impose reasionable restrictions on jailing to ensure players can keep playing

[mikeloeven]

the jail system from what i have heard is a nothing more than a temporary ban imposed by game masters for bad ic behavior. there are pros and cons of any system but at the moment the system has some major flaws. and to compensate for this i am making the following suggestions.

1) the guards while normally pleasant and open to role play are still gm's and are not obligated to play fairly the ability to freeze a fleeing crimanal needs to have a range restriction similar to that of a normal ranged spell such as taste of death or flame burst. and must have a visable cast time.
2) the guards must be required to take the resisting criminal down to less than 1/4 of his health to simulate wounding him enough so that he can be dragged to jail.
3) minor ic offenses shal be punished by the death penalty since it both inconvienances the player and provides a 30 minute debuf
4) for capitol offenses and other violation jail times must be no more than 1 day at most for the most henious crimes or 30 minutes for minor offenses.
5)the game does need criminals but especially muggers and theives in the big cities. the law needs to be fair and pose no more than a minor inconvienance to the player. severe multiple day jailing or banns should be reserved for harrasment or ooc violations. but in character criminal activity should not result in sever punishments that restrict the freedom of movement and the ability to play the game at least not for inordinant ammounts of time.
(6 killing onesself to escape from a in character imprisonment should not become a warning or bannabe offense prisoners hang themselves in prison all the time to escape from life sentances. as long as the player properly roleplays the suicide attempt (he must do it in front of the guard and give the guard ample opertunity to talk him down and or intervine)

i am expecting many flames from the hard core rp community claioming that it promotes realism and encourages players to follow the rules. but remember people planeshift is and always will be a GAME meant to be played for FUN. any disciplanary measure that prevent a player from having FUN or restricts their freedom of movement will result on players being alienated and leaving the game for good. especially newer players who are expirimenting with criminal rp for the first time.

[RlyDontKnow]

2) the guards must be required to take the resisting criminal down to less than 1/4 of his health to simulate wounding him enough so that he can be dragged to jail.

and if the criminal recognizes he can't escape and surrenders?

3) minor ic offenses shal be punished by the death penalty since it both inconvienances the player and provides a 30 minute debuf
4) for capitol offenses and other violation jail times must be no more than 1 day at most for the most henious crimes or 30 minutes for minor offenses.

why would you be *killed* for minor *IC* offenses and put into jail for major ones? that doesn't make sense at all...

5)the game does need criminals but especially muggers and theives in the big cities. the law needs to be fair and pose no more than a minor inconvienance to the player. severe multiple day jailing or banns should be reserved for harrasment or ooc violations. but in character criminal activity should not result in sever punishments that restrict the freedom of movement and the ability to play the game at least not for inordinant ammounts of time.

you won't be banned (read: server ban) for being a criminal. you may be banned for OOC griefing, though, which shouldn't be mixed up
you may be banned from the major towns, tho, so you better don't get catched there by the guards if you are already

[Sarva]

1) the guards while normally pleasant and open to role play are still gm's and are not obligated to play fairly the ability to freeze a fleeing crimanal needs to have a range restriction similar to that of a normal ranged spell such as taste of death or flame burst. and must have a visable cast time.
2) the guards must be required to take the resisting criminal down to less than 1/4 of his health to simulate wounding him enough so that he can be dragged to jail.

Why should guards have spell distance restrictions that are less than spells available to players? Animate Shadows is a powerful spell that basically has a range of it you can see your target you can hit your target. This would be the same with ranged weapons, again if you can see the target then you can hit the target. Fine if you don't like the guard freeze spell then the guards can have the Animate shadows spell and then the guards get the range and do the damage that you seem to think is acceptable. The problem is that then players could abuse this situation by doing the /die command, claiming that the guards spell did more damage that anticipated, and thus avoid punishment by escaping to the DR.

3) minor ic offenses shal be punished by the death penalty since it both inconvienances the player and provides a 30 minute debuf

Sorry but I don't think most players see the Dakkru's curse as much of a problem. Many players still accept the curse instead of running back from the Bronze Doors  to Hydlaa. Heck you can double the PPs you get for killing Mobs while cursed so some players might even see the curse as an advantage. Now with storage there is no reason why the curse means sitting for 1/2 hour because you are over weight while cursed. Also I have seen lots of bad guys who wiling die just to avoid being captured. Again to most people the curse  is not enough of a penalty to discourage most people from really trying to avoid death.  Heck you can even be out of the DR in less than a minute if you have a mount and you know the trick.

The Better RP'ers I have seen don't have a problem with doing jail time. Being in jail does not mean you can't get involved in RP. Teshia was in jail yesterday and had very nice RP's with two visitors who came to see her. Most of the people who end up in jail are allowed visitors and thus get to RP with those visitors soI disagree with your claim that  time in jail amounts to a Temp ban. Plus people in jail can still use tells, group and guild channels to talk to people .

We already have lots of criminals, unfortunately we have a fair amount of poor criminals who do OOC things like  rob people in front of NPC guards who in a IC situation would stop the robbery and toss the criminal in jail or put the banishment mark on them. We don't need more criminals, especially given the player population as it is, but we do need more smart criminals. Smart criminals  make the extra effort to conduct  a crime in an IC manner so that there a is smaller chance being caught in a IC manner. Sorry but since there are NOC guards right outside the door at Kadas killing someone in Kadas should really be an automatic trip to jail if we are going to be completely IC.

[Maisent]

only thing i agree on is the guards, i meant hey are too powerful. A criminal sees thema nd runs away the guard chases and can just *freeze him/her*. I mean even RL guards in fantasy films don't have magic and they actually sue their weapons. Though i am not sure if planeshift is based on RL.

[Sarva]

It is possible to run from the guards currently. As a guard I was talking to Kisoji, who was wanted for attacking someone inside the city walls and murder.  He waited till I was distracted by someone who had their weapons out and I was telling them to put their weapons away till he bolted. Yes I could have just frozen him but since I deemed he was out of my sight it wouldn't be reasonable to freeze him at that point. So that is a recent example of someone who was able to run form a guard successfully.

[Sarras Volcae]

i've heard that guards freeze players who are all the way across the city.  i didn't know they had to be in sight.

[Tessra]

I don't think any of the RP criminals I've chatted to have had an issue with the current jailing system.

Same. I play a criminal on my main and I have no problems with the jailing system.  I've never been frozen unfairly by the guards, and have been given a LOT of ability to RP and try to talk my way out of any situation. 

[mikeloeven]

2) the guards must be required to take the resisting criminal down to less than 1/4 of his health to simulate wounding him enough so that he can be dragged to jail.

and if the criminal recognizes he can't escape and surrenders?

these are general guidelines not rules to be enforced by hard code. what it means is that if challenged to a duel the guard must accept and must be given stats comperable of a player of the same level. if a player surrenders the guard can jail him normally. but the rule is primarily so a player has a right to resist arrest. wether they win or not is dependant on how things turn out in the end

[novacadian]

I mean even RL guards in fantasy films don't have magic and they actually sue their weapons. Though i am not sure if planeshift is based on RL.

My feeling on this is that PS is based on Role Playing, not RL or some movie. The GM Guards are GMs. My experience of trying to defy a GM is like urinating against the wind.

- Nova

[Sarva]

Why should the GM guards lower their stats to match that of the player that challenges them?  The guards are going to be the cream of the crop in terms of fighting ability just to get into the guards and they would probably get additional training once they get into the guards.

As I pointed out before I know of a case I was directly involved in where the bad guy got away from the guard because he took advantage of the situation where the guard was distracted and made his get away. I can think of a second situation where the bad guy got away because he was a good distance from the guards when he was taunting the guards.  If the player is smart they can resist arrest as it is currently. Just don't expect the guards to fall for just any old thing you may put out in order to try and get away though.

[Tessra]

I agree with Sarva.  I see no reason for the Guard to lower their stats.   

[Wavemaker]

According to some discussions here, this game is supposedly trying to be realistic (e.g. "realistic crafting system"), is it not? Well, if Guards/GMs = Cops/Security, then realistically, they can sometimes be killed or jailed. If these Guards/GMs cannot be killed or jailed during a "roleplay", then what they essentially do is what people typically refer to here as "godmodding", which is not acceptable. Isn't it double standards? I'm just basing it on the same arguments that are typically accepted by the community here.

[Sarras Volcae]

Why should the GM guards lower their stats to match that of the player that challenges them?  The guards are going to be the cream of the crop in terms of fighting ability just to get into the guards and they would probably get additional training once they get into the guards.

so you're going to tell me the strongest man in the world is a policeman?

[Ingles]

 Well interesting twist in this topic.
Have a good read of the The Octarchal Decree of 425 AY Does it sound like a fair democratic government, no it is a ruling body, not to be messed with, so it stands to reason the guards would be not the cream of crop, but the roughest toughest meanest fighting machine going in this times to uphold the will of the ruling body.That would include better magic than you as a citizen would have access to. And also fighting skills trainable better than you as a normal citizen.
 So before asking for a fair deal from the guards, stop and read the settings and understand what you are up against.
And before you all point to Beavon, every one deserves a joker in the pack

From Dev/GM view, we have to be fair to all, not just the good guys, but the other side as well, that includes on the odd occasion letting the bad character win, [this is in the case of A. promoting evil type RP. B. it is in the interest of the game to do so.] I must stress here that GMs do not get involved in Player events, BUT as a guard we have a little leeway in this.
[Please do not flood GMs with I need a guard, as has been pointed out we are few and stretched as to time free in game, and we also in most cases need a ok to do it.]
And this last point would apply to any player body forming as guards/etc given any extra commands, so do not think great we have it let us kick A&&, it does not work that way.

 Side note here is Guards were my idea, for GMs to be visible and for them to relax and RP with players on a friendly basses and not to get involved in plots, just as a visible character for players to report a crime. And to assess a GM ability to RP, Leading to running events..

[EStripus]

I have visited multiple characters when they were jailed. None of them complained OOC about the punishment, they rolled with the RP. In fact they gracefully accepted the consequences of their character's actions. If you want to continue RPing as a player once a  character is jailed.....use an alt .

One of the characters that was jailed was an HC member. As a senior member in the guild Emmara went to visit the character to  make sure she was being treated well and to discuss with the character that breaking the laws of Hydlaa was frowned upon by the ruling members of HC (IC'ly).

If you want to break laws as a villain, an anarchist, a hot tempered character, or a vigilante be prepared to suffer the consequences when you are caught by a guard.