Criminal Code Thoughts

[marko]

The mask thread and the brawl code thread got me to thinking about the criminal code.  In some ways the underlying issue of both of these threads is how the criminal code works.

Right now we have a simple and effective system but it can be a little too effective from time to time as it doesn't take into account the severity of a crime or the race of the perpetrator.

Personally, I'd love to see a change in how law keepers (soldiers, templars, guards, etc) react to criminals.  I think it'd be an improvement if they were given a base percentage as to engage the criminal based on the crime and the race.

For example, an elf that is seen stealing in public gets a 70% chance of being charged at by a soldier while a human doing the same act has a 50% chance of being apprehended as he passes by a soldier.

A mul that does any sort of criminal act has a 100% chance of being killed on sight.

Fighting (brawling) in public would give a 60% base chance and then racial modifiers.  

Basically, how I see it - the criminal code would work exactly as it does now with a small chance (or significant chance) of the soldiers not insta-leaping on an offender.  This way a criminal would have a chance (based entirely on the severity of the crime and racial prejudice) of making it to 'safety' after committing a crime.

Therefore, there would be two modifiers of whether a soldier reacts to a criminal or not.  The base crime type and a racial modifier.

I'm not certain if this is feasible but it is a thought that passed through my mind.

[RunningMountain]

With the amount of deaths that occur to the criminal code. I welcome any change to it.

[bloodfromstone]

I'm in agreement with RM here.

The OP has a cool idea of adding in racial modifiers and such. I definitely think this would be a good step up. I'd like to see some more intelligent, varied actions inside the crim code.

As far as RM's problem with the crim code, we could just toss clubs into the hands of the NPC guards to fix some of the insta-kills laid down on the heads of poor 0-day pickpockets.

[Cenghiz]

In my own MUD codebase which I'm coding (it'll never finish.. Everytime I decide to start over trying to make it better.. I could never get past the simple commands ever for two times and I'm starting over again) NPCs note down a point for both charm, law and power for each PC they meet. Then they react according to the interface they implement. (Yes, guessed right. I'm trying it in Java but there will perhaps be possible ways in C, too.)
For example silk clothes make all NPCs around add a temporary bonus to the charm level they recorded for you. This means NPCs implementing 'Thief' will more probably steal from you and NPCs implementing 'Merchant' will be more respectful.
They also share this information.. err.. To be more precise, they average their scores. So, for crimcode, if you commit a crime, you're not instantly crimflagged. Folks around start yelling, shady types add permanent scores to your charm level, soldiers growl at you and try to grapple you. In time your crime gets forgotten if you may run away, simply because the NPCs will meet with other NPCs who didn't see the crime. If you've stolen from merchant A and your law rating has degraded from 100 to 80 for him, he'll make the law rating of you for the next person he 'speaks' 90 and his also will change to 90.. This will go on like this and though people will be more wary, you'll survive.
The guard of the jail increases your law rating by 10 every ten minutes he sees you there. All wandering soldiers get to the jail in their path. So slowly your law rating in the eyes of most commoners slowly increase, because the jail guard speaks to the soldiers and the soldiers speak to all other folks. You're released when it's higher than 125, which's 25 points higher than innocent.
The problem was, this code was hungry for CPU time. Every time two NPCs meet checking their ratings on PCs causes a tiny lag of miliseconds, but y'know, sometimes they do group so I was seeing the future troubles. My mud was consisting of at most 20 NPCs, arm has thousands. Also this code was really really memory hungry.
If someone may think of a better idea, I can use it too -with permission- in my MUD which will never be completed.

[Manhattan]

i'd say that 80% of my PC's died to the crime-code.

[Ghost]

Adding a delay to the NPC soldiers would serve a purpose.  Scrabs have delay, soldiers don't.

[RunningMountain]

Actually I don't mean PCs dying to committing a crime. (if you do the crime by prepared to do the time.. IN DROV) I mean PCs dying to the criminal code via other means.

[Manhattan]

what other means, del?

[RunningMountain]

Specefically crappy deaths to it. I won't go too much into detail but smuggling spice is one example that's not too IC. It's shitty if someone plants spice on you outside the gates and you go in with it. Say bye bye.

[LoD]

It would be nice if the guards could distinguish between a physical attack and some other law being broken (i.e. contraband, stealing, picking locks, etc...) and have a more aggressive detain/capture script written for non-aggressive crimes so that deaths as a result of smuggling/stealing/robbery were all but removed unless the person initiated attack and/or broke a subdue.

I'm not sure if that's even possible, but it'd be nice if there was that point to distinguish a violent and non-violent crime by code.

-LoD

[Xygax]

I've been thinking of something almost more like a GTA-style "you're wanted by -this much- meter"...  a botched pick-pocketing gets you to the first level, each attempt to evade arrest is another level, and so on.  Depending on the severity level, the guards choose whether or not to attempt to subdue and apprehend, knock-out and apprehend, or kill.  It'd be cool if a thief could temporarily (say for an IC hour or two) grease a few NPC palms to clear his escape route, too.

This is obviously some way down the road, of course.  Included in the effort would be fixing a lot of behaviors in soldier NPCs which strike me as bugs (like being able to move, sheathe, scream, and subdue in one "heartbeat" of the game)..

-- X

[Anonymous]

I think the best change to the criminal code would be to make it so combat isn't an automatic crim-flag.  Instead, just have it based on chance per round of combat.  People hang around cities without any fear because they know that the second someone starts a fight, their attacker will have a crimflag, and that's game over.  If you had a 10% chance of getting a crimflag for each successful hit, well...  that throws a little confusion in the mix.

[Ktavialt]

Specefically crappy deaths to it. I won't go too much into detail but smuggling spice is one example that's not too IC. It's shitty if someone plants spice on you outside the gates and you go in with it. Say bye bye.

Yep, a couple of my (fairly developed) characters went the accidental-walk-
in-with-spice way. I usually hear the beep before I see the cause of my
character's death.

- Ktavialt

[bloodfromstone]

Good call, Anon. I've seen the crim-code completely bury several heated exchanges that would have turned into interesting violence if engaging in combat wasn't an instant trip to the jail (or mantis head).

"C'mon, hit me first, pussy."
"No, you hit me first. I dare you."

Bleh. PCs with tempers shouldn't have to resort to that.

[Maybe42or54]

You just don't have very succsessful criminals.Personally, I'd love it if an NPC soldier just waited in an alleyway pretending to look for criminals.

You approach a soldier in a dark alleyway and he looks at you, holding out a hand. Now you can do one of two things.
Pay the man. (amount depends on the crime)
Give him some. (If you got caught smuggling spice, give him some spice. If you have a weapon or two, give him them. He will remember it, if it is worth more than a small From Salarr. Not the cost of you selling it to Salarr.)


Start dragging you off to jail, screaming to the other soldiers how awesome he is because they cant even catch sand rot. And here he is dragging in a new criminal everyday, if not more.

Then when he gets to an alleyway close to the entrance to the militia side of town, he does this.

The soldier whispers to you, "Get the fuck out of dodge into that alleyway. Come out on the otherside. You know where I'll be when you fuck up again."

The soldier walks through the alleyway and leaves through the other side.

You say, "Fuck yea."

[Maybe42or54]

And here is an idea.

Give all PC Soldiers an ability called:
Unincriminate.

Help unincriminate

If the wanted PC has less than a set amount of "stars" (GTA style, but It can be set amount of time.) Then a pc with this skill can "unincriminate" them.

Since it will be an imm set amount of time, a pay off to a local soldier should be able to get you free of the chopping block since they don't write anything down and that PC soldier can way the jailkeep and say you killed the guy. If they find someone just like "the raven, turqoise-haired big bosomed elf," Then obviously it is a different person. Odd coincedence.

Sounds like a fun skill.

[Cuusardo]

It would be really cool if there was a coded way to bring NPC soldiers and templars, the way you can bribe PCs.

[Rindan]

If I had a crime code wish list, it would look something like this.

1)  A militia nosave.  Nothing sucks more then dying because your character resisted the 20 gate guards and by some stupid stroke of luck managed to not be subdued.  Most people wouldn't put up a fight, it would be nice if you could set yourself to never put up a fight without all of the bad things that having nosave on entails.

2)  Sneak to work against aggressive NPCs, (namely soldiers).  As it stands, if you are going to commit a crime in Allanak that is going to get you a perm crime flag, unless you have a dozen buddies to fight your way back to the 'rinth, you are pretty much screwed.

4)  More variety in soldier strengths.  I recall when one time when my much bad ass 30 day warrior of d00m (much to his horror) was trounced repeatedly by the Allanaki militia.  I don't mind a few ungodly militiamen to be wandering around, but does every single militia man need to be a living god?  Maybe there is verity and I just have bud luck, but if there isn't, it would be nice.

5)  More alleyways and rooftops.  The Allanaki commons has a small hunk of rooftop, and two alleyways.  That really isn't enough in my opinion.  Rooftops and alleyways should crisscross all over the place.

6)  An incremental wanted system.  As others have already mentioned, a GTA style wanted system would be nice.  A petty pick pocket wouldn't raise much alert, but a guy swinging a battle axe around would attract attention really fast.

7)  Any improvement to the wanted system that would make the tactics involved getting away be more complicated then get incriminated, then don't move until your wanted flag has worn off.  Give soldiers city hunt, make sneak work, throw in some alleyways, and getting away could be a lot more interesting then finding a spot to stand that doesn't have NPC soldiers nearby.