Hazard wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 9:12 pm
msheeler wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:55 pm
How about targets being able to go back to the guild and via something like an intimidate / leadership / bluff / persuade roll and some extra coin be able to get information on the person that took out the contract?
I'd be against it, because then all the assassins would have to be killed. If a player can just .. bribe them (which is already possible, for some reason) or squeeze them for information, they're kind of terrible assassins and have betrayed their contracts. They should be killed and the guild destroyed, their reputation ruined.
There's a reason I've never used the assassin system and it's because they're awful assassins. You pay them to kill someone and their target just pays them more not to be killed? That's not an assassination guild, it's just a scam. I can't justify any reason why my characters would deal with such crappy unprofessional assassins.
Adding even more failures on top of that, and I'd expect people to just walk in there and kill the NPCs for constantly failing to deliver/backstabbing their clients.
I'm kind of surprised the guild hasn't been destroyed yet after so many years of them accepting bribes from targets. Bad assassins.
the assassin’s guild is a business first.
the only thing they care about is money. you pay them to kill someone, they select a contracter, then go forward. The target is afforded the courtesy of being allowed to pay off their bribe. Player conduct wise, this is a very kind way of allowing the player to ‘opt out’ but also paying a fee to do so. It’s much harder now for a player to pay off the guild, they have to know there’s a hit on them first, so that problem shouldn’t be so much of an issue.
as for “why don’t we just kill all the assassins” well. let’s look at popular media sensation John Wick and his assassin’s guild for answers. John Wick, the assassin organization is a multi-million dollar international organization with favors from government leaders and people of import all over the world. Their organization is extremely sophisticated, complex, and wide spread. You can’t just destroy the organization by destroying the hotel as John Wick learns. You have to systematically get rid of every asset the organization has to completely get rid of them. That’s a lot of assets!
The reason these organizations are powerful and can get away with whatever they want “unfairly” is because they are extremely sophistiated, powerful, and complex systems made up of asset-arrays. They can get away with it because they will survive like roachs and then systematially delete you and all your loved ones for the insult. It’s this reputation that allows a guild like the assassins to survive despite however they conduct business. If you look at the Dark Brotherhood of Skyrim on the other hand… the Imperials are able to snuff out the assassin’s guild if you help them ensure to kill every living member at their base. In this instance, the assassin’s guild is not strong. They have severely waned in power without the Dark Mother and do not have the same resources as John Wick’s guild. When you. kill them, you get all of them because they are weak.
Now lets look at the Arelith Assassin’s guild. They’re a guild who seem to function soley on money, have their base in Andunor, a trade hub power house, and in the Shadow plane, a considerably hostile location for most goodly folk. They have the resources to maintain, to our readily avaliable knowledge, two store fronts. And they deal in huge contracts for lots of money. We can assume the reason no one has just killed them all is because it would just be a really bad idea and an extreme at of hubris to walk right into the bad guy’s lair and kill everyone thinking you’ll get out alive, or even sufficiently kill everyone so you don’t have people coming after you later.
alternatively, i think this is a very compelling idea ICly and would love to see some assassin inquisitions and IC plans to take down the guild. it could be very cool and interesting if people appreciate the very real danger of getting knifed at any point in time by assassins for messing with the guild. I think it’s important we consider the RP going on, the implications, and how to interact with it instead of saying “these assassins are bad” because of how its been portrayed thus far. it’s very unfair to those players. Very recently a character, while standing in the assasins lobby joked about how the guild was a joke. Then they got murdered by an assassin. I thought that was very cool and thematic. But it isn’t very cool to say all assassins suck because they don’t do it the way you want them to. please be nice.
I would like a way for contractors to leave messages with the bounty so if they want to be found out they can, or they can leave cool conditions for the hit like, make it look like an accident or, bury them at sea, kind of thing.
