Crim Code

[Delirium]

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.

[Barsook]

Eh, in mobs that could be still an issue.

[jstorrie]

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.

[Scarecrow]

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.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

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.

[Narf]

"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.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

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.

[Barsook]

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

[Yummri]

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.

[bcw81]

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.

[Inks]

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.

[LittleLady]

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.

[Synthesis]

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.

[catchall]

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.

[LauraMars]

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?

[Potaje]

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?

[MeTekillot]

"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.

[Yummri]

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.

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.

[jstorrie]

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.

Remember that time with the axe and the half giant soldier and lol?

Crit so hard he shattered his weapon! 

[Synthesis]

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.

[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.

[BadSkeelz]

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

[jstorrie]

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.

[James de Monet]

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.

[jstorrie]

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?