Stealing of player shelves, a discussion

[Void]

i'm all for not bending over backwards to give people freebies and I also want people to earn things (myself included), but the amount of effort made to make quarterbreaking cool and fun is abysmal.

Yep, could use more mechanics for sure. However, there's plenty of risk involved, especially on surface with their spot gods. People can suddenly decide to visit the area at the worst time.

The incident OP described already generated a response, as far as I can tell. Whether this will amount to something larger remains to be seen.

And yes, Happy New Year to everyone.

[The GrumpyCat]

There's definatly two different styles here - the 'naturalistic' approach (I will play my best, hope others play their best, and let the cards fall where they will!') and the more narrative approach ('I will do my best to tell a story with my character, and with other characters.') Which is the better way? Honestly they're both fairly valid, though it's best to find a bit of a balence between. Too far one way leads to frustration, pride gaming and cruelty. Too far the other way also leads to frustration, clunkyness and even sourness. Roleplay is an interactive medium. If you want to do something where you entirely controle the narrative, then I suggest writing a book.

Linked to that is the balence between power and freedom.

Its good to be able to have mechanical power over someone - whether it's pvp, stealing, exiling ect - it means that actions have definate consequences.

But Consequences can be abused and ruin the game for others. So when we put powers in, we have to balence them to make sure they arn't too much, arn't abusive, and don't absolutly abuse the game for others.

IF a character gets into a house somehow, checks the bookshelf and finds a book entitled 'My Diary of Sins' and finds it chock full of incriminating evidence - they should be able to take it and do things with it. Or take it for whatever reason they like. Telling them 'Nope, sorry, you gotta sit on your hands and do nothing at all ever because the criiminal player didn't give you permission' is unfair.

Likewise it's not fair that said player should steal the entire bookshelf, with all the collected items on it, - even with good roleplay (Unless the victim player is ok with it of course.) That's too much consequence.

I don't know that we always get it right - especially as the bar on what is 'acceptable' as a consequence is different for different people. We can see that from above. But that's the balence we try to get.

[Void]

the 'naturalistic' approach (I will play my best, hope others play their best, and let the cards fall where they will!')

Its good to be able to have mechanical power over someone - whether it's pvp, stealing, exiling ect - it means that actions have definate consequences.

But Consequences can be abused and ruin the game for others.

I think it is worth pointing out that a character following "naturalistic" approach does not necessarily have any sort of mechanical power. So while breaking into quarters the character might be only good at being unseen and nothing else. That makes the whole situation high stakes and asking to leave evidence in that situation could be asking for too much.

With that said, I think it would be nice if the quarter breaking system had some extension (and generated evidence, or at least allowed to examine doors for traps), but then again, suggestion box is currently closed.

[lakhena]

Side note, if you pick up, then put down, then pick up a fixture again you can edit the fixture's name. This lets you remove the faction tag and take out one book. You do not have to apply the weight dweomer (and risk a 5% vaporization) to take ownership.

Thank you for sharing this! I was bummed when one of my earlier characters couldn’t replace heretical player written books with something she thought was far more suitable.

It could be interesting to have some sort of defacing option for fixtures in general, rather than a complete overwrite of the description, especially if the fixture is already placed. One of the most hilarious moments for me was finding defaced altars with amusing descriptions. But while I appreciate what was done for RP, I still wish we had been able to restore the original description or something close to it… maybe having the option to see the last saved description could help us figure out how to balance the history of an object and someone trying to change it to further role play (whether by defacing or adding additional flavor, etc.).

[CNS]

i think waiting until a player is offline and stealing from them and just leaving a note (if that) going "haha I stole from you" isn't good roleplay. i'm reluctant to even call it roleplay at all.

i'm all for not bending over backwards to give people freebies and I also want people to earn things (myself included), but the amount of effort made to make quarterbreaking cool and fun is abysmal.

If you can't think of ways to make it engaging for the other player, you shouldn't be doing it.

Seconded

[The GrumpyCat]

Side note, if you pick up, then put down, then pick up a fixture again you can edit the fixture's name. This lets you remove the faction tag and take out one book. You do not have to apply the weight dweomer (and risk a 5% vaporization) to take ownership.

Thank you for sharing this! I was bummed when one of my earlier characters couldn’t replace heretical player written books with something she thought was far more suitable.

It could be interesting to have some sort of defacing option for fixtures in general, rather than a complete overwrite of the description, especially if the fixture is already placed. One of the most hilarious moments for me was finding defaced altars with amusing descriptions. But while I appreciate what was done for RP, I still wish we had been able to restore the original description or something close to it… maybe having the option to see the last saved description could help us figure out how to balance the history of an object and someone trying to change it to further role play (whether by defacing or adding additional flavor, etc.).

Not really an 'answer', your idea is still valid ect - but I really really suggest that any description you care about on a fixture/item, you save in a word document. It's the biggest 'pro tip' I can give. It'll save so much heartache in the future.

[perseid]

the 'naturalistic' approach (I will play my best, hope others play their best, and let the cards fall where they will!')

Its good to be able to have mechanical power over someone - whether it's pvp, stealing, exiling ect - it means that actions have definate consequences.

But Consequences can be abused and ruin the game for others.

I think it is worth pointing out that a character following "naturalistic" approach does not necessarily have any sort of mechanical power. So while breaking into quarters the character might be only good at being unseen and nothing else. That makes the whole situation high stakes and asking to leave evidence in that situation could be asking for too much.

With that said, I think it would be nice if the quarter breaking system had some extension (and generated evidence, or at least allowed to examine doors for traps), but then again, suggestion box is currently closed.

Quarterbreaking is literally uncounterable if the person just waits until there's no one around and allows the pc to permanently seize possessions on a server where even death is just a matter of rp consequences. If anything the natural approach as framed here is the only mechanic of power on the server. The stakes are minimal at best compared to other mechanics.

[Void]

Quarterbreaking is literally uncounterable if the person just waits until there's no one around

You don't know if nobody is around, unless your spot is about 120. And even then you have a room for doubt.
You don't know when someone is going to enter the area you're in.
You also don't know if the door is trapped and have no means to check, although there are ways to make a decent guess. Rivondir's, for example, arm all their doors with an equivalent of magical nuke. You touch it with a wrong skill level, and you'll be vaporized.

[perseid]

Quarterbreaking is literally uncounterable if the person just waits until there's no one around

You don't know if nobody is around, unless your spot is about 120. And even then you have a room for doubt.
You don't know when someone is going to enter the area you're in.
You also don't know if the door is trapped and have no means to check, although there are ways to make a decent guess. Rivondir's, for example, arm all their doors with an equivalent of magical nuke. You touch it with a wrong skill level, and you'll be vaporized.

You can just scout the area with truesight.
I already mentioned most quarterbreakers wait until no one is around.
You can bring a partner to ressurect/heal you you if you're an hp thin build.
It's a scenario where there is nothing the victim can do that will stop a qb who is determined to gain entry.

[ElevenOne]

Hello! Seems I lost my old forum account so, sadly had to make a new one to post this

I had run a couple of toon that were book-collectors, and lost a few bookshelves in the process, so I wanted to give some feedback.

1) First of all, why people has the need to collect so many summon and magic books? We were granted a way to collect more items than bank + quarter chest, and suddenly bookshelves are being filled with those. Seems odd a good character suddenly needs to have over 10 evil summoning books from a RP point of view.

If your bookshelf had more than 3 of these, and it got stolen, makes sense, you can get some good coin from those than someone stealing (random resource) from your personal chest.

2) We are not that limited in the number of bookshelves, want to keep dozens of summons books? Then you can just have two bookshelves, one for magic books and the other for lore books. If a thief enters your quarter, he'll happily take the magic book bookshelf and leave your precious lore books intact.

3) We also have bookbags, Is not a huge item, it does not weight much. Item works ok with lore book. Do you have a valuable/loved/sentimental book you don't want to lose? Put it in your book bag. It will sit there forever in a 100% sure place that no one can steal. Even in a low Str toon, 0.5 lbls will not be that huge.

4) If your precious bookshelf was stolen, have you done some in game RP to get it back ? Has been a long time since I ever saw a "To the thief who stole [ITEM] could we arrange a way to get at least [ITEM] back? There are FOIG ways for shaddy toons to give stuff back without actually needed to interact in person. If you lost an important book, RP to try to get it back.

5) Your quarter security should be as secure as the value of items your quarter have. We have in game ways to stop quarter-breakers, so why you don't you use them? Better pay some extra coins every now and then than losing something important.

6) If your book shelf has too many valuables, another alternative would keep in chest something of higher value, so the thief is more inclined to take the item in the chest than the bookshelf. "A stack of diamonds would keep a thief away from other stuff"

7) Make copies. If you have an important book... then you can just make copies of it and store it in friends quarter, inventory.. etc, etc. If one get's stolen, you have a good way to replace it.

8) If your book shelf really, really, really has something value, why just not store it on the bank storage?

Sure, I got mad when my bookshelves were stolen, but I had so many options to make it not happen and I did none of these, so yea, opportunity makes the thief.

Arelith is a hard world filled with thugs, pirates, monsters, thieves and assassins. Anyone can produce a giant blade to kill you from thin air. Odd to cry for a bookshelf from a RP point of view, be happy you were not killed / enslaved when the thief entered your quarter.

[-XXX-]

1) First of all, why people has the need to collect so many summon and magic books? We were granted a way to collect more items than bank + quarter chest, and suddenly bookshelves are being filled with those. Seems odd a good character suddenly needs to have over 10 evil summoning books from a RP point of view.

Having summonning books stashed somewhere is great because:

• It leads to character interaction and fosters RP when somebody needs one of them.

• Not every character has a shop.

But I agree (slight digression on my part here), I am a much bigger fan of curated libraries over seeing people just shove every book they find into their shelves. That way the library can reveal a bit of information about its owner to whomever browses it.

2) We are not that limited in the number of bookshelves, want to keep dozens of summons books? Then you can just have two bookshelves, one for magic books and the other for lore books. If a thief enters your quarter, he'll happily take the magic book bookshelf and leave your precious lore books intact.

3) We also have bookbags, Is not a huge item, it does not weight much. Item works ok with lore book. Do you have a valuable/loved/sentimental book you don't want to lose? Put it in your book bag. It will sit there forever in a 100% sure place that no one can steal. Even in a low Str toon, 0.5 lbls will not be that huge.

The area fixture limit can be quite constraining. Personally, I'm not very fond of the notion of getting out of my way to facilitate fringe RP that takes place while I'm offline.
Same argument regarding the book bags, really - just replace area fixture limit with inventory space.

5) Your quarter security should be as secure as the value of items your quarter have. We have in game ways to stop quarter-breakers, so why you don't you use them? Better pay some extra coins every now and then than losing something important.

Quarterbreaker characters beat maxed out quarter security by design. You can't make your quarter unbreakable no matter how much money you throw at it. High rent of quarter signs (that are placed in public spaces in most cases) only advertises to theves that something worth stealing might be found inside the quarter.

7) Make copies. If you have an important book... then you can just make copies of it and store it in friends quarter, inventory.. etc, etc. If one get's stolen, you have a good way to replace it.

Sure, you can even keep the book saved in a text file somewhere and simply copy-paste it into a new book each time the old one gets stolen.
IMO this isn't very interactive either.
It can easily escalate into a one-upmanship between the quarter owner and the thief where each is trying to demonstrate to the other how easily they can afford to disregard them.

[pandincus]

Hello! I know this thread is a little old now and a ruling has been formed, and I find the discussion here extremely valuable. I just wanted to share my two cents as a player who played the character that formerly ran the Bendir Library for several years, and had public bookshelf theft occur on multiple occasions. I got to experience several different forms of roleplay related to this.

In some instances, the theft involved narrative that was abundantly clear, and in fact spawned roleplay and consequences that actually lasted in-game years. This was fantastic, and (mostly?) enjoyable on (I believe?) all sides of the conflict. The theft and discussion around it actually affected the personal relationships and stories of SEVERAL characters. A++.

In other instances, shelves disappeared without a trace, were never recovered (and had to be manually recreated / books added / etc), and no clues were left. Requests for information, pleas on town message boards (posted across the island, I think), etc - all were ignored. Sure, of course - a thief would have no reason to respond to such a plea. Why should they? But what narrative was even created by the theft? What story resulted? One could argue that for whatever reason, this character had a reason to steal said shelf, and it benefited them. But given that this is a group roleplay experience, and that this character's personal motivations directly harmed hours (days?) of creative work (from dozens of players), what is the point of that action? (In terms of players, not characters)

I really want to second this:

Providing options of narrative, not just trying to win at the expense of creating something more enjoyable for all. Does that mean you have to sacrifice all the time? No, of course not. Conflict and struggle with other characters is a big part of the story, but that doesn't mean you can't give the opposing player a bone or two. I've always found that giving others a chance to blossom, generally creates something much richer for the future in terms of plots/development. That's not hand-holding.

And this:

I understand that. I’m just not the kind of person that would personally do that to people since I wouldn’t want it done to me and I think doing things like that violates the “Be Nice Rule”. Which in an of itself is super vague and incredibly open to interpretation. But I don’t think stealing someone’s entire private bookshelf, destroying or stealing custom fixtures with no RP, PVPing someone every 24 hours and things like that are considered being nice. At least not in my interpretation.

We're all here to have fun, right? Fun in a roleplay setting means, I think, creating great narratives for others to participate in. This doesn't mean holding someone's hand and saying, "Okay, my evil character is going to say this bad thing now," but it does mean that there should be a narrative point to doing said thing. And stealing an entire bookshelf full of 100+ player-written works (not summoning texts, I don't really think those are what anyone minds losing), when no one is logged on, without leaving any tidbit of a clue for the players to react to, doesn't feel like roleplay - it feels like griefing.

[BHR55]

So here's some illumination:
. . .
tl;dr

Don't grief people's private shelves, public shelves are fair game, and while a simple calling card might do for a one time theft - repeated visits = more RP expected.

So, personally I am not against this since I think fixtures often have more "RP" value and descriptions of note than just messing with someones loot. I don't mind this ruling.

I am just wondering how this distinction is made? Wouldn't a bookshelf just be a fancy container, since it functions just like a book bag? Does this mean bookb ags should be treated the same way if a player uses one for storage instead of a shelf? Is this a distinction made simply because of enforcement between fixture vs container?