Goblin Squad Member
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"Assassination is by contract. My concern here is that I as an assassin would rather remain faceless. That is when a person contracts for a hit I do not necessarily want them knowing the name of the assassin that will carry out the contract. I have read the dev blogs and as yet have not found anything that applies either way to this and therefore have to assume in the abscence of any information that the contract system will be much like that of Eve and the contractor name will be visible in some way to the contractee."
I personally hope that we will be able to use middlemen to receive and even issue contracts for assassinations and that the contract will be able to be passed between these messengers.
From an assassins point of view probably number 1 is preferable as it gives a person for those seeking that sort of service to contact. I don't think eve contracts allow the accepter to be anonymous currently and even if you set it for a particular corp you still know the individual therein that accepted it and they are the only one that can complete it.
Question I would ask is how hard is it to add an extra contract type that can either be accepted then passed to another which may be open to abuse or one that can be accepted on behalf of a venture company but no individual names.
Of the two the latter may be easiest so blaeringr and his mob could set up a company and then it would just be the company accepting it
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Goblin Squad Member
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Option 1: Middlemen.
Option 2: Aliases.
Your option 1 = option 2. As far as game programming is concerned there is no difference.
Neither is possible though if contracts specify who can collect on the contract though, which is the heart of the topic I'm getting at here.
And it's not just character anonymity: I don't want to identify my organization (other than tony's, of course). If I can get away with it, I won't actually have an official company in game. I want it to all be managed below the radar.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Would allowing the name under which contracts are listed/accepted be different from the name used for other purposes be adequate
I love the idea of an assassination contract being made literally with coin as a material component, and the contract turns back into coin if it is in the possession of an assassin who completes the hit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since assassin's are able to disguise themselves for the purpose of the kill, it would make sense for them to be able to disguise themselves for the purpose of contract collection.
It would also make sense that since the contracts have very specific terms in many cases that it would be possible to just leave a contract at a specified drop point for it to be collected later. Hand-offs could be arranged, etc..
Ultimately, as in everything else, I would like to see the responsibility of anonymity fall on the shoulders of the ones who desire it. Ie.. arranging drop-points, hand-offs, middlemen, disguises, etc.. and if you fail at these things you and/or the contract holder risk discovery/exposure.
I see what you're saying about the game automatically showing identity on the contract itself, and I share what I believe to be a very legitimate concern about the nature of need-to-know information and that for some contracts, the holders just don't need to know.
In the long run, unless this is a very robust system, I see a system where behavior devolves into the "Go here, pick up half your payment and the target, contact whoever at this location when it is done. We will confirm the hit and pay you the balance of the fee." cliche that we're all so used to. It would be really nice if this didn't have to happen. We may not have burner phones and Swiss accounts, but I think we can make do somehow with a no-tech equivalent.
For assassins to work correctly they should be able to stay anonymous from both from victim and employer. Not often I agree with blaeringr but if you want assassins to work it has to be that way
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Goblin Squad Member
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As an extension of this, I would like to see a way for players to mark establishments/locations in a very subtle way to signify importance to one group or another that recognizes the symbol.
Think yellow ajah with their herbs hanging in a specific manner. It could be as basic as allowing players to place objects in precise manners, ie.. a dagger on a sign post pointing to the back of a building. The area of buildings where players are able to place items as decorations could extend just a bit outside of the building itself, or encompass the entire lot. As well, the ability to place said items limited to the owner of the lot in question.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe that if you look at the Bounty System, and the concerns that the devs brought up there, you will see why they want the contracted to be known.
If I pay you 100 gold to kill someone, and that person is actually you, then I just paid 100 gold for nothing.
If I paid 100 gold and the contract is against a person in your company. Then you can set it up to allow your friend to die at your hands, and you both split the profits.
Bounties in particular, but potentially assassin's contracts are a sucker's final victimization. It is yet another opportunity for their intended victim of their revenge, to get another laugh and a bit of coin to go along with it.
Hiring an assassin that is unknown to you is just about throwing money out the window. The more organized settlements or companies will have their own assassins within their ranks or an assassin or two that they use exclusively and are known to them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bluddwolf those kinds of things can be coded, to an extent. Very easy to code against taking a contract against yourself or someone in your company.
A little trickier to code against accepting contracts against friends though. It puts value in settlements making alliances with assassins or raising assassins in their own ranks, but you're right that it allows freelancers to abuse the system.
Any ideas on how to prevent that but also allow anonymity?
One thing assassinations have going for them that bounties do not is that you can take someone out a key moments in battles and cut their tie to the closest res point, so perhaps the ability to specify some conditions under which the contract must be fulfilled?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any ideas on how to prevent that but also allow anonymity?
yes, and this should be right up your alley...
Meta - game the contract!
Sequence:
1. You see a public contract goes up on the boards, that sparks your interests.
2. You use an alt to PM the Employer, explaining how such thing like public contracts can be scammed. But there is a better way....
3. Assassin Meets with the Employer, the assassin is in disguise and in a somewhat private area (this is to cut down on the perception rolls to blow disguise).
4. You accept deal, get paid a sum of money upfront.
5. Kill your target, sure you don't have a real contract, but your evil so WTF!
6. Via the original contact alt, they show evidence of kill and demand the remaining payment.
You only potentially reveal yourself twice in the whole event. Once during only meeting with employer, and once from the victim when you kill. No public record of your involvement.
@bluddwolf
An assassination contract is in fact though a little different from a bounty contract. Assassins are meant to be shadowy figures in the dark whereas bounty hunters thrive on fame.
At most what you should know about an assassin is a nickname. I would certainly support that as an idea. An assassin gets the ability to use an assassin's mask they also get to acquire a nickname that a contract can be raised for.
You may therefore employ the assassin known as the "red death" rather than the character known as blaeringr for instance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Assassination, against a key member of a settlement, seems like it's going to have a lot more impact than the person merely dying, even if it's just to a typical bounty. So it doesn't matter if it's your friend or not, if they hold an important position.. splitting the money is going to more in line with taking a pay off to throw a boxing match. You might want to just bribe them outright, they may want the out of appearing to have been removed from the conflict, while in fact aiding the process of removing themselves.
I think the expedient solution would be to let the contractor read the contract before accepting it. This allows them the simple choice of accept or reject .. if the contract is against their own person, they obviously shouldn't be allowed to hit accept and so the contract will be rejected and that's all the holder needs to know.
As for the whole contracting an 'unknown' agent, that's where reputation should come in. I don't necessarily think that the reputation of someone needs to be entirely divorced from their illicit dealings. The same person can be well known for ruling a settlement well amongst one group of people and known for being good at murder amongst an entirely different group of people. Perhaps a small segment will know him for both and have a more complete gauging of his reputation. Since the average Joe likely has little reason to be dealing directly with a Lord that's not much an issue, any nobility types that wish to do business with his assassin's guise will likely just see that they have heard good things about this guy ;) But not necessarily why or what.
This brings to mind something that crossed my mind in the past though.
Can you put out an assassination contract on an assassin who is disguised? Can a King's guard spot someone being suspicious and hire an assassin to murder the guy before he kills the king? Or are they free to just kill the guy for being an assassin in the first place? Does the Assassin flag mean you're attackable without penalty?
How easy is it going to be to determine whether somebody has an Outlaw or Assassin flag? Is it just going to be hanging out next to their name?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they trust your in game character/alt, then it would seem just as feasible to accept the contract in game, but meta game negotiate it.
And for the record, I'm not just evil, I'm lawful evil. I'm as opposed to chaos as I am to good, perhaps even more so (lawful good is easier to predict than chaotic evil). If under any circumstances I personally do make a meta game contract, the client can be sure to get a video record of its fulfillment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your option 1 = option 2. As far as game programming is concerned there is no difference.Option 1: Middlemen.
Option 2: Aliases.
Wrong. An alias would allow you to maintain a separate identity that is difficult to tie to your actual character. It would allow you post/collect under a specific identity to gain notoriety without immediately giving your real identity away.
Middlemen would involve more of a transfer of contract. It would likely be safer for the assassins . . . if the middleman doesn't squeal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wouldn't the simplest solution just be that for assassination contracts be anonymous both ways (as ZenPagan suggests)?
After all, if it's known who issues the contract then all a settlement needs to do is assign someone to keep tabs on who is issuing the contracts and who the targets are. Assassination may often be used as a pre-emptive first strike against a target settlement's DI, so knowing one is coming and who wants it to occur could be useful.
Then again, even if the issuer is smart enough to use an alt to hide who wants the target killed, you can still figure out who the target is just by looking at the contract. Then you need to start issuing all sorts of extra contracts to not give away who your target is.
So maybe some way of keeping even the target anonymous (on top of keeping the assassin and the issuer anonymous) may be needed, though I'm not sure how practical this would be.
Failing that, I see middlemen as a possibility.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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At the very least, I'd be in favor of any implementation that did not make it easy to offer cash instead of coin for the contract. Moving the serious assassination contract offers to Tony's forum would make it easy to offer or request cash instead of in-game rewards, and that way lies dark implications.
The biggest problem I see is that either one anonymous assassin will be able to prevent anyone else from taking an offered contract, or multiple anonymous assassins will be able to take the same contract.
In the first case, there's no way to prevent denial attacks; in the second, it's hard to keep knowledge that a hit is out on someone quiet. (In the case where one contracts for baked goods instead, the bakery handles the distribution and hopefully prevents the target from knowing in advance)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius I also don't want to see people paying cash for contracts, but how do you stop that? It's not like it's an either or matter.
@Drakhan I specified in game similarities, you tell me I'm wrong and justify that statement with meta-out-of-game differences? Try again, please. I never stated they were the same out of game.
From a game point view this is what I would like to see be possible
party A says Zenpagan must die and issues a general contract. Any assassin may take it and on completion the assassin alias such as the "Red death" gets reported to the issuer
*note here first one to complete gets paid then contract is cancelled*
or
Party A issues a contract explicitly to "Red Death" to kill ZenPagan
The assassin alias being something they gain via training.
Both ways explicitly protect the identity of the assassin and assuming the coin goes into escrow when the contract is issued the identity of the one placing the contract.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Drakhan I specified in game similarities, you tell me I'm wrong and justify that statement with meta-out-of-game differences? Try again, please. I never stated they were the same out of game.I wasn't talking about out-of-game differences.
Different players ARE out of game differences. Your whole point is about which player is doing what with which characters - all meta game points, none of which I ever disagreed with you about.
The reason I emphasize the difference between in game and meta game points is that you can't program what people will do meta-game. I'm trying to have a discussion about how to handle this through the game design itself, and you are completely missing that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's possible to have an alias which is mechanically tied to a character
Exactly. I'm talking about building an alias system into the game, not something meta-gamed. The system would have to know your alias to allow you to accept contracts as an alias. With middle-men, the system would have to allow the transferal of contracts to allow the process to work (The MM would not get credit for the real assassin's kill if it didn't have a mechanic to tie the two together).
I think I get where the OP is coming from.
He wants to be able to kill with impunity with absolutely no threat of repercussions whatsoever.
Well, who wouldn't?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think I get where the OP is coming from.
He wants to be able to kill with impunity with absolutely no threat of repercussions whatsoever.
Well, who wouldn't?
Not so. If you get caught in the act, you have all sorts of repercussions. If you don't get caught in the act, well, that's the whole point. If identities can't be protected, then being a professional assassin is too difficult.
@bruunwald
No assassins already do not appear on your combat list he is merely talking about the person employing the assassin not being able to identify them
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I were to have an assassination contract placed on my head, oh who am I kidding "IF"? When I have an assassination contract placed on me, I will send Milo out to take the contract, will have him kill me and we will split the profit.
Revenge motivated contracts are very easy to re victimize the upset employer. This is why the bounty system in EvE was and still is, largely a joke.
Only the politically motivated assassination contracts will be safe from this exploit. Those will probably be internally "hired", perhaps the only settlement having to outsource that would be the Good aligned settlements (Excluding NG, because it could still have NE members).
I think it should be an option through some means.
Certainly, a number of people and organizations would want to remain anonymous when it comes to assassinations.
Others might want to actively seek fame to get more work, so prospective clients come to you instead of you going to them.
I don't think either should be forced on an assassin or group of assassins, instead both being an option. I also think there should be a way for the person requesting the assassination to specify.
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Make the assassins guild(npc vender)the only group who know all party's involved. The player who takes out a contract(MR X) gets to set the prerequisites needed for the assassin. ie min level,rep ect.
The player assassin asks for work at the assassin guild, and is then given a contract-They don't get to look over and take the one they want, they wont know who is there mark until they accept the contract.
Every one gets to stay anonymous.
I thought the Devs had proposed some sort of system where you get your contracts through something similar to the bounty system. Maybe that was all in my head.
Anyway, a good way to do this would be for there to be a ranking system that determined a minimum price for an assassination attempt based on the targets 'experience'. Yes, someone who has spent most of their exp on crafting and harvesting skills will be a MUCH softer target than one who is 100% combat, but the crafter/harvester should have a ton more money for hiring bodyguards...
There should be some modifier to the contract based on the assassin who is willing to accept the contract. The more successful the assassin, the higher price he can demand. Also, the assassin should be able to leverage this price a certain percentage up or down depending on personal reasons, greed, elitism, dislike of the target, good customer discount, etc.
If an in game system is used for this and down by some sort of mail system, both the customer and the assassin can remain anonymous... something both parties will want. Also, it helps GW to set some kind of boundaries to prevent price gouging on both sides...
Maybe there's an NPC assassin's guild that establishes prices - even if the players don't have to belong to it, their standard rates can control(as an in game reason for the mechanic) how much players can charge and how much they have to pay...
Just a first brainstorm on the matter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Make the assassins guild(npc vender)the only group who know all party's involved. The player who takes out a contract(MR X) gets to set the prerequisites needed for the assassin. ie min level,rep ect.
The player assassin asks for work at the assassin guild, and is then given a contract-They don't get to look over and take the one they want, they wont know who is there mark until they accept the contract.
Every one gets to stay anonymous.
I could agree to almost all of this. But I want to know my target before I take a contract. If I accept a contract, and I find out that it is targeted towards a character I would rather not kill, be it a friend, or a known barbarian warrior, who I would rather not try to tangle with yet, then now I have to break this contract, something I don't take lightly.
I could agree to almost all of this. But I want to know my target before I take a contract. If I accept a contract, and I find out that it is targeted towards a character I would rather not kill, be it a friend, or a known barbarian warrior, who I would rather not try to tangle with yet, then now I have to break this contract, something I don't take lightly.Make the assassins guild(npc vender)the only group who know all party's involved. The player who takes out a contract(MR X) gets to set the prerequisites needed for the assassin. ie min level,rep ect.
The player assassin asks for work at the assassin guild, and is then given a contract-They don't get to look over and take the one they want, they wont know who is there mark until they accept the contract.
Every one gets to stay anonymous.
Red Mantis Assassin guild or the Church of Norgorber won't take it well when you turn them down. But then they wont offer contracts that are beyond your skills. To assassinate the leader of an advanced settlement they may require that you have rank(x) in skills(y,z) before it is offered to you. And cross reference of your settlement, chartered company and so on to reduce any conflict of interest.
I'm not stating a lack of skill, just a preference to not take one someone. I want to be able to chose my target, plain and simple.
Yes players should always be able to decide what there characters do or don't do.But...
I don't get to pick what jobs my boss has for me, they tell i do!.You won't to be a contract killer, there's the contract, get to work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First off, Glad to see another assassin come out from the shadows, I was really wondering how many of "us" there truly will be. I hope not too many, but a few would be nice for competition. But anyway, back to the topic.
I agree with most of people's ideas stated here, but let me add my own twist to it and see what people think. I think that a "low level" assassin should have to go to the "guild" to receive contracts, and those contracts would be as ninemoons suggested, you get what you get, not much of a choice. However, this would be checked for affiliations (won't give me a contract to kill Bludd or myself), checking the skill levels and training of the assassin (rank x in skills y and z ect.) but these will be "low level" and low priority targets. Also, from the contractor side, the contractor will pay a cheaper amount and get whatever assassin accepts the contract.
The other side of things would be the use of either meta-game to negotiate or otherwise "discuss" the contract and then use the in-game contract system to give a contract directly to the assassin without limit in skill/target/or whatever. Price will be whatever is agreed upon, though most likely higher then through the guild, and should be used for high profile targets, like settlement leaders and commanders of armies.
I personally like this type of system because it gives the feel of a real living system where a newbie assassin has to earn his way into the "game" before he starts to get noticed and builds "contacts" through which he would then meet clients and get the real money.
The alias idea I like, and I agree should be something granted through "leveling up" as an assassin. Something like "once your X,Y,Z skills are above rank "?" AND you have completed "!" number of contracts successfully, you can now choose a alias and start taking contracts on your own. (Meaning instead of through the guild.)
Side note, I also agree with the idea that not everyone wants to remain anonymous, and so that should be left up to the parties involved as to what steps are taken to remain unconnected. Use an alt, use a disguise, use the assassin's mask whatever you choose to do.
Also, to answer Darcnes's question about the flags. My understanding from the blog posts, flags will be seen, unless your using a disguise which will hide your flags, and ALL FLAGS will leave you open to PVP. The "Good" flags like enforcer and champion leave you able to be attacked by "bad guys" as easily as flying the outlaw or assassin flag. Just remember, Outlaw only requires Chaotic, so you don't know if he is Good/Neutral/Evil, only that he is Chaotic. Assassin, on the other hand, requires Evil, but you don't know Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic. So don't just attack an outlaw and assume he is evil, I am willing to bet most won't be.
The flags are meant to give bonuses and such to people using them, but it allows for a way to allow open-world PVP without the constant ganking and griefing that most Open-world PVP brings. If you won't to be left alone, for the most part, going without a flag will allow for that, but you can still be SADed by an outlaw, or assassinated by an assassin, but only if he has a contract on you. Attacking an Unflagged character grants the attacker the "attacker" flag which will reset most of the long-term flags (such as assassin and outlaw) and their bonuses which will be bad so it won't be done often. (in theory)
I hope this helps and I hope I explained the idea I have for the assassin contract question. Great discussion BTW guys. I like it!!
P.S. I will kill Bludd for free, I need practice anyway.....<evil grin>
Milo, Sounds like a very good system, Has a good feel to it, start out at a basic level and earn a rep as you go.
I can't help but think of Vlad Taltos from Steven Brust's Jhereg novels. He is by far my favorite literary assassin. His background reminds me a lot of this conversation... he went from hired muscle given 'jobs' by his higher ups to a boss in his own right, picking the jobs that he wants to do, when he wants to do them... for the most part. There were still occasional jobs that he got forced to take, even though he really didn't want them.
Nothing to do with the conversation really, just passing through! Don;t mind me!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can see it now, Nihimon is going to get himself added to every newbs friend list as they start the game. He'll never show up on fledgling assassins' hit list. ;)
Seriously though, that's not an algorithm I'd enjoy developing.
It is my belief that no assassin should have to accept a contract blindly. It's not Wanted, these kills aren't predestined. They may be offered contacts at random, I think that's fair until you make a name for yourself.
It really wouldn't hurt to have some sort of alias that gets attached to contracts though; that kind of cross reference is practically trivial to implement. Outlaws, assassins, gladiators... renowned combatants the world o'er should have the opportunity to be known as something beyond their given name. Something they've earned. =)
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The assassin should always know his target before hand
The assassin should always be able to decline a contract in my view
The person employing the assassin should be able specify either and open contract or a particular assassin that is allowed to take the contract
The game has no business setting the price of assassination. Why is it everyone wants to pollute the sandbox by having everything damn well regulated! If you can't afford to hire an assassin tough save up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The game has no business setting the price of assassination. Why is it everyone wants to pollute the sandbox by having everything damn well regulated! If you can't afford to hire an assassin tough save up.
The tone of this was not very "Zen" of you Pegan, and I thought you went to bed early last night?
I have to give full reign to my pagan side as well sometime Bludd can't be Zen all the time :)
It doesn't stop being true though, there is no point a sandbox game having a rule to tell me how much an assassination may cost any more than it should be dictating what price for a sword, a lump of ore, how much a bandit is allowed to steal in a day or how many mobs someone can kill in pve before they aren't allowed to kill anymore.
Keep the game simple and as much as possible keep regulation out of player interaction. If I wish to set up a contract for 1 copper piece and an assassin decides to accept it then that should be fine.
I fully suspect in fact that the 1 copper contract will be more often the normal run of the mill thing than anything anyway purely because most assassination will be done by in house assassins against rival groups. Without meaning to sound mean Bludd I don't really see any advantage in assassinating you because none of the assassins "extra's" really do anything to you(talking about DI effects etc). A bounty on the other hand is more appropriate
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pagan, it isn't my intention to "regulate" the assassin contracts, In fact I am with you on being against that. The person setting the contract still determines, ultimately the price and any "details" for the contract, I was simply trying to give it a feel similar to every other class and skill. When you start out as a "level 1 fighter" you take whatever work you can find until you make a name for yourself and people start asking for you by name, knowing your rep, giving you better paying and more dangerous or sensitive jobs. Same concept here.
For example, If Bludd decides he wants joe somo the merchant dead because he sold him a rusted sword, then he goes to "the guild" and places a contract. This would be fairly cheap (compared toward hiring someone with a reputation) and will be offered to "the next assassin asking for contracts" instead of a specific one. Granted, as mentioned before the "guild" would check to ensure that who ever was to get it doesn't have any affiliation to the merchant and also has the "proper skills" to successfully complete this contract.
Now if Bludd wanted the Head Merchant of some settlement "removed from office," he would (either meta gamed or done in game somewhere) hire an assassin worth his salt with a direct contract, details would be hashed out and payment would be much more extreme, due to this merchant being able to afford more protection, most likely residing inside settlement walls that are well defended, overall making the task complex and difficult to complete. This is what seperates someone who "trained a skill here and there" assassin and someone who is a dedicated assassin. After all, who you hire a "level 20" assassin for example 1, and a "level 1" assassin for example 2? This way would be "better IMHO" at giving assassins a feel of "leveling up and making a name for themselves."
Side note, @darcnes, I agree that alias's should be included on contracts so people know who completed it. However, I also feel that an alias should be like a title and be earned. One thing to remember is that this will be an "Classless" game, meaning if I wanna learn skills to make me a better merchant, and then take 2 or 3 skills that qualify me as an assassin, does that make me an assassin and able to take contracts by anyone and have an alias? How could the contractor tell the difference between a "level 10 merchant/level 1 assassin" and a "level 11 assassin"?? The alias and this proposed contract system will help with that. The merchant/assassin wouldn't be able to have an alias (atleast until he spent more time leveling those skills at the "cost" of his merchant skills) and would be less likely to be offered a contract.
Granted, if someone REALLY wants to hire a "Level 1" assassin to do a job, that is their thing. I don't want to limit people putting contracts out on anyone. If bludd really wants that (example 1) merchant dead and decides to put the contract out for a specific assassin (like me) then so be it, even though it "should" go to the guild for a newer, lesser skilled assassin, as I would be over qualified, he still could do it to ensure it gets done correctly, though I charge more.
Also, last thing, I also agree with pagan, the game should not regulate the cost of a contract. If I wanna hire someone to assassinate another for 1g, then so be it. I doubt anyone will take the contract, but I could. If I wanna pay 10k gold to kill a simple merchant, well someone just got loaded for "little work." then again, if you wanna pay Milo to not only kill, but humiliate and "make example of" then maybe 10k gold is the "proper" price......
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Perverse incentive: Why should it be beneficial for fledgling assassin to pay two other people so that one of them offers a cheap contracts on the other that the assassin can take and quickly complete, with the net effect that the new assassin rises quickly through to the level where they can accept specific contracts? (I'm assuming various other manipulations to help a specific person get a specific job out of the system.)
For that matter, once assassins of known quality are available, why would anyone put a real assassination contract out knowing only that the person who accepts it will be inexperienced?
@Decius
I am not arguing you need to reach any level to be able to take specific contracts. As far as I am concerned an assassination contract should be like any other contract. You can offer it to an individual, a group, or anyone.
The very first assassin skill you learn would allow you to take assassination contracts. Increasing this skill to higher levels merely enables you to take on more assassination contracts.
The alias I suggested would be acquired further down the assassin skills and would have prerequisite skills needed before it could be learnt such as I would suggest the disguise skill, probably a certain level of assassin contract skill etc
@Milo I wasn't actually replying there to what you said it was this I was replying to :)
Anyway, a good way to do this would be for there to be a ranking system that determined a minimum price for an assassination attempt based on the targets 'experience'.
....
There should be some modifier to the contract based on the assassin who is willing to accept the contract. The more successful the assassin, the higher price he can demand. Also, the assassin should be able to leverage this price a certain percentage up or down depending on personal reasons, greed, elitism, dislike of the target, good customer discount, etc.
Maybe there's an NPC assassin's guild that establishes prices - even if the players don't have to belong to it, their standard rates can control(as an in game reason for the mechanic) how much players can charge and how much they have to pay...
Just a first brainstorm on the matter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Assassins might actually be using their 'Alter Egoes' to enter towns and train, and having their 'Real Selves' being the Assassin.
To me, that works better. Assassins putting on masks to fit in with the 'regular' people, simply because inevitably, regardless of if you're an Assassin, a Bandit, a Thief or a Cultist, somebody is going to finger you someday.
An 'Alter Ego' can be adjusted, changed or even discarded if it gets compromised. Your actual character cannot.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tigari is an assassin. I'm sure most people who know this name, also knows that. But when I walk into a town, even friendly ones, I may be Brell the merchant or Tristin, the traveling warrior. This is how I HOPE it works anyways. That or I may have royaly screwed myself announcing to proudly here on the forums as being an assassin :D
@Tigari
There are however two types of assassin
There are those who are assassins first and masquerade as others for the purpose of infiltration. There are also those who ostensibly appear not to be assassins in their daily life but function as that unknown to the rest of their settlement.
Both types of play are equally legitimate and both should be possible. You are part of the bloody hand and that is a company made of like minded individuals. I understand blaeringr and his band are doing it the other way and are keeping their association loose and having people in other groups(maybe I misunderstood though in which case I am sure Blaeringr will tell me I am wrong :) )
Regardless I am sure there are as many type 2 assassins as type 1