Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps my search-fu is not all that great, but I've been wondering some things that I've not been able to locate an answer for.
Contracts are posted for guards, supplies, ore, etc. Chartered Company X is all about collecting ore. Foreman Joe is the guy who usually checks job postings to assign to his employees. If Foreman Joe collects the contract, can he "sub-contract" employees to do the job, then dispense the pay afterward, our does each employee need to take separate contracts then "pay dues" to Foreman Joe?
Will there be a way for assassins to make their hits within city limits without automatically having the marshals descend upon them and wipe them out? Will assassins be able to remain anonymous, otherwise productive members of society to maintain their cover without automatic super criminal flags and tanking their reputation?
What's to stop Foreman Joe, who's just been assassinated for improper sharing of contract fees, from respawning ten seconds later to continue his greedy practices as foreman?
If foreman Joe doesn't uphold his contracts, people will stop doing business with him. Reputation will matter if you want to have any form of business.
If someone has a bounty on their head from being tagged criminal, and you are a listed recipient of the bounty, you can freely kill them. I'll search back to find the exact quote. Nihimon probably will beat me to it. :D EDIT: Oops, you said assassinations, not bounties.
I've not seen hard answers for the ability to subdivide contracts.
That said, it's all subject to change.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Contracts are far enough down the line that we're really not ready to talk about them yet.
Marshals will descend on PvP kills made in NPC settlements, but the vast majority of settlements will be PC settlements and so not protected by marshals.
Assassins will suffer Reputation and Alignment loss for killing someone, though if you're doing it in moderation like a smart assassin you could probably find other means to offset these things (though really expecting to be a lawful or good assassin long term is really unlikely at best). If you are assassin who kills someone with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you will be widely known as a terrible person.
Foreman Joe will respawn. If you want to stop Foreman Joe from carrying out some economic action, maybe you need to destroy him with economics rather than violence? Buy up the supplies he needs in his town forcing him to go abroad and pay higher prices? Hire away his minions? Get him kicked out of his settlement? Or get another settlement to lay waste to his settlement? Okay, that last one involved violence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Heres the blog on contracts
Not all characters can offer or accept a given type of contract. Engaging in some contracts may require skill training, merit badges, and specific character abilities.
Contracts are transparent to all parties. When a contract is offered, all the terms of that contract are set and made visible to anyone who can accept the contract. When you take on a contract, you're doing so with full advance knowledge of the terms you're agreeing to. Once made, contracts cannot be changed.
Some contracts are offered from one character directly to another, usually when those characters are in the same area. Other contracts may be posted on centralized notice boards, and will be visible when a character visits the location of that board.
The person who issues a contract has several options that determine who can accept it. It can name a specific character, a chartered company, a settlement, or a kingdom. Further restrictions can be imposed: required or prohibited alignments, required or prohibited races, required or prohibited archetypes, etc.
Contracts cannot be available forever; they have a limited duration when they're available to be accepted. This will keep the contract system from becoming glutted with old, forgotten contracts.
Contracts are always in one of several status types:
Open: The contract has been offered but has not been accepted
Expired: The contract has been offered but was not accepted before it expired
Accepted: The contract has been offered and accepted but has not been completed
Overdue: The contract has been offered and accepted but the time frame specified in the terms has expired
Abandoned: The contract has been offered and accepted but was subsequently abandoned
Closed: The contract has been offered and accepted and has been completed
You'll be able to see all the contracts you've offered and/or accepted, and their current status, at any time.
Types of Contracts
We're currently envisioning several different contract types:
Assassination Contract
The accepting party agrees to kill a target player character. Can be accepted by more than one party. No time limit to complete. No cost for abandoning the contract. The amount offered for the assassination is placed in escrow on creation of the contract. Completing this contract is a criminal, evil act that will result in an alignment shift. The contract automatically closes on completion.
Assassinations themselves require a whole dev blog to discuss, and most of the ideas we have for them are still very formative.
Auction Contract
Auctions have their own special systems. We'll write more about the way markets and auctions will work in an upcoming dev blog.
Bounty Contract
The accepting party agrees to kill a target murderer. Can be accepted by multiple parties. No time limit to complete. No cost for abandoning the contract. A bounty contract is automatically completed when the target of a bounty is killed. The bounty amount is placed in escrow on creation of the contract. These contracts can only be created after a character has been murdered. Automatically closes if the murderer is killed, though the bounty may be renewed.
This is the mechanical expression of the idea of the bounty discussed in the dev blog To Live and Die in the River Kingdoms.
Guard Contract
The accepting party agrees to be logged in and present at a designated location during a specified time frame. Can be accepted by multiple parties, up to a limit specified by the terms. Abandonment of the contract or failure to fulfill the terms forfeits an amount of coin held in escrow as defined by the contract. The party offering the contract specifies an account to fund the contract when the contract is created. The agreed fee for the guard is placed in escrow each time the contract is accepted. If the fee cannot be put in escrow, the contract cannot be accepted. Can only be seen and accepted at the location where the contract is offered.
Loan Contract
On acceptance, an amount of coin, as described in the contract, is transferred from the offering party to the accepting party. The accepting party agrees to transfer another specified amount of coin to the offering party within a specified time frame. Can only be accepted by one party. The coin to be loaned is placed in escrow on creation of the contract. The contract can also specify a manifest of collateral items which must be provided by the accepting party and which are placed in escrow on acceptance. If the contract is abandoned or terminated by the accepting party, characters in the accepting party will gain a 30-day criminal flag, any items in escrow will be transferred to the offering party, and the alignment of characters in the accepting party will shift towards chaotic. Can only be seen and accepted at the location where the contract is offered.
In practice, the difference between the amount offered and the amount repaid is the effective interest on the loan.
Purchase Contract
The accepting party agrees to sell a designated manifest of gear or other items at a specified price. Can only be accepted by one party. Completes automatically on acceptance. Cannot be accepted unless the items on the manifest are immediately available to meet the contract terms. Delivery is at a location specified in the terms. The purchase price is placed in escrow on creation of the contract. Can only be seen and accepted at the location where the contract is offered.
Sale Contract
The accepting party agrees to buy a designated manifest of gear or other items. Can only be accepted by one party. Completes automatically on acceptance. Cannot be accepted unless funds are immediately available to meet the contract terms. Delivery is at a location specified in the terms. The items in the manifest are placed in escrow on creation of the contract. Can only be seen and accepted at the location where the contract is offered.
Transportation Contract
The accepting party agrees to move a designated manifest from one location to another location within a specific time frame. Can only be accepted by one party. Abandonment of the contract or failure to fulfill the terms forfeits an amount of coin held in escrow as defined by the contract. The items on the manifest are placed in escrow on creation of the contract and are delivered to the storage of the accepting party on acceptance of the contract at the defined location.
In Closing
We expect that characters will be constantly offering and accepting contracts, and that they'll be the mechanism by which a lot of player interaction happens. Ideally, most of the commercial, diplomatic, and adventuring activities in the game will develop through player-to-player contracting. If somebody offers you a reward for bringing them 10 rat tails, it will be because another player needs 10 rat tails for some reason, not just because an NPC has an exclamation point bobbing over his head. We think that will make questing much more meaningful and interesting to everyone.
Discuss this blog on paizo.com. Link.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The contract in question is completed on time, properly, etc. But employee Steve did the actual work, but Joe took a 90% cut of the contract fee, giving poor Steve only 10% for doing all the work. Steve wants some payback, and saves his meager earnings to put out an assassination contract.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Tony's Totally Legit Bread Making Business" seems to be setting up to be making a business of contracts. In the blog it pretty much shows how well you complete your contracts. If they aren't carried out properly, you will have a poor rating people can see. Thus preventing you from making further contracts.
Assassination in a city wont take place unless the assassin himself is with in the laws of the laws of the city. That being said, the city itself would probably be of evil alignment. Keeping the assassin's name unknown seems to be where they run into trouble. Several threads have been started on names and person info being kept secret until the other PC has done enough to actually learn it. Pretty sure Fame/Infamy has been discuss in regards to this also.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get the whole not completing contracts thing. My question assumed that all contracts ate completed in fine form, but the Foreman, who didn't do the work but took the contract, and would therefore receive the escrow payment, was "unfairly" filling out the profit, inciting his workers to have him "taken out". I suppose that was really a long-winded, story version (RP) way to ask if there can be any long-term effects of assassination contracts, such as losing position within company, losing mayorship of a town, etc.
On a separate point, though using the same characters, I was curious if Foreman Joe is were the contract collector, could he assign jobs to employees and still have them "completed", though they weren't technically completed by his hands, and still receive the proper payment for them, essentially sub-contracting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Assassins will suffer Reputation and Alignment loss for killing someone, though if you're doing it in moderation like a smart assassin you could probably find other means to offset these things (though really expecting to be a lawful or good assassin long term is really unlikely at best). If you are assassin who kills someone with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you will be widely known as a terrible person.
But what if we only assassinate evil people like lawyers, used camel salesman, bankers and AT&T ?
Wouldn't that improve our reputation with good people?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Summersnow... Evil is evil no matter if you did it to a good or evil person. Your alignment will shift towards evil, but yes , the good aligned people may like your more despite that fact.
@Runnetib... That all would depend on the alignment of the settlement he is in. An evil settlement may reward him for a job well done. As for the contract entering the "completed" status would depend on the terms. If he was contracted to provide 20 iron ore for 20 gold. It doesn't matter how he received them, as long as he delivers them to the other person. The only long term effects Joe has, is his reputation concerning his workers. His contracts rep may look good, but who would be willing to work for him knowing that he screws over his employees ?
Burning down the house of an arsonist is not a way of improving fire safety...
No, but it might be fun! /cough
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Goblin Squad Member
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The contract in question is completed on time, properly, etc. But employee Steve did the actual work, but Joe took a 90% cut of the contract fee, giving poor Steve only 10% for doing all the work. Steve wants some payback, and saves his meager earnings to put out an assassination contract.
Perhaps Steve should only accept to do the work for Joe Foreman if Joe Foreman creates a binding contract wilth Steve. If Steve accepts to subcontract for Joe, and agrees to do the job for 10% of what Joe is being paid. Then Joe hasn't done anything wrong. I'd call this good business. And Steve needs to make sure he isn’t taken advantage of. If Steve doesn't want to do the job for Joe, because he wants more than 10% of the full contract, then he can say no, negotiate a better deal, or look for other work and get paid full price.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The contract in question is completed on time, properly, etc. But employee Steve did the actual work, but Joe took a 90% cut of the contract fee, giving poor Steve only 10% for doing all the work. Steve wants some payback, and saves his meager earnings to put out an assassination contract.Perhaps Steve should only accept to do the work for Joe Foreman if Joe Foreman creates a binding contract wilth Steve. If Steve accepts to subcontract for Joe, and agrees to do the job for 10% of what Joe is being paid. Then Joe hasn't done anything wrong. I'd call this good business. And Steve needs to make sure he isn’t taken advantage of. If Steve doesn't want to do the job for Joe, because he wants more than 10% of the full contract, then he can say no, negotiate a better deal, or look for other work and get paid full price.
That again brings up my question about sub-contracting and if/how it'll be implemented. Also, as I mentioned, that was really just an RP fluff way to ask if there will be long-term effects to assassination along the lines of what I listed earlier.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Scarlette has it right. There is no need for a sub-contract system. If Joe is to deliver 20 iron ore for 20 gold, he gets the gold if he provides the iron. Very simple.
If Joe can find somebody to give him 20 iron ore for 5 gold, Joe is a good merchant, a class of people of which there will be many in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If Foreman Joe collects the contract, can he "sub-contract" employees to do the job, then dispense the pay afterward, our does each employee need to take separate contracts then "pay dues" to Foreman Joe?
From Signed... in Blood:
Transportation Contract
The accepting party agrees to move a designated manifest from one location to another location within a specific time frame. Can only be accepted by one party. Abandonment of the contract or failure to fulfill the terms forfeits an amount of coin held in escrow as defined by the contract. The items on the manifest are placed in escrow on creation of the contract and are delivered to the storage of the accepting party on acceptance of the contract at the defined location.
If I'm reading that correctly, Joe would be able to Accept the original contract, at which point the items in the manifest are immediately placed in Joe's storage. At that point, Joe should be able to post a new "sub" Contract for someone else to actually move the manifest at a lesser price. If Joe is the proverbial early worm, he might be able to accept Contracts that he believes he'll have no trouble sub-contracting. However, he runs a substantial risk if he's not able to sub-contract, or if the sub-contractors fail, or in that event if he himself fails.
The comments on that blog quickly focused on Assassination Contracts, so there weren't a lot of follow-up comments from Ryan about sub-contracting. But it seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Will there be a way for assassins to make their hits within city limits without automatically having the marshals descend upon them and wipe them out? Will assassins be able to remain anonymous, otherwise productive members of society to maintain their cover without automatic super criminal flags and tanking their reputation?
From Goblinworks Blog: Signed... in Blood:
Assassinations
It should be possible for someone to go virtually anywhere they can manage to gain admittance and target virtually any character for an assassination. This implies, obviously, that there should be ways to avoid alignment (and other) restrictions on access to various NPC areas.
An assassination needs to be something substantially more painful than a simple character death, otherwise there's little point to doing them other than "the lols", and that's a game mode we don't want to encourage.
This is why I said that a discussion of assassinations would require its own blog post. :)
Hope that was helpful :)