Locked Apartments

[Large Hero]

Partisans of two rival Houses meet with hatred.

SCENE I. Verona. A public place.

TYBALT
What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

BENVOLIO
I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.

TYBALT
What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward!

They fight

Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray; then enter Citizens, with clubs


Much more fun for everyone than Tybalt trying to lure Benvolio to his locked apartment on Merchant's Road.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Jingo]

Pretty crime doesn't happen because nobody trusts another player to react appropriately to a mere "petty crime".

[Reiloth]

Petty crime doesn't happen because petty criminals are branded and ostracized when they are caught.

If they aren't simply murdered by the Goon Squad.

What I find unrealistic is that the Labyrinth is ALL CRIME, ALL THE TIME, and Southerners are seen as outsiders (even though it is assumed that spice addicts drift from Allanak to the Labyrinth, and would be full Allanaki, not 'born in the rinth, die in the rinth'). Meanwhile, Allanak is actually a police state, and committing crime is tantamount to falling on a sword.

Again, extremes. It'd be nice to see something in the Labyrinth that draws Allanakis (such as a Black Market, that does exist, but is quite deep within the Labyrinth and not encouraged to be used by Southerners), or for crime to be more in the hands of 'Apprentice/Journeyman' Criminals, rather than the court where only Master Criminals need apply. The melange, the blend, is what makes for excitement. If you avoid the Labyrinth entirely, 9/10 you won't see violence in the street. If you avoid Allanak, 9/10 you will see NPC corpses everywhere and bits of unwanted loot. Something in the middle would appeal to me.

[BadSkeelz]

However -- For reasons stated by many -- The 'meta' aspect to me is that PCs of mine and probably of others wouldn't consider the Apartment to be the 'Death Trap' that it currently is. As a one-way exit, your PC doesn't necessarily know that apartment is impossible to get out of, do they?

I give the benefit of the doubt alll the time, mostly because I have an overabundance of trust in my fellow players (which fucks me over quite regularly). Also, when someone invites me to their apartment and I suspect a murder is afoot, I feel like a meta bastard if I tell them no. Especially after the twenty-ninth invitation, eventually I just say "Fuck it, whatever happens happens." *click*I once got to be murdered behind a curtain by two assassins, one of the assassins just spammed close curtain as though the curtain itself would hold me back, jokes on me.. it did and I died.

You could always "Forget" to sheath your weapon and shield after spar. God knows I've gone through enough social calls with a bloody bastard sword out accidentally that I could probably get away with always being armed on purpose. People always seem to missed the "armed" flag.

[WithSprinkles]

I am hesitant to the point of being scared of dipping my toe into this conversation.

Some of ya'll play some truculent characters. I've scratched my head in desperate wonder at the fact that I have constantly tried to spare people and just asked them to "walk away" or "leave me alone" only to have them do something where I had to turn around and say, "Seriously?!" Or worse, "I see."

As far as locked apartments go... shiiiiit. I hate walking into them with people I don't trust. I start breathing hard and my heart races when I hear a door click and I go on high alert. But ICly, you roll with that and either come out of it or don't. I don't want them changed really just because someone has the POTENTIAL to fuck me over. Maybe I'll take better precautions next time. Maybe I'll trust my gut. Maybe I'll be stronger and faster than my assailant and be able to pluck that key dripping with blood from their corpse to get free. (shrugs) Or happily wander in like a lamb to the slaughter after a friend and get ganked. Or maybe I'll make an awesome friend by not panicking and doing the first thing I can think of that will screw someone. It's happened.

Soldiers... are we advocating in favor of less killing options or more here? I mean, make apartments less dangerous and the street more dangerous by taking away crim code and it's the same issue only the entire city becomes Thunderdome. Apartment murders will still happen. Maybe with more frequency. You'd just have to plan better to ensure your prey stays put and not run out the door.

Fewer HG soldiers in the streets, okay. I can see that.

Apartments.. we could make it so that in a 2 room apartment only the inner door locks someone in? Maybe that would be a good compromise.

There are all kinds of ways to end someone. Heh. You guys are awesome with coming up with ways to do it. I think how it gets done depends on the target. Joe Schmo is gonna get shanked in the street usually, but someone with even a touch more protection and influence, needs a more nuanced approach. Or a blunt force attack. And these things I have noticed take planning and care. More than some seem to realize or want to hear about because they were at the end of the knife. If a person wishes up before/during/after you attempt to end someone, the world does tend to react. Sometimes hilariously and sometimes teeth-grittingly (Oh, shit am I gonna be able to get out of this).

I'm gonna give people the benefit of the doubt that when they end me, it was for a reason and hope I get some kinda interaction before the beep if I can't prevent it. Err.. sorry if I rambled.

[Reiloth]

What I see a lot of in this thread is:

"If you have the code know how,"

or

"If you do X Y Z, which is a meta trick..."

I guess yes, we all do come up with our work arounds and ways to make it work. There's always ways to explain it, especially after the fact. Like i've said, I don't really blame people for using apartments in the way they do. But doesn't it all seem like a work around?

Apartment killings seem like a work around for our crime code, at the end of the day. It works, it gets the job done. Is that how we like it? No, but we're also a little afraid that if we change that prematurely (make it more difficult to kill people in apartments, without changing the crime code), that we'd lose one of our guaranteed ways to murder people.

It's a sticky pickle. Is that even a phrase?

[BadSkeelz]

You could always "Forget" to sheath your weapon and shield after spar. God knows I've gone through enough social calls with a bloody bastard sword out accidentally that I could probably get away with always being armed on purpose. People always seem to missed the "armed" flag.

I suppose I should play the Trump Card and say I'm being sarcastic here. And after reading Iiyola's post about pyramid schemes, I want my next "invite to apartment for nefarious deed" plot to be getting people to sign up for my High Energy All Natural Grishen Berry Extract Marketing Plan.

[Majikal]

What I see a lot of in this thread is:

"If you have the code know how,"

or

"If you do X Y Z, which is a meta trick..."

I guess yes, we all do come up with our work arounds and ways to make it work. There's always ways to explain it, especially after the fact. Like i've said, I don't really blame people for using apartments in the way they do. But doesn't it all seem like a work around?

Apartment killings seem like a work around for our crime code, at the end of the day. It works, it gets the job done. Is that how we like it? No, but we're also a little afraid that if we change that prematurely (make it more difficult to kill people in apartments, without changing the crime code), that we'd lose one of our guaranteed ways to murder people.

Reiloth for staff 2016.

[Reiloth]

You could always "Forget" to sheath your weapon and shield after spar. God knows I've gone through enough social calls with a bloody bastard sword out accidentally that I could probably get away with always being armed on purpose. People always seem to missed the "armed" flag.

I suppose I should play the Trump Card and say I'm being sarcastic here. And after reading Iiyola's post about pyramid schemes, I want my next "invite to apartment for nefarious deed" plot to be getting people to sign up for my High Energy All Natural Grishen Berry Extract Marketing Plan.

Lol...

"Where do I sign? Wait a minute...I don't know how to read...AGLUUUUK!"

[manipura]

It's a sticky pickle. Is that even a phrase?

I don't think so.
But it probably should be.

[WithSprinkles]

I want my next "invite to apartment for nefarious deed" plot to be getting people to sign up for my High Energy All Natural Grishen Berry Extract Marketing Plan.

(almost spits out soda and laughs)

[Armaddict]

Petty crime doesn't happen because petty criminals are branded and ostracized when they are caught.

If they aren't simply murdered by the Goon Squad.

What I find unrealistic is that the Labyrinth is ALL CRIME, ALL THE TIME, and Southerners are seen as outsiders (even though it is assumed that spice addicts drift from Allanak to the Labyrinth, and would be full Allanaki, not 'born in the rinth, die in the rinth'). Meanwhile, Allanak is actually a police state, and committing crime is tantamount to falling on a sword.

Again, extremes. It'd be nice to see something in the Labyrinth that draws Allanakis (such as a Black Market, that does exist, but is quite deep within the Labyrinth and not encouraged to be used by Southerners), or for crime to be more in the hands of 'Apprentice/Journeyman' Criminals, rather than the court where only Master Criminals need apply. The melange, the blend, is what makes for excitement. If you avoid the Labyrinth entirely, 9/10 you won't see violence in the street. If you avoid Allanak, 9/10 you will see NPC corpses everywhere and bits of unwanted loot. Something in the middle would appeal to me.

There's a huge misunderstanding as far as the labyrinth goes, which means maybe I missed a documentation change or something.  But labyrinth players tend to want to be separated from the city at large and turn it into an iso role, a lot of the time, which just doesn't make sense for what it is nor what it should be.  The labyrinth isn't avoided by soldiers because it's too dangerous; the Arm could literally come in and annex the alleys anytime they wanted to.  The thing is...they don't -want- to.  It's a part of the city that was poorly built, filled with undesirables, and not worth maintaining...so the undesirables took over.  Every time someone talks about starting a northside vs southside war, I roll my eyes.  Every time I hear an alley rat give another alley rat shit for having business in southside, I roll my eyes.

It's become a haven for criminals simply because soldiers stopped going there, not because it's a sponsored separatist state.  Templars keep their eyes on notables there, and always will.  Likewise, prominent northsiders maintain presence in the city proper...because that's where most of the business and power in the city actually is.  They just operate out of a location that's basically been abandoned by the state, and they are wary of attempts of the templarate to re-seize control of their alleys (which is responded to accordingly, not with threats of open violence, because that would be a dumb move, as has been demonstrated historically many many times).

Anyway.  The point was that the Black Market is actually encouraged to be used by southsiders, so long as they conform to the peace of the labyrinth (edit here because rereading made me laugh at this line: I mean as long as it's not an outsider coming in and killing their kids and families).  Someone fighting their way there is still a troublemaker who should have respected their alleys, or hired someone else to do it for them (a job that almost every elf will jump on, due to the opportunities provided by their services being needed).  Anyone playing that the eastside is closed to southsiders or westsiders is doing it -wrong- (and yes, I have documentation backing that up).  The only 'don't do that' for the elven community that runs the black market is causing trouble.  They are there for business. Anyway.  /rant.

Again, I agree that crimcode is the major source of this problem.  I'd much rather the NPC presence be greatly reduced to encourage a vacuum for criminals to operate in, and for PC soldiers to fill, than anything else.  Particularly closer to the alleys, crime should be far more commit-able on many levels.

As I said before, there was a time where fighting NPC soldiers was kind of a norm.  I haven't seen anyone actually do this in a long time, either when I was in a criminal group or against one.  It's like it became a taboo that wasn't allowed.  If anything, in the meantime of crimcode changes, this is one of the things that is entirely possible for players to commit to now.  Stop avoiding the violence out of fear it could go badly, and logically speaking, you will see an increase in street-violence.


edit:  Acknowledgement this is pretty off-topic, in so far as the apartments, but I think I agree that while they wouldn't go away, they'd become far less prevalent, and thus something that we could tweak around more, if we could get away with more crimes.  I'm okay with Allanak being a police state, and for soldiers being fully capable of jumping up to the 'death sentence for resisting arrest' territory, but I think their coverage could stand to be a lot less effective, and the ability of a group of people who don't care for soldiers to be capable of fighting off their oppressors...at least in the immediate time window.  Welcome back, PC soldier relevance, and welcome for the first time to true criminal viability without intricate code knowledge (though code knowledge will always be a good thing to have).

[Jingo]

I don't think killing should be made easier as it should be made riskier.

I think the social risk of murders are always underplayed, staff just don't seem to be interested in adding the appropriate nuance when someone is killed. Aide get's murdered in the estate? You get a bloodstain. The servants who had to clean up the mess don't suffer from ptsd, arn't afraid they'll be next and certainly wouldn't develop subversive leanings to their murderous boss.

If there are any changes made to crimecode, I think there should be changes to psionics as well. It's easy to engineer a killing if you have a unencryptable psychic connection with your co conspirators. If that connection could be tapped, I think there would be a lot more risk.

[Reiloth]

I don't think killing should be made easier as it should be made riskier.

I think the social risk of murders are always underplayed, staff just don't seem to be interested in adding the appropriate nuance when someone is killed. Aide get's murdered in the estate? You get a bloodstain. The servants who had to clean up the mess don't suffer from ptsd, arn't afraid they'll be next and certainly wouldn't develop subversive leanings to their murderous boss.

If there are any changes made to crimecode, I think there should be changes to psionics as well. It's easy to engineer a killing if you have a unencryptable psychic connection with your co conspirators. If that connection could be tapped, I think there would be a lot more risk.

I don't think there's a reason to put this on Staff. If anything, we have a duty as players to give each other the benefit of a good death.

[WithSprinkles]

Subversive leanings toward the boss -if- it is viewed that the boss did the wrong thing? That's happened.

I don't know that it would be entirely possible save to make it even more difficult for a role to do their job (ie: the NPCs stop listening to you, which wouldn't really happen if you are the boss and in a more powerful social position than them). Social risk is mostly on us to play out and enforce and while an occasional animation to back that up is welcome, standing forth and impressing our will on the game world/society/people's minds is RP.

It's my personal opinion, but let's not have psionics messed with too much. I played a game where people spied on EVERY.THING.YOU.DID.OR.SAID. It is MADDENING. Let me at least have the inside of my character's skull to SOME degree. I'll RP out things for mindworms and do stuff to make myself vulnerable, but there has to be some line. As it is, keeping secrets is hard enough. Not the least of which is because people want to be included in plots and secrets and feel offended and excluded if you don't share (I am talking IG here), but then turn RIGHT around and prove you were right to not wreck what you were working hard and building toward by including them. As if they wanted to be included JUST to screw you and on some levels, I can't understand it.

Another game I played, I used to be an open book with info (it wasn't disallowed). We all shared and collaborated and helped each other figure out stuff. I've gotten.. more paranoid playing here. If psionics get altered to that degree, I want to be able to have the ability to parry or block it. I give a crud about detecting who it is, just so long as I can give them a mental slap back. Otherwise, lemme just stand out on a corner and shout my plots to the world.

(edit: to tweak some of my wording so it's not giving anything away)

[BadSkeelz]

I don't think killing should be made easier as it should be made riskier.

I think the social risk of murders are always underplayed, staff just don't seem to be interested in adding the appropriate nuance when someone is killed. Aide get's murdered in the estate? You get a bloodstain. The servants who had to clean up the mess don't suffer from ptsd, arn't afraid they'll be next and certainly wouldn't develop subversive leanings to their murderous boss.

If there are any changes made to crimecode, I think there should be changes to psionics as well. It's easy to engineer a killing if you have a unencryptable psychic connection with your co conspirators. If that connection could be tapped, I think there would be a lot more risk.

I don't think there's a reason to put this on Staff. If anything, we have a duty as players to give each other the benefit of a good death.

Players are people, and people are shit. If you don't punish a self-serving behavior people will repeat that behavior. Killing people in apartments to remove all potential threat to your PC is a self-serving behavior with no negative repercussions (unless the murdered has a powerful PC friend). So it happens.

We do rely on staff to animate the virtual world, including its reactions to our PCs. Jingo is arguing that Staff/the World  is not reacting enough to certain behavior.

[Armaddict]

We do rely on staff to animate the virtual world, including its reactions to our PCs. Jingo is arguing that Staff is not reacting enough to certain behavior.

Implicit in that position is the sentiment that how you would animate the virtual world is the way it should be done, however.

[BadSkeelz]

Well duh.

I'm not a personal believer in the notion that players should be able to do what they want so long as the code allows for it, Virtual world (and the reactions that should "realistically" come from it) be damned. I know Reiloth wants us to be better and more courteous Roleplayers, but believing Staff shouldn't guide player behavior simply leads to extreme, self-interested, and "zero-sum" player behavior.

[Armaddict]

Indeed.  Just saying, because the common inference made with that sentiment is that the npc's should be reinforcing just behavior or something that we take for granted as common sense in the real world, which is just not the case of the Zalanthan world in many scenarios.

[BadSkeelz]

Mm, and is being able to turn your rickety apartment in to a sound- and smell-proof death chamber that also disposes of the body with zero trace and zero questions asked by anyone in the Virtual, NPC, or PC world one of those scenarios?

We can treat the game world like a cartoon where the above is true, but I don't think that makes for a funner or more immersive game. It's why I've largely checked out of the PVP element of the game; the unrealism of crimcode and how PVP is done are just too annoying to see in practice.

[Armaddict]

Or we can agree that in a place where bodies are routinely moved through the city to a corpse pile, where bodies sit in the street for days, where death is common and prevalent, and where the corruption is real...a lot of cases, people just don't really care that another commoner may or may not have been stabbed.

Sure.  Sometimes people get interested, in which case there are avenues for investigations to take place (done it).  But insisting that every case gets its own personal detective interrogating all of the possible witnesses is pretty overboard.

Edit:  You seem to be...kind of reinforcing what I meant.  Trying to make the virtual world care about everyone's PC that dies is really not something that has ever really fit with the environment or documentation as far as how the world treats death.  Now if it's the death of a PC that is important to someone, it seems likely that a templar investigating would get some answers to go off of.  But I doubt anyone would come running to point fingers and yell about something that might be shady, risking themselves becoming a person exposed to the corruption of it, for what is essentially a stranger.

[BadSkeelz]

It'd be more than we have now, where the beep doesn't travel through walls and you just need to wait for decay code. I wouldn't be opposed to bodies only decaying in certain rooms, just so players would actually have to drag them out and maybe answer awkward questions.

That said, apartment kills are really just a symptom of players not knowing how to resolve a rivalry beyond "murder." Doubleedit: Or, as Large Hero points out, other murder venues being very restricted.

[Large Hero]

Or we can agree that in a place where bodies are routinely moved through the city to a corpse pile, where bodies sit in the street for days, where death is common and prevalent, and where the corruption is real...a lot of cases, people just don't really care that another commoner may or may not have been stabbed.

Unless it happens in the street, in which case perfectly loyal killing machines will instantly murder you. Because death is common and prevalent, and people just don't care.

So no, we can't agree.

[Armaddict]

Or we can agree that in a place where bodies are routinely moved through the city to a corpse pile, where bodies sit in the street for days, where death is common and prevalent, and where the corruption is real...a lot of cases, people just don't really care that another commoner may or may not have been stabbed.

Unless it happens in the street, in which case perfectly loyal killing machines will instantly murder you. Because death is common and prevalent, and people just don't care.

So no, we can't agree.

This is pretty different.  A soldier who stands and watches something is a big difference than some commoner running up to them in the street and pointing a finger and saying something might be going on.  There's a reason that even crimes in the open street sometimes don't crimflag.  There's a reason that crimflags seem only certain in the same room as a soldier. That reason is that this is not the NYPD with investigative detectives assigned case numbers.  This is a place where people -are- dying commonly, and bodies -are- being dragged in the open street.  It's crimes in progress that seem to warrant immediate attention.  That's in keeping with the whole thing, unless the person is someone who gains more interest.

Now if someone does it in their own apartment, then just leaves the body there to decay, I agree, that's pretty weird.  But I haven't had my death in someone else's place in a long time...I've killed people in their own, however, after breaking in, in which case I find the leaving of the body perfectly fine.

That said, apartment kills are really just a symptom of players not knowing how to resolve a rivalry beyond "murder."

They're a symptom of what's been talked about for the majority of the thread.  My disagreement about the virtual world doesn't change anything of what's been said.  I just think the average zalanthan, as is demonstrated through both code and documentation, doesn't actually care enough to make sure a killer 'gets it' unless it's actually affecting them, or they are actively interested in aiding the Arm (which is possible, but also just as possible for the inverse).