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[callisto8413]

I was thinking - if we are going to have organized crime surely some of the Nations and Law Enforcement Agencies will post bounties on certain individuals.  I mean, if they already send us on quests to kill bandits and hunt down monsters it should not be that hard to pay bounties (in local coins) if we carry out these quests.  Or is that already part of the future updates?

[GoblinCookie]

That is an idea that depends upon the economy rather and also does not necceserily make sense even then.  Why have bounty hunters when you can just send your regular guards you are supporting anyway to catch the criminal?

[Egan_BW]

We have monster hunters and mercenaries without any need for economy, bounty hunters make sense. Especially if a fort mode player can make use of them to hunt people down when none of the dwarves are suitable or available.

[GoblinCookie]

We have monster hunters and mercenaries without any need for economy, bounty hunters make sense. Especially if a fort mode player can make use of them to hunt people down when none of the dwarves are suitable or available.

  I was talking about as a seperate group from the above two.  The question is why have a specific group called 'bounty hunters' and not just reuse the existing merceneries to catch fugitives.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Beast Hunter and adventurers basically are bounty hunters. Other sites post missions for beast slaying, etc., which they take up (to be compensated when an economy exists some time in the future).

The only missing link is to be able to hire in-fortress mercs to go rescue children/kill monsters/recover artifacts (and if you put them in a squad that's basically what you're doing anyway).

[Azerty]

It might be revelant, especially since some jurisdictions had no permanent police (England had no public police forces until 1829), instead relying on commandering local citizens (posse comitatus) or bounty hunting, whether by victims or rulers.

Beast Hunter and adventurers basically are bounty hunters. Other sites post missions for beast slaying, etc., which they take up (to be compensated when an economy exists some time in the future).

The only missing link is to be able to hire in-fortress mercs to go rescue children/kill monsters/recover artifacts (and if you put them in a squad that's basically what you're doing anyway).

This is how the game Majesty manages the heroes: the player has to put bounties on monsters to make them act.

[GoblinCookie]

It might be revelant, especially since some jurisdictions had no permanent police (England had no public police forces until 1829), instead relying on commandering local citizens (posse comitatus) or bounty hunting, whether by victims or rulers.

You contradict yourself there, if I can conscript local citizens to form a police form when needed you have no need of bounty hunters.  Only a situation so chaotic (or Libertarian?) that the rulers have no functional law enforcement of their own at all do bounty hunters make sense. 

No the main use of bounty hunting is by criminals and villains.  Basically it best for those pursuing illicit vendettas and for rulers acting 'outside' of their jurisdictions particularly in hostile territory when the local rulers do not trust that ruler enough to cooperate or are actively supporting the 'criminals'. 

[Pillbo]

You contradict yourself there, if I can conscript local citizens to form a police form when needed you have no need of bounty hunters. Only a situation so chaotic (or Libertarian?) that the rulers have no functional law enforcement of their own at all do bounty hunters make sense. 

Wrong. The US, spends $100 billion a year on law enforcement (not including incarceration costs) and has the most police officers in the world, 3,170,608. Despite having the most over-active law enforcement on the planet with the most money the US also employs the most bounty hunters of any country. So many that they get¹ TV² shows³, have a trade industry association to represent and lobby for them, and most state's have specific licensing and certifications programs to regulate them.

Bounty hunters exist so that governments don't have to waste their enforcement's time on wild goose chases, they offer a bounty on a person and let a bounty hunter figure out how to track them down and bring them back.

+1 to bounty hunters

[Pillbo]

Ideas how it could work:

• Open a menu (inside justice menu?) to create a bounty. Preferably this menu could be opened from whatever screen you are in when you learn about a crime. Like from a name in a witness report [press B to create a bounty].
• Select from a searchable list of known (to the fortress) living historical figures

• Add a reward options:
• • Could be a specific item like a masterwork gold axe chosen from fortress stocks, making item reserved
• • $1000 worth of trade goods
• • 500 fortress coins which the game could interpret as whatever that value would be traded
• • Eventually real money, and maybe some social reward like residency/citizenship for outsiders

• Select conditions for bounty reward:
• • Dead, alive or either
• • Must return with a head, or other body part
• • Maybe return stolen items

• Then 'publish' the bounty, the fort sheriff could make the bounty known, a messenger could possibly spread the news to other settlements
• Then based on the details people start going for it:
• • If word has spread through rumors or messengers Monster Hunters and/or Bounty Hunters* from outside the fortress could start showing up to pursue.
• • If it's a beast that killed people in the caverns then left the map Monster Hunters in your fort could leave the map through the caverns in pursuit.
• • People would be basically the same but pursued over land.
• • Dwarves with the needs wandering, fighting, practicing a martial art, acquiring something (greed) or doing something exciting could take up the challenge. Go grab weapons and leave the map in pursuit. Filling the need if they return.
• • If your reward is too low, or the bounty too dangerous (based on reputation?) nobody will peruse it and you'll need to change it.

• Eventually someone shows up with a captive or a body part and meet with the sheriff.
• Bounty is paid, Bounty Hunter goes to the tavern to drink and brag
• Captive is put in jail or executed OR
• You have a monster/persons head to dispose of

Other notes:
• The same system could be used by player villains to kidnap/assassinate people
• could be used to put a bounty on artifacts so you can have outsiders stealing for you

*I'd lean towards making Bounty Hunters a separate thing, since Mercs are "individuals who takes part in military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict" not solo acting law enforcement. Though Mercs should take up bounties given the opportunity.

[GoblinCookie]

Wrong. The US, spends $100 billion a year on law enforcement (not including incarceration costs) and has the most police officers in the world, 3,170,608. Despite having the most over-active law enforcement on the planet with the most money the US also employs the most bounty hunters of any country. So many that they get¹ TV² shows³, have a trade industry association to represent and lobby for them, and most state's have specific licensing and certifications programs to regulate them.

Bounty hunters exist so that governments don't have to waste their enforcement's time on wild goose chases, they offer a bounty on a person and let a bounty hunter figure out how to track them down and bring them back.

+1 to bounty hunters

Well, for all the money the USA spends on law enforcement I fail to see the results in an actually law-abiding and peaceful society.  But in any case, modern bounty hunters in DF terms are more like mercenaries assigned to the fortress guard since the government as I understand it directly hires the bounty hunter themselves and then gives them the bounty as a bounty for completing the assignment; it is no longer a situation where they just post bounties on a board and have a class of people going about reading the boards. 

Bounty hunters do not exist for any reason aside from stupidity or government weakness (the modern US government is the former, the ancient US government the latter).  Bounty hunting is stupidity for the simple economic reason that the ultimate bounty has to exceed the costs of the bounty hunter when hunting down the target.  That means that *unlike* if I just deploy someone who I have hired regardless to seek out a target, the price of the bounty has to constantly go up the more the target eludes capture.  This means I can be bankrupted by the need to offer a bounty so enormous that the bounty hunters will spend what they perceive as a vast amount of time and resources to track the target down. 

The cost is not the only problem.  The problem is against a bounty the target can in effect 'win', making it too difficult dangerous or expensive for the bounty hunters to pay the price that you the issuer of the bounty are willing to offer.  This undermines the fear of the law enforcement because fugitive criminals have now got 'hope' to ultimately in effect be left alone should they remain at large while if you just assign people who you are supporting anyway you can continue to pursue them forever and none of their success in evading capture will ever matter; you can always replace your people with new people forever. 

It also encourages violence against law enforcement.  If a criminal has a reputation for harming law enforcers or indeed bounty hunters, this directly discourages bounty hunters by tainting the bounty with all the violence the criminal has inflicted against those who sought them.  If the bounty hunters think bounty hunting a violent individual carries a high risk of death, they will chicken out and go after more peaceful criminals instead; so according to a form of 'natural selection' you are actually making your criminal underworld more violent. 

[Bumber]

And here goes GC, once again pretending to be an expert in a subject he clearly knows nothing about.

As if devoting law enforcement resources to the task doesn't have a cost? Please.

"This guy has harmed too many officers and bounty hunters. Guess we'll have to let him run free. It's natural selection after all!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sanctume]

Bounty Hunter -> makes me think of Boba Fett -> then to the current baby yoda show in D+. 

So there is a BH Guild.  Thinking just like crafting, but this involves: mercenary, monster hunters, adventurers, assassins, artifact retrievers, whatevs. 

The Mandalorians also sound like a religion, so BH Guild demands tavern, and temples.  Just like how the next version release sound like. 

So a Mason's Guild is just like BH guild.  Masons slay stones to make something. 

[GoblinCookie]

And here goes GC, once again pretending to be an expert in a subject he clearly knows nothing about.

As if devoting law enforcement resources to the task doesn't have a cost? Please.

"This guy has harmed too many officers and bounty hunters. Guess we'll have to let him run free. It's natural selection after all!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Since there is nothing resembling a reply to any issues I raised about bounty hunting, I guess I will just declare victory.

I long ago concluded that experts are just there to keep everyone dumber than they are. 

[Egan_BW]

Declaring victory in a suggestion thread, right.

[GoblinCookie]

Declaring victory in a suggestion thread, right.

What else is a forumite to do when faced with somebody complaining simply that you thought of something their 'experts' had not noticed.