No one uses the Assassins' Guild

[Ebonstar]

dont forget the you have a contract on your head message when you server transfer

this if anything else should be removed, simply because unless the target never changes servers, is a run for safety asap until you cancel the contract

this alone is one of the worst things existing because the contracts may not even been seen before they are bought out

[Mattamue]

Been an interesting thread. The assassinate-ee seems to be lacking any good mechanical counter play besides paying off the hit... or dying.

If the RP avenues worked there wouldn't be an alleged rash of payoff solutions. I'd be curious to see what the payoff rate actually was.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Assassins could drop their knife on death - > Use knife on assassin's corpse to cancel a current contract against you. The knife vanishes, returning to the guild for the assassin to be chided over his carelessness, and they drop the contract, refusing to accept further contracts on that target for one IG year to reduce the risk of exposure of its members and infrastructure.

Half the gold is returned to the client- the other half is forfeited to the guild to recoup losses. The assassin who botched the job gets nothing. A contract for less than 100,000 gold returns nothing to the client.

As an idea for counter-play between the client, assassin, and target.

[Nevrus]

This seems reasonable and encourages actually facing the assassin down instead of hiding. Or hiring an assassin hunter to do it for you.

The knife should be tradeable, though, for cases where assassins die and their friends pick them up to raise them when they're not on a job. It could also lead to interesting discoveries- why do you have this knife if you're supposed to be a paladin, hmmm?

[Nitro]

Killing an assassin to get rid of a bounty seems a bit weird, they're not the one who accepted the bounty, just an independent agent who took on a general bounty available to all assassins.

It would also open up some ripe abuse where you call up your assassin friend, have them pretend an assassination attempt and then get off clean.

[Amnesy]

Potentially, during the assassination period (if that could be extended slightly) if the issuer of the assassination is contracted to assassinate as well, a successful assassination could invalidate his own contracts.

1) Anonymus A makes the contract for a target B. - Assassin 1 picks it up.
2) Anonymus C makes the contract for a target A - Assassin 2 picks it up.

If assassin 2 is successful before assassin 1, contract 1 is invalidated.

So potentially a target being influential person, could cascade into a number of other assassin contracts to finish off his opponents in hope one of them issued the original contract.

I know it could be worked-around with using proxies but it is also a way to increase RP as a secret known by 2 is no longer a secret and you can't shield against all OOC/Meta play.

[The GrumpyCat]

Yeah, I like MonkeyWithStick's idea too.

Just to point out a few things other people have said:

2. Any property the target owns immediately goes up for sale- it can be bought back by the target if they get there before anyone else.

No offence meant, but this is an objectivly poor idea. We want people to respect death surely? Not 'OMG I DIED! BOTHER BOTHER BOTHER QUICK RESPAWN RESPAWN RESPAWN MUST GET TO HOME AHHH *RUN RUN RUN*
If you really wanted to go this rout, I'd make it so you were dissalowed from buying back your property or some such. Though tbh I'm not fond of this idea at all.

I mean, I do think we need to take a quick step back and keep one thing in mind when discussing this.

Assassins really do not suit Arelith.
Assassination (The steryotypical assassination) hinges on two things which are antithical to the server.

1) A lone killer who murders people unseen, unknown, anonymous. - This is basicaly the antithisis to interactive rp. But if we put in interactive rp, we move further away from the concept.
2) A victim meeting a perminent and violent death, gone forever - perminently meeting their maker.

In Arelith, two fairly big fundementals is that there should be some interesting rp around the assassination, (fair) and that death isn't perminent. This means that however we balence Assassins, the situation will never be 'perfect' because what we're trying to shape, can never properly happen unless we utterly destroy the two fundamentals above, which would create a huge shift in ethos.

None of this is 'bad' or 'wrong' or proves that we shouldn't be making/playing/allowing/supporting assassins, far from it. It just means that when we look at how to make this work, we have to accept that in some ways, it will never work.

[Artenides]

I really like monkeywithstick's idea and the follow-up conversation . As GrumpyCat mentioned, we won't have a perfect solution here, we just need to focus on a solution that generates more RP and its generally fun for assassins, assassinees (is that even a word? ) and the people placing the bounty!

[Apothys]

In my personal experience, the reason noone really uses the assassins guild is because unless the contract is in the 100s of thousands no one takes it. The average player on arelith just cannot afford more then 25-50k to waste on something they wont be involved in.

Personally i would love to use the assassins guild but for what you get it aint worth it. Too expensive, No rp, no participation with the guild, no real consequences of being assassinated. Plus do you lose your coin if its paid off?

maybe have standard prices for Assassinations? Or base it on level of target?

[Diegovog]

The interaction between the contractor and the assassin is cool but it doesn't address the underlying problem which is the inability to murder the target without having them paying it off first.
And if you add a "hidden booth" for a one on one hire, it becomes a first come first serve, much much slower and even less likely to carry on the assassination.
There's a cool "John Wick" type of feeling when a large bounty is put into the Guild. It's like assassins all around are stirring up and getting on the move.

Also, by allowing the targets to remove their bounties by killing the attempting assassin is just a way to kill fun interactions between the assassin and the target. Also, it will ruin for people playing assassins who aren't lvl 30, who are bad in pvp or who just want to try for fun. And the same problem as before, why place a bounty in the first place if with this mechanic it is even more likely to not be carried through and my money will be wasted?

Ideas to increase interaction and rp are great. But if you want to increase the bounties imo you have to:
1- Encourage placing up bounties by giving benefits in doing so.
2- Making it harder (or impossible as suggested by Archnon) to pay it off the bounty.

My own suggestion is to double the money the target has to pay to remove their mark.

[monkeywithstick]

If the same room is used to pay off the bounty, that does make it harder: someone has to accept the meeting. Could easily combine or replace with the double value to strike out the job.

If an assassin agrees a fee and it's in the book, there's no need to limit the job to that assassin, it just means there is an rp of negotiating the contract. Could even make some guild rp over "which fool accepted to kill The high priest of Tyr for only 10k?"

[magistrasa]

I think the confessional booth is convoluted, unrealistic, and actually damaging to the intended goal behind the idea.

So many factors could prevent the booth from working as intended. On an OOC level, you're basically locking out anyone with weird timezones or limited playtime from using the feature. After placing the deposit, they have to be online at the same time as the potential assassin, who still has to actually look at the guild board and see there's a deposit to begin with, when unless you're in the Underdark it's such an out-of-the-way annoyance to get to for such little reward that as far as I'm aware most assassins only check around once a week; mind you, the guild update could have changed that, so who knows. But then, if the client isn't online, the assassin is going to have to keep coming back over and over to try and trigger the confessional booth meeting, which will become tiresome and will eventually be given up on because the assassin surely has their own life and their own roleplay that they want to enjoy. Moreover, due to the fact that a lot of assassin characters are alts due to the low engagement they get, they're around even less, and chances for interaction are even lower.

If, by the grace of God, you're able to get an assassin to accept the meeting, then the difficulty is in whether or not the client is even in a position to meet at all. The demographic who use the guild the most are typically the wealthy and well connected leaders at the top of the heap who have made enemies. When you're at that level, you are pretty much always surrounded by people. The fact that there are almost certainly witnesses to your being summoned to this otherwise clandestine meeting is sort of problematic - especially if your target is in the same room when you get summoned somewhere mid-conversation without warning, and then a few minutes later you have a 1 million gold bounty on your head. Gee, that's a mystery. Sure it isn't provable that you're the one who put the bounty on 'em, but it doesn't have to be provable for that opponent to act on it. Not to mention the fact that no one in their right mind carries around 1 million gold without good reason, so if a yoink DOES pop up, you have to both naturally exit an ongoing conversation if there is one, and sprint to the bank to collect the gold you need to negotiate the bounty, before the yoink prompt expires.

And that's assuming it's done via -yoink. If it's messenger based, the whole thing becomes all the more cumbersome, as an assassin who accepted the meeting has to wait and wonder if the person's even going to show up, and the client who's probably always surrounded by people has to downplay this creepy weird message that most people who keep themselves "in the know" will eventually come to recognize and understand is sent from the assassin's guild.

On top of all this, there's still the risk that the assassin doesn't have the skill needed to take out the target, or the client doesn't have enough gold for a fair contract. Or the contract simply gets bought out after it's placed. So you went through all the trouble for nothing! I imagine there would even be some who breach the trust of the system to lead assassins into traps so as to uncover their identity. If that happens often enough, no self respecting assassin will ever agree to use the booth ever again.

So the only guaranteed way this feature would be used successfully is by OOC coordination. But I suppose that's fine because I'm willing to put money on the guess that 90% of assassinations are already OOCly coordinated.

At the end of the day, the problems with the system go deeper than what a one-off shady deal between client and assassin can solve. It's got a nice aesthetic, but I don't think the suggestion, even if it worked perfectly, would really solve anything. Assassins would still almost never be hired. Targets would still almost never be killed. What little roleplay can be scrounged up would almost never be meaningful. And assassins continue to suffer a largely disappointing experience.

[Nevrus]

The feedback on my suggestion is reasonable.

The point I was trying to make is that for the assassination system to have more value, it needs to be able to exert more consequence. The only consequence other than annoyance it can currently exert is forcing an election, in which the assassinated settlement leader can usually win.

People need a reason to put contracts on more than just settlement leaders. The property suggestion was to make it a means of stealing property- there's investigation that can go into who hired the assassin or who was involved based on who bought out the property while it was up, who was casing the area at the time of assassination. It also forces assassins and clients to coordinate if they're going to make that work.

Can anyone think of other consequences that meet these criteria:
1. Require assassin and client to be in contact.
2. Are useful against a wider variety of targets.
3. Has suitable counter-play or can lead to the client being found out.

I have no better thoughts on initial contact than what is being suggested here.

[monkeywithstick]

I think the confessional booth is convoluted, unrealistic, and actually damaging to the intended goal behind the idea.

I accept the idea is complex, I don't think a non-complex solution is either available or going to work.

So many factors could prevent the booth from working as intended. On an OOC level, you're basically locking out anyone with weird timezones or limited playtime from using the feature. After placing the deposit, they have to be online at the same time as the potential assassin, who still has to actually look at the guild board and see there's a deposit to begin with, when unless you're in the Underdark it's such an out-of-the-way annoyance to get to for such little reward that as far as I'm aware most assassins only check around once a week; mind you, the guild update could have changed that, so who knows. But then, if the client isn't online, the assassin is going to have to keep coming back over and over to try and trigger the confessional booth meeting, which will become tiresome and will eventually be given up on because the assassin surely has their own life and their own roleplay that they want to enjoy. Moreover, due to the fact that a lot of assassin characters are alts due to the low engagement they get, they're around even less, and chances for interaction are even lower.

The idea was that the client picks a timeslot they can be present for. If they can't be there, and an assassin is, then the meeting fee is forfeit. If there is no assassin the fee is returned. The hope would be that actually making the guild feature used/useful they might have more incentive to be online with an assassin.
Yeah, sure it's subideal that the feature that by your own admission is currently barely being used, would become maybe useful but not as much in off timezones but it's far from the only case of such on the server and it would still be an improvement.

If, by the grace of God, you're able to get an assassin to accept the meeting, then the difficulty is in whether or not the client is even in a position to meet at all. The demographic who use the guild the most are typically the wealthy and well connected leaders at the top of the heap who have made enemies. When you're at that level, you are pretty much always surrounded by people. The fact that there are almost certainly witnesses to your being summoned to this otherwise clandestine meeting is sort of problematic - especially if your target is in the same room when you get summoned somewhere mid-conversation without warning, and then a few minutes later you have a 1 million gold bounty on your head. Gee, that's a mystery. Sure it isn't provable that you're the one who put the bounty on 'em, but it doesn't have to be provable for that opponent to act on it. Not to mention the fact that no one in their right mind carries around 1 million gold without good reason, so if a yoink DOES pop up, you have to both naturally exit an ongoing conversation if there is one, and sprint to the bank to collect the gold you need to negotiate the bounty, before the yoink prompt expires.

I strongly suspect this could be played around.
Putting a banker NPC in the room is hardly a crippling workaround and would make as much sense as the united bankers union between Andunor, Sencliffe and Cordor all being able to access the same accounts.

And that's assuming it's done via -yoink. If it's messenger based, the whole thing becomes all the more cumbersome, as an assassin who accepted the meeting has to wait and wonder if the person's even going to show up, and the client who's probably always surrounded by people has to downplay this creepy weird message that most people who keep themselves "in the know" will eventually come to recognize and understand is sent from the assassin's guild.

I prefer the yoink idea for exactly this reason. Though I am told a message like a sending spell could in fact be delivered to one character only via the mechanics window, this could work

On top of all this, there's still the risk that the assassin doesn't have the skill needed to take out the target, or the client doesn't have enough gold for a fair contract. Or the contract simply gets bought out after it's placed. So you went through all the trouble for nothing! I imagine there would even be some who breach the trust of the system to lead assassins into traps so as to uncover their identity. If that happens often enough, no self respecting assassin will ever agree to use the booth ever again.

If the client doesn't have enough gold: RP can happen round that.
The contract can be bought out now, likewise elaborate traps can be laid now. I'm not sure the confessional idea adds potential for more of this really.

So the only guaranteed way this feature would be used successfully is by OOC coordination. But I suppose that's fine because I'm willing to put money on the guess that 90% of assassinations are already OOCly coordinated.

I can't really comment on that.

At the end of the day, the problems with the system go deeper than what a one-off shady deal between client and assassin can solve. It's got a nice aesthetic, but I don't think the suggestion, even if it worked perfectly, would really solve anything. Assassins would still almost never be hired. Targets would still almost never be killed. What little roleplay can be scrounged up would almost never be meaningful. And assassins continue to suffer a largely disappointing experience.

That's fine. This thread is not about that suggestion alone, and I had no desire to hijack it. I look forwards to whatever ideas you can add that might stop it being a largely disappointing experience. If there aren't any, maybe the guild should just be shelved.

[Apokriphos]

I agree with Diegovog.

Double the cost for the target to pay off the bounty, and place a delay on how soon it can be paid off equivalent to 8 hours worth of in game play time.

This will promote more interaction between the mark and potential assassins, prevent wealthy leaders from easily paying off their bounties, while maintaining the competitive aesthetic the assassins guild has established over the years.

The simplist solution here that requires the least work and development time is most likely to be implemented.

[The GrumpyCat]

The feedback on my suggestion is reasonable.

The point I was trying to make is that for the assassination system to have more value, it needs to be able to exert more consequence. The only consequence other than annoyance it can currently exert is forcing an election, in which the assassinated settlement leader can usually win.

People need a reason to put contracts on more than just settlement leaders. The property suggestion was to make it a means of stealing property- there's investigation that can go into who hired the assassin or who was involved based on who bought out the property while it was up, who was casing the area at the time of assassination. It also forces assassins and clients to coordinate if they're going to make that work.

Can anyone think of other consequences that meet these criteria:
1. Require assassin and client to be in contact.
2. Are useful against a wider variety of targets.
3. Has suitable counter-play or can lead to the client being found out.

I have no better thoughts on initial contact than what is being suggested here.

You bring up some interesting points, and I do applaud this being discussed and encourage it. Also I feel I may have been a bit short with you in my prior reply, so I'm sorry about this. That said - can I ask a question which I think also needs to be considered:

"Why is your character hiring an assassin to kill someone anyway? As in - What is the end desired goal of someone when they hire an assassin to kill someone?'

Answer - for whatever reason - That person dead.

That is currently achieved through the current consequence.

So by adding another consequence we are, by neccestity, adding a 'meta' consequence. Something not that the pc (As PCs we should be awear certainly that other pcs can return from death, but we shouldn't be treating it as absolute definitives. Death should have some weight.) wants achieved, but that the player wants achieved.

So by adding further consequences to assassinations, what we're saying is we want ways that we, as players, can levy consequences on other players.

'I want to hire an assassin to kill this pc, because I, as a player, know that this will result in a death that will hinder the rp of the other player.'

Is this something we really want to play to?

[Nobs]

Sounds like its more fun to skip the whole assassin guild any way and just rp.

The whole pay a npc no rp thing is meh way more fun to be out there and rp for stuff like that.

[Nevrus]

I personally don't believe that having bad things happen hinders RP. It in fact supports and enables it. Bad things happen to good adventurers, after all. Hindering a character's material position does not prevent them from getting allies to get back what was lost, reflect on their actions that lead to the loss, become bitter, or any other number of reactions that could occur.

I very specifically stand against the idea of consequences being RP-hindering. Having a corrupt chancellor steal your shop/house/etc doesn't hinder your RP, it gives you a new arc. It's on the player to make the most of everything, and that includes loss.

[The GrumpyCat]

I personally don't believe that having bad things happen hinders RP. It in fact supports and enables it. Bad things happen to good adventurers, after all. Hindering a character's material position does not prevent them from getting allies to get back what was lost, reflect on their actions that lead to the loss, become bitter, or any other number of reactions that could occur.

I very specifically stand against the idea of consequences being RP-hindering. Having a corrupt chancellor steal your shop/house/etc doesn't hinder your RP, it gives you a new arc. It's on the player to make the most of everything, and that includes loss.

I entirely agree. But that's not quite my point.

My point is that by adding more cosquences to death by Assassin, what are we appeasing?

Are we appeasing an In Character desire for more consequence on the other PC?

Or are we appeasing an Out of Character desire for more consequence on the other PC?

And if the latter is that the right attitude to placate?

I mean, I'm not 100% against the idea to adding further consequence to death-by-assassin, but I think it needs to be very carefully managed and considered. Mostly because let's be honest, death-by-assassin can 'feel' very lame, even if done 100% correctly.

[Anomandaris]

The feedback on my suggestion is reasonable.

The point I was trying to make is that for the assassination system to have more value, it needs to be able to exert more consequence. The only consequence other than annoyance it can currently exert is forcing an election, in which the assassinated settlement leader can usually win.

People need a reason to put contracts on more than just settlement leaders. The property suggestion was to make it a means of stealing property- there's investigation that can go into who hired the assassin or who was involved based on who bought out the property while it was up, who was casing the area at the time of assassination. It also forces assassins and clients to coordinate if they're going to make that work.

Can anyone think of other consequences that meet these criteria:
1. Require assassin and client to be in contact.
2. Are useful against a wider variety of targets.
3. Has suitable counter-play or can lead to the client being found out.

I have no better thoughts on initial contact than what is being suggested here.

You bring up some interesting points, and I do applaud this being discussed and encourage it. Also I feel I may have been a bit short with you in my prior reply, so I'm sorry about this. That said - can I ask a question which I think also needs to be considered:

"Why is your character hiring an assassin to kill someone anyway? As in - What is the end desired goal of someone when they hire an assassin to kill someone?'

Answer - for whatever reason - That person dead.

That is currently achieved through the current consequence.

So by adding another consequence we are, by neccestity, adding a 'meta' consequence. Something not that the pc (As PCs we should be awear certainly that other pcs can return from death, but we shouldn't be treating it as absolute definitives. Death should have some weight.) wants achieved, but that the player wants achieved.

So by adding further consequences to assassinations, what we're saying is we want ways that we, as players, can levy consequences on other players.

'I want to hire an assassin to kill this pc, because I, as a player, know that this will result in a death that will hinder the rp of the other player.'

Is this something we really want to play to?

I personally don't believe that having bad things happen hinders RP. It in fact supports and enables it. Bad things happen to good adventurers, after all. Hindering a character's material position does not prevent them from getting allies to get back what was lost, reflect on their actions that lead to the loss, become bitter, or any other number of reactions that could occur.

I very specifically stand against the idea of consequences being RP-hindering. Having a corrupt chancellor steal your shop/house/etc doesn't hinder your RP, it gives you a new arc. It's on the player to make the most of everything, and that includes loss.

I entirely agree. But that's not quite my point.

My point is that by adding more cosquences to death by Assassin, what are we appeasing?

Are we appeasing an In Character desire for more consequence on the other PC?

Or are we appeasing an Out of Character desire for more consequence on the other PC?

And if the latter is that the right attitude to placate?

I mean, I'm not 100% against the idea to adding further consequence to death-by-assassin, but I think it needs to be very carefully managed and considered. Mostly because let's be honest, death-by-assassin can 'feel' very lame, even if done 100% correctly.

By that logic players are constantly trying to hinder the "motives" or "rp" of others. But I don't know if that's fair to characterize as a negative effort on the player's experience, as much as adding to the RP and creating conflict (frankly the action may be the same but the intent different player to player). Depending on the semantics it's not negative, it's conflict RP. Ideally it's done gracefully and with the goal of enriching the experience for all, but we know that's not always reality. Sadly there are no ways to create a perfect system whereby there are tools to interact with the world that also don't get abused to the detriment of some just based on some people being bad apples.

Many mechanical powers at present give players/PCs this power (settlements powers for example). In this scenario a guild caused death would allow an individual to have an impact on a settlement leader's material position in the ecosystem, though still smaller than what the settlement leader could do (rightfully so). The motive isn't OOC screw over this person's RP, it's IC I don't want X character to achieve Y goal. Here is one of several tools I have to potentially affect that change in the world. It in essence democratizes power a bit more (which I believe is part of the philosophical value of an assassin's guild).

It ties into a philosophical question regarding how much consolidation and stagnancy do we want in the server? Much like the real world's political/corporate institutions, certain old characters or factions have tremendous resources and simply cannot be dethroned. Maybe this is good, maybe it's not. It does create a bit of an elite tier of game play that some will never experience, and frankly is hard to break into. Again, maybe that's great and is exactly should be, just something to consider and ultimately is underpinning some of these mechanical convos about guild death impact on property and elections.

All in all interesting discussion, curious to see where it lands and what gets implemented long term.

[Skullduggery]

What's the point in putting a contract on a settlement leader, and following through with it, if they can just enter the newly triggered election and (potentially) win again anyway?

I always felt like this "perk" of the guild in particular was lackluster - and to an extent, fairly immersion breaking.

"The Chancellor that just got knifed is running again to keep his/her position!"

The point of these political intrigue plots is to encourage/enforce some sort of lasting change, and (if the leader is disliked enough) to provide a pivotal moral degradation in normally good-aligned individuals. It feels like it's all for nothing when the "dead" Chancellor gets right back up again and inserts their name to go another term.

I 100% agree with the idea of preventing an assassinated settlement leader from running in the election that's triggered with their death. They can run again later down the line if they want, but I feel like a true assassination demands this consequence for the sake of RP.

[The GrumpyCat]

I 100% agree with the idea of preventing an assassinated settlement leader from running in the election that's triggered with their death. They can run again later down the line if they want, but I feel like a true assassination demands this consequence for the sake of RP.

This is a perfectly fair and interesting point, and really has it's merit.

The devils advocate argument, is that it also means that two people (one with enough gold, and another playing an assasin with pvp potential) can outweigh the rp decision of a large number of pcs.

E.g. - 20 people voted for Bob for cordor. One person kills Bob and Bob can no longer do his Thing.

There's already an argument that to rule a settlment one has to be level 30. To add such a system would give further merit to that argument.

That being said - sometimes harsher consequences can be fun. Sometimes it's good to encourage settlment leaders to pay off bounties, hire bodyguards, be more careful, not annoy the wrong people ect, ect...

But I ultimatly there is always this counter argument of, 'Why should someone's mechanical pvp ability trump the effort and rp of dozens and dozens of people?'

(My counter counter argument is that part of that rp is appeasing folk so that they do -not- lay n the assassination contract. But then again this presumes everyone is rping to top form, no ooc agenda ect ect...)

[Nobs]

I 100% agree with the idea of preventing an assassinated settlement leader from running in the election that's triggered with their death. They can run again later down the line if they want, but I feel like a true assassination demands this consequence for the sake of RP.

This is a perfectly fair and interesting point, and really has it's merit.

The devils advocate argument, is that it also means that two people (one with enough gold, and another playing an assasin with pvp potential) can outweigh the rp decision of a large number of pcs.

E.g. - 20 people voted for Bob for cordor. One person kills Bob and Bob can no longer do his Thing.

There's already an argument that to rule a settlment one has to be level 30. To add such a system would give further merit to that argument.

That being said - sometimes harsher consequences can be fun. Sometimes it's good to encourage settlment leaders to pay off bounties, hire bodyguards, be more careful, not annoy the wrong people ect, ect...

But I ultimatly there is always this counter argument of, 'Why should someone's mechanical pvp ability trump the effort and rp of dozens and dozens of people?'

(My counter counter argument is that part of that rp is appeasing folk so that they do -not- lay n the assassination contract. But then again this presumes everyone is rping to top form, no ooc agenda ect ect...)

It all depends on the player , some know how to lose with grace others dont.
And someone's 'mechanical' pvp (Especialy that of a assassin) is rp aswel so why should it not count?

[Twily]

I didn't read the other replies here entirely, but my own thoughts on the matter:

I feel like one of the largest reasons people don't use the system is because of how the gold is managed.
You give the gold to an NPC and it's immediately gone forever and goes to no one. Following that, the victim may just give gold to the NPC to pay it off, gold that is also immediately gone forever again going to no one.
And if the victim doesn't, they can just go inactive until the bounty wears off.

If you contrast this with public bounty boards, gold doesn't move hands until the deed is done, and it goes directly from one player to another player.

I feel like the assassin guild would be used a lot more if it had a similar sort of thing.

My ideas:
If the bounty wears off or is paid off a percentage of the original bounty payment goes back to the person who placed the bounty(like 80%?). This would encourage people to place bounties more since they have less to lose in the event it doesn't pan out.

And second, a percentage of the gold that goes to the NPC goes to extra resources for the guild. Maybe having a two way portal inside, a special store with super cheap prices on items that could help with assassinations, or a small percentage of gold paid out as a bonus to assassins that have completed contracts recently.
I'm not really sure on this point, but as is it seems to me like a lot more money goes to the NPCs than it does to PC assassins and I feel like the guild would ultimately stand to profit by investing in their assassins.

If it's not already the case, I also think bounties on the same target should stack. This would encourage several people to be able to place slightly lower gold bounties and have them accumulate into one large bounty the assassins could do when the pay is high enough.

And lastly, I think there should be something to encourage assassin PCs to work together more. I haven't played an assassin though so I'm really not sure what could help this.
Maybe it could be tied back to more gold moving to the PCs and less to the NPCs, where assassins that work together get a percentage increase to the total payout for splitting?

[Dr. B]

And lastly, I think there should be something to encourage assassin PCs to work together more. I haven't played an assassin though so I'm really not sure what could help this.

Assassins already have a decent incentive to work together--more assassins on the job means less risk of dying. This is also why I prefer a system of the sort that already exists, where bounties appear on a shared board, rather than a system in which one hires individual assassins, as others here have proposed.