Locked Apartments

[BadSkeelz]

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).

Zalanthans might not run to the law if they know Amos the Amputater is shacking up down the hall. But they should still know they're sharing an apartment block with a psycho just so they can watch their own back. Murders, especially frequent murders, should be grounds for rumors and capable of being followed up on. Currently you can kill as many people in your apartment/estate/tent as you want and never develop a reputation or suffer negative reprecussions (friends and relatives seeking revenge, employees being scared off cause you're a murderous jackass, etc.).

[Dresan]

Mixed feelings on this: Killing someone in your own apartment.  Should probably have some consequences. And its kinda lame that you are practically dragging a body out, covered the floor with blood and no one is noticing. This is something that goes on and the staff has doesn't seem to have a problem with.  That said, killing someone in someone else's apartment...I see no problems with this...

As for locked rooms, basically what people are asking for is that you shoud be able to lock/unlock it with a key but anyone should be able to open the inside from the inside. This idea has been discussed before. I think this will lead to more crimes, which is a good thing. The only thing keeping people out of rooms is the fact you might log out, trapping them inside the room. The problem is this is too big of a buff to sneak/hide, and nerf to skill of picking locks.  Unless of course, you make it impossible to shadow people into their apartments which in turn might make apartments feel too safe.  

As much as I like many of the crim-code ideas, the idea of people fighting openly in public, and killing each other before soldiers come stop them, I still think many of the problems we have in the game are linked to how powerful 'look' and 'flee' is in the game. This is what has been creating this 'meta' where people feel the need to end things without chance of failure.

We talked about mdesc hiding gear/skill before but wonder if it would be better if it were tied to a skill like backstab instead. Its been mentioned before but imagine backstab changed so it caused less damage,but giving it the utility of hiding mdesc for about 15 seconds after backstabbing someone, with the lag delay of using the skill decreasing based on mastery. This wouldn't result in more successful kills, but more people would attempt it in public places which will generate more RP.    

[Large Hero]

On phone so not quoting. Armaddict:

Go attack someone in the city at daytime. You'll be instantly crimcoded, either by bystanders reporting it or vnpc soldiers reporting it.

Regardless of what you want to believe about harshness of the setting, the reality is this: the powers that be have created a society where even the smallest amount of unsanctioned violence creates an immediate and extreme response.

The people of the city may not care about violence and murder on a moral level.

They still care greatly about it, and likely think about the possibility constantly. Why not? If a soldier sees someone fighting me in the street, they're going to instantly intervene without asking questions. This may not go well for me.

What happens in places like North Korea, where government intervention is mercurial and brutal? People are extremely concerned with what their neighbors are up to, and they readily report it to the state.

[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.

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.

Yeah. I'm just talking about the risk that isn't represented in the game.

[Seeker]

I like the idea of having bodies not auto-decompose in many kinds of rooms, including apartments.  

I'd be fine if they transformed, however.  Like from "the body of the lean, irritating man" into "the humanoid-shaped festering pile of bones and meat-mush," for example.  And have that pile create a disease-miasma in area.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm with Jingo. It's lame if you intentionally lead someone to and then use the OOC lack of risk of an apartment's locked door to secure a kill. I would love if apartments could be unlocked from the inside like how locks in real life are.

I also think flee is too powerful, crim-code is too strong and back-stab is too weak. Those things don't suddenly stop leading someone to your apartment and locking the door on them to kill them being a lame, gamey, method.

I've never been killed in an apartment behind a locked door. In fact the one time someone led me to a place and locked the door, they left a backdoor escape for me, and that was awesome and exhilarating. So if you're going to lock the door, leave them a balcony to leap off of or something. I think it's silly that people have an OOC aversion to going into apartments for exactly this reason. Apartments should have all sorts of windows for escape, but they tend to be impenetrable fortresses because of peoples OOC hate for having their knickers stolen... Which a locked door doesn't even keep from happening.

Realistically an apartment without windows would be a fucking swampy heatstroke waiting to happen.

[Raptor_Dan]

This has been a great thread, very informative, and quite illuminating as to how other players view/experience murder, death, crimcode, etc.

On topic: Please, let me unlock a door from the inside without a key somehow, not always, maybe even better apartments, so Aides are more trustworthy to have social gatherings, then that rinthi with the 250 shithole on Miner's. I don't care if I have to pull a torch sconce to open the door, or some cryptic shit like that, let us have nice things! Lol, a bit over the top, but yeah, it'd open up more RP avenues, like card games, parties, delirious orgies and all that jazz.

There shouldn't be guards in the worst of the worst apartments, I don't think. I mean, yes, there should, but they should be guarding the person with the coin, not these shitholes people die in every day. And if it's a slightly better shithole, add the script where if you try to sneak past them, and they catch you, BUT you have more than 20 sid in your inventory, you've just bribed them to get past. (And of course that asshole would remember you. You were the highlight of his day, so if you're sneaking past via bribe, please don't make his job harder but taking EVERYTHING and giving the Templar a reason to come talk to him. He never liked you, he was just pretending to be your sid-buddy.)

Also, give me a couple windows to flee out of, with some pretty bad fall damage for even attempting to be so reckless when fleeing my suddenly murderous mate here. And windows for those spider-neckers to climb into. Fuck your locked door, you're NEVER safe, mudsexers.

emote cleans his jazz hands off.

Off topic/derail: So, maybe crimcode is binary, and that's not perfect, no. Either an NPC is there, or VNPCs are there, on that public road. Either night time crim code is effect, or daytime crim code is effect, okay, this makes code knowledge more handy in killing people, sometimes. I admit, I agree that it should be tweaked, but I'm not sure how. In the last few years, I've started wishing up even whenever I just consider killing someone (oocly consider it, not ICly, because my PC's are fuckwads who constantly consider murder an option, like I do IRL), and that hasn't been that often. I'm not wishing up just because docs suggest it, I'm doing it because, if I want to bribe the four HG soldiers down the road, so I can kill this half-breed scumbag, they'll be there to provide something more than binary crimcode, and sometimes I like to tinker with the idea of 'give squat.bottle friend' 4x, then 'ep torch; throw torch friend', and I think I'd need staff help to /really/ pull that one off.

This is how I plan to get around binary crimcode, extremely severe punishments, considering I don't have a lot of knowledge about the code. Even if I did, I'd probably still do this. (if staff's not around, doesn't respond, 50/50 chance I might still gank that breed)

Apartment killings. How is this easier? Maybe it's easier for people who think, hey, I -can- defeat this person, if I have the advantage of them running away. But I've known people who carry poisoned blades, and a few for different scenarios, or have turned out to be fucking mindworms/gickers/sorcs/ or just plain badass swordsman. I'm never -that- sure I can get away with murder.

I guess it is a little bit twinkish to kill people in an apartment, but, so are real life murders. Let me buy a gun, stalk this person, drug them while RP'ing being their friend after getting them into my house, then gunmurder their face, and put the body in my trunk (only at night, so VNPCS don't see) then put their body in a swamp so the raptors, err, alligators, can eat their corpse. Woohoo! PK successful. We stack the odds anytime we can. Perhaps warriors are supposed to have honor, but I don't think humans do. Or elves, stumps, breeds, maybe HGs, certainly not muls. Path of least resistance I think Bad Skeelz said, and it's true.

If we're wanting to change how apartment murders work in game, we need just one darn PC soldier to spread the rumors, 'Report a body, get 50 sid!' and the VNPC will rat your ass out so fucking quickly. (also, if you didn't notify staff that you're murdering someone, before or after, you might only get a binary response from the virtual world) Another method of changing how apartment murders work would be to change decay code, and I like that idea, mostly because I want to others (myself included, but much, much less so) to be forced to get diseases from eating/sleeping/sitting next to that decomposing body sitting over there. Maybe it could make everything in your apartment have that gith smell tag 'A horrible, pungent odor'. That'd stop a lot of damned apartment murders right there. No more fancy, pretty Aides murdering people in their silks, then letting the corpse rot in the corner. (if this is what's happening at all. I have no idea what you people do with my corpse after you apartment murder me. Have sex on it, maybe? Freaks.)

If we're wanting to improve the ways of killing people outside of apartments, and make that happen more frequently, perhaps more fun, or change the risks up a bit, my suggestion is, of course, less HG soldiers. Actually, no, less predictable HG soldiers. Give regular soldiers common sense, and make this be the dice roll for HG soldier response:

20% tries to kill attacker.
10% tries to kill victim.
10% tries to kill everyone involved. (boost this percentage if 'elf' keyword is in the room)
20% stands there and watches, inciting other soldiers to 'see what happens next, just in case'.
30% sap everyone. (this would necessitate HG soldiers getting bludgeoning weapons, of course)
10% carries on about his day. 'Templar said for me to make a loop around Gaj, not beat up littles anymore.'

Fun for the whole family, breeds included! That's more than a 60% chance you won't get insta-killed by HG's while being a filthy criminal, or a splendid assassin.

Would ^ this be better? I'd like to think so, but there are certainly other holes we could fill. (please help me fill holes. This is how I pass the time.) So, what about Dresan's backstab mdesc hiding idea? I think 'backstab face' should be an option, where you try to stab them in the eyes, but then again, I'm the asshole who thinks putting a 'smelly' tag on your knife should auto poison it with the plague, or Raza Raza worms, stuff like that. I like both ideas. Bully for you, Dresan. Bully for me.

I'm out of steam/vodka.

Somebody finish my thought.

[Armaddict]

Mmm, I think we're kind of going to extremes here in order to make arguments seem more viable, where the reality of the game is very likely somewhere in the middle.  I had a nice long post typed up, but in the interest of realization that this is going to be a very cyclical back and forth, I'll just say:

I think this has very quickly devolved into arguing what is essentially interpretation of what the VNPC world would do, which was the point of what I said in the first place.  Implicit arguments about -knowing- how vnpcs would behave is stepping into territory that is hopelessly mired and even with argument, it's still going to result in 'You're wrong' from some camp or another.

But I will say that in the single-case instance, I think it's pretty damn possible that you'd get away with it.  If it becomes a pattern of behavior, or it's a situation where staff thinks you ignored things, they (the staff) do a pretty good job of making sure the information gets disseminated to those who would know or care, and that's been demonstrated pretty consistently over a long period of time.

My opinion will stick with what's been described through various posts and analysis of documentation throughout my time here, until I see something truly definitive that sets things the other way.  I'm not overly attached to apartment killings; as I said, the ones I've done have been me breaking into theirs, not bringing them to mine.  But when we start arguing over how vnpcs should behave in reaction to PC behavior, I pretty much fall back on the reason that I don't include vnpcs in my emotes in any meaningful way, and that is because it's kind of overstepping my bounds.

Realistically an apartment without windows would be a fucking swampy heatstroke waiting to happen.

Also, RGS, I agree with -most- counts.  With brief research, it seems that inside-unlockable locks have been a thing since BC times, but that they were generally very insecure from the outside as well until the 17th century or so (where they returned to locking from both sides until the deadbolt).  But the lack of other entrances to apartments has been done to death in regards to explaining why burglars were kind of jipped in terms of methods of doing their job, and being entirely dependent on pick.

[Desertman]

Gotta win gotta win gotta win.

It is so disappointing players think this is a cool thing to do. I'd rather just twink my characters and play armageddon like the shitty pvp game it is.

I've played for almost 20 years.

The number of PC's I've killed is probably below 20 in total if you don't count people who attacked me first and forced my hand. Even then it's probably below 30. The majority of "my kills" happened on PC's I was playing who were assassins hired by other people to do it. I might argue those aren't actually "my kills" as they were the product of someone else's decisions and I was just the knife, so to speak. I didn't decide they should die, I just did the cutting, so, I might not even count those as mine. The number of PC's I've actually decided to kill and HAD KILLED/DID KILL in almost 20 years of play is probably around 10 - 15....MAYBE.

The issue here isn't that I'm trying to win win win.

The issue really is that you are very bad at losing I think.

Maybe you get killed a lot more than I do in really twinky ways very regularly which is why this is such a sore point for you?

For example, I can't recall a single time I've ever been killed in an apartment, ever.

The only advice I can give you is maybe to just play the game a bit smarter as this doesn't appear to be an issue for me but seems to be one that plagues you?

In fact the only arguably "twinky death" I can really recall suffering was at the hands of a Whiran involving a spell staff removed from the entire game shortly after which gives credence to the idea it was in fact a pretty twinky death and not just me being unreasonably butthurt. By that logic I don't feel me calling it twinky is out of bounds.

I'm just not sure what to tell you other than maybe you need a break?



As for the main topic, I have always been a supporter of the idea of being able to bash down an apartment door with this being easier to do potentially from the inside. (Doing it from the outside would get your crim-coded every time due to the level of "noise" it would cause and it would be much more difficult.)

[Desertman]

The frustration comes from the play-to-survive-at-all-costs mentality. Getting someone in a locked room is hands down the easiest and safest way to kill them. Personally I wish we had less crimcode so people could be ambushed more effectively in the streets.

I like this as well.

I also have to disagree on whether apartment-killing is realistic. Roman Senators didn't invite each other over for dinner to murder one another. You'd either see someone judicially murdered (tried in a kangaroo court) and/or politically out-maneuvered so that suicide was the only way to spare one's family or dignity, etc. Think more Tuluk than Allanak.

Inviting people in to your home and then murdering them tends to carry severe social and political repercussions across all societies. I'm more familiar with the concept of "Guest right" from a Medieval concept, but even in antiquity killing your guest was considered extremely poor form. It's tantamount to betrayal, and few people would trust a known betrayer. Julius Caesar executed at least a few people who had betrayed and killed enemies of Caesar as rewarding them would set a bad precedent. In Zalanthas, people who have a habit of giving guests a one-way ticket to their apartments or estates should quickly become known for it.

All that said, my personal historical favorite means of settling political disputes was rousing a mob and heaving the offending party torn apart in the streets. Which happens to feed back in to my desire for less crimcode

Replace "Roman Senator" with "Mafia Henchman" or whatever theoretical role you feel might be supported via history.

As it stands, people IRL kill people in apartments all of the time NOW. Happens every single day. Now, take what happens every single day now and put it into a setting where the law is incredibly corrupt, there are no forensics, and bodies line the streets already from death via thirst/starvation/wanton murder and theft.

I don't think it's unreasonable in Zalanthas, or unrealistic by that logic. It's certainly not unreasonable NOW, since it happens IRL NOW, ALL OF THE TIME. It would be infinitely easier to get away with in Zalanthas so I don't see how someone could think it wouldn't be a fairly common occurrence since it is already a RL common occurrence.

[RogueGunslinger]

Gotta win gotta win gotta win.

It is so disappointing players think this is a cool thing to do. I'd rather just twink my characters and play armageddon like the shitty pvp game it is.

I've played for almost 20 years.

The number of PC's I've killed is probably below 20 in total if you don't count people who attacked me first and forced my hand. Even then it's probably below 30. The majority of "my kills" happened on PC's I was playing who were assassins hired by other people to do it. I might argue those aren't actually "my kills" as they were the product of someone else's decisions and I was just the knife, so to speak. I didn't decide they should die, I just did the cutting, so, I might not even count those as mine. The number of PC's I've actually decided to kill and HAD KILLED/DID KILL in almost 20 years of play is probably around 10 - 15....MAYBE.

The issue here isn't that I'm trying to win win win.

The issue really is that you are very bad at losing I think.

Maybe you get killed a lot more than I do in really twinky ways very regularly which is why this is such a sore point for you?

For example, I can't recall a single time I've ever been killed in an apartment, ever.

The only advice I can give you is maybe to just play the game a bit smarter as this doesn't appear to be an issue for me but seems to be one that plagues you?

In fact the only arguably "twinky death" I can really recall suffering was at the hands of a Whiran involving a spell staff removed from the entire game shortly after which gives credence to the idea it was in fact a pretty twinky death and not just me being unreasonably butthurt. By that logic I don't feel me calling it twinky is out of bounds.

I'm just not sure what to tell you other than maybe you need a break?



As for the main topic, I have always been a supporter of the idea of being able to bash down an apartment door with this being easier to do potentially from the inside. (Doing it from the outside would get your crim-coded every time due to the level of "noise" it would cause and it would be much more difficult.)

Stop trying to make it personal. That's a silly argument. As I said, I've never been killed in an apartment. Yet still, I think purposefully leading someone to an apartment so you can lock them in and know they can't escape... Is a real lame way to play a roleplaying game. It's making considerations from a code standpoint instead of a roleplaying one. There's a number of reasons why apartments as they function are unrealistic as shit, and people abusing that unrealistic nature is sad. Just because apartments codedly work like a jail-cell doesn't mean they should be treated that way by role-players.

[Delirium]

In a way, locked apartments make up for the fact that our characters rarely have to sleep.

Regardless, they're not unrealistic enough that I'd want to focus on this issue as a priority for resolution.

More windows would be fun, I guess - but it's a trade off. More avenues for escape means more avenues for intrusion.

I'm okay with that, personally. But it might get a little ridiculous for you burglar-hating folks.

[Riev]

Also, as much as it might feel meta, with locked apartments, its the way the game is, currently.

I could sneak up on you. I could bury my half-sword into your chest when you weren't paying attention... and you can stand up and flee to safety at a speed equal to or possibly greater than mine.

Zalanthan hardiness aside, a two-handed sword, in surprise, against an unarmed opponent who can just flee and run off feels a bit out of sorts, too. Just lock the damn door. Make them sorry for landing themselves in the position where DEATH was the only option.

[Tisiphone]

I seem to be stalking Delirium. Hi Delirium!

I don't come down on either side of this issue. Frankly, I could give a shit. (My general approach here is, "Oh, this thread again. Yaaay.") But generally I like you guys, so I thought I'd point something out.

Stop using the realism argument. Apartment killings are perfectly realistic. That is, they map pretty damned well onto real life. Conversely, stop feeling like it's metagaming when you or someone else doesn't want to set foot in an apartment because they might get killed. That's also perfectly realistic.

I've been in Durban. I've been in Harare. I've been in Monrovia. These are all low-trust places, much like the common streets of Allanak. In none of those cities would I willingly set foot in a place where I'd be alone with someone I didn't know very well - i.e. one of the people I brought with me or someone I'd spent years cultivating a personal relationship with, unless that person had a very clear vested interest in wishing me well. That goes double, triple, quadruple, for a place I'd be alone and locked in.

Your baseline intuition that apartments should be safe is wrong. It's built in a high-trust society, which Allanak isn't. Avoiding spaces you can't get out of isn't meta, or unrealistic, or cheesy, or twinky. It's the normal, sane reaction of a person who wants to continue living.

Disclaimers:

Does this mean I support keeping the crimcode, or apartments, or the vNPC reactions, or whatever else in-game as they are? No. Does this mean I support changing them? No. Like I said, I don't care. I'm not on either side of this argument, for which there are good points based on what we want to experience in the game, self-consistency, and the like. Realism just isn't one of them.

[Reiloth]

Cool. Thanks for your non opinion.

Just out of curiosity, are these places you've been to just as dangerous on the street as in a closed off apartment?

I don't think you read the thread closely enough -- people have pretty much concluded (with some outlier disagreement) that apartments shouldn't be changed. It's that crime code and in particular how binary it is disallows other realistic options as well. Expanding these options would lead to more realistic crime outside of apartment slayings.

I don't think people need to "stop" having their opinions, just as you are entitled to have both opinions/no opinion.

[Tisiphone]

Just out of curiosity, are these places you've been to just as dangerous on the street as in a closed off apartment?

No, they're not, generally speaking. Of course it depends on where you are, who you're with, etc. etc. etc. But there are a lot of folks who would take the opportunity of leading you down an alley/to a whorehouse/somewhere semi-private as an opportunity for mischief when they're perfectly "friendly" in public.

And yes, that's doing some violence to the truth, because we're not considering things like gangs, territories, loose tribal affiliations, boroughs, etc.

I don't think people need to "stop" having their opinions, just as you are entitled to have both opinions/no opinion.

OK, cool. Let me rephrase it: when you (general you, not you Reiloth) voice the opinion that people not wanting to go into apartments strikes you as 'meta' or 'unrealistic' or whatever, it strikes me that you have very little experience with real-life analogues.

[Desertman]

Gotta win gotta win gotta win.

It is so disappointing players think this is a cool thing to do. I'd rather just twink my characters and play armageddon like the shitty pvp game it is.

I've played for almost 20 years.

The number of PC's I've killed is probably below 20 in total if you don't count people who attacked me first and forced my hand. Even then it's probably below 30. The majority of "my kills" happened on PC's I was playing who were assassins hired by other people to do it. I might argue those aren't actually "my kills" as they were the product of someone else's decisions and I was just the knife, so to speak. I didn't decide they should die, I just did the cutting, so, I might not even count those as mine. The number of PC's I've actually decided to kill and HAD KILLED/DID KILL in almost 20 years of play is probably around 10 - 15....MAYBE.

The issue here isn't that I'm trying to win win win.

The issue really is that you are very bad at losing I think.

Maybe you get killed a lot more than I do in really twinky ways very regularly which is why this is such a sore point for you?

For example, I can't recall a single time I've ever been killed in an apartment, ever.

The only advice I can give you is maybe to just play the game a bit smarter as this doesn't appear to be an issue for me but seems to be one that plagues you?

In fact the only arguably "twinky death" I can really recall suffering was at the hands of a Whiran involving a spell staff removed from the entire game shortly after which gives credence to the idea it was in fact a pretty twinky death and not just me being unreasonably butthurt. By that logic I don't feel me calling it twinky is out of bounds.

I'm just not sure what to tell you other than maybe you need a break?



As for the main topic, I have always been a supporter of the idea of being able to bash down an apartment door with this being easier to do potentially from the inside. (Doing it from the outside would get your crim-coded every time due to the level of "noise" it would cause and it would be much more difficult.)

Stop trying to make it personal. That's a silly argument. As I said, I've never been killed in an apartment. Yet still, I think purposefully leading someone to an apartment so you can lock them in and know they can't escape... Is a real lame way to play a roleplaying game. It's making considerations from a code standpoint instead of a roleplaying one. There's a number of reasons why apartments as they function are unrealistic as shit, and people abusing that unrealistic nature is sad. Just because apartments codedly work like a jail-cell doesn't mean they should be treated that way by role-players.

If I wanted to murder someone IRL I would lead them into a room with no exits with a door that locked if possible, especially if I didn't have to worry about any modern RL forensics after the fact.

I don't see the issue.

[Desertman]

Stop using the realism argument. Apartment killings are perfectly realistic. That is, they map pretty damned well onto real life. Conversely, stop feeling like it's metagaming when you or someone else doesn't want to set foot in an apartment because they might get killed. That's also perfectly realistic.

This.

If I don't trust you IRL I'm not going to follow you into a well lit alley much less a private room somewhere that you have a key to and I don't. I don't care if that room has fifteen windows I could in theory jump out of. I'm not going to do it.

For that matter if I don't trust you I'm not going to follow you anywhere.

If someone tricks you into following them in-game to a room they have a key to and you do not and kills you, well, they didn't twink you, they just outsmarted you, which hurts, but is the truth.

[Reiloth]

Well, i've been to <insert RL city here>, too!

I've been mugged several times in Los Angeles, and once in New York City. The one in NYC was actually in daytime (4PM roughly) and in a relatively busy street. When someone points a gun at you, you do what they say typically.

The times I was mugged in Los Angeles varied -- Mostly at night, and I was stupidly turned a corner in Downtown or another neighborhood where I probably shouldn't have been.

I don't think anyone disagrees that an Apartment slaying is legit (or if they do, they are as you say butthurt about an apartment slaying of one of their PCs). I've been killed in apartments and killed people in apartments. I think what we (the common we, generalizing here) are saying is that it is the lowest risk option, which is why it is utilized so frequently.

I agree that if someone tricks you to go into a room with no windows, and no doors, the only way out is likely going to be death. As Majikal said previously, I tend to not play characters that are VERY SUSPICIOUS of apartments, because in truth they are living domiciles where people store their shit behind a shitty lock. Could they kill you in the place they are living in? Sure. Does it cross my PC's mind every single time? No, depending on who the PC is.

What i'm seeing here is 'All of my PCs find Apartments suspicious, because I as a player know they are death traps'. I guess that's what we call a difference of playstyle, but I do find using RL examples as comparison, thinking about it in an overall meta way is, well, meta. How do your PCs think about apartments? Do they recall from the legends of yore that they are in fact death traps? Or is that the coloration of your Player Knowledge?

I don't think people should STOP USING THE REALISM ARGUMENT, or stop using any argument really. If you don't have a convincing reason to change people's minds, why should they just change their mind? Because you say so?

This is a game with magick, elves, mekillots, and undead. We aren't saying the game should be like working at the stock exchange, but a certain amount of realism breathes believability and life into a shared story, especially when it is surrounded by fantastical elements. I would rather the fantastical elements be the Magick and Elves, not the crime code.

[RogueGunslinger]

If I wanted to murder someone IRL I would lead them into a room with no exits with a door that locked if possible, especially if I didn't have to worry about any modern RL forensics after the fact.

I don't see the issue.

The issue is apartments shouldn't function that way. Hence suggesting locks be un-lockable from the inside, or other suggestions for windows. I take issue with people using the code as it is because of the unrealistic way apartment-code functions as inescapable (an argument that Tis has misinterpreted as "killing people in apartments is unrealistic")... I have no problem with murders taking place in apartments or people avoiding following people they don't trust into apartments. My problem is it stems from lame code. Escaping is too easy, and that's lame. Locking people up in apartments is too easy and that's lame.

At the end of the day if you led my character to an apartment for the prospect of sex, locked the door for privacy, and then had me undress and whipped because my character likes to be dominated, I would take no issue with suddenly being back-stabbed by your ivory hair-pin. Sadly this is not how I've seen apartment-murders go, so I think a code change would be great to combat the gamey nature of using them as inescapable death-traps.

I also think escaping an attacker is too easy, I'm just not cool with people using that as an excuse for inescapable apartments to stay as they are. I'm not calling for people who commit lock-kill murders to have their karma docked or something. I just think it's stretching to the limits of the way the code functions at the expense of good roleplay.

From another angle: It's 100% realistic to land multiple deadly strikes on someone. I don't like it when someone backstab-flee-hide-backstabs someone else because the flee code is powerful and hide code works like vanishing magic.

[Reiloth]

I don't think people need to "stop" having their opinions, just as you are entitled to have both opinions/no opinion.

OK, cool. Let me rephrase it: when you (general you, not you Reiloth) voice the opinion that people not wanting to go into apartments strikes you as 'meta' or 'unrealistic' or whatever, it strikes me that you have very little experience with real-life analogues.

I didn't know people could be -that- elitist about a text based game. Sorry we haven't traveled the world, Tis!

[RogueGunslinger]

OK, cool. Let me rephrase it: when you (general you, not you Reiloth) voice the opinion that people not wanting to go into apartments strikes you as 'meta' or 'unrealistic' or whatever, it strikes me that you have very little experience with real-life analogues.

It's not unrealistic to not want to follow someone they don't trust into an apartment, it's not unrealistic to want to kill someone in an apartment. Apartments themselves are unrealistic.

[Desertman]

If I wanted to murder someone IRL I would lead them into a room with no exits with a door that locked if possible, especially if I didn't have to worry about any modern RL forensics after the fact.

I don't see the issue.

The issue is apartments shouldn't function that way. Hence suggesting locks be un-lockable from the inside, or other suggestions for windows. I take issue with people using the code as it is because of the unrealistic way apartment-code functions as inescapable (an argument that Tis has misinterpreted as "killing people in apartments is unrealistic")... I have no problem with murders taking place in apartments or people avoiding following people they don't trust into apartments. My problem is it stems from lame code. Escaping is too easy, and that's lame. Locking people up in apartments is too easy and that's lame.

At the end of the day if you led my character to an apartment for the prospect of sex, locked the door for privacy, and then had me undress and whipped because my character likes to be dominated, I would take no issue with suddenly being back-stabbed by your ivory hair-pin. Sadly this is not how I've seen apartment-murders go, so I think a code change would be great to combat the gamey nature of using them as inescapable death-traps.

I also think escaping an attacker is too easy, I'm just not cool with people using that as an excuse for inescapable apartments to stay as they are. I'm not calling for people who commit lock-kill murders to have their karma docked or something. I just think it's stretching to the limits of the way the code functions at the expense of good roleplay.

From another angle: It's 100% realistic to land multiple deadly strikes on someone. I don't like it when someone backstab-flee-hide-backstabs someone else because the flee code is powerful and hide code works like vanishing magic.

Be the change.

Make a character that invents "more convenient" and higher-tech locking mechanisms and popularize them.

As it stands the technological level of locks in Zalanthas require one to have a key to both lock and unlock them from either side of the door.

I know IRL you can just "twist the knob" or "turn the latch" and most locks will unlock from the inside.

This isn't RL, this is Zalanthas.

I don't think I have an issue with this because I grew up in a very old house that would now be around 150 years old. In the house I grew up in we had an attic I was terrified of so I never went into it as a kid, but I recall the door had an old iron lock on it. The only way to get into that door was to have a key. It didn't matter what side of the door you were on it didn't unlock by "twisting the knob". It had a key hole under the knob where the heavy iron key would in theory go. (No key existed. It stayed unlocked. Well, technically it stayed locked, which prevented you from closing the door. Whoever had the key last locked the lock, but when the door was open, so you could never close it.)

I sort of just imagine Zalanthan locks to work similarly to this.

I went and found a picture. It looked more or less like this:



The knob didn't function for locking and unlocking. It only functioned after you used the key one way or the other. It was a very simple very old design, so, I feel that fits Zalanthas perfectly.



I know you aren't arguing that "it isn't realistic", and I get that. But you are saying, "Lock shouldn't function that way.".

No, locks did, have, do, and can function exactly that way.

It isn't that "they shouldn't". It's that, "I don't want them to because I want the game to work differently.". Which is fine, but is a different argument.

[Reiloth]

Yeah, I agree with D-man here. I don't think the modern 'latch/deadbolt' has a place in Zalanthas. I'm already dubious of locked chests without metal components.

[Desertman]

Yeah, I agree with D-man here. I don't think the modern 'latch/deadbolt' has a place in Zalanthas. I'm already dubious of locked chests without metal components.

I'm not necessarily against having locks changed.

I'm just pointing out that I don't have a problem with how they work now either because I feel they make sense. (Maybe even more sense.)