Subsistence level work for courtesans, whores and the like?

[LucildaHunta]

Firstly, THIS ISN'T A MUSH!!!

*ahem* Sorry I. Couldn't resist.

Ok, on to brass tacks. The idea of not getting hungry or thirsty with a subguild is pretty neat. It's well thought out as far as how it would work.

Now it's reality check time. Hide your kids, hide your wife this is going to get ugly. The reason people don't play more flavor roles isn't a code issue, it's a player acknowledgement issue. So I'm going to start with a real example, it's been a year don't worry. Once upon a time, I was playing a ranger that through a lot of tears managed to get her bandage skill really high. The group I was with was in the Grey forest for one reason or another and along comes Mr. Rantarri. Mr Rantarri proceeds to rip one of the people in the group a new one, as Mr. Rantarri tends to do. We manage to kill Mr. Rantarri but Ready Player One is near death. I roleplay attempting to stop the bleeding and some other cool medical flavor things. I pull out my medicated bandages, hold my breath and type bandage player one. Success! We ride back to safety, player one still isn't looking so good. We get him on a cot, I roleplay more medical things, he roleplays more groaning and passing out things. For the second time, I hold my breath and type bandage player one. Success! It was a good scene, player one is healing on his own, everybody is rp'ing this near miss appropriately. Along comes leader pc, we explain what happened, explain that my pc patched player one up. Player one  is completely healed at this point. Leader pc says, "Come on, let's get you some medical attention, player one."



This is a coded flavor thing and it was completely ignored. That was a true story too. I'm pretty sure there are other examples people can come up with. Here's another flavor role that is often negated: bard. It has its own subguild already and has code to support it. How do people react to them? If they're lucky a couple people might tip them. Yeah, I know crappy limerick songs are crappy. But here's were you as the player say I respect that you're trying to do something different, give crappy bard 20 coins.

Ok, enough reality; who needs that? Let's get into flavor roles that aren't supported by code. The first thing you have to do is accept some flavor roles just aren't going to make sense from a gaming perspective. A whore or a barmaid or even a doctor is workable, it's something you can have fun role playing AND get paid. A butcher's apprentice, a ranch hand, a bartender....c'mon now. Really...come on. I'm waiting for someone to say they'd have fun, standing around in the butcher shop, emoting when customers come in to buy meat for an extended period of time....I'm not knocking you, I'm saying I don't believe you. If you mean to tell me, while you're standing out in the wastes near the chalton, tending your flock, some random hunter isn't going to ride up and start killing them even after you say "Hey, these are my bosses chalton!" Let me know your secret.

My question is, are people really going to go out and do "flavor" type things? Don't get me wrong, I love to see someone try the last example. If I saw it, I'd give them kudos...hopefully before they're rolling up their next character.

Coding up a new subguild is cool and all. It just doesn't solve the underlying issue. The underlying issue is players aren't acknowledging players who attempt these roles in the first place to make them worth playing for an extended period of time. If people did, you'd see more doctors, bards and whores around. You acknowledge them by utilizing their services and paying them. Providing them a boon of no hunger or thirst code for suffering through a role that is ignored by other players, isn't going to make them stay in that role.

[Riev]

Related: Back in Tuluk there was this one medic, who worked for the Templarate, and he was amazing. Had needles, bandages, kits, vials, cures... amazing. Brought people back from near death, cured diseases, poisons. The guy was great.

But eventually it was just "Give me a bandage and I'm on my way". Or the player had RL issues and you couldn't find them. You WANTED to include them, but because this is still a game, you couldn't.

In tuluk, he was able to sell his services to the Templarate and get subsistence off that. Because he had a CODED SKILL that was in demand. Frankly, someone serving you drinks or buying your meat at the grocer FOR you isn't a coded skill you care about (unless its haggle). We want to reward coded skills, but the RP stuff always falls to the wayside.

[LucildaHunta]

We want to reward coded skills, but the RP stuff always falls to the wayside.

....but Riev, this isn't a mush.

Just code it up, people will be sure to use it if it's well thought out code.

[Inks]

(Now, a veteran player will do something outside of character to make the role of a butcher's assistant possible: the first week out of chargen you go to the rinth and strip bodies and fill your bank account, or you dungscrape and fill the bank account, or you greb or whatever, and then once you have enough to subsist on you just 'pretend' that you are poor and starving and so on and focus on being a butcher's assistant.)

No. A veteran player will know better than retconning something you do ig because it's meta and twinking.

What happened ig, happened ig. There's no retconning.

If you're poor and starving, you're poor and starving. Why do you need sids to "fall back" on?

100% agree with Kankfly here, your PC uses their virtual sids to survive while offline. No good player does a nonsense retcon like this.

If you are stripping bodies on the side to make ends meet then that is what you are doing ic.

[Synthesis]

(Now, a veteran player will do something outside of character to make the role of a butcher's assistant possible: the first week out of chargen you go to the rinth and strip bodies and fill your bank account, or you dungscrape and fill the bank account, or you greb or whatever, and then once you have enough to subsist on you just 'pretend' that you are poor and starving and so on and focus on being a butcher's assistant.)

No. A veteran player will know better than retconning something you do ig because it's meta and twinking.

What happened ig, happened ig. There's no retconning.

If you're poor and starving, you're poor and starving. Why do you need sids to "fall back" on?

100% agree with Kankfly here, your PC uses their virtual sids to survive while offline. No good player does a nonsense retcon like this.

If your PC is starving to death, the range of behaviors that is justifiably in-character expands considerably.  The question then becomes:  am I playing the character I wanted to play (whore) or the character the game is forcing me to play (grebber/mugger/etc.)?  And is that a good or a bad thing?

[Lizzie]

(Now, a veteran player will do something outside of character to make the role of a butcher's assistant possible: the first week out of chargen you go to the rinth and strip bodies and fill your bank account, or you dungscrape and fill the bank account, or you greb or whatever, and then once you have enough to subsist on you just 'pretend' that you are poor and starving and so on and focus on being a butcher's assistant.)

No. A veteran player will know better than retconning something you do ig because it's meta and twinking.

What happened ig, happened ig. There's no retconning.

If you're poor and starving, you're poor and starving. Why do you need sids to "fall back" on?

100% agree with Kankfly here, your PC uses their virtual sids to survive while offline. No good player does a nonsense retcon like this.

If your PC is starving to death, the range of behaviors that is justifiably in-character expands considerably.  The question then becomes:  am I playing the character I wanted to play (whore) or the character the game is forcing me to play (grebber/mugger/etc.)?  And is that a good or a bad thing?

If your rancher isn't able to earn real sids from PCs, then you can take that as a sign that your character might not be suited to that type of work. That means - if it were made virtual, your character might still starve to death, because even the VNPCs aren't interested in what your character is offering.

In other words - if your character can't make enough food and water to not starve to death or die of dehydration in the city by being a whore, then he's probably just not a very good whore and should consider stripping bodies in the rinth instead of whoring.

If you want to code virtual work for suspension of hunger/thirst, then you need to also code the potential for critical failure - which could mean a risk of increased hunger, increased thirst, or even a risk of death due to a VNPC who is dissatisfied with the services rendered.

[nauta]

Here's two PCs, let's call them George and Bob.

1. George is a dung scraper.  He struggles to survive.  His parents died, and all he has is his uncle's dung scraping business to work at, so he goes about dung scraping every day eeking out a modest if precarious living.  George gets paid roughly 20 sid a day, enough for a half cup of dirty water and a cockroach kebab.

2. Bob is a butcher's assistant.  He struggles to survive.  His parents died, and all he has is his uncle's chalton butchery to work at, so he goes about lugging slabs of chalton around and cleaning the knives, cleaning blood from the abattoir in shambles, and he too eeks out a modest if precarious living.  Bob gets paid roughly 20 sid a day, enough for a half cup of dirty water and a cockroach kebab.

What's the difference between George The Gong Farmer and Bob The Butcher's Assistant?  Both might well develop as characters.  Both might well join a mercenary outfit, or beg, or whore themselves out for extra money to supplement their incomes.  Or not.  Both might well greb for salts and rocks or go to the rinth to strip bodies, or fall into crime.  Or not. Both might well engage in murder, corruption, and betrayal.  Or not. Both might interact with people outside their day job as well, developing romantic relationships, enmities, and so on.  Or not.  You might think that either would be dead boring to play, or ignored by the PC population; or you might love playing these two.

The only difference between the two is that George The Gong Farmer can whereas Bob The Butcher's Assistant cannot codedly survive, once their starter coin runs out, doing their job, the thing they claim they do for a living.  Bob will eventually starve to death whereas George will not, because George gets 20 actual (coded) coins a day and Bob gets 20 virtual coins a day.

All I'm saying is give Bob a chance! 

[Riev]

I'm not for a PC not needing to eat or drink. That removes a lot of poisoning possibilities.

However, I have to disagree with:

If your rancher isn't able to earn real sids from PCs, then you can take that as a sign that your character might not be suited to that type of work. That means - if it were made virtual, your character might still starve to death, because even the VNPCs aren't interested in what your character is offering.

If only because that pre-supposes that PCs are the market generators, the movers, the shakers, and the trendsetters. If you're a rancher, PCs may not want your services for a NUMBER of reasons, but the virtual population has different experiences, and needs. Someone who can provide a dozen shanks of chalton a week might find damned good work for a virtual butcher. But there may not be a PC butcher around at the time you're playing your Rancher, or there may be no PC butchers around at ALL.

Don't suppose that vNPC needs mirror PC needs, because PCs have a skillsheet and access to weapon skills and skinning.

[Lizzie]

I'm not for a PC not needing to eat or drink. That removes a lot of poisoning possibilities.

However, I have to disagree with:

If your rancher isn't able to earn real sids from PCs, then you can take that as a sign that your character might not be suited to that type of work. That means - if it were made virtual, your character might still starve to death, because even the VNPCs aren't interested in what your character is offering.

If only because that pre-supposes that PCs are the market generators, the movers, the shakers, and the trendsetters. If you're a rancher, PCs may not want your services for a NUMBER of reasons, but the virtual population has different experiences, and needs. Someone who can provide a dozen shanks of chalton a week might find damned good work for a virtual butcher. But there may not be a PC butcher around at the time you're playing your Rancher, or there may be no PC butchers around at ALL.

Don't suppose that vNPC needs mirror PC needs, because PCs have a skillsheet and access to weapon skills and skinning.

Then play a VNPC. I don't know what to tell you. This is a coded multiplayer game. If you want to play a virtual game, then play it virtually.

[Delirium]

This is a multiplayer ROLEPLAYING game, so you should be taking the virtual world into account when you roleplay.

[Lizzie]

This is a multiplayer ROLEPLAYING game, so you should be taking the virtual world into account when you roleplay.

Yes, and that includes getting paid virtual sids for virtual work that you use to feed and water your virtual self when you're not logged in playing your character - who is virtual during those hours.

If you want to bring the virtual world into the coded world, then you need to have the virtual world take the coded world into account when it appears. And that means - your whore who gets paid coded sids by virtual customers needs to be risking coded disease, coded muggings, coded robbery, coded killing. If you're not willing to bring that virtual world into your roleplay, then why do you think your character should be getting coded coins?

[Delirium]

I'm not arguing for getting coded coins for virtual work. I am arguing that the virtual world matters.

[Jherlen]

The uncertainty involved in having a virtual profession could be approximated by having a varying benefit, as has been suggested in various iterations on this proposal.

One month you made 200 coins from your virtual job. The next month you only made 100. Maybe you had less clients or maybe you got virtually ripped off or had unexpected virtual business expenses. Up to you to roleplay out.

The PC economy does not accurately reflect the overall economy of Zalanthas. It will never perfectly reflect it. That doesn't mean that PCs play by different rules than v/npcs do, it just means the code is imperfect.

[Grapes]

Alternate idea, make more coded "jobs" you can do. They won't pay much, but some NPCs will have interaction syntax, such as, "Work for vennant" or "work for butcher", possibly with a cooldown, where you are stuck in the room until job completion, and encouraged to emote your job out. I'm unsure how difficult that would be to code, however. Also, since the sharp-eyed prostitute seems to have gone missing, there'd probably have to be a brothel put in, possibly in the commoner's quarter.

I was thinking about how Sindome does flavor jobs, and thought it might be a good idea. Thoughts?

EDIT: Maybe not stuck in the room, but if you leave it before completion, you don't get paid.

[Cind]

I have an idea!

1. Add a two-room building in Allanak with the room title "A Red-Walled Brothel House." Not owned by Kurac, just a natural lifeform of a building that would have sprouted in the forest of Allanak anyway.
2. Code a couple of flavor npc whores and a third person to take your money to show you and your pc whore to a backroom with a bed. The first room and this would be the only two rooms.
3. You are done coding. Let the players do the rest.

What do you think? I feel like the less work it is to make, and the more likely it is that it should have been there in the first place, the more likely staff are to make it.

Would be a small payment, since you are already paying the whore pc.

[Classclown]

You could make it an actual clan, with an "owner" that is an NPC and a PC player who oversees the day
to day stuff, like, hiring whores and maybe musicians to play in the waiting room, with rooms upstairs
for each established whore, given a room to live in and do business in, and a dorm style room for the
"recruit whores". Free food and water, maybe a clothes bin, but no stipend. You have to pay a percentage
of your earnings to the house each month or half month,  like apartments, but not as much. That part
could be automated. Same rules, if you don't pay rent, you're kicked out of the room and are "demoted"
to dorm room whores. Maybe have a stump whore, a room with a very large bed for half-giant whores,
that'd be funny. Maybe have a special area for the elite/Highborn. I dunno.

I also think that some people bring real-world morality into the game, making whoring seem degrading. Whoring,
ig and by the docs, is as good a job as any other trade and sex itself isn't taken so serious. Also jealousy is
rare, but I get that we're human and sometimes that bleeds through. It's the social status of the whore
that marks their worth, a commoner whore being more reputable than say a rinth whore or breed whore. Don't
know if I ever saw a gemmed whore... Also, you get a lot of, "I don't need to pay for sex because I'm so incredibly
sexy myself.", from players. I've seen people try to "save" the whores. Captain Save a Ho suggests you join
a merchant house if you can craft or become an aide. Maybe I just wanna be a whore.

And sometimes ig whores just charge too damn much to the wrong customers. You're not going to get customers
charging a couple small to Bynners, especially Runners who barely make anything and only if they've got a crafting/thieving
subguild or a generous Sergeant. Pick a lane and stick with it, or gradually increase the influence of your character to
generate more demand and you can attract richer fish, or scrab, or whatever. Know your environment. Interbreeding is
a big nono, new players may not realize that whoring is a delicate matter and that once you're known to take other races,
especially if you're human and they are gemmed, breeds, sharps etc..., your stock might plummet fast. Unless you want
to be known for that, stick to your own race. It's not racist irl, just ig.

[ShaLeah]

Stop leaking my docs!

[deathkamon]

Just putting in my two 'sids into this since I've played a lot of the different roles being discussed in the thread in the past.

In order for a player with these sorts of flavor roles to actually get a decent pay from what they do (i.e.: from whoring, fortune telling, dancing, singing, etc.), they would have to contribute more than just what their flavor role is intended to do in order to get by. The only way that PCs with flavor roles can receive their payment to get by through the week is from other PCs giving them coin for what they do. Depending on what it is that your PC does, say that it's fortune telling, now it's a matter of getting enough player attention in order for them to be attracted to your offers, and that too affects your payment. This is how it's meant to be. Knowing how it is to play these sorts of flavor roles, especially when unclanned, the road is rugged and unclear, and again it makes sense.

There's no actual way for a flavor role to get into a coded clan which could help provide you with daily survival benefits like food and water, except if you were a whore for Kurac or had a knack in some crafting skill or otherwise. When speaking in an RP sense, this matches up too. For example, what sorts of benefits would House Kadius or House Kurac have for a firebreather if they can't, say, fill out armor orders? Maybe House Fale could get interested in hiring that firebreather for one of their bashful parties, but again, it's just for that one bashful party. That firebreather is on their own again after that, until they're called upon once more to spit oil from their mouths over a torch again at another time.

Player created clans can help fill this niche by allowing players to express themselves in this fashion, but if pure subsistence and independence is the goal, then a player made clan doesn't really do much to help. It's extremely difficult to play on pure independence, except if you happen to play the busty, thickly-set ranger mama or the honcho, youthful looking hunter stud. Even in those situations too, you will be judged for not being whore/ranger enough for so-and-so. The one viable solution to the subsistence situation for pure courtesans, whores and the like, as harsh as it may seem, would be to avoid subsistence as a whole. You need support from other players, whether it be from coded clans or player clans, in order to keep your PC's flavor role together. From personal experience, I know how it is when concerning this.

Zalanthas is a harsh world, what can I say? *shrug*

[Eyeball]

You could make it an actual clan, with an "owner" that is an NPC and a PC player who oversees the day
to day stuff, like, hiring whores and maybe musicians to play in the waiting room, with rooms upstairs
for each established whore, given a room to live in and do business in, and a dorm style room for the
"recruit whores". Free food and water, maybe a clothes bin, but no stipend. You have to pay a percentage
of your earnings to the house each month or half month,  like apartments, but not as much. That part
could be automated. Same rules, if you don't pay rent, you're kicked out of the room and are "demoted"
to dorm room whores. Maybe have a stump whore, a room with a very large bed for half-giant whores,
that'd be funny. Maybe have a special area for the elite/Highborn. I dunno.

This is an intriguing idea. A special sort of apartment complex for whores. Maybe have 'negotiate' and 'agree' commands in the front room so that a cut is automatically taken for the House.

[Fernandezj]

From all the rich PCs I've seen around since I started, I don't think we need to make more money easier to get. If anything, PCs should just be more willing to part with their money, rather than sit in silk in a bar described as full of piss and vomit and not even buy a drink.

[Veselka]

From all the rich PCs I've seen around since I started, I don't think we need to make more money easier to get. If anything, PCs should just be more willing to part with their money, rather than sit in silk in a bar described as full of piss and vomit and not even buy a drink.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Most PCs I see that have money throw it around like it was candy, and those that don't hoard it for one reason or another I can't understand.

[BadSkeelz]

Remember also that coin is heavy, that weight is bad in combat, and there is much reduced crimcode at night.

[LucildaHunta]

From all the rich PCs I've seen around since I started, I don't think we need to make more money easier to get. If anything, PCs should just be more willing to part with their money, rather than sit in silk in a bar described as full of piss and vomit and not even buy a drink.

Thank you!