Threaten?

[jmordetsky]

It's been said 1000 times...

As the player of templars, raiders, soldiers and more.

Pls give us Threaten...

Joe enters a room, second player is there.
Joe emotes like a meanie.
Second player simply walks away, quits.

Come on.


*Edit to explain: I guess I shouldn't have assumed everyone knows what this is. This is basically a skill, like watch where you show up and >Threaten keyword.

But, instead of watching that person - you are threatening them with a weapon. While threatened, they can emote and talk, but if they move, flee, attack or otherwise do anything else, you will automatically attack them.

Allows you to be a raider without being a tool and doing stuff like: e;watch person;kill person;

[Jenred]

 
I'm confused.

Is it a command? skill? - something that puts a combat-quit-timer on someone so they can't quit out?
if that is the case, I'm in favor - somewhat.

Last mention I can find (that being a 2004 post) with search is a threaten command that prevents a character from moving while being threatened, etc, which I'd not like to see.

You cannot leave while being threatened.  Use "flee self" if you want to run for it.

If the victim does any of the following actions combat starts: flee, wield, draw, mount, cast, plus all the usual combat commands.  Combat would start instantly, so the aggressor would get a round in before the victim's action.

If someone is threatening me, I can walk away... but I think not allowing them to quit would be appropriate.

[FantasyWriter]

Make it work like a reverse guard.. off the guard skill.


Tell amos Eyes to the sand! Move and you die!!!
>threated amos
You threated the tall, mucular man.

The tall, muscular man attempts to flee.
You start kicking the tall, muscular man's ass.

[Nile]

Hmm, I can dig it. Sucks when I try and emote out a raiding scene only to have the threatened PC just walk away without a second thought.

[Sephiroto]

Hmm, I can dig it. Sucks when I try and emote out a raiding scene only to have the threatened PC just walk away without a second thought.

How lame is it when a human quits out in the middle of the desert while being threatened by a dwarven and mulish raider?  True story.

[RogueGunslinger]

Make it work like a reverse guard.. off the guard skill.


Tell amos Eyes to the sand! Move and you die!!!
>threated amos
You threated the tall, mucular man.

The tall, muscular man attempts to flee.
You start kicking the tall, muscular man's ass.

Yes please. Somene post something more eloquent though.

[FantasyWriter]

Yes please. Somene post something more eloquent though.

I'm hurt.

[Jenred]

I can dig some aspects of it, and not others.
And it seems that many of the points I would argue would follow the same discussion as 5 years ago.
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,6422.0.html

Mainly the auto-attack.

I'd much rather see a variation, that is neutral, like... Approach, that has both hostile and friendly applications. To avoid derail I'll post elsewhere.

[Synthesis]

Before you gripe at people for running away, you should probably consider how your character got so close to theirs that they'd be unable to run away.

Unless you snuck up to them on foot, chances are they would've seen you coming, and would've had plenty of opportunity to stop what they were doing and haul ass out of there.  Unfortunately, the delay on movement into a room is only a few seconds, after which you're right next to anyone in the room, as far as the code is concerned.

[brytta.leofa]

Which is an admirable argument for "approach," but I ain't fightin' that battle this morning.

- Give "threaten" a substantial pre-delay after movement.  That is, if you enter a room, it'll be five seconds or so before you can threaten someone.
- Make it run off the rescue skill.  Think about it-- right.
- When you've got someone well and properly threatened Threatened, and he tries to move, he gets the equivalent of a guard check against your skill.
- If your victim tries to move, fails his check, and you're armed, you attack him.  If your threaten/rescue skill trumps his attempt, he simply doesn't move.
- If your victim tries to move, fails his check, and you're unarmed, you attempt to subdue him.

We still need a word other than "threaten."

[brytta.leofa]

...and I propose the word "stop:"
> stop amos
You plant yourself in front of the tall, muscular man and bar his way.

From the victim's point of view:
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes rushes up to you and bars your way!
> e
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes blocks you from going that way.
> w
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes blocks you from going that way.
> flee self
You panic and attempt to flee!
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes blocks your escape.
> flee self
You panic and attempt to flee!
You slip by a half-giant soldier of Tektolnes.
A half-giant soldier of Tektolnes attempts to grab you, but you wrestle away.
You flee east.

You guys know what this would do for the crime code, not to mention militia play?  And raiding?  And keeping captives alive?  And, and...  <hyperventilates>

Does this still balance things too heavily in favor of the aggressor?  You still have all the power of Flee at your fingertips, once you're grabbed or combat begins.

[Eloran]

Yes please.

[NoteworthyFellow]

I approve wholeheartedly of brytta's ideas, but I'd like to point out that there's already a "stop" command. Perhaps a different word?

[Qzzrbl]

I could see it now....

Code Select Expand

The swanky, silk-wearing raiderbait comes in from the north

'(brandishing ~sword in ~swanky face) Yer 'sid or your life!

stop swanky

1 command purged

The swanky, silk-wearing raiderbait leaves south.

wish all THIS NEW STOP COMMAND SUCKS!

[Taven]

I approve wholeheartedly of brytta's ideas, but I'd like to point out that there's already a "stop" command. Perhaps a different word?

Maybe "Halt"? It seems to work well with Brytta's soldier example...

[brytta.leofa]

How could you possibly confuse "stop" with "stop <person>"? 

[Qzzrbl]

How could you possibly confuse "stop" with "stop <person>"? 

/Qzzrbl = drunk at this early hour of the morning.

Excuse his logic and giggle at his sillyness, for it makes him feel better about himself.

[LoD]

Just an idea, but what if threaten was a more general purpose tool for RP situations?  Instead of being related only to threatening them with violence, why couldn't threaten simply attempt to carry out a command of the PC's choosing?

For example, what if threaten was used in such a way:

> threaten <person> <action>

It might give you a greater range of options for the scenario everyone is talking about:

Subdue

> say (taking a step toward ~figure) Don't you move another muscle!
Taking a step toward the figure in a dark, hooded cloak, you say, in sirihish:
  "Don't you move another muscle!"

> threaten elf subdue
You begin moving toward a lanky, sandy-blond elf.
You threaten a lanky, sandy-blond elf.

Attacking

> say (tilting ~sword toward ~figure)) Don't you move another muscle!
Tilting an obsidian longsword toward the figure in a dark, hooded cloak, you say, in sirihish:
  "Don't you move another muscle!"

> threaten elf kill
You begin moving toward a lanky, sandy-blond elf.
You threaten a lanky, sandy-blond elf.

Shooting

> say (carefully drawing ~bow on ~figure) Don't you move another muscle!
Carefully drawing an ash longbow on the figure in a dark, hooded cloak, you say, in sirihish:
  "Don't you move another muscle!"

> threaten elf shoot
You begin moving toward a lanky, sandy-blond elf.
You threaten a lanky, sandy-blond elf.

However, you potentially use it to threaten a different action:

> say (Holding up ~crystal) Don't you come a step closer, or I'll smash it and no one will have it!
Holding up a large, deep crimson ruby, you say, in sirihish:
  "Don't you come a step closer, or I'll smash it and no one will have it!"

> threaten elf junk ruby
You threaten a lanky, sandy-blond elf.

Or perhaps eating a poisoned tablet:

> say (Placing ~tablet next to his lips) Don't you come a step closer, or you'll never find out where I buried it!
Placing a greasy gray tablet next to his lips, you say, in sirihish:
  "Don't you come a step closer, or you'll never find out where I buried it!!"

> threaten elf eat tablet
You threaten a lanky, sandy-blond elf.

Or alerting the guards to your presence:

> say (Trembling slightly) Don't you take a step closer or I'll call the guards!
Trembling slightly, you say, in sirihish:
  "Don't you take a step closer or I'll call the guards!"

>threaten man shout Guards!
You threaten a beastly, hairy-backed man.

Or threatening a consequence from a dominant position:

> say (Hoisting ~man toward the edge of the cliff) "Listen!  If you struggle against me once more, I'll toss you right over the cliff -- I swear it!
Hoisting a beastly, hairy-backed man toward the edge of the cliff, you say, in sirihish:
  "Listen!  If you struggle against me once more, I'll toss you right over the cliff -- I swear it!"

> threaten beastly throw beastly north
You threaten a beastly, hairy-backed man.

Or perhaps threatening a consequence with a movement or gesture:

> say (Hands grasping the closed folds of a large bag) You stop following me, or I'll blow us both up!
Hands grasping the closed folds of a large bag, you say in sirihish:
  "You stop following me, or I'll blow us both up!

> threaten man open bag
You threaten a stout, blue-eyed soldier.

It might be a command with a far loftier ambition than simply disallowing people to flee from you or you'll auto-attack.

-LoD

[Qzzrbl]

em <3's LoD and his ideas

[Ender]

em <3's LoD and his ideas

[Taven]

em <3's LoD and his ideas

That sounds awesome. I agree. However, it would be nice to see what they were threatening you WITH, as I don't trust that everyone would role-play it properly to make it obvious. There's always room for abuse. Not knowing makes it more bluffable, but I think knowing might be the way to go.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Also, LoD, how does the code know what's gonna trigger the threat?

Because in your examples, there are various actions you don't want taken, and the syntax for threaten is always the same.

[Northlander]

I'd love to see threaten in the game. It would be so.. great. Tafadhali?

LoD's suggestion'd be better than any, but I'd like to see the syntax being the same whatever the threat. That is:

threaten amos kill amos

Or as I, in my infinite evil, would use it:

threaten amos kill mathilda

Heh. Hehe. AAAAAAAaHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think the syntax would be better if it included the action you wished to threaten against.

threaten target (target's action) your action

Threaten amos (kill venomz) eat pill

Threaten amos (west) subdue amos

threaten amos (look venomz) kill amos

Then the command is complete and I endorse it fully.

[Taven]

I think the syntax would be better if it included the action you wished to threaten against.
Then the command is complete and I endorse it fully.

[eska]

I think the syntax would be better if it included the action you wished to threaten against.

threaten target (target's action) your action

Threaten amos (kill venomz) eat pill

Threaten amos (west) subdue amos

threaten amos (look venomz) kill amos

Then the command is complete and I endorse it fully.

That simply won't work, because they can use any keyword you have to take an action against you. Also like one of the notes said, there are lots of way to engage in a combat. To show what I mean:

Your command:

threaten amos (kill venomz) kill amos

His command:

kill figure, kick venomz, bash figure.venomz or any other variation..

[brytta.leofa]

Good stuff, but I'm warnin' y'all: Morgenes likes simple.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Eska, that is a good point, but regardless of that, the reality is that LoD's great idea requires some trigger to set it. Either it will always be the same trigger, or it has to be user defined.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Not to mention, it would still be better than anything we have now, AND like real life, you would have to guess their next move. Maybe they would bash you instead of kill you, but if they did, they would have outguessed you. Also, encompassing choices could be included, like:

aggressive (encompassing kill, bash, kick, etc), movement (encompassing west, east, sneaking, running, etc).

These would broaden what you could defend against and prepare for.

[Synthesis]

Threaten commands will not work, because all the victim has to do is stand there and delay indefinitely until the aggressor chooses to actually attack to break the stalemate.  From the aggressor's perspective, it would be more tactically sound to simply run in and attempt to subdue or attack, because if you 'threaten,' you a) give up the element of surprise and b) allow your target time to use 'contact' to summon help.

Besides which...the point isn't to make it -easier- for raiders to kill people.

If you know what you're doing, it's stupidly easy to rack up raiding pkills.  I had a 5-day ranger who had already nailed 8 unlucky/stupid saps out in the desert.  You don't need anything to do it except a little common sense, and a skill that you can get from a subclass.

If you simply give combat bonuses to the raider, or make it harder for the victim to flee, it doesn't encourage the victim to roleplay any better...it just makes everyone more paranoid than they already are.  If anything, it encourages more people to become artless thugs, because it now takes even less finesse or forethought to get the job done.

I sympathize with the general observation that raiding roleplay is typically lame, but I haven't seen any proposed code fix that would remedy the situation, because the problem is largely a result of people roleplaying poorly, on both sides of the equation.

With my proposed system, it would encourage raiders to RP just as much as it would encourage those being raided. Since the raider gets a bonus for "threat" where he doesn't get the bonus if he simply attacks someone. It's one of those stalemate situations, where neither party is encouraged to make the first violent move.

Consider this situation.


>The tall, lanky raider enters the room.
>The tall, lanky raider begins threatening you!
>Holding your hands up, you say, in sirihish, "I don't want no trouble, man."
>The tall, lanky raider says, in sirihish, "Then drop your pack, holmes."
>Resting your hands on your hips, you say, in sirihish, "Now why exactly would I do that?"
>The tall, lanky raider says, in sirihish, "Because if you don't, I'll cut you.  And if you try to flee, I'll get -three- freebie cuts on you that will totally fuck you up."
>Holding a finger up, you say, in sirihish, "Aha, but I have no intention of fleeing! If you initiate combat with me, you'll lose your threat bonus, imbecile!  It's a catch-22! You haven't solved a damn thing by holding out that longsword at me, because I can stalemate you here indefinitely until you tire of it and forfeit your threat posture!"
>Facepalming himself, the tall, lanky raider says, in sirihish, "Egads, you're right. Well, I suppose I'll have to cut you, because if I tarry here too long, you're liable to contact some friends or authority figures to come and bail you out.  En garde!"

How do you propose to solve this little dilemma?

[brytta.leofa]

Threaten commands will not work, because all the victim has to do is stand there and delay indefinitely until the aggressor chooses to actually attack to break the stalemate.  From the aggressor's perspective, it would be more tactically sound to simply run in and attempt to subdue or attack, because if you 'threaten,' you a) give up the element of surprise and b) allow your target time to use 'contact' to summon help.

But that's exactly the goal: to give the victim an incentive to stand there and delay.  So that you can play^* with him.

It encourages the victim to not run immediately and the aggressor (if he isn't dead set on killin') to not attack immediately, right?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

 

Still, there is water behind the argument, particularly as LoD presents it, for interesting non-combative scenarios. For instance, the terrorist with the bag of explosives.

[LoD]

Threaten commands will not work, because all the victim has to do is stand there and delay indefinitely until the aggressor chooses to actually attack to break the stalemate.  From the aggressor's perspective, it would be more tactically sound to simply run in and attempt to subdue or attack, because if you 'threaten,' you a) give up the element of surprise and b) allow your target time to use 'contact' to summon help.

How do you propose to solve this little dilemma?

The purpose of the threaten command is not to obtain a coded advantage, but to increase the likelihood of interaction and improve the choices our characters have for applying weights and potential consequences to the actions of others.

As a former raider of many PC's, I can say that if the threaten command actually resulted in the victim remaining in the room and putting forth a few emotes and verbal exchanges, then I would consider it to be a huge success and an immediate improvement over the current encounter, which usually involves in one person entering the room and the other person spam-fleeing for the hills.  As a raider, I was after interaction with other PC's, not all their loot or any coded advantage.

If I wanted to kill them, I'd just kill them and not waste time with additional emotes, shouts, and tells.  The threaten command provides a mechanic for rewarding a character's attention to their surroundings and provides other players a method by which they can impose hard coded conditions upon an encounter that have historically been implied through emotes/says. (i.e. Hold still or I'll cut you.)  It would provide a new dynamic to dealing with people that doesn't exist in today's game and has almost nothing to do with providing coded advantages over anyone.

In your scenario, you ask what we would do to solve this little dilemma.

My answer is that I don't have a dilemma, I already have what I want -- more interaction than "Your victim flees east."

-LoD

[jmordetsky]

Hmm, I can dig it. Sucks when I try and emote out a raiding scene only to have the threatened PC just walk away without a second thought.

How lame is it when a human quits out in the middle of the desert while being threatened by a dwarven and mulish raider?  True story.

Yea dude.

[jmordetsky]

Threaten commands will not work, because all the victim has to do is stand there and delay indefinitely until the aggressor chooses to actually attack to break the stalemate.  From the aggressor's perspective, it would be more tactically sound to simply run in and attempt to subdue or attack, because if you 'threaten,' you a) give up the element of surprise and b) allow your target time to use 'contact' to summon help.

How do you propose to solve this little dilemma?

The purpose of the threaten command is not to obtain a coded advantage, but to increase the likelihood of interaction and improve the choices our characters have for applying weights and potential consequences to the actions of others.

As a former raider of many PC's, I can say that if the threaten command actually resulted in the victim remaining in the room and putting forth a few emotes and verbal exchanges, then I would consider it to be a huge success and an immediate improvement over the current encounter, which usually involves in one person entering the room and the other person spam-fleeing for the hills.  As a raider, I was after interaction with other PC's, not all their loot or any coded advantage.

If I wanted to kill them, I'd just kill them and not waste time with additional emotes, shouts, and tells.  The threaten command provides a mechanic for rewarding a character's attention to their surroundings and provides other players a method by which they can impose hard coded conditions upon an encounter that have historically been implied through emotes/says. (i.e. Hold still or I'll cut you.)  It would provide a new dynamic to dealing with people that doesn't exist in today's game and has almost nothing to do with providing coded advantages over anyone.

In your scenario, you ask what we would do to solve this little dilemma.

My answer is that I don't have a dilemma, I already have what I want -- more interaction than "Your victim flees east."

-LoD

Absolutely. As a raider you have two choices - do the right thing and emote when you walk in, but pretty guarantee the individual will escape if you do, or walk in guns blazing. If you do the former, you will be a very poor raider and your scenes will consist of one sided emotes from you. If you do the later, you will be called a twink.

Without threaten - raiding is no win.

Now - alot of people say - no, good players will emote with you. But - I'd like to believe 80% or more of the people in the game are at least passable players. But my experience with "scary" pcs, is that way more then 80% of the people I approach with good RPed - "ill intention" just run. It's really wild to observe.

[Sephiroto]

I like the concept.  As a victim, I would feel more inclined to stick around and rp with a potential raider if I had some kind of flag to know that they actually wanted to rp out a scene.  I get the idea that both parties would be more aware of the intent to roleplay back and forth.  The result could quite possibly a more creative scene instead of a "kill figure", bam bam you're dead thing.

As the aggressor, I feel that if I threatened someone, they stuck around and rp'd, and then foiled my plot or interaction with some sort of emotes and logical thinking that actually puts them in an advantage to get away or protect themselves I would be impressed.  Nothing would make me laugh OOCly more than knowing I had a coded advantage thwarted by the quick thinking and deft emoting of another player.

My question, though, is can most people be trusted to play responsibly?

[brytta.leofa]

My question, though, is can most people be trusted to play responsibly?

Most people can be trusted to trust the code more than they trust other players.

[LoD]

My question, though, is can most people be trusted to play responsibly?

Is this question aimed at the threaten command, or toward the game as a whole?

The beauty of the threaten command is that it doesn't encourage irresponsible play.  In fact, it postpones action in favor of interaction.  Irresponsible players can currently go through every scenario that listed in my previous quote and simply execute the commands, killing people, shooting people, shouting, igniting bombs, etc...  What the threaten command actually does is shift the responsibility away from the individual, making these actions become the product of two characters instead of just the will of the one.

So, I don't know that we'd need to worry about a lot of irresponsibility impacting the threaten command because the entire spirit behind its implementation goes against the abusive and immediate nature of a player unconcerned with story, interaction, and RP.  Those type of players will simply avoid using the threaten command altogether, since it accomplishes nothing but postponing actions they could take anyways.

-LoD

[Northlander]

I would love a threaten command in any shape or form!

[Taven]

Absolutely. As a raider you have two choices - do the right thing and emote when you walk in, but pretty guarantee the individual will escape if you do, or walk in guns blazing. If you do the former, you will be a very poor raider and your scenes will consist of one sided emotes from you. If you do the later, you will be called a twink.

Without threaten - raiding is no win.

Now - alot of people say - no, good players will emote with you. But - I'd like to believe 80% or more of the people in the game are at least passable players. But my experience with "scary" pcs, is that way more then 80% of the people I approach with good RPed - "ill intention" just run. It's really wild to observe.

I would say that the entire issue is a catch-22. People run right away because raiders or agressors come in, guns blazing. If you stick around, and that's abused to attack with no emotes, you're far more likely to die. At the same time, this behavior of running with no emotes makes it more likely for a raider to just attack with no emotes.

I like the idea of a threaten command, although I think that Synthesis' comment about how they're more likely to Way is correct. You can't have it keyed to "look figure" and "flee" at th same time, and alot of people seem to ignore the covering effects of hoods.

[Krishnamurti]

+1

[Good Gortok]

As long as flee remains an instant action that almost can't fail, threaten would serve little purpose unless you're playing a character capable of dealing enormous damage in one combat round. Threaten would not be for those situations where you're trying to raid a character whose player is willing to play along, it would be for those who aren't, and they can still just flee after one swing and be 10 rooms away before the delay of any coded combat action allows you to act again.

It also would have to be unrelated to any existing skills that isn't available to all guilds. We have to move away from the idea that half the inhabitants of the known world are incapable of doing things that every single human being should realistically have a chance to do. There's a grotesque amount of skills in Armageddon that are unrealistically restricted to certain guilds, and we don't need more. Basing a threaten skill on rescue would prevent everyone but warriors, rangers, and those with one of a select few subguilds from ever attempting to threaten somebody.

I think we're better off splitting the delay of aggressive actions in half, placing one half before (with a visible echo unless hidden) and the other half after the action is executed. It would avoid the stupidity of attacking someone or using an in-combat skill and having to wait up to 10 or more seconds before you can do something, but without allowing for combat skill spam. Then place a reasonable delay on flee so that it's somewhat possible to attack someone and then chase them if they flee, rather than just guessing the general direction of their escape and hoping you can outlast their stamina or track them down. Maybe this would promote more realistic roleplay overall instead of having many players choose their character's actions with the knowledge that they can almost always succesfully escape combat from one opponent, or traveling the world alone with the knowledge that no wildlife creatures between Allanak and Tuluk can pose a consistent threat against someone with a quick flee-finger.

[mattrious]

The idea as a whole is a great one. I believe as soon as it goes live, this change would seriously make raiding an enjoyable RP experience for both of the players involved, maybe not their characters.