Subsistence level work for courtesans, whores and the like?

[Kankfly]

Why don't we just create a PC and work toward such a goal (ie. brothel) IC? Player clans are more easily accessible now thanks to staff making it possible to actually create player clans.

[Veselka]

Because it'll take a while.

[Riev]

Why don't we just create a PC and work toward such a goal (ie. brothel) IC? Player clans are more easily accessible now thanks to staff making it possible to actually create player clans.

Because it'll take a while.

This. Its not that it ISN'T possible, its that a "player clan" needs to be capable of making an incredible amount of coin to pay of the right people, pay taxes, etc, before even getting to the point of a "Warehouse" or physical space that could even be reasonably used for such a venture.

In game, any such venture wouldn't last that long without someone bankrolling the entire thing (Noble sponsorship) or something that would end up not feeling like the PC in charge was really in charge. It is a change that would take something like 6 RL months on the same PC, doing the same RP around the same OTHER PCs that all have the goal or the comfort of being an in game whore for 6 RL months.

Its untenable and an unrealistic expectation. Its possible, but as a previous topic mentioned, two clans have gotten beyond owning a big warehouse, and one of them was a staff plot to introduce a new product in the game. So, a Player Clan whorehouse is likely only going to last as long as there is a PC willing to be a whore and if they die, the clan is dead. 6 hunters can get together and do fun stuff. 6 whores don't usually get together without it being a Fale party.

[nauta]

As someone else mentioned, while pursuing an MMH brothel or cheese shop or whatever is definitely an option for someone who wants to play a character who runs and owns a brothel or a cheese shop, the proposal on offer here with a 'Profession' sub-guild is for someone who wants to play a character who is an employee in some virtual brothel, cheese shop, bar, etc.  These are paradigmatic flavor PCs, and I really like the proposal, to repeat (since it got pagerolled):

Subclass: Professional

Description: You have skills that earn you enough coin to get by, but that aren't represented in the coded reality of the game. You might be in construction, whoring, cleaning, farming or any number of other occupations that have no coded skill attached to them.

Skills: Scant, maybe none at all.
Special Abilities: You do not need to eat or drink while you are in a populated  area and/or you receive a small stipend each month from a virtual or coded paymaster.  Some qualifications would apply: you would forfeit the stipend if you join a clan, for instance.

[Barzalene]

My initial thought is that if our tag line is Harsh Desert Planet we don't need to make things easier for service industry professions. Having your drinks fetched and your jollies jollies is not at the base of the heirarchy of needs. If you make more as a provider of substance or protector that seems right thematically. I think the flavor roles are awesome, but if they're seasoned with hunger and dispare that's probably right.

[Akariel]

Its untenable and an unrealistic expectation. Its possible, but as a previous topic mentioned, two clans have gotten beyond owning a big warehouse, and one of them was a staff plot to introduce a new product in the game. So, a Player Clan whorehouse is likely only going to last as long as there is a PC willing to be a whore and if they die, the clan is dead. 6 hunters can get together and do fun stuff. 6 whores don't usually get together without it being a Fale party.

What? That's not even remotely true. Multiple clans have gotten warehouses, and exactly zero of them were staff plots that got new products into the game. Which is what was stated in another thread. It's also not very hard to get a warehouse (or other building in lieu of a warehouse). It costs a minimum of 3500 coins, which isn't quite as much as you think once you start hiring people to make you money.

Also it takes ~45 days for a player clan to get a warehouse if they're sending in regular reports and letting us know what's going on. Not six months.

[Riev]

My numbers were exaggerated, yes, but I said "BEYOND" owning a warehouse. Plenty of people, as you've stated, have gotten to the Warehouse stage but it seems they mysteriously stop or don't get beyond that point.

~45 days, with regular reports. Is that from Character Creation, or from the time they've established an idea/created a product/identified a need in game? Because if you're a merchant, selling New Fiddly-Doos, you need to spend at least 30days between grinding the skill and mastercrafting an item. If you're providing a service, it takes more than 0-days to establish yourself as a provider of that service.

So. Yes. My numbers are exaggerated, but yours seem a bit biased as well. 45 days to get a warehouse, give or take, from the time a PC is in a position to start requesting.

[Akariel]

From the time you start down the player clan path, as can be seen in the helpfile HELP PLAYER-CREATED CLANS.

http://armageddon.org/help/view/Player-Created%20Clans

[Riev]

Yes. What I'm saying (and its for another thread) is that "it only takes 45 days" is a bit of an incorrect phrase, because it only takes 45 days once you're in a position to start the journey.

So. No. It doesn't take 4 months to start the journey. As I admitted, my numbers were exaggerated. However, it doesn't take a month and a half to get a warehouse, either. Its somewhere in the middle.

[Feco]

You're wrong.  You can start right out if char gen.  All it takes is a request that says "I want to start the player clan process with X in mind," and you need to ICly register with the powers that be.

I've been a part of this process and it's essentially painless.  It takes all of 5 minutes OOC to start the process.

If I wanted to start a new PC and get a warehouse in ~45 days, I have no doubt I could do it (barring IC circumstances).

[nauta]

I too have started the process out of chargen with the 45 day aim.  (I died on day 43.  Sue me.)

One thing that might be tripping you up, Riev, here, is that you don't need the cash for the warehouse until that 45 day point, so you have 45 days from chargen to build up those skills and contacts and so on and make the cash to pay off the templar / rinthers or whoever at that 45 day mark.

Even so, the profession sub-guild being discussed is more of a niche role for someone not interested in making a warehouse or company, but interested in playing a flavor role employee to a virtual boss, etc.  (As mentioned.)

[LucildaHunta]

I have to admit. I'm reeeeeally super interested in attempting something like this. I still think it would be better served as something staff created, like the Dust Runners. I can't believe it's something people would want to play all the time, yet it has the potential to be something extremely powerful. Something like this would be doable with 5 or 6 pcs that were committed to making it real and it would probably need something more than a family rollcall and a killer of prostitutes would show up at some point. One of the pitfalls of a player created house would be that it would need someone or something's support at least initially. That's how corruption works, a little   quid pro quo.

In a world of murder, corruption and betrayal...*record skips*

Actually, I think in a world like zalanthas particularly a city like Allanak a cathouse would thrive. Historically they always have existed and existed even in places where the sex trade doesn't exist like the Middle East and really harsh bleak places as well. People may be poor and desperate, but they tend to find money for things like that.

Yeah....I've been reading up on this. The most important thing is does staff think something like that has a place in the world?

[ShaLeah]

I think the flavor roles are awesome, but if they're seasoned with hunger and dispare that's probably right.

This. A million times this.

Why don't we just create a PC and work toward such a goal (ie. brothel) IC? Player clans are more easily accessible now thanks to staff making it possible to actually create player clans.

Because it'll take a while.

So, a Player Clan whorehouse is likely only going to last as long as there is a PC willing to be a whore and if they die, the clan is dead.

Is Tor dead? Is Valika dead? Is Voryek dead? Just because an established/licensed/permitted doesn't have PCs it doesn't mean the clan dies. How many times have there been role calls? How many times has Tor closed? Most (MOST) of the documented Houses do NOT have players running them. If a player succeeded in starting this kind of place and it comes with buildings and docs and such there's no reason to have it shut down like it never existed.

In MY opinion the fact that we do NOT have a clan supporting the 'sexual' mentality on Arm is one of the reasons why whore characters have it hard and are shamed.

I have to admit. I'm reeeeeally super interested in attempting something like this.

I too have started the process out of chargen with the 45 day aim.  (I died on day 43.  Sue me.)

We need a clan to support this. It's one of the things I've wanted to change in the gameworld because until there's a clan for it there doesn't seem to be a player supported mindset.

Please keep images SFW.

Guess the below images aren't so SFW! Consider yourselves warned before clicking!


https://media.giphy.com/media/BFUcLd6fk1Us0/giphy.gif


Let's make it happen. Ginka's Angels right here.

https://media.giphy.com/media/21wShClZnL4KQ/giphy.gif

[Akariel]

Please keep images SFW.

[LucildaHunta]

Shaleah ....you are evil! I think this is a much more interesting hill to die on than the one I'm currently dying on.

[ShaLeah]

Shaleah ....you are evil! I think this is a much more interesting hill to die on than the one I'm currently dying on.

I have docs. Just sayin'.

[Armaddict]

I don't feel particularly strongly about this idea, but I lean slightly towards the negative as far as more subsistence work; we already have subsistence work in place, and as far as early survival, I view that as the exact same struggle anyone who's non-clanned goes through.

The recurring trend with my unclanned PC's is struggling to make ends meet and 'become relavent' until the big break happens.  Sometimes, the big break is as simple as unlocking a certain skill that is, in and of itself, capable of giving you continued sustenance.  More often, it comes through a social connection that suddenly opens a lot of doors and 'opens' the social/political world, and all the opportunities contained therein.

Often, this fails.  You're forced into risks to survive.  And I actually love that, and think it's a great part of the game...it's just that sometimes, it doesn't pan out and you don't survive, or survival pushes you into some things that you didn't plan on and changes your role.  And that's A-OK for me.

[Synthesis]

I think that ultimately the pushback against having a faucet that's amenable to sex-work roles largely has to do with the perceived low risk:reward ratio of the proposed faucets (more about that, later), and to a lesser extent the idea that people who would -like- to play these roles (RP-heavy) don't want to feel like they're playing within a sink-faucet construct (even though a "pure" service role like this is plumbing taking advantage of high-output faucets tailored to other roles).

At this point, you cannot make an honest argument about risk:reward ratio of a resource faucet for sex work, because no particular system with a firm set of variables from which you could make predictions about risk:reward has been proposed.  Really, all you can do is shake your fist against the faucet-sink paradigm (which is pointless, because all available evidence indicates that it isn't going away).

The faucet could be adjusted such that the risk:reward ratio is in-line with other available subsistence-level faucets.  You can argue about what parameters would yield that result, but hyperbolic arguments about a particular faucet eliminating struggle and risk are either disingenuous or ill-considered.

I think the best starting point (even though we're now 4 pages into the discussion) isn't pro/con--it's to outline the types of risks and rewards, and how they could be adjusted, because the only "con" argument that has any value at the moment is the purely opinion-based "automated resource faucets are shit" argument.

Risks:
1.  Getting mugged/shaken down
2.  Venereal disease
3.  Opportunity cost of more lucrative endeavors (i.e. time)
4.  Non-skill-based, so you aren't getting better at anything on your skill sheet

Rewards:
1.  Coins
2.  Indoor location (less thirst loss)
3.  Central location, so you're easier for other PCs to find for other employment

[Is Friday]

Yeah, where's the virtual pimp to collect your sid? It's kinda like a clan pay NPC, but he instead stalks you like Twitchy demanding his monthly due. If you miss 2x in a row he saps you next time you're in the street at night.

[Jherlen]

One thing I noticed playing a whore is that the meta-economics of the game tend to drive you toward the mid to upper-class reaches of social strata. Here's bit of Whore Economics 101, based again on my personal experience. Disclaimer: YMMV, I'm sure some people were able to pull this off over the years. But in general, it feels like you either hit a point where you need to pick up a second source of income because whoring doesn't pay it, or you need to become a classy whore.

There's a limited pool of PCs in the city at any one time who could be potential clients. Typically any one PC won't want to hire/pay you every single RL day, so you need multiple paying clients to support your needs like food/water/apartment. The kind of PCs that you would think would want to hit you up for a quick 50-100 sid kank are also the kind of PCs that don't always have money to spend on you. It usually takes a bit of time investment just to land a PC client, and then depending on if that PC wants the full monte or is fine with a fade, it takes time to service them too. If you can't play at peak times, you'll have a harder time earning money than if you can. And so on. If you're making social connections, you don't always need to pay for food and water and such, but then you end up socially connected to PCs who can support you. Depending on who those patrons are, you may or may not end up inching up the ladder anyway based on your relationship with them.

All of this means that you could easily run into a situation where you're making less money per hour than your character needs to survive. If you're trying to play a low-class whore on the low end of the totem pole (i.e. your target market is Byn Runners and grebbers vs. aides and merchants), it could be tricky to find the right balance where you can make enough coin based on your profession to get by. Yet most of those factors are OOC ones based on the habits of PCs, and not IC ones based on the game world itself. 

There could be more of a middle ground between whores aiming for low-class PCs and running on the borderline of starvation and inviability, or getting classy and aiming for PCs who can pay 200+ coins an engagement and thereby pay off your food and water bills. We know lower class whores and barmaids and so on exist based on frequent references in the setting, though. I'm guessing that most of those virtual people don't have to take up second jobs as a salt forager or dung scraper just to make ends meet.

So I'm in favor of some sort of sustainment faucet for lower-class social PCs. Something should allow PCs to earn enough off the virtual population to get by and not much more. Trading a subguild slot for a virtual social profession that earns you 50 coins an RL day seems like a fair trade that certainly won't get anybody ahead, but will make those roles more playable.

[Armaddict]

I'm guessing that most of those virtual people don't have to take up second jobs as a salt forager or dung scraper just to make ends meet.

I'm not really sure I like the justification of 'virtual population does this so I should be able to, too', particularly when it's on an assumption that the majority of them are getting by on only that in the first place.

However, as I said, I'm not exactly strongly against this, just...wary of that same old thing where I don't want survival to be easy enough that people avoid strife and risk because they don't need to do it.

[Eyeball]

Daily allowance of coins or just no need to eat or drink in cities while unclanned?

I favor the latter. It somewhat addresses peoples' concern about risk/reward. You're not risking, but you're not getting *any* reward beyond pure survival, and that's at the cost of subguild skills you could have had. You're still going to have to succeed with PCs in your flavor role to have anything at all, even just a bead anklet.

You could argue we already have this in game in a sense. When you're logged out, there's no risk and you don't have to pay for food/drink/shelter.

So why not just extend that to logged in times instead of forcing flavor role characters to log in only at the peak times they can earn a living? Instead of forcing them to do tricks like logging in, looking into a tavern, then logging out if few are there, just to save on costs?

The problem I foresee with a coin allowance is that casual players will log in once and a while and suddenly have a large in coins, whereas active players will barely get by.

[Jherlen]

I'm guessing that most of those virtual people don't have to take up second jobs as a salt forager or dung scraper just to make ends meet.

I'm not really sure I like the justification of 'virtual population does this so I should be able to, too', particularly when it's on an assumption that the majority of them are getting by on only that in the first place.

Why not? If the virtual population is "only just" able to get by in a certain profession, I'd say make it possible and realistic for PCs to "only just" get by in the same way. Do you think it's an unrealistic assumption that bartenders can be just bartenders or whores can be just whores or crappy fortune tellers can be just crappy fortune tellers? I'd prefer to think of the game world in that way rather than assuming every commoner is taking up some kind of gathering or foraging or grebbing job on the side.

[Armaddict]

Why not?

Because it's using presupposition.  It's promoting an idea based off a lot of nothing.

For example.  You're supposing that because the word 'prostitute' is in echoes, that such is their vocation by profession rather than by necessity.  You're supposing that they -are- getting by off of it.  You're supposing that it's not a cycling population represented by a generic echo.  You're supposing that all of them have a sufficient clientele, and that none of them are suffering.  You're supposing that none of them have to shift out into new avenues to make it work.

You're just supposing a whole lot of different things based off of room echoes.  It's not really...that necessary.  I mean...the whole reason that the struggle is there in the first place is supposedly because there's not a huge 'market' of players who want to indulge in that particular exchange of coin.  So why create this support/backing for it?  Just so people can say they're a whore or prostitute?  Just because you read some echoes and decided it shouldn't be tough to pull off as a result?

Edit:  Again.  If it gets put in, I'm not going to flip out about it.  It's not game-breaking.  But I -am- curious if this is indicative of the direction that people want to move into.  Does this spread over into other virtual professions as well?  Do burglars gain virtual apartments to profit from?  Do muggers gain virtual marks to stalk?  Do we allow for the virtual income of whoring to yield no result, indicating a lack of payment and thus, a rape?   Should soldiers be able to forage for virtual criminals? Further on, do we use virtuality and flavor echoes throughout the game as backbones for arguments of content for the PC population from here on out?

We have built in systems that allow for scrounging by.  Some are more risky than others, but they are base-level actions that can, at least somewhat, provide for the PC economy.  If we start moving up the 'levels' of non-contributory income, where exactly are we planning on stopping?

[Jherlen]

Not getting hung up on the individual profession of whore/prostitute might open up a different angle of thinking.

Let's start from a premise of: "Is _____ a profession that does/should exist in the game, is it thematic and appropriate for PCs, and does it have coded support to make it viable?"

Most hunting, gathering, crafting, fighting, and thieving professions check all those boxes already. Burglars don't need a hand up surviving because they're plenty viable as they are today. Muggers have plenty of PCs and NPCs to mug. No further support is needed to realize the virtual world in order to support those roles.

Consider if you pulled out the salting/clay foraging/dung sweeping code back out of the game, though. It would be much more difficult for PCs to subsist and play the role of a true honest-to-god grebber, because the game wouldn't reward them for grebbing and they need some sort of income or support to survive. So anyone trying to roleplay a "grebber" would have to turn to something else, like hunting, to support themselves. Soon your longer-lived "grebbers" would end up pretty good hunters by virtue of having to codedly do that while roleplaying a grebber, even if all they wanted to do was play a dirty old grebber.

We know grebbers should exist in the game by virtue of plenty of echoes, documentation, room descriptions, npcs and other thematic elements. Furthermore, we want them to exist, because it's a role that helps personify the risk and struggle and harsh life to get by in Zalanthas. So it makes sense to let players play a PC as a grebber if that's what they want, and the coded systems allow you some help getting by while you do that.

Now again, consider barmaids, fortune tellers, street performers, nursemaids, tattooists, whores, and so on - these are all "service" professions that we know exist in the world, are in theme, and are plenty common based on npcs, room echoes, descriptions etc -- definitely more than "a lot of nothing". Whether these professions can get by solely on their trade alone or whether they're suffering or not, they exist, and it's difficult for PCs to play them without having to become something else too. They should still struggle, but it's certainly possible to devise a system that supports these roles existing in some way while still struggling, vs. the difficulty of today which is closer to "nonviable" than it is to "struggle".

Do we want to allow those kinds of small-time common social roles to be viable in the game? Why not? It'd be nice to see more plain ol' common folk and not have to assume they're supporting themselves via theft or spying or worse. In the same way playing a grebber helps personify the harsh struggle of surviving in the wilderness, playing a city-based social role helps personify that a good chunk of the people living in Allanak are just city commoners who live common lives in the city and plenty have never even been beyond the gates at all. It closes the gap between what we see happening in the V/NPC world, and what we as players can live out as PCs. Allowing for more common-ness so that all the social roles aren't clustered toward the higher end of the spectrum is a good thing, isn't it?