Axies the Collector's page

@Nightdrifter

I can see it now, new to the area, Axies the Collector looks to make a name for himself. He sets up a contract (disguised as someone else) on a big name player. He then accepts his own contract, and does the deed. Leaving some sort of evidence that he was the one holding the knife.

Or, you could join an assassin's guild, make a name for yourself, and then go solo. There are ways to get your name out there. Start a new company, whatever.

(For simplicity, you would just use your own alt to make that initial contract or two to start building your name.)

I have to agree with Decius, if it takes little more than some in-game mechanics to identify all of the players, then the first thing that's going to happen is all of the players are going to be level 1 alts, save for the target, and the assassin. And if the assassin can be identified, then it's going to suck to be an assassin.

Failure happens. Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes things happen that you couldn't account for. Maybe your target has dozens of bodyguards hidden nearby, and you didn't find them. Whatever, you died, you failed. Corpse destruction is nice, but I don't want to have to get replacement contracts, or take a rep hit because I failed an assassination. What I do want to do is pull up my frilly stockings, tighten my thong and go out and try again. With more knowledge.

Darcnes, I already gave you a better option in our other conversation. Make the contracts a physical item, but give me the option to store it in a safe place.

That place could be found, broken into, and pillaged. If I'm on a dozen contracts, I'd be right proper f*&$ed then. At that point, safety and security are on my head.

I don't want to have to carry my contracts, and risk them being destroyed when I inevitably make a mistake that results in my death, and the destruction of my husk and everything I had on me.

Likewise, the Assassin is going to want something to hold over me to ensure I pay up for services rendered, and the Contract is a decent mechanical method to do so.

I absolutely agree, however I don't agree that I should be forced to have the contract on me. I should have the option to store it in a lockbox in what I consider a safe location.

I especially feel that way if destruction of the contract nullifies it, or marks it as failed. If I die trying to assassinate someone, there's nothing to prevent me from coming back and trying again. But if I have to take the contract with me, I only get a single shot. And we're playing in a world of second chances.

I'm still stuck on this concept of carrying a sheaf of papers into a settlement with you, while you're on contracts to take out the top 5 leaders of that settlement. I would never carry that information on the job with me. I know that (assuming the systems work the way I've read) I'll be going into the settlement in disguise, possibly with 1-2 backup disguises, and tools to destroy my corpse should I fail to escape unscathed.

Aside from those, and any tools I'll need to actually pull off sneaking in, and tracking/locating my target, I would bring nothing that I wouldn't want someone else to find. Such as a list of contracts stating potentially who I was, and who I was there to remove.

Perhaps a Blood Pledge from both the Contractor and the Assassin is inscribed on the Contract, forming an unbreakable bond between the two?

Not only does it really belt your alignment, but if the Contract is uncovered, the Blood Pledge within the Contract can be used to turn the tables on both Assassin and Contractor.

Holding the Contract forces the Assassin to either rescind their kill-order on the Target, or turns them back on their Contractor?

The Contractor is openly exposed as hiring an Assassin and might become shunned by both PCs and NPCs? Or perhaps suffer something worse?

I wouldn't want the contract itself to be some sort of magical binding agreement. The only thing that should hold me to my agreement is my word. If I say I'm going to kill someone for you, I'm going to do my damnedest to stick to it.

However, I wouldn't object to there also being a magical variant of contracts that could potentially be used and abused as you say. Just as long as it's not every contract.

I definitely think you should read the bit about disguises and such in this post.
https://goblinworks.com/blog/index.html#20130410

I was thinking more a subtle flag that's not blatantly obvious that affects Contractor, Assassin and Target? IE, a Flag that only 'physically' appears after certain events happen.

So long as the Contract is in play, the Assassin cannot take a second Contract, but at the same point gains a 'focus' in regards to the target, gaining a slight bonus to damage depending upon how much they 'know' about the target?

Here I disagree, I should be able to take a contract to assassinate any number of people at any given time, because if I'm good at my job, I can sneak into a settlement and assassinate 2, 3, 5 or more people. I'd hate to sneak in, kill someone, sneak out, get new contract, sneak back in, kill someone, sneak back out, etc, etc.

For the Contractor, so long as the Contract is in play, they cannot gain 'Good' Alignment points. In addition, the could be other in-game effects that affect them, dependant upon the alignment of the settlement they reside in and, if the existence of the Contract is discovered, they could suffer anything from imprisonment, execution, total confiscation of their property within the borders of the settlement or even banishment.

I disagree here as well. Just because you did a bad thing, doesn't mean your good deeds mean nothing for a set amount of time. I see this as essentially the same as saying if you kill someone, you shouldn't be able to gain good points for X hours.

I'm also curious as to how people believe contracts should be "discoverable" by uninvolved parties.

My own 2 copper here...

On anonymity; I personally feel that only the assassin should know that he's an assassin.

There need to be options for meeting with people (be they middlemen or employers) such that they can talk to each other without seeing each other, or knowing any names.

So say you're an assassin, and you hear that someone's looking to hire "The Collector" for a job. You put on your mask and collection hat, and you head to a safe place to meet. Some business or whatnot where the owner is known for ensuring his guests privacy. You take a place in a room (nicely decorated of course, comfortable furniture, perhaps a plate of snacks) with a hole in the wall, maybe with a grate, or some sort of cloth covering like a confessional. The person doing the hiring explains what he needs, his name never appears in the chat window (or however it would appear in game) and the most he knows is your Alias/Title, "The Collector". He leaves through one door, you leave through another, neither party ever sees the other. Once you complete your contract, word is sent to your new friend, he sends a bag of gold and a thank you note to a specific business friend you may have, and it finds its way into your purse.

Of course you could substitute a middleman in there somewhere as well. Maybe he meets on your behalf.

Edit: Looks like everything below this is actually pretty well handled already.

On the concept of disguises, I desperately want to be able to not walk around in my assassin persona in my spare time. Obviously Axies the Collector is already compromised, so I need an identity that doesn't invite murder on sight. Additionally, I'd love to see options for disguises that can get an Evil person into a Good settlement without guards with Omnivision able to see your alignment at all times. If I have to kill someone in a good settlement, I should (assuming I have the requisite skill(s)) be able to enter such a place without attracting undue attention.

I like the idea of earning favor with my deity of choice, but I don't particularly enjoy the idea of a god granting his favor to someone who just runs around for a couple weeks grinding out some generic quests.

I'd really love to see (assuming enough data is tracked) GW have some GM's or other employees once a month (or however long the favor lasts) check out a spreadsheet of players, and each person responsible for a deity rewards one player with the deity's favor, the player who most embodies that deity's belief system would be considered his/her/its champion for whatever the predetermined time would be.

Of course with some deities, that might happen to be a certain player that ran through a huge quest line for specifically that goal. Idk.

I'd much rather see champions chosen because they played their alignment, as opposed to completing an arbitrary set of quests that says "I love my god the mostest."

Perhaps one should determine the incoming party's intent prior to assuming guilt?

It's entirely possible that the large party is only going to pass through, and do nothing to you. But it reads as if you'd be prepared to attack them if they got too close, regardless of what else they're doing. But perhaps I'm reading too much into your statement?

Granted there will (could?) be scenarios where it will be entirely obvious what's about to happen, but assuming you're not alone, can you not wait for the other party to instigate? It only takes one attack to make it true self-defense.

I'm not certain it should ever be ok to make the first attack, barring standard war scenarios. If you're out gathering or what have you, then you should not be able to attack any random passerby because you only thought he was going to attack you. Though I suppose in the wilderness, there are no guards, and thus no laws.

I'm not entirely certain that anyone should be flagged as a PK'er/murder/criminal for attacking anyone outside of a town/outpost/whatever, where there are guards/others around to enforce laws.

My only concern here is that there is no such thing as preemptive self-defense.