Roleplay: Thieves and items

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Blizt
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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#41 Post by Blizt » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:38 am

Olrane wrote:Maintenance grinding gives meaning to the non-grinding experiences and fills the gaps when you wonder what to do.

Maintenance grinding is as core to roleplaying games as it is to real life. I do it when I feed myself and pay my rent; if I play a game or go to the bar, that's the adventure.

I think you demonize a perfectly healthy thing way too much.
It seems all you did was give people "maintenance grinding" to do, and left them with no other option. They had no other time to fullfill other goals.

This could be the reason people got so upset with all of this.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#42 Post by Blizt » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:44 am

Olrane wrote:Maintenance grinding gives meaning to the non-grinding experiences and fills the gaps when you wonder what to do.

Maintenance grinding is as core to roleplaying games as it is to real life. I do it when I feed myself and pay my rent; if I play a game or go to the bar, that's the adventure.

I think you demonize a perfectly healthy thing way too much.
It seems that all you did was leave people with "maintenance grinding" and they had no other time to fullfill other goals.

Maybe that is the reason people got so upset and pissed off at you all? Refer to your previous posts about the "OOC witch hunt"

Perhaps this witch hunt happened so you could be dealt with to a point that people didn't have to constantly do "maintenance grinding" every time they logged on?

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#43 Post by Eluriel » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:59 am

Blizt wrote:There is no fun involved at all, when something can be so easily stolen by someone hiding behind a disguise (in which you can't tell whom they are) and there is little that can be done to defend against it.

Stealing something seems way to easy, and disguises are just crap. What risks do the thieves have? If they are in a disguise and they get caught, so what? The only problem is if they die, then someone finds out who they are. So what? They can just put on another disguise and walk around and continue to do the same.
Becoming a good thief takes a whole lot of work, probably more now than it was in the past. I think that should take care of the balance issue. Also, once you are caught, you're pretty much demonized, which is a major risk for thieves to take. If you make it too hard for thieves then it's no fun to play a thief, but if it's too easy then it's no fun for the people being stolen from. I think you just have to be responsible and aware of the consequences of your actions on other players--but that goes for both sides.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#44 Post by Zehren » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:03 am

Blizt wrote:It was during the time of you and "PO Olrane". He made an ooc apology for losing the item (and if it is still floating around the MUD, that causes problems for the guild that it belongs to, and draws them into conflict trying to recover it, which also has certain implications and consequences for the guild that it was taken from, that do not need to be mentioned on a public forum ) as well as it was one of you that made the statement I mentioned above. If it wasn't you, then maybe you can figure out who it was.
There were five to seven thieves around, as well as two to four unguilded ones.
One of those guilded thieves was around too seldom to control much, despite being theoretically loyal. My thief character and Teek strike out two more. That leaves a potentional eight PC thieves (of varying skill) with little to no control or interaction.

Can you stop with the implications we are lying OOCly? It is very tiring.

- OOC insults, OOC accusations, and OOC rumour mongering
Only IC reactions to IC actions are allowed, which means that you are
not allowed to insult, threaten, or accuse another player out of
character for things which happened in character.

It is entirely possible that I get a few facts wrong. I have not written down every single thing that has happened - in fact, the few notes I had were recently deleted (PC malfunction.)
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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#45 Post by Delia » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:17 am

I find it highly entertaining that the biggest arm wrestles come from debating OOC about what CHARACTERS said to each other. I mean, lets not become hung up on that one. When you log on you could say like, whatever. It does not mean it is automatically 100% truthful fact IG or OOC for that matter. Lighten up people!
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"To do is to be" - Jean-Paul Sartre
"Do be do be do" - Frank Sinatra

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#46 Post by Blizt » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:21 am

Zehren wrote:
Blizt wrote:It was during the time of you and "PO Olrane". He made an ooc apology for losing the item (and if it is still floating around the MUD, that causes problems for the guild that it belongs to, and draws them into conflict trying to recover it, which also has certain implications and consequences for the guild that it was taken from, that do not need to be mentioned on a public forum ) as well as it was one of you that made the statement I mentioned above. If it wasn't you, then maybe you can figure out who it was.
There were five to seven thieves around, as well as two to four unguilded ones.
One of those guilded thieves was around too seldom to control much, despite being theoretically loyal. My thief character and Teek strike out two more. That leaves a potentional eight PC thieves (of varying skill) with little to no control or interaction.

Can you stop with the implications we are lying OOCly? It is very tiring.

- OOC insults, OOC accusations, and OOC rumour mongering
Only IC reactions to IC actions are allowed, which means that you are
not allowed to insult, threaten, or accuse another player out of
character for things which happened in character.

It is entirely possible that I get a few facts wrong. I have not written down every single thing that has happened - in fact, the few notes I had were recently deleted (PC malfunction.)
Every time I mentioned something that happened, you said it was "invalid" because it didn't happen. Well, the things I mentioned did happen, so you are the one implying I am a liar.

None knows what really happened to the item. It could have been destroyed due to reboot, or someone else could have picked it up and taken off with it. Its not like the thief stuck around after they hid it to make sure the owner did find it. They took their gold and ran.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#47 Post by Blizt » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:30 am

Delia wrote:I find it highly entertaining that the biggest arm wrestles come from debating OOC about what CHARACTERS said to each other. I mean, lets not become hung up on that one. When you log on you could say like, whatever. It does not mean it is automatically 100% truthful fact IG or OOC for that matter. Lighten up people!
Yeah, I suppose you are right. It doesn't matter anymore. They all took their gold and went home!

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#48 Post by Olrane » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:39 am

Blizt wrote: None knows what really happened to the item. It could have been destroyed due to reboot, or someone else could have picked it up and taken off with it. Its not like the thief stuck around after they hid it to make sure the owner did find it. They took their gold and ran.
Ran because to enter the cave would be to go into a bottleneck, and it was likely (it turned out to be true!) that reinforcements were lurking nearby to ambush the thief.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#49 Post by Zehren » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:42 am

Blizt wrote:Every time I mentioned something that happened, you said it was "invalid" because it didn't happen. Well, the things I mentioned did happen, so you are the one implying I am a liar.
I said one thing you stated was invalid in our case. Which means I could not comment on it, due to a lack of knowledge about the particulars, and that I did not find it much relevant to whatever point I raised, as the circumstances did not match. I apologise if my differing connotations make communicating with me harsh.
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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#50 Post by glorfindel » Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:16 am

Hi,

I always found it the biggest challenge for my thief char to see the line where it gets too annoying and i think it's the responsibility of every thief player to decide when it's enough.

Apart of that, I agree totally with delia about lightening up.

I did hate that witch hunt that occured, but I also want to say that "maintenance upkeep" is NOT a task of a thief. A thief wants to make money and should do so. Exort from players, break into homes, stuff like that. But the thief has also a responsibility, in my eyes. IC to make sure to not cause too much stir to justify a witch hunt (Imagine in real life somebody's emptying your house three times in a row. The fourth time you'll be likely there with a weapon and welcome the bastard and you can see that analogous to GEAS).

Your IC responsibility as a thief is to remain hidden and to keep rumours low. Threat, bribe but also at times lay low. OOCly, if you steal an item that just was given back, or steal from the same player just again, that's bad play in my eyes. Even though it's all about RP, everybody should have the chance to have fun and believe me, everybody will be pissed eventually for loosing an item they spent getting a lot of time very often. (which is not a justification for an ooc witchhunt, but I hope thief players do keep that in mind... I try to do so with my thief char).

Additionally, most guilds _do_ have an upkeep to deal with. Glorfindel spends about 30 to 40 minutes each day just dealing with the upkeep (depending on how many others are active) and some others do as well. I think that's enough 'upkeep' for him. I know other guilds have the same kind of 'tasks' to deal with. So adding additional upkeep to keep earning money is the wrong approach to this.

That said, I'm not suggesting to not steal form PC's. I think the threat of being robbed adds to the game, as well has being robbed every now and then. But as it's not a single player game, you should be responsible about it. But that's just my oppinion and am not intending to point any fingers to anybody.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#51 Post by glasp » Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:26 pm

Slightly off perhaps (did not read everything, I admit), but I just wanted to reply to this:
Olrane wrote:
Thieves are as broken as Druids, but not because of coding or rules, but
because the game's economy is dead. It's really hard to care about theft
roleplay when the economy of the game is so broken. Currency doesn't
have value. No one has reasonable upkeep costs, and no one struggles to
earn enough. Items are the only things with value, and their value is so
disproportionate to currency that an item theft is akin to (edit: far
worse than) murder in almost every instance.

A fundamental premise that is widely ignored in this game is the idea
that Wealth is Power. In the game's current state, skills and to a
lesser extent items are the only things which confer the ability to get
others to do what you want. The second premise is that generally, people
seek to become more powerful. This is not wholly ignored in game, but
that wealth is not a significant function of it is seriously
problematic.
I can only agree with what you are writing and I think you bring up
many good points. I think one effect of a broken economy is that not
many actually carry anything of worth (except custom items). I would
also like to see more ways of soft power being able to knock over
hard power (like melee strength).

It is hard to solve though, without huge amounts of time investment. Or
do you have any ideas?

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#52 Post by Blizt » Thu Feb 16, 2012 3:11 pm

Zehren wrote:
Blizt wrote:Every time I mentioned something that happened, you said it was "invalid" because it didn't happen. Well, the things I mentioned did happen, so you are the one implying I am a liar.
I said one thing you stated was invalid in our case. Which means I could not comment on it, due to a lack of knowledge about the particulars, and that I did not find it much relevant to whatever point I raised, as the circumstances did not match. I apologise if my differing connotations make communicating with me harsh.
I apologize for my harshness and rudeness.

What frustrated me is that due to carelessness, an item was "destroyed" "lost" or whatever, and an ooc explanation was given, but IC, that explanation can't be used, and the guild that was stolen from really couldn't do much except believe their item was taken, and not returned. You can't use the OOC explanation for an IC situation

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#53 Post by Eluriel » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:00 pm

I agree with most everything Glorfindel wrote, especially about repeated thefts and laying low at times. The thieves don't want to garner so much attention that people are wanting to kill them on sight.

I like the fact that the thieves have certain ways of influence that go beyond pure strength. They're about "winning" by guile rather than just bulling over their enemies. I think more of this type of sneaky underhanded workings that give them an advantage would be nice. Like, you really don't want to piss off the thieves, cause they can do things. ;)

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#54 Post by Blizt » Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:03 am

Olrane wrote:
Blizt wrote: None knows what really happened to the item. It could have been destroyed due to reboot, or someone else could have picked it up and taken off with it. Its not like the thief stuck around after they hid it to make sure the owner did find it. They took their gold and ran.
Ran because to enter the cave would be to go into a bottleneck, and it was likely (it turned out to be true!) that reinforcements were lurking nearby to ambush the thief.
Yes, someone was waiting there, but not to ambush the thief. To make sure the item was returned. We were giving the thieves a chance to be a thief, and the person who got the item stolen was given a chance to recover it, no one was laying in wait to ambush the thief.

The same thing as what happened in the Elvandar towers, when the thief had a long talk with a member of the guild, when the member of the guild could have easily set up an ambush or killed the thief themself. No, they gave the thief a chance to be a thief.

The only result of all of this was that the thieves will more than likely be killed on sight from now on. You know, since they caused conflict and problems and just quit when things didn't go their way.

So don't say there was an ambush waiting to happen, because there certainly wasn't. Just like that thief didn't get killed when the conversation happened.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#55 Post by Olrane » Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:31 am

Lose the spite, man.

The next generation should not have to pay for our perceived OOC transgressions.

Consider that the handoff glitch was an OOC issue not an IC issue. Ideally, we would have had a wizard restore the item at the time, but that wasn't what we did.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#56 Post by Rudolpho » Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:50 am

Well, thieves are pretty much unplayable these days anyway, so there's really nothing to worry about.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#57 Post by Blizt » Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:28 am

Olrane wrote:Lose the spite, man.

The next generation should not have to pay for our perceived OOC transgressions.

Consider that the handoff glitch was an OOC issue not an IC issue. Ideally, we would have had a wizard restore the item at the time, but that wasn't what we did.
I don't think that standing by, knowing where the thief was to be, and letting them do the handoff was very spiteful. Nor was having a conversation with the person who admitted they stole the item and not attacking them afterwards was very spiteful either.

You were given the opportunity to try to initiate your new ideas and rp, you did your thing, teamed up on and PKed a weaker character that wasn't directly involved, and then quit when things didn't go your way. The guild you were picking on doesn't have anything unique or special to them, except for a weapon, yet most of them are good sports and don't quit when things aren't going their way.

You started something severe and serious, and then didn't stick around, leaving everyone you got involved hanging.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#58 Post by Zehren » Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:02 pm

Blizt wrote: You were given the opportunity to try to initiate your new ideas and rp, you did your thing, teamed up on and PKed a weaker character that wasn't directly involved, and then quit when things didn't go your way.

You started something severe and serious, and then didn't stick around, leaving everyone you got involved hanging.
There was no teaming up on Esme - Teek did it himself. OOC I agreed with Orlane that it was fair, but OOC != IC. My thief character would have disagreed with the same discussion. My thief character was, in other words, not directly involved in that situation, but was attempted killed (I take it? There was no stunmode used, though half of Elvandar seemed to be in on the hunt.) This was also while she was very weak in combat, main strength being simply hiding. An argument that the very same action that was despised was attempted towards us, could easily be made...

I quitted because of interguild things - I felt there was no communication between the members, nor with the wizard, and, when my attempts at things were, IMHO, ignored, I lost almost all desire to stick around.

I did not feel that the consequences of anything was too severe, but I felt largely ignored. Some aspects when it came to things outside the guild, other things inside the guild, and, given that I was/am here to RP...

When Orlane left, he can inform of why himself, if he wishes to, I saw this as a good time myself. At that point I had been playing on empty drive for a month or so.
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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#59 Post by Olrane » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:06 am

1. We didn't pick on a guild. Opportunities and needs aligned in a way that it could have appeared as such, but we had no issue with the Rangers where we had actual issues with the Crusaders.

2. Teek killed Esme all on his own. There was no ganging up. There were, however, about 4 PCs chasing Teek (and, as it happened, my thief character who incidentally was nearby and got dragged into it).

3. For all the blaming of starting shit then leaving, I've said and said again that why I left was due to a multitude of factors between pressing real life concerns and game changes that were difficult to adapt to.

Also, way to not listen very well. I was talking about your current spiteful attitude, which is what's giving me issues. Regardless of our mistakes in the past, you need to get over it because it's not fair to share it with others going forward.

Finding the right balance with active interaction and not pissing off other players is very difficult. Be angry as you like with ME, but for my sake and yours, let it end there.

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Re: Roleplay: Thieves and items

#60 Post by glasp » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:48 am

I'll let it end here. It is a bit too much referring to specific IC events amongst other things.

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