Playability vs Gameplay

[Bebop]

I cant help but see the magicker in a cave, the unsociable northern hunter, and the estate bound noble as the same behavior.  All three have learned that the only way to survive the fellow player is to sometimes avoid them.

I would like to suggest we need more options to make impactful choices to a plot than just killing another pc.

Exactly.

[number13]

2. Bring Tuluk back. (Not necessarily open the city, but make it a much more visible source of conflict in the world (eg. bring back a couple tuluk nobles to luirs,etc)

Luirs as Babylon5 could be interesting. Beyond just GMH and representatives from each side of a Tuluki civil war, there could be a gith ambassador, a mantis ambassador, a couple of leaders representing elven tribes, and maybe even some stranger ambassadors from Arm2.0 cities.

Like there could be a whole minigame where each ambassador/GMH player is given X virtual wealth to play with, including U, V, W resources, and each have goals to accomplish that affect the game world. The Tuluki civil war, for example, could play out virtually, with the results of the war determined by the success of the Tuluki ambassadors at gaining support.

Allanak could suffer some sort of event to make it not so much of the big kid on the block...like the Dragon (or corpse thereof) stirs and defiles the life force of all the black robes, most of the red robes, and a lot of the VNPC and NPC gemmed. You might contrive an Allanaki cold civil war out of that, with the various survivors of the ministries trying to promote their top guy as the new Highlord, and the Guild trying to smash the whole system and assume control for their shadowy controlling families (which is probably House [redacted]).

So the opposing Allanak factions could have ambassadors in Luirs as well, trying to gain support from outside factions.

[BadSkeelz]

Gith ambassador, what

[Dresan]

I cant help but see the magicker in a cave, the unsociable northern hunter, and the estate bound noble as the same behavior.  All three have learned that the only way to survive the fellow player is to sometimes avoid them.

I would like to suggest we need more options to make impactful choices to a plot than just killing another pc.

Exactly.

ehhh...I doubt this is the main reason people idle.

It take time, and effort to RP a scene and sometimes you don't have that time or feel like putting that effort.

You have two choices, log out or idle.

I think what you would find is that the alternative to idlers will just be people logging out all together which is an overall loss to the game.

If you want to make an argument too much PKing like in that other pking thread that is fine, but this makes no sense to me. In terms of roles, there are no roles that require you to be anti-social, perhaps keep secrets, but if you play your role geared for open conflict then that its what the player is signing up for...

[DesertT]

I cant help but see the magicker in a cave, the unsociable northern hunter, and the estate bound noble as the same behavior.  All three have learned that the only way to survive the fellow player is to sometimes avoid them.

I would like to suggest we need more options to make impactful choices to a plot than just killing another pc.

Agreed.  Engage conflict instead of Eliminating it.

[Harmless]

Minion survivability is important to plot maintenance. If your minions can't survive then you can't move or involve them in plots over the timeframes needed to feel accomplishment.

You have limits to how many minions you can ever gather and playtime mismatch and RL will mean minions get to interact with each other maybe once a week. Every organization feels small and isolated when we are supposedly serving big Houses that feel 90% virtual. The plot focus shines brightly when a single clan or House reaches that critical point of population when fun dynamics set in, like a scheming betrayer or a jerk who antagonizes others in or out of the house or an ambitious sub-leader. If the group never makes it past 3-5 characters then you have more of a family dynamic.

The constant scarcity of players also means there is almost always a heavy slant to hire instead of fire or reject. If a clan sits at 4 minions, 2 of which log in regularly, you will hire almost anyone. This leads to a shift in power balance from employer to employee. Those who RP pickiness about their minions suffer. Advancement in a clan is almost always just a matter of "sticking around long enough." The only clans really where I felt there was competition for promotions are Byn and Arm. Who would be the next First Trooper or Corporal is always a fun subplot. Wish there was more demand for advancement because of feeling crowded in by other bastards to compete with.

So people who die and the limits of reality on our time and limits on how we can coordinate (limited to official clans with GDB communication tools) limit how antagonists (and protagonists and antagonists within typically protagonist groups) can survive and interact and stir.

I base these comments on how much rose tint there is on glasses looking "back" at the "golden age." 10 or so fighters in a combat clan, multiple ranks of aides and servants, a House Kurac that had an active merc division, merchant division and spice agent division. A Byn that functioned truly as a hired army instead of being stuck in personal escort missions. An indie group that had a few indie holdings going on with MCB within the group.

Lately I feel like artificial restraints on what players get to do is a problem. If we are all slotted evenly into our roles they feel fixed and precious. Open up player organizations to be how they want. If a clan got absurdly big like 12 active players then get them some RPTs to thin them out or beef up a major enemy to them, concerned at their growing influence. It'll spur action instead of the status quo of trying to make ends meet (in terms of active group membership).

Also Byn sergeants really need to die less. I find it disrupts a lot of plot progress. I have seen a lot of plots stop happening due to poor Byn availability. Maybe we need to look at how to support our movers and shakers more, both good guys and bad guys.

[triste]

I cant help but see the magicker in a cave, the unsociable northern hunter, and the estate bound noble as the same behavior.  All three have learned that the only way to survive the fellow player is to sometimes avoid them.

I would like to suggest we need more options to make impactful choices to a plot than just killing another pc.

Exactly.

People have agreed with this many times, and I just want to echo times people have proposed solutions.

Example: the maiming code Metekillot mentioned wanting before he left. Often roleplayed attempts to maim people in game devolves into combat code, which devolves into death. If we add mechanisms like maiming, public pillories, or literally any non-lethal option beyond combat code, you are going to see more and better roleplayed options besides murder.

I've seen people TRY to roleplay violent punishments non-lethally, and I think 2/3 times I've seen someone have mercy off, "accidentally" kill the person the Sarge told them to merely break the arm of, to which everyone replies some in game variant of "Ooooooops!" Is this good roleplay? Hell no, it is directly contrary to the intent of the scene and often terminates with a collective "Oh well," that hearkens to people's OOC discomfort at the outcome the code -- rather than any well roleplayed reaction. Does this happen a lot? I've seen it maybe 5 times which is intolerably too much IMO. Half of the time it isn't even the player's fault and NPC guards are a factor [adding to the "WTF this is bad roleplay" feeling]. Is a tacky combat-code-PK the roleplay the majority of players wanted in this scene? No. People wouldn't have chosen death, they would have chosen the non-lethal option if it elegantly existed, because it is exactly what the Sarge asked for here from a roleplay perspective. The code is failing people and even when people WANT to provide "more options to make impactful choices to a plot than just killing another pc" I think it is fair to say code limitations are a factor, and multiple people have asked for more options here.

You can always try to negotiate and be creative but at the end what are our coded mechanisms and their common outcomes?
- kill: common outcome is death or someone escaping, AKA plot evasion or plot termination.
- flee: common outcome is someone escaping, plot evasion.
- mercy on: the lovely toggle that can lead to a non-lethal outcome, but not fail safe and often still leads to death [see above].
- subdue: common outcome is someone spam fleeing, which devolves into the kill or flee scenario above
- sap: same as kill
- backstab: same as kill
- throw: same as kill
- bash, charge, any other relevant coded combat skill: same as kill
- use of machines/rooms like the spike pit: same as kill, but with death and plot termination 100% inevitable
- poison: often the same as kill, but I HAVE seen people use peraine to roleplay great scenes such as taking hostages. I have kudosed these players enthusiastically. But most often? Posion/perain has the same result as kill, plot termination and death.
- imprison: essentially incurs a time delay before any of the coded options above
- talking through it: ideal, but any of the options above could be sent in a twitch reaction and throw it all to hell

All but four of more than ten coded options mentioned here, inevitably and by definition, lead to plot termination [death] or plot evasion [fleeing]. These four options are closer to the ideal of "resolving conflict non-lethally," but are very, very frequently interrupted by one of the coded combat options above. We want good roleplay, yet death/evasion is a coded outcome that is far easier to arrive at than non-lethal plot generating outcomes; it can be thought of simply in terms of decision trees and probability. All role-playing games have this problem inherently, which is why Dungeons and Dragons also incorporates gameplay elements like the "Maze" spell just to add variety to combat and plot outcomes. What games like DnD have realized is that this is a technical problem with a technical solution: the solution may be to support more coded outcomes so that people do not continue to funnel into the small handful available. To tie this in with the original poster's concept of gameplay and playability, yes, good gameplay involves playability; indeed, in most cases code defines gameplay and playability, even in an RPI, and while many here agree existing code can stand to be tweaked [see question quoted below as an example], there might also be room to invent, like the maim code Metekillot proposed.

We can all generate ideas on how to adjust the code that defines the boundaries of gameplay and roleplay. For example an idea I sent to staff was to have more objects like public pillories or cages that will expose and humiliate criminals -- a completely non-lethal option that is ONLY conductive to making plots by shaping the reputations of characters. Non-lethal punishments like this are EXTREMELY COMMON in ANY society, human OR primate, because if as a species murder was the most common punishment was death [as it is in Armageddon], we wouldn't really persist as a species at all! Even chimpanzees will often maim members of opposing pods or their own pod, short of murder, because murder is not good for their species. I've examined an older version of the DIKU codebase as well and I don't see anything prohibiting the implementation of something like non-lethal pillories [besides volunteered time spent building features for which I am always thankful]. Societies have invented non-lethal punishments across the board so I see absolutely no argument for why these mechanisms should not exist in Zalanthas; if they exist in a way supported by code, they are also more likely to be leveraged.

Throw/shoot in populated areas should probably cause a crimflag. (I'm assuming it doesn't at present.)

Saw this while skimming. It does trigger crimflag, like any other attack, if you shoot or throw at a human, but not a rat. I agree leveling a crossbow to shoot a rat in the middle of the bar is not ideal roleplay and would get you arrested in any modern society, but I am willing to tolerate it because if shooting rats triggered crimflags we would have approximately 98 dead newbies by now. But this is a good question that gets at the exact point made here, that our options are defined by the code as frustrating as that may be.

[triste]

to further elaborate on the throwing and crimflag question, I am not sure what happens if you miss [because I always hit my mark ]

But throw in particular often comes up precisely because it does feel like an unbalanced skill, it has the potential to bring people down in one hit, and you inherently have 1-8 positional options with throw (same room, up, down, north, south, east, west, inside/outside) as opposed to only one (same room) with sap or backstab. To have a skill that has more strategic range while also having equivalent DPS/lethality to a skill with less strategic range is of course unbalanced! We all know it, and we have these conversations about tweaking certain skills endlessly.

Again, always feel free to submit your ideas to staff because sometimes they act on it! I would love to see more coded options where the objective is not [as it often is with something like throw or backstab] death.

[triste]

One more idea, since I am spitballing, is make combat more realistic to add incapacitation. I've seen this come up in the "crawl" code discussion. It is a terrifying and awful topic, but violence in real life is rarely instantly fatal the way we experience it in game. In machete fights, people are often chopped up and left for dead once they've been wounded "enough." These people are often left nearly dead on the ground, sometimes able to speak, sometimes not, sometimes surviving, sometimes not.

We can get really creative with code, and we have models in game, such as poisons that intermittently make you unable to speak. Maybe add a second incapacitation state before complete unconscious death where you can "sort of" talk with a fail check that leads to an echo like "You try to speak but do not have the strength to." Maybe also add a very slow move rate crawl ability too so that you can drag yourself back to town if needed [again this crawl part was previously proposed by players besides me]. This would only enhance gameplay and playability and in no conceivable way harm it because it would still let attackers choose if they want to be merciful or "finish the job."

[Narf]

I cant help but see the magicker in a cave, the unsociable northern hunter, and the estate bound noble as the same behavior.  All three have learned that the only way to survive the fellow player is to sometimes avoid them.

I would like to suggest we need more options to make impactful choices to a plot than just killing another pc.

Exactly.

You can always try to negotiate and be creative but at the end what are our coded mechanisms and their common outcomes?
- kill: common outcome is death or someone escaping, AKA plot evasion or plot termination.
- flee: common outcome is someone escaping, plot evasion.
- mercy on: the lovely toggle that can lead to a non-lethal outcome, but not fail safe and often still leads to death [see above].
- subdue: common outcome is someone spam fleeing, which devolves into the kill or flee scenario above
- sap: same as kill
- backstab: same as kill
- throw: same as kill
- bash, charge, any other relevant coded combat skill: same as kill
- use of machines/rooms like the spike pit: same as kill, but with death and plot termination 100% inevitable
- poison: often the same as kill, but I HAVE seen people use peraine to roleplay great scenes such as taking hostages. I have kudosed these players enthusiastically. But most often? Posion/perain has the same result as kill, plot termination and death.
- imprison: essentially incurs a time delay before any of the coded options above
- talking through it: ideal, but any of the options above could be sent in a twitch reaction and throw it all to hell

I'm 100% for adding more methods of non-lethal conflict, but that said this very much is not a complete list. One of the best means of attacking a player nonlethally that currently exist in the game is to simply take their stuff. Templars, Militia, Burglars, Pickpockets, even warriors with the disarm skill can all use this to inflict consequences on a character without killing them. And if you're not one of those things you can hire one.

I wanted to bring that up not to argue against the need for more codededly nonlethal conflict, but rather the remind people that it exists as a path in game that's very functional for inflicting consequences on an opponent.

There's an old joke that's been floating around for decades: Who's more terrifying than a sorcerer? A pickpocket. It's an exaggeration of course, but if you're in a conflict right now and looking for a way to implement a less lethal solution don't forget about theft/confiscation. It works under the current code and can be very effective at creating conflict that doesn't have an immediate end to itself and all peripheral plots of one of the involved parties.

[triste]

I'm 100% for adding more methods of non-lethal conflict, but that said this very much is not a complete list. One of the best means of attacking a player nonlethally that currently exist in the game is to simply take their stuff. Templars, Militia, Burglars, Pickpockets, even warriors with the disarm skill can all use this to inflict consequences on a character without killing them. And if you're not one of those things you can hire one.

I wanted to bring that up not to argue against the need for more codededly nonlethal conflict, but rather the remind people that it exists as a path in game that's very functional for inflicting consequences on an opponent.

There's an old joke that's been floating around for decades: Who's more terrifying than a sorcerer? A pickpocket. It's an exaggeration of course, but if you're in a conflict right now and looking for a way to implement a less lethal solution don't forget about theft/confiscation. It works under the current code and can be very effective at creating conflict that doesn't have an immediate end to itself and all peripheral plots of one of the involved parties.

100% agree with all of this, and kudos to the players who do set up plots like this and use mechanisms like this

[Dresan]

I think what you guys will find is that people are going to begin avoid getting into conflict and generate less meaningful plots because they are afraid that someone will end up dead and then cry about it on the forums.

Guess what if you introduce maiming, exile and other forums of "punishment" it will still lead to people complaining and storing/suicide.

You can't even rob people's apartment or inventories before they begin to complain that the game is filled with pure griefers. This alone can become so bad that even staff begin to investigate whether enough hemote were performed before some virtual coins were swiped. 

The threat of death, betray and corruption is what makes this game fun. Characters are supposed to live for ever, in fact when you make the character most of the time you are just telling a story about how it died.

Instead of preventing people from killing each other by OOC means, i would strongly look at increasing IC consequences for murders and assassinations. Finding justice for socialites and reputable merchants should probably become more of a priority to templars/nobles looking for worthwhile people to continue working for them.

However even this is a slippery path, remember controlled murders was one of the things that made playing in Tuluk sometimes feel quite stagnant.     

[triste]

Instead of preventing people from killing each other by OOC means

Definitely not saying people should be prevented from killing people. Adding more options would not preclude or limit the existing kill-happy options.

[Lizzie]

I'm 100% for adding more methods of non-lethal conflict, but that said this very much is not a complete list. One of the best means of attacking a player nonlethally that currently exist in the game is to simply take their stuff. Templars, Militia, Burglars, Pickpockets, even warriors with the disarm skill can all use this to inflict consequences on a character without killing them. And if you're not one of those things you can hire one.

This is only effective if the person you're taking the stuff from cooperates. If a Byn Sergeant tells his runner "give up that dagger, you're on latrine duty for another month for pissing on the Salarr contract AGAIN" and the runner says "but he started it, it's my dagger, I don't wanna, it was a gift, my dog ate it, you're being mean, my feelings, wah..." sometimes you just gotta bash a skull.

[Narf]

I think what you guys will find is that people are going to begin avoid getting into conflict and generate less meaningful plots because they are afraid that someone will end up dead and then cry about it on the forums.

Guess what if you introduce maiming, exile and other forums of "punishment" it will still lead to people complaining and storing/suicide.

You can't even rob people's apartment or inventories before they begin to complain that the game is filled with pure griefers. This alone can become so bad that even staff begin to investigate whether enough hemote were performed before some virtual coins were swiped. 

In the last year or two I've encountered people with some very interesting and non-griefy ways of taking my stuff, and I was very much impressed with their technique. I do think there's a difference in people's minds between targeted theft and random pillaging. I'm willing to bet most of the player base is going to be a lot more accepting of having their apartment burglarized if there was a plain and obvious reason why it was burglarized beyond "I wanted the stuff in it."

In short: I think taking/destroying someone's possessions as the result of a spelled out conflict is going to be /much/ better recieved than just random burglary.

[Narf]

I'm 100% for adding more methods of non-lethal conflict, but that said this very much is not a complete list. One of the best means of attacking a player nonlethally that currently exist in the game is to simply take their stuff. Templars, Militia, Burglars, Pickpockets, even warriors with the disarm skill can all use this to inflict consequences on a character without killing them. And if you're not one of those things you can hire one.

This is only effective if the person you're taking the stuff from cooperates. If a Byn Sergeant tells his runner "give up that dagger, you're on latrine duty for another month for pissing on the Salarr contract AGAIN" and the runner says "but he started it, it's my dagger, I don't wanna, it was a gift, my dog ate it, you're being mean, my feelings, wah..." sometimes you just gotta bash a skull.

Actually you don't "gotta." You could, but you don't have to.

It would be quite easy in that sort of scenario to simply have them knocked out and robbed. And if they resist take far more than the dagger.

I'm not saying this as a mandate, but your claim was that you "gotta" kill them. That claim is factually inaccurate, there are several other avenues you could pursue if you felt the inclination.

[triste]

I think what you guys will find is that people are going to begin avoid getting into conflict and generate less meaningful plots because they are afraid that someone will end up dead and then cry about it on the forums.

Guess what if you introduce maiming, exile and other forums of "punishment" it will still lead to people complaining and storing/suicide.

You can't even rob people's apartment or inventories before they begin to complain that the game is filled with pure griefers. This alone can become so bad that even staff begin to investigate whether enough hemote were performed before some virtual coins were swiped. 

In the last year or two I've encountered people with some very interesting and non-griefy ways of taking my stuff, and I was very much impressed with their technique. I do think there's a difference in people's minds between targeted theft and random pillaging. I'm willing to bet most of the player base is going to be a lot more accepting of having their apartment burglarized if there was a plain and obvious reason why it was burglarized beyond "I wanted the stuff in it."

In short: I think taking/destroying someone's possessions as the result of a spelled out conflict is going to be /much/ better recieved than just random burglary.

This gets at exactly why non-lethal conflict is awesome. Since I first played Arma 10 years ago or so, there have been crime syndicates in Allanak and Tuluk who try to make theft more controlled and role-play oriented. FOIC, etc. But it's just like mob protection IRL: pay, or be terrorized. If you're a competing thief that's not cooperating with the protection ring, you might get taken out [lethally or non-lethally] for it.

[number13]

This gets at exactly why non-lethal conflict is awesome. Since I first played Arma 10 years ago or so, there have been crime syndicates in Allanak and Tuluk who try to make theft more controlled and role-play oriented. FOIC, etc. But it's just like mob protection IRL: pay, or be terrorized. If you're a competing thief that's not cooperating with the protection ring, you might get taken out [lethally or non-lethally] for it.

There is absolutely no way for the Guild or garbage Rinthi elves to control theft or murder in Allanak, unless they have a few dedicated players who devote their entire real lives to tracking down random criminals.

It could be fixed, but it would be an ugly fix that more or less closes off the idea of an independent criminal. The game could give a Wanted flag to anyone who does any sort of theft or lock picking in Allanak and associated apartments...unless they have Guild or c-elf tribe membership. And if the perpetrator is not an Allanaki or Rinthi citizen, the Wanted flag is permanent.

[triste]

This gets at exactly why non-lethal conflict is awesome. Since I first played Arma 10 years ago or so, there have been crime syndicates in Allanak and Tuluk who try to make theft more controlled and role-play oriented. FOIC, etc. But it's just like mob protection IRL: pay, or be terrorized. If you're a competing thief that's not cooperating with the protection ring, you might get taken out [lethally or non-lethally] for it.

There is absolutely no way for the Guild or garbage Rinthi elves to control theft or murder in Allanak, unless they have a few dedicated players who devote their entire real lives to tracking down random criminals.

It could be fixed, but it would be an ugly fix that more or less closes off the idea of an independent criminal. Yhe game could give a Wanted flag to anyone who does any sort of theft or lockpicking in Allanak and associated apartments...unless they have Guild or c-elf tribe membership. And if the perpetrator is not an Allanaki or Rinthi citizen, the Wanted flag is permanent.

You have a good point here about triggering crimflags for burglary and I always thought it odd it never happens under any circumstance. We'd of course want exceptions to this for Militia as they sometimes need to break into apartments for justified reasons and also will use lockpicks at times.

Also, it's a bit FOIC, but it's not only the guild enforcing protection rings usually, collusion is often healthy and required to enforce things like this in game and I have seen it done effectively more than once.

[number13]

Militia (beyond the first starter rank) won't get crimeflagged to begin with, for any reason, afiak.

> collusion is often healthy

There's two philosophies of thought on that. I've gone down the robe pet route, and tattled out competitors. I've gone down the "never speak to templars ever, unless it's to tell them to fuck off" route. Option #2 is a lot more fun. Option #1 is a lot more effective.

In either case, in order to really figure out who is stealing what, you have to be around 24/7 watching out. It's not possible for a player to do this, so the code should take over.

[BadSkeelz]

Militia PCs can get themselves crimflagged, or at least draw aggro from fellow soldier PCs in unusual and difficult to replicate circumstances.

[Dresan]

First lets state one fact: Murders and assassination for absolutely no reasons are rare. Accidents happen in the game and the staff do something about people pking just for kill count.

Assuming the above is true then lets say every time someone with social status is killed in allanak, then all those involved(with the killing, not the people paying for it) would eventually get perma-crim'd in Allanak and  even large bounty on their sdesc and name placed on them for all time.  Social status basically means works for noble or Templar, or in cases of merchant be associated with one of them while i good standing.

ICly it would be assumed Templars investigated using all sorts of neat and perhaps magickal means to identify the cause and then ensures justice is served.

I am not suggesting the above would stop squishy socialites and merchants from being murdered,that is not the intent, but clearly if they were killed in allanak then OOCly even if they don't know the IC reason they know someone is paying a large OOC price to murder them.  Further more they know their death is bringing about more game play even if its for the buff bounty hunters.

I have suggested this because a buff hunter getting killed by arrows is well part of the risk he took when leaving the walls. Everyone knows that other places require people to be tougher and be able to defend themselves. But merchants and socialites in allanak at least should be afforded more protection based on their RP.

Basically I'm more pro IC enforcing harsher consequences, rather than OOCly trying to motivate people to be less ruthless whenever the heck they feel they can be.

[number13]

^this. Murder should be an automatic permaflag and bounty, unless pardoned by a templar.

Except! The Guild should have free reign to murder, and only get a traditional temp flag. The kayfabe reason for it is, there are NPC templars that on the Guild's payroll, and they eventually get around to pardoning Guild members.

This has a few beneficial side effects:

1: The Guild becomes the premier criminal organization in Allanak, as it should be, enforced by a coded truth.

2: People who are afraid they might be assassinated can pay up to the Guild for protection. That protection can be betrayed if the contract buyer can twist the Guild PCs' arms. Good opportunities for meaningful rp and conflict.

3: There's an IC exit hatch for killer PCs who are doing too much wet work. The Guild can just say they are too hot and disassociate themselves from the assassin. They get a perma-Wanted flag. Or they get splattered, if their targets were extra heavy (like a templar or templar's most favorite pet).

Adding an autoflag for successful pickpocking and lockpicking attempts (by non-Guild members) in 'Nak has similar benefits.

[Lotion]

i hate rinthy elves ahahaha, let's take away a LOT of fun things they can do southside

Seems like a bit much tbh

[number13]

i hate rinthy elves ahahaha, let's take away a LOT of fun things they can do southside

Seems like a bit much tbh

Personally, I think staff should either 1) open/promote a c-elf clan, which would have the same super power of avoiding the perma-Wanted flag or 2) allow c-elves into the Guild, in some capacity.

The problem with c-elves is once they are in a tribe, it's hard to justify kicking them. Whereas the Guild could police itself.

I'm far more worried about outsiders or completely unaffiliated characters coming in and doing criminal stuff in Allanak. It makes it impossible to have certain interactions be meaningful. You can't pay for protection for your apartment/your pockets/your life and expect that payment to have any real effect, since a criminal can easily operate outside of the Rinthi power structures.