Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2016 8:50:03 GMT
To make better use of the factions mechanics, there is an idea to incorporate some kind of basic justice enforcement system for our cities, starting in Toldara. The system would be effected mostly by standing with a new "Toldara City Guard" faction, (if you are on their shit list, they will attempt to arrest or kill you!,) as opposed to making it related to "Citizens of Toldara" ranking. This is to allow someone to be a criminal in the eyes of the authority, but not necessarily the eyes of the people -- just a tad more complex, but still reasonably basic, no?
The system will be heavily reliant on scripting of course, and may not even be possible at this point, so designing this rudimentary system will require some craftiness on all our parts if we determine this worthy to implement. Basically, if you perform the "wrong" quests which require you to do "bad" or illegal things, you may lose standing with "Toldara City Guard" and if it gets bad enough, the guards and their bounty hunters may start trying to arrest or kill you. In addition to the standard system of killing members of a faction to lose standing with it, advanced scripting could allow for a "witness" function.
This "witness function" would work in a way that if a Toldaran citizen saw you killing a citizen, especially a shop owner or guild leader NPC, they would react in a way, (maybe a few different ways per type of character -- i can write out these little bits,) such as saying, "Oh, shit!! I'm gonna get the guards!!" and the 'witness' npc would then flee, looking for a member of "Toldara City Guard" to tell about what you did. If successful, it would cause the standing with that faction to drop, depending on the severity of the case. (Maybe killing Boram makes you lose -100%, but killing the Warriors Guild leader only drops you -50%.)
What do you guys think of such a system -- can you see a benefit to using the factions in this way? Does it seem like a good idea of how to handle players who wish to play a criminal type of character -- but still be able to function somewhat in their home city? Sure, there will need to be more content to allow for these "bad" quests, but there are other ways to integrate the faction balancing from the user's perspective.
The very basic function of this would be to have the added factions: "Nobility of Toldara" "Merchants of Toldara" and "Toldara City Guard" gaining the approval of these would allow access to different spheres of influence in the city, and allow for some inner dynamics instead of relying on our main conflicts up-til now: 'Toldara VS Bargof' and 'Toldarans VS undead/monsters' . Imagine being a character who is making money and approval with the Nobility, but the merchants are pissed off at you, and none of them will let you do transactions in their store! In theory, these sorts of dynamics will make each character's life as a Toldaran citizen unique and fun to play with, wouldn't you say?
Some quirky, minor laws could be fun to play with as well! These would not drop % drastically, but build up over time, or be kind of humorous to be "busted" by a guard for doing something so trivial, such as giving money to beggars, or littering on a city street.
[[Darkelves and Ogres that have 0% with the Toldara City Guard, would maybe get stopped and asked to show their identification or something. THat could be a fun surprise for our players who were part of the Bargof starting city experiment, and future Bargof characters.]]
SO, that's all about the law and how to commit crimes in Toldara. What about the 'Punishment'?
The punishment will have to be engaging and not terribly frustrating for players. A fully evolved system would have multiple offenses being "on the record" and maybe even a scripted event that places your character in front of a "judge" or constable to decide the punishment, with some limited interaction from the user. (replying to questions, and stuff.) Maybe different crimes could result in different occurrences such as being interrogated if you are caught aiding organized crime.
If we agree to implement a crime & punishment system before beta launch, the initial system will need to be basic, but still functional enough to be worthwhile and fun to experiment with for the user. There will be at least two "jails" (one in each garrison) which will be used for holding 'prisoners'. There may be a couple 'holding cells' in appropriate buildings, for different kinds of infractions with the law. Something simple may be: if TCG is -09% to -49%, then the guards will try to arrest you, and put you in a holding cell or jail, locking you in. (hope you had a recall scroll or know a dominator!) After an amount of time (could be dynamic based on faction % or specific crime or number of crimes,) the door would be unlocked and that player would be allowed to go and TCG % would be reset to -1%. -50% to -100% would make the guards try to kill you, and maybe some of the guards would even have special scripts to attempt to get reinforcements. (maybe some rare other toldaran citizen NPCs would even assist in kicking your ass!)
If a player has -1% to -8%, then guards would give you the eye, and maybe even follow you around to make sure you don't get in any trouble. Losing the guards could be a necessary thing to do when you are skirting the law in Toldara!
Further development could allow for additional ways to break out of jail, ways to negotiate yourself out of jail, and things to do while in jail, (maybe play dice with some poor soul who's been locked up forever, maybe he'll tell you about that treasure he buried on the restless estate.) This system would open up a fascinating new branching of possibilities for game play, but when should we implement the foundations? Sorry for such a long post, but I've been thinking about this for months and finally put it all down. What do you think?
The system will be heavily reliant on scripting of course, and may not even be possible at this point, so designing this rudimentary system will require some craftiness on all our parts if we determine this worthy to implement. Basically, if you perform the "wrong" quests which require you to do "bad" or illegal things, you may lose standing with "Toldara City Guard" and if it gets bad enough, the guards and their bounty hunters may start trying to arrest or kill you. In addition to the standard system of killing members of a faction to lose standing with it, advanced scripting could allow for a "witness" function.
This "witness function" would work in a way that if a Toldaran citizen saw you killing a citizen, especially a shop owner or guild leader NPC, they would react in a way, (maybe a few different ways per type of character -- i can write out these little bits,) such as saying, "Oh, shit!! I'm gonna get the guards!!" and the 'witness' npc would then flee, looking for a member of "Toldara City Guard" to tell about what you did. If successful, it would cause the standing with that faction to drop, depending on the severity of the case. (Maybe killing Boram makes you lose -100%, but killing the Warriors Guild leader only drops you -50%.)
What do you guys think of such a system -- can you see a benefit to using the factions in this way? Does it seem like a good idea of how to handle players who wish to play a criminal type of character -- but still be able to function somewhat in their home city? Sure, there will need to be more content to allow for these "bad" quests, but there are other ways to integrate the faction balancing from the user's perspective.
The very basic function of this would be to have the added factions: "Nobility of Toldara" "Merchants of Toldara" and "Toldara City Guard" gaining the approval of these would allow access to different spheres of influence in the city, and allow for some inner dynamics instead of relying on our main conflicts up-til now: 'Toldara VS Bargof' and 'Toldarans VS undead/monsters' . Imagine being a character who is making money and approval with the Nobility, but the merchants are pissed off at you, and none of them will let you do transactions in their store! In theory, these sorts of dynamics will make each character's life as a Toldaran citizen unique and fun to play with, wouldn't you say?
Some quirky, minor laws could be fun to play with as well! These would not drop % drastically, but build up over time, or be kind of humorous to be "busted" by a guard for doing something so trivial, such as giving money to beggars, or littering on a city street.
[[Darkelves and Ogres that have 0% with the Toldara City Guard, would maybe get stopped and asked to show their identification or something. THat could be a fun surprise for our players who were part of the Bargof starting city experiment, and future Bargof characters.]]
SO, that's all about the law and how to commit crimes in Toldara. What about the 'Punishment'?
The punishment will have to be engaging and not terribly frustrating for players. A fully evolved system would have multiple offenses being "on the record" and maybe even a scripted event that places your character in front of a "judge" or constable to decide the punishment, with some limited interaction from the user. (replying to questions, and stuff.) Maybe different crimes could result in different occurrences such as being interrogated if you are caught aiding organized crime.
If we agree to implement a crime & punishment system before beta launch, the initial system will need to be basic, but still functional enough to be worthwhile and fun to experiment with for the user. There will be at least two "jails" (one in each garrison) which will be used for holding 'prisoners'. There may be a couple 'holding cells' in appropriate buildings, for different kinds of infractions with the law. Something simple may be: if TCG is -09% to -49%, then the guards will try to arrest you, and put you in a holding cell or jail, locking you in. (hope you had a recall scroll or know a dominator!) After an amount of time (could be dynamic based on faction % or specific crime or number of crimes,) the door would be unlocked and that player would be allowed to go and TCG % would be reset to -1%. -50% to -100% would make the guards try to kill you, and maybe some of the guards would even have special scripts to attempt to get reinforcements. (maybe some rare other toldaran citizen NPCs would even assist in kicking your ass!)
If a player has -1% to -8%, then guards would give you the eye, and maybe even follow you around to make sure you don't get in any trouble. Losing the guards could be a necessary thing to do when you are skirting the law in Toldara!
Further development could allow for additional ways to break out of jail, ways to negotiate yourself out of jail, and things to do while in jail, (maybe play dice with some poor soul who's been locked up forever, maybe he'll tell you about that treasure he buried on the restless estate.) This system would open up a fascinating new branching of possibilities for game play, but when should we implement the foundations? Sorry for such a long post, but I've been thinking about this for months and finally put it all down. What do you think?