The Rinth Needs Teeth

[number13]

As a disclaimer, I haven't actually played in the Guild itself for over a RL year.

The Great Merchant Houses get giant bankrolls, a bunch of stuff stored in their compounds, and the ability to craft special goods. The Arm of the Dragon gets the coded support of the crime code. It's very easy for a templar or solider with rank to throw their weight around, especially within Allanak's walls. Even the Byn gets a nice safe compound filled with NPCs, and they tend to have a large player population, some of those PCs exceptionally tough.

The Guild gets, for practical purposes, nothing. Yes, there are Guild locations and Guild NPCs, but they are far from secure. Theoretically, you could gank a Guild boss right in the middle of their turf and get away laughing, easily. The only retribution being...hopefully another Guild player has twinked up backstab and bothers to go get revenge.

Eastside gets less than nothing, since it doesn't even have an open clan.

Ignoring eastside for a minute, let's just take the example of the Guild. There's nothing about the Guild that gives an Infiltrator or Miscreant or Fence an advantage over a counterpart working for a Great Merchant House. In fact, if your goal was to be a great assassin or thief, you'd be better off clanning with a Great Merchant House or Noble House or even the Byn. It's pretty common for would-be assassins to go to the Byn for sparring practice, and then maybe come back home all twinked up. That's backwards -- the best criminals should be the lifers who are in the Rinth full time.

Imagine how ridiculous it would if Artisans got special perks for joining the Guild -- fancy items that could be crafted only by Guild members, but the same advantage did not exist in the GMHs. If you wanted to be the best Artisan, you'd have to join the Guild -- nonsensical. That's the situation today for criminal classes working for the Arm, with their crime code immunity -- a better perk than the Guild, by far.

I offer the following as potential solutions:

1: There should exist a supply of special materials dispensed from an NPC that only the Guild or theoretical elf clans can get ahold of...and use to any benefit.  Say there's a special Guild poison and Guild lockpick and Guild smuggling gear. For example, perhaps there's a Guild NPC that will taint a blade with a much stronger version of bloodburn.

2: There could be a WANTED flag for the westside and a WANTED flag for the eastside. Crimes would be attacking clanned PCs or NPCs, or entering certain locations without being clanned. If flagged, it makes tough NPCs with max scan aggro.  Some of these NPCs should even be on the southside, in appropriate locations. Members of the Arm of the Dragon clan always have this flag. People who become known as working for templars -- ie, aides, soldiers -- get the flag and never lose it without being pardoned by a PC or NPC with appropriate rank.

In that regard, guild bosses could and should be the templars of the westside.

3: Right now apartments on the southside are useless as storage units, because lockpicks have become so common. In addition to making Allanak more a wasteland, as hoarder-type people flee out to places where lockpicks are less common, this is a problem for the Guild, because traditionally one of their rackets was protection schemes.

Firstly, lockpicks should break more often. Even on a successful use, their quality should be degrade, every time.

Secondly, only members of the Guild or a theoretical elf clan should be able to make lockpicks of average quality or better. Nonclanned characters should be stuck making super shitty lockpicks. A certain shop should have all it's potentially good lockpicks removed from it's loot table, and replaced with all crap lockpicks.

This would give criminal organizations more control over who has a lockpick, and make protection schemes feasible again.

4: The Guild, in particular, under certain circumstances, should be able to buy crime-code immunity, representing bribes paid to the common solider by the organization. (with abuse resulting in character storage)

[Derain]

Couple thoughts:
1. The guild gets an entire part of the city to run and hide in from the arm if they do a crime.
2.IIRC you get assisted if near certain guild clanned NPCs
3. pretty sure the guild has something pick wise not going into it.
4. No picks should be made by others but the guild should find out who and break their legs. IT GIVES THEM SOMETHING TO DO.

[WarriorPoet]

I have tried to get a few Guild characters going over the last few years. I dig the wild west, no frills experience of making your way up without much npc/stsff/whatever assists. My main problem....

Playing a law-dog requires a happy medium. You might have the authority and resources to hassle every elf or stranger, but, as kahuna said, that is going to stifle your criminal element badly even without automating the process. You want someone to play off of.

Snatching up every rinthi or traveller you see is going to net you a handful of petty crap. Giving them the freedom and rope to hang themselves with, and you get to catch them with a pocket nuke AND Lady Borsail's panties.

I wish we, as players, could wink at a few smaller crimes for the sake of letting the rinthi element get going. I played two militia leaders and had so much more fun working with and against well established criminal elements rather than red flagging every urchin I found with a pick or a grain of smoke.

[Lutagar]

'Rinth players have the biggest advantage of every location on the game map - a safe way to practice combat skills, back-stab and sap on humanoid npcs with zero consequences. It's only unsafe if another play chooses to make it so.

[number13]

3. pretty sure the guild has something pick wise not going into it.

You might be right, but if it exists, I've never heard of it or seen it.

4. No picks should be made by others but the guild should find out who and break their legs. IT GIVES THEM SOMETHING TO DO.

It's impossible/too annoying to control with any success. It's too easy for someone to roll around off-peak. The proof is in the pudding -- apartments in Allanak are a wasteland. Most room aren't rented, and even those that are end up opened without even a courtesy re-locking afterwards.

[number13]

'Rinth players have the biggest advantage of every location on the game map - a safe way to practice combat skills, back-stab and sap on humanoid npcs with zero consequences. It's only unsafe if another play chooses to make it so.

There's humanoid opponents in the Pah and other wilderness locations that you can backstab and sap. You can do the same in cities/towns at night.

And nothing aside from other PCs stops southsiders from rolling into the Rinth to practice their backstab and sap. There's nothing special about the Guild that gives them an advantage in this regard.

Nothing aside from staff animation stops the Arm of the Dragon or the Byn from just rolling through the Rinth and annihilating everything. It's only player restraint that prevents templar PCs and combat-trained soldiers from personally rolling through and slaughtering every last single Rinthi PC as they pop up. It would take just one PC to get the job done, really.

[Mr.B]

The Guild does get some perks compared to the average 'rinth dweller and as mentioned previously there are NPC's that are in with the power Westside. If you want the Guild to somehow provide you the ability to safely sap and backstab, pick locks etc, you don't want to be a criminal. It's a crime syndicate, it's not a GMH full of vnpc crafters and vendors all over the known. There is a certain level of risk associated with the activities mentioned for any character, especially to a 'rinther outside of the Labyrinth.

While nothing aside from PC's or Staff Animation curbs crazed PC's from murdering people in the streets of the Labyrinth for next to no reason, that tends to be enough to get noticed by either party and there could be consequences that result from it.

That's backwards -- the best criminals should be the lifers who are in the Rinth full time.

Guess what, they actually are. Being a great criminal in my opinion depends as much on soft skills as hard-coded skills in game. If you manage to become a long-lived, established criminal figure in the lawless alleys of the Labyrinth then you've probably become knowledgeable on the region and have learned and applied a number of soft skills to get there that are infinitely more valuable then a few twinked skills on one character.

[kahuna]

Probably an unpopular opinion but I rarely have fun in the labyrinth. There are just way too many glaring fallacies all over the place in there it's an illogical mess.

[Bebop]

Just came here to say I agree. The Guild is usually looked at as whatever rag tag crew is going on at the time.  There's a reason the Guild is an institution.  It is not one person.  It is a major criminal institution and there should be fiscal and deadly consequences if you take up arms or campaign openly against it.  You wouldn't just kill a Garrison Sergeant in Luir's with no consequences, but ... the Guild seems to be the exception.  More often than not it just ends up a puppeted extension of southside factions seen as powerful as the one person leading it at whatever point in time.

The Guild will always exist and it will be running the crimes it is infamous for running.  However, more often than not lately,  The Guild is just treated like one commoner and whatever their OOC skills maybe.   I have never really played Eastside so I can't speak to that. 

But overall, yeah.  I wish there were consequences IG to make is so that the Guild could sustain its independence and wouldn't be so reliant on finding someone who has lived long enough to insta-kill.  The Guild is organized crime.  Insta-kill should not be the only real, tangible threat.  Even someone who has obtained insta-kill can then be insta-killed in kind without any real saves. 

When a leader in a major House dies there's always consequences.  The only consequences in the Guild are 1) you wait a long time to get a new boss/trade going 2) you like the next boss a little more or less.  The insta-kill nuke arsenal diminishes the game highly for me as someone who is primarily focused on RP.  It's basically like the Guild is not really this feared tribe calling from inside the house.

On the flip side, I for one, don't want to see the Guild overly policed in everything it can and can't do to the point it basically becomes another merchant House except its just the sneaky one.

Edited to Add - I really like the idea of a wanted flag for West and Eastside as well as Guild NPCs sprinkled throughout the relevant areas.  If you want to attack Guilders on their own turf there should be a really good chance you may not make it out of the rinth alive.

Edited to Add Also - What WarriorPoet said but we all know that I am not about instakilling everything and everyone.

[ShaLeah]

I'm gonna passive aggressively "be the change" here.  PC Guilders can change the world IC. Do it.

[MeTekillot]

The problem is that the virtual world backing up the PC Guilders isn't properly represented as it is with other heavy-hitter clans, as you can read in the OP.

[number13]

I have never really played Eastside so I can't speak to that. 

Playing on eastside in the modern era is Arm on hard mode. You have little staff support/oversight, no available player clans, an entire city that more or less hates you, and OOCly and ICly all you can really count on is your own wits.

It's actually fun, right up until the point when you start feeling like you'd like to be more involved in plots. Elves die like kankflys, so it's even harder to get something going than it is in a clan setting. And there's no OOC ability to coordinate even, like with the Guild's GDB.

It's a very much "make your own fun" kind of place, but sometimes that fun can be really, really fun. It feels like a massive accomplishment when you actually manage to achieve a goal (beyond just looting for coins).

[LindseyBalboa]

Still very new to Arm compared to the people that've been here half a decade, or twenty years. But the 'rinth is one of my favorite places to play. It definitely does not have the staff/clan support that I've gotten playing elsewhere, though. No Elf clan, and the Guild has very little resources for a recruit. A boost to either or both of these issues would be amazing and help with the replayability of the area.

[Riev]

The problem is that the virtual world backing up the PC Guilders isn't properly represented as it is with other heavy-hitter clans, as you can read in the OP.

I've had staffers promise the 'virtual backup if needed' a few times, but it never came to fruition. Staff-land requires DAYS to get to reports, read, respond, etc. Player-land changes by the god-damned minute. Its not staff's FAULT, but there should be something that helps police the Mafia's backyard.

There are a lot of things that could be done, ICly, to make these changes. The problem is, they require the Bebop "one-hitter" types to be both available and highly active in order to spread that fear and concern.

I've griped about it for years (imagine that). People resort to "kill them" over "steal their shit" every single time, because its actually EASIER to hit someone with peraine than it is to steal their favorite spice pipe. Its easier to just kill someone, than it is to send someone to break their fingers for stealing your song.

A lot of the Guild/Criminal Element relies on other players, and frankly, you have to be very lucky to find the 10% of people who will play along.

[Krath]

I tend to agree with a lot of the points brought up on here.

1. I believe a West/East side wanted flag would be a solid addition to the rinth. I grew up in the hood, literally one of the shittiest towns in america. One thing that was real was street justice. Bebop, Riev, Number13, LindseyBalboa. Mr.B and I may not get along, but if Shabago and Fehu come in from the burbs and fucks with them or their business, you bet your ass we are all banding together to fuck them up, and letting every street corner, dealer, runner, shop owner etc know about it and to be on the look out.

2. All the Guild is really are, oocly, contract killers. No one cares about spice, with the exception of Muls. Warspices do not provide enough benefit to outway the negatives. No Commoner is going to risk the templarz of doom coming down on you like you killed a fucking noble or hooking you for the rest of your pc like for having a grain or pinch of spice on you.  I am not about complaining without providing a possible solution so see below:
         
                         A) Make Spice Great again Proposal: Snorting a pinch of warspice should give +5 to stats, for 10-15 minutes max, afterwards you suffer huge set backs for double the time.  This allows the Guild to actually sell something that makes a huge difference, because right now the benefits are meh. Additionally, if you continue to snort pinch after pinch, it just extends the length of your benefit by 5 mins. Do not snort too much, because addition is a bitch, and that slippery line between addiction and non-addition is thin. Basically, they should be very potent and not last very long but kick like a fucking mule with withdrawal.

3. Lockpicks need to break much more frequently and are always degrading after use, just less by a master/expert. Also, making sure the right QUALITY of pick is being used with the correct Lock would be helpful. Lady Templar Sanvean's gold plated, double locked chest, if you do not have an uber quality pick, and master lock picking skill, you should not be able to pick the lock. Maybe those quality picks are gated behind Guild-clanned pick makers or pick making machines. Master lock pickers and pick makers should be coveted positions.

[mansa]

3. Lockpicks need to break much more frequently and are always degrading after use, just less by a master/expert. Also, making sure the right QUALITY of pick is being used with the correct Lock would be helpful. Lady Templar Sanvean's gold plated, double locked chest, if you do not have an uber quality pick, and master lock picking skill, you should not be able to pick the lock. Maybe those quality picks are gated behind Guild-clanned pick makers or pick making machines. Master lock pickers and pick makers should be coveted positions.

FYI.
Only FENCE gets master pick making - which is a solid crafter skillset.
Pilferer and Miscreant get it to ADVANCED.
Infiltrator gets it to JOURNEYMAN.

[Riev]

3. Lockpicks need to break much more frequently and are always degrading after use, just less by a master/expert. Also, making sure the right QUALITY of pick is being used with the correct Lock would be helpful. Lady Templar Sanvean's gold plated, double locked chest, if you do not have an uber quality pick, and master lock picking skill, you should not be able to pick the lock. Maybe those quality picks are gated behind Guild-clanned pick makers or pick making machines. Master lock pickers and pick makers should be coveted positions.

FYI.
Only FENCE gets master pick making - which is a solid crafter skillset.
Pilferer and Miscreant get it to ADVANCED.
Infiltrator gets it to JOURNEYMAN.

It may be more about the recipes, then.
Jman Pick Making can create an "average" quality pick.
Advanced/Master pick can open basically any door in the city with that. Doors you can't open, come with repercussions for trying in the first place, and you're likely to be caught by vNPCS.

I'd suggest that the quality of the pick denotes which locks can be picked, and the lockpicker's skill denotes how rapidly they decline in quality.

[number13]

Dealing spice is a joke, for so many reasons.  Chief among them, the effects don't last very long, and price is too high. (both in terms of potential for addiction and the actual coin cost of it).

I wish spice did something cool, like so cool that it's a threat to the city-state's power. Like temporary psionic powers levels of cool. If [whatever flavor] let you listen in on Wayed conversations, at the price of addiction, we'd see a a lot of addict Aides fiending for their hits. If [whatever flavor] gave you short burst of STUN or MOVE hyper-regeneration, then hunters and Bynnies would be crying for the stuff.

Couple it with nerf of addiction. Addiction should mostly be echos until your character has been in withdrawal for a while.

[Bebop]

The problem is that the virtual world backing up the PC Guilders isn't properly represented as it is with other heavy-hitter clans, as you can read in the OP.

There are a lot of things that could be done, ICly, to make these changes. The problem is, they require the Bebop "one-hitter" types to be both available and highly active in order to spread that fear and concern.

Bebop whaty-whats?

[ShaLeah]

Dealing spice is a joke, for so many reasons.  Chief among them, the effects don't last very long, and price is too high. (both in terms of potential for addiction and the actual coin cost of it).

I wish spice did something cool, like so cool that it's a threat to the city-state's power. Like temporary psionic powers levels of cool. If [whatever flavor] let you listen in on Wayed conversations, at the price of addiction, we'd see a whole fucking shitload of addict Aides fiending for their hits. If [whatever flavor] gave you short burst of STUN or MOVE hyper-regeneration, then hunters and Bynnies would be crying for the stuff.

Couple it with nerf of addition's effects. Addition should mostly be echos until your character has been in withdrawal for a while.

This isn't even on topic.

[Hauwke]

Dealing spice is a joke, for so many reasons.  Chief among them, the effects don't last very long, and price is too high. (both in terms of potential for addiction and the actual coin cost of it).

I wish spice did something cool, like so cool that it's a threat to the city-state's power. Like temporary psionic powers levels of cool. If [whatever flavor] let you listen in on Wayed conversations, at the price of addiction, we'd see a whole fucking shitload of addict Aides fiending for their hits. If [whatever flavor] gave you short burst of STUN or MOVE hyper-regeneration, then hunters and Bynnies would be crying for the stuff.

Couple it with nerf of addition's effects. Addition should mostly be echos until your character has been in withdrawal for a while.

This isn't even on topic.

I would call it vaguely on topic. Like tangentially on topic, but barely.

They are right though, spice rots too quick to store it for any period of useful time. That hurts both supplier and demand. You the buyer only get it after the Guild has had sitting and slowly rotting away.

This causes the problem of it being another way that they have been vaguely nerfed as a clan, you can't deliver on an entire side of the business if your product rots 2 days after you sell it. It's unsustainable, people won't continue to buy.

That all said, I do love the idea of being wanted in the side you aren't meant to be on. Dirty elves shouldn't be traipsing around the west side willy-nilly. Same goes for the filthy humans and the East side.

[Bebop]

I've also been pondering this a lot since my return to the game.

I feel like something, somewhere has been lost and I can not place my finger on it.

The threat of insta-kill looms large right now, and it has since my return to the game.  Insta-kill seems like game god, and I don't recall this being the dynamic years ago.  I played since 2004 and before my hiatus I had only been insta-killed once ever in my several years of play (by a bard in Tuluk).  This isn't just a problem in the rinth.  It's a problem to the game in general.  I find my leader characters trepidatious to go outside of their respective compounds if they are anything but a yes man to every powerful player in the game.  By powerful player that could mean a noble or that could just mean a hunter who's capable of getting a very nefarious poison.

So this basically cultivates "safe" game play.  And this isn't just a problem codedly.  It leaks into problems socially.  It dilutes the story.

Time and time again since my return to the game, I have seen social mores constantly lack reinforcement.  And then, when someone puts up a stink they are threatened with the all mighty insta-kill and basically have to shut the fuck or be reduced to a petty, neutered version of themselves.  PCs are increasingly treated like one offs instead of representatives of their very powerful organizations.  Then, you have the same PCs staying in power for real life years so that status-quo never changes.  You can't go to Tuluk to get a breath of fresh air.  You can't do anything except maybe go to Luir's or the desert.  But Allanak is the only city-state so its your only measure of success really and only real outlet to play a city-based character like an aide or bard.  But maybe you don't want to play in Allanak for the tenth time in a row, especially when your choices are the same Lord A, Lady B, and Templar C because they've been the same ones for like two or three RL years.  You can't go to Tuluk and do well there, and not do well in Allanak.  You can't mix it up.  It's causing the game to stagnate and the game (to my mind) seems increasingly code base and less story based.  It's congested and disheartening after awhile.

On top of that you have, as number13 pointed out, a game world that isn't really reflective of the game world.  You can kill a guild boss in their own territory and the game world will not react as it will southside.  A guild boss has the backing of the most powerful and feared organized crime group in the city.  If you walk right into their territory and kill someone who's earned their trust that should be a problem.  You have duplicate soldiers overflowing in the shittiest bar southside - sometimes eight NPC guards.  Meanwhile, in the Arboretum where nobles should be safe - nothing.  People should be seeking jobs and clout to get into the ritziest bar in town.  But it's safer in the Gaj.  You have Byn Sergeants and Merchants being openly coddled over nobility.  You have Templars that can't even give orders at times to their own soldiers for small favors to said nobility.  Certain poisons aren't as hard to get as they should be and there are no consequences for over hunting.  I can confidently say that if I wanted to I could obtain one of the most deadly insta-kill poisons in the game with a character in about two months IRL if its still where I left it from five years ago and if I really wanted to.  That's too easy.

And now you have many, many guilds that have poison from the get go while city-based characters like Artisans can't even listen without using a subguild.  I really like how we've added more character guilds, but I think many of them need serious tweaking.  Skills like listen have gone by the wayside while poison is more prolific than ever.

I think the game is a little imbalanced right now.  And I'm less upset about having a badass character die, or feel like my leaders can't leave the safety of their own Estates as a one-off so much as I am that the story telling element of the game seems to be feeling incredibly hindered and terribly, terribly shallow in a meta that is all about instant kills that even the best warriors can do little to deflect.  I find it ironic we've nerfed magick use all to hell but now in like two months most character guilds can insta-kill folk.  I've thought a LOT about this, but some immense change would be needed and I feel bad because there's been some really good quality of life changes.  I feel the staff overall are lovely people.  But the meta really, really needs work because it feels very hollow rn to me and the Guild is only one example of this.

There is also increasing staff involvement, and how the world reacts seems to be less based on merit and good RP and more an arbitrary ooc matter that changes based on who the active staffers are at the time.  That troubles me too.  We really need the game world to codedly reflect the game world.  Staff are great, and helpful and lovely.   But the game world needs to be less arbitrary and social mores of the game should be the game god, not coded insta kills.  Staff's time should be use to deepen the world and assist players.  Not have to animate every little thing to make reactions to the world realistic.

Edited to Add PS --- This is why I made the thread about borderline twinky behaviors.  Just because you can treat someone like they are they are not backed up by their organization IG doesn't mean you should.  Just because you can hire rinthers into your organization doesn't mean you should.  Just because you can backstab flee and backstab again doesn't mean you should.  If code isn't going to reflect the game world properly, and staff are reluctant to back things up (which I'd rather them be more understanding than go all Nyr on us) then how players are we going to do better?  But ultimately, the staff are going to have the struggle of always working to create a balanced game world as do the developers of any game as changes roll out and things continue on.

[Bogre]

A bit of derail, but pertinent to the above.

I think the effects of addiction to spice are extremely crippling and drive a lot of people away from using it. You want them to be like cigarettes, so that the addiction needs to be fed but won't kill them for a long time.

My suggestion is that spice would provide a similar bump to stats that it does now, but pretty long lasting, depending on type/quality. When its effects wear off, you feel a little bit sluggish, but as long as you don't abuse it you don't get to the addict level. And if you do get addicted, the effect is commensurate to how much your intake happens to be, and reversible with continued dosing of the spice.

That would allow you to play a functional methilinoc-user, for example, who is always smoking a pinch in the morning to keep just a bit sharper, but when he wakes (before he bakes) he's a little bit slower than he otherwise would have been.

It would look like this:

Intermittent Use: Effects / negatives as normal, except I'd expand the length of effects to negative ratio to make it desirable to use, and then you go back to normal. Biiiiig intermittent doses gives you big ups, and the big mul kick negative afterwards, but yeah, as long as you're being sparing, you don't have really long term negatives: that's for chronic and near constant use.

Mild addiction: More profuse mild use, i.e. always getting you a +1/+2 effect, gets you to the point of being -1 or -2 without it. You dose up, and you're back to +1/+2.  From here, increasing doses to get further benefit might increase your addiction, tapering off use leaves you foggy for a while but eventually you get back to normal.

Moderate/severe addiction: Getting +2/+3 constantly leaves you more wiped out, but maintainable, with -2/-3x off spice. Higher doses start giving higher negatives for the same effect, +4/-5, +5/-7.

Essentially, you build in encouragement to actually maintain use. Getting those benefits of methelinoc, krelez or whatever is easy, /as long as you keep using/. You encourage characters to seek out spice, and seek those who have it, ensuring the market for illicits.

=====

That then, gives in IG reason for the Guild, and player gangs, to be supported. Other parties have vested interest in the distribution / supply, and want to ensure that no one just knocks off the final bloody hand that delivers the goods.

[number13]

[redacted, might be too much IC knowledge there]

[Derain]

I've got to say the reason the instant kill is used? I've seen countless times if you try to talk, give an emote or anything people will : A: hide standing in front of you while talking to them. B: spam flee the hell out of there..

I played a law enforcement PC and we caught up to this guy and even had a half giant pc looming in the only door out of this place and before the poor Templar could get his say off the guy fled ran out the gates of the city and proceeded to sneak back in for weeks to kill merchant PCs. So this is one reason many PCs won't give a chance, along with the fact you can pretty much be a ghost on certain classes even if people have equivalent scan.