Quartertheft

[Zavandar]

quartertheft is an action vs another player and can (and most often does) happen while the victim is offline.

there's just no opportunity for reprisal unless the quarterbreaker provides it (which isn't required, just "encouraged"), which seems to go against the spirit of every other rule of engagement and conduct on the server. this is why rp is required before pvp, and why rp is required before being exiled. it gives people an opportunity to react.

imagine if you logged in dead, or logged in to find yourself with 20k less gold, or logged in to find yourself exiled. what's the meaningful distinction here? i don't see it.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

There's been a push for making it so chests can't be broken into but fixtures can be stolen. IMO I'd rather have my chest broken into than my fixtures stolen. Anything I keep in my storage chest can be replaced, but things like bookshelves or paintings/fixtures made by rolled characters are irreplaceable.

[CorsicanDoge]

There's been a push for making it so chests can't be broken into but fixtures can be stolen. IMO I'd rather have my chest broken into than my fixtures stolen. Anything I keep in my storage chest can be replaced, but things like bookshelves or paintings/fixtures made by rolled characters are irreplaceable.

There's a legitimate history behind some of these fixtures and I do get a bit nervous when it's bandied about. First, some fixtures take a lot of effort to make and can take at least 1 or 2 rl hours to source the materials for (I'm learning this just now because I didn't feel comfortable stealing fixtures in the game world) a writing desk. Second, I just know there won't be roleplay in it. I know it and we all know it that they're not going to ransom our fixtures back to us.

It'll just be gone. It'll all be cleaned out and who knows where it'd be? Imagine placing a fixture in the Hub or Cordor square. It'd be a lot like that.

There's not really a good way to do quarterbreaking and there's a reason why it's taboo to swap quarterbreaker builds with people. The only regret I have with this approach (and it's effective, btw, because people don't know how to build quarterbreakers) is that if we just released how to do it and let havok reign this stuff would be fixed a lot faster.

The griefing potential on this mechanic, coupled with the 24 hour rule, and the relatively easy buffs it'd take to acquire surviving a trapped door means I could legitimately hurt a player in the place that actually matters: Their items, their fixtures, etc, all at a server time that I know the person won't be on.

Where's the fun role-play in that? I already know a few people that got their stuff nixed wordlessly and there wasn't any follow-up RP.

I'm surprised this mechanic last as long as it did. I'm surprised the quarterbreakers currently held back as long as they did. Because there's a lot of quarters, relatively easy set up once at 30 (solobreaking is possible. may still be possible with the bard changes), and a lot of potential money to be made... And it all can be done legally in the server's rules.

It's one of those bizarre things to look into and research because in all of the server's history we never really had a systematic plundering of everyone's quarters so everybody didn't just squeal hard enough for something to happen.

[Talvenlapsi]

There's been a push for making it so chests can't be broken into but fixtures can be stolen. IMO I'd rather have my chest broken into than my fixtures stolen. Anything I keep in my storage chest can be replaced, but things like bookshelves or paintings/fixtures made by rolled characters are irreplaceable.

This.
I can buy new things and hunt for new things, but the painting on the wall that someone did who's long gone? Yeah, I don't want to lose that. It's part of server history, more than any rune material, and I'd love to have my character value that gift this person gave to them, possibly IRL years ago.
If you break into quarters, please rather steal some items of no permanence, don't take lore- or RP fixtures unless you plan to have RP to possibly get them back.

[Good Character]

A part of me wants to agree. It just makes sense. However, a significant portion of the roleplay available to a thief would require the thief expose themselves OOC for correspondence with the victim, so the victim, who truly is the one that needs to seek out the thief, can ask the thief certain things (e.g. did they stake out the quarter and did anyone see them doing it, did they leave any forensic evidence, in what way did they force entry into the quarter, etc.).

If we can find strong incentives for thieves to willing expose themselves and be willing to "lose", which is already quite difficult given thievery is based on gain, then I can see this rule being implemented similar to how it is required for future exiles to be roleplayed with.

[Preytoria]

Doesn't it all violate the 'Be Nice' rule?

[CorsicanDoge]

Doesn't it all violate the 'Be Nice' rule?

Maybe? But the fact that the solution would be to bog down the report system with reports every time your flower pot got taken away doesn't really inspire much as a general recourse. Even then, I'm not entirely sure you got your stuff back. I never really heard of that being a 'thing'.

And I'm not even sure the report would gain traction because If you wanted to systematically plunder the server it'd be one item per person, across all the quarters. You could steal someone's prized heirloom passed down from player to player and it'd all be legal for that one specific case.

[DM Rex]

Doesn't it all violate the 'Be Nice' rule?

Be Nice Rule reflects around OOC griefing. It doesn't mean all players are going to have to be nice to one another.
The theft rule more covers this, unless the repeated, deliberate targeting of a particular player's fixtures is done for an OOC reason.

[Zavandar]

what is nice about being RPlessly stolen from while you're logged out and being left with no idea who did it?

[Svrtr]

I have to disagree about preferring chest items stolen over furniture, for admittedly anecdotal reasons but for similar reasons.

Ill put it simply. I have no idea who stole from me, and it was reported but they were never found. I had valuables taken, sure, but it was mostly just rare materials, albeit in excess of several hundred of thousands of gold such as multiple mithril dusts, but that's not what I cared about.

What was stolen from my chest that was most important, was my first dwarven rune axe. A rune axe I intended to hand down to a newer player who was a cleric of the same dwarven god as me, "from one (cleric type) to another", an item that I had had since I was a brand new player with it being my first rune axe and first real weapon, an item I lovingly gave a description.

It was taken, no clue was left as to by who, and it was never found. It was a regular rune axe with 1d4 damage and a permanent essence, nothing fancy, all that was special about it was the name, its description, and history, and something that had lots of sentimental value. I do not like quarter breaking where people break the rule and just take rampant amounts of valuable materials, I do not like that even without rule breaks and believe no rp item taking should not be allowed, but doing so for items with sentimental value is just a plain Pufferfish move.

Anecdotal evidence and stories, I know, but quarter breaking and doing so without RP before proceeding to do that to every house in the vicinity of that one house, even if following theone a day rule, is just a bit of a prick move.

[Xerah]

I have to disagree about preferring chest items stolen over furniture, for admittedly anecdotal reasons but for similar reasons.

Ill put it simply. I have no idea who stole from me, and it was reported but they were never found. I had valuables taken, sure, but it was mostly just rare materials, albeit in excess of several hundred of thousands of gold such as multiple mithril dusts, but that's not what I cared about.

What was stolen from my chest that was most important, was my first dwarven rune axe. A rune axe I intended to hand down to a newer player who was a cleric of the same dwarven god as me, "from one (cleric type) to another", an item that I had had since I was a brand new player with it being my first rune axe and first real weapon, an item I lovingly gave a description.

It was taken, no clue was left as to by who, and it was never found. It was a regular rune axe with 1d4 damage and a permanent essence, nothing fancy, all that was special about it was the name, its description, and history, and something that had lots of sentimental value. I do not like quarter breaking where people break the rule and just take rampant amounts of valuable materials, I do not like that even without rule breaks and believe no rp item taking should not be allowed, but doing so for items with sentimental value is just a plain Pufferfish move.

Anecdotal evidence and stories, I know, but quarter breaking and doing so without RP before proceeding to do that to every house in the vicinity of that one house, even if following theone a day rule, is just a bit of a prick move.

And this is basically the reason why this is reported so little. What's to report? It follows the "rules' (at least 1 interpretation of it), only 1 item was taken, leaving RP clues is only "encouraged" so people like Svrtr are left totally SOL.

[Svrtr]

Technically more than one was taken, but they were taken in stacks too (was a few days I was busy, about 4).

But, yea. If someone is going to take an item with sentimental value like that, a named item that's just an axe, I'd at least like there to be RP for a chance to get an item like that back. Take the valuables, sure, I just wanted my axe back to hand down to a newer player.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

What was stolen from my chest that was most important, was my first dwarven rune axe. A rune axe I intended to hand down to a newer player who was a cleric of the same dwarven god as me, "from one (cleric type) to another", an item that I had had since I was a brand new player with it being my first rune axe and first real weapon, an item I lovingly gave a description.

Sounds a lot like why we don't want to lose fixtures- Something with story value was taken.

My quarter was broken into twice. Once they took a leftover dead man's cross from the previous owner, sure, whatever. Second time they stole a RP item left from Vance. Neither time was an attempt made to RP with me. Nobody even left a taunting letter, like the Midnight Mouser would do for their victims. The items were just gone. I reported it since they didn't even bother to RP with me, but, like Xerah said, it doesn't break the rules.

I wish there was some way to reconcile having thief RP with also not losing things with story value for other players.

[CorsicanDoge]

Does anyone actually recall an example of a fixture ransom that happened from quarterbreaking? Is there anything in the kudos thread?

I'm sure in all the years there's something, somewhere.

[Dr. B]

I wonder about the possibility of countering this by implementing ways to catch thieves. For example, a script could be put in place that records every instance of a break in. Rangers and/or diviners can use their abilities to discern meaningful clues about the identity and/or location of the burglar. No one says they have to be epic rangers or diviners, either.

The script could also be used to better help DMs monitor every instance of quarterbreaking much more easily, if that would be helpful.

There could be a craftable one-use item that can be applied to any other item and scry out its location, showing the user either the person who is carrying it, the fixture that is storing it, or the NPC merchant who has it, or PC shop that has it. If the person is not logged on then the item can be used again, vanishing only once it successfully locates the item.

Stolen items can be uniquely tagged so that NPC merchants they are sold to keep them between resets.

I feel like thieves should be able to be thieves on Arelith. I think that if there are safeguards against griefing and IC counterplays then this is not the end of the world.

[strong yeet]

I think storage and quarters should be divorced as something synonymous. I don't believe the server is as fragile or small, thanks to both a bigger server and technology progressing quite a bit in the past 15 years, as it was back when 20 item limits and limited storage were originally established.

If somebody could break into your house without also being able to steal your 99 stack of euklian clay, I feel like the "impenetrable quarter door" syndrome could be safely curbed back.

But I wouldn't want this change in a vacuum, admittedly; stuff like -scry should be changed to be less direct and more constructive than destructive, finding people should be something doable through RP systems rather than faceless -commands, etc.

[Gouge Away]

What if fixtures placed inside a quarter could only be taken by the lease holder or in a guildhouse, a faction member? Just lock them in place inside quarters for anyone but the owner and unlock them if the quarter is for sale.

I'd rather theft of items and fixtures be taken off the table completely if it would allow master thieves* the ability access quarters to snoop message boards and ambush and spy. There's so much wasted RP potential there, it's a real shame it's not possible because of fixture theft.

* And by "master thief" I mean actual rogues and assassins. Not some minmaxed trickery cleric or bard with a 3 level rogue dip. It should be within the realm of possibility for a typical 24/6 rogue/fighter with maxed open lock, ESF and gear to get past an apartment door lock.

[mash]

Storage/fixture theft is horribly one-sided. The quarter-breaker can force the victim to lose items of high value, while the victim has no way to answer to that. This includes sentimental items, fixtures, message boards and bookshelves with hours of RL time devoted to them. The victim has no clues to find the thief and no way to make the thief give their item back. If the thief plays rarely, in a different timezone, or just goes on an extended vacation it is entirely impossible to do anything about it. In the rare instance RP will come out of it, chances are it will be very nuclear: The thief becomes known, exiled, killed on sight, etc... Maybe fun the first two times, but it gets old really fast.

Quarter breaking should be limited to infiltration for eavesdropping or maybe to prepare a quarter attack. That is the only aspect I consider worthwile to keep in. Even then, it should be mechanically difficult to achieve (probably be even costly - like having to create a one time skeleton key which uses gold or better rare materials). Stealth in this game is handled very weirdly and I think noone wants it to be a regular occurrence to have a stranger standing in their faction house, being undetectable to all but the most focused spotter builds. All it does is make characters look dumb and blind - which is a conceptually important difference to scrying. This may sound hypothetical for a player house, but consider a large faction engaging in a lot of conflict.

TL;DR; Quarter breaking should be limited to infiltration, quarter theft should be impossible, and the breaking should still require a somewhat specialized build and cost to prohibit casual, constant breaking.

[AstralUniverse]

I wonder about the possibility of countering this by implementing ways to catch thieves. For example, a script could be put in place that records every instance of a break in. Rangers and/or diviners can use their abilities to discern meaningful clues about the identity and/or location of the burglar. No one says they have to be epic rangers or diviners, either.

The script could also be used to better help DMs monitor every instance of quarterbreaking much more easily, if that would be helpful.

There could be a craftable one-use item that can be applied to any other item and scry out its location, showing the user either the person who is carrying it, the fixture that is storing it, or the NPC merchant who has it, or PC shop that has it. If the person is not logged on then the item can be used again, vanishing only once it successfully locates the item.

Stolen items can be uniquely tagged so that NPC merchants they are sold to keep them between resets.

I feel like thieves should be able to be thieves on Arelith. I think that if there are safeguards against griefing and IC counterplays then this is not the end of the world.

Spot on.

[Might-N-Magic]

Being stolen from sucks, but we need "crime." It's valid roleplay and can be very fun for everyone.
At the moment, crime really doesn't happen. Oh sure, every once in awhile some newbie loses a stack of coal from their chest, but almost anyone who establishes themselves cranks their door security up to 127 and it never happens again. Very few builds can even (theoretically) reach 127 open locks/disable traps/search and even then they need max level bard songs to do it (which is garbage).

If anything, door/chest security needs to be lowered so that way a criminal can actually make burglary feasible. Note: I did not say "adventurer." I don't think a run-of-the-mill "I-kill-dragons-when-I-feel-like-it" character should be able to quarter-break max security with ease. I'm talking "I-sacrificed-my-playability-to-be-a-professional-criminal" character here. Someone with nothing but skill focuses and epic skill focuses, maxed out gear, and buffs. It's ironic and crappy that right now a rogue-type burglar is quite literally the worst option to be a burglar, I know, I've made one and it can just barely reach 127 in all three skills with every skill-enhancing feat in the game possible and even that is only theoretical because there isn't enough buffs/gear to make it feasible.

The only other thing that needs to change is in the theft rules in that 1 item means 1 item. If I finesse your lock and pop your chest open and see 87 ingots of adamantine, I'm allowed to take 1 of them, not the whole stack. Exclusions would be made in the cases of something like ammunition stacks or something like that, but the idea that someone can take 100 ingots of adamantine is ludicrous to me.

[Nobs]

Better to just try to sneak in after the owner of the house so he atleast has a chance to catch you.

Just my opinion.

[SkipiusEsq]

I agree that quarterbreaking (the way it is now) just doesn't fit with the RP-first mentality of the server. The pickpocketing system was changed to prevent characters from losing anything besides gold. Gold is especially replaceable and at a rather quick pace. There is no risk of losing "that one item" that you treasure either IC or OOC. It takes the mechanical sting out of pickpocketing while still affording the opportunity to RP about it. Could it be similarly scripted that a quarter break-in would only allow the theft of gold? Perhaps thief takes various trinkets around the quarter to sell, and it takes the gold of the lease-holder to replace those items (much like the concept of a pickpocket taking scarves, etc. from a character that is not carrying money so the gold is lost from the bank account)? This still affords the thief the opportunity to RP but even if they choose not to, the loss is minimal. There could be a message when you return to your quarter notifying you that there was been a theft, which means the lease-holder could choose to RP. Two chances to RP and no loss of the stuff people work hard on creating and building RP around.

Another option is to prevent anyone without a token from stealing from quarters. A token is required to be a few different classes, including an assassin. With the death system the way it is, I'd rather my character be killed than stolen from (at least a unique, RP item or some hard-to-find loot). Perhaps people who want to be quarter thieves could request a token. This would allow DMs to vet those that would be quarterbreaking, have a small list of people who MIGHT have been the culprit when a theft occurs, and have more assurance that RP would follow.

[SkipiusEsq]

Sorry, one other thought. If items are still allowed to be stolen, then maybe those items receive a "stolen" mark which can only be sold at an NPC fence (or even a DM fence that is only around once in a while). The DM option (to the extent anyone has the time to do that) would mean some RP as well as some DM oversight of theft.

[Good Character]

Sorry, one other thought. If items are still allowed to be stolen, then maybe those items receive a "stolen" mark which can only be sold at an NPC fence (or even a DM fence that is only around once in a while). The DM option (to the extent anyone has the time to do that) would mean some RP as well as some DM oversight of theft.

I like this idea. I say if there is a fence it would be one that moves around like the Tinker. Allows victims to have time to investigate and find their stolen property.

[Shadowy Reality]

Does anyone actually recall an example of a fixture ransom that happened from quarterbreaking? Is there anything in the kudos thread?

I'm sure in all the years there's something, somewhere.

I was a victim of this when I played Rhynn Saebel but this was actually done with me inside the quarter. If I remember right, someone knocked on my door, came inside, somehow managed to get my character into another room of the quarter and when I came back a fixture had been stolen and the PC was nowhere to be seen. I later got a ransom request.

It was overall pretty fun.

I kind of agree with the original post, just getting stuff stolen without any RP isn't fun. On the other hand, I am not sure I would like to force thieves to show themselves. I have seen how people are quick to PvP once they get pickpocketed or someone breaks into their house, is there no in between? Someone made a valid point about crime not existing. It doesn't exist because no one goes along with it.

Try to mug someone in a back alley? They will either not give you anything, just kill you or let themselves be killed. Let someone escape? They will bring an army of epics in tow. And after any of these your character will be known for everyone and you will likely be killed.