Why Stealing the Treasury is a Good Thing

[Black Wendigo]

There are other ways to mess with the treasury other than outright theft .

[P Three]

Because whoever stole it can buy boats and courtesans, with tables on the boats with guaji root on them. 22 inch spokes on their wagon, gold plated saddle stirrups. Opulence.

Dammit Stath! LOL

[Mofference]

Suspect former Councilor Sootfall last seen carousing Cordorian taverns accompanied by halfling gigolos screaming "Guards on mah drawers, I have to pause, 40 ounce in my lap and it's freezin mah [redacted]" with an expensive drink in each hand and gold-plated foot-high platform shoes.

Handling Recommendations: Await inevitable combination hangover/comedown.

[P Three]

Davit, what have I told you about stealing our rep--uh. I mean....good show!

[Norfildor]

Well, I do not want to rant, but the title of this thread sounds to me more like trolling, because stealing the treasury most definitely isn't a good thing.

1) giving a limitted group of players instanteous access to millions of gp is unfair from a mechanical standpoint, regardless of any potential RP story that can take place around it.

2) stealing gp from city's coffers opens up many possibilities to repeat the process in another city especially if multiple players are working togather.

3) multiple players working togather - that's a good thing, right? Making players work togather helps to create RP interactions. However is this really the case of a wide part of player base taking part and having fun from the whole event or simply another case of an OOC clique working togather to effortlessly gain a considerable advantage over the rest of the player base?

4) there are literally no consequences that the characters stealing the treasury would have to fear to suffer that would outweight the "risk". They get most likely exiled from the settlement that they robbed blind, but who cares because they can literally buy any of the remaining towns on the island. Once they store the stolen gp in a bank, for the rest of the player base the gp is irredeemably gone since no other player has any means to make them part with it. Because of respawns and such, any form of retribution against the thieving character is essentially laughable and irrelevant and often viewed as such both IC and OOC.

5) it has become the ultimate evil. Nowdays, the most notorious villains around the island of Arelith aren't viewed as such because they'd be conspiring with their abyssal legion from their abyssal fortress, or because they'd be planning raids, rising undead, making people sign infernal contracts, harming kittens on regular basis... no, a contemporary Arelithian notorious villain "that matters" is known by their involvment in stealing Cordorian coffers at some point during their "carreer of darkness".


Personally, I'd be much happier if economy was, from a mechanical standpoint completely removed from the whole political system and if the town officials had only control over the exile script.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Norfildor, my only retort is that the act of theft itself is basically entirely insignificant. This is from a settlement perspective.

From a character perspective? Yeah it's big. But I don't think that's why everyone was up in arms.

[Scurvy Cur]

Norf has hit the nail on the head, particularly on points 3-5. I think, though, that the issue is one of larger scope than just treasury robbing. It applies to the entire range of settlement mechanics, and the way people can use it cheeseballishly. More specifically: the fact you can totally mess up a faction/settlement is good, but the degree to which the affected players can be excluded from what goes on, and the tendency for these things to be arranged OOC between friends is, IMO, extremely unhealthy.

In particular, #3 troubles me, because of some of the implications. It's really, really easy to forget that, even (arguably especially) in the case of IC villainy, the objective of a good plot is to contribute to the server and to be fun moreso than it is to try to "win". Specifically, it should be fun for everyone impacted, excluding only those who can only have fun when they're winning; it should not just be fun for the 1-3 people who are interacting with an NPC. Unfortunately, the system enables precisely that. I know that in theory, the election system should provide the apparatus for interaction, it's often the only interaction that takes place, from the standpoint of people whose faction gets robbed blind/vassaled off/whatever.

For those who have trouble seeing why this might not be very fun, imagine for a moment that I have a stealth-capable implosion cleric, who interacts with your character once, for maybe five minutes. A couple of weeks later, you are out and about Minding your own business, when I hostile you, implode you from stealth, and bash the corpse. On being sent a tell asking me why I had done it, I reply "remember talking to my character 2 weeks ago? Well, he's been plotting to kill your character ever since". If you are not okay with this happening to you, you should probably also not be okay with 1-3 players being able to crash a faction's finances or vassaling it off entirely behind closed doors, or with attempts to resource bomb a treasury in one fell swoop.

This issue is then further compounded by point number 4. There's often absolutely no opportunity for follow up. This is critical to IC villainy, and I don't see it anywhere near as often as I think I should. This is squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator. Pushing the "steal bloody everything" convo option and buying Guldorand and three ships should not be the end if the story. Pushing the "become vassal settlement" and switching characters for two months while the heat dies off should not be the end of the story. Unfortunately, this is too often the case, and, combined with the aforementioned lack of interaction, leaves the entire experience devoid of anything resembling fun for the victim; they couldn't see the original act of villainy or try to stop it, and they can't do anything of consequence to the perpetrator afterwards, due either to complete anonymity of the crime, unavailability of the perpetrator, or lack of ability to undo the bank drain/vasselage.

Which leads into point 5: the ability to manage a conflict of interest solely by clicking on an NPC and a few dialog options degrades the overall quality of conflict on Arelith. This is worse than managing conflict by way of god emote fixtures; I can at least cast a casual destruction on your standard issue vase of plague flowers with notes in the description that it requires 74 lore to identify, denies a fortitude save against contracting illness, and can only be safely desposed of by a wisdom-based fighter with no physical stat greater than 8. When the greatest damage that you can do to a faction can be done entirely through NPC interaction, something is wrong. This goes for the bank draining, the vassaling, and the resource bombing. They can all crimp the ability of a lot of people to have fun without giving a scrap of interaction in return.

There's no mechanical solution to this, though: it's strictly a player conduct issue. At the end of the day, the mechanical settlement system enables mechanical enforcement of conflict consequences. It should not, I think, be used as the only element in a conflict or plot, but all too often it is. Just because the system enables you to plunder the bank account without involving your would be victims in more than a cursory manner does not mean that you should, or that doing so is in good form. Mechanically possible does not equal classy. What this all boils down to is that special care needs to be taken to involve people in these sorts of conflict actions, but all too frequently, this is not the case.

Which brings me to a point Norf touched on, but which I feel deserves to be elaborated on, despite he fact that it is likely not a comfortable topic. For simplicity's sake, I will be using the term settlement aggression to cover any of the hostile uses of settlement mechanics, be it robbing the treasury, enacting vassal status, or resource-bombing a settlement to deplete the treasury. There is, I have noticed, a tendency among some portions of the playerbase to organize and plan these instances of settlement aggression OOC, to the exclusion of players not included in the OOC clique. It is a decision for one group of players to have their fun at the expense of all the people not fortunate enough to be in on the OOC arrangement. What is more, there are some players that do this sort of thing serially, which is toxic for a host of reasons to numerous, complex, and unpleasant to delve into at length.

The only solution that really exists, though, is for people to be a little classier about settlement aggression, and do a little more to do three things: involve the victim, stick around post-plot to allow retaliation, and refuse to arrange outcomes OOC.

[Stath]

I think it's great, creates a ton of rp.

[Scurvy Cur]

It really doesn't though. Mostly, it creates one click on an NPC, a few dialog choices, and the following conversation:

"Cordor got robbed again"

"Any chance of catching the culprit?"

"Nope."

"Any chance of getting the money back?"

"Nope."

"So what, we ride out the rest of the council term and then farm IR like 10 times to get the money back so nobody clothbombs us?"

"More like 20 times."

People have to put in special effort to involve real players in addition to just scripts for RP to happen. It's not effort, by and large, that happens as often as it needs to. Can it be well done? Yes. Can it be done atrociously? Yes, and it frequently is. Player issue though, not a system issue. Except maybe insofar as Peppermint's observation that there's usually not much competition for Cordor's council seats, which is probably a good sign that there's too many of them.

[P Three]

I don't think it means there are too many. I think there are issues with council in that by and large, other than the "Clean out the treasury every few months" thing, the position is largely problematic. New laws can be overturned within a month, IF they pass at all. The laws we have are cumbersome and hard to interpret, and gods all help us if there needs to be a trial, because the Magistracy, like other parts of the government, is empty. This makes it extra stressful of a position for not really much reward.

[IndifferentPerson]

Maybe it's time to change things around.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

The issue with Cordorian politics (as with politics at-large) is that a long, long time ago there were some issues of precedent setting when the new settlement mechanics were implemented.

Councilors - and politics by extension - have functioned under a more "modern" style of politicking. And politicking, at its core, is the exhibition of power and communication, or lack thereof. There's this whole concept of "checks and balances" that was tossed around. As well as having a "right" to something. There were also ideas of fairness, equity, and total, infallible justice.

^all of that is stuff modern day politicians and governance aspire to - or so we hope. Unfortunately, none of it is good for "MY IMMERSION", creating conflict, roleplay, opportunity or fun. It's not even 20th century; it's totally 21st.

And this isn't anyone's fault. We've all done it. It's because we live in the 21st century, and, as well as know, the disassociation from player and character is a constant, real struggle for roleplayers, even the best of ones. So how do we think outside our biases and contemporary discourses to fashion a political realm that is everything we're not?

It requires a lot of political ingenuity. And a lot of effort and patience. This sort of "revolution" of how we treat politics goes up against two mighty conservative mountains,
a) the precedence that has been set for real life years
b) the contemporary biases of players

That's a huge feat. I hearken back to trying to make steps in Benwick. This would be on 100x the scale because it's Cordor.

I know players are supposed to make change, but if there's ever a time for DM Interventionism it would be promoting (call it favouring what ever) characters of positive political change. Because I'd argue it's impossible for them to do it on their own. This has been a forum topic for ages, and quite clearly, nothing has really changed.

edit: a good step forward is abolishing bureaucracy. Settlements have ministers, and judges, and czars, and viziers, and this, that and another. Not because of it being effective, but because that's how it's been. The players who created all of that were part of a gradual evolution of a settlement, are now gone, forgotten or in different spheres on Arelith.

Go back to the basics: political leaders, and the military. Often the same thing.

[Urch]

Sounds like you guys need a revolution.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

I personally never liked the settlement mechanics for the most part because it is an OOC (insert coin in NPC vending machine) mechanism controlled by a few people by popular (or apathetic vote) to removed all forms of focused RPed rank climbing and interaction. Vote or lack thereof could completely negate everything the guard or other people within the city had been working for by people walking into office and exiling/tearing it all down overnight.

Evil people And good people had to Work through RPed paths to get anything done before this and things Did change through player interactions. There was conflict. But due to the nature of ownership and exile back in the day, you actually had to interact with each other on more than fleeting (Well the rules say I have to speak a single line to you at least first) means to do it. The OOC bomb squad of settlement mechanics would have to actually work through Players to get their goals done and it makes their acts of villainy and the acts of stopping it (ineffective or not at the time) all the more meaningful. The settlement mechanics make for a 'Baby's first bank robbery' sort of villainy and the exile and property management systems make people reluctant to actually DO anything in fear of losing things they own or places they want to shop. Either for good Or evil depending on who the flavor of the month was in office.

Exile mechanics are unfortunately needed due to the pressing needs of many people to ignore RP and NPCs to get their own way, but I felt when many of the settlement mechanics were put in.. this is what we would get. And this is where we are now.

We could sit on things as they are now but sadly it seems that as a community, we are not mature enough to use the system 'As Intended'. A tool for RP and conflict and a meaningful way for non-combat characters to contribute to both battles and settlement interactions without having to create a blaze of glory on the field. Repeated treasury robberies are only a symptom of core underlying problems.

[Norfildor]

I think it's great, creates a ton of rp.

Been there, done that. After a 5th or 6th time... not so much fun.

[DreamOfCream]

I think there are some very valid arguments brought up in this thread. I am now a bit torn. I do not think anyone in principle in this thread is against a really cool conflict spurring opportunity like a thief stealing Cordor's gold... What people seem against is just the endless repetition. It is just like your favorite altar's fixtures going missing. By the sixth time, your done with which hunts and want to explore another venue of RP. I can sympathize with this argument.

The counter argument has been, this is a player side problem, deal with it IG. It is a fair point.

The counter to the counter is that the current mechanics in place actively support the cycle of treasury robberies. Perhaps it is too much of a good thing. The same was said for planetouched race. Players rob the treasury with good intentions. They want to roil the waters and give the guards something to do. Unfortunately guards and Cordorians are sick of it after the 10th time as mentioned above.

The solution? I do not know.

[IndifferentPerson]

I'm still of the faith that the settlement mechanics, tax gold, treasuries, resources, exiles and other stuff are too misused and need removal or rework.

[Kuma]

I agree with everything Scurvy's saying in principle, the problem is that there are no other alternatives. Settlement Aggression, be it within a settlement or one against the other, can ONLY be achieved through these mechanics that encourage things like hiding writs and corrupt bureaucrats. If you have two groups of players on a battlefield and one side wins, there is absolutely no mechanics in play that make one side "win" or "lose" if the battle was representative of one or both sides of a settlement; ergo, nobody does it.

I've discussed with Mith at times various "capture the flag" systems for replacing our frankly awful war system, and his prime objection is that it favours settlements whose players can be on all day, and with good builds, so the solution isn't there unless someone thinks of a good way to do it. Resource bombing can't be done any more, the system was altered (unannounced) when the Dominion tried it against Cordor and it straight up didn't work, causing them to lose. You can't kill a treasury externally with resources. The point I believe is to drain it via the settlement bounty system in war-time, but that's never actually happened in the years it's been in place, nor will it.

As for internal conflict, that literally only leaves treasury theft and "abuses" (system mastery) of the writs and powers mechanics to make oneself more powerful than the others in a Council setting, in terms of politics that has a visible and actual impact that can't just be ignored (like PvP, however cheesy ignoring consequences of death are, RPR means nothing so there is no threat). There is NOTHING ELSE. "Oh but this is an RP server you should make conflict!" Well, that already happens, they're called Council meetings, and in 90% of Councils you have someone absent, someone competent, and someone utterly opposed to everything the other two might say.

Internal strife in Council is older than treasury theft, and it is INFINITELY more boring and stale.

Cordor survives treasury theft because of very lucrative taxes, and the money is never used anyway, it's just sat on until it becomes a tempting prize, as Pretty Prince of Parties says earlier. There's a huge culture of "spending it is stealing it because SOMEONE THEN HAS THE MONEY OH NO" and "huge cultures" are very. very difficult to deracinate. See also, the laws, the bureaucracy, the constant reference to 50 year old "past precedent" when one Council decided to make America and force it to last via IC law.

tl;dr: Cordor needs an upheaval to be interesting, and treasury theft is a symptom of stagnation due to a lack of actual conflict-aiding systems, not a cause of them.

[DreamOfCream]

What about a king of the hill type system. A character gets a title as ruler. It can be transferred to any citizen. A PvP death will cause either an election or the title transfer to whoever killed the ruler.

Inactivity removes the title and forces an election.

This will encourage power building but I think it will also encourage having trustworthy friends/guards. Yes, low levels will struggle with attaining rulership and holding it, but I can foresee a convincing politician sway some higher levelled henchmen to protect him.

More checks and balances to this would include adding a min CHA and persuade skill check for rulers.

It is rough framework that could use tweaking but could also just be destined for the garbage.

[Scurvy Cur]

Kuma said some stuff.

And that's why I'm forced to conclude, as previously mentioned, that in the interim, the only solution is to implore the player base to please be a little mindful of how the systems are used. I don't hate the system, because I think it can empower RP to have solid, tangible consequences, and that's good. What I do dislike is the fact that there are players out there who take an attitude with respect to the system that says "Mechanically, this is possible, therefore I should do it if I want to". A good dose of the old reminder that "Mechanically permissible" is not equivalent "Actually a good idea" would go a long way.

You can probably start by making a little effort to ask yourself "Does it make sense if...?" before you do anything with the system. "Does it make sense for Gerald to hand over the entire treasury to someone with a 20 year old writ, signed by two old guys who are probably dead now?", or "Why would this settlement agree to vassalage to a weaker neighbor when there is clearly no gain or purpose to the new vassal" or "Why would the temple guards permit me to serially defile 20 altars?".

The next step is to ask "Okay, I had this idea. It doesn't make sense yet. How can I build the RP around it so that it does make sense?". It's not always possible. Some ideas are so jarringly bad that the narrative contortions needed to flesh out the idea are worthy of a kama sutra entry of their very own, but if you can see a way clear to it, go for it. This way, at the very least, your inevitable betrayal of every principle you swore to uphold will come in a story context for the people around you, and they can take part in it. This is way more entertaining than everyone waking up next morning to find a note in the now-empty treasury vault reading "Hey guys, know this will come as a shock, but totally decided to spend all this on indulging my personal fantasy of Scrooge McDucking in about five million gold pieces. Oh, and btw, you're now a client state of a glorified lumber camp. Have a good one".

Then have a goal for after the scheme gets pulled off. Or fails. Really doesn't matter which. Put something out there for your new enemies to work at foiling. All too often, it seems that whenever there is a Big Thing that happens with lots of potential for follow up RP, the perpetrator just up and vanishes. Yeah, I know it's scary to know you've got dozens of new people that would like to kill you, but you signed up for the villain gig. Embrace it. Playing the villain or the scoundrel or even the corrupt swindler should ideally involve being around both for the build up to your plot, as well as for the repercussions.

Should the current system be stripped out? I don't think so. There's no good replacement for it, and nice things are sometimes worth putting up with terrible people for. But in the meantime, it's not bad to be a little more conscious of what makes sense.

Can it be tweaked to enable more dynamism and follow up? I think so. Should it be? Hell yes.

I may or may not bounce some ideas off of people. I may roll up another conceptual villain character. Or something. Who knows.

[Ferret Roll]

You can probably start by making a little effort to ask yourself "Does it make sense if...?" before you do anything with the system. "Does it make sense for Gerald to hand over the entire treasury to someone with a 20 year old writ, signed by two old guys who are probably dead now?", or "Why would this settlement agree to vassalage to a weaker neighbor when there is clearly no gain or purpose to the new vassal" or "Why would the temple guards permit me to serially defile 20 altars?".

I feel like a significant number of the RP trends that seem to redundantly cycle on and on would end if people acknowledged NPC presence and significance. I've seen and heard people entirely disregarding NPCs that would witness a given action because "it doesn't generate RP". This is a toxic mindset to exist in the playerbase, because the NPCs exist to help flesh out the world our characters are supposed to be treating as real.

That means Haulfest is going to get mad if he sees someone desecrating altars, the guards will probably react if they see someone getting mugged, and town crier will probably start calling out news about the guy he saw poisoning a well, and our characters should expect those outcomes if they aren't making an effort to be secretive. (Secretive is NOT doing something like blatantly hauling a completely visible altar through multiple NPC's lines of sight to redescribe it then drag it BACK past them...this has happened before.)

I'm not sure where anyone got the idea it was good RP to ignore NPCs and the manner in which they would likely react to a situation, but it seems to have caught on like a plague.

[The Rambling Midget]

I feel like a significant number of the RP trends that seem to redundantly cycle on and on would end if people acknowledged NPC presence and significance.

Nefarious Councilor: Gerald, this writ says that you need to give me all of the money in all of Cordor, because I need it. For things.

Cordorian Elite Guard: *yawns*

Other Cordorian Elite Guard: *scans the street (which was recently installed in the meeting hall)*

Gerald: ... 'Kay.

[CragOneEye]

What if there was a limit on the amount they could steal per 24hrs? Would this make it easier for the guilty party to get caught with embezzling the Cordor treasury? And if such was implemented make it so it's allowed to multiple transfers from said treasury to other bank accounts, but not able to send more than one transfer to the same bank from that treasury within that time period.

This way it's not impossible to rob a settlement's coffers dry, but makes it so you have to involve others to rob that much gold, which does generate RP for others.

Not only that the "culprit" then would have to find ways to steal it in separate chunks, if they are working alone. Like making up some sort of bogus project for the betterment of the settlement as a cover up.

Anyways those are my thoughts or suggestions on the matter, if anyone here sees this as viable solution or compromise to the debate on whether or not stealing the treasury is a good thing, I'll add it to the suggestion box, but if people here thinks it doesn't solve the issue or is not a realistic solution, then I won't bother.

[Marsi]

I think stealing the treasury rarely leads to anything interesting (the culprit will usually just never log in again, and why would they?), but I think its the symptom of a larger problem and I would really be interested in seeing Cordorian settlement mechanics changed for the better.

What if there was a limit on the amount they could steal per 24hrs? Would this make it easier for the guilty party to get caught with embezzling the Cordor treasury? And if such was implemented make it so it's allowed to multiple transfers from said treasury to other bank accounts, but not able to send more than one transfer to the same bank from that treasury within that time period..

I don't think it'd make a meaningful difference. People could still steal money the same way they always did, just a smaller amount. I don't think the money itself really matters, Cordor could do fine with half as much as it has now. It's the fact that it can happen and to no great consequence other than "ah, jeeze, round up the half orc guards fellas time to grind Baator". Because that's how it has always been. There has always been a real concerted effort among particular players in Cordor to keep things the way they were. A potentially huge, ground-breaking slight is reduced to "stop rocking the boat", and once the money is acquired (which is barely a problem because most of said players are three times as rich as the city to begin with), protocol demands it to be promptly swept under the rug and Bureaucracy Porridge World™ resumes

[Rattus_norvegicus99]

Tons of Stuff

Agreed.