Lets talk - Burglary

[Rupert]

We have a Pickpocketing skillset. We have a locksmithing skillset. We have plenty of criminals, and a lack of variety in crime. I'm sure everyones dreamed of being able to break into inn-rooms with their locksmith character at some point. But how do you make that fair for everyone?

I gave this a bit of thought, and the following is a rough idea up for open discussion. IS there a way to incorporate this prospect into the game in a balanced way that's fair to everyone?

Locksmiths can't be able to unlock EVERTYHING, obviously. Some doors just lead to nowhere. Some doors are never meant to be opened, or are planned for the future. What we can do though, is allow locksmiths the ability to potentially unlock player owned domus', and player rented rooms at NPC controlled inns.

Hear me out, I know what you're thinking. "I don't want my shit stolen without being able to defend it. This is out of the question."

Why not just introduce some simple mechanics to make it possible? Even adjusting a few? Lets say, that mechanically if you pass out in your inn-room, depending on the price of your rent check, your guaranteed a certain level of security. Someone who stays at the Short oar for example, wouldn't likely have any sort of protection what so ever. He'd have to invest in his own. Someone renting from Glaeus' might have a bell in his room over his door, a string set down over the door. This would be set automatically when you fell asleep in your inn room. Maybe a lesser form of inn security could be buying a vase, and simply modifying code to allow these to be set on doorhandles, falling off when they're turned (When unlocked). An Inn likes Glaeus' would have probably 1-2 NPC guards making their rounds around the place at all times, scouting for signs of burgalars.

Lets not forget the ever so useful pet Dogs, either. Why not provide a reason to pay that monthly holdings charge for that stupid dog or seven that never leaves your room?

Simply by sleeping in your inn room, depending on your inns quality, you have built in security to combat potential room burglars. Code inn-keepers to give 'reports' to constables if someone sets off an alarm, telling them who left/entered the inn, which room the guard reported the sound from, etc. The idea here is to make planned burglaries the most successful, and to discourage random root robbings.

Let me run you through a scenario.

You've been scouting someone in room XXI at Glaeus' inn for around a week, now. He sleeps there -every- night, but you know he leaves to go hunt in the pits every once in a while, even the Colosseum. Your chances aren't good in the daylight, you'll have to wait until night.

You show up infront of Glaeus' at nightfall, you've been scouting the place and you know there's two guards inside. One runs the lower floor, the other runs the top. You know from experience these guys got good ears, and they'll be on you quick if you make mistakes. You watch for the echo to move off into the distance, the guards heading east. You decide to pass on the pulling out a hood/mask, as you don't think you'll be seen and quickly find some cover nearby.

You sneak by Glaeus without a problem, you aren't a slouch and he's old. But the guards a different story. You don't want to be caught in the hallway around him, or he'll call you out for sure.. He knows you aren't a renter. But, you've timed it just right and make it up the stairs with time to spare.

You sneak down the hallway to door XXI. You've been watching this fellow, he's got one of those bells on the inside, but you know he's not in his room. It isn't set. You put your lockpick in the door and begin to fiddle around. It's more complicated than you thought, but you've been working tumblers for years, this isn't anything you can't handle. A click sounds, first notch down. The second gives you far more trouble, you're beginning to feel uncomfortable. Nervously, you jam the lock. This is bad.

Your noise has attracted the attention of the upstairs guard, who's stopped his patrol to listen for noise. You either need to lay low, tuck against the wall and listen for the guards footprints to move on.. or you need to get the hell in that door in out of this hallway. Choosing the latter, you unjam the lock swiftly, knocking the third and forth and notches out of the way. Success.

You slowly creak the door open, peeping inside. The one thing you hadn't anticipated.. DOGS. Three young muts sleeping in the corner. You sneak into the room quietly, if you were clumsy you might creak the floor and wake them up. Being silent is key, even in your greedy looting ways. You're certainly not going to be tossing around any brass bowls. However, didn't think that far ahead when you picked up the cabinet and sent the entire china set crashing across the guard.

The dogs are awake. They're barking, and you can hear footsteps racing across the ceiling. The guards are coming.

You drop the cabinet, darting out of the room. You need to get out of here, so you head for the stairs. Glancing ahead, you can see two constables already standing at the entrance, and the guards closing from behind. Should you have killed the dogs? Would it have mattered? Could you have killed the guard? Would it have been too noisy. Possibilities run through your mind as you bolt for the front door, the first constable sweeping at you and knocking you to the ground.

How can we make this balanced?

[Dink]

Another reason to kill every dog you come across, skin them out into as many pieces as possible and leave them lay!

On a more serious note, interesting idea but I'm not a fan. I can see this leading to people hanging around thier rooms more or worse, thrashing anyone seen with a lockpick. Apula will have to hire a healer.

I'd like to see something like this set up in an area with just NPC domuses and insulas. Kind of a hunting ground for those with the shadier skills.

[extraha]

As someone who dearly, dearly loves pickpocketing and stealing, and very whole heartedly agrees with your idea, im going to play the Nay sayer.

It will never happen. The only people interested in this, are thieves. Players literally drop their keys off at the bank, to avoid their key being stolen from them. I think this (putting your key in the bank) is wrong in itself.

I bet most players dump their stuff on the floor of their room, for ease of access. Im guessing this from not only forum messages, but from the broker char i play and the about 8-12 rooms ive been in to help lug stuff to be sold.

Lets say a balancing thing to do would be that ONLY the stuff in cabinet A can be stolen from. kk. As a renter, will never put anything in there.

Lets say, you ONLY can take X amount of items from a room, per visit (rply like, time constraints, you only have time to grab x number of items before you book it)
Ok, players are still going to be mad, because I, as a thief, Is going to snatch the high value, so that leaves us with X number of random items.

You sneak in, pass 9 guards, pick 4 locks, creep into the room, slay 8 dogs, and all you can pick up is 3 empty posca bottles, 2 onions and a rotting apple. Yay. Too bad you "didnt have time for" that diamond encrusted retalq knife that you tripped over when you walked in the door.


Like i said, i love your idea, but, for one, its something that even if it were contemplated and allowed, probably would literally not happen in at least 10 years. Real life years. Thats a pretty HUGE if too.

[celticdark]

Originally Posted by extraha

Lets say, you ONLY can take X amount of items from a room, per visit (rply like, time constraints, you only have time to grab x number of items before you book it)

i know people that can clear your entire house in no time at all, its not how much time youve got its how much you can carry

[extraha]

Originally Posted by celticdark

i know people that can clear your entire house in no time at all, its not how much time youve got its how much you can carry

Thats not the point. My point was a mechanical "balance" so that fluffwise the reason you could ONLY get x amount of items is because "in 2 minutes" the guard is going to come and catch you. I meant that you would be unable to pick up any further items in the room, and then be forced into the hallway, where a guard comes and shuts/locks the door and reports a break in. I just didnt go into all that detail :P

[britta]

I wouldn't support anything like that, unless the size of items you carry would be included in with weight. Just because three kitchen tables (unrealistically) weighs like five pounds, doesn't mean a character could actually carry three kitchen tables and eight chairs. Not that they couldn't carry the weight, but the bulk. I've seen rooms emptied of like unrealistic amounts of items by one or two people. That's asinine.

[Vladmir]

Originally Posted by celticdark

i know people that can clear your entire house in no time at all, its not how much time youve got its how much you can carry

Yeah, burglaries aren't exactly precise art. Get in, grab as much crap as looks valuable and get out before the cops show up. Usually more likely to use a crowbar than a lockpick, too.

The ones the local cops have trouble catching are the ones who make sure and go for houses where the folks aren't there and won't be back for awhile.

Or they're not from around here and specifically drove to the area to rob something and then leave; don't shit where ya' live, as Tony Soprano would say.

The stupid ones try to rob places like the Housing Authority office or a business on the main drag where there's lots of lights and people can see you.

That usually ends up with nightsticks being involved. Or tasers.

Places like motels and such, at least the ones that aren't rat traps, usually don't have much trouble because by definition, there's ALWAYS someone there, and usually someone awake.

It'd be silly to try and rob an inn room in Iridine because if the alarm got raised, all the owner has to do is bar the entrances and trap the thief inside. No escape, then.

[Mizzy]

I could like it IF the risks were big enough. High successes, massive penalties for being caught, not ALL rooms pick able (but who knows which ones?)
Hard to obtain skills needed for inn room locks?
Maybe if the penalty for being caught was something like losing a hand (dominant hand, halving your ranks?) or something. If it was just a case of short jail time and/or minimum fine then I can't see it being a great addition. I'm babbling mostly because I'm making a pie.

[Vladmir]

I'm against it. Mostly because whatever mechanical system you can come up with to provide 'security', someone will find a way to easily sneak through/bypass/cheat around, whatever.

They will then wait until 2 a.m. when like ten people are logged on, three of whom are their buddies, and filch an entire inn, repeating anytime the opportunity presents itself. Then, someone else would learn how to do it, and the problem would escalate until there was no real point to even having an inn room.

Some ass like Dink would probably add dog killing to the mix, too.

This is why you can't pick inn room doors anyway.

Though, in the efforts of providing constructive criticism, if you actually talked them into implementing this...why not just put bars for the doors on the inside of inn rooms for people to put in place when they were inside.

Ya' can't really pick that...so if you're home, and you remembered to bar the door, they ain't getting in.

This is actually what I assume causes inn room locks to be unpickable, incidentally. It's just that the mechanics don't actually require us to remember bar the door or to pull the 300 pound chest over in front of it.

[Euphelia]

I remember when no one would rent from the place in Vet, because the doors were so easy to unlock.

[Elsana]

Originally Posted by Euphelia

I remember when no one would rent from the place in Vet, because the doors were so easy to unlock.

This is in line with my thoughts on it.
If some of the inns were extremely cheap, but it was possible for a locksmith to break into the rooms, I could see it working.

I'm not really for or against it, really. When I first started playing this game, I thought locksmithing would be cool because helping people get into rooms was the entire appeal. I wasn't even thinking of robberies, either. I thought, for whatever reason, that losing keys was common or they broke after a while or something. Locksmithing, next to healing and other non-coms, was VERY interesting in my head.

If anything I'm more for it, simply because I'm pro-locksmithing additions. As I recall, though, they're presently working on locksmithing.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Vladmir

I'm against it. Mostly because whatever mechanical system you can come up with to provide 'security', someone will find a way to easily sneak through/bypass/cheat around, whatever.

They will then wait until 2 a.m. when like ten people are logged on, three of whom are their buddies, and filch an entire inn, repeating anytime the opportunity presents itself. Then, someone else would learn how to do it, and the problem would escalate until there was no real point to even having an inn room.

Under the idea I proposed, this wouldn't be a problem. You would literally just have to sleep in your inn room to provide very effective protection. Everything else is automatic.

But I'm more interested in whether or not the playerbase thinks using lockpicking as a means of unlocking doors for robberies is something that can EVER work in TEC?

I want to know if we can come up with something. I personally think we could devise a system that makes it fair and risky enough, but the question is will it ever be worth it? Will it be too abusable? Will the risk ever be equal to the reward?

What do you think?

[Vladmir]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Under the idea I proposed, this wouldn't be a problem. You would literally just have to sleep in your inn room to provide very effective protection. Everything else is automatic.

The 'automatic' effective protection, I think, is why this really won't work that well. As I said in my previous post, if online game populations have proven nothing else, they've shown that any kind of safeguard mechanics will be insufficient. Someone will find an exploit and take advantage of it.

I get the IDEA of providing a challenging obstacle course for nefarious cat burglars made more challenging when the person is actually IN their inn room. I just don't have faith that it can be made to work where no one can figure out a way to exploit the mechanics so that the challenge isn't really there.

But I'm more interested in whether or not the playerbase thinks using lockpicking as a means of unlocking doors for robberies is something that can EVER work in TEC?

I honestly don't think so, for several reasons. One is what I've already mentioned.

Another is that some jerk can break into your room, take your hard-earned collectibles, with you having no direct way of stopping them. Yet another reason for people to not play TEC. There are people who role-play so deeply that being robbed ICly doesn't bother them at all, but I believe they're rare (and not always as fun to play with as you might think.)

Third, there's only so many inn rooms in Iridine, and you an I both know that every single guy who likes to play a crook -- the good ones that'll role-play demanding your money and ordering you to keep your hands away from your weapon to the guys who jack AFK folk by preference -- would learn locksmithing and start robbin' crap.

There would, again, be no reason to ever rent an inn room. It'd be a pointless exercise. Unless you introduced barred doors and such, but that'd wind up removing the ability to burglarize...

...and I dislike the idea of providing the ability to burglarize while not providing a very simple, effective countermeasure. Pickpockets endlessly gripe about sagums, though, so burglars would bitch about barred doors and such as well.

I want to know if we can come up with something. I personally think we could devise a system that makes it fair and risky enough, but the question is will it ever be worth it? Will it be too abusable? Will the risk ever be equal to the reward?

What do you think?

I personally feel that allowing inn rooms that may be burglarized by those with the locksmithing skill would harm the game far in excess of the benefit provided to the players.

[roadstrom]

Originally Posted by Rupert

We have a Pickpocketing skillset. We have a locksmithing skillset. We have plenty of criminals, and a lack of variety in crime. I'm sure everyones dreamed of being able to break into inn-rooms with their locksmith character at some point. But how do you make that fair for everyone?

sigh

There's at least one in every crowd.