Crim Code

Started by The7DeadlyVenomz, December 10, 2013, 04:31:02 PM

So, currently there is a simple wanted state for a PC. If you are wanted, you are wanted, period. There's no middle ground, aside from which city you are wanted in.

Without recoding the crim code completely, couldn't we add additional states of wantedness (yes, I know that's not really a word).

You are wanted in Allanak would become:
You are wanted for common murder in Allanak.
You are wanted for highblood murder in Allanak.
You are wanted for theft in Allanak.
You are wanted for questioning in Allanak.
You are wanted for assault in Allanak.
You are wanted for breaking and entering in Allanak.
You are wanted for INSERT CRIME in Allanak.



Then create a NPC lethality response appropriate for each crime, perhaps a max number of chasers for each crime, a set time on prison for each crime.
Wynning since October 25, 2008.

Quote from: Ami on November 23, 2010, 03:40:39 PM
>craft newbie into good player

You accidentally snap newbie into useless pieces.


Discord:The7DeadlyVenomz#3870

I dig this.
Fredd-
i love being a nobles health points

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on December 10, 2013, 04:31:02 PM
So, currently there is a simple wanted state for a PC. If you are wanted, you are wanted, period. There's no middle ground, aside from which city you are wanted in.

Without recoding the crim code completely, couldn't we add additional states of wantedness (yes, I know that's not really a word).

You are wanted in Allanak would become:
You are wanted for common murder in Allanak.
You are wanted for highblood murder in Allanak.
You are wanted for theft in Allanak.
You are wanted for questioning in Allanak.
You are wanted for assault in Allanak.
You are wanted for breaking and entering in Allanak.
You are wanted for INSERT CRIME in Allanak.



Then create a NPC lethality response appropriate for each crime, perhaps a max number of chasers for each crime, a set time on prison for each crime.

As usual, I support this idea.
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Quote from: deathkamon on November 14, 2015, 12:29:56 AM
The young daughter has been filled.

We keep track of the type of crime already, it would be a matter of what exactly we do with it.  For the record, here are the crimes we track:

'unknown'
'assault'
'theft'
'contraband'
'defiling'
'sales'
'treason'
Morgenes

Producer
Armageddon Staff

I support fleshing out the code and having appropriate response for the different crimes. It would be pretty neat if you were detained/fined/etc. based on your crime rather than just as a general case. Maybe a few more 'types' of crime could be added to be supported by the code.

Quote from: Morgenes on December 10, 2013, 04:51:50 PM
We keep track of the type of crime already, it would be a matter of what exactly we do with it.  For the record, here are the crimes we track:

'unknown'
'assault'
'theft'
'contraband'
'defiling'
'sales'
'treason'

But that is hidden code only for the PC templar or the staff to see , right?
Fredd-
i love being a nobles health points

Right, we don't surface it to the criminal.  I'm informing so that suggestions could be made as to what additional crimes might we look at handling, and how might they be handled differently.
Morgenes

Producer
Armageddon Staff

Oh. Didn't know that. Alright.

Here's a question. What parameters currently define what NPCs do? I want to suggest something that demands minimal coding and is the most streamlined. Do soldiers simply react to the PC's state, or is there any framework at all that already exists, and could be fleshed out to include options?
Wynning since October 25, 2008.

Quote from: Ami on November 23, 2010, 03:40:39 PM
>craft newbie into good player

You accidentally snap newbie into useless pieces.


Discord:The7DeadlyVenomz#3870

Right now the code is pretty simple, it reacts to if they are a criminal in the city.  There's not a lot of looking at what their crime is.
Morgenes

Producer
Armageddon Staff

Alright. I am off to the store - will respond in depth when I return.

Also, uh, Morg, thanks for the quick rapid responses.

Be right back.
Wynning since October 25, 2008.

Quote from: Ami on November 23, 2010, 03:40:39 PM
>craft newbie into good player

You accidentally snap newbie into useless pieces.


Discord:The7DeadlyVenomz#3870

Quote from: Morgenes on December 10, 2013, 05:18:04 PM
Right, we don't surface it to the criminal.  I'm informing so that suggestions could be made as to what additional crimes might we look at handling, and how might they be handled differently.

What about:
- aggravated assault: taking someone below 50% hp or so. Or assault with a weapon.
- murder: taking someone below 0 hp.

You could set up less-safe areas (Luir's bailey?) in which simple assault was tolerated, but murder wasn't.
<Maso> I thought you were like...a real sweet lady.

December 10, 2013, 06:04:49 PM #11 Last Edit: December 10, 2013, 06:09:03 PM by Jherlen
For the below crimes, what if we simply changed it so that NPCs would "mercy on" in the case of resisting arrest? Being beaten and left for dead on the street is at least slightly better than being murderized by soldiers.

Quote from: Morgenes on December 10, 2013, 04:51:50 PM
'theft'
'contraband'
'sales'

edit: another somewhat-related idea, equip NPC soldiers with clubs as well as swords? For less terrible crimes, they could just beat you unconcious with blunt instruments and leave you to lie, rather than carving you to pieces and making a huge mess.
subdue thread
release thread pit

Quote from: Jherlen on December 10, 2013, 06:04:49 PM
edit: another somewhat-related idea, equip NPC soldiers with clubs as well as swords? For less terrible crimes, they could just beat you unconcious with blunt instruments and leave you to lie, rather than carving you to pieces and making a huge mess.

Actually I really like the 'just equip with clubs' combined with 'mercy on'. Particularly for Luirs and Red Storm, this would create a punishment other than death.

Of course not everyone would survive their brutal beating (clubs aren't a surefire way to knock someone out, sometimes you kill them) which would maintain the harshness of the setting.

Officially the punishment for lesser crimes would be being beaten within an inch of your life, but that's give or take an inch or two.


Ok, first, for parameters, I'd suggest the following:


  • Crime: The Name of the Crime. Er, obvious, this one.
  • Severity: How long you are wanted for this crime. This would range from 0 (meaning once you leave the room) to 1000 (for life)
  • Personnel Response:The x nearest soldiers will respond to this crime. This basically checks to see how many NPC soldiers are chasing you, and if the max number for the crime is not reached, it will add more. The nearest soldiers are checked each room, so you can leave soldiers in the dust, but have more chase you if they can see you.
  • Punishment:Death/Jail/Banishment/Mugging/Warning/Watching/Ignore. This should offer a pretty good range to play with.
  • Lethality: Death/Unconsious/Mercy-On. Basically, the furthest punishment for resisting arrest.
  • Sentence:The number of RL minutes a jail sentence is for.
Wynning since October 25, 2008.

Quote from: Ami on November 23, 2010, 03:40:39 PM
>craft newbie into good player

You accidentally snap newbie into useless pieces.


Discord:The7DeadlyVenomz#3870

Also, a limit for when npc Templars step in, for when you've successfully resisted arrest. Like maybe they don't do it if you're a thief or spice smuggler.
Eat your fries with mayonnaise next time

Banishment is cool in its own right. Keep track of how many times a PC has been caught in the last IC year for assault, theft, etc. Too many arrests? The next time the guards catch you, they haul you to the gates and toss you on your ass, and the gate guards aggro if they see you trying to re-enter. It would definitely fit the theme are how the cities are the worst places to live in Zalanthas besides everywhere else!
subdue thread
release thread pit

And how do you want thm to respond for legal crimes? In the instance of someone having a contract or unseen crime. Killing someone from stealth with no witnesses in an alley. Or a short scuffle in said alley.

Guards magically knowing crime is happening better run over off my normal patrol route would be a bad thing.

Less lethal would be better. Allows for more player to player interaction rather than NPC guards just cutting criminals up into little ribbons for both the player soldiers and player criminals.

Make the guards sap?

I don't like a lot of these ideas because they seem unrealistic.

Why would the militia put up with your shit more than once? Why wouldn't they just kill you?

Quote from: Morgenes on December 10, 2013, 05:18:04 PM
Right, we don't surface it to the criminal.  I'm informing so that suggestions could be made as to what additional crimes might we look at handling, and how might they be handled differently.

Could 'assault' be split into more granular levels based on who the target was - based on their coded clan affiliation and coded citizenship status? And could the reaction by NPCs also check the coded affiliation/status of the aggressor? Because if so, that could be a way to finally have guards 'look the other way' if nobles or high-ranking militia/house employees assaulted unaffiliated commoners, or foreigners, or Rinthers/elves, etc.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on December 10, 2013, 07:47:33 PM
I don't like a lot of these ideas because they seem unrealistic.

Why would the militia put up with your shit more than once? Why wouldn't they just kill you?

Because such a system is unworkable. If shoplifting is going to get you killed just as much as treason and rebellion, you may as well go straight to rebellion. This is part of the reason the Qin dynasty of China collapsed in under a hundred years. Athens rejected the equally lethal legal code of Draco (hence 'draconian') in even less time. Repression needs to be balanced so it doesn't inadvertently drive the plebs in to the streets.

December 10, 2013, 08:03:43 PM #20 Last Edit: December 10, 2013, 08:06:51 PM by RogueGunslinger
Quote from: BadSkeelz on December 10, 2013, 07:59:12 PM
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on December 10, 2013, 07:47:33 PM
I don't like a lot of these ideas because they seem unrealistic.

Why would the militia put up with your shit more than once? Why wouldn't they just kill you?

Because such a system is unworkable. If shoplifting is going to get you killed just as much as treason and rebellion, you may as well go straight to rebellion. This is part of the reason the Qin dynasty of China collapsed in under a hundred years. Athens rejected the equally lethal legal code of Draco (hence 'draconian') in even less time. Repression needs to be balanced so it doesn't inadvertently drive the plebs in to the streets.

I like the idea, but in zalanthas the majority is NOT stronger than the Sorcerer-King and his Templarate. Rebellions in the past did not go so well, and there's really no reason for militia to fear it for punishing one of the lower class.


Edit: That's not to say I think every thief should be killed, but more that repeat offenses should be, and usually are dealt with severely. If the system mirrored this that would be ideal.

I have to disagree. Rebellions and civil disturbances have occurred and been extremely damaging to their city-states. They may not have redefined the power structure, but they did get a lot of people on both sides killed. The Templarates (only a few hundred people, tops) and the Sorceror-Kings alone may be powerful enough to take on the rest of the city-state and win, but it's an open question whether there'd be any city-state left afterwards. It's in the interest of the ruling classes to not incite the other 99% of the populace to violence. Repression and Law is part of this ("Break His Law and you're going to have a bad time") but there is such a thing as being too strict.

Even on the level of individual soldiers, you can't just hack your way through a populace. It pisses off people on both sides of the power line: the lower classes because you're killing them, and the upper classes because you're pissing off the plebs.

I would add:

'resist' a different crim flag for resisting arrest, as resisting arrest should have a harsher punishment (longer jail time)
'banishment' For banishing folks.  Gate guards won't let you past.  Guards in city will subdue you, take you to the gates (rather than jail) and throw you out of the city.
'harass' More for inventive PC Templars (they can set the type of crime, I hope?  If not, they should be able to).  Anyone that performs an otherwise crim-coded command on you is not crim coded themselves.  So you can be stolen from, attacked, etc., but the NPC soldiers won't necessarily do anything towards you.

Evolution ends when stupidity is no longer fatal."

Quote from: Twilight on December 10, 2013, 08:25:41 PM
'harass' More for inventive PC Templars (they can set the type of crime, I hope?  If not, they should be able to).  Anyone that performs an otherwise crim-coded command on you is not crim coded themselves.  So you can be stolen from, attacked, etc., but the NPC soldiers won't necessarily do anything towards you.

'Outlaw' wouldn't be a bad term for this, either. I like it.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on December 10, 2013, 08:18:17 PM
I have to disagree. Rebellions and civil disturbances have occurred and been extremely damaging to their city-states. They may not have redefined the power structure, but they did get a lot of people on both sides killed. The Templarates (only a few hundred people, tops) and the Sorceror-Kings alone may be powerful enough to take on the rest of the city-state and win, but it's an open question whether there'd be any city-state left afterwards. It's in the interest of the ruling classes to not incite the other 99% of the populace to violence. Repression and Law is part of this ("Break His Law and you're going to have a bad time") but there is such a thing as being too strict.

Even on the level of individual soldiers, you can't just hack your way through a populace. It pisses off people on both sides of the power line: the lower classes because you're killing them, and the upper classes because you're pissing off the plebs.

I really just don't see killing repeat offenders as being too strict, ICly. It's honestly what I think a commoner would expect to happen to them. Bur I digress.  There's always room for improvement in the crime code, that's for sure. I think the more it moves towards facilitating roleplay between players the better.

Switch NPC soldiers to using blunt weapons. A few problems solved.

Would love to see a more granular crimecode, especially in regards to assault. I like that it feels more dangerous out at nighttime.

Eh, in mobs that could be still an issue.
Fredd-
i love being a nobles health points

Quote from: Delirium on December 10, 2013, 08:38:31 PM
Switch NPC soldiers to using blunt weapons. A few problems solved.

At the very least I think the Sun Legion should go back to using tonfas (on their inside-the-city patrollers, at least). I don't know why they were retconned out; obsidian longsword vs. wooden tonfa was a very clever expression of the difference between the SL and the Arm.

Anything other than being killed by the guards will be exploited by people. It'll be "well, I can try my hand at thievery and assault a lot more now, since odds are I'll survive the beating and be on my way". It's a tyranny, there's no fair or appropriate level of punishment. You obey, or you die.
The Devil doesn't dawdle.

I don't have a complete problem with that. Nothing wrong with danger.

I feel like the framework I have suggested allows for varying customization of the code to suit the crime. Furthermore, you have to remember that anytime you get locked up, PCs can come along with the authority to hook you up with the harsher side of the law.
Wynning since October 25, 2008.

Quote from: Ami on November 23, 2010, 03:40:39 PM
>craft newbie into good player

You accidentally snap newbie into useless pieces.


Discord:The7DeadlyVenomz#3870

Quote from: Scarecrow on December 10, 2013, 09:31:34 PM
"well, I can try my hand at thievery and assault a lot more now, since odds are I'll survive the beating and be on my way".

This isn't an objective drawback.

Though careful not to overextend the ramifications. I'm not really sure what the odds are of surviving a clubbing in Arm, but I can't see them as being better than 50/50. Add in the chance of getting worked over yourself while you lay in the street unconscious and I don't think this change would motivate abusive levels of crime.

I just think that this sort of apathetic violence gives the world a much more brutal feel than a straight up execution.

Absolutely. I'd rather have the NPC punishments for non-lethal crimes generally be non-lethal. That doesn't mean the punishment is always non-lethal. It means PCs would get to make those choices.

Laughing, the hunched templar says, waving a human soldier over and pointing at you, in sirihish:
   "Beat him."

The hunched templar accuses you of being annoying!!

The human soldier draws a club.
The human soldier draws a heavy sap.

The hunched templar cackles at you.

The human soldier bludgeons you on the head.
The human soldier bludgeons you on the head.
Your vision goes black.

Someone laughs at you while he rifles through your cloak.

Someone eyes something and nods happily, and delivers a kick to your ribs as he leads a pair of soldiers away.
Wynning since October 25, 2008.

Quote from: Ami on November 23, 2010, 03:40:39 PM
>craft newbie into good player

You accidentally snap newbie into useless pieces.


Discord:The7DeadlyVenomz#3870

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on December 10, 2013, 09:50:01 PM
Absolutely. I'd rather have the NPC punishments for non-lethal crimes generally be non-lethal. That doesn't mean the punishment is always non-lethal. It means PCs would get to make those choices.

+1
Fredd-
i love being a nobles health points

I would just like to see the opportunity to deal with the criminals pc to pc. Because in my experiences that rarely happens. So the guards knocking out and dragging the offender off to a cell to await a PC could be a good thing.

More RP!

But I can see how when no player is around how this would get boring fast. So a timed release would fix that.

Quote from: Yummri on December 10, 2013, 11:32:36 PM
I would just like to see the opportunity to deal with the criminals pc to pc. Because in my experiences that rarely happens. So the guards knocking out and dragging the offender off to a cell to await a PC could be a good thing.

More RP!

But I can see how when no player is around how this would get boring fast. So a timed release would fix that.
That's exactly how the code works currently. When someone is sent to jail, the proper people know.

QuoteA female voice says, in sirihish:
     "] yer a wizard, oashi"

My criminal PCs have been almost always seen by a Templar, either Imm or PC, this is good as it is. But stealing a loaf of bread shouldn't bring in an instaspawn half-giant death squad. Yes I know nosave arrest but what if a crappy crime like that would just cause any NPC soldier you walk into to arrest you, or even to have a reasonable time delay on the goon squad NPCs. The city feels horribly safe from pickpockets and poo flingers.

I'm still fairly new, so I'm not sure how the game would/does handle this. If a more "realistic" crim code is defined and implemented, might it not be possible to implement a system where a criminal could bribe an NPC soldier?

I think in the event of theft at least, a bribe system based maybe off haggle, could present many chances for different types of rp. Criminal steals jewelry, gets caught by Guard A, bribes them off with a handful of sid, and walks away. If the bribe/haggle is successful, they take the sid and the person is unwanted. If it is unsuccessful they take the sid, the person is still wanted, and they get reported to player Templarate/Militia for trying to bribe a soldier.

The crime code is already ridiculously easy to circumvent if you're a city-stealth based guild or extended subguild.  Changing the rules is just going to make it easier for noobs, and trust me:  you do not want an army of noob pickpockets running about because they're no longer afraid of being insta-gibbed.

As it stands, the crime code forces you to put a fair amount of time and patience into your pickpocket in order for you to be successful, which makes you less likely to do stupid shit once every inventory in the city is basically your personal mobile storage locker.
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Quote from: VanthSynthesis, you scare me a little bit.

Quote
The crime code is already ridiculously easy to circumvent if you're a city-stealth based guild or extended subguild.  Changing the rules is just going to make it easier for noobs, and trust me:  you do not want an army of noob pickpockets running about because they're no longer afraid of being insta-gibbed.

As it stands, the crime code forces you to put a fair amount of time and patience into your pickpocket in order for you to be successful, which makes you less likely to do stupid shit once every inventory in the city is basically your personal mobile storage locker.

Yes, it's true that players have found a balance with the crim code as it works now -- a fairly binary shift between no response and impending doom -- and that stealth skills keep you on the former side.  That doesn't mean it has to be like that forever.  Night changes didn't bring ten plagues of noob pickpockets, so I somehow doubt that a marginally improved change of surviving one specific kind of crimcode interaction is going to lead to PP doomsday.  Even if it did, an increase in crime sounds like a bonus.  It would still require a "fair amount of time and patience" to be successful with a pickpocket, as it always has been.

If there are a wider range of crimcode reactions, it also becomes more reasonable to give soldiers some more advanced scanning capabilities as well, which will add even more organic flexibility to how stealth interacts with the crimcode.  (I rather like the idea of a simple 'watch' flag, one which might be set by a PC templar on a miscreant that will result in an increase in soldiers lingering in the rooms nearby.)

As for harsh-harsh-harsh-death-harsh, well, I can just as well say soldiers are lazy and corrupt and don't want to work that hard make sure every last ragged pickpocket is good and dead when they might be able to shake them down later.

Quote from: jstorrie on December 10, 2013, 09:00:04 PM
Quote from: Delirium on December 10, 2013, 08:38:31 PM
Switch NPC soldiers to using blunt weapons. A few problems solved.

At the very least I think the Sun Legion should go back to using tonfas (on their inside-the-city patrollers, at least). I don't know why they were retconned out; obsidian longsword vs. wooden tonfa was a very clever expression of the difference between the SL and the Arm.

Remember that time with the axe and the half giant soldier and lol?
Child, child, if you come to this doomed house, what is to save you?

A voice whispers, "Read the tales upon the walls."

Quote from: jstorrie on December 10, 2013, 09:00:04 PM
Quote from: Delirium on December 10, 2013, 08:38:31 PM
Switch NPC soldiers to using blunt weapons. A few problems solved.

At the very least I think the Sun Legion should go back to using tonfas (on their inside-the-city patrollers, at least). I don't know why they were retconned out; obsidian longsword vs. wooden tonfa was a very clever expression of the difference between the SL and the Arm.

Could it be that they amped up their deadliness due to war times?
The funny little foreign man

I often hear the jingle to -Riunite on ice- when I read the estate name Reynolte, eve though there ain't no ice in Zalanthas.

Quote from: Scarecrow on December 10, 2013, 09:31:34 PM
"well, I can try my hand at thievery and assault a lot more now, since odds are I'll survive the beating and be on my way".

Most living beings have a built-in aversion to pain and would probably try to avoid such an event, unless they were playing Amos McNoPain, who would probably be having a talk with staff after picking his happy ass off the pavement and going right back to pickpocketing.

QuoteI'm still fairly new, so I'm not sure how the game would/does handle this. If a more "realistic" crim code is defined and implemented, might it not be possible to implement a system where a criminal could bribe an NPC soldier?

I think in the event of theft at least, a bribe system based maybe off haggle, could present many chances for different types of rp. Criminal steals jewelry, gets caught by Guard A, bribes them off with a handful of sid, and walks away. If the bribe/haggle is successful, they take the sid and the person is unwanted. If it is unsuccessful they take the sid, the person is still wanted, and they get reported to player Templarate/Militia for trying to bribe a soldier.

I have to say. I really like the idea of this. It could be something really nice and I think it fits perfectly. Especially if you made it a thief/pickpocket/assassin skill. The ability to bribe guards when they are chasing or come to arrest you. Make it something you could do in combat to allow to stop the combat and allow the bribe. If you try to run it stops the bribe and they attack you so you'd have to go through with it at that point. So it couldn't be used as an exploit to run away.

It also wouldn't be easy to train as who wants to risk the attention of the guards and potentially through a failed bribe the attention of the player guards and Templars. It would work with a scaling crime code system. Pay them not to watch you, not to report it etc and failure results in them watching you still or reporting you or taking your coin and arresting you depending on your crime.

Could be fun.

Quote from: Potaje on December 11, 2013, 01:53:34 PM
Quote from: jstorrie on December 10, 2013, 09:00:04 PM

At the very least I think the Sun Legion should go back to using tonfas (on their inside-the-city patrollers, at least). I don't know why they were retconned out; obsidian longsword vs. wooden tonfa was a very clever expression of the difference between the SL and the Arm.

Could it be that they amped up their deadliness due to war times?

IIRC tonfas were removed about six IRL months after the Copper War. I suppose it's possible that it was an in-character policy change that just took a while... but I was playing a Tuluki military PC at the time, and it's not like there was an order from on high to stop using them or anything. They just all disappeared from the entire game world one week. I think some in staff made the decision to remove them for purely aesthetic reasons, and I think that was a bad decision, because tonfas were ill.

Quote from: LauraMars on December 11, 2013, 01:04:35 PM
Remember that time with the axe and the half giant soldier and lol?

Crit so hard he shattered his weapon!  :'( :'(

Quote from: catchall on December 11, 2013, 01:00:30 PM
Quote
The crime code is already ridiculously easy to circumvent if you're a city-stealth based guild or extended subguild.  Changing the rules is just going to make it easier for noobs, and trust me:  you do not want an army of noob pickpockets running about because they're no longer afraid of being insta-gibbed.

As it stands, the crime code forces you to put a fair amount of time and patience into your pickpocket in order for you to be successful, which makes you less likely to do stupid shit once every inventory in the city is basically your personal mobile storage locker.

Yes, it's true that players have found a balance with the crim code as it works now -- a fairly binary shift between no response and impending doom -- and that stealth skills keep you on the former side.  That doesn't mean it has to be like that forever.  Night changes didn't bring ten plagues of noob pickpockets, so I somehow doubt that a marginally improved change of surviving one specific kind of crimcode interaction is going to lead to PP doomsday.  Even if it did, an increase in crime sounds like a bonus.  It would still require a "fair amount of time and patience" to be successful with a pickpocket, as it always has been.

If there are a wider range of crimcode reactions, it also becomes more reasonable to give soldiers some more advanced scanning capabilities as well, which will add even more organic flexibility to how stealth interacts with the crimcode.  (I rather like the idea of a simple 'watch' flag, one which might be set by a PC templar on a miscreant that will result in an increase in soldiers lingering in the rooms nearby.)

As for harsh-harsh-harsh-death-harsh, well, I can just as well say soldiers are lazy and corrupt and don't want to work that hard make sure every last ragged pickpocket is good and dead when they might be able to shake them down later.

I'm not really concerned about an "explosion" of pickpockets.  Pickpockets are almost never the class people choose when they want to have a serious long-term character, because the skillset  isn't particularly useful to organizations, and isn't particularly useful even for staying alive in any kind of scenario that doesn't involve running away to log out.  There -are- ways you can finagle a pickpocket into being occasionally useful, but typically there is another class that would be more useful in any given situation.  Even burglars are often more useful if you need something pickpocketed, for reasons I'm not going to go into.  So, there will never be an explosion of pickpockets unless the class is fundamentally changed or completely merged with the burglar class.

That being said, I'm guessing that pickpockets are fairly often chosen as throw-away or in-between characters, because nobody (i.e. no experienced players) seriously expect much out of them, and since they don't often get chosen as a primary class and they aren't karma-required, they're nice for a change of pace.  This situation in and of itself creates the temptation to do stupid shit with the pickpocket.  Because of this, I believe there should always be a serious barrier between rolling a pickpocket app. and being able to pickpocket at will.  The threat of insta-gibbing, I think, is a fair barrier.  The few who want to play a long-term pickpocket do so cautiously, and play by the rules, and the majority who want to just have a bit of fun have their bit of fun but ultimately get gibbed.

The idea of incapacitating a pickpocket so that a PC soldier or templar can speak with them isn't particularly relevant, because very few people who play pickpockets are actually looking for any long-term plot scenarios.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I suspect it's fairly infrequent...though it may be more frequent in Tuluk, since they're into that kind of thing, I don't know.  Anyway, my point is that I suspect most of the time you're merely going to be substituting an insta-gib on the streets for an insta-gib in a jail cell or an insta-gib in the Arena, and the Arena situation is -really- a waste of time for the entire population of Allanak, since everyone comes to the Arena just to see a noob pickpocket get mercilessly grazed to death by an elven rogue...something they could've essentially watched at sparring practice that morning, anyway.

As for the rest of the classes, I don't think they need any more special privileges or opportunities to cause a ruckus inside the city.  You finally got your brawl option, and you got extended subguilds, and you got night-time immunity.  That is -plenty-.  You don't need the guards to look the other way while you're handing out beatdowns on Caravan Way.
Quote from: WarriorPoet
I play this game to pretend to chop muthafuckaz up with bone swords.
Quote from: SmuzI come to the GDB to roleplay being deep and wise.
Quote from: VanthSynthesis, you scare me a little bit.

December 12, 2013, 06:36:43 PM #45 Last Edit: December 12, 2013, 06:39:45 PM by Inks
I enjoy a pc getting nicked to death in the arena by an elven rogue infinitely more than a bunch of jacked combat pcs smashing an npc mul.

Quote from: Inks on December 12, 2013, 06:36:43 PM
I enjoy a pc getting nicked to death in the arena by an elven rogue infinitely more than a bunch of jacked combat pcs smashing an npc mul.

May be you should volunteer next RPT :P

Quote from: Synthesis on December 12, 2013, 03:29:37 PM
As for the rest of the classes, I don't think they need any more special privileges or opportunities to cause a ruckus inside the city.  You finally got your brawl option, and you got extended subguilds, and you got night-time immunity.  That is -plenty-.  You don't need the guards to look the other way while you're handing out beatdowns on Caravan Way.

I think it would benefit the game-world if characters of elevated social class could indeed hand out beatdowns on Caravan Way, at least to those on the absolute bottom rungs of the ladder.

Quote from: jstorrie on December 12, 2013, 07:53:45 PM
Quote from: Synthesis on December 12, 2013, 03:29:37 PM
As for the rest of the classes, I don't think they need any more special privileges or opportunities to cause a ruckus inside the city.  You finally got your brawl option, and you got extended subguilds, and you got night-time immunity.  That is -plenty-.  You don't need the guards to look the other way while you're handing out beatdowns on Caravan Way.

I think it would benefit the game-world if characters of elevated social class could indeed hand out beatdowns on Caravan Way, at least to those on the absolute bottom rungs of the ladder.

Who says they can't? There are some crim-code concerns to doing it with the 'kill' command, but there are for everyone.  But there is absolutely nothing that says a noble can't get a little emote happy with a pimp cane on an uppity rinthi's back.
Quote from: Lizzie on February 10, 2016, 09:37:57 PM
You know I think if James simply retitled his thread "Cheese" and apologized for his first post being off-topic, all problems would be solved.

Absolutely nothing aside from the game's rules against power-emoting. What are you going to do, break immersion for a few minutes while you negotiate in OOC messages how the emotes are going to go down?

em sends ~cane in a downwards arc, aiming for %miscreant head

The ugly miscreant staggers aside as he's hit with the cane, letting out a hoarse cry.


Or...

The ugly miscreant steps aside, dodging the blow and running for his life!

The ugly miscreant flees, heading east.

QuoteA female voice says, in sirihish:
     "] yer a wizard, oashi"

Mercy on and clubs, to be sure, with half giants all over the shop there is still a strong possibility for a fatal beating, with survivors being hauled to jail perhaps.

Plus I will then imagine militia soldiers twirling batons as they patrol and being like "'ello 'ello, what do we 'ave 'ere then?