Quarter locks

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TimeAdept
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by TimeAdept » Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:12 pm

caldura firebourne wrote:
Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:09 pm
I feel it's being forgotten that settlement storage is now a thing as well, tied specifically to your character as long as you're a citizen of somewhere so it's not really a case of you have no perfectly secure unrobbable storage, just have to be a bit picky about what's worth keeping in there and what's worth risking in your personal quarters storage
Woe betide anyone with the audacity to not roll a STR character., or to want to do any crafting whatsoever.

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caldura firebourne
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by caldura firebourne » Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:14 pm

Not really sure what that has to do with anything

Crafting fixtures always end up being placed where they're easy to access

Enchanting basins at banks
Forges in mines

Give it time
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Hunter548
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Hunter548 » Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:46 pm

His point is that a lot of crafting requires intermediary steps, some of which you can't all do at once, that necessitates storage and that the bank storage is insufficient for.

I can understand how annoying it is to not be able to rob players, having played thief characters in the past, but I don't think lowering quarter door lock DCs would be healthy for the server.
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Nitro » Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:38 am

caldura firebourne wrote:
Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:14 pm
Not really sure what that has to do with anything

Crafting fixtures always end up being placed where they're easy to access

Enchanting basins at banks
Forges in mines

Give it time
What about when you've filled up your bank storage with a beljuril gem, mithril dust, addy ingots, greensteel ingots, mithril ingots and gold ingots? Should you carry all of your projects on you, use up all your inventory space on mdamasks in the making or completed that you're holding for an order? Lug around the hundreds of other ingots, gems, ores and other crafting materials you might need just for one craft skill and get screwed if you had the audacity to make anything but a STR character or just accept they'll get stolen when someone breaks in?

And I guess you'll just have to carry all of the runecrafting mats on you at all times, or rent a store somewhere to put them up for 999 million to get some safe storage.

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caldura firebourne
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by caldura firebourne » Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:46 am

You could carry all of your projects on you sure

You could also store it in your house

Or you could store it at the settlement storage, why is having however many new storage spaces an issue at all? In some settlements it's almost another storage chest entirely, use it or don't I guess
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BegoneThoth
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by BegoneThoth » Wed Sep 19, 2018 1:31 am

Projects have weight. So do materials you can't yet make into a started project.

Projects are also a 2x2 which is an issue for on person storage but not a quarter box.
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caldura firebourne
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by caldura firebourne » Wed Sep 19, 2018 1:37 am

That's not a problem that doesn't already exist
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TimeAdept
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by TimeAdept » Wed Sep 19, 2018 3:26 am

But it would be one that would be made infinite worse if we all had to contend with the fact that not only do we need to contend with random pickpocket on the street, but also with our boxes being cleaned out methodically by dedicated thieves on a separate timezone, or even on the same timezone but I happen to not be home. This is a fact that would happen and that we would need to plan for. It's nice to presume good faith on the pat of everyone, but it would only take one group of 3 people running theives not even interacting with each other - totally independant IC and OOC - to cause complete terror on the server.

It may not be very realistic that homes are essentially Fort Knox on Arelith, but for the sake of the game, there should be some measures taken that afford the players behind the screen a more positive experience. Respawning is one of these things that we take for granted, but is in the same vein. Limiting house ownership does the same, ensuring players have a fair chance to own property and that one person can't landlord it all.'

The same goes for quarters being essentially unpickable. Thief RP is one of those things that seems to be lauded as interaction creating, but speaking as an ex-Cordor Chancellor, and an 80+ spot build, it really wasn't. Thieves who are caught summarily deny it to the end of their days (which is fine, dnon't get me wrong), even if you watched them walk up to the person and perform the action, or even if you caught them picking a lock to a door that wasn't theirs. If you actually manage to track down the thief who took an item from your box or a PLC from your home, on the offchance that they haven't already used the items, sold it, or even have it on their person, you have no way to reclaim it. You can't force the person to hand it over, not unless it's a weapon in their hands and you Disarm it. (Disarm is also something I would like to see changed - in case anyone feels my stance is contradictory) So now, the interaction RP has run its course, you shake your fist at them and move on, but 3 days later that thief can just come back and do it again. I was very loathe to exile for very minor things like this, but after people come calling to you for the 4th instance of the same thief in a week, it gets very tiring - both for the people being stolen from, and the person who has to deal with it.

So now we're at a situation where we've done the thing all thief proponents ask us to do: catch the thief, RP, investigate, so on, and so forth, but at the end of that RP string, the only difference between not investigating and doing so is that we have a physical description of a person and maybe a name. We still have no recourse to reclaim our stolen property, and no way to stop them from continuing to steal from you or others short of exile, which can be beaten and bypassed with bluff, allowing the NPE to continue.

There's some things we have to accept aren't feasible in a persistent world where bodies can't be 100% looted on death (WHICH IS GOOD) in order to allow all players to enjoy their experience on the server. One of these things is giving people the ability to have some possession permanence. In tabletop, this is much the same way. A high level Disjunction destroying a PC's magical equipment doesn't narratively or dramatically improve the game unless the DM specifically constructs the situation to do so, and we're even talking about constant 100% DM attention. In an MMO-like situation, it just becomes theft, a completely one sided experience where one person mysteriously loses things every now and then, and someone else gains them. PvP itself is fully interacting, mechanics run by the game, and has outcomes that, while maybe inconvenient, are never permanently affecting - unless the player consents to it. In theft RP's case, the work is, by design, without consent, but also without recourse for the "victim" in the situation. In PvP, the "victim's" recourse is that they can attempt to learn about the situation more, even though they died, and attempt to pursue new RP venues about it that can lead to new things happening. With theft RP, it maybe happens the first time - but the second or third, you're likely just pissed that your mithril got stolen for the 5th time and now you can't stock your shop, or something of the sort.
Rather than player housing being easy enough to be breached regularly, why not add a bunch more NPC houses/mansions/villas throughout the modules of various difficulty levels for burglars to get their burgle on? That way everyone else doesn't have to suffer from something they literally have no means of avoiding except hoarding everything on their character.
I'd be completely on board with this and I think this is the way we should go, if we want to encourage this style of RP.

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ForgottenBhaal
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by ForgottenBhaal » Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:10 am

The problem with a dedicated thief cleaning out someones chest could easily be solved by making a seperate rule about stealing from individuals chests, or implementing a system that limits the times one can purloin an item.

Pickpocketing I've tried, and it does not really work that well at the moment. There is not many intresting items one can get ahold of through this method as the size of the item is limited that you can steal. I understand that its not ideal to have item's stolen from one, I admit that. I've been the victim of people breaking into my quarter and nicking items in the past as well. But just as with PvP, there is a good way to do this and a bad way to do this, yet we don't make it nigh impossible to PvP on the server, do we now?
No. We take actions to ensure that if the rules are broken, that the situation is resolved, and the offender is punished.

So all that I ask is that we try to create a system that gives people a chance to try to create RP through this procedure, instead of having the homes being "Fort knox", like it is currently.
(I've seen people run into quarters to avoid PvP, and such successfully as the door is impossible to break down or open up as well, which is kinda... Shit.)
1. Every quarter would have a max DC based upon the value of the quarter. it would be something like a max DC of 45 + 5 for every 10k value of the property. Given that properties over 120k are mostly castles/guildhouses, I think this would work well. It stands to reason that one cannot secure a tavern room door as effectively as a castle gate.

2. Given that quarter lockpicking/bashing works via a dialog, we would enforce a 24 rule on break-ins. Once you've successfully done so you will get an automatic failure, accompanied by a 'you must wait x hours before breaking into another player property' message.

3. Any player returning home would get a message when opening their quarter door, if it shows signs of an attempted or successful break-in. This would allow them to report it to the local guard, use -investigate on any nearby NPCS, and get an idea if their property is being targetted. This would allow for RP to come of it, perhaps even a sting to catch the player red-handed.

4. Some rare item or spell would be added that could effectively scry a property for break-ins, allowing the owner to know exactly what time it occurred, along with some visual details of the intruder.

5. A extremely rare 'skeleton key' would be added to the loot matrix, requiring x rogue levels. It would be single use, and open any locked door.
I think that all of these could work together, to create an experience that would make it possible to break into a quarter, as well as give the owner a chance to find the perpetrator.

Though, there would also be a need to create a rule to avoid people from "camping" someones quarter and stealing everything thats not nailed down.

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WanderingPoet
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by WanderingPoet » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:52 am

ForgottenBhaal wrote:
Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:10 am
But just as with PvP, there is a good way to do this and a bad way to do this, yet we don't make it nigh impossible to PvP on the server, do we now?
No. We take actions to ensure that if the rules are broken, that the situation is resolved, and the offender is punished.
We don't make it nigh impossible to PvP on the server, the rules are in place to enforce interaction - burglary is by definition a non-interactive action. We do not allow players that win in PvP to steal from the fallen -because- it makes losing even worse, so why allow players to steal from the offline which will only ruin someone's day?

If you do steal from me, I catch you, then what? You don't have to return the item, you may not even be able to do so(if you fenced it). It's lose-lose for the victim, you get: an item or gold; the victim gets: work to do to try to find out who did it (hopefully they didn't take a night off and thus have 0 chance to find out, no matter if it's different timezones and they've never ever seen you), begging you IC/OOC for their item/fixture back, work to do to replace the item if you refuse.

...How is that fun for the victim or create interesting stories the second or third time it happens in a week, the tenth or twentieth time in a month?

Rules -will- be broken, be it intentionally, by forgetting them or just plainly misunderstanding them, meaning people will get upset and more work for the staff. But if there was new ruling I'd want to see:

1. Interactive RP before thievery: It is PvP in the end, so you should've at least spoken to the character before and ensured they have some way to retailiate

2. If you get caught then you have to return the item(s): Meaning you can't fence them for X(10? 30?) amount of RL days, or some NPC jailer that'll search the captive and plop all stolen items into a chest, and stolen items can't be traded/sold for X days

3. Pickpocket rules, can't steal anything over X value, or larger than Y size: Meaning you can't steal fixtures, can't steal adamantine, mithril dust, runic ingredients etc. Maybe make it up to 2x2/1x4 items so that you can steal small shields, swords, spears, staves, arrows, in progress projects, all non-epic crafting goods. So you can sneak in and swipe that greensteel longsword, but can't walk out of someone's house carrying their 1000 pound enchantment basin.

4. Can only steal from a specific player's quarter once per RL month, and from any player once per RL day: Being on the receiving end of "You've been robbed by X the Thief bwahaha" more than once per RL month is tedious. A thief shouldn't be able to go around to every quarter on the server and steal a hundred items just because they can, per day. They should have to choose and choose carefully.
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Nitro
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Nitro » Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:44 pm

To compare burglarly to PvP doesn't really work as is. If PvP allowed the winner to take one item of choice from the loser on victory, that would be a fair analogue to what burglarly is.

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BegoneThoth
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by BegoneThoth » Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:48 pm

Time adept brings up a good point. Even when you catch a thief, you can't actually get the item back. There's nothing in place forcing anyone to hand anything to you, if they haven't already flipped or just destroyed it already.

Is it bad rp to not relinquish stolen goods? Or good rp to not give up an inch to the law your thief likely hates?
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Nobs
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Nobs » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:44 pm

Maybe something like a bloodstain after pvp?

Some finger prints or what ever that people can -investigate.
And depending on your skills you can find out what race and other info of the thief , perhaps even a name with ESF Divination.

Then if you find and capture/kill the thief you automaticly get your item back and the thief is trown in jail for X amount of time?

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BegoneThoth
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by BegoneThoth » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:49 pm

Sounds artifical, and doesn't really help with the whole "just rob houses of people not online."
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Nobs
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Nobs » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:30 pm

Why does it mather if you are online or not?
Its not like you are at your house all the time when you are online.

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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:31 pm

This is basicaly coming down to the points made at the start of this thread:

Thieves: We want to be able to play our class and steal stuff from players.

Others: We want our stuff to be relitivly safe.

Answer: Make Theft possible BUT! Allow it boe a) very rare b) take careful work and/or luck on the part of the thief.

Both sides have put up some good arguments. Why not take these points, sit back, and consider a way to mechanically allow quarter theft whilst keeping it unique, special and require a fair bit of work/targeting on behalf of the thief involved.
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Nitro » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:04 pm

DM GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:31 pm
Both sides have put up some good arguments. Why not take these points, sit back, and consider a way to mechanically allow quarter theft whilst keeping it unique, special and require a fair bit of work/targeting on behalf of the thief involved.
But isn't that basically the case right now? The thief needs to be specialized and have an accomplice, which generates RP in itself.

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Hunter548
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Hunter548 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:45 am

I think the solution is to expand Cordor's NPC theft areas (There's a lot of NPC houses you can rob), and add more of the same sort of thing to other areas. Thief RP is thus very supported, but it doesn't run into the problem of encouraging thieves to treat other players as a source of treasure (As dropping the quarter DCs would lead to).
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BegoneThoth
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by BegoneThoth » Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:50 pm

BegoneThoth wrote:
Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:11 pm
One Two Three Five wrote:
Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:54 pm
I'd love to see a compelling (read: not just the word 'roleplay') reason people should be able to steal from quarter chests anyway. Into a quarter to spy, sure. But the chest?
The more I think about this the more I like it. Add an optional high rent (5,000 more gold a month) option to the security tab of quarter management that makes the chest only open to keyholders or faction members with quarter access permissions.

Then lower the max DC of locks so you don't need to be a walking gimmick to get into a quarter and spy.
My suggestion from earlier.
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WanderingPoet
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by WanderingPoet » Fri Sep 21, 2018 1:22 am

BegoneThoth wrote:
Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:50 pm
BegoneThoth wrote:
Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:11 pm
One Two Three Five wrote:
Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:54 pm
I'd love to see a compelling (read: not just the word 'roleplay') reason people should be able to steal from quarter chests anyway. Into a quarter to spy, sure. But the chest?
The more I think about this the more I like it. Add an optional high rent (5,000 more gold a month) option to the security tab of quarter management that makes the chest only open to keyholders or faction members with quarter access permissions.

Then lower the max DC of locks so you don't need to be a walking gimmick to get into a quarter and spy.
My suggestion from earlier.
I think this is the opposite of what we want, personally. The people with the best stuff are also the people with the most gold. I struggle to get the time to go through more than one or two dungeons per week typically - which means I rarely make 5000 gold per week, no matter the 15000 that would be needed on top of the house rent. I've rarely found adamantine, I've never found most of the rare crafting goods - it'd be all the worse to have someone sneak in and pilfer my chest of those expensive goods.

Essentially all a 5000 gold extra rent/month would do is make it so people that don't play a ton have even less gold/capability to enjoy end-game gear - or risk having all their stuff stolen. While the people that have all the end game gear and lots of crafting goods can secure their chest with the boat loads of cash they have.
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:28 am

Having played a number of thieves and fences, I would say that thievery is very possible. Picking a lock may be practically impossible, but sneaking in isn't. I know people complain that you shouldn't be able to get through a door if someone is looking at it, but out characters exist on a server where people can stealth up to your face and stab you in it, so I think you just have to accept that is how stealth works in a magical world, rather than coming up with lots of arguments about it not being magical, blah blah blah. The fact is, sneaking in to a house someone is already in provides a huge adrenalin rush and allows many, many counters, and even straight up bugs that work in the spotters favour.

I've also had a lot of experience with pickpocketing. I've always roleplayed accidentally knocking into someone, or held a full conversation with them as Ive done it, and snuck in some emotes that gave a hint. I've been caught taking 8gp (and roleplayed the consequences), and I've got away with stealing stacks of heal potions.

I would also like to give a shout out to the Midnight Mouser, whoever they may be. And admit that from time to time, I've been a Midnight Mouser copycat!

In short, I'm giving what seems like a sole counter opinion that I think thievery is just fine as it is. We can leave locks just as they are.

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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Diilicious » Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:18 am

DM GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:31 pm
Answer: Make Theft possible BUT! Allow it boe a) very rare b) take careful work and/or luck on the part of the thief.
Which means leaving as it is now.

Any tinkering to make it more accessable to the everyman means its not rare and doesnt take any luck on the part of the thief.

and as somebody who has had hundreds of fixtures stolen by groups of people. if suddenly groups of people were getting into my quarter to do the exact same thing to what is essentially supposed to be a place of security, well then why even bother with houses?

Most people (and I hope this applies to you all) go through their whole lives without being burgled at all, where as these changes would make it so everyone is burgled all of the time ever time the timer is up.
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by flower » Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:08 am

Allow settlements to fit people into a jail.

From one day up to 14 real days.

Allow charracters in jails to work it out, to shorten the period, by doing some very boring aktivity....like mining an ore / gem and selling it to jails warden for ammount of money needed to pay off each day in jail.

This way you can go out and steal, but if you get caught, you are screwed. If you get caught second time, by same persons, you can expect even harsher outcome.

Why should someone get only cookies of their class and aktivity? What is current risk other than plain exile ig for robbery? None.

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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Aodh Lazuli » Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:12 pm

33 ranks
15 dexmod
3 skill focus
10 epic skill focus
22 on gear (this is possible)
12 thieves tools.

95

Take 20 on the roll.
115


Meaning you'd need 24 cleric levels and trickery domain, and at least three rogue levels, to open them on your own... On a race that gets an innate +2 to dex, and the ability to gift it.

You can do it solo.
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Re: Quarter locks

Post by Nitro » Fri Sep 21, 2018 2:05 pm

Mostly right, but you can't take 20 and you can't use thieves tools since the lockpicking is done via dialogue and not mechanical locks.

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