Arelith

I'm just chiming in that a prison island where you get a sentence akin to the respawn timer thing would be a dope way to address the problem of how to punish pickpockets without murder. Cos like... the RP alone, the networking opportunities, the shankings. I'd get caught just to get the prison rep, being able to play petty evil without committing to a cult or a monster city!

the grim yeeter wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:41 am

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 1:22 am But its 3000 gold max lol.

How many times does it have to be said that that is not the point?

You can say it a million times and it still will seem like the point as long as the explanations on why this is bad amounts to "someone took something from me and I want to make sure they earn it through RP".

Three things that stand to gain from this without going into too much detail about them:

Thieves guild RP
City Guard/Milita/whatever law enforcement RP
Law making RP

Now I get that some people may not be interested in any of that, but does that mean it has no place on the server? Think about the decent amount of people that dislike pvp that play here, and imagine them complaining that pvp should be a non starter because they don't feel they get enough out of it. Would the people saying this does nothing for them except put them in a position to loose something (a trivial something mind you) agree that since these other people don't see the purpose of pvp that it shouldn't exist on the server? I suspect most would not.

Personally I wouldn't expect some great interaction that makes it obvious that a pick pocket is coming your way. Too much obviousness makes it pointless. And yes, you may have just "lost" 3000 gold to someone you will have no interaction with ever again. But instead of looking at it like a loss, see it as a donation to that characters story line. And the story line of the guard that hunted him down when he eventually becomes caught. A willingness to be a victim (and again, the gold is nothing compared to dying in pvp for comparisons sake) does so much for the server and -should- be one of the key metrics of what makes a great multiplayer nwn player. For the most part people get that when it comes to pvp, and roleplaying fear...but accepting you just lost 1200 gold out of your 6 million in the bank to a pick pocket...well that's a bridge too far!

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:21 am A willingness to be a victim (and again, the gold is nothing compared to dying in pvp for comparisons sake) does so much for the server and -should- be one of the key metrics of what makes a great multiplayer nwn player.

+1

I think this is such a huge point that people often overlook. And i cannot +1 this enough.

Not specifically pickpocket related, But to emphasize this point I was playing earlier today with a friend, and we are playing "thugs" who are trying to extort meager amounts of coin from people....

we had 3 encounters with the samescenario - find them on the open roads, demand they pay a tax to pass.

encounter one - refuses to pay the tax, and pretty much instantly hostile us, and once they realise they can't win pvp they fled.
(Sidenote: The instant hostile -> attack is commonplace i've found. I also play a paladin. Whenever i'd encounter necromancers or fiend summoners. The moment you demand they remove their summons they will hostile attack with next to NO Roleplay - another sign of people not willing to lose and jump at every opportunity to catch you offguard)

encounter two - refuses to pay tax, refuses to engage - logs out on the spot to avoid confrontation???

encounter three - person pays the 500 gold we asked for and goes on their merry way.
This was the only person willing to take a "loss" in that moment, and basically was only impacted 500gold. Its also the one i had the most fun in, we got to roleplay some tension in a small fleeting moment on the roads. Hopefully something that is memorable. I'd like to imagine he's already plotting revenge against us which would involve tellling local guards etc.

As a role player on a role play server, Which one is more meaningful to you? I'll tell you which. The ones where someone is gracious and takes a small loss. 3000 gold/500 gold...... It took me less than a month to go from a broke Level 20 to then 2,000,000 gold for a master blade rune.

3000 gold at level 30 is inconsequential.

What does this have to do with pickpocket? Well? As Babylon eloquently says,

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:21 am see it as a donation to that characters story line. And the story line of the guard that hunted him down when he eventually becomes caught.

So someone stealing 3000 gold from my character should be seen as a donation to their story line, since 3000 gold is inconsequential. Alright. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If someone corpsebashes your character then you should see it as a donation to their story line, since 600-700 xp and an hour of death penalty is inconsequential.

NPC Logger Number 2 wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 11:35 am 600-700 xp and an hour of death penalty is inconsequential.

I agree.

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 12:12 pm

NPC Logger Number 2 wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 11:35 am 600-700 xp and an hour of death penalty is inconsequential.

I agree.

It's all inconsequential. It is a game, and not even one where you win real money. The only consequence is you have fun or not and if people would recognize that losing can be fun, the consequences of the game might get better for them.

Personally, I do not favor pickpocketing of player characters in a persistent world setting in general. However, with the limit that only keys are stealable as items, I think the system is ok.

I am not a fan from stealing gold from characters, since actually rping a perpetual pickpocket is long term unsustainable. As a low level thief, you are surrounded by too many high level characters who can easily pierce your disguise and spot your pickpocket attempts. You would have to choose your marks very carefully, targeting low level characters, and even then I estimate on average it would take about a RL month until you are at least suspected as a thief. This would get you exiled at some point, because any settlement will eventually lose patience with repeat offenders. At the point you as a thief reach a sufficiently high level to pickpocket the average character, your in game power level is so high that the fact that you have a hard time justifying why your character is wasting their time with petty theft - it is just too risky to do long term. To me, play your sheet also means you do not understate the abilities of your character. To give an admittetly extreme and oversimplified example, I have a hard time believing that a level 30 rogue who fights a dragon one day would repeatedly risk getting caught stealing a necklace the other. All in all, I think the griefing potential of high level rogues regularly leeching gold from their enemies outweighs the benefits of the gold change.

Stealing from NPC's is definately more interesting and feasible.

mash wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 1:25 pm I have a hard time believing that a level 30 rogue who fights a dragon one day would repeatedly risk getting caught stealing a necklace the other.

Unless they can metagame their skills being so ridiculously high that there's virtually zero chance of them getting caught.
It's very similar to open lock skew builds checking the player list and breaking into someone's quarter once verified that they're offline.

^ in both cases the source of beef isn't so much the concept of the theft itself as is the ability to take advantage of other players with zero interaction and with no risk whatsoever.

The counterplay to that is also minimal. In most cases the other players can only patiently wait and hope that things get soon back into normal once the rogue's player gets bored playing their single player minigame

My Feedback:

I was Fresh off the Boar in Skal. Zero gold on my person, Zero gold in my bank. Before I could even go to the Mayor, 2 things happened:

1. Someone tried to pickpocket me. I spotted them. Not sure if they were successful or not.
2. A little while later I was told 41 gold work of items and valuables was taken from me. So either a second pickpocket, or the notification from the first once.

I thought this was odd since I had no gold to speak of. So to the bank and checked my balance; it was -41 gold.

Is this working as designed? It was not a big deal for me but I'd hate for a new player starting out to be pickpocketed into actual DEBT before they learn the ropes of the game.

There's a strange disconnect, or miscommunication here. As far as I know we're talking about the confrontational aspect of a thief being caught and the RP to come out of it.

I also don't think anyone here is enjoying, or even arguing for, applying extreme measures to simple conflicts.

I say 'simple conflict' confidently because to use the argument of 'inconsequential' itself, which nobody seems to even dispute, defines it that way. It's not complex, or novel, but that doesn't mean it's bad either. It's simple, and ideally should be treated simply. There are no simple options however.

Loads of people love law enforcement (hereafter LE) RP. The trouble is that, on the LE side they can only kill (or savagely beat) or exile unless the thief capitulates to the entirely make believe scenario of an arrest, fine, jail time, or as is apparently advised, the victim just ignores it.

If the last twenty years hasn't shown already - the general status quo for theft is death. It doesn't even feel presumptuous to suggest that anyone actually likes this status quo. Therefore I think if we had an equal and opposing toolbox to play with it would dramatically improve crime and punishment from its current (albeit just improved, thank you) form.

In other words it isn't about 3000 gold or ignoring the RP - its about 'how can we fairly treat this in the mild way we'd like to without resorting to perfectly ideal forum scenarios or extreme options.'

Personally I'd think it would be super cool if there were legit thieves guilds, crime, heists, distractions, honey pots and all that, but to have those things without their counterpart? LE? Warrants? Jurisdictions? Dare the I suggest the awesome idea of bounty hunting without an alignment restriction and the need for murder?

It's like, and I'm not so good at comics but hopefully the point carries, Gotham City without Batman right now.

Edit: or maybe it's Gotham City but with the Punisher instead? Stop laughing.

Personally I'd think it would be super cool if there were legit thieves guilds, crime, heists, distractions, honey pots and all that, but to have those things without their counterpart? LE? Warrants? Jurisdictions? Dare the I suggest the awesome idea of bounty hunting without an alignment restriction and the need for murder?

I hope this is not too much off-topic, but I would love the thieves guild style rp described above. However, I think pickpocketing and quarter breaking of player characters is not a good way to do it. Now, if the victims were npcs and law enforcement had an incentive to go after it (e.g. because it drains taxes), you could still have both sides doing their thing without thieves having to risk being caught on a daily basis or the griefing potential of lvl30 pickpockets. There are also alternative ways to implement crime, such as smuggling or black markets which would be more interesting in my opinion.

Skibbles wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 3:42 pm There's a strange disconnect, or miscommunication here. As far as I know we're talking about the confrontational aspect of a thief being caught and the RP to come out of it.

I don't think that there is any disconnect. Theft in many cases is executed purely with mechanical means with no PC interaction whatsoever and that's why it can feel quite OOC at times.
Similarly, straight up killbashing a caught thief often feels more like an OOC payback, rather than... you know... any actual RP.

IMO PvP theft generates minimal RP and only needlessly contributes to OOC tension between players.

I believe that PP should be removed entirely (or not work against other PCs) and stealing from PC owned quarters should be forbidden. Of course, that's just my take on the matter, because... never have I ever witnessed theft RP done right (on either side to be fair).


Also, calling all law enforcement "LE" is funny. I see what you did there!

If the general status quo for theft is death then something is wrong. For an easy example, if there are laws against Murder in Cordor and you kill someone for theft which can be safely assumed as the lesser crime by all standards, you are guilty of Murder. If you feel like your good aligned character would need to kill someone because they took a few coins from you, you might want to rethink your alignment choice. Don't fret about that though, there is always subdual for those who want to show off their pvp skills.

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 4:28 pm If the general status quo for theft is death then something is wrong. For an easy example, if there are laws against Murder in Cordor and you kill someone for theft which can be safely assumed as the lesser crime by all standards, you are guilty of Murder. If you feel like your good aligned character would need to kill someone because they took a few coins from you, you might want to rethink your alignment choice. Don't fret about that though, there is always subdual for those who want to show off their pvp skills.

It's the status quo because there isn't any other recourse - you won't get the items or gold back unless the thief decides to barter and pass it back over to you, assuming they even willingly RP getting caught.

Which is already a huge assumption since it involves THEM taking an L and just as the ultra tough paladin doesn't like being made to a look a fool, the pickpocket Rogue being rumbled constantly likely won't want to get caught like a rube at every level.

Ah, well, then I guess instead of a disconnect then the topic has just shifted in scope.

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 4:28 pm If the general status quo for theft is death then something is wrong. [and the rest]

Yes exactly, but surely you can't be suggesting that crime be completely ignored and we should just not bother thinking of ways to improve these mechanical interactions so that lawful characters can conflict with chaotic characters without good and evil being the primary mechanism in which they do this.

Can you instead, perhaps, provide reasons why we should deliberately not try to introduce options specifically so these extreme circumstances aren't the norm? Why should be continue this way? We know it will, because it always has, and so simply saying 'everyone should change' is not a solution I think is going to be viable - as it never has been.

-XXX- wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 4:22 pm Also, calling all law enforcement "LE" is funny. I see what you did there!

Actually I see what you did there because I didn't even make that connection when I was doing it! I just didn't want to triple my character count!

Ninjimmy wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 4:38 pm

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 4:28 pm If the general status quo for theft is death then something is wrong. For an easy example, if there are laws against Murder in Cordor and you kill someone for theft which can be safely assumed as the lesser crime by all standards, you are guilty of Murder. If you feel like your good aligned character would need to kill someone because they took a few coins from you, you might want to rethink your alignment choice. Don't fret about that though, there is always subdual for those who want to show off their pvp skills.

It's the status quo because there isn't any other recourse - you won't get the items or gold back unless the thief decides to barter and pass it back over to you, assuming they even willingly RP getting caught.

Which is already a huge assumption since it involves THEM taking an L and just as the ultra tough paladin doesn't like being made to a look a fool, the pickpocket Rogue being rumbled constantly likely won't want to get caught like a rube at every level.

I mean, if they get spotted you know who they are. If you can subdue them and get the guard they are caught no matter what they do with their rp. Sure, you might not get your gold back (again, who cares its 3000 gold at most) but if they start acting the fool from the subdued position I suggest getting a dm like you would in any other situation that could lead to this end that we somehow live with on the server.

As for your post, Skibbles, I don't think I got it. It sounds like you are saying that its impossible to expect people to play their character and stick to whats ic, so we shouldn't even bother pushing that sort of thing. But that has to be wrong, right?

An obvious problem with the idea of “subdue them and get the guards” is that there is ZERO opportunity for the victim to prove that someone pickpocketed them.

In the personal example I gave above, there were a ton Of people around including some helpfully inclines folks and a paladin or two. My PC accused the pickpocket publicly. He didn’t even try to escape, just stood there and played dumb. People asked me to prove it and I couldn’t.

Let’s say a character A gets robbed by character B in Cordor. A catches them in the act and goes hostile, and beats B into submission. NPC and PC Cordor guards are nearby. As far as anyone can tell, A just attacked B for no reason. A can say he was robbed by B, B will deny it, and there is no IC way it can or proved in either direction.

The PC guards are just as likely to punish A for fighting in the streets as they are to arrest or fine B for being a thief.

The only way I can think to mitigate this is that when someone is spotted stealing, some sort of “calling card” is left in the victims inventory. This can be produced and shown to PC guards or other bystanders as proof of the act .

I’m not necessarily advocating for the “calling card” mechanic but just demonstrating the problem.

I don't really play much anymore, so take my opinion with a grain of salt- but here's my opinion on this change.

All of the little sub-mechanics and interaction and subsequent cause-and-effect motivation to create a thieves' guild is amazing.

However, the bank thing rankles me, for reasons previously stated in the thread (I'll be honest, I only made it to the end of the first page), as well as some that I didn't manage to see, so here those are.

1: Assuming I am not a completely atypical sample, it's not a stretch to say that some players with infrequent playtimes may struggle to maintain a basic adventuring balance in their early levels.

This is also true of newer players, assuming you're still operating under the premise of acquiring them, and in such a case, a new player who works hard for a day or three to accumulate that first five thousand gold, goes to bank it (literally, an action they're taking to secure their hard-earned coin from loss by death or pick-pocket), and instead finds it gone the next day when they go to buy their +1/+1 stat ring from that shop over there.

WYSIWYG, and Bad Things Happen To Good Adventurers... but from a practical design perspective, what do you expect a newer player's reaction to be in response to finding out their hard work is gone, even though they took time IC to go to the bank to prevent exactly that from happening, now that they realize as far as OOC goes they're being treated like a guppy swimming with sharks?

2: Stealth is amazingly strong on this server. You can't observe someone you can't target. Anyone going Pufferfish deep into pick-pocket is going to win their stealth check. The mechanical interaction already plays out in my cynical mind like a well-oiled machine. Interact with your target, wander off. Disguise, stealth, walk back on screen. Blinding speed (let's not pretend they wont have it), pick-pocket, flee.


The creative design behind this change is amazing. The potential for cheap, check-mark RP theft abuse is, however, frighteningly, blatantly abundant, and I'm unconvinced that the sharks in the waters are docile enough not to go into a full-blown feeding frenzy over it.

I hope I'm wrong. But if I'm not, wouldn't removing the bank-dip eliminate it? (And also, accurately, make the best place for such thefts to take place in locations around districts with banks, to facilitate thematic RP theft of people carrying large sums of money to and from secure places, whilst also promoting increased guard patrols in those areas?)

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:31 pm As for your post, Skibbles, I don't think I got it. It sounds like you are saying that its impossible to expect people to play their character and stick to whats ic, so we shouldn't even bother pushing that sort of thing. But that has to be wrong, right?

Yes and for the same reason magic missile does exactly 1d4 damage, and is stopped by a shield spell, and doesn't solely rely on the magic missile victim choosing between NUH UH or ARGGH YOU GOT ME!

The reason death is the most often applied mechanic to thievery mechanics is because that's one of perilously few options that are available in the game. Games have mechanisms precisely to be used in circumstances of conflict. In fact almost every single mechanic in NWN, much less Arelith, is based on conflict.

Is it because we don't trust people (partly yes - see years of DM reminders, or the rest of the thread, or just the entire human race), or because it's far easier to work within the world when everyone is playing by the same rules and has access to equal causes and effects? We have non-extreme causes in the toolbox now, but only extreme effects to work with. That's not a good relationship, and its unsatisfactory for all parties involved.

I'm having trouble understanding why, if you're interested in sticking to what's IC (which I firmly agree with), you're so against having more IC options to be able stick to?

I get where you're coming from. It sounds like you prefer everyone just play nice, and I'd really like that, but it just isn't going to happen. Everyone universally, and suddenly, having an epiphany won't work. It hasn't yet, and it won't now, or ever. We have over a full decade of evidence to the contrary.

If somehow it's been glossed over I'll say it a third time - this change is great in my opinion. It's a good start, albeit probably needs just a little bit of fine tuning, but it needs an equal and opposite set of tools to deal with appropriately or it won't amount to any different RP than what we've had so far.

Skibbles wrote: Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:24 am

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:31 pm As for your post, Skibbles, I don't think I got it. It sounds like you are saying that its impossible to expect people to play their character and stick to whats ic, so we shouldn't even bother pushing that sort of thing. But that has to be wrong, right?

Yes and for the same reason magic missile does exactly 1d4 damage, and is stopped by a shield spell, and doesn't solely rely on the magic missile victim choosing between NUH UH or ARGGH YOU GOT ME!

The reason death is the most often applied mechanic to thievery mechanics is because that's one of perilously few options that are available in the game. Games have mechanisms precisely to be used in circumstances of conflict. In fact almost every single mechanic in NWN, much less Arelith, is based on conflict.

Is it because we don't trust people (partly yes - see years of DM reminders, or the rest of the thread, or just the entire human race), or because it's far easier to work within the world when everyone is playing by the same rules and has access to equal causes and effects? We have non-extreme causes in the toolbox now, but only extreme effects to work with. That's not a good relationship, and its unsatisfactory for all parties involved.

I'm having trouble understanding why, if you're interested in sticking to what's IC (which I firmly agree with), you're so against having more IC options to be able stick to?

I get where you're coming from. It sounds like you prefer everyone just play nice, and I'd really like that, but it just isn't going to happen. Everyone universally, and suddenly, having an epiphany won't work. It hasn't yet, and it won't now, or ever. We have over a full decade of evidence to the contrary.

If somehow it's been glossed over I'll say it a third time - this change is great in my opinion. It's a good start, albeit probably needs just a little bit of fine tuning, but it needs an equal and opposite set of tools to deal with appropriately or it won't amount to any different RP than what we've had so far.

Alright, that helps to see where you are coming from. The reality is that we are pretty much in the same frame of mind about this, we just seem to view what the best foot forward is differently. I have no illusion that this is perfect as is, I already suggested that it should break stealth for example (if it doesn't already) and while for me the suggestion was about the flavor of pick pocketing I think it might help with some of the mechanical concerns. Arienette presented an interesting dilema that I don't have an answer for at this point. But I also have faith that the player base will continue with feedback on this system and the devs will continue to tweak it until its at least acceptable for all. And with a community this big that's the best you can hope for, acceptable for all. Some will never like the idea of pick pocketing, and there is nothing you can do about that, but if the server ever becomes perfect for one person that likely means it just straight up sucks for everyone else.

I mean, I'm in favour of it existing as a mechanic but the execution is hitting a few major stumble blocks where Mechanics meets RP in undesirable ways and it's how to resolve it where we all seem to be having a quandry.

The honour system seems like a poor way to moderate how we do crime.

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Wed Nov 04, 2020 3:13 am [post]

I agree to that!

With all the work that just probably went into overhauling sleight of hand, as well as basing a new class somewhat on the concept, it seems safe to assume it's here to stay.

Likely that means the collective discussion will need to be about fine tuning instead of trying to get it removed entirely. I strongly doubt the latter is even remotely a possibility at this stage.

can we get the distance adjusted and expanded a little? Or at least let us cue it up vs npc's and have our character walk to the target? I wouldn't even mind it it's only for npc's and not pc's. It's near impossible to position yourself for many npc monsters especially if they are large or bigger. Even medium you have to be directly north/south/east/west of them, diagonal won't let you as your to far away and if you bump them or yourself it auto bumps you out of range. cueing up at would at least allow you to auto walk right up to the target and make the leg humping distance requirement less of an issue.

So, still a relatively new player to this server and twice now I've been pickpocketed by I don't know who, I didn't spot them, didn't even know they were near me, I was all alone with no one else around me. So, it's not like someone "bumped" into me. No, it seems to me the person was perfectly stealthed and high enough to get around the blade orbs in my pack.

Great RP mechanic ya got going there.

Glad I could be "taxed" for someone else's enjoyment.

CHBanger wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:22 pm Glad I could be "taxed" for someone else's enjoyment.

This is honestly the best description of the current pickpocket iteration I have ever seen.