My Thief, recently awoken from another long slumber (some 3 years) has noticed that even other thieves now seem to take an active roll in dissuading him stealing from other adventurers. As everybody and seems to be much higher level then him, the pickings are hard to get by, and he still respects the old code and avoids stealing from Empaths or Clerics while they are rezzing.

It seems that as the community has dwindled, most everybody is friends or palls with most everybody else. Those relationships are put over the Guild by some thieves I've been finding around. I was recently thumped for stealing from an empath. The thumper was another thief. The victim did not caught me. The thief was not the spouse of the donor. The action was not even in a healing area, and THE EMPATH IN QUESTION WAS NOT USING ANY TITLES, OR ITEMS THAT POINTED OUT HIS CHOSEN GUILD. When I looked and marked him (which I always do) I thought he was a well to do Trader.

Some new blood will hopefully be coming soon into DR. Lets not be yak-orifices and roleplay as Guildmates. It includes tough love, of course. But lets do try to roleplay a criminal organization whereas guild rules are first (we may need to explain the guild rules again) and guildmates are only second to family (if at all).

Madman

>>I'm Not fine with the whole idea of being set to "open" when you don't get caught.

Thieves don't need, and shouldn't be coddled. Personally I think all thieves should be set Guarded+ similar to Necros. We're a guild of criminals.

There are still thieves out there that respect the guild as a whole over the individual, though you'll have to earn that respect from a lot of them. Just because you joined the thief Guild doesn't mean you're worth a damn in my Thieves Guild.

>Stealing/PvP Open argument

This is been gone over many times now, and has been in place for well over a year at this point. Most people think it is fair, and the ones who do not don't steal from PCs anymore. It's not changing, and in fact more actions are going to be set up like stealing/gweth-smashing are now.

My advice is to do some research on E-pedia to find out what has changed, and what is about to change, and hook up with some guilded Thieves to find out what's going on in the guild.

For the most part the old code and all the RP is dead, outside of a few people. If you want to try and revive the past, be my guest, and good luck.

I steal from players all the time. Usually if you hit a busy room, people won't even see through the scroll that you stole from someone else. Just be sure to move on pretty quickly if you get caught or if someone else notices you. Sucks that you got thumped by a guild mate, seems out of line to me on his part even if you did steal from an empath. Not enough players to be picky and skip the empaths either. Just be extra careful not to get caught, if you value getting healed.

Would love to see more "thick as thieves" type camaraderie in the guild, I miss that too. Hopefully post 3.0, stealing/thievery will get revamped for PC and NPC stealing and will make it a bit more relevant.

I will make one post on this subject, mainly because I know it's going to turn into an exercise in head bashing/face palming.

The main problem you seem to have with this, is you view being set to open as a punishment for stealing from other players. This is a fallacy. It is the system being able to automatically represent your PVP stance accurately. You are engaging in willful Player (You) vs Player (your mark) conflict. This is the price for doing business.

I'll leave up to you to figure out why you think PvP Open is a punishment. Hint. It has more to do with general behavior than most are willing to admit.

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TG, TG, GL, et al.

"Disagreement with the fundamental plan at this point is akin to supporting Richard III vs the Tudors."
-Raesh

The system, however, is by-passing the stealth fact that is part of the Thief Guild. The system is bypassing the reason for look, mark, decide, that a roleplaying thief would use. The system in by-passing the difference between an stealthy move and a blatant, miscalculated, misguided or wrecked by bad luck one.

The stealthy, lucky, measured thief, is set for PvP Guarded, willing to play, role play, conflict and conflict resolution. The unlucky, greedy, grieffer thief, that is caught by anyone but another guild-mate, is ratted out and is high season for him for, at least, the next 4 hours of game time. RUn and hide, go and sin no more, eccetera, eccetera, eccetera...

I am talking from the point of view of role-playing. I do not think that DragonRealms has given up on the role-playing nature of the game.

Ex-Madman

DragonRealms is a RolePlaying game, it has been stated all the way up to Solomon. So your correct there.

The part your having a problem is, this isn't just a Thief (guilded Thief) setup. You steal from other characters, your engaging in PvP conflicts. Your PvP stance should already be OPEN, but if it isn't the game will set it open for you. This was already part of the Gweth-smashing (which again does it regardless of whether one is successful in smashing the gweth).

There will be other actions that will go this way.

And as pointed out by others, this isn't a penalty, it just is the system recognizing the manner of your playing, and moving you into the appropriate category. If you do not wish to be part of the PvP Open group, cease stealing from other Player's Character(s), and after a certain amount of time you'll be allowed to rechoose another PvP stance you'd like to.

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"I think anything that forces you to do something no sane adventurer would do just in order to train is ridiculous."
DR-SOCHARIS

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Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

"My thief is open 24/7 and still player steals on occasion. Haven't been killed randomly once yet, haven't been caught stealing and killed either for that matter."

If you have not been randomly killed once yet, I guess the role-playing is alive. I hope the reason is that people are interested in role-playing, and not that no one you've met happens to be roleplaying a serial murderer. I'll see.

Roleplaying and code limitations permitting... A. player steals from a character set as PvP CLOSED, gets PvP OPEN, no matter if he was caught or not.
B. player steals from a character set as PvP GUARDED or OPEN, if caught, gets set at PvP OPEN, is successfully stealthy, PvP GUARDED.

Sounds weird?

Ex-Madman

<<you are starting a conflict with someone else that doesn't want to conflict. So turn about is fair play. If you want to steal coin (a mild form of an attack) from a player, then you shouldn't mind someone else stealing (killing you) your experience.>>

However, what everyone seems to be missing is the historical issue of stealing within the guildhall. It used to be that "open pockets" was the rule inside the guild, and people would steal there to determine
1. pecking order
2. training -perception/stealing
3. socializing - thief style.

In the guildhall itself, it wasn't done to promote conflict - people knew not to bring coins in there. Even Newbies. <or they learned the ropes quickly>

I still don't think you should get set to open if you steal in the guildhall. Although the new place isn't quite the same, and nobody hangs out there anymore.

An arisen dummy zombie bellows, "You will all be ssslaughtered!"
>

I don't buy the roleplaying angle for this argument. If you successfully steal, there isn't any interaction, and your PvP stance doesn't matter anyways. It's only when you get caught that the potential for real roleplay emerges, and the PvP open flags reflects your status as a criminal.

Can someone just log on a bought HLC and murder you without interaction? Sure, which sucks. But you're engaging in unconsented aggression by stealing from other players, them's the brakes.

"If you shoot at someone that's open/guarded/closed and miss does that mean they don't have consent?"

You were seeing, thus the consent comes not from hitting or missing, but from the in game public action of being seen.
The only secret attack I have read about (which from what I read the victim may not know who committed it) is related to things that the Thirteen consider abomination, thus, in RolePlaying terms the OPEN season signal can be interpreted as a Mark of the gods that is apparent to any who seek it (a reverse of the mark of Cain that pointed out to the dammed condition of Cain but at the same time brought him protection from retribution).

All I am saying, is give stealth a chance.

Ex-Madman

P.S. I appreciate the lessons on the state of the guild, roleplaying and game mechanics that I am getting with all your answers. Thanks for your time.
Carlos

>The only secret attack I have read about (which from what I read the victim may not know who committed it) is related to things that the Thirteen consider abomination, thus, in RolePlaying terms the OPEN season signal can be interpreted as a Mark of the gods that is apparent to any who seek it (a reverse of the mark of Cain that pointed out to the dammed condition of Cain but at the same time brought him protection from retribution).

There is nothing correct here.

Magic snipe is a necromancer spell. You got that.

Gods, necromancy, mark-of-cain, whatever else has less than nothing to do with PvP, stances, or the price of arugala in argentina in the winter.

You're not just wrong, you're agressively wrong and clearly don't understand the systems in place, or that the boards are entirely OOC. Please go read about the systems you're discussing.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

>>while a stealthy attack by a thief involving an action that not all of the thirteen find detestable,

Is this code for sniping? You're talking about sniping, aren't you. Guys, I think he's talking about sniping. Oh god, I think the cat's out of the bag now. Next thing you know, people will find out about khri and we'll all be done for.

>>only have a PvP OPEN change in profile if caught (thus not done stealthy) or, stealthy or not, if against a character whose player chose to be PvP CLOSED.

No. And...no. Just no. As has been mentioned repeatedly just in this thread alone, the changing of your stance is not meant as punishment for your actions or your failure to perform said actions within the spirit of the guild. It's simply to make sure that your stance reflects your CURRENT playstyle. If you're robbing and SNIPING (OH GOD, SOMEONE SAID SNIPING) people left and right, then you are clearly acting conflictually, if only for a short time.

If you steal from someone, and aren't caught, no one knows you were locked OPEN. No one will scream OMG THAT PERSON IS NOW OPEN!!! No one is monitoring your profile.

Carry on your day. It will revert back after it's done. There are plenty of PVP open people, you will get lost in the crowd.

Necromancers can also be locked open. It's not the end of the world.

Stealing is intentional PVP no different than sniping. Both are stealth attacks. Trying to finess your way around it with terribad logic does not work. It's simple. Stealing teaches nothing, comparatively, to either player. The thief has no risk and all reward. The victim has no reward and all risk.

If you do not want to PVP do not PVP. Stealing is PVP. There is no grey area or buffer zone.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

The use of mark used to be encouraged as part of the guild being stealthy as well as part of avoiding conflicts. Young thieves were actively encouraged to use mark because getting caught would bring heat to the guild.

Players were criticized for not using mark, or repeatedly dipping in the pockets of easy marks so as to get caught and thus get into a conflict with another character. This worked specially well for high end grieffers who, before the present addition to PROFILE and the OPEN setting as a result of Player-Character stealing, could hide behind policy to limit the repercutions to the person they stole from (specially if no spouse was involved).

I defend mark because it was in line with being a stealth guild and in line with a pickpockets casing his "mark" before deciding to try to steal from a person or not.
I think that eliminating mark will bring about such a raise in conflicts between characters, deaths to starting thieves and the consequent strain in time for the GM's and the company that PC stealing will be removed or the guild eliminated. Some may see that as a good thing.

I believe that successfully stealthy actions should not cause your Profile to be Changed from Guarded to OPEN. My concern was about the impact in role-playing from random attacks, random attacks being those brought from people whose only reason for attacking is that the policy allows them to. Marking and stealthy stealing is how a guilded thief used to be expected to role-play. Blatant ones were not welcome. Random attacks based on policy (like nowadays "Your profile is set to open") were not encouraged in DR and from what I read here, it still isn't.

With luck I am the dumbest player of a thief character trying to return to DR. If the drive to bring people back, and to lure new players is successful, do have patience with them in debating or answering their question.

Thanks,
Carlos.

>>This worked specially well for high end grieffers who, before the present addition to PROFILE and the OPEN setting as a result of Player-Character stealing, could hide behind policy to limit the repercutions to the person they stole from (specially if no spouse was involved).

Let me give you an example of something I have seen before years ago, and why I feel this is a problem.

Thief steals from unbonded Empath multiple times. After doing so, he comes out and announces he has stolen several plats from her, slaps her, and begins to mock her incessantly for a period of ten minutes. Finally, someone gets fed up with it and attacks him, and then this lovely character reports and calls down a GM, accusing the attacker of unconsented aggression.

This winning character was not a roleplayer, but a griefer, and consistently used the tools of mark and stealth to pick only targets that had no hope of fighting back. These tools are tools of the trade, but they also enable aggression and abuse devoid of any consequence if used industriously (at least, they did before stealing locked you open).

Realize you are choosing to roleplay a brigand in a harsh feudal environment.

>>I believe that successfully stealthy actions should not cause your Profile to be Changed from Guarded to OPEN.

It's important to recognize that your profile being set to open isn't an IC response to your character's actions, but an OOC response that reflects how you are playing your character.

While it's commendable to play a non-hostile/aggressive character and work toward never being caught as a Thief, your stance as a player that steals from other players implies that you, as a player, are comfortable with creating conflict between other players (what with the stealing), even if that's not how your character, as a character profile, necessarily feels.

>>My concern was about the impact in role-playing from random attacks, random attacks being those brought from people whose only reason for attacking is that the policy allows them to.

It's important to recognize that stealing is seen as a random attack. If you're comfortable conflicting with people without provokation by robbing them, even if they don't know it's happening, then you have to acknowledge that you're comfortable having people randomly conflicting with you as well, and that conflict can be violent.

Consider this a reasonable compromise, since that the alternatives could be something like not being permitted to steal from people closed and/or risking a warning if you steal from someone who is guarded, which is how things generally work with regular PvP. Stealing gets a special exception where everyone is always open season to your aggressive action (stealing) no matter their stance, but the exchange for that exception is that you as a player have to accept that your actions imply that you're open to aggressive actions from anyone, as well.

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When in doubt, http://elanthipedia.org/

>>Personally maybe the GMs need to do this as well as what has already happened, because people don't seem to be able to act like adults.

There's enough policy playing that goes on, the last thing that needs to happen is to restrict another IC interaction through OOC means. There's already plenty of ways to avoid being stolen from, there doesn't need to be a literal off button for it.

Train up and get big enough that you can knock people's teeth out for interfering with the way you do business. Force meet greater force. Just one of those things, I'm afraid.

It's all about 'kickin ass and 'chewin bubblegum anymore. No one's gonna argue with a madman toting an AR-15.

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IM: Dannyboy00001111

"Fool proof system do not take into account the ingenuity of fools, nor the power of numbers."