Thieves and karma

[DesertT]

This is sort of a carry over from the thieves thread in ask the players, but just on a different point.

It was brought up that thieves should be a karma guild, then there's talk about letting thieves steal while sitting, also about allowing thieves to open containers, so here's AN idea.

:arrow: Leave thieves as a non-karma guild.

:arrow: Allow thieves to steal while sitting, but only from those at the same table, bed, cot, roll, pillow, couch, whatever they are sitting at.

:arrow: Allow thieves to open containers to steal, BUT make this a karma required skill.  So thieves without the proper amount of karma, cannot open containers.

This is just an idea that I thought could work.

Maybe even add a karma requirement for thieves to be able to steal while sitting at the same table/whatever.

[mansa]

I don't think thieves should be able to steal stuff while sitting.  You can palm and slip items while sitting, which I view as correct.  I just think stealing requires more physical positioning than just sitting down.

[Marauder Moe]

I loathe the idea of karma-required skills or commands.  I can't really explain why, it just feels wrong.

Karma is given to players who've proved they know that Armageddon isn't a competition, not as a reward to give them an edge over other players.  Karma races and guilds are restricted because they must be roleplayed differently and carefully, not just because they're powerful.

I don't see a problem with letting a sitting thief steal from someone at the same table, though.

[jhunter]

I don't have a problem with them being able to steal while sitting with their mark. Seems plausible to me.

As for karma restricted skills...fuck that.

[FightClub]

Well, you might feel that was Joe, but people do have a good point in thinking thieving classes should be karma oriented.

Since generally people with karma are better rpers they would technically not abuse such skills, that are more often than not abused.

I've seen thieves sit in the same room and spam steal on a person until they got noticed and sprint out, without emoting once, heard of people doing it at the same table, while having a conversation with a different person, and stealing from someone on the other side of the bar.  And the problem is -- there's little done to restrain people from doing such in game.

So yeah I believe such is called for, and needed in some cases.  Since the staff can't always be around to observe us, as we know.

[jhunter]

More often than not such skills aren't actually being abused and the victims merely think they are.  I've been guilty of this myself.

[LoD]

Taking my past city-based characters into account, I just can't bring myself to believe that this problem is either widespread or common enough to warrant a change in the karma structure.

I find it more likely that a few people have been the victim of some recent twinkery and the sheer volume of that single episode, or string of episodes from the same source, somehow made you believe that it was happening everywhere.  The thieves you do see spam stealing are eventually caught, killed or taught to do otherwise by a combination of the gameworld, the players and the Imm Staff.

While I do agree that some of the thief classes can be difficult to play correctly, I also agree with (I think) Halaster when he said he wouldn't want to leave the only playing options for new players to be warriors, rangers and merchants.  And, honestly, sometimes new players are the only characters that provide genuine and innocent conflict with the rest of the playerbase because they don't know any better.  Their actions aren't the result of any prior OOC knowledge, but are often the most pure examples of character ignorance the gameworld has, which I actually find refreshing from time to time.

The other percentage of the time, I find it frustrating like everyone else.

-LoD

[Sanvean]

Leave thieves as a non-karma guild.

This is my preference, because I think when we eliminate options for new players,  it hurts us more than anything.  I agreed that thieves get badly twinked on occasion, but the people saying that sometimes perceptions are misleading have a valid point as well.

Here's a hint for people running thieves: if you are spamming actions or doing things that make no IC sense, like using palm and slip instead of get and put because you are hoping to bump the skills, you may want to think about whether or not it's twinky.   We have on occasion removed the thiefly options from people's accounts; if they persist in doing it after that, the next step is to store the character.

Allow thieves to steal while sitting, but only from those at the same table, bed, cot, roll, pillow, couch, whatever they are sitting at.

Not keen on this at all.  We already have problems, as noted, with people twinking out on stealing, and this seems like license to do it even more.

Allow thieves to open containers to steal, BUT make this a karma required skill. So thieves without the proper amount of karma, cannot open containers.

Not keen on the idea of karma-restricted skills at all, beyond the fact that it seems like unnecessary code work.

[UnderSeven]

I would also like to point out, this idea seems to bank off the idea that karma is some sort of reward system which you can accumulate more karma from what have you.  

Either such a thing would require so little karma almost anyone could do it, or it would require so much almost no one can.  I've been here for many many many years and I don't have a terrible lot of karma myself.  It isn't about rp so much but 'trust' as they say, but in general I think special app trumps karma in 99.9% of cases and karma is prettly rarely given out beyond a certain level.  Once again I don't know this for sure, but continuing on, Karma is an extremely subjective system, which would require staff who are very busy (and greatly out numbered by players) to view regular displays of good trustworthy rp.  

So you have to one, find a staff member who actually subjectively views your rp that way and two has enough time to view it.  Maybe it takes more than one staffer.  End result?  Mud wide karma is not something players should depend on.  Therefore using karma in the suggested way is probably not going to work.  

Not ment to offend staff or anyone, this is just one players oppinion from viewing the karma system.

[Anonymous]

I don't think thieves should be able to steal stuff while sitting.  You can palm and slip items while sitting, which I view as correct.  I just think stealing requires more physical positioning than just sitting down.

I'm reminded of the pickpocketing scene in Gangs of New York.  Picking something off of someone's lap/belt while sitting at a table seems perfectly resonable to me.

[Rindan]

I personally wouldn't mind seeing pick pocket get a rework, but I would not want to see it get changed into a karma option.  Playing a criminal is hard enough for purely OOC reasons.  The greatest challenge in playing a criminal is finding fellow criminals in any large number.  I would hate to see the criminal population take an even further hit by making criminal classes karma only.

As to pick pocketing abilities, I think that there is extremely little abuse of pick pocket skills.  Once on a blue moon some n00b will twink our his pick pocket skill for a few days and then be gone.  The VAST majority of the time otherwise pick pocketing isn't ever a concern.  As a player of 8 or so years, I think I have been pick pocketed once, and even then I am not sure.  I don't consider that low of a frequency to be a sign of a problem.  The only thing I would really like to see would be for the ability to steal an item, but have the victim know that it was me that took the item.  Basically, have them catch your hand in their pocket, but not stop you in time to keep you from taking it.  This could open up a lot of RP.

The only other thing I would mind seeing for pick pockets would be if someone just went through the NPCs of Allanak and gave them some stuff.  After a while your average thief gets mighty sick of stealing daggers.  Give commoners 5 'sid, some bread, and some other assorted trivial stuff.  Spread it around and change things up.  It doesn't have to be of much value, just make it ANYTHING other then frigging daggers.

[flurry]

:arrow: Leave thieves as a non-karma guild.

I definitely agree with that.

:arrow: Allow thieves to steal while sitting, but only from those at the same table, bed, cot, roll, pillow, couch, whatever they are sitting at.

Personally, I would not like to see this at all.  While I understand it is certainly possible to pickpocket while seated, I think the conditions have to be just right to do it.  You really need to be adjacent to your victim, with the victim distracted, in a way so that your hand can reach the object, etc. etc.   To me, it seems like a much more complicated proposition, unless everything is just right.  And the code doesn't account for who's sitting next to whom, etc.  

On top of that, it brings up issues with twinking - right now I think the fact that you need to stand is a good check on this behavior.  

:arrow: Allow thieves to open containers to steal, BUT make this a karma required skill.  So thieves without the proper amount of karma, cannot open containers same table/whatever.

I don't like the idea of karma-based skills.  If it's a skill that's powerful enough, and important enough, I'd rather just see the whole guild require karma.  

I don't mind the idea of a thief opening a container, but I'd like to see it as very difficult to master and based off a different skill than steal.