Guild of SCAMsassins. (Iduno)

[Hazard]

The Guild of Assassins is a bunch of scam artists.

Imagine paying an assassin to kill someone, then the target pays the assassin NOT to kill them

.. How do assassins like this find work, and more importantly how are they still alive?
They should be killed, or blacklisted from ever working again.

My new headcanon is: The Guild of Assassins are KoS and blacklisted, for failure to assassinate the vast majority of their targets, and accepting bribes from targets to not work.

Really very silly. No, I didn't just have a bad experience with them. It just came to mind, haven't used the system in years for good reason.

No suggestion attached.

[Curve]

I have played a few assassins before the guild and since it started. I currently play an assassin. There are some issues.

-The guild promotes immediate search and destroy/shotgun PvP.
-The guild dissuades longer story line assassinations.
-The guild dissuades other non-guild, player created assassin factions.

If you try to play out more in-depth assassinations through the guild, you will lose the target to another Assassin who is less interested in the story or the buildup to the PvP or the target will pay off the bounty or just go into hiding.

The best way to play an assassin that promotes story over one and done PvP is to play outside of the guild. Sad but true.

Edit* The above poster also has a point. If the guild were a player made faction nobody would interact with it.

[Morgy]

I always thought it was an odd system that sort of punishes assassins giving RP opportunities for their targets, who can therefore more easily avoid them than another PC assassin who just immediately does the minimal RP and gets the gold.

Player handled bounties are always more likely to provide rich RP opportunists, imo.

[Void]

Imagine paying an assassin to kill someone, then the target pays the assassin NOT to kill them

I think a good idea would be to make the target pay more to buy out the contract. 2x or 10x more.

But yeah, an assassin guild with this sort of rule would not be trusted much, as you'll be unable to kill someone wealthy which is the whole point...

[Edens_Fall]

I like the X2 to pay off the bounty idea.

[AstralUniverse]

I'm against all ideas who will encourage more use of this system I dislike, and does not currently in it's form promote any interactive RP. It's not being used? Good.

[Red Ropes]

I have been and am still working on an updated to the Guild of Assassins.

The tl;dr is this.

1) The Guild is going to be effectively done through Assassin Players. To put down a contract you will need an assassin to let you in a room and to pay one off it will also require an assassin.

2) Guild grounds will be "little switzerlands" in an entirely IC sense. Killing people in these places without a very, very good (DM JUDGEMENTCALL) reason will be bad for your health as an assassin or a non-guild affiliate.

3) Only the main HQ will be where you can put down hits or pay them off. Andunor's branch office will be an affiliated sub-guild that has questor NPCs for assassins and meeting rooms for clients. I will hopefully have multiple of these to sort of flavor the world with other famous organizations (now in league with the assassin guild due to their local strength.)

4) More stuff for DMs to be able to interact with it and remove stuff that might be griefy. Or to bar you services / access (because you pissed them off). Or to even put hits on you themselves for plot reasons.

5) I am writing guildlore that makes the guild have some rules and regs similar to the Harpers and the Zhentarim.

---

After that goes live I will probably tweak prices and add to the atmosphere of the guild for its denizens. It will otherwise be entirely in player hands to administrate their own work and pay their own prices.


edit: I also have been doing this with feedback from assassin players themselves. A lot of them seem to actually be organizing along the lines I am going to effectively make into the game so thats great. I am doing it for them, and a little bit for everyone.

[Watchful Glare]

I have been and am still working on an updated to the Guild of Assassins.

The tl;dr is this.

1) The Guild is going to be effectively done through Assassin Players. To put down a contract you will need an assassin to let you in a room and to pay one off it will also require an assassin.

2) Guild grounds will be "little switzerlands" in an entirely IC sense. Killing people in these places without a very, very good (DM JUDGEMENTCALL) reason will be bad for your health as an assassin or a non-guild affiliate.

3) Only the main HQ will be where you can put down hits or pay them off. Andunor's branch office will be an affiliated sub-guild that has questor NPCs for assassins and meeting rooms for clients. I will hopefully have multiple of these to sort of flavor the world with other famous organizations (now in league with the assassin guild due to their local strength.)

4) More stuff for DMs to be able to interact with it and remove stuff that might be griefy. Or to bar you services / access (because you pissed them off). Or to even put hits on you themselves for plot reasons.

5) I am writing guildlore that makes the guild have some rules and regs similar to the Harpers and the Zhentarim.

---

After that goes live I will probably tweak prices and add to the atmosphere of the guild for its denizens. It will otherwise be entirely in player hands to administrate their own work and pay their own prices.


edit: I also have been doing this with feedback from assassin players themselves. A lot of them seem to actually be organizing along the lines I am going to effectively make into the game so thats great. I am doing it for them, and a little bit for everyone.

I really like this idea

[Hazard]

Sick.

[Amnesy]

Perhaps also worth considering is risk and reward from assassins side.

Picking a contract requires gold investment from an assassin, a deposit paid back on success and lost on failure.

Or failure having the contract freed for other assassins to pick up, or other conditions that could be met to have it go into past due or obsoleted.

[Skibbles]

Really like Redropes ideas there. Would it be possible for PCs that don't know assassin characters a way to find out who they might be to make contact for a payoff (or get a knife in the rib, who knows). Like can PC characters flag themselves as a Guild Agent and sort of do like a kind of "Handler" RP?

I guess my only other concern might be that PC factions may feel obliged to have a token assassin character in their ranks to facilitate easy payoffs while non-faction PCs may be left out in the cold.

Sounds better than the current system either way though.

[Red Ropes]

I have something planned to allow semi-anonymous contact with guildsman at their various outposts. If I am right, and we'll know when I get this all out, I basically make ghetto one-sided message boards you can leave a message on and then in some "air tight" room you can read what is there.