Legends of the Jedi Forums General Chat `JAIL_GUIDELINES` mandated RP concerns and proposed rule change
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    • George Stephanis Participant
      October 9, 2015 at 8:54 pm #27045

      Background from 2012: Changes 862 and http://www.legendsofthejedi.com/forums/topic/prisoners-and-roleplay/

      As with all things, guidelines and rules tend to be a pendulum, especially when balancing the rights of two parties in a conflict.

      The current rules instituting mandated roleplay with prisoners was enacted three and a half years ago, and rightly so, as prisoners often were neglected in cells by various clans, and couldn’t get the time of day from their captors.

      I feel that the balance of power has shifted somewhat unfairly now in favor of the prisoner.

      The current jail_guidelines are interpreted by the RPC such that a prisoner can demand that someone come roleplay with them at any time, as frequently as the prisoner desires — barring an IC emergency.

      This puts the entire jailing clan at the mercy of a jailed character, and can have several unfortunate side effects:

      • Higher likelihood of capital punishment. If this is the circumstance, it is far easier for a clan to decide to perm a prisoner (if they have sufficient justification) than to decide to imprison them.
      • IC emergencies. While the helpfile states that players don’t need to respond if there is an IC emergency at the time, clan channels do not work in jail cells. So, should an IC emergency come up while a prisoner is being roleplayed with, the jailing player will never know, and the odds of this increase significantly with the frequency of mandated roleplay with a prisoner.
      • War of Attrition by Prisoners. If one or multiple characters are in prison and constantly demand continual roleplay, it can serve as a DoS (denial of service) attack on the clan, continually reducing the number of characters that the clan has available to respond to other purposes or put toward more productive uses. This is further exacerbated by the fact that combat personnel are typically those that need to deal with prisoners, should they turn violent.

      Proposed Rule Change:

      Prisoners are entitled to and guaranteed a base of 1 hour per day of roleplay with individuals of the jailing clan. Jailing clans are naturally encouraged to spend more time with prisoners if so desired, but are not compelled to do so.

      Jailing clans are encouraged to log time in and time out on message terminals for prisoners, so that this can be tracked and communicated between characters.

      Gains of this rule change:

      Prisoners rightly deserve regular roleplay from the jailing clan. However, the current system puts jailing clans at the perpetual disposal of prisoners — a rather unusual position of privilege that feels something like the opposite of what is meant to be a punishment. Enacting this rule change would still guarantee interaction with the jailing clan, but would ensure that prisoners are not allowed to abuse this rule to in effect keep a member of the jailing clan out of commission for so long as they want.

    • Kirash Participant
      October 9, 2015 at 9:14 pm #27049

      I can get behind this. I’ve been party to many a major that got continuously harassed by prisoners demanding RP mere minutes after they already got their RP or just spamming the RP button for the lulz. There really does need to be a balance between the needs of the prisoner and the needs of the clan. Yes, being in jail sucks and can be boring, but you got caught. Deal with it.

    • Paco Participant
      October 9, 2015 at 10:35 pm #27050

      Is this something that is being enforced?

      I definitely recall myself, and other RPC members telling people in jail that asking for RP excessively will more likely than not be met with a less than enthusiastic response from the jailing clan, nine times out of ten. Though, I feel like that’s one of those “be it on your grave” situations that we, as players, can choose to get ourselves involved in (or not).

      All that being said, I know for a fact we’ve told people who go overboard with the button that they are more likely than not being ignored. And when someone asks how much this prisoner has been RP’d with we tell them.

    • Zeromus Participant
      October 9, 2015 at 11:37 pm #27051

      I don’t think players should be limited from requesting RP at all. The character is receiving an IC punishment. The player is not receiving an OOC punishment. You’re already allowed to say no to RPing with a prisoner, there’s a reason we tell you to tell us if you ARE or ARE NOT going to RP with them.

      This is the standard message we send to clans:

      *[Zeromus]( obnoxiously ): [Incoming message from the (R|P|C)]: prisoner requesting rp, please let us know if you ARE or ARE NOT going to see to them

      I don’t understand where you think things are fairly weighted in favor of prisoners unless you’re legitimately being a jerk on an OOC level to someone. We only ask so we can let them know so they can log out if nobody is coming.

    • coffinc Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 12:48 am #27056

      Your logic about ‘They’re more inclined to perm’ is concerning. Don’t do this. It’s bad, and you’re bad if you do. Jail and death are not the only outcomes. Release/Rule 4 has worked great for many clans in the past. Lots of cops grab a punk by the collar, shake him up, and toss him back out on the concrete with a ‘Quit wasting your life.’

      IC emergencies: Fringe case, at best. If you’re smart, you told someone you were going in the cells. If your clan’s smart, they come get you. “But CoffinC, it’s an emergency, what a strain!” It’s really not. Move quickly. If people aren’t asleep, it takes you just a few seconds to get to your jail and grab them. If literally no one is around to maybe come get you? Might be a bad idea to go in anyway.

      Attrition: I’d still feel this was a fringe case, but if it’s not, your ‘1 hour mandatory roll play’ per day is just as likely to wrap up your clan members.

      I don’t disagree there are some chars who maybe want RP more frequently. Frankly though, I think the problem with Jailing stems really from something else.

      If people took certain things less for granted, like stunning and stripping someone naked then throwing them in a cell, the jailed person might feel less inclined to want their pound of flesh back from you in the way of RP. You just physically assaulted someone to the point of bloody unconsciousness. You then forced them to get totally naked with no privacy. If you aren’t the Empire, you probably at least give a smidgen of a shit about players viewing you positively. Maybe, just maybe, if you treated other chars more like sentient beings and less like pieces of dirt, they’d be more cooperative/less obnoxious in jail.

      Then again, yeah, some are flat out whacko.

    • Kirash Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:00 am #27057

      While I agree that a certain level of decency is necessary, dare I say REQUIRED, when dealing with prisoners no matter if you are the Republic or the Empire or whatever, asking someone to come in quietly does not work with 90% of the characters out there. If said character is a combatant, then it jumps up to about 98%. They’ll either run or attempt to fight out of it while the arresting people sigh and extract that “pound of flesh” to use your euphemism. So really, it’s not the arresting person’s fault if the dude wants to be a douchebag unless the arresting person is likewise being a douchebag (in all fairness, also entirely probable).

    • George Stephanis Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:04 am #27058

      Zeromus said:

      This is the standard message we send to clans:

      *[Zeromus]( obnoxiously ): [Incoming message from the (R|P|C)]: prisoner requesting rp, please let us know if you ARE or ARE NOT going to see to them

      Not actually the case. Recently had messages coming from the RPC demanding to know not whether we were going to RP with the prisoner, but who was going to. The prisoner in question had been RP’d with at length several times already that day. When I inquired on rpc whether it was a ‘yes/no’ or a ‘go do it’ (pointing out that the prisoner had already been RP’d with at length that day), Claudius replied quoting help jail_guidelines:

      Barring an IC emergency, jailing clans are responsible for responding and providing roleplay to the prisoner.

      — a conversation I know that you’re aware of, as you replied shortly thereafter as well via the same rpc channel.

      So yeah, it kinda is a problem, and no, it’s not the RPC asking if we will RP with the prisoner, but y’all ordering us to, even when they have had hours of RP earlier in the day.

    • George Stephanis Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:08 am #27060

      Paco said:

      Is this something that is being enforced?

      I definitely recall myself, and other RPC members telling people in jail that asking for RP excessively will more likely than not be met with a less than enthusiastic response from the jailing clan, nine times out of ten. Though, I feel like that’s one of those “be it on your grave” situations that we, as players, can choose to get ourselves involved in (or not).

      All that being said, I know for a fact we’ve told people who go overboard with the button that they are more likely than not being ignored. And when someone asks how much this prisoner has been RP’d with we tell them.

      Yeah, it currently is. See my comment above. Current RPC seems to have a very different interpretation than yours.

    • George Stephanis Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:17 am #27063

      Let’s face it, in the end this comes down to the power of one character or group of characters over another. Over their time.

      I agree that prisoners are due roleplay, but they are not due unlimited control to demand the eternal attention of other players so long as their whim takes it. Not even free characters on the street have the right to demand someone come and pay attention to them.

      A simple limit for abusive edge cases would be very much appreciated. They’re still guaranteed at least 1 hour of roleplay per day, but not the right to demand the time and attention of other players for as long as their whim takes it.

      It’s a jail cell. The point is kinda to be boring and frustrating. To turn it into a room where you can summon servants at your whim to converse with and entertain you feels … disingenuous and abusive. Let’s apply a reasonable limit here, folks.

    • Zeromus Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:23 am #27065

      You know that quote I posted of what I said? I posted it from my log of my conversation with you, chief.

    • George Stephanis Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:35 am #27066

      Zeromus said:

      You know that quote I posted of what I said? I posted it from my log of my conversation with you, chief.

      I literally log every single line of text that I get from the mud. I just searched it, and that wasn’t anywhere in it.

      I’m thinking you may be thinking I’m not who you think I am?

      The convo that did happen was:

      [redacted clan ic][The Law]: [Incoming message from the (R|P|C)]: A prisoner is requesting RP but is unable to press the button. Please let us know who is going to get to (redacted gender).
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: Just — to clarify — is this a ‘we are required to rp with them’ or ‘they are available if we want them’ ? Because if it’s who I think it is, they got some pretty solid sessions this morning already.
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: And the ‘let us know who is going to get to (redacted gender)’ makes it sound like someone is required to, which doesn’t sound right.
      (R|P|C) Claudius says to you ‘Barring an IC emergency, jailing clans are responsible for responding and providing roleplay to the prisoner.’
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: It always used to be once per day was the required level. Now jailing clans are placed at the eternal whim of prisoners? That’s effed up, yo.
      (R|P|C) Koolaidman says to you ‘look at it from the prisoners perspective. I can only hit the button and get a response once a day. also it is worded that way bc people go “Oh, Noone is on who can talk to (redacted gender)” when it is everyone in the clans responsibility.’
      (R|P|C) Koolaidman says to you ‘Also, The (gender redacted) is bound, so at the very least please investigate that.’
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: Sure. And I know firsthand that (gender redacted) had well over an hour, maybe six hours back?
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: So (gender redacted)’s not hurting for interaction.
      (R|P|C) Zeromus says to you ‘we don’t care, rp with the prisoner. you’d be asking for it a bunch too if you were locked in a single room for days at a time.’
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: Was put in under a day ago. And that’s why it’s considered a punishment.
      (R|P|C) Zeromus says to you ‘if you don’t want to do it, find someone else. you don’t need to be an asshole OOCly just because someone may have broken the law ICly or you don’t like them ICly.’
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: Right, so discussing the merits of a guideline is now being an asshole. Wow. Okay.
      (R|P|C) Zeromus says to you ‘it is when you’re being an asshole about the guidelines, yeah’
      (R|P|C) Zeromus says to you ‘do you have any other questions’
      (R|P|C) [~~me~~]: Nope.

      (I’ve redacted all clan info and character names or identifying features, if I missed anything, apologies, let me know and I’ll further redact)

      But no, that quote you pasted? Never shows up in my log.

      What does? Yeah, I kinda think you mean the other thing.

    • KoolAidMan Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:36 am #27067

      Yeah, I specifically said Who, because the following scenario plays out all too often.

      “Noone is around who is authorized to contact the prisoner, so we aren’t going to see them”

      Your response was “Do we have to because if it is who I think it is, they were RP’d with 6 HOURS ago”.
      And what did I tell you? “Hey, he claims he was unbound, but is now bound. At the very least, you should investigate that. I didn’t tell you to go read him War and Peace. I have no idea the length or quality of the RP the prisoners get, unless said prisoner tells me about it.

      Here is how the process works.
      Prisoner pushes button->RPC gets a message saying said prisoner is requesting RP->RPC sends a message to the clan asking if anyone is going to tend to them, or lately who in order to reinforce that SOMEBODY needs to tend to them->RPC gets 0-X responses->RPC acknowledges responses if multiple people respond (at least we try to)->RPC sends message to prisoner saying “Someone is coming/No one is available”

      Heaven forbid a real human being whose character is suffering an IC punishment be spoken to more than once a day.

      It should have been made abundantly clear by now, that it is the entire jailing clans responsibility for the prisoner to be roleplayed with, and the excuse of “Only X and Y can see the prisoner”, in most cases (Barring something like an extremely dangerous character) doesn’t fly any more.

      One day YOU are going to be in jail. And I can almost guarantee that you would be thankful to get more than one mandated RP session a day.

      We are obviously watching for abuse, but the bottom line is if you don’t want to RP with the prisoners, don’t take prisoners.

      EDIT: And for love of fuck, Edit your damn posts instead of submitting responses to yourself
      EDIT2: The quote that Zero spoke of is his standard message. The reason it didn’t appear in your log this time is because I sent it, to reinforce (politely) that someone needed to tend to him. I normally send one that is nearly verbatim. Today I changed it slightly, because I thought “Hey saying /who/ might be a little shorter than if you ARE or ARE NOT”. Because I find that line to be rather confusing. Should I be expecting a bunch of “NOT ITS” and require everyone in the clan to respond? No. Saying /who/ should be clear whether someone is going to speak to them or not, and streamline the process.

    • George Stephanis Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:45 am #27072

      Also, I’m not sure where the RPC got the idea that prisoners can’t be bound in cells, or y’all can order clans to unbind prisoners in cells? Because that’s totally not a thing. I checked with Ralen earlier, after y’all were ordering us to unbind prisoners.

      [redacted clan][A Human male]( obnoxiously ): [Incoming message from the (R|P|C)]: stop leaving prisoners bound in cells
      [redacted clan][A Human male]( obnoxiously ): [Incoming message from the (R|P|C)]: we’ve talked to multiple people about this. please go into the cell and unbind the current prisoner. we’re not going to discuss it individually anymore, we’re just going to let the imms deal with it.

      ( IMM | CHAT )[~~me~~]: ‘Is there a mud rule that says that prisoners in cells may not be bound?’
      ( IMM | CHAT ) Ralen mortchats to you ‘No.’
      ( IMM | CHAT )[~~me~~]: ‘Cool. Could you ask the RPC to stop trying to order us to unbind prisoners?’

      — edit addition because KAM doesn’t like me adding consecutive replies —

      EDIT2: The quote that Zero spoke of is his standard message. The reason it didn’t appear in your log this time is because I sent it, to reinforce (politely) that someone needed to tend to him.

      Yeah, but he said explicitly otherwise. Scroll up. Or I’ll just paste it here for you:

      You know that quote I posted of what I said? I posted it from my log of my conversation with you, chief.

    • Zeromus Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:50 am #27076

      You bound him purely to keep him from requesting RP. The imms didn’t say anything to us. My councilmessage is from today, with you. I don’t know how you think editing your logs to prove a point is going to help but I’m bowing out of this because all you’re doing is making yourself look ridiculous.

    • KoolAidMan Participant
      October 10, 2015 at 1:50 am #27077

      I disagree with how Zeromus phrased it. I didn’t say there was or was not a rule.

      I don’t know where that came from. Which is why I asked, and you have logged, you to investigate it at the very least.

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