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[BDR]

1. Immediately knowing what's going on and who to blame is both unrealistic and slightly boring.  I want to be able to sneak around at night and secretly assassinate the king, or just steal goods from the stores at night without anyone knowing what just happened.

2. Obviously this can only avoid being game-breaking if there are more intelligent defenses; shopkeepers should either lock stuff up at night or towns in the affected civ should start locking their doors once they hear that there's a nightly thief/killer on the loose.  The travel of information should be king here; any scrap of information traveling around should cause the residents to become more cautious, and the more often suspicious things happen after you arrive the more suspicious you look and the less helpful people are in future.  Sneaking in general should also be harder to train (though legendary ambushers should still be able to do what they can do now).

3. Attempting to kill a town should lead to more intelligent responses by the citizenry; when the normal citizens see that you are effortlessly slaughtering people in their beds or guards during the day, they should not try to fight you as well unless they either have a weapon or are cornered.  Likewise, they should also not attempt to go about their normal duties; they should instead try to run off the map.  Guards and weaponmasters are a fine exception as their job is to protect the town, though perhaps depending on their skill and how effortlessly you are killing them, they may decide that living is the better part of valor and flee as well.

4. Escapees are not a throwaway gag; in the short-term you have less potential problems in getting the area all to yourself, especially if you manage to scare away guards, but in the long-term this ought to cause serious issues.  What should happen ideally is that first, there should be a lot of them, and so while you might be able to run down some of them through encounters (I for one would find it quite interesting to get encounters on the map where I am the intended predator instead of the intended prey) you won't get all of them, which leads to the problem of survivors telling the other towns about you going about splitting people's heads in half and carving off limbs left and right like some kind of maniac.  The upshot of this would be that you try to go to the next town over, and suddenly you find yourself looking at an army of marksmen and warriors ready to turn you into a fine red paste.  Perhaps this would take some time to build up, but I certainly think that gathering an army to destroy a single madman would be appropriate what with the havoc a properly armed and armored adventurer can cause (as well as beating the army being a truly awesome feat to pull off successfully).  This is of course entirely dependent on one of the bloats (standing, commandable, traveling armies) being finished, but one Hacky McHackerson way to do it would be to change the composition of nearby towns to feature more guards/weaponmasters and less ordinary townsfolk.  If possible, causing said extra guards/weaponmasters to cluster, so that you can't take them on one-on-one as easily might not be a bad idea either.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by BDR:
<STRONG>1. Immediately knowing what's going on and who to blame is both unrealistic and slightly boring.  I want to be able to sneak around at night and secretly assassinate the king, or just steal goods from the stores at night without anyone knowing what just happened.
</STRONG>

Of course, if a valuable weapon disappears from your shop, are you going to blame your brothers Olďn and Dumrčk, or your other fellow villagers that you've known all your life and trust enough to leave the front door unlocked - or are you going to blame the dirty, suspiciously well armed tramp that wandered into town last night from Armok knows where, with blood on his tattered clothes, armor of strange designs and materials, laden with strange coins and trinkets, and with the heads of seven goblins dangling from his belt?

[BDR]

Er, I rather think that considering the fact most everyone is asleep and the fact that I could have easily snuck around the few guards (if any, I rarely see anyone out of bed at night in human towns) that were awake and patrolling to get into the shop, as well as the fact that nobody's in the shop at night, it'd be pretty non-trivial to figure out who's responsible.  I mean, sure if the adventurer comes back later wielding or wearing the stock, it should be a simple matter of "heywaitaminnit, that's MINE! Guards! Get him!" from the shopkeeper or a "Hey, that looks like the stuff the thief stole.. Stranger! Come here now!" from others but if he is never actually caught in the act or noticed from entry to exit, what's going to link the missing stuff to him?

Now, a thief who cases the place in the day before visiting at night, on the other hand... that will look mighty suspicious, especially if the same face keeps popping up just before something goes missing the next day in other areas.  The upshot even of the careful thief, though, should be that people become a lot more cautious with their goods.  Merchants would end up not just paying through the nose for good locks, but also perhaps paying mercs to guard the shop at night (who are, obviously, very vigilant).. and if you kill those guys, the more serious consequences of possibly getting hunted down begin.

[axus]

I sort of doubt the burden of proof is as high in DF world as in modern democracies.  Still there would be more nuances and accusations and jail and stuff

[BDR]

Yeah, figuring out who's responsible wouldn't be as sophisticated as it is today, and there's something to be said for the unknown stranger being the most suspicious character in such an investigation.  However, suppose that the adventurer had done a lot of quests for the mayor in town and was considered a hero before they started experimenting with evil; who's going to call an ordinarily stand-up guy a thief?  On the other side of the coin, suppose that someone else really is responsible for the theft, and you get blamed for it because you're the sole unknown factor.  Could be interesting either serving time for something you didn't do, or trying to plead your case in front of the judge.  But then, that'd require the whole grudges bloat to be implemented and for personality interaction to be expanded to the point where you just might have looked the perfect patsy for someone interested in settling a score or getting something they wanted.

[ September 13, 2007: Message edited by: BDR ]

[Little]

I also think a jail should be implemented and pushiments less harsh. I punch a drunk in the face once and get STABBED TO DEATH by guards for it?!?!? Unlikely. I also think your party members should be able to get into trouble depending on their personality. It'd be cool to bust them from jail if you pick the locks.

[Turgid Bolk]

One thing that would work well here is to be able to drag or carry people. You can dispose of bodies easily enough, but how about just knocking out the guards and dragging them out into the woods. Or just drag them to an empty house, tie and gag, then leave them to be discovered in the morning.

This would be especially useful for stealing that cool weapon or armor, since you probably don't have one yet (that's why you need to steal it).

Some kind of face mask or disguise might help, too, so they can't identify you when news reaches the next town over. I'm pretty sure that's already in the devs, though.

[Albert the Absentminded]

People can get to know, from daily interactions, somewhere around 150 other people really well. In villages that size or smaller, everyone will know everyone else, and you'll be the un- or less-trusted stranger. Along with any other vagrants. There may be a local ne'er-do-well or two hanging around(these can be real or perceived/scapegoats, since there can also be bullies around who need someone to pick on) as well, although those tend to get run off pretty quickly unless they have a patron (a relative performing a valuable or thankless task) or can be coerced into performing valuable or thankless tasks themselves.

If you've ever read Bardic Voices 1, Lady Lark starts out as a scapegoat-style ne'er-do-well, pressed into unpaid drudgery by her mother and the target of bullying by the high-status adolescent boys of the town. (This extends to an aggressive starts-as-seduction-but-we-won't-take-no-for-an-answer attempt on the part of the boys - trying to coerce the girl into informal whoredom - at the start of the novel.)

Note that local thieves will be particularly eager to blame vagrant scapegoats for their predations. One successful pattern would be to appraise visitors for alertness, then plant some evidence of theft on sleeping or otherwise unaware visitors while hoarding a good-sized chunk of the swag themselves. They'll need to launder their gains, though - one possibility is merchants who don't ask questions about good bargains. Such thieves might be farmers who are lazy but 'somehow' still get by, or more prosperous individuals constantly looking for another advantage to add to their wealth. A father or mother desperate to see children advanced in status and wealth might be an example of the latter.

-Albert

[Bryan Baywood]

quote:Originally posted by BDR:
<STRONG>.. and if you kill those guys, the more serious consequences of possibly getting hunted down begin.</STRONG>

I like (and fear) the idea of influential people sending skilled assassins after me if I have a reeeeally bad reputation, say as a mass murderer or something... Even if you've got an army. They'd wanna sneak someone in there to assassinate the murderous tyrant if they could.

You'd have to take precautions at night before you sleep, and know how to escape a skilled tracker (or prove you're the better assassin). Might have to change your appearance and such to avoid being recognized. Hope you don't have any recognizable scars on your face.  :p