Spice at the Gates

[Nyr]

The contraband check was made quite a bit more intelligent in December this past year, but we didn't let anyone know.  Merry Christmas from Nessalin.

[brytta.leofa]

A lean, mangy gortok is here, being held by a half-giant soldier of Tektolnes.
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes releases a lean, mangy gortok, and she immediately moves away.
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes exclaims, encouragingly, in southern-accented sirihish,
  "Sniff them out, Doodles!"
A lean, mangy gortok sniffs the air.
A lean, mangy gortok inspects the rugged, claw-marked breed's belongings.
A lean, mangy gortok inspects your belongings.
A lean, mangy gortok tugs at your bone-studded backpack, whining excitedly.
A lean, mangy gortok begins following you.
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes claps his hands in obvious delight.
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes draws a spiked, jade-emblazoned war club and holds it in both hands.

[5 day lifespan]

In general, having the contraband check be a little more intelligent would be cool. I wouldn't put it on my top 10 items, but making it semi random at least would be cool. I think I would still want people to get arrested for trying to bring spice in, but maybe like a 1 in 5 chance of being searched. I don't really have a creative solution though.

Ot a chance that the guy doing the search is a half giant who doesnt know a flake of spice from a crumbling tablet, or thinks all spice looks like Thodelev.

[Medena]

Here are my beefs with the contraband check:

1.  Having nosave arrest on doesn't always help.

In some cases, the guards don't even try to arrest you they just start attacking.

2.  You cannot dump your contraband if you (you the player, never mind the PC) do not realize the innocuous looking item you have in your possession is ranked as contraband.

Also, due to some randomness in the code, you may have gone through the gates several times before with the very same item in your bags and never encountered any trouble.

[Nyr]

If you've come across problems or oddities that don't make much IC sense since the code was improved in December 2008, send them to me at my e-mail address.