Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

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Zombilicious
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Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Zombilicious »

There has been a recent string of in-character thefts that led to a conversation about antagonism, and since the #GAME channel is not really a place to argue about such things, I figured it could be brought here to be discussed or defined. The current issue lies in handcarts being stolen; handcarts, we all know, are expensive to make and obtain either due to time taken to make them or simple riln put out. Arguments have been made to "make sure you keep it hitched" or "put it away", but this becomes irrelevant if people are stealing them in front of their owners while the owner is not AFK, after confusing the screen by walking in and out, and also doesn't take into consideration that real life is always going to trump being able to put a handcart away: if something happens that pulls you away from the screen immediately, it's unlikely you're going to think to take 2 minutes to put away the handcart.

We've discussed theft before, and there are two camps: pro-restriction and the much smaller "unrestricted theft" camp. The biggest argument that the latter gives is that theft is hard to do because of consequences, though theft should be hard to do if you're inside of Shadgard due to the vast amount of people present (PC, NPC, and vNPC groups), and honestly, the consequences are slim. The worst that seems to happen if you get caught (large if, as has been proven by the fact that no one has really caught the thief currently) is that you get killed. The reputation system may not be implemented, meaning the crowds will not have much reaction to you stealing from their friends. Unfortunately, death is not a deterrent for most players, since characters who are Undying always come back and it seems to create this dismissiveness about dying both OOC and IC.

This is where considerate antagonism comes in. What is considerate antagonism? Considerate antagonism occurs when you, as an antagonist, consider if the antagonism you're currently doing is being done both because it will be fun for others and be fun for you (and in-character, of course). Inconsiderate antagonism is the opposite: doing something because you know it's in character to do, despite knowing that it will seed unrest in players, not simply characters. Things like stealing a high-value item that is very difficult to obtain for new players would fall under inconsiderate antagonism; the only one who benefits from the interaction is you and your character, and it offers no real growth for the victim, only the potential for negative feelings that may either cause the player to not play anymore, or merely harbor resentment, or even continue the negative behavior on their own character because the example has been set.

Now, you might think, "Well, if they want to leave, let them!", but this is a problematic mindset. If we're trying to create a mutually enjoyable place to roleplay and interact between characters, there needs to be some OOC responsibility taken to ensure that your fellow players are also having fun with the things that you do, particularly if you're playing someone who is a "Hero" or "Villain" type of character, as you'll tend to have the most aggressive (direct and indirect) interactions with the rest of the player base.

Obviously, we cannot expect GMs to sit and stare at the screen and help in all situations. That's unfair for both the GMs, and the players who are antagonists. It falls to the players to be able to self-police and encourage or discourage certain behaviors that are inconsiderate antagonism to continue to foster positivity. No one plays this game to feel bad, it's a hobby for everyone, even the administration. This leaves a large onus on we, the players, to be responsible with how we interact with each other.

This is not a statement to suggest not antagonizing others, merely that stopping to think about what you're doing and why you're doing it is vital to ensuring that everyone gets the most out of interactions. If you can't find a reason why your victim would also benefit from the situation, maybe consider doing something a bit less drastic.

Feel free to weigh in respectfully, yo.
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Spidercat
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Spidercat »

the handcart issue is less malicious antagonism and more general malicious selfishness. There's not many ways to secure down a handcart, even when it's being attended by someone. It's also known that one can't register handcarts with the Twilight-eye yet, which really should be a thing for a 40000 riln item. So anyone is capable of stealing a handcart. Whether it be older players, or even new players that I've seen wander off with a handcart I learned wasn't theirs. these should probably e addressed for creating methods of secure carts without buying a horse or mule, and to register them as lost items when stolen. however, i doubt that pulling away unattended carts will ever not be a thing, and even new players are prone to go for it if it meant a ton of riln.


honestly, the last ever inconsiderate antagonist we ever had was the last thief character. it was obvious he made the character just to troll, not bothering to RP with anyone or return any of the items stolen. He even abused some bugs to make it hard for the twilight-eye to locate the stuff. his only intention with that character was to make people's lives miserable with little interaction from him. Once he stole something, it was basically gone.


The current thief people are now having more of an issue with is actually enjoyable. She hasn't remained muffled at all, and does what she can to interact with characters. She's also revealed some concerning tidbits of information about current activities and motivations, while giving a good number of crums to try to piece together who she is. SHe also doesn't make items disappear, usually selling custom items back for prices that are honestly not too insane, but a punishment tax for not keeping it secured in a closed container. (Can we get proper fences for these soon? I feel like the Shadgard market isn't the right place for fencing back stolen goods).



not sure how fair it is to say that restricted and unrestricted stealing is scaled like that population wise. It seemed evenly split, and the GM's have made a stance they don't want to limit thieves to do what they do. The handcart issue is fair enough to provide a lot more preventative measures to have it just gone. Whether that be to secure it with some sort of new sellable item, to making it not possible to yoink someone's cart while they are there. Oh, and registering handcarts finally being a thing please.


The argument that I apologize for getting heated over was that it sounded players just wanted coded solutions to be immune from theft entirely. As well, they want the GM's to already deal with the thief player option with a handwave, rather than taking the effort to stop this vial thief's reign of terror on small objects and daggers. We never really had an issue with too many inconsiderate antagonists on both muds, but there's always been an inconsiderate protagonist issue. but just hate to lose. And when they're not the bad guy, or being a thief, they expect to win. at the end. When they can't get that victory over the thief, or don't want to pull the effort to do so (or admit defeat for more antagonist oriented plots), they try to get GM's involve to handwave the problem away. rather than dealing with the thief problem through hiring or organizing high perception players, or following some of the info known about the thief, it sounds like people just want theft to entirely be gone, invalidating a whole class, as well as catching and punishing the thief for them.

It's fine for solutions to make a thief's job harder overall. There's plenty of exploitative issues with theft at the moment, especially with handcarts being unrecoverable treasure mines that anyone not a thief can benefit from. But I will draw a line at anymore in preventing thieving or catching the thief through GM Deus Ex machina. Once the handcart issue has been resolved, it takes a thief weeks of work to grind up to hopefully reliably get their skills to a point they have a shot to get away with a string of robberies. At the moment, all of that can be undone by a level 1 player keeping their containers closed, valuables stored and anything really important held in hand. Which is already some unrealistic designs for theivingsince it should be possible for them to open unlocked bags, cases and to snatch something from someone's hands for the more bold of us. A thief player shouldn't be punished for player inattentiveness.


No but seriously, we really need to do something about attended handcarts. Snatching them while being sat on is funny, but really dumb. And someone's example of spamming movement commands to hide it from view oocly is really exploity.
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Maina
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Maina »

I think the intended nature of COGG as a faction versus faction game complicates the traditional 'antagonist' role a bit, as every ability that can be used against other players will be used against other players in service of FvF, and traditional story roles don't really enter into it. That said, I've always been fairly vocally against deciding on a course of action based on narrative conceits like 'being a good antagonist' in general. So I'm a bit biased there. Though Zombi probably already knows that about me (thank you for making this post, even if we have different views!)

I do think this behavior (the current theft issue, not being-an-antagonist) is patently bad and undesirable for a few different reasons, though.

This is coming from someone who has the artifice skill on my main but has never stolen from a PC on COGG, for context.

I think a good thief does a few things, and all are related to roleplaying and not metagaming.

1. Act in Moderation. Theft is risky. You may get caught. Jail time is a thing in Shadgard, and nobody wants to get stripped and locked in a cell for an extended period. Even if players don't fear death, characters usually should; even Undying don't know if they will eventually die for good. It happens. So only steal when it counts. I think it's better when a thief steals interesting things that matter, including expensive/rare things, not everything that isn't nailed down or cheap things like daggers. Why risk yourself for something cheap and common? It's annoying for the victim and doesn't make a ton of sense. An ideal thief steals often enough that people are aware of the risk of leaving things unsecured but not so often that there is a sense of paranoia or like it's not even worth owning anything because it will just get taken.

2. Roleplay. Sure, you can steal that wad of spun wool, but... why? This ties into the above. When you steal things, steal them with a purpose. Steal things your character wants, not just because you can. If you're just going to throw it away or sell it on the market, reconsider if your character would really go through all that time and risk and trouble for ten riln or whatever. Along these same lines, don't steal carts. If Rias were a perfect coding robot who could account for every possible variable and be present at all times, there is no logical way you could grab someone's cart out from under them and run off with it without anyone noticing. You are damaging everyone else's suspension of disbelief and that is the number one roleplay crime in my book. But the game simply can't account for every situation, so you need to use your judgment and not do things that make no sense just because code allows for it. Which leads directly into...

3. Avoid Metagaming/Exploits. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You can steal a cart that someone else emoted they are sitting on. You can do this. Code doesn't prevent it. But it's megataming/twinking/godmodding/whatever kids call it these days. This is not cool. I am a firm believer that code exists to be a fair arbitrator between players. If there is ever a debate, code wins out. But this only works if everyone can trust the code to be used fairly, and abusing the code like this to do things that don't make sense and shouldn't work erodes the faith in this arbitrator. It's bad for the game as well as bad roleplay. And I say 'bad roleplay' but that isn't accurate; it isn't roleplaying. It's gaming the system without giving consideration to roleplay at all.

So my stance is thus: this is a roleplaying game, not a hack-and-slash, so you should temper your actions with what is realistic and reasonable for the game world, not doing things just because the game lets you.
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saladbowl
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by saladbowl »

I think a lot of this could be solved by code, and the lack of it is leading to self-policing of what seems an incomplete system. Thieves should be 'considerate antagonists' not in spite of mechanics, but because of them. Think Soulsborne invaders. PCs can prevent stealing in most cases by closing containers but cannot handle those attempting to steal from them. Staff intervention is required for PCs to do anything meaningful about thieves, and if none are available, tough luck.

Right now, it is mechanically impossible for player characters to catch or apprehend thieves. Attempting is a Blade Catch-22: the only method of confrontation available, attacking, spawns guards to jail the attacker when in town. PCs cannot shout pickpocket to summon guards, place warrants, submit descriptions for law enforcement, make arrests, etc. There is no non-lethal option, and even if there was, there's nothing in place to put another character in jail or take back stolen goods. Gathering enough information to reconstruct someone's info readout and coordinating with a private detective to set up a false meeting, informing Samia of a thief's exact look and current clothing, maybe working alongside a market vendor to look out for handcarts, none of it's possible without staff.

My main character has had to give up two silver platter attacks on the recent thief because of this, where I was abruptly forced to roleplay sudden indecisiveness or not being sure of identity, despite knowing they would have taken every opportunity available if mechanics for handling thieves were in place. To really hammer home how not fun this can be: a thief can run up to someone in broad daylight in a jam-packed crowded area, scream "I am stealing from you", and onlookers can watch successful and unsuccessful attempts in real time, but they can do nothing about the thief. Except run away. It sucks.

When there are PC measures for handling thieves, I think there should be third-party services or mundane tricks thieves could use to evade most things requiring in-person use to prevent tracking. It's a little... absurd when thieves can ESP their post address and stolen items sold at the market thirty seconds ago, with every post worker and market vendor turning a blind eye.
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Teri
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Teri »

I've been pondering since these posts and further actions by a thief. The handcart thefts do disproportionately affect new characters by way of them not being able to afford a mount to hitch to, as once hitched those can't be stolen apart from contents, it is a frustrating theft choice. On the other hand, there are many, many warnings to keep hold of handcarts, or label your own. I understand real life can yank someone away, and my character has died to this before. I do agree some kind of change is needed seeing as how they handcarts are expensive and feeling helpless over it isn't how I want anyone to feel. It is frustrating to not have any option to apprehend thieves apart from violence currently or ruining their reputation by pointing out their look or description, and I agree completely with you, Saladbowl. That is certainly something that needs adjustment.

This was difficult to articulate, but my thoughts are in the same way we don't want players to quit as a result of actions of thieves, I don't want thieves to quit, either. The nature of thievery is that there is always going to be a struggle for mutual enjoyment rp wise. The initial reaction is often going to be anger, and these are cases where a thief was caught or the item notice missing. A good thief isn't caught, and the master thief from months back was stealing for months without being caught, and only a few noticed if it was a particular knife or item (or in my characters case, yoinking the javelin from the ground.)

The heated discussion about how there needs to restrictions on how or what thieves do grate, to be honest, it made me uncomfortable on behalf of thieves, or to consider being a thief in the future. In specific cases like the handcarts, I do think that should change, but I feel ooc policing how a thief does steal would slant towards making them quit completely, not changing how one "ethically" steals. Game mechanic wise, characters can take steps to avoid being stolen from. I don't wish this to be taken in a victim blaming way, but they can close their bags, raise their perception, wear multiple bags with a variety of small items, and not use a sheath for knives they care about, or register the items. I think with the game state as it is, balancing is always a thing for consideration, and I think the community as a whole will bring that up, as such in the case of handcarts. I think there is an issue with sheathes, as arguably they would be harder to steal from being on someone's thigh or wrist. As stealing randomly targets a container, if the attempt is success on the sheath for a knife it will be 100% be stolen, vs being with an assortment in a bag or backpack.

Thieves risk it for the biscuit, and while I don't personally feel stealing is worth the risk, their profession and craft IS to steal. Some might be stupid about it, get caught and risk the ire of characters, but we are in the lost lands, there are people who aren't going to be nice, and yes, some further consequences or reputation system will likely balance things if they keep getting caught. I don't want to undermine the frustration people who have towards thieves. I do question if a thief stops getting caught, I wonder did they reform, quit, or increase their skills to not be caught in the future.
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saladbowl
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by saladbowl »

I've since been notified attacking a player character in city limits does not immediately summon guards, but attacking an NPC does. I assume killing a player character does summon them.
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Teri
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Teri »

I did forget the time I got hit with a knife in the snowball fight which, was technically an attack. The tackle on the npc also didn't cause guards to be summoned, either.
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Rias
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Rias »

There's a lot to digest and comment on in this thread. I will say that I don't love handcart theft. Handcarts are a big investment, and it's not great that someone can just walk up and yoink handcarts with ease - no artifice, skill, or cunning required (not to say that cunning and such -can't- go into handcart theft schemes - I'm talking mechanics here). I've started having more actions require pulling or make the presumed owner automatically start pulling to help prevent thefts, but I'm considering having the market just start offering a complimentary Twilight Eye cart registration with all handcart purchases. There will need to be a way to transfer registration for player-to-player selling of handcarts and such.

I'll also say that I do feel that players of thieves - just as players of any other character type - should keep in mind that there's another person at the end of the characters they're playing with, and that this is a game that everyone should ultimately be enjoying at the end of the day. Being stolen from is seldom fun (though it can be at times!), and I don't feel there needs to be (and I'm over-exaggerating to make a point here) a requirement for a thief to make every theft attempt into some long engaging encounter with a happy and satisfied mark at the end of every incident. On the other hand, players of thieves should exercise restraint and an OOC conscience while, again, remembering there's a real person behind that player character being robbed. Don't go out of your way to financially ruin someone, or make them feel they can't enjoy playing the game because they're constantly being stolen from. Don't laser focus on one particular mark and constantly steal as much as possible from them at every opportunity. Registered items that are stolen can be retrieved by the owner through Twilight Eye, but sometimes people don't know or just forget. If a thief lifts an obviously fancy item with a custom restrung description and almost certainly sentimental value to the player if not the character (likely both), they should maybe consider arranging some sneaky way to sell it back to the owner (anonymously, I would imagine) at a not-exorbitant price and suspend a little disbelief even if the thief character is supposed to be very selfish and greedy.

I'll admit it: I love the thiefy type of character. It's easily my most-played character type across the various games I've been playing since I was young. I love the sneaking and the stealing and the being associated with the dirty underbelly of society and all that, which is why it's supported in this game. There's just something fun and exciting about it to me, and I enjoy coming up with cunning ways to solve problems rather than hacking or slashing my way through them. And of course, that feeling of being in the secret club (or breaking into it) is always fun too. I tend to try and fall on the "heart of gold" side of the thief spectrum, but there's also a place for the straight up selfish greedy thieves or kleptomaniacs and whatnot out there too. All this rambling to say: The thief character type and associated activities are absolutely supported by design, as they hold a special place in my heart. People can play their different types, ply their trade their own way, and react to situations - such as getting caught - differently. All I ask is that in the end, don't be a booger, and keep in mind that everyone playing should be having an overall positive experience in the game. All thieves don't have to have hearts of gold, but the players should be willing and ready to exercise restraint and moderation in activities that can negatively affect their fellow players so their marks don't end up feeling overwhelmed and not having fun in the game anymore. This goes for all types of potentially antagonistic characters of course, from the stealing thief to the shady 'businessman' ripping people off with clever schemes to the blustery curmudgeon warrior looking for excuses and opportunities to physically beat up on others.

Also: Correct, there is no automatic crime accusation or calling of militia when players attack each other in town. Certain NPCs will call for militia if they are attacked, but not all. The justice system is very basic and bare-bones at the moment, but for the time being if someone notices a thief in their pockets, they are free to respond with a reasonable degree of violent action. Excessive force can still end up being an issue with the law (murder is not considered a reasonable response to petty theft, let's be clear), but tackling or shieldbashing or sweeping or kneecapping a thief will likely be viewed as a quite reasonable response by the vast majority of Lost Landers.
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Marcuson
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Marcuson »

I've played thieves in other games, and they've been on the wrong end of the law and received a lot of ire, both in-character and out-of-character. (I don't play one anymore, as I learned that I am quite bad at it.) My thoughts, summed up, are:
  • Thieves are cool and good. Think of them as the red pepper flakes in our MUD stew. Either don't have anything worth stealing, figure out a way to avoid/catch them, or be able to easily replace anything that's stolen.
  • That said, it would be nice if everyone could remember that there are real people on the other end of those characters.
  • If something happens to my character, I prefer to handle it in-character.
  • It would be ideal to have some game mechanics supporting characters' responses to thievery, but that isn't always possible for every situation, so sometimes we'll just have to be inventive.
  • Thieves will probably be a lot more interesting to play once opposing player factions get going. A lot of the wiser thieves will probably realize the truth in that old saying about not crapping where you eat.
Firesong
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Re: Considerate Antagonism, Theft, Etc.

Post by Firesong »

it's difficult for me to go away with a post, because I'll over think it and stres myself out. Here's what I've got to say. i sincerely hope it makes sense, and please don't be mean if it doesn't. I don't mind clarifying later. I also just wanted to add that I enjoy playing thieves and interacting with clever thieves too before going any further. i've seen a ton of people mentioning the value of remembering to keep containers closed. i agree wholeheartedly. That being said, I also wanted to remind folks that there are really neat mechanics that take advantage of containers being open. Selfishly, i'll use the example that applies to me the most which is weaving/knitting/tailoring. It really sucks when you're in the weaver's workroom and you're spinning/stowing what you spin, and people are coming in to steal. For that reason, I just wanted to emphasize the idea of being aware of situations when you go in for whatever mischief you're aiming for. This can easily border on taking advantage of a thing you know to get what you want, and that's not cool. Be kind, and have fun please.
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