System RP Detractors

[Andruid]

Have to have that balance somewhere, and the fact that you can refuse it, with whatever IC consequences the Reeve sees fit, seems like a reasonable enough middle ground to me. And it's not like it's widely used on the grid either.

Yeah, that doesn't seem very balanced to me at all. It's almost all in the realm of OOC as far as I'm concerned. Would love to see some IC basis and explanation that actually fits the theme and game lore -- as well as additional IC mechanics to support it.

Not to mention another use for the forgery command!

[Puciek]

Have to have that balance somewhere, and the fact that you can refuse it, with whatever IC consequences the Reeve sees fit, seems like a reasonable enough middle ground to me. And it's not like it's widely used on the grid either.

Yeah, that doesn't seem very balanced to me at all. It's almost all in the realm of OOC as far as I'm concerned. Would love to see some IC basis and explanation that actually fits the theme and game lore -- as well as additional IC mechanics to support it.

Not to mention another use for the forgery command!

I did give an ic explanation in the first part of the post, especially explaining how documents, censuses and other ways to keep tabs on population actually existed. Now if you want to suggest some forgery idea to be able to work against direct verify, and maybe also RPA - sounds good to me! But that doesn't mean verify is in the realm of OOC, as it isn't. Also worth reminding that this is a game, so verify is a simple way that avoids putting someone in jail while Reeves work through the paperwork. But fi you would rather sit in Ahalin while the RPA is getting processed you can always refuse it citing that you don't have any papers on you.

[Starstarfish]

The problem is that without it, well, you have to fill in RPA to get the details on anyone, and that is just asking too much for simple details verification

The issue here is that the two biggest things that are often needed for basic investigations aren't included with the command: Official registered addresses or where they pick up their official/default mail (IE under their given name.) As such those things do get submitted via plots and can be a big slow down to investigation RP.

Perhaps have how many information can be requested be based on Reeve rank?

[Andruid]

I did give an ic explanation in the first part of the post, especially explaining how documents, censuses and other ways to keep tabs on population actually existed. Now if you want to suggest some forgery idea to be able to work against direct verify, and maybe also RPA - sounds good to me! But that doesn't mean verify is in the realm of OOC, as it isn't. Also worth reminding that this is a game, so verify is a simple way that avoids putting someone in jail while Reeves work through the paperwork. But fi you would rather sit in Ahalin while the RPA is getting processed you can always refuse it citing that you don't have any papers on you.

Your real life history lesson is fine, but it doesn't bridge the gap in-game, I'm afraid. The notion of walking around with personal ID in your pocket isn't really built into TI as far as I can tell, as part of the lore or culture or anything else beyond the verify command. The good news is, that's actually something that can be easily remedied with helpfile updates and writing it into the culture.

And yes, IMO, verify as it stands sits more in the realm of OOC mechanics than it does in the realm of RP. On demand, a person can either: a) hand over mysterious papers they're not actually physically carrying and have never even seen, or b) refuse with some excuse, thereby looking suspicious or guilty, even if they do get to walk away. In terms of balance, this seems like a far more convenient mechanic to the person demanding the papers than to the person forced to submit or refuse.

Giving folks more options to create or alter their own documents through IC channels (preferably without RPA -- I prefer to depend on RPA is little as possible), as well as being explicit about what those documents ICly represent (or even that they just exist -- I'm guessing plenty of folks don't realize they do, since there's never any invitation to interact with them), would indeed ground things more firmly in the realm of IC and would offer more opportunities for intrigue, money-making among forgers, etc. etc.

[Andruid]

The problem is that without it, well, you have to fill in RPA to get the details on anyone, and that is just asking too much for simple details verification

The issue here is that the two biggest things that are often needed for basic investigations aren't included with the command: Official registered addresses or where they pick up their official/default mail (IE under their given name.) As such those things do get submitted via plots and can be a big slow down to investigation RP.

Perhaps have how many information can be requested be based on Reeve rank?

I don't expect people to carry around the deeds to their houses or hovels in their pockets to be available "on demand," but I do expect those details would be accessible somewhere, held by the authorities in charge of keeping tax records and whatnot. I actually think this is one area in which the game could benefit from a coded solution -- except with a delay to represent sifting through files. Maybe when you purchase your house and start paying upkeep and taxes, you ought to be dropped into a POLCA to describe its location, as well as any interesting or extenuating circumstances staff ought to know. You want to hide or alter your tax records or keep your place a secret? Well, maybe you pay QP for that to represent bribing an official or locals or whatever. Have skill in forgery? Maybe you get to do it for free, or something like that. A Reeve could then come along and request the documents using whatever information they do have, and after a reasonably short delay, maybe they receive a letter in the mail from the official record keeper saying, "Yes, we found information on that individual, here it is." or "No, we didn't find information on anyone by that name, we're sorry."

I'll bet this sort of thing would also speed up cases in which RPA is actually required.

[Rabek]

The rumor mill is just fine. The problem, from this thread, seems to instead be unthematic rumors and multiple rumors about the same subject.

The first is certainly something you can report to staff. I think the second is, too, but I honestly don't remember 100%. Players being more vigilant about reporting and staff keeping on top of it should fix the issue.

For me, teaching gets in the way for me. Some skills, there's just nothing to RP teaching about.

The near-impossibility of success with the thief-y skills (sneak, hide, steal) coupled with the high costs for being caught (marked as a thief forever) has had me write off that avenue of RP entirely years ago. I could write a huge post on that, but I suspect it's not a high priority right now. I think covert skills need a complete rework to make that sort of role really viable and good for roleplay as opposed to something that needs min-maxed to have any impact. Witches are better thieves than theives right now, code-wise.

[Kinaed]

I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who took the time to post thus far, and encourage others to do so also.

[Zeita]

Quick comment on rumors since they're getting a lot of discussion: I've long ago given up on paying any attention to rumors, beyond a brief skim or giving them any degree of credence ICly. It has become too noisy with pointless vitriol and unthematic speech. I could easily drop it.

I hate to say it, but while I like the idea of the metrics system, the more that I've seen it in action, the less I like it. I think that as long as it continues to be a zero-sum game, it breeds an attitude of indifference and that 'everything is temporary' amongst the player base and encourages some counterintuitive play. This certainly contributed to my desire to get out of the Seneschal game early and the main thing stopping me from running again.

Additionally, that fact that some metrics (lawfulness and I think piety) are opposed by different guilds, making it more difficult to shift them where desired, makes them unbalanced against the other metrics and more vulnerable.

Short on time, so I've only read the second page of this thread, but I'll come back later.

[Spoops]

I agree with everything from Zeita.

Rumors are whatever. If you don't take them seriously, it's rather enjoyable to watch the salt get thrown around. But I can see the overwhelming amount of personal attacks taking away some of that fun. Overall, I'm pretty neutral. I don't get anything out of rumors ICly, good or bad.

Metrics don't really do it for me. I vote once a month or whatever, but other than that I basically forget about it. Plots don't do much to shift them, unless you do it with everybody at the council meetings. But those meetings tend to implode rather quickly, and in general I just don't feel good about the whole off-grid feel of it. That's just a personal thing, though. There's probably some good suggestions about metrics somewhere, but I don't have any. I hardly pay attention to them.

Not having to use a plot for every address lookup would be nice. Waiting 3-5 OOC days feels like an eternity when you're hot on the trail of somebody, even though it's not THAT long all things considered. It'd be nice to have some stuff like that offloaded onto the proper characters, if anything to save Staff from having the extra plots every week. Then again, I usually try to find out what I can from people IC about where somebody might live before resorting to a plot, so I guess I could go either way on it.

Overall, I think there's a handful of good stuff going around in this thread!

[Taunya]

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the follow lag/gap reduced, myself.

I also can't tell you how many times I've stood around waiting for someone to codely follow or stop following, or how many times I've forgotten or seen other people forget. It happens CONSTANTLY. It's gotten to the point where I've started emoting extremely obvious things like, "So-and-so waits for /target to stop following before turning to depart." Maybe if there were a reminder in one's prompt as (following) status, this would be more obvious and easy to remember? At the very least, those of us with scripting/programming knowledge could potentially build a better warning system into our own clients... actually, I probably could now, but it would be less work with a flag in my prompt. >_>

(Or maybe a warning when a reboot breaks a follow?)

It's a relatively minor thing, but it's still immersion breaking to me and mildly disruptive every time someone accidentally walks out of a scene while following someone they forgot to unfollow.

'alias shake group all || ungroup' to ditch those pesky followers in the meanwhile.

I forgot to add that because follow is not a consensual command, code would probably need to be able to distinguish between a "friendly" follow and a "not-friendly" follow. Maybe commands to "invite" people to friendly-follow and then consensually remove them at will would help?

'group' should be fine to distinguish.