Better Watcher Sentences

[Sankis]

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.

[Abandoned-1]

You 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.

[Pandip]

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.

[Yamo B. There]

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".

[Sunburst]

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.

[Sunburst]

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.

[Sunburst]

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.

[The Old Hack]

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, sir, are a truly vicious and sadistic creature. I salute you.