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While discussing about thieves and stealing was suggested the idea of creating a player-run thieves guild, and although it seems a fine idea, there are many details that should be taken in consideration.

City-based or does it extend through all Faerun?
Alignment restrictions?
Requisites to be accepted?

My opinion is that if there is a global thieves guild in Faerun that is the Shadow Thieves, but this organization could be considered "too evil" to some, although I believe that it is still "less evil" than the Zhentarim.

Feel free to comment.

There exist a number of player run thieves guilds already. These include the Spy Guild, The Shadow Thieves and the Night Masks.

Unfortunately, they share a problem in common with many of our player run organisations. A lack of players to run them/recruit for them/promote them.

Not all are dormant, but most lack the figurehead player(s) who administer them.

The term 'guild' is misleading. What was suggested was more of a council, like the rangers' council, whereby new players of the rogue class can be given a proper IC grounding and the responsibilities of having the 'steal' skill can be drummed into them. So as the ranger council aims to ensure new rangers are properly IC, so the rogues council would be.

There was some suggestion of players only being given a 'steal' skill that works on PCs once they had been given the nod by this council in an effort to reduce (or eliminate) the number of poorly executed steals.

That said, it still relies on having someone around to run it!

I'd be more than willing to join the council if we start a new thieves guild. I play this MUD A LOT, if it is a problem I've yet to make a thief character but thats been my #1 priority right from the get-go...

About the Thieves Guild...

I think that there should be a channel, sort of like ASK, where thieves can ask about how to RP a thief, should I steal this... Whenever you use this channel someone in the council will reply.

Why I think that having a channel is a good idea is because its like the authorization process for new characters, except instead of the MUD authorizing your name, it authorizes your right to steal. So what would happen is the thief would say something along the lines of 'can I steal this, here is my reason why I want it' then someone from the council will either say 'Yes you may' or 'No you may not' If possible, a person from the council could go to the thief and watch the thieving be RPed out, or make sure they stole the right item or whatnot.

You wouldn't be able to steal while you were unauthed. You become unauthed again once you steal the item you said you were going to steal. If you were to steal an item or lie about why you wanted to steal the item then you would be punished.

All characters with the 'steal' skill will gain access to this channel

Alvirin wrote:While discussing about thieves and stealing was suggested the idea of creating a player-run thieves guild, and although it seems a fine idea, there are many details that should be taken in consideration.

City-based or does it extend through all Faerun?
Alignment restrictions?
Requisites to be accepted?

My opinion is that if there is a global thieves guild in Faerun that is the Shadow Thieves, but this organization could be considered "too evil" to some, although I believe that it is still "less evil" than the Zhentarim.

Feel free to comment.

City-based or all cross Faerun? I think they should be secretive, maybe small outposts throughout the continent in/out of cities and the main guild-hall should be somewhere in a secretive spot.

Alignment restrictions? Nope

And before I continue we need to think of the purpose of the guild, what would the story of the guild be?

Would any thief be allowed to join? Or would it be only thieves that excel in stealing? Would it be assassin based thieves? I think it should be neutral guild though if we start a new one, so everyone may join.

I like the idea of the council however, I do not like the channel and authing idea. That's suffocating the player too much IMO. Plus the player council is there to answer all questions and there are players on there that know about theives or have ways of gaining the info the player is asking about them. When you use ask, you get a team, not a person.

I like the idea of the council in that perhaps you must speak and learn from a member before gaining access to the quests that teach skills such as steal.

I feel the ranger council was around to enforce that players knew what the role of a ranger in faerun is before allowing the player to make his PC one. That being, a council that ensures players at least know what rangers are suppose to be before they become one.

With this council, i feel the motivations revolve around a specific command - steal. Rogues can be role played as pretty much anything, where there are certain aspects of the ranger class that generally need to be adhered to. I think concreting the rules on who you can steal from, and how to go about using the steal command properly out of character - would more appropriately address the concerns than a player run council to psuedo in character'ly teach the player how to use the command responsibly.

When focusing on an OOC aspect of the game, I feel it should be addressed out of character - not in character. But that certainly doesn't mean this couldn't work.

Judging from the replies I've read, and I may be misinterpreting them, it seemed that the problem with steal was that its misuse wasn't down to OOC ignorance. I thought the rules already were pretty solid from reading through the logs of the discussions held with Cyric on the issue.

The council could be more of a barrier that prevents people who don't appear to be primarily motivated by RP reasons from getting access to such a potentially damaging skill; ie. you don't prove you're responsible, you don't get access to Psteal. Yes it's fudging the OOC/IC a bit but... I kinda think it would be worth it.

K, lets find a solution to the problem

1) We've learned that there are a lot of what people call bad thieves...
2) We've learned thieves steal 'too much' and therefore they are putting players in a position they don't wanna be in

How should we deal with the problem

People think a council sounds great

What should a council do to find a solution to the problem?

Now then, here are my questions.

What did the Ranger's Guild/council do to fix the mind-set of bad ranger's, and should we do the same with bad thieves?

EDIT: Are we making another ranger's guild? Just curious

I think a solution is to turn psteal into pkill. Psteal would be like murder. Steal and kill work on mpc's and psteal/murder work on PC's. Same rules that apply to pkills apply to psteal. A way out from the rp must be provided, before the command is used sufficient RP must partake and if not, expect the consequences that apply to un-RP'ed murders.

Japcil wrote:I think a solution is to turn psteal into pkill. Psteal would be like murder. Steal and kill work on mpc's and psteal/murder work on PC's. Same rules that apply to pkills apply to psteal. A way out from the rp must be provided, before the command is used sufficient RP must partake and if not, expect the consequences that apply to un-RP'ed murders.

I completely agree with this, I just need to know how you RP stealing stuff, I'm going to make a thief soon, and if I ever decide I want to steal I want to know how to RP it out

Well the truth is there is a host of rules that go along with Psteal... and a host of rogues who do not care and a host of people who no matter how well the psteal rules are followed STILL complain.

AS for player run guilds, aside from what happens when a guild leader is no longer playing... I see this as the issue: The player in charge has complete control over membership and often (I think) many potential members are over-looked because the one player in charge has no RP with them or is on at different times. Also, they are fairly secretive guilds so noone knows how to go about getting noticed, invited, etc (or worst case scenario... they are a player disliked OOCly by the guild leader and it effects the IC RP.)

I feel more player run guilds are not necessarily a good thing... there are plenty around good and bad for more than just rogues... ( everything from Harpers and Zhents to Spies and Shadow thieves) and it seems to me very little RP involving large numbers is generated from them ( though I could be wrong and I am certain if I am I will be corrected! lol )

Done
Banna

I am adamantly against anything that involves gaining approval from other pcs to be a class with the exception of Paladins, Antipaladins and assassins if they ever came into the game.

For the points Shabanna has listed, players aren't on at the same time or the leaders simply lose interest. The fact that rogues are rp'd very differently and there is the whole OOC I don't like so and so and I don't want them in my guild.

I hate that one needs approval from the ranger council in order to now become that class. There aren't enough on the council on regularily enough for this to be viable and some say a ranger is some others may not agree not to mention it's contradictory to have a council for free spirits it makes little sense. I can understand the need for teaching ppl how to rp the class, that is when an elder ranger should take x aside and teach them the ropes, or have ooc classes for that matter.

Helm used to hold rp classes periodically to help people improve their rp. This is something perhaps someone should take up again.

Well I have to say... RP classes sounds bleh to me.

RP style is very personal... my choices are different than X's choices and I think trying to micro manage every single thing a player does is annoying.

As for the ranger council, I do not have a ranger, but my elf is often mistaken for one cause she plays with rangers. I agree that the council has the problem of lack of members who now log. But, then... I would assume as with any council they will eventually replace the ones who fail to logfor a great deal of time. I have seen a couple of them on on a regular basis and I know for a fact that at least 3 senior rangers are on regularly for the care and feeding of young rangers... I do not currently know of ranger wannabees who are totally neglected unless they are in market square looking for a ranger As a hint...not many on the ranger council would be found in the city much.

Also, for a ranger trainee... as long as you complete all the tasks you are given by a senior ranger you will eventually become a ranger... it is not a " i dont like X player" sort of thing. It seems to me... to be run more like a faith so that a person is taught what is expected of them as a ranger. Unlike a player run guild which would be for a person who was already a particular class trying to get involved simply for RP the rangers are a class and so long as a person completes the required steps they are made a ranger ( it is not the kind of situation where you have to be invited... like a guild) You seek out the rangers and RP... and you will eventually become a ranger. Look at it like a Paladin...you are expected to follow a specific set of guidelines...and learn about the Rangers and what is expected from them.

Though I would say... if people stop logging who are in the council... and are gone for a very long time with no reasonable explanation.... they should be replaced after x amount of time since it is an integral part of the ranger RP.

I hope that was not too stream of consciousness

Banna

I think player run guilds are cool, but what I would love to see is the resurgance of present organizations.
If some new people were put in charge of the Shadow Thieves and the Night Masks... that would be awesome. There are a lot of thieves running around these days and I'm sure that there are some (including myself) who not only would love to see this, but who also log enough to be available to help make it happen.

That would be why I spent November reviewing the organisations....

Just a little while longer for me to get back to that task and start things moving for the individual groups.

Wait, Kelevor... Did you just say you were my Hero?
That's what I though you said.

Do you have any idea what that's going to look like? Or is it confidential classified.

Travis wrote:Do you have any idea what that's going to look like? Or is it confidential classified.

Please see
http://www.gallwey.com/fk/board/viewtopic.php?t=7478
and related posts in general discussion.