"Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

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Cerk Evermoore
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:25 pm

Stealing all a towns money I always thought was a great villain move. Extra points if you leverage that money and wield it against vulnerable settlements that don't have smart trade policies and bankrupt them too. Or buy all their resources and dump them in a hostile creature camp nearby.

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Blood on my Lips
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Blood on my Lips » Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:26 pm

Mr_Rieper wrote: I'm willing to bet money on the fact that by the time the character succeeds at stealing from the city coffers, they have reached the end of their "story" and are shelved/rolled afterwards.

The only time I can recall where this did not happen was Davit Heth.

Nobody sticks around to RP the consequences, or give any satisfying conclusion to it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. How many times has Cordor been fooled now? I've lost count.
Didn't Havardr Steinsson steal some money and stick around for the consequences? I believe there were a few others as well.

Yes, I agree to empty the treasury for a character you are retiring is less than good sportsmanship.

At the same time, a lot of players on Arelith have this mentality that, if they are doing the thing that is unkind/evil/hurtful to someone else's RP, it's RP but if it's someone else and it's disrupting your story, that person is a jerk.

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Commie
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Commie » Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:33 pm

Isn't the election itself rp?

Dealing with a lousy elected leader who makes bad decisions isn't really that much of stretch. Nor is the feeling of dread of knowing what level of power the democratic system placed with that individual and how it can be abused.

No safeguards? Elect someone better next time.

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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Xerah » Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:48 pm

Commie wrote:No safeguards? Elect someone better next time.
Can you really safeguard against OOC actions and anger from the thief?

Typically, bank access is not restricted because it's easier to allow the government agents to access the bank for RP things than only have to go through the settlement leader.
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Commie
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Commie » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:00 pm

What can I possibly say other then do a better job electing the right people.

If you don't, and this happens, all you need to do is look at yourself and realize you backed the wrong horse.

That's the best RP of a democracy. Dealing with bad leaders.

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Marsi
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Marsi » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:14 pm

I think you need to relax with the unnecessary (and incorrect) commentary. This is veering heavily into "ur doing it wrong" territory.

For the record, I absolutely don't believe that how one chooses to operate and deal out their (OOC, and honestly, pretty tricky to use) faction powers is a metric with which to judge a good or bad leader by. There is always a way for trust to be abused. You'd be hard-pressed to find a leader who hasn't been hoodwinked at least once by someone they tried to facilitate.

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Commie
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Commie » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:26 pm

Yeah, but that's the risk you run with elections.

Bad leaders are fun to RP around, imo, and generate good ic discussion. I'm enjoying this arc tremendously.

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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Echohawk » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:33 pm

At the same time, a lot of players on Arelith have this mentality that, if they are doing the thing that is unkind/evil/hurtful to someone else's RP, it's RP but if it's someone else and it's disrupting your story, that person is a jerk.
Name Calling -argumentum ad hominem, logical fallacy

Conflict isn't always combat related.
Stories need conflict, strife is not against the rules (unless done excessively maliciously)
Such actions you feel infringe on the 'be nice rule' can be reported to the DM team and should be dealt with as such.

Not everyone is a 'Good Guy' on this server, and the other players have feelings as well.
I'm getting a suspicion that this thread is going to start to get real bitter real quick, I would ask for a lock at this point.
Last edited by Echohawk on Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Sab1
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Sab1 » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:35 pm

Gods_Kill_People wrote:Report it to DM's, they can choose to replace the coin, they can choose to ban the player, they can choose to do a heck of a lot. Problem is, crying on the forums of "it's not fair" is not gonna get them to do anything really.
Who is crying, simply pointing out someone taking 2 seconds to rob all the cities money and then quitting, isn't adding a lot to the story or rp. That maybe limit the amount taken at a time is fair solution, since it does give the city and people a chance to rp it instead of it simply being gone.
Last edited by Sab1 on Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Sab1 » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:37 pm

Xerah wrote:
Commie wrote:No safeguards? Elect someone better next time.
Can you really safeguard against OOC actions and anger from the thief?

Typically, bank access is not restricted because it's easier to allow the government agents to access the bank for RP things than only have to go through the settlement leader.
Exactly, if I get angry rob the city and quit, an election had nothing to so with it, its an ooc decision to screw the town over. No safeguarding from that if they can access everything at one time. or have the OOC mindset I will show them.

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Durvayas
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Durvayas » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:49 pm

I think at the very least, there should be a paper trail. A means to see who specifically took the money out. That would allow repercussions against those who supported the character responsible for the theft, rather than there being ten people who could have done it, but no means to investigate. You can't check bank accounts, there is no way whatsoever to get answers, and as people have mentioned 9 times out of 10 the PC is gone forever.

Its super abusable, and every time it happens it disrupts a bunch of stuff and has zero consequences. Making it possible to see who is to blame would at least generate some conflict instead of everyone being like "well shit. Back to damage control... again"
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The GrumpyCat
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:56 pm

This thread is getting a little emotional guys. Can we please keep things calm and none accusatory? For now I am going to just put this warning here, but if things start heating up again then this topic will be locked.
This too shall pass.

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Aero Silver
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Aero Silver » Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:05 pm

There should be valid reasons for a town to go bankrupt. This isn't Monopoly where a player who can't pay rent is kicked out of the game. Governments go bankrupt all the time, yet they remain in power until overthrown. Yes, leaders can be impeached for poor performance, but that doesn't mean that this is the end for the town.

IC reasons for going bankrupt:
Raiding: a raid can take a good chunk of the savings, in order to cover the repairs, emergency shelters, and looting.
Bad financial and economic decisions: [refrain from using RL examples of world governments or this may devolve into a thread war]
Embezzlement and fraud: i doubt that the mechanics of the server are protected by good internal controls.
Natural disaster: earthquake, drought, fire, poor farming produce, not implemented in the server.

In my humblest opinion, i suggest new rules regarding embezzling from a faction or town.
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Cortex
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Cortex » Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:13 pm

A new settlement system is long overdue.

Sadly, a better implementation is not too easy, and would take plenty of time and will for the coders.
:)

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Commie
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Commie » Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:20 pm

Just to be clear, the embezzlement is an ic action right? Like I'm ok to keep reacting ic? People say it was ooc but that doesn't seem right.

Gods_Kill_People
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Gods_Kill_People » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:28 pm

No matter if the player acted OOC, the actions were done and should be responded to ICly.

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Commie
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Commie » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:38 pm

Ok good. I was a bit confused when people were saying it was OOC.

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Cortex
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Cortex » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:07 pm

Nevermind the OOC salt, it's always good to act IC to things that happen IC.
:)

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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Xerah » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:18 pm

Obviously, people are reacting ICly it. There is no salt involved on my side (or many in this thread I'd imagine), it's just more about pointing out the flaws in the system.
People say it was ooc but that doesn't seem right.
For a possible thing that can happen... Player A gets mad at Player B in OOC tells over something. Player A takes gold and never logs in again/rolls character.

In playing a cooperative storytelling game like we are trying to do here, I'm shocked that anyone would think that is reasonable.


You can easily get around it all by the settlement leader making a new faction and ensuring everyone in the settlement group has access to the new faction bank account and only the settlement leader having access to the main settlement account and moving gold from that one into the faction bank. But that's an awful workaround that shouldn't be necessary.
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Commie
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Commie » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:33 pm

Cortex wrote:Nevermind the OOC salt, it's always good to act IC to things that happen IC.
That's what I've been doing IC since I heard about it, explaining how this event is proof "the system" is bloated/corrupt.

But if there's some OOC stuff going on about actual mechanical systems actually being abused without a solid workaround my soap-boxing about "the system" might be poor form. I'll change my ic language about the thing in the meantime so it doesn't sound like I'm making some cheeky meta-commentary, because that's not my goal.

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Blood on my Lips
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Blood on my Lips » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:47 pm

You don't need the devs to set up a safety net to prevent PC's from robbing the treasury. Any settlement leader can take steps to make sure the treasury isn't emptied by not giving anyone access to the treasury. If the settlement leader feels that certain individuals in the government need access to money for whatever reason, set up a sub-division and put X amount of gold into it. Plenty of leaders have done this.

If the settlement leader doesn't take these steps to prevent a settlement being robbed, let it be a reflection on his/her leadership skills and don't vote for them again.

I don't really know what happened. But I'm getting the impression from this thread that a lot you seem to think that this was more of an OOC thing than IC. If that's the case get the DMs involved.

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Ork
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Ork » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:09 am

Sounds like someone was being a cheeseball. It ought be standard that if you do an aggressive action, you ought allow your victim opportunity to RP it. If the player robbed the bank and quit for a month, I would find that highly suspect.

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Mr_Rieper
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Mr_Rieper » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:44 am

Y'know what would be cool? If instead of emptying the bank in one swoop and running, leaders or their trusted officials would have to pay themselves a salary which far exceeded what they were worth. That would at least give people some time to react.

I made a suggestion recently about more tools for the settlement salary system, and how it would smooth things out if we were able to pay salaries to factions instead of individuals.

Fraud is often faking expenses and fudging numbers in order to extract more money out of a situation. Even paying yourself a ridiculous salary of 500k a month will take at least 3 days to drain the treasury, if it has that amount or less.
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Marsi
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Marsi » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:47 am

Blood on my Lips wrote:You don't need the devs to set up a safety net to prevent PC's from robbing the treasury. Any settlement leader can take steps to make sure the treasury isn't emptied by not giving anyone access to the treasury. If the settlement leader feels that certain individuals in the government need access to money for whatever reason, set up a sub-division and put X amount of gold into it. Plenty of leaders have done this.
The department budget model was largely in place, or at least was. Checks and balances aren't really fun, and are largely adjacent to what being a settlement leader should be about. And besides, what "plenty of leaders have done" is actually more like throw a million to each department and literally forget about it. There's nothing very sophisticated about it, and it only gives the impression of working because either the money is violently hoarded as with the main treasury and then forgotten about (like, totally evaporated into thin air forgotten about), or this is all happening in a much smaller settlement where things happen at a slower pace. And in the end, even the most cunning authorisation scheme can be foiled by just one supposedly trustworthy person deciding they don't care anymore.
Ork wrote:Sounds like someone was being a cheeseball. It ought be standard that if you do an aggressive action, you ought allow your victim opportunity to RP it. If the player robbed the bank and quit for a month, I would find that highly suspect.
I agree with this completely.

Why should the great bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were neither short nor long?


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Rabbid
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Re: "Your settlement has gone Bankrupt"

Post by Rabbid » Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:10 am

I personally think it'd be much cooler to leave a miniscule amount in.

Instead of robbing the entire, say, three million, leave about one hundred thousand in...
Might lead to some interesting questions/RP. Was there a robbery we didn't hear about and money put in right after? or did we just over spend?
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