Portals, Exits, and Traps - Policy Concerns

[Andruid]

I recently had the pleasure of participating in some exciting RP that occurred at a secret hideout which, I can only assume, was built for a player with staff approval. That hideout had both magical traps and mundane portal exits that made me feel stymied on an OOC level because 1) I didn't know these particular types of exits/traps were permitted outside of special events, and 2) the repeated RPA required to escape/move through them seemed a bit unreasonable and unfair.

In addition to having an aggressive mob in it, the trap had a hidden portal exit, which could not be located with clever searching on my part and which was misleadingly concealed through a lack of adequate description in the room itself. Given the circumstances at the time, the only viable, non-twinky option for escaping was requesting RPA, and I was charged the standard 10QP, despite the fact that my character was under the influence of two spells that enhanced vision. There were at least two other portals set up in a similar manner, such that while my character knew the exits had to be there, staff assistance was still required to find them each time, as there were no extra descriptions in the rooms that provided any reasonable hints whatsoever.

Here's a made-up example of how the portals were set up, to better clarify the issue:

• (Room description includes, in addition to a bunch of other stuff, a drawing on the wall in brightly-colored chalk.)
  
  >look drawing
  You do not see that here.
  
  >look chalk
  You do not see that here.
  
  >look wall
  You do not see that here.
  
  (And so on. RPA requested, QP charged. Looking more closely at the drawing, you see a bird in flight. Its wings point subtly downward, pulling your eye to a loose board in the floor, which is part of a hidden trapdoor. Use the keyword 'bird'.)
  
  >enter bird
  You enter a trapdoor in the floor beneath a drawing of a bird and find yourself somewhere else...

But, wait, my character did attempt to look at the drawing, and there was no description of a bird. Whaaaaat?

As this example shows, the drawing was not described in the room or room's extra descs, so there was no way of seeing it or anything else without RPA, even though the bird should have been in plain view and was somehow the requisite keyword for using the portal. What this basically boils down to is paying money and/or QP to force OTHER people to pay QP if they want to move through your IC hideout while you and your friends aren't around -- and that doesn't sit right with me on a policy level. While I don't think portals should be as easy to find as trying every word in a room's description, I also don't think they should force a 10QP RPA, especially when your character knows they must exist and is in a reasonable position to locate them. RPA also requires staff to be online and available at the time, which is not always the case, and for something like a potentially deadly trap, that also seems a bit unfair.

So, essentially, while I think hidden portals and traps and puzzles are fun and should be a part of the game, I'd really like to see a good policy for them that is 1) transparent to the rest of us, and 2) both fun and fair for ALL parties involved.

[Zeita]

I certainly agree that portal type exits should be hooked into the secret exit code to standardise how they are found and recognised as well as to make their usage and presence more obvious. Right now, they seem to sit in a bit of a grey area.

[Dice]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Something should be done about this ASAP, couldn't agree more.

I think making them findable on search (and this goes for anything else that is unseen but is ICly accessible), if very hard to find, is a good idea and the easiest way to handle this.

[vaxin]

As the player who owned the house in question, I'd like to clear something up. This was built with an extensive 1 on 1 conversation with staff about what was and what wasn't allowed. The title 'policy concerns' seems to be a little inflammatory. I admit that I pushed the limits of the Phome system and paid in silver and QP to do so, but it was all perfectly within the rules.

I disagree with the sentiment that hidden portals should be searchable. Some secrets in this game need to not be able to be brute-forced. Whether you should allow hidden portals in homes... that's another question. It's hard to make houses scary. I personally like the idea that a posse of Knights searching a home aren't guaranteed to find everything/escape unharmed.

Making QP the limiting factor is a problem though.

[Geras]

So, a couple things:

1) Since when were portals even supposed to be discover-able? That was never my understand, nor do I think it should be the case. Since when does magic play fair? I think the portal is actually fine, and tangential to the core issue which is...

2) Oubliettes. So, back in the day, I had the idea of creating a room completely disconnected from the grid which I could dump people in, either through magical means or mundane means (it's not really hard to contrive one without the use of magic). I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not do this out of respect to other players. Fair enough.

That's the issue we're discussing here. This trap room had 0 discoverable exits. The issue isn't the portal, but the lack of discoverable exits, which I think runs afoul of this unwritten rule. And I think a good start would be actually write said policy down.

That being said, I don't entirely agree with the unwritten policy against oubliettes, subject to some conditions. I think it'd be a good thing to have means (magical or mundane) to hold kidnappees in a very secure fashion to make kidnapping a more viable alternative to killing. Because killing is the end of RP. I think any such place though should have means to be fetched out by outsiders, including mundane ones, to prevent you getting trapped perpetually.

Also, I salute Vaxin for having a clever and devious mind. 100% love the creativity here.

[Dice]

In my mind, portal objects should not be magical 'portals' but mundane secret passages. That level of magic (creating permanent, lasting portals) should be lost; we have no spell or magecraft that can do anything close. If portal objects are mundane secret passages, then they should be discoverable. So I think a similar setup definitely shouldn't be allowed again. No insult to Vaxin - this was previously untrodden ground - but I think it was definitely not a good precedent to set and should be reversed.

[Andruid]

Concerns are just concerns. Not meant to be inflammatory, vaxin. Your phome was very scary, and kudos to you.

My points were: 1) if certain things are going to be allowed for phomes, then the rest of us should at least know they're a possibility -- AFAIK, we don't have a well-defined portals policy, and 2) QP and staff being online shouldn't be the limiting factors.

I also think there's some potential for cleverly hiding portals that hasn't been explored in this thread, yet, and ways to make it less jarring (and seem less twinky) when the portal is connected to something in the room description that you can't even look at without staff assistance.

[Geras]

In my mind, portal objects should not be magical 'portals' but mundane secret passages. That level of magic (creating permanent, lasting portals) should be lost; we have no spell or magecraft that can do anything close. If portal objects are mundane secret passages, then they should be discoverable. So I think a similar setup definitely shouldn't be allowed again. No insult to Vaxin - this was previously untrodden ground - but I think it was definitely not a good precedent to set and should be reversed.

Why not just have an actual spell to create these? Maybe they don't last indefinitely for balance reasons. There are spells with similar functionality already. It would be a nice tool for mages.

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

I think, quite pointedly, the biggest issue here seems to be that the exits were in no reasonable way given extended descriptions that fit their location. Even if you can't ultimately use an exit, you should be able to see the hints and suggestions that the exit is there. 'look drawing' should have given a result, and if it didn't I'd personally think it'd either be against policy, or that policy should need to change to enforce this.

[Haley Rose]

I like the fact that portals can represent secrets that aren't always discoverable. Secret passages are just that. Secret. They should not always be discoverable, else they'd not be secret.

Also, if this is added in line with hidden exits, there are already ways to find these every time, and I know people in power have these means available to them. Discovering everything, every time just seems like a bit of an imbalance. If the exit is hidden behind something in a room, it makes little sense that signs of it would be noted on first or even a more thorough glance. I.E. trapdoors, cleverly concealed passages behind bookcases that people wouldn't automatically think could open, doors with secret mechanisms to spring them, etc.

Perhaps in these instances, however, there can be an automated system set up that doesn't cost qp. If you absolutely know something should be there that is not described so that it's obvious which, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of portals if the keywords are always going to be obvious, perhaps you could type something like "search portal" and the system could first throw you into a polka where you explain why you are seeking this portal, and the reason should be one backed by appropriate rp, not merely, oh, I'm just exploring or I think there's something here but don't have any rp supported reason to think so. This way, if someone objects, staff have it noted as to why this was done. Then, perhaps, the system can return the findings. So, similar to search, but you won't just find it by standing in a room doing nothing as is possible with hidden exits.