A few of us on teamspeak were talking about settlement laws and thought it was worth a post and hopefully discussion.
We believe that settlement laws will be of the checkbox and enter a number sort for instance
Ban players with reputation less than ------
or
Ban all elves
or
The following spells may not be cast
or
A list of permissible equipped weapons
Given the above what selectable laws would people like to see?
In addition should laws be allowed to be different for members and visitors
eg Only short swords are permitted for visitors
members may be permitted long swords in addition
The second idea we kicked about was player guards or "enforcer" flagged characters being able to police contraband (settlement flagged items) by an adaption of the Stand and deliver mechanism whereby player guards could search other players for contraband
Smaller weapons are more easily hidden. Would make more sense for larger, more-unwieldy weapons to be more legally accepted.
Goblin Squad Member
|
First Idea: I am all for giving settlements as many choices as possible to customize the town in those ways. I would advocate for a whitelist and a blacklist for entrance/denial of individuals. Choices of class, race, religion, alliance(if that is tracked), CC membership, settlement membership, etc... Everything that lets you tweak those things will add to the flavor of your settlement. Yes, they should all be selectable to include citizens or visitors only. Not sure about imaginary discrimination issues in imaginary game worlds... ;)
Second Idea: I would not like it but it should be allowed if possible. I would find it annoying in the extreme, but it would also give a lot of flavor if certain towns did that sort of thing.
The settlement's choices would certainly bear on how much trade, training, etc... they enjoyed from outsiders. *shrug*
Not sure about imaginary discrimination issues in imaginary game worlds... ;)
Adults should be capable of exploring adult topics through fantasy.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
A list of permissible equipped weapons
Given the above what selectable laws would people like to see?
In addition should laws be allowed to be different for members and visitorseg Only short swords are permitted for visitors
members may be permitted long swords in additionThe second idea we kicked about was player guards or "enforcer" flagged characters being able to police contraband (settlement flagged items) by an adaption of the Stand and deliver mechanism whereby player guards could search other players for contraband
The Disguise mechanism would have to randomly choose from the list of acceptable items. That could be interesting.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The Disguise mechanism would have to randomly choose from the list of acceptable items. That could be interesting.Why should a disguise prevent you from getting nabbed by Jonny Law for something unrelated?
Disguise is supposed to make you look generic to all sorts of inspection mechanics, isn't it? I assumed that the variant SAD mechanic would count. This may have been incorrect, though.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Smaller weapons are more easily hidden. Would make more sense for larger, more-unwieldy weapons to be more legally accepted.
In theory this would make sense, but I have had real world experience of the exact opposite.
One day I was on my way to a shooting range. I stopped off at a local deli to get a cup of coffee. While standing in line, a Police Officer behind me told me that he could see my pistol, and to not turn around and place my license on the counter.
I had a Conceal / Carry license, and He knew that the range was right around the corner. He explained that a C/C is meant for it to be CONCEALED completely. I asked, wouldn't you rather know that I had a concealed weapon? He responded, "No, he would rather buy his coffee without having to be concerned about why I was carrying."
Smaller weapons are more easily hidden. Would make more sense for larger, more-unwieldy weapons to be more legally accepted.In theory this would make sense, but I have had real world experience of the exact opposite.
One day I was on my way to a shooting range. I stopped off at a local deli to get a cup of coffee. While standing in line, a Police Officer behind me told me that he could see my pistol, and to not turn around and place my license on the counter.
I had a Conceal / Carry license, and He knew that the range was right around the corner. He explained that a C/C is meant for it to be CONCEALED completely. I asked, wouldn't you rather know that I had a concealed weapon? He responded, "No, he would rather buy his coffee without having to be concerned about why I was carrying."
That officer was an idiot. Or at the very least, was not a "rational actor", in the economics sense of the term.
But then... most people are stupid.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
We also suggested in our TS discussion of this topic that there should be something like a list of laws message board near the settlement entrance or even its sphere of influence perimeter so that visitors could be made aware of the settlement's laws before walking in blindly and getting whacked by NPC or player guards.
For the sake of visitor courtesy, we also discussed a delay between the time you can change a law and when it goes into effect, so as to avoid changing laws just to grief-kill people already in your settlement, though settlements who used this tactic would likely find themselves with very few guest coming to visit.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
About the weapons, that may turn out annoying. Would the law work
A) against weapons in the player inventory?
B) against having certain weapons equipped?
C) against having a weapon drawn? I don't think this is what you mean.
If A) is your answer then ok it would be possible to make it happen but I would find it very bothersome to have to hand in my weapons at the gatehouse or whatever before I can enter a settlement as a visitor. If you are ok with that, then fine by all means but I can imagine that some players won't appreciate it if your settlement has such a law in place. Then again, maybe those are the kind of players you don't want in your settlement ;)
If you meant B), then sure it could work for RP purposes but from a practical stance if you can still carry the weapon in your inventory you just need to equip it right before you plan to start hurting people. Same kind of reasoning works for C).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Wurner, regarding B) if it takes a second or so to equip or swap out a piece of gear, that would still be a fairly significant limitation. Particularly if it applied the criminal flag as soon as you started equipping it (effectively, when you pulled it out of your pack and started strapping it on). Since we already know the game will have weapon sets you can hotswap between in combat, having a slight delay on equipping something new shouldn't be much of a problem.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There were also a few variations on the 'signboard' posting of settlement laws mentioned, such as having that information available from innkeepers in the hex/surrounding area or from speaking with the guards at the gate before entry. These are simply re-skinning the signboard object.
The suggestion as mooted on Teamspeak was for B. In rp terms think of it like the peace knots used in various fantasy literature whereby a weapon was tied into its scabbard, didn't cause much delay in drawing it but meant it wasn't a spur of the moment draw.
As Dario notes as well once you equip the weapon you become flagged as criminal
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
.... I asked, wouldn't you rather know that I had a concealed weapon? He responded, "No, he would rather buy his coffee without having to be concerned about why I was carrying."That officer was an idiot. Or at the very least, was not a "rational actor", in the economics sense of the term.
But then... most people are stupid.
I would say the officer is pragmatic. The fact that he notices the weapon makes more work for him. The fact that you are showing the weapon stresses people who notices it. Assuming that what they don't know won't hurt them in this case, he's right.
Anyways, the whole situation strikes me something that would happen only in America.
Gun laws in settlements: I don't quite get the point. If equipping a weapon takes enough time, that should favor assassins - but why would anyone want to make their own settlement more vulnerable? (the defender seems not able to draw a weapon in self-defense until actually hit, which seems a much more severe disadvantage than the attacker being noticed by npc guards a split moment earlier).
Also, it creates a imbalance if bard are allowed their instruments and wizards their spellbooks but paladins cannot equip their swords.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
@randomwalker
Isn't the point that this is for the settlement to decide? Also, that was the reason why the subject of having the laws apply to different groups. So, say, visitors may be banned weapons, but settlement members could have them, which would prevent it from favoring assassins (at least assuming they were targetting settlement members, and were able to successfully hide their equipped weapons). As far as favoring bards or wizards or whatnot, if you can ban one class of items, there's very little additional work to ban additional classes of them. The only real effort required is someone defining what the bannable classes are.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Well, the game is supposed to be classless, so outlawing specific classes wont work. It would make sense to be able to outlaw certain spells and abilities. Spells especially.
No Daylight spells after 9 pm.
No Summoning or Gate spells.
No fire spells of any kind.
No hexes.
No raging.
No area of effect spells or abilities.
Of course a lot of settlements will want no killing laws, but some might not. Similarly with thieving and taxes.
Of course not only will the laws have to be outlined but so will the punishments, from a fine, confiscated items, to a bounty, to permanent kill-on-sight exile. Maybe even hexes, curses, or other debuffs, baleful polymorphs, or just a sound beating.
I don't see jail time being an option in an MMO but perhaps the ability to give criminals time-limited quests to complete to avoid harsher punishments; essentially forced labor as punishment.
The more options for laws and punishments the better.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm thinking GW will end up providing the founders of a settlement a long list with checkboxes. Hopefully layered to allow fine-tuning.
For example level 1 might list a prohibition on attacking a merchant. Level 2 might list exceptions to that rule.
Whatever it is it would have to be intelligible to machine rather than paragraphs of flowery prose wherever the laws are expected to be enforced by NPCs.