Spying

[QuillDipper]

Hey, so, somewhat new to the game, on my, ah, second character, and I'm just curious, is there a high demand for spies in the game? I see it mentioned so often in the help docs, for linguists and burglars and ect, but I want to know how often this actually comes up. It really interests me, because not many games I play can have spies in the sense that this game could.

[Dar]

One could say that building a spy network is almost a requirement for anyone playing an agent, a merchant, a noble, a sargeant, a criminal boss, a raider, a militia officer, a templar, a whore, a high-class courtesan, an aide, a hunter's crew leader ... mmmm, did I leave anyone out?

The players and their characters for the most part, have also learned to be pretty adapt in spying and figuring out other spies. So ... it's an interesting role, with interesting challenges.

[RogueGunslinger]

Yeah, most certainly. Being a good spy however... Can be hard.

[Lizzie]

It's hard to place yourself in a position where people know you're available to spy on their behalf, especially when you're new. Some people get lucky (my very first character in Arm was recruited on my 2nd day of playing). Some not so lucky (one of my characters from the last couple of years BEGGED to be her employer's spy and he refused and hired her as his aide instead).

Being a spy pretty much requires that you not advertise that you are one, or want to be one. Because once everyone knows you're a spy, they'll make sure not to let you overhear anything or witness anything. Or they'll intentionally say or do something in your presence so that you can send false information back to your employer.

It's not the same thing as the James Bond kind of spy, where everyone knows he's a spy, including his enemy, and all the women he boinks are spies working for his enemy, and some of them are double-agents working for the crown as well. It's a lot more subtle than that. Think of James Bond as being the slapstick version of spying, and turn the dial back around 20 notches til you find a place where you can be recruited quietly to the spy world, without anyone knowing that you were recruited.

[Narf]

In my experience 'spy' is more of a skill you'd add to your resume when you're working for an employer than an actual all out profession.

[Drayab]

That's been my experience as well. I've never had a character hired as a spy, but I've had plenty of characters that eventually did some spying once they built up enough trust with the boss and the opportunity presented itself. The demand is there, but the people offering the jobs are risk averse. I'll echo Lizzie's comment that if you want to be a spy, you shouldn't advertise yourself as one. Here are some tips I can give on working your character into a spy role:

• Pick a class with useful spy skillz, like ranger or burglar.
• Find honest work with a noble house.
• Think of clever ways to let the boss know that you'd make a good spy.
• Be patient.
• Being a human helps.
• Being lifesworn helps.

[James de Monet]

Actually, I would kind of disagree. Unless you're spying on that noble house, you probably don't want to be a part of it (and maybe that's what Drayab meant, I wasn't clear). As soon as you put on that livery, everyone can guess where your loyalties lie.

A better way (IMHO) is to contact a person in power, tell them you want to work for them, and are willing to undertake risky jobs. Hopefully they take the hint.

If they send you looking for a job in another organization, after you get through your initial training, you're deep cover spy city.  (I once played a deep-cover spy for a GMH that became quite highly ranked in the target organization. There were even other spies from the same GMH who came and went without ever knowing that my PC was a mole. Interesting times.)

You can also get into a house, then confide in someone with interest that you are discontent with your work (ie "I might be willing to spy for you"), but they are likely to place less trust in a proven turncoat then someone whose first allegiance never really changed.

[Kronibas]

It's been a long time, but I've played two spies so far.

One was an informant/saboteur in the Rebellion who actually married a Lirathan templar in hiding.  And lived under the Ivory Pyramid.  Only to die at the hands of Bhag-o-vision (staff member who played a templar PC at the time... that turned out well).  At one point, he was clanned Guild/Rebellion/Kadius.

The other was a [redacted tribe] who successfully infiltrated Kadius, worked for them for 1-2 game time years, arranged for them to take a wagon trip to Luir's... and then totally stole the wagon.  Totally got away with it, too.

Interestingly, Bhag used his gypsy character to sell that wagon to his Tor noble, repainted, and later on when I was a Kadian family member, my guy was tasked with figuring out with what ever happened to that damned wagon, anyway.

Both of those characters were burglars.

It is a small game world.  For a spy to be successful, they probably need to be either a new character that is somehow able to talk a leader PC to trust them before they're seen associating with that clan or be an old character who is out of sight for the most part/is able to get a description change.

Accents and tattoos make being a spy a lot harder these days.  Then again, if you put in a special app, these hard coded differences between groups might actually work to your advantage.  Who is going to think you're a Naki spy if you have caste tattoos and speak with a northern accent?

If you're patient and conniving enough on Arm, it's surprising what you can do with your characters.

[Drayab]

Actually, I would kind of disagree. Unless you're spying on that noble house, you probably don't want to be a part of it (and maybe that's what Drayab meant, I wasn't clear). As soon as you put on that livery, everyone can guess where your loyalties lie.

You're welcome to disagree - you understood me fine.  I am suggesting that it's easier to get started as a spy by playing a 'soft' spy in plain sight as opposed to a more super seekrit spy. You're right that the livery can be a hindrance, but it's not an insurmountable obstacle. Putting on livery is a good way to gain trust with the boss. If the boss seems to trust you really fast, I would not trust that boss. In short, the secret spy has to find another way to build up trust and is probably playing a riskier game. So, pick your poison.

Maybe you are specifically thinking of an infiltration job? I agree, that is definitely easier for the secret spy. There's lots of other tasks that I would consider spy stuff, though.

[Fujikoma]

Maybe it's not the same as being a spy, but it's kind of fun when people regularly walk up to you and ask "So, what's the word? Anything new going on?"

[Malken]

The Way, as useful as it can be on an OOC perspective, tends to ruin everything spying-wise and deep-plotline wise faster than it should if there wasn't any of it in the game.

At least that's my opinion.

[Wish]

The Way, as useful as it can be on an OOC perspective, tends to ruin everything spying-wise and deep-plotline wise faster than it should if there wasn't any of it in the game.

At least that's my opinion.

I agree.

This is the main reason I wish literacy were more prevalent in the game world.

[Desertman]

Typically spying is less "sneaking around overhearing conversations" and much more "that person was my friend until it became profitable to sell them out".

Not many people play a spy where they intentionally market their services as such.

Most of them just stumble across information, or into a position that allows them to get information, and they sell that information, until eventually they are caught and killed.

[Desertman]

The Way, as useful as it can be on an OOC perspective, tends to ruin everything spying-wise and deep-plotline wise faster than it should if there wasn't any of it in the game.

At least that's my opinion.

I agree.

This is the main reason I wish literacy were more prevalent in the game world.

What? You mean to say every person in the world having what basically amounts to instant video phone coverage can ruin secrets and plotlines in a low magic low tech fantasy setting?

I have always compared "The Way" to "Fully automatic machine guns" in Armageddon.

It makes some things easier, but it sure screws a lot of stuff up and makes a lot of things not possible.

I have always been a fan of doing away with "The Way", unless you are a psion.

That being said, I would settle for people not being able to instant get your sdesc by finding your mind, or using it to know when you are online to track you.

And that being said, I would just settle for me getting THEIR sdesc when they find my mind and leave it repeatedly ten times a night every single night I play when I'm playing a villain.

The Way sucks.

[evilcabbage]

contact figure

You contact the figure wearing a cloak blacker than blackest night???

[Inks]

Yeah I hate the ability to contact figure with the power of a thousand suns. I mean Krathis...

[RogueGunslinger]

Yeah I hate the ability to contact figure with the power of a thousand suns. I mean Krathis...

You can only do it if they're in the room with you. It's honestly not that bad.

[James de Monet]

And that being said, I would just settle for me getting THEIR sdesc when they find my mind and leave it repeatedly ten times a night every single night I play when I'm playing a villain.

The Way sucks.

Yeah...I've gotten used to the reality of this, but sometimes I wonder about the point of it.

There are a few valid reasons to need to know if your enemy is online, but for the most part, I think that would actually fall under OOC abuse. If you're playing differently based on whether or not certain individuals are logged in...that's probably not okay, as ICly they are always somewhere.

If you're making decisions about how risky you can play based on whether or not known raiders, lawmen, assassins, etc are around, you might want to take a look at your motivations.

[Barzalene]

I hope you wish up when this happens or send a complaint request.

[Yummri]

So people tracking you via the way is kinda ooc abuse?

I always figured it might be. Though I've only used the way so far to actually try and contact people I need to talk to for whatever reason. Because I've no intention of "knowing" their around until I either get told or see them for myself if they are actively hunting me.

Simply because I came from a game where people could see when you were around and they instantly went into hiding or never came around. Its restrictive and can ruin games/plots and other things really fast. To my mind there is not point playing a game like Arm if you aren't willing to run those risks willingly and enjoy them.

Keep waying to people you actually intend to talk to or have business with icly. Less tracking please.

[bcw81]

It is not OOC abuse to find out if someone is online via the Way, if I remember Staff's response on the matter. It -is- however quite annoying and I want to murder anyone who has their PC do this.

[Lizzie]

The Way was changed a couple of times, specifically because it WAS ooc abuse.

It used to be, if Amos WAS logged into the game, you'd get one failure message, and a different failure message if Amos was NOT logged in. This caused some problems, including plot-changing damage (oh - Talia's boss isn't logged in, we can totally assassinate her without getting in trouble because she won't be able to contact him while we're PKing her).

This was changed, so now, you know either a) the person exists as a PC in the game somewhere or b) you don't know if the person exists in the game or not. There is no "no, this person is definitely not in the game right now" message anymore, for the exact reason that it had been abused.

The other main change was contacting hooded/veiled people. Now, you can only find them if they're in close proximity to you. You used to be able to type contact hooded and get the most recent hooded figure that showed up in the game (including recently-spawned hooded gith, which could be fun for a quick momentary thrill, heh).

[James de Monet]

I'm not suggesting that it is abuse to find out if someone is online with the Way. But the fact of someone being offline (and unable to respond to your PC's actions) is OOC info, and if you then use that to make IC decisions, there is a strong chance you may be abusing the system.

If you use the Way to figure out if someone is online so you can interact with them (for good or ill) there is probably no problem. We do reserve the right to be OOCly (and in some cases ICly) annoyed when you doorbell ditch, though.


And yes, the system now is set up so that you never know for sure that someone is not logged on, but let's be honest, you can have a pretty good freaking idea.

[Malken]

I wish Staff could come up with some awesome IC reason why the Way would stop functioning for most for a certain period of time, like a month or two, just to see what the game could be WITHOUT.. If everyone loves the new way-less game, then keep it that way, if everyone hates it, then just terminate the IC reason with another IC reason..

It'd be interesting to see how the game would change without everyone knowing everything five minutes after it happens, no matter where they are.

[Jherlen]

I think PCs should be able to recieve Way messages when they're offline (unless you log out with a barrier up, maybe.) When you log in again, you could use a "recall" command to see the messages people sent you while you were logged out. I think this elegantly solves the "We can kill Talia in secret without her being able to tell her friends because they're offline!" problem, cos she still will be able to get a message through. It also eliminates the potential for being able to know someone is on/offline via the Way, cos they'll always be contactable.

[Zerero]

I wish Staff could come up with some awesome IC reason why the Way would stop functioning for most for a certain period of time, like a month or two, just to see what the game could be WITHOUT.. If everyone loves the new way-less game, then keep it that way, if everyone hates it, then just terminate the IC reason with another IC reason..

It'd be interesting to see how the game would change without everyone knowing everything five minutes after it happens, no matter where they are.

This. Something... something that involves the moon(s).

[LauraMars]

I think PCs should be able to recieve Way messages when they're offline (unless you log out with a barrier up, maybe.) When you log in again, you could use a "recall" command to see the messages people sent you while you were logged out. I think this elegantly solves the "We can kill Talia in secret without her being able to tell her friends because they're offline!" problem, cos she still will be able to get a message through. It also eliminates the potential for being able to know someone is on/offline via the Way, cos they'll always be contactable.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, yeah, that's more realistic...on the other hand, OH GOD NO I DON'T WANT ARMAGEDDON TO TURN INTO ANOTHER EMAIL INBOX.

Actually, I'd rather what Malken suggests come to pass, because I kind of hate the Way, but I don't think that's going to happen!

[James de Monet]

OH GOD NO I DON'T WANT ARMAGEDDON TO TURN INTO ANOTHER EMAIL INBOX.

This. So much. Also, I like the general thought behind the idea, but it would make any and every clanned merchant RUE THE DAY.

The problem with getting rid of the Way is that I think the pbase is still too small to reliably pass information without the Way, clan boards, or both. That is, it still saves or creates more plots and interaction than it damages.

[Narf]

I think PCs should be able to recieve Way messages when they're offline (unless you log out with a barrier up, maybe.) When you log in again, you could use a "recall" command to see the messages people sent you while you were logged out. I think this elegantly solves the "We can kill Talia in secret without her being able to tell her friends because they're offline!" problem, cos she still will be able to get a message through. It also eliminates the potential for being able to know someone is on/offline via the Way, cos they'll always be contactable.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, yeah, that's more realistic...on the other hand, OH GOD NO I DON'T WANT ARMAGEDDON TO TURN INTO ANOTHER EMAIL INBOX.

Actually, I'd rather what Malken suggests come to pass, because I kind of hate the Way, but I don't think that's going to happen!

If barrier for logged out people was made unbreakable, you could just log out with barrier up and never have to deal with this.

[Brytta Léofa]

If barrier for logged out people was made unbreakable, you could just log out with barrier up and never have to deal with this.

This, and only save offline psis from your clanmates. It ain't perfect, but it's a sort of improvement.

[FreeRangeVestric]

If barrier for logged out people was made unbreakable, you could just log out with barrier up and never have to deal with this.

But, in some sense, that brings you back to the original problem of "Check if her friends are online, we got some backstabbin' to do!"

[Jherlen]

If barrier for logged out people was made unbreakable, you could just log out with barrier up and never have to deal with this.

But, in some sense, that brings you back to the original problem of "Check if her friends are online, we got some backstabbin' to do!"

Not really, because you wouldn't be able to be sure if the person is online with a barrier up, or offline with a barrier up. Unless you knew from someone's playing habits that they're always barrier-down when online and barriered off, I guess. Still, it might be an improvement.

While this would definitely probably send more communication to leader/merchant PCs since you can leave them messages while they're online, I'm not sure that's totally a bad thing? It would at least open up a better avenue for correspondence with minions/customers in game even when playtimes aren't matching up. The alternatives today are either not being able to send a message at all, or resorting to out of game means like the GDB or *cringe* IM.

[BleakOne]

Random idea about Waying:

Perhaps when you contact someone, they get a message 'you feel -sdesc- trying to make contact with your mind'. You can only send/receive messages when -both- sides contact each other.

This would make Barrier almost useless, however.

[evilcabbage]

Random idea about Waying:

Perhaps when you contact someone, they get a message 'you feel -sdesc- trying to make contact with your mind'. You can only send/receive messages when -both- sides contact each other.

No. I want to be able to troll people by contacting them, then ceasing. It adds a feeling of fright when someone randomly contacts you - you don't know who, or why, they did it.

[RogueGunslinger]

Obligatory Make barrier better.

Seriously. It shouldnt' be so fucking easy to break my barrier.

[maxid]

Random idea about Waying:

Perhaps when you contact someone, they get a message 'you feel -sdesc- trying to make contact with your mind'. You can only send/receive messages when -both- sides contact each other.

This would make Barrier almost useless, however.

This sort of used to be a thing.  It was removed before, so it's unlikely to happen again.

[Fujikoma]

Obligatory Make barrier better.

Seriously. It shouldnt' be so fucking easy to break my barrier.

Considering how many stunpoints must be invested and how hard it can be to start that bad boy, even on master level, just maybe, maybe, someone really needs to pump the primer and adjust the choke.

I think even master level contact should have a bit higher of a failure rating against master level barrier. Seriously, can shatter those barriers way too easy, for a rather insignificant cost compared to the cost of the barrier. Considering the amount of time that can be invested practicing with the initial stunpoint cost, well, it's quite a time sink, well, maybe if you usually end up with poor wisdom like I do.

Contact just goes up if you're a social person who likes to send messages to everyone you know over the course of a week.

psi Hai Tekk, jst wntd 2 let u know i got ur volcanose (wiggling thumb-tip between middle and index finger)

Also, I would like it if expel were to able to be practiced without having to kick someone from your mind, just maybe not as quickly. I must admit, I've never gotten expel to be high enough to be usable. Too much training in ruf circle, boxing, sparring, wrestling, not enough in kicking that gicker or mindworm out of your skull, if it's even possible with the latter which I wouldn't know because ow, my brain. Maybe just making it so you start with expel would be interesting.

While reading this keep in mind I can't tell my head from my ass and the views from more experienced players, as well as staff, are likely much more valid than my own. I apologize if the contents of this message are a bit odd, but I've hit I think my third or fourth wind over the course of three days without sleep so things may get a little odd.

[Eurynomos]

Reading this thread has been a whirlwind of 'I wish this was this way or better or something'.

Safe to say, it isn't really a new player question anymore.

Expand discussion elsewhere.