Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

My idea was for watchmen to have the ability to toggle their title on and off, so that people will know when a watchmen is on duty and when one is not. That way when one needs to be contacted people will know who to contact and it will allow for the roleplay to continue.

I'm not sure I fully approve of this notion of being on or off duty at any given time.

I think a major part of the problem you're addressing is that very few characters on FK are the nine-to-five job sort. Most are adventurers, who might also happen to be a merchant, a smith or a watchman. It's rare that one is fully devoted to a job, so we need to be prepared to fluff around it to a degree.

That said, something like being a member of the watch is a pretty weighty responsibility, and I'd hate for people to go turning that off if ever they didn't feel like acting when something comes up. If they're in the Undermountain at the time then that's fine - they can say as much, and either try to get back as quickly as possible or go on with their adventuring. That's a wholly IC decision for them though, as I'd say it reflects directly on their job performance

However - if there's only one watchman online and they're flagged as 'off duty', I would fully expect people to contact them anyway. If there's someone else online and the 'off duty' person gets contacted course, he can direct the enquiry to the watchman who -is- on duty. Really there's no IC way you're going to know which one to contact in the first place anyway without asking!

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's one we can justify bringing in when many people are likely to simply ignore it.

I don't have a watchman, so I'm no authority on the subject, but from what I've seen in the past is that if a watchman is on duty, they'll be wearing their badge. If they are off duty, they won't. If that's the case (and I'm reasonably sure it is), then we already have a means of knowing whether or not a watchman is on or off duty.

Okay heres the deal guys, basically a Watchman is on full time duty unless otherwise stated which means he will go on patrol from time to time in full uniform and be prepared to accept calls/questions. Then there is situational duty which comes up quite often, this is when a Watchman reacts to a situation that he/she has seen happen or has been notified of (fair enough if you are Tantras and someone contacts you to say "Hey someone has left a horse in the street" you can let it go) normally full duty watchmen are required to respond to both of these, Watchmen only on situational or part-time duty only wear the badge when they are needed.

The advantage I see here is that IF a Watchman is on patrol rounds, that is, "on duty," that will be obvious from the WHO list (which people generally consult when they need the Watch). They will be the default for people to contact, including new players who don't personally know anyone on the Watch, or PCs who don't actually know that particular Watchman. As it is, that on-duty patrolman may not learn of the need at all, and some Watch member not on active duty, often not even in Waterdeep, will be contacted instead, if they are online and the person needing help knows them.

Yevel suggested special titles (I would suggest NOT white) be used for other publicly known functions, like the Watch. I think that's a great idea. In the case of the Watch, when a Watchman is on patrol duty (i.e. RPing rounds of the City in hopes of engaging in some kind of more interesting Watch RP), they wear their badge. This would cause their race to change to, say, a purple "WATCHMAN" or something similar, advertising to any member of the public needing the aid of the Watch that they are the first person they should contact, allowing miscreants to know that someone is on patrol rounds (so if they want to do a miscreant RP, this is a good time for it), and making it public hearsay that so-and-so is a member of the Watch. This could be abused by miscreants hoping to avoid the Watch, but in my experience most of them want to have an RP encounter with the Watch. They can already mis-use the WHO list to this effect for the most part anyway.

That is exactly the idea I was having in mind. Also I believe if people see Watchmen out and about they may be like hey! I think itd be cool to be on the watch and maybe have some people try to be a watchmen.