Warning Shot

[LindseyBalboa]

I'd really like to see the ability to make a 'warning shot' implemented.

shoot (with a whistling sound) Balboa west [thunking into the ground nearby]

With a whistling sound, a white-feathered bone arrow with an agate arrowhead sails overhead, thunking into the ground nearby.

It should be easy enough to code, with minimal effort from staff.

It solves the problem of wanting to engage in aggressive RP with someone while giving them the option to run, or engage in RP that may turn violent, by giving them the notice that you're willing to role-play. Could be implemented with daggers as well, and be done in the same room. Someone could also just run off anyway, and that's totally fine. It also allows you to signal you're going to role-play with someone without having to just try and Way them and give away who you are (if they're even not wearing a cloak).

A Bynner shooting a warning arrow at an elf in the distance.
A desert elf shooting a warning arrow at someone hunting in the Pah.
A soldier firing a warning shot at an incoming cloaked figure.
An assassin shooting a warning arrow at a noble to let them know they could've killed them, but they're willing to negotiate a fee to let them live.

[triste]

Awesome idea, love it. Maybe not even requiring a humanoid target could be nice for other RP scenarios (like some sort of ceremony/drill/acting in the arena/leaving signals) but if it would be required to code it in that would be fine.

[Delirium]

>shoot far east

The ability to attach a command emote would be cool, so that it doesn't just look like you missed.

[Bogre]

Command emotes on any kind of ranged attack would be neat.

[Hauwke]

Expanding, command emotes on kill and disarm and such would be sweet too.

[Brokkr]

How on earth would they know it is a warning shot vs you shooting at them?

[mansa]

How on earth would they know it is a warning shot vs you shooting at them?

It's Zalanthas, duh.   If we could describe how the shot was taken, then we can take some dramatic liberties.

[Heade]

How on earth would they know it is a warning shot vs you shooting at them?

Maybe the command could be paired with an automatic "mental" message that it was a warning shot. I mean, everyone has the way, right?

In this way, you could justify it being clear that it was a warning shot while maintaining the integrity of the game world. If implemented, I would just attach a "mental message" element that is static for all targets of warning shots, indicating that it was such a warning shot being fired by "the dark-cloaked man" or whatever, without causing any stun damage to the person giving or receiving the warning. Since it's purely for flavor and to encourage roleplay, I don't think there is any reason to include any of the normal mechanical effects for use of the way.

[SmashedTregil]

If the shot succeeds as if it hit. The target would get "The arrow lands right before your feet." in the desert, or "the arrow embeds itself into a tree trunk right over your head." if it's the forest. Etc.

If the shot fails, then the usual echo of a failed arrow Boom simple.

[Heade]

I'd just prefer that it was clearly a warning shot, even if the target is a new player to the game and doesn't follow the forums, or read every piece of documentation.

[Thomoto]

How on earth would they know it is a warning shot vs you shooting at them?

You wouldn't know for sure, but if you could attach an emote when you shoot an arrow into a room could probably be implied.

A slender wooden arrow flies in from the south with a whistling sound and strikes the ground, leaving it sticking out at an angle.

Vs

A slender wooden arrow flies in from the west and hits the ground or a slender wooden arrow strikes your neck and ganks you from 3 rooms away like the pussy that guy was not using bone swords like a true bynner.

Make sense?

[RogueGunslinger]

I like the utility of the idea for slightly less confrontational "fuck off's." But it doesn't seem terribly realistic for bows and arrows to work that way. I say if implemented it should just be the ability to target a room, like in OP's suggestion. Not specifically fire off a warning shot at a specific PC.

[Hauwke]

 

I like the utility of the idea for slightly less confrontational "fuck off's." But it doesn't seem terribly realistic for bows and arrows to work that way. I say if implemented it should just be the ability to target a room, like in OP's suggestion. Not specifically fire off a warning shot at a specific PC.

You can target a room, or more specifically you can target distance up to the maximum range.

[ScramblesForPurchase]

Could just increase the range of shout to cover a two-room max instead of one? As far as realism goes I'd be fine suspending belief on sound traveling that far, it's not like room distance is always explicitly the same.

> shoot far east
> shout (with a challenging and pissy desert-elf inflection) Get off my lawn!

[LindseyBalboa]

How on earth would they know it is a warning shot vs you shooting at them?

Via intent. A shot across the bow, a shot close to the ear, any close shot that isn't followed by another. In a world of ubiquitous psionics (I liked that idea someone posted), it seems pretty reasonable.

Although just being able to emote with the ranged action would be enough to facilitate aggressive RP in a situation where the aggressor's identity isn't known, and the victim is allowed the chance to stick around or flee.

[Vex]

I shoot them once, not follow up with a second, and change an ldesc to something like:

The hooded figure stands, bow at the ready, staring east.

Never, ever had an issue, with people misunderstanding the 'fuck off, or die' intent of that.

[X-D]

I am with Vex and Brokkr.

An arrow landing in the room is a warning, even if it is just a miss.

Or, shoot from one room away.
Shout "Get off my lawn or the next few will be aimed at your face!"

[LindseyBalboa]

I shoot them once, not follow up with a second, and change an ldesc to something like:

The hooded figure stands, bow at the ready, staring east.

Never, ever had an issue, with people misunderstanding the 'fuck off, or die' intent of that.

Yeah, and a few months ago, you could smoke your tube of spice, then separately emote it. People didn't misunderstand that. But the option to emote while doing the action was given, as an easily-coded prop for better RP. That's what I'm suggesting.

[Brokkr]

I'm just wondering how this works without power emoting some type of intent?

And, done right, it would be simply adding emotes to the shoot command, for all cases.  So simply seeing an different arrow message would tell you very little?

[mansa]

I'm just wondering how this works without power emoting some type of intent?

And, done right, it would be simply adding emotes to the shoot command, for all cases.  So simply seeing an different arrow message would tell you very little?

An arrow flies in from the north.

An arrow flies in from the north, near but obviously missing the target.
Shot with an expert aim, missing by an inch, an arrow flies in from the north.

So many possibilities.

[Riev]

I think what Brokkr means is:

How do you reconcile your "expert shot" narrative, when you actually codedly missed anyways? Maybe you have novice archery in the first place.

Maybe a conditional. You give the pre/post emotes, but those only fire on a 'hit', which becomes a forced miss?
Or maybe a separate command that shoots a direction, allows pre/post emotes, but can only ever roll a 0 to attack (forcing the miss regardless)?

Even then, how do you emote narrowly missing, when you have a 20/100 skill? Its a little wonky.

[Brokkr]

Shot with an expert aim, missing by an inch, an arrow flies in from the north.[/tt]

I am sorry, but anyone who tries to miss by an inch is a complete idiot.  But thanks for a brilliant example of the kind of power emoting I was referring to.

[Jihelu]

This reminds me of people suggesting to shoot people in the leg for firearm safety and what not.

No, trying to miss someone by an inch won't be a thing. This is how you shoot someone in the face.

[Hauwke]

Shot with an expert aim, missing by an inch, an arrow flies in from the north.[/tt]

I am sorry, but anyone who tries to miss by an inch is a complete idiot.  But thanks for a brilliant example of the kind of power emoting I was referring to.

It really is a poor example emote, sure. But the idea as a whole has merit. Everyone gets so caught up in the realism of things, when we have 12 foot tall men walking around being morons.

Is it really so hard to admit to yourself and the playerbase that and idea is a good one to foster role play, or are you so far stuck in your ways that you absolutely must give the poo-poo to an idea and talk down to someone just because they have a poor example?

[LindseyBalboa]

Shooting an arrow an inch away from someone's face was overly theatrical, but unrealistic emoting can happen with the literal emote command, right now, as-is. I don't think that's a very strong argument against a role-play tool, when balanced against the possibility of easily spurring on more role-play in aggressive situations. I can emote a ninja flip kick anytime I want, but people generally stick to the agreed-upon rules.

If there's a constructive reason why this would be bad for the game outweighing the possibility of allowing a player to give up their chance at a surprise PK in exchange for a potentially cool scene (and a warning shot is a pretty basic tool prop in movies, shows, stories, role-play [an arrow flies from the north, sticking into a nearby tree and quivering there!]), then by all means. If it's simply that attacks don't get emotes as a game-wide rule, even, that's fine, but not implementing something because someone might make a crazy emote is the risk taken with every single thing on a game where people can type what they want.

As is, I think it'd be an easily-implemented, useful tool for role-play.

[Brokkr]

The problem with the suggestion is it forces the perception that it was a warning shot on the person shot at. As a mechanical matter, because it is meant for "warning shots", at least in how originally presented.  So the emote part becomes secondary...the code itself is forcing that perception on the person being shot at.

To give a RL example:

A few poachers are out in a field.  So someone responsible for said property fires off a few warning shots. He aimed six feet over their heads, and it was only 200 yards or so.  Now, I don't have the perspective of the poachers in this situation, but I highly doubt they thought of those as warning shots.

It is all a matter of perception. So a mechanism for warning shots doesn't make a lot of sense.  Rather, does adding emotes to shoot/throw make sense? And how would that look? And how do you handle the emote...is it in the shooter's room or the target's room?  Is there some way to use the pre/post system to enable both?

[LindseyBalboa]

Okay, I get that. So some re-tooling of the idea is needed to avoid forcing a perception on someone.

Being able to add a drop ldesc, perhaps, to a successful shot into a room, to show where the arrow landed. A bit of flavor that /could/ indicate a warning shot, if the victim character took it that way.

Someone's ldesc indicates they're standing by the shield wall. Arrow is shot into the room. The someone looks and sees:

a black-fletched bone arrow is here stuck deep into the shield wall.

As for the emote: Perhaps the pre emote is in the shooter's room, and the post is in the room where the arrow lands.

shoot (nocking the arrow to the string) arrow east [whistling in overhead], but that may be a little more annoying to implement.

Still brain storming.

[Heade]

I still don't see why a simple "Warning shot" type command can't include a mental image from the firer to the person being warned, noting that it was a warning shot in a world full of psionics.

I don't think the combat emotes are necessary when we have a perfectly justifiable way to implement a warning shot that can just codedly work the same for everyone who uses it via a mental impression that it was a warning.

[X-D]

Still with Brokkr.

No matter what you do you are forcing perception when it makes little sense. Because code already says what the arrow does.  An arrow flies in from the east and hits the ground. There is really nothing to change there that makes any sense. One could make an argument for different echos depending on terrain But that has nothing to do with the OP.

Heade, how would that work, spidey sense? Sounds rather benderish to me.

[th3kaiser]

I think perhaps media has made people think a warning shot is a reasonable and sane thing to do.  Someone shoots a deadly weapon at/near you, that's never a non-aggressive action. I'm either running away or right at your stupid shooty face.

Go send your least favorite party member to go yell at them instead. An arrow only communicates one thing.

[LindseyBalboa]

To be fair here you're just describing what you as a person would do if someone fired an arrow over your head. It's not really an argument against the idea of a warning shot. Having reactions to a knife flying over your head would be normal.

A warning shot is aggressive, but it's also aggressive in the sense that it promises more aggression without causing physical harm initially.

An elf pops up on a dune and shoots an arrow over your head, nocking another but not firing it. Your fleeing or fighting are perfectly normal reactions to this. Fleeing is, tbh, probably the intended reaction. Talking and offering tribute to continue on might be another. Being attacked is always a given risk.

[mansa]

Does it echo if you shoot an arrow through a room into another room?

Example:

_   _   _
|x|-|y|-|z|
¯   ¯   ¯


Player X shoots Player Z two rooms away.  Does Player Y get an echo that an arrow flew in from the west and out to the east?

[Vex]

Yeah, and a few months ago, you could smoke your tube of spice, then separately emote it. People didn't misunderstand that. But the option to emote while doing the action was given, as an easily-coded prop for better RP. That's what I'm suggesting.

Being able to apply an emote to a social action, is a good use of dev time.

This, is unnecessary when there are other, better things that time can be invested into, that will have greater impact for everyone, rather than the few people with both the skill AND the need, to make use of a non-damaging warning shot. Even kick/bash/disarm, would be a better place to start if combat beautification is what we want.

And tbh, even were it to go in tomorrow, it's not something I would use in the current state of the game. If someone shoots anything at almost any of my pcs, I'm going to shoot to kill, or use some other means of aggressive lethal response. The best warning shot, is the one that drops 30-50 hp off them, and scares the PLAYER into fearing for their PCs life, and causes them to run away, and usually keep away for a good, long while.

If you don't want them to die, don't use your poisoned projectiles, and don't shoot them a second time.

Code, at current, is working fine for the delivery of 'warnings', both at range and up close and personal.

[Mercy]

I feel like I'm missing something and am genuinely curious. Can't you already target rooms and have 0 chance of hitting someone in the room? Is that not sufficient as a non-lethal warning shot? Or is the purpose to have an echo showing the arrow/bolt/stone landing specifically near the target so everyone who can seen knows exactly who is being aimed at and not just something within a league radius (assuming outdoors)? Or something else I'm just not getting.

[X-D]

Pretty sure you do not Mansa.

[Hauwke]

I feel like I'm missing something and am genuinely curious. Can't you already target rooms and have 0 chance of hitting someone in the room? Is that not sufficient as a non-lethal warning shot? Or is the purpose to have an echo showing the arrow/bolt/stone landing specifically near the target so everyone who can seen knows exactly who is being aimed at and not just something within a league radius (assuming outdoors)? Or something else I'm just not getting.

In my mind the idea is basically: Hey, I can hit you with my skill, watch the fuck out.

[Brokkr]

I don't remember anything about a skill check, so it really isn't?  Is that what is really wanted?

[Dar]

That's how I understood it as.


A failed skill check

Arrow lands within the same league, but pretty damn far.

The target actually feels 'less' threatened, as the shooter sucks at shooting arrows.

A succeeded warning shot skill check.

An arrow lands somewhere too precise to be assumed a miss, but in a non damaging manner.

The target feels like he's in danger, because the reason that arrow missed is due to the shooter 'choosing' to miss.

Usually that means the arrow lands squarely between someone's legs, or through a fruit, or a leaf, or near a spot where the person was reaching towards.

[tiny rainbow]

through a fruit, or a leaf, or near a spot where the person was reaching towards.

Through branch or stem to make fruit fall on head, then through fruit! Could have special skill checks for different kind of trick shots depending what is in the room, like checking for what objects are available for crafting, a list of options and difficulty!

[X-D]

I have been thinking this over some more, along with things from another thread about PVP.

And the only thing I can think of that would be a method to solve these issues is the ability to aim without firing and approach code.

Now I will admit up front, I have never really been a fan of approach code, In fact I think I have argued against it in the past, it slows the pace of things drastically and can be rather annoying. That being said, I played a mud a long time ago that had both.

In this mud, bows and such only had a 1 room range and thrown items were same room, but since there was approach code that would be the same as 2 rooms and 1 room. You could be a room away and type aim dude west, slight delay as you begin aiming, Your ldesc is changed, Your target looks east and sees "A raider is here aiming his bow at you." His friends see. "A raider is here aiming his bow west." Now the raider could move west and keep aim, entering the room you would see he is aiming his bow and everybody would see who it is aimed at.

Now, although everybody is same room, melee cannot be engaged until approach is used. This gives the raider time to act, get off a shot and get weapons out Or the others to try and flee, Though he can get a shot off as they leave and another before they leave the next room, and keeps aim till his target leaves his sight, so he can follow and possibly keep firing without having to aim again.

Sadly, approach code actually solves the issue of diagonal exits/looking as well. Still cannot look northeast, but Should a mek be there and you move north, the mek has to enter the room then has to approach before it can engage.

[lostinspace]

I'm against power emoting, but there are middle grounds.

Certain shots could culturally be considered warning shots. Maybe high arcing shots that fall from the sky are considered warning shots to some cultures, and a coded way of making that sort of shot is added. ie. shoot 2 south arcing. I don't know much about archery, so there might be other clear ways to miss, like firing intentionally short so an arrow lands ahead of a group, or whistling 20 feet overhead.

Certain arrows could be used for warnings, or any message really. Could vary by clan, but there could also be ubiquitous ones for regions. Maybe a red-stripped, blunt-tipped arrow is the common warning to clear out before the Sun Runners start aiming with intent. Maybe it is actually a message for the other elf that's been shadowing to attack while you keep shooting.