Preventing illegal activities on new characters

[Chaishi]

If you people just type in "NO" and leave, you're not contributing anything. Some people are producing solutions to problems here whereas others point out the problems with this rule suggestion. I'm asking kindly, if you could please provide the problems you see with the suggestion, it would further help this thing going. 

[Entity]

I think I'm going to change my answer and not necessarily be a fan of this suggestion. While this might be a problem and this might be one possible solution to it, I don't think this is the right way to approach it. Separating new players in an artificial way does not work well. Remember those servers where you couldn't rob someone if either one of you was under level X - it made sends OOCly but it made no in-character sense whatsoever. We shouldn't be limiting roleplay in any way, shape or form based solely on the wrongdoings of a limited number of people in a limited number of cases. These cases should be dealt with on an individual basis.

 

On top of that, we'd still have people creating secondary characters for many other reasons. From abusing the starter paychecks to making burner characters in order to keep on playing those paychecks in poker and a wide variety of other abuses, these should not be stopped by limiting roleplay. It's everyone's responsibility to follow the rules and whoever does not shall be dealt with individually.

[DasFroggy]

On 2/13/2021 at 3:20 AM, Entity said:

it made no in-character sense whatsoever.

I am not so certain. If anything, it makes more sense in-character and out of character for any new arrivals to strictly avoid engaging in overtly illegal activities from the start.

 

What good is fifty dollars stolen from someone if you run around the corner into...

 

- a dead end

 

- another mugger with territory issues

 

- a gang that does not appreciate unnecessary hostilities on their turf

 

- three police officers conducting a traffic stop, who have just heard the cries for help

 

- Gary Busey on a three week no-sleep bender (again)

 

- Your mom

 

Nevermind the complexities of knowing the target you intend to hit, there are simpler factors to consider, such as where to get food, where to sleep, where to get a job, where to get a car, where to get gas and maintenance for that car, etc...

 

There is so much a person needs to do once they have arrived in the city. Prioritizing mugging someone minutes after stepping off the plane is wildly unrealistic, and should be one of the behaviors monitored and dealt with.

 

Best of all, it does not necessarily need to be a blanket ban on ALL criminal activity. That time could be spent getting to know local gangs for future affiliations, and learning the lay of the land to avoid the hazards listed above. 

 

That said, if just three measly hours is too much time for a person to spend on nonviolent character building, can we really consider this a heavy RP server? 

On 2/13/2021 at 3:20 AM, Entity said:

We shouldn't be limiting roleplay in any way, shape or form based solely on the wrongdoings of a limited number of people in a limited number of cases. These cases should be dealt with on an individual basis.

We do, every single day this server operates. In fact, because it is a constant fight to deal with troublemakers, we actually have to restrict roleplay even more than we would need to with this rule change, the most obvious example being when, where, and why you are allowed to kill people - that standard could be relaxed considerably by creating a barrier on throwaway characters/accounts, and it would make it vastly easier to detect troublemakers long before they can create additional problems that warrant newer, more restrictive rules on how you and criminals operate.

 

On 2/13/2021 at 3:20 AM, Entity said:

On top of that, we'd still have people creating secondary characters for many other reasons. From abusing the starter paychecks to making burner characters in order to keep on playing those paychecks in poker and a wide variety of other abuses, these should not be stopped by limiting roleplay. It's everyone's responsibility to follow the rules and whoever does not shall be dealt with individually.

This is true, but they would be immensely easier to detect and deal with, and their behavior would be slowed down to barely even a fraction of their original rule transgressions. For legitimate characters, three hours of character building is one and done easy, literally no different from breathing for the average quality roleplayers. For those that intend to break the rules however, the people who NEED throwaway characters, those three hours add up considerably. Even if they are patient enough to not misbehave for those hundreds of hours they have to spend avoiding poorly roleplayed crime, that is hundreds of hours that people can be free of one more person breaking the rules, and hundreds of hours that person can spend learning how to fully appreciate good quality roleplay.

 

It is ridiculously hard to see this as anything but a good change. It is. It is not too much for average roleplayers, but it is still an immediately effective barrier against trolls and low-quality roleplay.

Edited February 15, 2021 by DasFroggy

[hipsxn]

This idea isn't it. Players honestly need to stop making suggestions that result in putting a form of barrier around illegal roleplay. Criminal activities happen, a player should not be restricted so heavily on a roleplay server. The LEO cap is understandable, but to have it for illegal too? God nah.

 

You get trolls but nonetheless that doesn't need restrictions on the roleplay scene in general because of a couple bad apples.

 

It's a no from me, chief.

[AVAR]

I got robbed and kidnapped back in 2011 first two hours when I first joined a RP server with literally no RP knowledge, it was a cool  experience and I don't wanna miss it. Basically if you join a RP server you have to go along with anything and if you're not fit to RP a Robbery people will be able to help you out over /b or an Admin will come to the scene and help out. 

[DasFroggy]

2 hours ago, hipsxn said:

a player should not be restricted so heavily on a roleplay server.

 

3 hours ago, DasFroggy said:

That said, if just three measly hours is too much time for a person to spend on nonviolent character building, can we really consider this a heavy RP server? 

 

[DasFroggy]

1 hour ago, Lop said:

I agree with the overall point you make, but I just wanted to throw in that most people don't actually RP their characters just having arrived. I think most people actually roleplay people who have lived in LS/BC/SS/PB for a long time.

Gosh, it has been an entire month since I have been in here....

 

That said, the first three hours can easily also be applied to momentum of status - gangs and criminal organizations are not going to be flinging their best kept secrets at new bloods right away. A process of spending days watching a prospect can be summarized to the three hours, after which the said prospect can be picked up.

 

Literally any excuse can exist for the three hours, and every possible excuse for the three hours promotes quality roleplay to build up a character for their future criminal shenanigans. At this point, the question stops being about why this is being suggested,so much as it is now prudent to ask - why exactly is someone going through criminal characters so fast that an ordinarily one-a-year three hour noncriminal roleplay period suddenly such a massive and impossible to scale obstacle?

[AlphaBatal]

stops throwaway alts and incentivizes development as opposed to jumping into goon shit the very moment your character lands at the airport, reaching for your waistband when there's 5 cops aiming rifles at you to get killed and making the next throwaway character. also gives time for new players to adjust to the quality of roleplay on the server as opposed to waiting for 5 hours, buying a dirtbike and bat and going on chain robberies/chain car lockpickings in an attempt to find themselves a gun.

difficulty would be enforcing it, however. you don't know how much hours a character has and admins don't monitor all the roleplay on the server. you'd be asked to report it but you'd have no way of proving that the character's got less than 40 hours in most cases.

if there's a viable way of enforcing it, yes.

edit: hot take, since some people think that players that roleplay illegal characters would be stifled in some way; there's more to roleplaying an engaging or even realistic character than just doing crime non-stop. criminals work minimum wage, criminals go out to get a beer, visit stores, take walks and most importantly, criminals get to know other criminals and build connections, neither of which is a crime.

a limitation on hours would nudge people towards finding a job which with the new money laundering system's going to be very necessary (since having money and not having income is a dead giveaway to the big bad irs that you're probably selling crack or stealing cars).

Edited March 31, 2021 by AlphaBatal

[DasFroggy]

29 minutes ago, AlphaBatal said:

difficulty would be enforcing it, however. you don't know how much hours a character has and admins don't monitor all the roleplay on the server. you'd be asked to report it but you'd have no way of proving that the character's got less than 40 hours in most cases.

Smilesville had a most brilliant suggestion - just have a tag [NEW] tag or distinct color (or both) applied to their name until the timer is up.

 

Easy enough to screenshot if they try to disregard the timer.

 

That said, three hours is probably best. It is the rough average of online time for most, whereas five or more would take several days to get through. Three hours is a reasonable compromise that multiplies well to bog down crimegrinders, whereas for good roleplayers, it is at most a once-a-year experience.

Edited March 31, 2021 by DasFroggy

[Chaishi]

Honestly, three to five hours is nothing if a person is committed to roleplaying. Only viable problem here is that you wouldn't know if a person has that many hours already. A marker could be added to their names, their descriptions (enforcing reading descriptions more) or simply coloring their names in a brighter tone.

 

This could help with people who are trolling as well. If a person is trolling but their character is not even five hours old, that could be an immediate rule breaking and everything could be scratched right away in the sake of that rule.