I'm totally prepared to work towards this in-game, but I want to prime the idea first.
I find that Watcher sentences lack a lot of originality and are in a way incredibly boring. They don't instill any sense of dread. The one sentence I kind of liked was stripping someone down, and dumping them at the spire near death. No one wants to take the risk of doing that though. So I had an idea.
My idea was to have a wing of open cells below the Watcher Barrack called The Pit. Inside would be all sorts of deranged lunatics that might try to sell you their own feces or even attempt to kill you. Prisoners could be sentenced to the pit, but their story wouldn't necessarily end there. If they got lucky and managed to dodge the roving bands of lunatics, they might find a tunnel to freedom. Only that tunnel to freedom is infested with spiders and goblins. If they make it through alive, they become free in the back alleys of Lower.
To avoid people just logging out, it could also maybe set a spawnpoint upon entry. Maybe even have a relatively safe area where a lot of the new prisoners dwell. Thoughts?
Preferable to Jail or Debt Bondage in my opinion. Some kind of criminal solo quest to escape for freedom would be pretty awesome.
QuotePrefect: "See him fine 800 gold for his crimes and throw him in....The Pit"
Watcher: "...Ha...Haha...Alright maggot you heard the Prefect"
Convict: "...WHa-NO! NOOOOO!"
Watcher 2: "Hells, this ain't gonna be pretty. I'll bet 50 gold and my Market Beat we won't be seeing him again'
Watcher: "Shit, I'll raise you my In-Between Beat he'll be dead in the first eight minutes"
Watcher 2: "Alright, You're on Fat Dave"
I dislike the idea that players will die/have to retire their PCs on a verdict other than execution. If you don't want to execute them, then exile them.
Not sure how this kind of suggestion can contribute to fun for all the server, if the thing we all hope that will happen is that the PC will find his way to Lower, something that is already granted with "exile".
I'm also against solo quests, so there's that.
Exile doesn't mean anything though. They say, "you were bad, so go join your friends outside." Then that player finds a ring, takes a hostage, and the problem isn't really solved. In this case, you could wait around to build up a team to escape, but it also means that there's an actual consequence for breaking the law.
Exile is honestly the stupidest punishment, and is only served out because we lack the heart to kill players.
I've been sentenced to a vicious beating a few times, which I thought was fantastic. I'd like to have that happen more often.
I'll certainly be advocating it if our ranking officers cycle out.
I've also punished people with roleplay, modelling after how Director Edgin Crane sentenced that one fellow to a courteous dinner.
A new arrival runs around naked with his greataxe out? Perfect opportunity to assign a physician as custodian of the lunatic, and have them impound the person's gear until they're ready to use it in a responsibly sane manner.
Exile certainly does have meaning. It's not meant to really "solve the problem". If you want to be brutal about it, just execute them or something.
Exile is just that you've done enough to not want you as a part of Sanctuary but not enough to kill.
This pit idea is fantastic, I'd love to see this as opposed to a exile, because exiles are fairly lame and by a logical standpoint- retarded. Exiles are something more tribal groups do where being cast out is an actually horrid thing where your left all alone and on your own. Getting thrown out of upper is basically saying "WELL, guess im going to lower and going to be a thorn in the backside of upper for the rest of my life" which upper people are smart enough to know that. And its not as if it's a solo quest anyone -wants- to do, its more of -you have to- if you've earned yourself to get put in that position as it is; Plus, like mentioned if you can get a group of criminals its not exactly solo anymore anyways. I'd suggest that if this were inducted as a quest within the pit if there is to be a pit that it have a no xp reward, because quite frankly, your life is reward enough.
Quote from: Red_Judas;410085Exile is honestly the stupidest punishment, and is only served out because we lack the heart to kill players.
No, it's not. Not every sentence for capital offense should end up with a dead PC. With exile, you can make sure the criminal is out of the Shield (which is a HUGE thing) and stripped of being a citizen (Which lets any opposing PCs from Sanctuary to be able to hunt him down without facing legal consequences), and also, if he has enemies in Lower, they can get him now, as he doesn't have the protection of the Shield.
Exile means the conflict can live on. Your suggestion is to give him the opportunity to get to exile (or die trying) by going through an area/solo quest. It's basically the same thing with almost the same outcome as exile (except he'll might die, which isn't much of a cool ending imo).
Of course we all know exiled people MIGHT take up arms against Upper, but I feel it's more of an OOC issue. And as far as I've seen so far, PCs are mostly likely to executed rather than exiled.
I can understand where this suggestion is coming from, I just lack the understanding how this will prove to be more fun and enjoyable to the entire server. Also, criminals are captured really most of the time alone, so the chances of this being turned into a group thing are pretty minimal.
Quote from: Tala;410095And as far as I've seen so far, PCs are mostly likely to executed rather than exiled.
Executed probably because exile isn't harsh enough. The chances of a player being enough of a criminal to get exiled and not have any friends in Lower is fairly slim. If I got exiled today, I would be like, "cool. Seeya never." Then I would probably move somewhere else. I doubt I would have a hard time finding people to help me either.
Thing is, there's something so anti-climactic about exile too. You stand trial for an hour and a half, and then they say "seeya." If someone has done something to warrant being exiled, if not outright executed, it should be made more interesting.
If you look at executions in the past, the people that flee them end up trying to get to Lower anyway. This at least gives people a chance to survive. This isn't just an exile sentence. It's a potential death sentence. And it's got a little substance to it too.
I like this idea immensely. Not quite as brutal as straight up execution, but a veritable death sentence in practice. It'd be cool if this coupled with Red Guild policies in some way, like the prisoners have to mine for resources or something to that effect.
I can also see it building character relationships based off mutual experience if more than one PC is down there at any one time; always a positive in my book.
I'd just make sure it's especially brutal to avoid most PCs escaping from the so-called "death trap."
Stripped of your goods and forced to run a gauntlet so that you have the chance to start over in one of the less populated parts of the server doesn't sound like it would be fun or encourage people to stick with their character. If you're going to kill a PC, I don't see why you need to stretch it out.
Sounds like an idea that's cooler in theory than execution (ha-ha.)
I like this as an alternative to execution. Put them into the deathmine to chip away rock. Maybe they'll get lucky and find a dangerous tunnel leading out.
It should be possible to improvise sentences like the RP ones described above. For example, a punishment detail could be confiscation of cool gear that would not be returned until, say, 100 rock worms killed and donated to newcomers. Or having to stand shackled in Freedom Square for half an hour extolling the virtues of the Spellguard. Or sweeping the streets. Or as an alternative to outright execution, some form of indentured service set to a duration; if you insist, you can get killed instead.
The Underdark has many dangerous beasts. Throw them in a pit with a deep lurker or something. With randomized escape routes so their different each time.
Quote from: Blue41;410120Sounds like an idea that's cooler in theory than execution (ha-ha.)
Diffrent sentences is definately something you could work on with PC Prefects.
Actually I could see some pit full of monsters with poor slobs slated for execution dropped into it and the Spellguard watching it on closed circuit crystal balls.
I think Exile being used more and used properly would add a lot. As it stands right now in game, Exile basically strips you of any and all rights and protections you had in Sanctuary. This not only allows the conflict to live on but also allows for darker options.
There's also not anything stopping anyone from being really creative with it, either. You could, say, exile someone, take their weapons and armor and then leave them on a hill in the badlands to fend for themself.
Quote from: Sankis;410145You could, say, exile someone, take their weapons and armor and then leave them on a hill in the badlands to fend for themself.
I said something to that effect in my first post. No one is willing to take the risk to go out there just to dump a prisoner.
The Watchers aren't meant to be power house badasses of brutality with any degree of ease. If you want to make the faction more merciless with criminals, work towards it in character. Sentences that might seem light and fluffy to us OOCly are a product of the environment we're playing in; we're all players in the same game, participants in the same story, and it's important that everyone gets the chance to have their spotlight. Putting the Watchers in a position where they can easily play with the lives of a vast majority of the characters on the server isn't ideal at all, especially considering how authoritarian Sanctuary already is.
Ultimately, you have to realize that you're playing with other people. I'm sure we could've made an argument to have Aracknar stripped of his gear and left for dead or just outright killed long before he came to prominence, but we didn't. And that lead to an excellent conflict that had me on the edge of my seat most nights when we were both logged on -- a conflict that, mind you, ended in nobody dying but Aracknar himself.
There are a lot of cool ways to handle criminals in character. Sometimes, you're just going to take some dude's gold and move on. Other times, fining or exiling someone leads to long spanning conflict, intrigue, and sometimes even interesting alliances. Like any other portion of the server (and perhaps even more so), Watchers need to roll with the punches and show courtesy for the sake of the story. Not every arrest is going to lead to a good arc, but if you're patient enough, eventually you'll have several interesting experiences with criminals.
From what I can recall of verdicts in my time playing, exiles have outnumbered executions, and this is even when you factor in all the executions that were done to non-citizens that didn't necessarily need a trial or outside judgment and could have been killed where they stood without issue or pageantry. The large number of exiles has actually been one of the IG concerns I've seen leveled at Sanctuary's law-keeping because is mostly happens to people who would much rather be in Lower to begin with and everyone knows will just turn to a life of crime and become an even bigger problem for the city; most of the exiles I've witnessed have been more detrimental to the city than an execution would have been, because at least that solves "the problem".
As Verk said, Prefects and up (including Directors) have a great bit of leeway when it comes to creative sentence for Serious crimes and above. It's mostly just the rank-and-file Watchers who are limited in the punishments they can mete out for lesser crimes. Even if they were given the ability to make harsher sentences on their own, anything like a Death Pit seems like it would have to come from a higher position of authority than them, unless they want to be sneaky and.. "extra legal".
Today, I sentenced a stubbornly disrespectful sorceress to wear a hideous clown outfit that I had the Spellguard curse with GSF: Transmutation before I handed it over.
It was beautiful.
You know what would be better than both exile and execution?
Sentencing someone to be Withered. Oh-ho yes. This will be done before the end. There are fates worse than death and people who deserve them.
There are also sentences to be the subject of probably deadly magical experimentation, to die fighting a doomed battle, to be made the property of one of Sanctuary's licensed necromancers...
Petrification would also be interesting.
Quote from: Sunburst;410296Today, I sentenced a stubbornly disrespectful sorceress to wear a hideous clown outfit that I had the Spellguard curse with GSF: Transmutation before I handed it over.
It was beautiful.
You, sir, are a truly vicious and sadistic creature. I salute you.