Roleplay Isolation Discussion

[Viscaria]

Hello! There is something that's been on my mind for a while and I would love to hear what the rest of the community thinks about it as well as any opinions on the matter, allow me to address the subject;

Roleplay Isolation, basically when a players character is placed into a state of isolation through different methods in-game, this means things such as 48 hour investigative holds, State Prison B Pod (female jail), Segregation, timezones and perhaps anything else I'm missing. Simply put, I'm not the biggest fan of putting peoples characters into a state where they generally have no one to roleplay with except the walls surrounding them, I don't feel like this is good for anyone's roleplay since roleplay is all about engaging with other players. There are well known problems that surround this, or cause it to happen such as there not being enough Correctional Officers online / on duty, tricky timezones when player-base is on the lower end, there very rarely being other female characters in county jail and more.

My question to everyone is what do you feel about these things?
Do you have any potential solutions that would be fair and make sense?
What would you change about the systems in place?
Do you have experiences with these things to share? Both positive and negative

I believe that changes can be made to improve the fun surrounding these things at times, I understand that almost all of these things in question are not meant to be fun in a real environment, but we must remember that we're all here to enjoy our time, they should have an impact by removing a characters freedom, but that shouldn't mean pure isolation in my opinion. Perhaps we could change 48 hour holds to be parole with ankle monitor for example, sure its not 100% realistic, but it would avoid character isolation.

Guidelines to follow before posting;

No faction bashing or calling out character / player names negatively
If your reply will be along the lines of "It is what it is" or "It's just one of those things" then it doesn't contribute to much
Keep it civil, this is a discussion and all opinions are welcome!

 

Quote

as a member of the division of adult parole operation's command team id like to invite female jail (or anyone for that matter) characters to reach out to me on discord at radreaper100 or airwalk or frakkennewguy for the sake of securing parole or probation in circumstances where you're imprisoned, or just want to interact with a case handler and parole agent more.

 

we can get you on the right track to start the process

Good progress to inform people that this exists, there's roleplay to be had here instead of a character having quite literally nothing to do!

Edited November 6, 2023 by Viscaria

[AnthonyCourtney]

48 hour investigative holds are not fine. First of all I'm not logging in to stare at a wall so they're useless, and second of all I don't trust any player here with the ability to interrupt somebody else's roleplay for 2 entire days. The only thing this achieves is depriving people of RP, it doesn't even really do anything much for the detectives.  Female jail is a lost cause, there will never be enough female criminal roleplayers to consistently populate an entire section of the prison - it's unfortunate but there's no way to fix this, the population will always fluctuate wildly. Mixing males/females would be stupid since it would not only be ridiculous, but it'd also just result in everybody serious about prison RP ignoring them anyway.

 

But prison isolation is just a necessary evil. There has to be a way to punish and segregate inmates who either can't behave or are, in character, too dangerous to let roam in general population. It's the easiest way to keep prison free of trolls - people who start shit eventually realize that it's not worth the time in isolation (where your sentence time should not go down). As an added bonus, trolls tend to fuck up and get themselves put in the hole very quickly, which also teaches them a lesson and makes prison a more pleasant place to be in.

 

 

[perico princess]

I agree, it isn't fun being jammed up in the female prison especially since we rarely get other inmates. I think we should have more activity within the prison with more guards or females doing time.

 

But if we can't achieve that, then we should be given an ankle monitor or role-play in the holding cells. I know I've only been given lots of time for petty crimes and I'm not going to roleplay for over a few hours to lessen a 3-10 day sentence I get, or spend money just to name change. We got more than enough LEOs and more than enough criminals I'm sure we find a solution that works for everyone.

[Viscaria]

1 minute ago, perico princess said:

I agree, it isn't fun being jammed up in the female prison especially since we rarely get other inmates. I think we should have more activity within the prison with more guards or females doing time.

 

But if we can't achieve that, then we should be given an ankle monitor or role-play in the holding cells. I know I've only been given lots of time for petty crimes and I'm not going to roleplay for over a few hours to lessen a 3-10 day sentence I get, or spend money just to name change. We got more than enough LEOs and more than enough criminals I'm sure we find a solution that works for everyone.

B pod is a real tricky one to find a good solution, it wouldn't be fair for female character to have lesser sentences than males, and if that were the case then there would be a rise in female characters which in turn might help towards populating the pod, but the loss of realism and fairness I don't believe would be worth it.

 

 

7 minutes ago, AnthonyCourtney said:

48 hour investigative holds are not fine. First of all I'm not logging in to stare at a wall so they're useless, and second of all I don't trust any player here with the ability to interrupt somebody else's roleplay for 2 entire days. The only thing this achieves is depriving people of RP, it doesn't even really do anything much for the detectives.  Female jail is a lost cause, there will never be enough female criminal roleplayers to consistently populate an entire section of the prison - it's unfortunate but there's no way to fix this, the population will always fluctuate wildly. Mixing males/females would be stupid since it would not only be ridiculous, but it'd also just result in everybody serious about prison RP ignoring them anyway.

 

But prison isolation is just a necessary evil. There has to be a way to punish and segregate inmates who either can't behave or are, in character, too dangerous to let roam in general population. It's the easiest way to keep prison free of trolls - people who start shit eventually realize that it's not worth the time in isolation (where your sentence time should not go down). As an added bonus, trolls tend to fuck up and get themselves put in the hole very quickly, which also teaches them a lesson and makes prison a more pleasant place to be in.

 

 

I agree that 48h holds definitely don't contribute much at all to roleplay, there needs to be some alternative in my opinion with them, and are there cases of characters being put on it due to LEO corruption? I'm not 100% certain on that but if that is the case I definitely don't think it should be allowed. Female jail is definitely a tricky one to solve, perhaps even impossible with the current state of things, I feel like there is a means to aid in this at least, I just don't know what that could be. I agree completely regarding SEG, I simply listed it as I could see it being a case of roleplay isolation, I've personally never even been in SEG because I play female characters, and there's no one to be segregated from 🤣

[Waldur]

I think it's a good thing, gives people time to contemplate and reflect on their character's life.

[pateuvasiliu]

Don't see the issue, there needs to exist punishment to cause SOME sort of fear/anxiety when committing a crime. We already see the result of traffic laws being a joke, everyone's blasting 120 mph through downtown because even if you hit someone and get arrested it's only a few days and a fine. The consequences are null.

 

Investigative holds are to investigate. You can avoid that by confessing/answering questions. If you take them away you might as well kill investigation rp, which is already doing very badly because of all the tools LEOs should have that they don't on GTAW.

[Viscaria]

23 minutes ago, pateuvasiliu said:

Don't see the issue, there needs to exist punishment to cause SOME sort of fear/anxiety when committing a crime. We already see the result of traffic laws being a joke, everyone's blasting 120 mph through downtown because even if you hit someone and get arrested it's only a few days and a fine. The consequences are null.

 

Investigative holds are to investigate. You can avoid that by confessing/answering questions. If you take them away you might as well kill investigation rp, which is already doing very badly because of all the tools LEOs should have that they don't on GTAW.

I agree that characters need to be punished for crimes committed however that's not quite the discussion, this is about roleplay isolation and not reduced sentencing. I know that 48h holds are to investigate, but does a character need to be out of commission for 2 full days for that to happen? What if LEO's were placed on 48h holds when they get an IA case on them? More often than not if a character rats during an interrogation that will mean their deaths, CK's often occur for when this happens and all it takes is for a cop to inform someone else that it occurred. It can also depend but, characters who are involved in gangs or organized crime organizations are more often than not heavily involved and invested, for many its the only thing they have in their lives and simply can't get out of, want to leave the gang and live a normal life working a normal job? your character knows too much and is likely to get CK'd.

To elaborate a little further, the issue lies in a character being out of commission and offline during the isolation as a result as logging in to have no one to roleplay with is quite literally pointless. Something like parole with ankle monitor instead of 48h investigative holds could be a potential solution, it allows the investigation to continue whilst not forcing a character to be offline during that time. It would provide more roleplay for Correctional Officers and if the suspect cuts the ankle monitor? they're liable to face even more time with the risk given that its a mandatory court case on a probation violation.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Viscaria

[Rylee]

Forty eight hour holds are a neccesary evil to allow LEOs, namely detectives the time to finalise cases or gather more evidence. Knowing that the suspect is in custody, and unlikely to move or conceal any evidence against them is a key benefit. 

 

It also allows time to start discussions with the district attorney and other relevant parties, such as witnesses or victims to get a successful conviction.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Rylee

[pateuvasiliu]

15 minutes ago, Viscaria said:

What if LEO's were placed on 48h holds when they get an IA case on them?

 

Funny you should say that because I got hit by a madman blasting 130 mph through downtown with my sirens on and I got sent to driver training by PD while the guy walked without even a ticket. So I'm quite painfully aware of how much harsher the punishment is for LEO chars when they do something bad.

 

And LEOs ARE placed on Admin Leave if IA has a strong case, an admin leave that sometimes shelves the character for weeks.

 

Quote

if a character rats during an interrogation that will mean their deaths,

 

Then take the hit and wait 48 hours. You SHOULD be scared of jail. That's the whole point, in real life they threaten to hold you if you don't talk. People here treat prison like it's vacation time. The amount of times I've seen someone snitch for a reduced sentence can be counted on one hand, and I've been here a while.

Edited November 6, 2023 by pateuvasiliu

[Viscaria]

26 minutes ago, Rylee said:

Forty eight hour holds are a neccesary evil to allow LEOs, namely detectives the time to finalise cases or gather more evidence. Knowing that the suspect is in custody, and unlikely to move or conceal any evidence against them is a key benefit. 

 

It also allows time to start discussions with the district attorney and other relevant parties, such as witnesses or victims to get a successful conviction.

This is a very valid point especially with the parole suggestion, however more often than not, if there's evidence that can be moved there are going to be calls made from prison or with their one phone call (I think that's still a thing?) and should the character have their wits about them, they could easily word it in a way that wouldn't land it as solid evidence in a court room, this also happens all the time. Regarding discussions with DA and other parties, that could still be done if the characters were placed on parole. It's important to note that in no way am I implying that characters should be allowed to go completely free, the hope of this discussion is that there might be a potential solution to putting characters offline entirely for days.

 

 

23 minutes ago, pateuvasiliu said:

 

Funny you should say that because I got hit by a madman blasting 130 mph through downtown with my sirens on and I got sent to driver training by PD while the guy walked without even a ticket. So I'm quite painfully aware of how much harsher the punishment is for LEO chars when they do something bad.

 

And LEOs ARE placed on Admin Leave if IA has a strong case, an admin leave that sometimes shelves the character for weeks.

 

 

Then take the hit and wait 48 hours. You SHOULD be scared of jail. That's the whole point, in real life they threaten to hold you if you don't talk. People here treat prison like it's vacation time. The amount of times I've seen someone snitch for a reduced sentence can be counted on one hand, and I've been here a while.

An EVOC course takes 1 hour whereas an investigative hold is 48 hours, I fail to see how the two compare or how your reference aligns with roleplay isolation here. Admin leave doesn't mean that your character is forced into isolation, they are still free and can roleplay among the rest of population and just can't go on duty.

Should players be afraid of jail or their characters? The only reason players are afraid of jail for the most part is because they don't want their characters to be offline for days on end, the vast majority of illegal players enjoy prison roleplay, it provides them with development and connections, which is how it should be. When it comes to roleplay isolation? it is vacation time, because they either have to play on a different character or do something else with their time.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Viscaria