probably likely to feel pretty good about being 500 coins richer and as a result less likely to be annoyed or angry enough to behead you.

It's only the psychotic killer types without self control that would get reined in. If they start butchering commoners wholesale for the fun of it, soon Muk or Tek wouldn't have a population left to lord it over. I suspect at that point, a red robe would step in and execute the blue robe.

[Hexxaex]

There is no IC way to abuse your power as a Templar and call it abuse.  Templars are corrupt, mean, and all just assholes.  If they want you to give them a blowjob and have you pay 500 coins for the privelage of doing so, they sure as hell can do that.  Why?  Because they are better than your commoner character.  Your character is dirt, and the Templar can step all over you if they want to.

In today's society, if police were corrupt like that, they'd have to deal with the governments and their superiors.  Most Templars in Zalanthas have superiors that are even more corrupt than them, and really, the Templars are the government.

Monetary and material bribes like coins or exotic items are fine, and accepting those should not be a problem.  The Templars have the power to do what they want to a commoner, but like ERS said, they could gain a bad reputation for, say, declining a bribe and stripping the character for their armor instead.  The only bounds they have ICly is the reputation deal, but OOCly, they are bound by the other players, because stripping down a player who has used his character for weeks to get a set of shining armor just to have it taken from him by a Templar is not fun for the player at all.

I know if I played a Templar, I probably wouldn't care about something a dirty commoner offered me, when I could have whatever I wanted, if I chose so.

That attitude is fine if you're playing a Templar, but if you think that you're crossing the line from IC punishment to OOC punishment, don't do it.  Accept bribes if they're offered, because that way, you know the player is willing to give up whatever they're bribing you with.  If you have to, only make it a bad experience for the character, not the player.

[EvilRoeSlade]

People are trying to overexplain this.

I'm not over-explaining anything.  Did you ever wonder if there was a reason why that templar took fifty coins instead of all of your coins?

[Anonymous Donor]

Sometime bribes work, sometime they don't. Some Templars take your money and kill you, while others let you off the hook for free.

Once upon the time I have played petty criminal known for connections with absolutely horrible criminals. He has been arrested/searched/imprisoned by PCs about dozen times. He used bribes from time to time and survived after being tortured by four different Templars of both city-states.

The very next character was pretty lawful. He had much more to offer than previous one and he used bribes all the time. This one was imprisoned only once, yet was never able to buy his life back.

Do I think that Templars unaffected by my bribes play unrealistic? Not at all.
Bribes are like stakes in roulette. I place my bet and hope to win. But it could happen so that I have offered too little, or my counterpart has offered too much, or Templar is having bad day, or somewhere in their background it's clearly states why my bribes will be wasted for nothing, or my existence is simply unacceptable for many other reasons. See? I have no problem with making up the reason to feel better over the "stupid and uncharacteristic" death of my character.

Do I adore Templars who acknowledge my bribe and act accordingly? Yes, absolutely.
Just the same way I'd like any regular character to acknowledge and accept my offer for interaction. They don't have to, but I'd like them to.

[Folker]

To be honest, in all my gameplay, I've given only one bribe. And I enjoyed giving it thoroughly. I'm fairly certain that a good 80% of my future bribes will too be for the sake of increasing the atmosphere of corruption in the society he's in. And 20% other ones will be to get what I want, or avoid what I really really dont want.

[Cale_Knight]

More people should give bribes and more people should be susceptible to bribes.

[bloodfromstone]

I think the lack of susceptability (in my experience) can be a problem. I've never given a successful bribe in my Arming career, but not for lack of trying. Hand someone 300 coins? Get that pocket change out of my face. A large? Don't try to buy me. Two? Don't insult me. I make more money in a day than you'll ever see in your life, commoner.

Makes it hard to want to offer bribes.

[Moofassa]

I bribe people.

4/5 times they don't realise they're being bribe until you get extremely obvious and almost ridiculously theatrical about it.
3/5 times they pretend they're too honorable... pfft right...
1/5 times they get it right away and fucking great.
0/5 times do they ever dance for you.

[Me]

I think the lack of susceptability (in my experience) can be a problem. I've never given a successful bribe in my Arming career, but not for lack of trying. Hand someone 300 coins? Get that pocket change out of my face. A large? Don't try to buy me. Two? Don't insult me. I make more money in a day than you'll ever see in your life, commoner.

Makes it hard to want to offer bribes.

Not sure about that. There are alot of creative ways in bribing a person. Afraid you might not get enough money? No problem! A valuable piece of information would do. How about about a fantastic blowjob?

There's also wine, food and clothings...if that doesn't work, how about over the top flattery?

[spawnloser]

I've never had to bribe a Templar.  Granted, I did try a couple times when playing in the North...and they pulled the too honorable routine, but that could have just been for my character, whom they liked.

In the south, though, yeah, never needed to.  Don't do anything truly stupid to begin with and then treat the templar with a proper amount of fear and awe?  Yep, they like that ego boost...it makes them tingly in the pants or something.

[jstorrie]

Bribes are also encouraged by city culture. Templars are far, far above most citizens, and showing tribute and respect - even if fifty or a hundred 'sid is nothing special to Joe Black Robe - is a way of demonstrating that you know your place and are a good and dutiful citizen. Keep in mind that you can grease the wheels before you get in trouble; many Zalanthans would make it a point to set a small amount of coin aside to give to templars they run into often, just so they're in their good books.

[Yokunama]

:twisted: Taking a bribe or torturing someone in some public fashion is a lot easier and quicker than dragging people down the streets and tossing them into the jail. :twisted:

[Gaare]

Almost all above things sound me.. well.. I guess too western cultural examples and thinking.

I think bribe is not only given in criminal situations, and especially after get caught. Yes, that's a type of bribe, but IMHO there are other types. I must add, I think favours and bribes are extremely important in Zalanthas. Because;

- People does not trust each other easily.
- There is limited resources (wealth is extremely low).
- People live in large communities. Like probably three commoner families are living together in a tiny hut.
- Well, the goverment system in based on words and decisions of a handful of extremely powerful figures.
- Life is cheap. One(even templars) needs other to stay alive.


!Disclaimer! Some (unneccesary) eastern culture life examples.

- Today, at job(I work at a small computer company of about 12 people around), a customer came to sales department  telling he is friend of owner of a small kiosk nearby. Kiosk man is great.. He sells "boyoz" (some kind of sandwich) in the mornings, and he brings new cooked ones to company which he does not have to.  As customer told he is friend of the owner of Kiosk, he got around %10 discount on the computer.

- A friend of mine living at neighbourhood goes to police station closeby once or twice every month with desserts as gifts, because he likes using his motorcycle at extreme velocity at nearby long street at late nights. If he would get caught and tries to give 200$ for getting out of the situation.. His chance of success is less then %50.. and worse he may spend at least one night in jail and may find himself in court.

- If someone wants to buy a kilim (some kind of extremely beatiful type of carpet) and s/he would not know how to deal with suitation i.e. foreigners, have to pay even thousands of dollars for it (I remember someone at GDB refered kilim merchants as thieves before). If I would want to buy a kilim, I would ask my friends if there is anyone who knows owner of a kilim shop. Then, I drink and pay a beer or two for my friend and if neccesary my friend's friend who knows the owner of kilim shop. Then, when I go to kilim shop, much probably I would get at least %40 discount.

I can not explain myself well in English. Trying to explain there are many other types of bribes then paying after get caught, I had to write down a looong post. If you read all the post sorry for the word mess. Cheers.

Edited to Add:

BRIBE. BRIBE. BRIBE. I cannot stress this enough. BLACK STONES MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND. There is little you cannot do and accomplish with the right amount of money. Make friends, influence people and templars, buy off the 'bad guys', finance your friendly neighborhood nilazi. -USE- your resources.

[Anonymous]

many Zalanthans would make it a point to set a small amount of coin aside to give to templars they run into often, just so they're in their good books.

I'd like to know where you get this from. Did your PCs ever do this? Have you seen NPCs do it? Is it written in the docs somewhere?

Run up to templars and just hand them coins? Even Ranna, who would make PCs sell their weapons and armor to raise her 50 coin toll, would get angry when people did that without her asking.

Nor have I ever heard of a templar having to be afraid of "influential commoners". It's an oxymoron. Sure, they might be wise to go easy on House servants and the like, but only because an attack on a servant is tantamount to an attack on that House. And that's pretty recent thinking, actually.

I've never heard of a templar being "reassigned" out of trampling on commoners either. It waters down the whole notion of being a templar. What does happen if a templar is overaggressive? The city environment becomes so toxic that people leave, or the templar becomes hated enough that someone kills him.

[Folker]

Or the Templar ends up being seen as  a crude brute and end up being  involved in zero compaigns that involves subtlety, and that probably estimated to 90% of all political/nobility related actions.

[LauraMars]

Not to mention that public violence is a big no-no for Northern templars.  If one of them is seen "trampling" over a bunch of commoners, yes, they'll probably get a talking to.  Thiers is a stern and subtle approach, glossed over with love, as one might love an affectionate cat or loyal dog.

Actually, I like to think grease-the-wheel bribes (more like Gaare's killer examples) and smooth talking would be prevelant in the North.  Their whole society is largely based on partisan/patron relationships and the exchange of favors, after all.  Get-me-outa-here bribes seem a southern cousin, where everyone is desperate and dusty.

But of course there must a place and a time for all kinds of bribes, north and south and east and west! And in the depths of despair and the heights of ecstacy!  Yes!  Yes!  Let bribings happen always!  Let the dark alleys, dubious exchanges and glow of cigarettes prevail!

[jstorrie]

I'd like to know where you get this from. Did your PCs ever do this? Have you seen NPCs do it? Is it written in the docs somewhere?

Several of my PCs would, whenever they had dealings with templars, discretely offer up a token amount at the end of the conversation. Sometimes when my PCs would get unexpected windfalls, they would earmark some of it and offer it to the templar they saw most often. Generally speaking, though, most of my PCs have enjoyed a low enough profile that they just tried to keep out of templars' notice. Those PCs that had to be publicly notorious for whatever reason did, however, suck up whenever possible.

I agree that you wouldn't want to pester templars every day with pouches of 25 'sid, but if you have any sort of dealings with any templars at all it makes sense to grease the wheels in advance. When you buy a merchant's license, you can 'tip.' When you stop by to deliver Joe Borsail's urgent message, you can slip a pouch of coins, too. It's not just saying, 'like me because I pay up,' because the average commoner's token bribes are going to be drops in the Silt Sea to most templars. It's saying 'I know how to play ball, I know my place, and I am respectful of your/the god-king's authority.'

That being said, not every PC will or should do this. It's kind of like Allanaki commoners going to daily devotions at the dragon statue - some will feel a duty to, others won't.

[marko]

The Art of Bribery

This is how I view bribery in the game.  Basically, bribery is handled differently in every geographical location.  How bribery is done in the South is a lot different than how it is done in the North.

We need to remember and keep in mind that the Northern Templarate is significantly different than the Southern Templarate.  The cultures of the two cities are quite different already and continue to diverge when it comes to overt acts of corruption.

Therefore, to discuss bribery, we need to split it up into three sections.  Allanak, Outposts, and Tuluk.  We also need to have a baseline of who is being bribed - therefore I will  focus solely on the law of each of these cities that will make it a lot easier to discuss.  

Starting with Allanak:

Allanak is a brutal and repressive culture.  The law is kept by overt acts of violence, corruption, and brutality.  A templar that cuts down a citizen in the middle of the street (aka, public execution) is making a point:

The law is inviolate.  
The law is the templar.  
Don't fuck with the templarate.  

Therefore, when dealing with bribery, you do it openly and without any attempt at concealing what is being done.  For a good rule of thumb I tend to guess what my character's life is worth and offer just over that amount to the templar.  Soldiers get an amount that is significantly lower.

A templar that is well played and knows the social system of Allanak will accept all bribes and let the criminal go - unless, of course, a favor was called in or a greater amount was offered by a more influential individual At that time, the templar has the option of flat out saying that this isn't enough (with the view that more will be offered) or just doing whatever they were going to do originally.

When I played Allanaki templars I found it simply astounding how rare a bribe was.  I had to put it bluntly and without any tact that my character would accept bribes.  In fact, on two occasions my templar held out his hand to someone he was shaking down - and the person looked at the hand and didn't understand.  So my templar had to state, explicitly, that now was the time to bribe.  

Personally, I found that rather amusing, but the reality is that a little 'sid greases the wheels of the law.  In Allanak, the law is very malleable and 'exceptions' are made all the time.

Bribes should be common in Allanak and gifts that build up good will would be commonplace.  Nobles that have any sort of political inclination would be wise to be gifting the templars regularly.  On numerous occasions a noble who regularly gifted a templar has managed to do some things that they couldn't have otherwise done.  Do not discount what regular gifts (aka bribes) do for social and political clout.

To put it all into perspective - when I played a street rat who kept getting into trouble with the law he ended up paying thousands of 'sid for the privilege of staying free.  On one occasion he paid a PC militia type a hundred and fifty coin to 'look the other way' when a PC started claiming my rat was a thief.  This other PC got all upset but... didn't offer up a counter-offer so my rat was left alone (and promptly got out of there).  

In another situation, the same rat got picked up by a templar.  With a five hundred bribe, some groveling, and some fast, respectful talking - my rat was let go.  Five hundred was probably two times the worth the life of my rat at that time.  In other words, the bribe was huge from the character it was coming from.  A templar must always keep that in mind.  A commoner who offers up two hundred coins is like a baby noble who offers up twenty thousand.

Summary: Bribery is a common and accepted aspect of law enforcement.

The Outposts

Each outpost is unique and has its own law system.  That being said, a bribe is always worth attempting although the results are not as predictable as they are in Allanak.  Sometimes a bribe will spare the life and prove the character with an escort to the gates where they will be barred from entering ever again - or it may just be scoffed at.  

Always attempt the bribe - after all, by the time the offer is going up it's usually the last moments of life anyway.

Tuluk

The system of law enforcement in Tuluk is different than that in Allanak.  Bribery needs to be handled in a much more delicate manner.  

To understand what bribery is in Tuluk we need to understand the law system and criminal system.  Tuluk licenses its criminals and, for all intents and purposes, this licensing system is actually a legalized bribery system.  A criminal who buys their license is paying a bribe up front that says - I will be pursuing criminal activities and by paying my share to the templarate prior to doing these activities and I am ensuring that if there is an investigation of a successful act that it will go nowhere.

Basically, in Tuluk, you want to be preempting investigations and accusations by smoothing the way well in advance.  As a licensed criminal, it is in the best interest of the criminal to properly keep their license in order and _not_ to bungle a job.  A messed up job that implicates the criminal means the criminal will get taken down.  License or not.  All the license does is allows the criminal to pursue their activities with the knowledge that so long as they don't blow it then they won't get caught.  

In other words, by the time a character is confronted by a templar, the chance to bribe is long past.  You may still make the attempt but the chance of success is minimal - an attempt made in the final moments may appear to be childish, it may offend, and your character should have done it a long time ago.

Getting caught in the act and surviving the ensuing interaction with a templar will be entirely dependant on how smooth the criminal was prior to getting caught (or during the interogation).  At this time, a well timed and well handled bribe might just offer an escape from the punishment (which is often death.)  Whether or not one survives is at the discretion of the templar involved.

Note, one does not have to be licensed in Tuluk to be a criminal.  The licensed criminal element is merely those that operate within the radar of the templarate and are allowed to operate somewhat openly.  Their acts are even admired if they are completed in an artistic and creative way.  To operate as an unlicensed criminal means that should the criminal get investigated and enters into an interrogation situation the deck is stacked against them.  The vast majority of criminals in Tuluk are licensed because of this.  

Attempting to negotiate in an interrogation is something anyone with any sense, brains, or fear would wish to avoid.  Being interrogated by the templarate is probably the most frightening event any citizen in Tuluk can go through or imagine.  The citizens of Tuluk fear being taken away by the templarate - you never know if you will ever come back.  

Summary: In Tuluk, bribery is partially legalized through the licensing system.  Buying a license is the start of the bribing process.  Bribes should be handled well in advance of any event that may necessitate their use (ie, if a character is planning something dicey and needs templar support bribe well in advance of that situation).  Bribes should be done _discretely_ and handled with care.  Bribes are not so much as bribes but gifts for the continued well being of a particular templar.  Be artful in the approach, discrete in the transaction, and careful of appearances.

[Anonymous]

Nor have I ever heard of a templar having to be afraid of "influential commoners". It's an oxymoron. Sure, they might be wise to go easy on House servants and the like, but only because an attack on a servant is tantamount to an attack on that House. And that's pretty recent thinking, actually.

They exist.  Most are NPCs and NONE work for a noble or merchant house.  If you haven't heard of any then you simply need to listen better.

Basically, if a templar fucks up a commoner, and it turns out that commoner was giving coins to a templar with more authority, than that templar has committed political suicide and possibly simply suicide.

[bloodfromstone]

NONE work for a noble or merchant house

Without going into IC information, I'd just like to say that that is a false statement.