Quartertheft

[The GrumpyCat]

I have played Arelith for well over 10 years, I have owned many quarters over the years. During those 10 years I can count with a single hand the number of time I had things stolen.

This is my experience too.

But, at the same time I don't care if my character's things are stolen, stacks of addy or fancy painting. I wish someone would come read my note boards. Nothing on Arelith is permanent, and nothing should be 100% secure.

but all pvp requires interaction (with the exception of quartertheft, which hasn't been explained yet),

Ok, interesting point, has some validity. Got a small question in return - If you were to write such a rule, how would you do so?

[Zavandar]

i don't think a new rule needs to be written. i think a simple amendment to an existing one would suffice:

"Combat actions, theft, and political actions (using our Citizenship System) against other PC's (PvP) MUST BE INTERACTIVELY ROLE PLAYED. That means you interact, they interact, etc: BEFORE any action occurs. No exceptions. Thus you must INTERACT DIRECTLY with a player before issuing an EXILE or a Pariah status, or evoking a shop or ANY OTHER POLITICAL ACTION. NO EXCEPTIONS. No speedies or NPCs may be used in lieu of this. If your character is killed by another PC (or vice versa), you must wait one realtime day before participating in PvP or interacting in any way with that PC or other hostile PCs from the battle unless both sides explicitly agree to. You are always free to take flight from PvP. Having an opposite or evil alignment is not sufficient reason for PvP action. Before attacking another player the dislike/hostile state must be activated."

if that reduces quartertheft to only happening if the victim is at home, that's fine by me. it at least means theft requires interaction. it would encourage pickpockets to also do more than stealth by wordlessly and nab gold from players (an issue I had in another thread, but i don't want this one to become about pickpocketing).

EDIT: a change like this would also still allow quarterBREAKING, to allow for the things you listed (spying, assasination, Information gathering, tricks, forging, Squatting, Bribing, And more), but not quarterTHEFT, which is my primary issue.

[The GrumpyCat]

Perhaps I am being a little cynical here - and please do forgive me if I am I'm sure the vast majority of people will put me right- I'm probably awfully out of touch. But I would imagine that would basically mean that any thief would have to be a very heavy PvP build, and almost all thefts would be accompanied by murder too?
I mean, what you're saying is that any theft will, very likely, be accompanied by pc death too? Do we want to be encouraging that?
Again I'm old fashioned, I'm probably wrong. Most pcs would likely be 'oh ok cool you can steal from me.'

I imagine it would just end up in lots of pvp in quarters, wherin in the vast majority of cases either the thief pc would be killed, identified, and then face ostrasization from the majority of settlments, or the PC would end up dying as well as loosing their stuff.

[Zavandar]

Perhaps I am being a little cynical here - and please do forgive me if I am I'm sure the vast majority of people will put me right- I'm probably awfully out of touch. But I would imagine that would basically mean that any thief would have to be a very heavy PvP build, and almost all thefts would be accompanied by murder too?
I mean, what you're saying is that any theft will, very likely, be accompanied by pc death too? Do we want to be encouraging that?
Again I'm old fashioned, I'm probably wrong. Most pcs would likely be 'oh ok cool you can steal from me.'

I imagine it would just end up in lots of pvp in quarters, wherin in the vast majority of cases either the thief pc would be killed, identified, and then face ostrasization from the majority of settlments, or the PC would end up dying as well as loosing their stuff.

how is that any different from disarm, which has been disabled?

[strong yeet]

The infrequency of something should have nothing to do with how permissive it is. If something sucks, it sucks, whether it happens to one guy or a hundred. If your most oft-repeated defence of something is "well it doesn't happen that much" then maybe you ought to examine why that is instead of snarking down your nose at me. Maybe people don't like being mean to enrich themselves, or more probably they don't want to level up highly-specialised quarterbreak builds that do very little except open doors and take things.

I have stolen much more than I have been stolen from, and the fact that I could decide that, actually, I no longer really care about observing the little things like "not being a douchebag" right now with my character that I still have and still play, and just start hitting quarters and taking things from anyone who doesn't feel like paying the tens of thousands of gold in rent for very high DC traps (the only thing I really struggle to get through through some oopsies on my part, not to imply these are impassable by any means); that's what I'd say is, a good 90% of people.

In this thread I am told that this is fine, or that it doesn't matter if somebody's item just gets snatched out of nowhere -- because it's not hard to replace. According to the rules, according to the repeated comments of several administrators in this thread, taking things from people for no reason except to be a Pufferfish is perfectly fine, and if not everyone has fun, so be it. Why is something that offers 0 value to anything but my personal in-game bank account perfectly fine? That does not make even an iota of sense to me, and to defend it so fiercely strikes me as rather bizarre.

I don't care how frequent or infrequent pointless destruction is, just that it should not happen, period end. If you ask me, trying to intellectualise quarterbreaking as anything else but a frequently candy-coated form of griefing is just willful pretension.

I wonder: if quarterbreaking required interaction, would you see it more, or less?

[AnselHoenheim]

Why not making it simpler? Allow quarterbreaking only in quarters where the player is actually online, and those which players are online are not available to quarterbreak in that moment, that would offer RP because the chances where the theft, and the owner to meet are actually high. Those that want to get deep in that theft roleplay, I think, would appreciate it. (Specially, if there is an alarm trigger added to quarters, which would increase the interactivity between the theft and the owner).

[Shadowy Reality]

Why not making it simpler? Allow quarterbreaking only in quarters where the player is actually online, and those which players are online are not available to quarterbreak in that moment, that would offer RP because the chances where the theft, and the owner to meet are actually high. Those that want to get deep in that theft roleplay, I think, would appreciate it. (Specially, if there is an alarm trigger added to quarters, which would increase the interactivity between the theft and the owner).

i don't think a new rule needs to be written. i think a simple amendment to an existing one would suffice:

"Combat actions, theft, and political actions (using our Citizenship System) against other PC's (PvP) MUST BE INTERACTIVELY ROLE PLAYED. That means you interact, they interact, etc: BEFORE any action occurs. No exceptions. Thus you must INTERACT DIRECTLY with a player before issuing an EXILE or a Pariah status, or evoking a shop or ANY OTHER POLITICAL ACTION. NO EXCEPTIONS. No speedies or NPCs may be used in lieu of this. If your character is killed by another PC (or vice versa), you must wait one realtime day before participating in PvP or interacting in any way with that PC or other hostile PCs from the battle unless both sides explicitly agree to. You are always free to take flight from PvP. Having an opposite or evil alignment is not sufficient reason for PvP action. Before attacking another player the dislike/hostile state must be activated."

if that reduces quartertheft to only happening if the victim is at home, that's fine by me. it at least means theft requires interaction. it would encourage pickpockets to also do more than stealth by wordlessly and nab gold from players (an issue I had in another thread, but i don't want this one to become about pickpocketing).

EDIT: a change like this would also still allow quarterBREAKING, to allow for the things you listed (spying, assasination, Information gathering, tricks, forging, Squatting, Bribing, And more), but not quarterTHEFT, which is my primary issue.

How do you figure if someone is inside, or if someone is online? With Disguise I might not be able to identify that a certain PC is online, does that make you immune to quartertheft?

You can attack without any further word anyone that enters your quarter, you can even lay traps inside without having to worry about the PvP rules. The PvP rules have been wavered for both when it comes to breaking into a quarter.

We all know if this was true the moment a door opens and closes casually true seeing is being cast and a robber is being killed. You say you don't care about winning, but you know very will you will be winning if this becomes the reality.

[Zavandar]

Why not making it simpler? Allow quarterbreaking only in quarters where the player is actually online, and those which players are online are not available to quarterbreak in that moment, that would offer RP because the chances where the theft, and the owner to meet are actually high. Those that want to get deep in that theft roleplay, I think, would appreciate it. (Specially, if there is an alarm trigger added to quarters, which would increase the interactivity between the theft and the owner).

i don't think a new rule needs to be written. i think a simple amendment to an existing one would suffice:

"Combat actions, theft, and political actions (using our Citizenship System) against other PC's (PvP) MUST BE INTERACTIVELY ROLE PLAYED. That means you interact, they interact, etc: BEFORE any action occurs. No exceptions. Thus you must INTERACT DIRECTLY with a player before issuing an EXILE or a Pariah status, or evoking a shop or ANY OTHER POLITICAL ACTION. NO EXCEPTIONS. No speedies or NPCs may be used in lieu of this. If your character is killed by another PC (or vice versa), you must wait one realtime day before participating in PvP or interacting in any way with that PC or other hostile PCs from the battle unless both sides explicitly agree to. You are always free to take flight from PvP. Having an opposite or evil alignment is not sufficient reason for PvP action. Before attacking another player the dislike/hostile state must be activated."

if that reduces quartertheft to only happening if the victim is at home, that's fine by me. it at least means theft requires interaction. it would encourage pickpockets to also do more than stealth by wordlessly and nab gold from players (an issue I had in another thread, but i don't want this one to become about pickpocketing).

EDIT: a change like this would also still allow quarterBREAKING, to allow for the things you listed (spying, assasination, Information gathering, tricks, forging, Squatting, Bribing, And more), but not quarterTHEFT, which is my primary issue.

How do you figure if someone is inside, or if someone is online? With Disguise I might not be able to identify that a certain PC is online, does that make you immune to quartertheft?

You can attack without any further word anyone that enters your quarter, you can even lay traps inside without having to worry about the PvP rules. The PvP rules have been wavered for both when it comes to breaking into a quarter.

We all know if this was true the moment a door opens and closes casually true seeing is being cast and a robber is being killed. You say you don't care about winning, but you know very will you will be winning if this becomes the reality.

what i am hoping is that the reality becomes that people don't steal from quarters. the rule change i suggested prohibits THEFT, not quarter entry. you can enter by yourself just fine. if there's nobody there to RP with, you just won't steal too.

[mjones3]

A more complex system I am entertaining requires a bit more explanation...

This would involve characters being required to register with a local thieves guild before being allowed to break into a quarter. Once inside any item or fixture they take would NOT go into their inventory, but to the local fence in return for 10% of its value (capped). These items would not go on sale to the public for 72 RL hours, during which time the owner would be able to 'buy back' at 25% cost. Such a system would require extensive area work (revisiting literally every quarter in the module), and a good deal of creative flair in its writing.

I have 2 worries over this.

1: Gold is still very easy to come by so 10% for an item is very rarely going to pay out, especially if you limit the ability to break in greatly. I understand that its an extremely low risk endeavor but in order to do it you typically have to make sacrifices on your build that other people would not.

2: The value of items in game can drastically differ from the set gold value to what the players give it. A good example is Abeyant Templates. A stack of 4 is valued at 30,040 but they sell for 200,000 or so roughly to players.

It might be too complicated or convoluted but I think a solution for both would be to expand the fence idea. Give the person the option to buy back the item at a flat rate always. If they don't it goes into bidding starting at the flat rate available and goes up from there. The guild always takes an X% cut based on of the end bid. The thief can bid on an item themselves (aka pay themselves for it) but the guild takes double the cut of the bid.

Put the bidding process in an area where everyone can get to. Someone who's item was stolen can come and watch who puts bids on what and try to determine the thief, call shame on others, or beg for someone to buy the item back for them if they couldn't afford to buy it back themselves outright.

[Curve]

strong yeet, you are defining other people's arguments in a way that suits your narrative. That it does not happen often is part of the argument, but certainly not the whole argument. For me the largest part of the argument is that it's not that big of a deal when things are stolen. If you want to read that as:

In this thread I am told that this is fine, or that it doesn't matter if somebody's item just gets snatched out of nowhere

That seems to be an overly harsh interpretation of it. But, maybe it should not matter as much as it does to people when things get stolen.

[Shadowy Reality]

what i am hoping is that the reality becomes that people don't steal from quarters. the rule change i suggested prohibits THEFT, not quarter entry. you can enter by yourself just fine. if there's nobody there to RP with, you just won't steal too.

How does this roleplay look like, hypothetically? Pickpocket can be emoted in a way that may hint that something happened, but be very vague about it. How would one go about doing anything of the sorts for theft?

The only change I would make to the rule is that you can only steal a single item of a stack, not the whole stack. If you want to prevent theft altogether, then do we also keep gold when we die? Because you can still kill someone and take whatever coin they have.

[Zavandar]

what i am hoping is that the reality becomes that people don't steal from quarters. the rule change i suggested prohibits THEFT, not quarter entry. you can enter by yourself just fine. if there's nobody there to RP with, you just won't steal too.

How does this roleplay look like, hypothetically? Pickpocket can be emoted in a way that may hint that something happened, but be very vague about it. How would one go about doing anything of the sorts for theft?

The only change I would make to the rule is that you can only steal a single item of a stack, not the whole stack. If you want to prevent theft altogether, then do we also keep gold when we die? Because you can still kill someone and take whatever coin they have.

killing someone requires interacting with them, actually. like, actual roleplay.

[Shadowy Reality]

what i am hoping is that the reality becomes that people don't steal from quarters. the rule change i suggested prohibits THEFT, not quarter entry. you can enter by yourself just fine. if there's nobody there to RP with, you just won't steal too.

How does this roleplay look like, hypothetically? Pickpocket can be emoted in a way that may hint that something happened, but be very vague about it. How would one go about doing anything of the sorts for theft?

The only change I would make to the rule is that you can only steal a single item of a stack, not the whole stack. If you want to prevent theft altogether, then do we also keep gold when we die? Because you can still kill someone and take whatever coin they have.

killing someone requires interacting with them, actually. like, actual roleplay.

I misread your sentence, seemed like you wanted to stop players from being able to take things from each other altogether, that is not the case. But the point stands that the RP that would ensue doesn't really make a lot of sense and would effectively kill this RP avenue all the same.

[Nitro]

If "Requiring RP" would "Kill the RP avenue" then arguably it isn't an avenue for RP to begin with.

[Shadowy Reality]

If "Requiring RP" would "Kill the RP avenue" then arguably it isn't an avenue for RP to begin with.

Of course it is. I have gotten RP out of it, I am sure others have as well. Even when you can't find the PC who stole things you can still involve other people in the searches, create some sort of neighborhood watch. Maybe hire someone to stay in stealth nearby your quarter, see if the culprit returns.

Let's not be naive here, everyone in this thread knows exactly what will happen if interactive RP needs to happen. There will be PvP and more likely than not the thief will die or become a murderer as well. There ceases to be a difference between a PC that can open locks (at an incredibly high DC mind you) and a PC that follows another inside a quarter, kills them, and then robs their chest.

[Zavandar]

If "Requiring RP" would "Kill the RP avenue" then arguably it isn't an avenue for RP to begin with.

Of course it is. I have gotten RP out of it, I am sure others have as well. Even when you can't find the PC who stole things you can still involve other people in the searches, create some sort of neighborhood watch. Maybe hire someone to stay in stealth nearby your quarter, see if the culprit returns.

Let's not be naive here, everyone in this thread knows exactly what will happen if interactive RP needs to happen. There will be PvP and more likely than not the thief will die or become a murderer as well. There ceases to be a difference between a PC that can open locks (at an incredibly high DC mind you) and a PC that follows another inside a quarter, kills them, and then robs their chest.

again, the latter at least requires rp.

the entire point of this thread is the lack of interaction regarding theft and how it contradicts other rules of conduct and engagement. proposing that quarterTHEFT requires rp will likely see a decline in quartertheft, which i have absolutely no problem with.

[Scurvy Cur]

Let's not be naive here, everyone in this thread knows exactly what will happen if interactive RP needs to happen. There will be PvP and more likely than not the thief will die or become a murderer as well. There ceases to be a difference between a PC that can open locks (at an incredibly high DC mind you) and a PC that follows another inside a quarter, kills them, and then robs their chest.

This is 100% preferable to the current arrangement. I would rather have the guy that follows someone into their quarter, kills them after a bit of roleplay, then takes an object from their chest than the guy who picks his way in when the target is offline and RPlessly takes an item, in every single situation.

If you cared about interactive roleplay being the standard by which we measure conflict on the server, you would too.

Of course it is. I have gotten RP out of it, I am sure others have as well. Even when you can't find the PC who stole things you can still involve other people in the searches, create some sort of neighborhood watch. Maybe hire someone to stay in stealth nearby your quarter, see if the culprit returns.

False equivalence, and you ought to know it.

In the above situation, the instigator has shoved the entire burden on making roleplay happen on the victim. This is roughly akin to a griefer killbashing someone and then saying "Well, ofc they got roleplay out of it. They filed a report with the guards afterwards. Maybe they go looking for a name to go with the description of the guy that smashed them, maybe they go train for their eventual vengeance arc, maybe they hire thugs to go teach that guy a lesson". We don't allow that. Instead, it's on the instigator to make an effort at roleplaying before the incident.

We don't (and shouldn't!) think that's acceptable in a "deplete HP" pvp context. Nor should we in the "deplete your stuff" pvp context. Alternatively, anyone that thinks that the post-theft RP done by the quarterbreaking victim is adequate should also be OK if they get bashed sans dialog.

[Shadowy Reality]

Let's not be naive here, everyone in this thread knows exactly what will happen if interactive RP needs to happen. There will be PvP and more likely than not the thief will die or become a murderer as well. There ceases to be a difference between a PC that can open locks (at an incredibly high DC mind you) and a PC that follows another inside a quarter, kills them, and then robs their chest.

This is 100% preferable to the current arrangement. I would rather have the guy that follows someone into their quarter, kills them after a bit of roleplay, then takes an object from their chest than the guy who picks his way in when the target is offline and RPlessly takes an item, in every single situation.

If you cared about interactive roleplay being the standard by which we measure conflict on the server, you would too.

So you are telling me if you tried to play a a quarter thief that you couldn't make it interesting for folk from which you stole from without popping out of stealth and having PvP? I find that hard to believe.

[Nitro]

But they don't have to. And it happens without being interesting or interactive and the person doing it is not in the wrong with server rules.

[Zavandar]

Let's not be naive here, everyone in this thread knows exactly what will happen if interactive RP needs to happen. There will be PvP and more likely than not the thief will die or become a murderer as well. There ceases to be a difference between a PC that can open locks (at an incredibly high DC mind you) and a PC that follows another inside a quarter, kills them, and then robs their chest.

This is 100% preferable to the current arrangement. I would rather have the guy that follows someone into their quarter, kills them after a bit of roleplay, then takes an object from their chest than the guy who picks his way in when the target is offline and RPlessly takes an item, in every single situation.

If you cared about interactive roleplay being the standard by which we measure conflict on the server, you would too.

So you are telling me if you tried to play a a quarter thief that you couldn't make it interesting for folk from which you stole from without popping out of stealth and having PvP? I find that hard to believe.

can you not make pvp interesting? do you think logging in to find that you were stolen from is MORE interesting?

[Drowboy]

But they don't have to. And it happens without being interesting or interactive and the person doing it is not in the wrong with server rules.

This is the bit that keeps getting missed. 'oh but you could'

But you don't have to, so people won't. Straight up. The playerbase has never been mature enough for "should, really should, but it's not mandatory" for basically anything. Slave sexy elven fun times was gross, and a big "you shouldn't do it but it's not explicitly disallowed," and yet it happened, and frankly, much like this thread, we all know who did it, despised them for it, and waited for a rule change.

[Shadowy Reality]

But they don't have to. And it happens without being interesting or interactive and the person doing it is not in the wrong with server rules.

I know they don't. But then perhaps it is that that needs to be changed and not just remove the whole thing.

Even if it is changed there will always be people doing the bare minimum. You can do the bare minimum and stay within the rules for many other things, and it sucks. RP can be interactive and still a great heap of crap.

What we really need is to report things when they aren't fun, the players will eventually be shaken by DMs, and maybe they will learn. It's the same treatment as for people who PvP after a oneliner.

can you not make pvp interesting? do you think logging in to find that you were stolen from is MORE interesting?

Sure I can, but it's not the same scenario. Big difference in going after someone, having some interesting RP, having PvP, stealing, and going inside, stealing, and leaving some sort of clue for the owner to follow, or a ransom note, etc. Both can be perfectly fine, and fun for all involved. You want to kill the latter entirely.

[Drowboy]

Quarterbreakers killed the latter by, by and large, never ever leaving any sort of sign ever, for the past ten+ years, and to pretend they've been acting otherwise is hilarious.

[Scurvy Cur]

some stuff

Strawman much?

That's not the argument I advanced at all, but I guess I can give you a hand.

What I said was that the guy who actively confronts his victim, perhaps kills them, and then takes an item, is preferable to the guy who goes in to steal from players who are logged out. Several reasons:

1) The guy who actively confronts the victim does not have the option to leave no clues. He gets seen. He interacts. There's face to face back and forth. Call this the "better bare minumum" rationale. While someone probably could, if they wanted to, make the quarte break interesting, we don't presently require it. Phrase your question another way: does the guy who breaks in, kills, loots, and leave have any way to do that without involving the victim in some way? Answer: no, not without violating the rules of engagement.

2) The guy who tries to actively confront, kills, loots, and leaves takes a risk. He might lose. He might get recognized even if he wins. There's a confrontation involved which could conceivably go either way. This is, categorically, preferable to the current quarter break system, which is fundamentally risk-free. We have, in fact, had observations to this effect from members of the admin team along the lines of "I can see why players would break in when nobody's around and leave no clues. It's a needless risk to do anything else."

3) As other posters have noted, my ability to make stuff interesting has really no bearing on what we ought to set as our minimum standard requirement for players. We don't write rules with the best and most considerate players in mind. We write them to constrain the rude, inconsiderate, mean, and thoughtless. You don't require RP before theft because it's impossible to make theft fun for the victim, you require it because it's too easy (and in fact, too optimal) to do the opposite. Similarly, we have the "RP interactively before pvp" rule not because people can't make PvP fun and interactive, but because it's too easy (and in fact, too optimal) to offer as little RP as possible to the victim; something I would think you, of all people, would understand, what with how visibly upset I recall you getting in the past over being killed with RP you felt was insufficient.

[Security_Blanket]

We don't write rules with the best and most considerate players in mind. We write them to constrain the rude, inconsiderate, mean, and thoughtless.

This.

It's not that it can't be done in a way that's fun for everyone involved, but in general, that's not the case. As long as there is no hard rule in place for this or that then people can and will take advantage of it, no matter their justification.