Crime: Makes the game harsher?

[ibusoe]

In another thread, discussion is taking place about whether the game is harsh enough or not, and about the sources of potential problems.

Some players disagree that the game is plenty harsh already, although many others pointed to potential areas in which they would like to see more PC-based conflict.

I like this quote personally, referencing Templars:

And Do try to remember, much of your power actually comes FROM that small group of raiders outside the city. They are the ones that make the cities feel safer to commoners so they stay there to work for you and bribe you etc.

While I personally think that our current (recent?) crop of templars are really good, I agree with people who think that a healthy dose of in-game crime would make the (brutally corrupt) templars actually look like good-guys.

There is a general complaint/perception that PC vs. PC crime is not abundant enough -- it's too scarce.


In this thread I'd like to ask that players who would like to see more crime, to post your suggestions for how players and staff can make this occur.

Here is my suggestion:

I think that a group of staff (four or five?) get together and play a couple of groups of NPC raiders and NPC street criminals.  My belief is that if this takes place, they will realize how hard it is for people to play these sorts of roles and make appropriate adjustments.

Also I think they will build infrastructure to support PCs taking up some of these tasks on their own.

Also I think they will create enough "background noise" that players will feel comfortable engaging in petty crime, and that petty crime will be ignored.

My ultimate goal is that players would start to ignore petty crime and that it would begin to add more game atmosphere.

I recognize that staff are already busy but I think something like this might be awesome.

[FantasyWriter]

I would love to see more staff-animated sentient antagonists.

[Cutthroat]

I think criminal PCs should go to templars and make sure everything's cool before starting off with a crime spree.

In Tuluk, the culture encourages this. Thieves and assassins have to get their thief or assassin license from a templar. Then they just have to do their job professionally, i.e., without getting caught or causing a ruckus, or there will be penalties.

In Allanak, the culture encourages this, because templars are often more openly corrupt here. Discuss a deal with some terms and conditions, pass up a gift for The Mighty Dragon Who Saved Allanak, and that templar won't care about what you do.

Templars can be corrupt in both places, but in Allanak you'll have an easier time running a spice smuggling ring if you pass some of your stuff to a templar, or kill people so long as you do a little favor for a templar first, or burglarize someone so long as you fetch a wooden doodad that's inside there for a templar. In either city you will probably not have trouble raiding Amos Nobodies outside town if you cut deals with authorities (in Allanak this is the templarate; in Tuluk this is the templarate + a noble with governor status in a given area).

Not every crime IG yields You are now wanted!, by the way. What about non-coded crimes?

In town, you could likely run a group of thugs who pressure people into doing things (think "Zalanthan debt collector"), or a protection racket, or an imported thieves tools store. Get "approval" from the templarate first, and you might even get opportunities from them too. Be a creative criminal, and I guarantee you'll have a fun time, and involve other people in your fun.

[Nyr]

Here is my suggestion:

I think that a group of staff (four or five?) get together and play a couple of groups of NPC raiders and NPC street criminals.  My belief is that if this takes place, they will realize how hard it is for people to play these sorts of roles and make appropriate adjustments.

The problem with this is a lack of attachment for NPCs.  I've killed off NPCs I've built with no qualms whatsoever.  I did not care about how hard their lives were because I didn't have to train their skills up or interact with anyone I didn't want to.  I didn't care about how hard it was to play the role because it wasn't my role, I realized it was an NPC and treated it that way.  Sure, it had a personality, a background, and a life, but I had no vested interest in keeping it alive (nor did I feel too bad if it died).

I think a better option without knowing more information would be requesting that staff play PC raiders and criminals.  When you throw in the "more information," you might notice that staff have restrictions on what they can play.  We might play resource PCs that fill a niche, but those are not the rank-and-file regular setup PCs, and again, have less attachment than one might experience with a normal PC.  We can't play sponsored roles, which doesn't really matter for this case.  So yes, a group of staff members could make PCs for the purpose of playing a PC raider or criminal, but that's not really getting the full scope of a character, is it?  Is a character's whole life their raiding and criminal lifestyle?

I've played a PC criminal after being on staff, and got into crime.  It was fun, and it was the first time I did it.  I didn't use a single one of my skills against PCs except for the hiding and sneaking, and used regular brute force intimidation tactics, recognized my surroundings, and hung around the people with power while avoiding those that had more power than my allies did.  I didn't play a raider, but I considered my character involved in crime to an extent.  I did not find it particularly hard, and found it to be exciting, but my character's job had little to do with the >pick lock and >steal commands and more to do with roleplay (which is a lot more profitable and far more fun).  I died though, because I'm still a n00b.

Adjustments I'd personally make after the fact?  None that I could think of.
Infrastructure I'd personally endorse to support PCs taking up some of these tasks on their own?  None at this time.  

I would love to see more staff-animated sentient antagonists.

Why must it be staff animated?  To quote a commonly repeated sentiment on the GDB, be the change you want to see.  If you don't see enough antagonists, go be one somehow, or piss off enough people that you create your own.  Players will play what they want to play, and if they want to see more crime in the game, they should play more criminals--particularly the grey sort of criminals that are people first, criminally-oriented second.  If everyone's corrupt, everyone's a criminal to some extent, and everyone profits from it for the roleplay.

I don't mind animating when I can (on a personal level), but most of my focus of late has been on structural improvements (autopayment was one of these that I indirectly had a hand in) and things like that.  I appreciate the reminder to play, because past a certain point, I almost forget that there is that possibility--taking on some NPC's skin and being a complete asshole or jokester for the enjoyment of others.

In conclusion, I'd rather hear about what (specifically) is terrible/could use improving with crime-related code than about (specifically) staff pushing into the field of playtesting niche roles at the behest of players to tweak things for that niche group.  We do have a limited amount of resources, and I think we can marshal them to more effect than that.

[Qzzrbl]

It's mostly the isolation that comes with raider/hardcore criminal roles that deter many people from playing them, I think.

Because if you make a raider, expect to be outcasted from nearly every city with perhaps the exception of Red Storm, because -everyone and their mother- in Luir's,  Allanak, and  Tuluk, has powerful connections. Or they're connected to someone with powerful connections in one way or another, and it's nigh impossible to see who has these connections so you'll know who to avoid mugging.

And then there comes the issue of whether or not to kill when you raid.

And then there's trying to form a group of raiders IG (by my figuring, you'll need at least four or five), and finding people (anyone at all) that won't wind up dead in an RL week is hard enough as it is.

[deviant storm]

I remember being Black Moon. I bet some of the others do too. That was a coded raider clan, for the most part.

And even with the coding behind us, it was indeed isolated, often with only one or two raiders on at the same time. Everyone was after us, and they used every means at their disposal to nail us. Then there were the spam fleeing people we'd try to raid.

Now I think it would be worse. There is no coded raider group. Qzzrbl is right, there would be everyone after any group. Few people want to have someone out there, trying to raid and getting spamfled and then a huge group of militia/legion/whathaveyou come charging in.

Not that I don't think it isn't worth it for PCs to try.

Didn't LoD have a thread about this same subject at one time, listing the obstacles and so on very, very well?

[musashi]

There is a general complaint/perception that PC vs. PC crime is not abundant enough -- it's too scarce.

I think what you mean to say is that there is a general complaint/perception that raider type crime is not abundant enough.

Having your apartment broken into for example ... is a type of crime that the game sees more than enough of already.

[Synthesis]

I remember being Black Moon. I bet some of the others do too. That was a coded raider clan, for the most part.

And even with the coding behind us, it was indeed isolated, often with only one or two raiders on at the same time. Everyone was after us, and they used every means at their disposal to nail us. Then there were the spam fleeing people we'd try to raid.

Now I think it would be worse. There is no coded raider group. Qzzrbl is right, there would be everyone after any group. Few people want to have someone out there, trying to raid and getting spamfled and then a huge group of militia/legion/whathaveyou come charging in.

Not that I don't think it isn't worth it for PCs to try.

Didn't LoD have a thread about this same subject at one time, listing the obstacles and so on very, very well?

Let's be honest here: some of the Blackmoon players were just as bad as those spam-fleeing targets.  The only time I was raided by Blackmoon, 4 PCs ran in from a single direction, and instantly guarded both the north and south exits of the room before I could even respond with a look.  (This was back in the day when "followers" didn't incur movement delays, so if you followed someone into a room, you could instantly perform an action.)

Somehow, they magickally flanked me in that narrow stretch of the north road.  Yeah. Good job, guys.

[Sandstone]

I remember being Black Moon. I bet some of the others do too. That was a coded raider clan, for the most part.

And even with the coding behind us, it was indeed isolated, often with only one or two raiders on at the same time. Everyone was after us, and they used every means at their disposal to nail us. Then there were the spam fleeing people we'd try to raid.

Now I think it would be worse. There is no coded raider group. Qzzrbl is right, there would be everyone after any group. Few people want to have someone out there, trying to raid and getting spamfled and then a huge group of militia/legion/whathaveyou come charging in.

Not that I don't think it isn't worth it for PCs to try.

Didn't LoD have a thread about this same subject at one time, listing the obstacles and so on very, very well?

Let's be honest here: some of the Blackmoon players were just as bad as those spam-fleeing targets.  The only time I was raided by Blackmoon, 4 PCs ran in from a single direction, and instantly guarded both the north and south exits of the room before I could even respond with a look.  (This was back in the day when "followers" didn't incur movement delays, so if you followed someone into a room, you could instantly perform an action.)

Somehow, they magickally flanked me in that narrow stretch of the north road.  Yeah. Good job, guys.

No, they weren't perfect. But that wasn't the point. The point was how difficult PC raiding clans are. Coded or uncoded, the game makes the raider's role an extremely challenging one.

[musashi]

I remember being Black Moon. I bet some of the others do too. That was a coded raider clan, for the most part.

And even with the coding behind us, it was indeed isolated, often with only one or two raiders on at the same time. Everyone was after us, and they used every means at their disposal to nail us. Then there were the spam fleeing people we'd try to raid.

Now I think it would be worse. There is no coded raider group. Qzzrbl is right, there would be everyone after any group. Few people want to have someone out there, trying to raid and getting spamfled and then a huge group of militia/legion/whathaveyou come charging in.

Not that I don't think it isn't worth it for PCs to try.

Didn't LoD have a thread about this same subject at one time, listing the obstacles and so on very, very well?

Let's be honest here: some of the Blackmoon players were just as bad as those spam-fleeing targets.  The only time I was raided by Blackmoon, 4 PCs ran in from a single direction, and instantly guarded both the north and south exits of the room before I could even respond with a look.  (This was back in the day when "followers" didn't incur movement delays, so if you followed someone into a room, you could instantly perform an action.)

Somehow, they magickally flanked me in that narrow stretch of the north road.  Yeah. Good job, guys.

That's awesome 

I hope they spam-charged you after that.

[My 2 sids]

The problem with this is that for there to be any sort of conflict there has to be some kind of line between the parties.   

If _every_ criminal has political ties and _every_ templar/ soldier is able to be bribed...  than the two really aren't in any conflict.  And eventually everyone catches on to the act and there goes any conflict-endorphins.



If _every_ PC is putting on an act -- than there is nothing real.   If 99% of IC play is "pretend to smile and plot"  than that doesn't leave much for the rush that comes with a PC living in REAL danger.

[Versu]

Crime doesn't make the game harsher. Law does. There's more active goody-goodies out there than bad people because the game doesn't support villainous roles. I think. Except those roles where people are corrupt, sponsored.. Long winded? Something might happen that makes a moment of crime possible, but seeking it is ridiculous.

[RogueGunslinger]

 I agree with Versu to an extent. A lot of crime is impossible because a large portion of the player base seem to want to raise up and smash it at every opportunity they can.

[jhunter]

Yeah, just pick someone's pocket in a bar and watch every pc in the bar decide to go on the warpath to get that fucker.

[Ghost]

Raiding is not worth the trouble in the current incarnation of the game.  If crime is less frequent than expected, it is probably because the gameworld puts too much obstacles for any criminal to pull it off.  Too many factors work against the crime and there is very little benefit in actually pursuing criminal professions (so long it is not burglary or pickpocketing). 

Raiders or the like will very much answer the question posed in "How dangerous is traveling".

Raiders are basically stripped of most of the fun the game offers.  You can not visit a city to sell your wares or stop by the Gaj to get the recent rumors.  You will be mostly alone out in the wastes and the most interaction you will get with the rest of the world is raiding someone every once in a while if they happen to pick the route you are watching at the time you are logged in.  Basically, you will not be seeing anybody else, besides your raiding group.

Of course, to be able to have a chance at raiding, you will first have to grind your way up from the newbie skills to somewhere adequate, which will be painful.  At least 5 days of playtime is going to be invested there, in order to stand a chance at a raiding attempt.  That is a lot of investment by itself to start a life that is isolated from the rest of the world (which is not a reward).

Everytime you attempt a raid, you risk losing your character.  I know, you risk losing a character everytime you hunt a scrab too, but the difference is, scrab is not controlled by a player.  Meaning, it can not OUTTHINK you.  You know that if you lose 40 hp to fighting a scrab, you can flee and you will most likely run away from it.  A PC on the other hand can not only outmatch you in coded skills, but they can also outthink your "get away" strategy.  Not only that, they can hold grudge for as long as the player holds the grudge, they can get other PCs, militia, mages, templars on you at a later time.   Everytime you attempt to raid someone, you are risking this all, which may very well lead to losing your PC.

I know death is part of Armageddon, and it should be accepted.  It is accepted.  However, the difference in losing a clanned, city based character and losing a raider PC is, a clanned character faces death much less often (living in a lawful area for the most part) and playing in a city is much of a reward (encountering and playing with many other people).  Whereas a raider lives in a lawless area, meaning any bored sorcerer, elementalist, anyone who have some skills to show off may very well walk into your area and make you their bitch.  Especially if they hear there is a raider group out there, they sure would stop by there to see who can piss farther.

To address something that is said in that thread:

In order for a PC clan of raiders to be playable, they need many code 'perks' that aren't currently available to the general player base (like masks, secret hide outs with special access).  Without these things, players generally aren't interested (IMO it's too difficult/not fun).  We did have a raider clan a few years back (Zimand Gur, without said perks) which sort of fizzled out.  People often say they'd like to see more PC raiders, but the realities (I hate using that word when talking about a virtual world) are that people don't want to do this, or they'd be doing it.

At the moment, playing a raider is not rewarding at the slightest, so something for the players to hold onto is necessary, if the game world wants a raider group.

1- Let the raider players have a second account just like a gladiators.  This is so that, when the raider players are bored enough (due to lack of interaction to the rest of the world) they can log in with their primary account and have some interaction until they get bored of it and get back to the raiding part.

2- Set up a starting location, so that players do not suffer the pain of finding it out IC every fucking time.  It should have a basic tavern with a basic rumor board, with a few shops to cover basic needs.  It could be a few tents or cleaned out bahamet shells it does not need another Allanak or Tuluk.  The starting location will provide the basic needs, as well as will let the raiders meet with each other to organize raid parties.

I would also ask for some bonus to base offense and defense of the raiders, since usually the traveling groups have some buff warriors with them.  If these two were given, the game would have raiders often enough.  It would solve "Make the roads more dangerous" problem as well.  Because, unlike adding some scripted NPC (which can be figured out soon enough and avoided easily by the PCs later) a PC group will not be so predictable, and will keep the players on the edge.

[Delstro]

Of course, to be able to have a chance at raiding, you will first have to grind your way up from the newbie skills to somewhere adequate, which will be painful.  At least 5 days of playtime is going to be invested there, in order to stand a chance at a raiding attempt.  That is a lot of investment by itself to start a life that is isolated from the rest of the world (which is not a reward).

Everytime you attempt a raid, you risk losing your character.  I know, you risk losing a character everytime you hunt a scrab too, but the difference is, scrab is not controlled by a player.  Meaning, it can not OUTTHINK you.  You know that if you lose 40 hp to fighting a scrab, you can flee and you will most likely run away from it.  A PC on the other hand can not only outmatch you in coded skills, but they can also outthink your "get away" strategy.  Not only that, they can hold grudge for as long as the player holds the grudge, they can get other PCs, militia, mages, templars on you at a later time.   Everytime you attempt to raid someone, you are risking this all, which may very well lead to losing your PC.

If it wasn't for the first paragraph quoted, raiding sounds like a blast. Of course you don't need to be isolated from the world while you are doing the first five days of playtime.
There is nothing stopping a group of northerners, possibly apart of the Legion, from raiding some southerners.

[Nyr]

Most of my post was in reference to crime, not necessarily raiding (since the OP seemed to be about both and only mentions raiding one time, whereas crime and petty crime is mentioned more often).  Everyone from that point forward was happy to derail into the territory of PC raiders, why they don't work, why they haven't worked, why they haven't worked that well even when there was coded support for them, and why the game needs raiders to make everything better.

Raiding is a much more dangerous profession for the reasons Ghost stated.  No, without special resources, you probably couldn't make a full-time job of raiding, and I'm not sure staff is interested in putting in those resources for a raider group at this time.

Players will play what they want to play, and if they want to see more crime in the game, they should play more criminals--particularly the grey sort of criminals that are people first, criminally-oriented second.  If everyone's corrupt, everyone's a criminal to some extent, and everyone profits from it for the roleplay.

The problem with this is that for there to be any sort of conflict there has to be some kind of line between the parties.   

If _every_ criminal has political ties and _every_ templar/ soldier is able to be bribed...  than the two really aren't in any conflict.  And eventually everyone catches on to the act and there goes any conflict-endorphins.

Murder, corruption, betrayal.

Every templar and soldier should be able to be bribed.  It's a matter of knowing what a templar or soldier wants.  (This is not always sid, and in some places, that's unfeasible.)  Every templar and soldier should also have no qualms with betraying someone that bribed them by taking another bribe, or trying to look better by "dealing with crime."  Conflict naturally exists if people are corrupt, because corruption works both ways.

[brytta.leofa]

Maybe not quite relevant, but I wouldn't hate the existence of a few carefully-balanced city NPCs who use hide + sneak + sap|steal, and lurk in and near dark alleys.

[Synthesis]

Maybe not quite relevant, but I wouldn't hate the existence of a few carefully-balanced city NPCs who use hide + sneak + sap|steal, and lurk in and near dark alleys.

As soon as those went in and became common knowledge, they would be spamhunted by bored militia PCs, or others.

[Cutthroat]

Crime doesn't make the game harsher. Law does. There's more active goody-goodies out there than bad people because the game doesn't support villainous roles. I think. Except those roles where people are corrupt, sponsored.. Long winded? Something might happen that makes a moment of crime possible, but seeking it is ridiculous.

So... bring the law to your side.

It won't take one bribe. You'll have to maintain your efforts to keep the law enforcement at bay.

As the player of a person who would bribe - my PCs did it before committing a crime so that there was an understanding that my PCs could go ahead and do this thing. One PC was able to sell spice in Allanak with no trouble. He just had to make sure he and his group were doing things safely.

As the player of a person who would take bribes - my PCs took bribes from people who were smart about paying up on time. One PC was an AoD soldier who let a few spice smuggling and assassination plots slide right by, and the others are too recent to get into. The beautiful thing is that I could've turned around and asked for more and more - and did.

---

People are saying crime is impossible, or at least very difficult, yet they are opposed to the idea of clearing it through law enforcement because it somehow reduces conflict. Well, no wonder - that's pretty much the single most effective way of doing things, and still leaves plenty of room for conflicts. Any solid criminal organization should never forget tying itself to law enforcement, because they are the guys that will make it impossible for you to be a criminal until you pay up.

[Flawed]

People are saying crime is impossible, or at least very difficult, yet they are opposed to the idea of clearing it through law enforcement because it somehow reduces conflict. Well, no wonder - that's pretty much the single most effective way of doing things, and still leaves plenty of room for conflicts. Any solid criminal organization should never forget tying itself to law enforcement, because they are the guys that will make it impossible for you to be a criminal until you pay up.

I believe part of the reasons that characters are reluctant to deal with the law is the... nooplars. (e.g. players who are unaccustomed to having coded powers and authority characters, not necessarily a new templar) Here are bad examples, I'm just using it to refer to general points: what if I met a templar who are all too willing take 3000 sids bribe to kill a GMG merchant? Which is all good and dandy if the templar bothered to investigate and find out that the said merchant happens to be the concubine to a Red Robe with all the social connections entailed. What if a templar thinks 200 sids is too low for a bribe, even if it is for a petty crime like stealing plants from Allanak trees, and considered the bribe as a near lethal insult instead.

Trust is lacking. When I am new to the game, I'm quite happy with meeting all the nooplars and leaders. But with years playing, 10 out of 10 times I get burnt crisp. I would rather not deal with nooplars without a thorough investigation into the character style, which can be done icly.  As much as I sympathise with new leaders and the fact that any urge to stay out of their way icly would not help them learn... I would rather not have my characters become an experiment for someone's ooc mistake (or their lack of experience to deal with things). Having witnessed templars forgot to pardon a criminal while trying to drag him into somewhere for questioning too many times, I'm rather scared.

If a newbie leader must step on the broken bodies of PCs in order to learn to become a great leader, please, Tek, let it be someone else's PC.

I derailed?

Anyway. I don't believe it's the crime that makes the game harsher. It is the atmosphere. The set of morals, or lack of, and judgments and the low value people place on trust, friendship, faith, loyalty and so on. But crime certainly help in boosting those. Sure let crime flourish. Maybe laws could take a step back and not meddle into the 'petty' crimes. Worry about noble and agent assassination or wagon raiding instead.

[brytta.leofa]

Maybe not quite relevant, but I wouldn't hate the existence of a few carefully-balanced city NPCs who use hide + sneak + sap|steal, and lurk in and near dark alleys.

As soon as those went in and became common knowledge, they would be spamhunted by bored militia PCs, or others.

Well, that's part of the point: give militia something to do other than gleefully and relentlessly hunt down every petty PC criminal.  But if their stealth skills are decent, they'll be very hard for the average militia PC to find...and you can't arrest an NPC just for being stealthy.

Make twenty new NPCs.  Give them all a "hunting" or "pickpocketing" scripts wherein the NPC finds a sparsely-populated area, gets his sneak+hide on, flips up his hood, and goes looking for PCs in rooms without soldiers.  Make the script run for, at most, one IC day.  Turn the script on for one IC day out of every 10.

[Qzzrbl]

A trend I've noticed among figures of authority when crime is involved.

Figures of authority tend to kill off suspects one at a time until said crimes stop, rather than taking the time to figure out which one did it.

[Ghost]

People are saying crime is impossible, or at least very difficult, yet they are opposed to the idea of clearing it through law enforcement because it somehow reduces conflict. Well, no wonder - that's pretty much the single most effective way of doing things, and still leaves plenty of room for conflicts. Any solid criminal organization should never forget tying itself to law enforcement, because they are the guys that will make it impossible for you to be a criminal until you pay up.

Tying yourself up to the law only works when you are dealing with small time crimes.  Smuggling/selling spice can easily be arranged.  When I was playing Serpent, I even had a deal with a templar in such a way, he was smuggling the spice for me, and I was buying it from him.  These things can easily be arranged.

The problem comes when your crime starts to get in someone else's way.  Then no coin will buy your way out.  I remember a crime involving a noble's aide, we offered a templar 2 bricks of spice and something like 10-15k coin (It was nearly all I had at the time) and Templar still was not convinced (I am pretty sure the noble himself would not be able to pay 1/5th of that offer).  Now this is a one time crime only.  If you have repeated cases like this that gets in someone else's way, then you are pretty much screwed from the law side.

[Twilight]

With regards to raiding, I played a Blackmoon, briefly.  I also played a gith.

Gith were very well set up for raiding.  IMHO better so than Blackmoon.  Playing one right should result in raiding instead of rampant killing.

With the code changes since then, I think they would be even more effective (like disengage being instant these days, being able to set mercy, etc).

And personally, I loved playing one, ISO and all.