Added discussion thread for Goblinworks Blog: Signed... in Blood.
Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon. I know you are watching this. Solemor and I are talking about a big community project for PFO on my teamspeak and we want you in on it. I'll PM you the address. Telling you here since PMs are easy to miss sometimes. Now I have a blog to read. ;)
About the actual blog I like most of it but the loan feature is bad. The lender should have the option whether to flag the person criminal and shift their alignment toward chaotic or not.
If I loan them 250 thousand gold understanding they will pay me back 300 thousand, and they offer a house worth 300 thousand gold as collateral, I won't be too ticked if the fail to pay. Especially if they offer a valid reason.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A lawful person's word is his bond. Failure to honor a contract is chaotic behavior.
On the criminal flag point, maybe the lender should have a choice. But whether the lender is happy with the collateral shouldn't matter for the borrower's alignment. Her failure to honor the contract is a matter between her and the gods, or whatever is the judge of alignment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Generally, I like the contracts idea. The guard contracts will probably see a lot of use, both for settlements and for resource gathering projects.
Contracts in general should encourage interaction between players, building up the community. A contractor can hire a new character for simple jobs for a couple days, to see how reliable the player is. Reliable characters get more contracts and get offers to join parties and companies.
However, I hope there are other markers besides alignment to determine overall reliability. A chaotic good ranger might be trusted to carry a message, for example, even if he doesn't risk an alignment shift on failure (there's no alignment shift listed for the transport contract, anyway).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Question. When creating a contract to help with the transfer of goods.... Would someone be able to read this and decide to tell their bandit friends about it? Knowing that they can just be in the area and waylay the caravan?
Or would knowledge of the route be limited to having accepted the contract?
Goblinworks Founder
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What no gardener contract to water and tend my plants while I'm away ...Unless your plants are the large carnivorous variety, that's hardly hero work, is it? Let the NPC common folk deal with it.
Whenever you reach Hero status (and who knows when that is or what defines a hero), you can stop gardening... till then git back to work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Question. When creating a contract to help with the transfer of goods.... Would someone be able to read this and decide to tell their bandit friends about it? Knowing that they can just be in the area and waylay the caravan?
Or would knowledge of the route be limited to having accepted the contract?
As written, I don't think a route would be specified. It's pick up a load of goods in Mining Camp A and deliver to Settlement B not later than 2 days from now. If it was an open/publicly posted contract, then someone *could* note when the contract disappears from the bulletin board and notify confederates in ambush site on the most likely route. They could also just watch wagons leave the mining camp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thrilled with the news that we'll be able to offer a wide variety of contracts. This really opens up a Company's ability to create organized events for the membership.
However, the thing that would really put the icing on the cake is something that can be used for Company Script (read: money). Ideally, it would be tracked virtually, just like real coins, and it's production would be completely controlled by the Company.
(( Sorry I missed you, Andius. I'm sure Sole will fill me in though. ))
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Goblin Squad Member
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The metagame solution to this problem is to simply say that such schemes are violations of the code of conduct for the game and will not be tolerated. Rapid and effective enforcement of such a policy will substantially reduce the number of people who try it.
Just to clarify, this won't be the actual policy, right? You were only citing an example?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Under assassination contract:
Completing this contract is a criminal, evil act
What is the reasoning behind this? You had earlier defined criminal kills, aka murder, as kills unprovoked committed inside lawful settlements. Why the change to also include any contract kill? Why is it criminal to assassinate outside of lawful regions?
Or was the citation I quoted merely poorly worded?
I have no issues with the "evil" part, but if you're going automatically to turn all assassins into criminals, then as I've stated earlier on these forums you guys are failing hard to distinguish the difference between an assassin and a bandit. Hard.
Obviously assassination inside lawful settlements is criminal, so let's just be clear that's not what I'm talking about. Assassins who get themselves flagged as criminals are fools.
In any case, if this is really implemented as suggested, then players will simply move the assassination business underground and go through informal contracts. It doesn't go with the reputation system you suggested, so it will require really brutal enforcement to collect on contracts. If that's what you guys are going for though, there are definitely players lined up and ready to be the monsters it takes to work around your system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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However, the thing that would really put the icing on the cake is something that can be used for Company Script (read: money). Ideally, it would be tracked virtually, just like real coins, and it's production would be completely controlled by the Company.
Just checking what you mean by this. Are you looking for some (virtual) token that is earned/accumulated by doing quests for a Company and can be used/spent at that Company's vendors (and otherwise has little value in the world)? Or are you looking for something that only accumulates like faction points. to show how much the character has done over time for a Company?
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Goblinworks Founder
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I would love for there to be a UI interface that allowed me to place an item into a reward box, select what is required to be eligible for said reward and then set my character to NPC mode while I go afk for five or ten minutes or even go offline. A player could walk upto my PC read what task I need done and decide whether the reward is worth the effort. If they choose to do the task, my character would cease to offer the task/contract to anyone else or I might be able to set a limit to how much reward and I cease to offer the quest once that limit is reached.
Let's say I had some spare gold. I might decide to park my PC in a busy market where new players frequent. Set my quest for noobs to collect some odd trinkets from noob monsters nearby that I might need as spell components or for crafting simple items. I set a limit to how many I need and how much I'm offering per item (much like an MMO trader). Several noob players decide that they will take up my offer and collect trinkets, handing them in until my set cash reward hits it's limit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am very interested in the Assassination rules as well. I would love to play out an assassin as that means you have an ever evolving challenge... other players. If, however, being an Assassin means I suddenly cannot go anywhere or purchase from anyone this is bad.
Why is it evil for me to kill someone who has wronged another for instance? I think that not all contracts are evil (an assassin could easily take bounty contracts as well) and I definitely do not think all of them warrant criminal status. Especially outside the borders of a settlement.
I would love to see assassins have contracts with thieves guilds to make use of the ambush features for hideouts. If the target tries to quick travel through you can engage them suddenly. Maybe you can pay some thieves to hold them down!
Over all, I am almost at the point of exploding and asking what else i can do to help!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Or all. Killing people outside of lawful areas is not considered criminal, so no restrictions on NPC settlements. If they're really planning on making assassination contracts an exception to that system, then only fools will actually use them. Proper assassins will make their own contracts and circumvent the criminal tag.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Or all. Killing people outside of lawful areas is not considered criminal, so no restrictions on NPC settlements. If they're really planning on making assassination contracts an exception to that system, then only fools will actually use them. Proper assassins will make their own contracts and circumvent the criminal tag.
Well that depends, I have a feeling there has to be something deeper to assassinations than just kill X. Considering that 1. They noted it was more in depth than they could go over as just a paragraph in this blog
Assassinations themselves require a whole dev blog to discuss, and most of the ideas we have for them are still very formative.
now I could be jumping to conclusions, but that sounds quite probably more in depth than I give you money, you do a standard PK with normal result.
and 2. The death penalty in PFO is just too plain weak for a generic kill to be worth anyone's money.
This is total and absolute speculation on my part, but I have a feeling bounties and assassinations will very probably have a greater impact to the targeted than the normal "If they happen to be carrying something they will lose it".
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of the things discussed in earlier posts was that certain measures might have to be in place to prevent the world from turning into a lawless gankfest, a place that is fun for griefers, but less fun for many other players.
There will be a certain amount of killing between Companies competing for resources in the wilderness. And then there's a line which some will cross; they will kill people not because they have any beef with that person, but because a third party paid for it. If GW wants to limit that action, it seems reasonable to flag it as criminal.
Yes, if you want to get a better class of assassin, you're likely to find they want to deal under the table, outside of lawful contracts, because they don't want to get that criminal flag. That makes sense to me. Does it make it tougher to run assassinations for profit? Yes. Will the game benefit from assassinations being less common? Probably yes.
But yeah, as Onishi says, we'll get more detail in time.
Oh - and the criminality flag might be there to allow the victim to put bounties on his assassin as payback.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A lawful person's word is his bond. Failure to honor a contract is chaotic behavior.
Even if they had full intent to honor their word but were not able to because for any number of reasons they had less cash than anticipated?
Even if that does constitute chaotic behavior it shouldn't constitute criminal behavior unless the lender wants it to. They are the ones who would take it to collections. The police don't just go and hunt down someone for not paying their debts unless someone comes and provides them documentation showing they haven't been paid what they are owed.
So absolutely if I allow someone to take a loan, they post good collateral, and then they come to me and say, "Man I had every intention of paying you but the grain shipment got robbed by bandits and I have no money to pay you with." I'm would rather say, "Hey man that's no problem. I'm giving you a week extension and if you get the money to me by then I'll return your collateral." as long as I trust that person is telling me the truth. And as long as that collateral is worth the value they owe me and has high liquidity I don't particularly give a damn if they don't ever pay me back at all.
I don't want the guards to automatically hunt them down and run them through. For one thing that is going to hinder their ability to pay me back after that one week extension. The game system shouldn't force me to be a loan shark when I want to be reasonable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh - and the criminality flag might be there to allow the victim to put bounties on his assassin as payback.
Then why not on bandits who deal in unlawful areas? You want payback on an assassin then it would make more sense to hire a different assassin. Tony can help you with that.
I get it if the assassin kills you in town, but to throw that in there "just because I want to get payback" just makes no sense.
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Goblinworks Founder
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Not fulfilling your contract is perfect grounds for a new contract for a Bounty Hunter to go debt collecting is it not?
I'm not sure whether Assassination contracts should be an Evil act, maybe the determining factor should be the alignment of the mark. Placing a contract on a Lawful Good bartender and his family because he refused to serve you ale due to unruly behaviour and heavy inebriation would be considered an Evil act for both the Assassin and the Employer.
Placing a contract on an Evil Wizard who just happens to be the personal advisor to the King might not if the ends justifies the means. It would be a chaotic act, because Killing a Kings advisor would surely be against the Kingdoms law, but it could be the only way to free the Kingdom from the Wizards meddling and subsequent doom.
An Assassin has always been a hot topic of debate in morality of roleplaying games. I do not doubt that many of them are evil, but I also believe that a Lawful Neutral Assassin would be the perfect combination of getting the job done no matter what. A Lawful Neutral Assassin would never break a contract and neither good nor evil will influence whether the job can't be done.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am very interested in the Assassination rules as well. I would love to play out an assassin as that means you have an ever evolving challenge... other players. If, however, being an Assassin means I suddenly cannot go anywhere or purchase from anyone this is bad.
Why is it evil for me to kill someone who has wronged another for instance? I think that not all contracts are evil (an assassin could easily take bounty contracts as well) and I definitely do not think all of them warrant criminal status. Especially outside the borders of a settlement.
I think this is a bounty hunter, not an assassin. Bounty hunters can be secretive and dress like ninjas too.
I would love to see assassins have contracts with thieves guilds to make use of the ambush features for hideouts. If the target tries to quick travel through you can engage them suddenly. Maybe you can pay some thieves to hold them down!
Over all, I am almost at the point of exploding and asking what else i can do to help!
...and thieves are criminals, so doing their dirty work would be criminal.
The definition of an Assassin: One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person
Even if you kill mercifully, you are still destroying something (lack of DP aside). I don't understand why a murderer, albeit a skilled one, is concerned about becoming evil. Seems to me to come with the turf...by definition.
EDIT: Oh, and I just realized there is and should be a deference between alignment and reputation...especially when alignment is absolutes like in Golarion (personified by deities). But, this argument is nullified by a few well placed "glasses of alignment detection" on our super marshals.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would love for there to be a UI interface that allowed me to place an item into a reward box, select what is required to be eligible for said reward and then set my character to NPC mode while I go afk for five or ten minutes or even go offline. A player could walk upto my PC read what task I need done and decide whether the reward is worth the effort. If they choose to do the task, my character would cease to offer the task/contract to anyone else or I might be able to set a limit to how much reward and I cease to offer the quest once that limit is reached.
Let's say I had some spare gold. I might decide to park my PC in a busy market where new players frequent. Set my quest for noobs to collect some odd trinkets from noob monsters nearby that I might need as spell components or for crafting simple items. I set a limit to how many I need and how much I'm offering per item (much like an MMO trader). Several noob players decide that they will take up my offer and collect trinkets, handing them in until my set cash reward hits it's limit.
This seems exactly what the "purchase contract" could be used for to me. Since you post the amount of money as you make the contract, and you don't have to be there for the contract to be completed, you could AFK or whatever and passersby could do fetch quests for you until you have the amount of items needed, just as you described.
Of course, it might be more difficult to do such things with other quest objectives, but that really depends on the specifics.
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Goblinworks Founder
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The definition of an Assassin: One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person
Even if you kill mercifully, you are still destroying something (lack of DP aside). I don't understand why a murderer, albeit a skilled one, is concerned about becoming evil. Seems to me to come with the turf...by definition.
EDIT: Oh, and I just realized there is and should be a deference between alignment and reputation...especially when alignment is absolutes like in Golarion (personified by...
By your definition every adventurer is Evil. Especially points 2 and 4 of the free dicitonary definition of evil.
- That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction
- Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction.
I don't think we need to evaluate what your typical adventuring party does in a computer roleplaying game. I cannot fathom the evil I must have committed over the last 25 years of gaming, all under the guise of being a hero vanquishing my foes.
If an Assassin accepts a contract to kill the Lord of a Neighbouring Hex, is this any different from a Paladin that massacres a tribe of Goblins because their lair was too close to his Cathedral? I would consider the Assassin to be the lesser of two evils.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One Concern, I don't like the guard contract. I would not like to see any mechanic in the game that suggests or requires a player to be in-game for a specific time-frame.
There's this thing called real-life, and the more you penalize players for experiencing it, the smaller your player-base will be.
You need to find a balance between keeping a 'no-lifer' busy, and not making them more powerful than a casual player. Casual players are the largest market, and they aren't interested in games where all the powerful people are those that log in for 8 hours a day.
The only situation where i would accept a guard contract if it was to fight off a group of enemies currently attacking a location.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One Concern, I don't like the guard contract. I would not like to see any mechanic in the game that suggests or requires a player to be in-game for a specific time-frame.
There's this thing called real-life, and the more you penalize players for experiencing it, the smaller your player-base will be.
You need to find a balance between keeping a 'no-lifer' busy, and not making them more powerful than a casual player. Casual players are the largest market, and they aren't interested in games where all the powerful people are those that log in for 8 hours a day.
The only situation where i would accept a guard contract if it was to fight off a group of enemies currently attacking a location.
Well a guard contract sounds like you just don't accept the job then. The only purpose of the contract is for an exchange of money for a service. So if you don't want ot be online at the time of the contract, or you aren't sure of your schedule or something... don't take the role of a guard.
The purpose of the contracts is to ensure that if someone hires a guard neither party has to question if.
1. The person taking the guard job is just going to take the money and not show up
2. The person hiring the guard is going to reap the benefits of the protection, and then not pay the guard.
The contract allows that transaction to occur with neither party being in high danger of being ripped off. I see no reason why this "empowers" no lifers, it is a job to be taken at a specific time. If nobody wants to do it, than the person hiring it out will have to raise the money, it isn't like a quest or a mission that is necessary to compete in the game, it is an optional task people can hire someone for, which will exist in the game with or without a mechanic (only with higher risk to both parties without).
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Goblin Squad Member
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However, the thing that would really put the icing on the cake is something that can be used for Company Script (read: money). Ideally, it would be tracked virtually, just like real coins, and it's production would be completely controlled by the Company.Just checking what you mean by this. Are you looking for some (virtual) token that is earned/accumulated by doing quests for a Company and can be used/spent at that Company's vendors (and otherwise has little value in the world)? Or are you looking for something that only accumulates like faction points. to show how much the character has done over time for a Company?
More the former than the latter.
Companies should be able to produce their own Company Script at will, in whatever quantities they wish. They should be able to determine who is allowed to possess Company Script (such as allied Companies). They should be able to create some Contracts that reward Company Script, and others that reward other goods in exchange for Company Script.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think this is a bounty hunter, not an assassin. Bounty hunters can be secretive and dress like ninjas too.
From how GW has defined bounties, they can only be issued on murder which they defined as un-provoked kills in lawful territory. So what then is a bounty hunter who is hunting someone without a lawful bounty? An assassin. Assassins can be un-secretive and not dress like ninjas too ;)
Your constricted definition of evil has some concerns I don't think you've considered. Ah, but I see Elth has already pointed that out.
And then there's this point:
...and thieves are criminals, so doing their dirty work would be criminal
You forget the rules of the River Kingdoms. Particularly the one that says you have what you hold. In any case, in the strictest of scenarios, thievery would be like murder in that it must be done within lawful territory to have any kind of flag associated. And even then, like murder, you would have to help in the act of theft to share that tag, not just sit down to have a drink with them in a building that just happens to be their main hideout.
You'd think an Archaeologist or Archivist Bard with archer tendencies would be clearer on these distinctions...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actualy I think Blaeringr may have a point here. I don't see much utility on placing criminal or alignment shifts on completion of the contract...as long as there are criminal and alignment shifts maintained on the actual ACT of KILLING...and those shifts can be dependant upon the circumstances of the killing.
Example 1: "Assination Contract" is placed on an officer of Company A by an Officer of Company B. Companies A & B are in a state of War with one another. Company C is also at War with Company A. A member of company C accepts and completes the "Assasination Contract" by killing the officer of Company A in an active combat zone.
There is no rationale for considering this a "chaotic" , "evil" or "criminal" act. Since killing a hostile combatant in wartime is generaly recognized as a justified/legitimate/legal action in most societies (especialy feudal societies). No need to even flag the individual of Company C as "criminal" in company A's holding, as one assumes they would already be flagged as "hostile" due to thier affiliation with Company C and the state of War between the 2 holdings.
Example 2: "Assination Contract" is placed on an officer of Company A by an officer of Company B. Companies A & B are at a state of peace. The contract is accepted and completed by a member of Company C by killing the Officer of Company A in Company A's settlement. Company C & Company A are in a state of Alliance. This is clearly an example of an act which is "criminal" and likely "chaotic" and "evil" as well. HOWEVER there is no need to make the fullfillment of the contract cause an alignment shift or "criminal" tag....since that ALREADY should be covered by the actual ACT of killing (and would be just as "criminal" and "Evil" if it had occured without a contract in place.)
- Killing someone without "Just Cause" (e.g. an open State of War) is considered "Evil" and "Criminal" in most societies.
- Killing an "Ally" would certainly be considered a "chaotic" Act at least by virtualy every society (even ones that were "Evil").
- Killing a citizen/officer of a particular settlement would generaly brand the killer as a "criminal" IN THAT SETTLEMENT at the very least...and likely any settlements that were allied to that settlement as well.
But again, there is no need to make the completion of the contract as the trigger for those shifts/status....as the simple act of killing in that manner should do so already. At best it would be superflous.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would love for there to be a UI interface that allowed me to place an item into a reward box, select what is required to be eligible for said reward and then set my character to NPC mode while I go afk for five or ten minutes or even go offline. A player could walk upto my PC read what task I need done and decide whether the reward is worth the effort. If they choose to do the task, my character would cease to offer the task/contract to anyone else or I might be able to set a limit to how much reward and I cease to offer the quest once that limit is reached.
Other contracts may be posted on centralized notice boards, and will be visible when a character visits the location of that board.
I think that is the point of notice boards. Put something up, return a day later to find a hoard of goods waiting for you.
One Concern, I don't like the guard contract. I would not like to see any mechanic in the game that suggests or requires a player to be in-game for a specific time-frame.
I think most of these will occur in real time, meaning you will be offered this contract while you are online, and it will just require that you stay online for X amount of time until the job is completed. If you can only stay online for Y amount of time, the player offering the contract can either rework the contract to suite you, or try to find someone else.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Completing this contract is a criminal, evil act that will result in an alignment shift.
If you want to make this game really fun for assassins, make parameters so that the contract can be completed without becoming criminal. Meaning if they do it without being seen and without leaving any trace, then they only receive an alignment shift but do not become a criminal.
I realize this would be extremely hard if not impossible to program into the game, but still.... ffffuuunnnn....
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actualy in follow up to my above post, I would propose another type of contract..
Namely, "The Letter of Marque". This contract would involve the killing of members of a specific faction/company (or possibly specific types of "monsters" if you wanted to extend it to PVE)....or the destruction of property belonging to a specific faction/company. It would NOT specify any specific individual as the target, but rather just any target of the appropriate faction/settlement/company membership. It could also specify a hex or hex's where this killing/destruction must take place. It would also specify the number of times this act could be repeated before the contract expired. The person issuing the contract MUST be in a state of active hostility to the faction in question. The person accepting the contract would automaticaly be marked as "Hostile" to the target faction/company upon ACCEPTANCE of the contract. Alternately if that was too difficult to impliment, you could simply require that they could only accept the contract if they were already hostile to the target faction.
Example: "Be it hereby Known that a bounty is being offered for the destruction of Property or the Killing of Soldiers of the Kingdom of Chellish in hex #231. Each 1,000 crowns of property so destroyed os soldier dispatched shall be rewarded with the grant of 50 crowns to the individual so responsible. The bounty may be completed a total of 100 times, 87 of which remain to be completed. In acceptance of this contract, you shall be issued a Letter of Marque by the Kingdom of Talador and considered a just and lawfull combatant in Talador's righteous conflict against said Kingdom of Chellish."
This would serve the function of allowing for mercenaries to be employed in conflicts between companies/settlements/kingdoms....and if extended to PvE, could be utilized by individuals to provide rewards for adventurers in killing wandering monsters and cleaning out dungeons in a specific hex...thus making it safer for resource gathering operations, commerce, settlement, etc.
Essentialy this is a way to support the existance of Privateers or Mercenaries.