Goblin Squad Member
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For those that don't know, in the DC universe, Belle Reve Penitentiary is a special prison designed to house and contain super villains and other meta-human lawbreakers, boasting defenses strong enough to hold Superman (they know, they've checked).
As I idly thought about guilds and other such groups that can settle land, this idea kept coming to mind, and I've decided to bring it here to see what other people think about it. Is it possible to create a prison run by players specifically for housing other players?
Now, I'm not talking about serious infringement of the mechanics of the game or ToS violation going on here, because that falls under the purview of what the GMs need to handle and they can just outright ban someone than locking up one of their characters in a jail cell. But in the context of "meaningful player interaction", where players who want to be bandits can choose to be bandits and hold up roads and attack caravans and such, what about the opposite end of the spectrum? Would it be possible for lawful players to capture and imprison criminal players?
The more I thought about this, the more discouraged I got. If it was ever possible to force one player character into a cell and somehow prevent them from escaping outside of exploiting a glitch or bug, what's the point? It's all too easy to log out of a character, delete it, and make a new one. In essence, it'd be impossible to stop players wanting to be criminals, because there's no real way to reduce the criminal population. Killing the character has no real consequence for the player and as soon as they're locked up, the character gets deleted and they start all over again with a new one.
Can Lawful characters do anything to stop criminal ones besides throw more guards at them and hope?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Archeage already does a prison sentence (maybe age of wushu also?). In AA or AoW (can't remember) the game time spent in prison is what counts and there can be break-outs, bail charges and debuffs etc. It's been discussed previously, but the general verdict has been that player down-time is not very meaningful?
I'm not sure deleting a character with XX+ hrs of time in them would be a problem in PFO, but as above overall impression is it is not contributing that high to gameplay?
Can Lawful characters do anything to stop criminal ones besides throw more guards at them and hope?
Generally: There should be criminals to combat, in the same way there usually are static mobs standing around in other mmorpgs! :)
Specifically: In their own lawful hexes where they have patrols. In terms of convoys: Hiring guards and overall using the information of criminal attacks to prepare the necessary counter-measures. Overall lawful sounds me like a well-run organisation vs opportunistic criminal attacks which if are sufficiently large attract significantly more attention and offense from lawful settlements to drive them back. Notably the more wild the hex the more contesting/risk there is. Sounds like a theoretically workable balance?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since character advancement is a matter of training time rather than skill usage, newly created characters would be very poor thieves, but once the character has been around a week and might be competent enough to work in a bandit gang, deleting would be a major loss.
Having a character stuck would be a much greater loss than being killed a few times, so I really doubt GW would allow player-run jails. It could even be considered griefing to trap someone's character like that.
Was just posting in another thread that mentioned non-lethal subduing as an option to just killing a criminal. I think someone that can collect the bounty on another player should have the option of subduing them, then being able to parade them through the settlement that the victim is a member of, leading them to the authorities where some form of fine is levied against the criminal.
When any form of jail time has been mentioned, those who plan to play criminals usually complain that such a thing would make people quit the game. Whether this is true or not, it does seem more of a pain to set up. A fee of some sort plus the humiliation factor of being caught and dragged through town seems fair, to me. They could even spawn rotten fruit as a criminal is being paraded through town that players can throw at the criminal. In the other thread I suggested that the successful capture of a criminal should raise the reputation of the person that captured the criminal and the event noted somewhere on their character/reputation sheet for others to see. I would even favor listing the names, and perhaps offenses of the criminal beside the notation of a successful capture.
This seems more fair to me then a form of incarceration. Yes it would require the criminal spend the time it takes to journey back to the settlement, then the walk through town and short sentencing phase when the fine is given, but when you consider that a victim who is killed by a criminal has to respawn, deal with whatever sort of DP (death penalty) there may be, either try to recover their gear or go to town to get more gear from their vault etc.. It's not an undue amount of time realistically. Perhaps if the player logs out during this period, they would receive a reputation hit (decent sized) as well as a larger fine deducted from their wallet. To prevent accidental disconnects, if the player logs back in before the scenario is over, they just reappear wherever the bounty holder is in the scenario? That might not be the best way to handle disconnects, I don't know.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be in favor of this provided that the incarceration mechanic would have to be EXACTLY the SAME as the death mechanic.
Instead of respawning at a cemetray or other "death" respawn, we would repawn at a prison or local jail.
I second the principle.
From a flavor standpoint, it might be interesting to consider adding a mechanic similar to Stand and Deliver to the incarceration process (to represent posting bail instead of losing your gear)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be in favor of this provided that the incarceration mechanic would have to be EXACTLY the SAME as the death mechanic.
Instead of respawning at a cemetray or other "death" respawn, we would repawn at a prison or local jail.
I second the principle.
From a flavor standpoint, it might be interesting to consider adding a mechanic similar to Stand and Deliver to the incarceration process (to represent posting bail instead of losing your gear)
This has been discussed as an "Apprehend" skill, which would have the same mechanics as the SAD system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Having played a villain once who was locked up for a week awaiting trial, part of the fun was the role-played interaction with "visitors". I was interrogate several times, visited by the family members of victims who had come to gloat at my capture, and even had a stealthing comrade sneak in to bust me out, though I stayed in the cell since the people role-playing my guards weren't online and that seemed too easy of an escape.
That's my perspective from the role-played side of the "incarceration" scenario, which could be accomplished regardless of game mechanics. How easily or how well it can be replicated by a game mechanic, I'll leave that up to those who understand the ins-and-outs of programming better than I.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I command thee, in the name of the holy Pharasma, RISE THREAD!
RISE AND RECEIVE THINE JUDGEMENT!
Pharasma is a goddess of death, but is more about the Repose end of the concept than the Undeath side, so I doubt she would be pleased with your thread necromancy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pharasma is a goddess of death, but is more about the Repose end of the concept than the Undeath side, so I doubt she would be pleased with your thread necromancy.I command thee, in the name of the holy Pharasma, RISE THREAD!
RISE AND RECEIVE THINE JUDGEMENT!
I'm an insane inquisitor using unorthodox methods to pass judgement. DON'T YOU PREJUDGE ME.