AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

I've been mulling over the possibilities for a more expansive zone between good and evil lately, which more or less follows the discussion that was lost here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=69635, and I came across the idea (which I am sure has been shipwrecked in the forums before) of implementing a prison colony, something much like the Alcatraz I can see from the bay of my city. A PC's sentencing to let us call it for now, Prison Island, would more or less follow their trial if caught guilty by the actions of the city-state they were offending.

Why do I think this is a good idea?

For the Criminal: Given the short and frequent wavelengths of crazy evil, and mechanical 'good' avengers, sentencing the PC to Prison Island would actually put their schemes into a period of freeze and recuperation, making them less likely to Strike Back, or perform something that is completely trigger happy from their last attempt. This however, will not discard them.

A whole different kind of society lives in prison. Villains are paired with villains they may not even like, form their own currency for gruel and tobacco, and brood over a plan to escape in their quiet hours. Clearly here, there will be some strict dampers over their once powerful abilities, and only the sharpest mind and biggest biceps tend to stay on top of the heap over the regular thugs. Or maybe they'll just decide to serve their hard time obediently and be released to the clerics for observation if the warden sees them fit for such. Maybe the warden isn't all that straight-laced in comparison to the inmates. There is something holy about the chain gang, at least in the American aesthetic. As if already defeated in body, the soul tends to reveal something of its existence among those who have none. I think prison in some sense, will bring out the depth of these characters, we learn and refine what makes them tick, and how the world is seen through their eyes, instead of looking at their calendar: Monday: Kill. Tuesday: Kill Wednesday: Tea and Kill. et cetra. They can slowly take their time to consider their next option when they get back to the 'mainland'.

An escape should be possible, but one must rely on their skillsets to make the job happen. As it happens for example: Let's say a mastermind learns that his muscle has made a makeshift lockpick, they recruit a locksmith into their escape plan and pass it to him at recess. But meanwhile, they'll need someone to pickpocket a shiv to dig with. The four unlikely allies, then make an agreement to become a team and try an escape. Prison does not discriminate good from evil. Maybe someone who may be considered a hero in the eyes of the holy churches will find themselves paying for their dogmatic agenda, and they too can find themselves stuck in the pit with the bullies they may have once despised. Survival might even call these unlikely bands to work together if only to get the hell out. Maybe to certain wiseguys, it is more appealing to remain in prison and establish something of an empire, and competitive thinkers might put themselves into gangs.

For the Victim: This is a great alternative to straight exile, execution, and bounties for city-states to send their highest enemies to and gives them a breathe of relaxation from one less boogie. Maybe some city-states are more stricter than others in terms of who will end up on Prison Island, while others are likely to give a few slaps on the wrist.

Revenge is a slippery slope when PCs take matters into their own hands. What you're trapped with sometimes is a tennis match of blades a choppin' and the perpetual desire for retribution. These characters might save themselves the woe and fret of a potential enemy coming back for them. Or if they due wish to return violence with violence, they better be damn careful they don't get themselves put to prison, no matter how just they may feel. If the corrected criminal returns to the island and becomes something of a repeat offender, the city-state would be wise to give up on that individual and implement perhaps the torture and execution of capital punishment. Maybe their moral basis will never take such extremes and they will continue to move the fellow into the prison under more isolated means of correction, as in the asylum.

Overall, I think Prison culture RP would be just swell. But mind you this is not a perfect idea, if you like it and are interested in seeing it come into play, we should work to iron out the flaws to the most reasonable extent, in what we will assemble as FAQs, and address how a prison 'faction' if you will, can serve the needs of the player, the server, and the DMs.

It is not useful to say, this won't work.
Begin with asking questions, and others can answer them constructively.

No. Here's how it would turn out:
>Capture guy.
>Sentence and exile.
>"Hey can a dm do my escape?"
>-no response-, Character is effectively perma killed.

Anyway, why the hell do evil characters need more punishment? When do evil characters get to do something actually evil? Like an arcane necromancer or death domain cleric sealing epic-level souls in sapphires and offering them to their gods.
Or fucking up some cities and leaving scars that stay even after restoration or heal have been used. Evil gets two options: "talk in shadows lol lets plot between three people over 18 months" or get smited/banned from everywhere.

How wrong you are, bud. Evil is thriving and doing a lot of baaad shite, and has done in the past. As for this idea, well, it would seem to rely heavily on focused DM attention - I might revisit the thread later and post a more thorough response.

I think it's a fantastic notion, and not only for Evil characters, but anyone who may get sent away.

Maybe I misread, but it seems to me that a prison island would be self-sustaining. Maybe some interactions from DMs outside of trying to escape, and naturally when trying to escape, but otherwise it struck me as being heavily invested in the interaction between other inmates - whether or not they deserved to be there.

LetumLux wrote:

I think it's a fantastic notion, and not only for Evil characters, but anyone who may get sent away.

Maybe I misread, but it seems to me that a prison island would be self-sustaining. Maybe some interactions from DMs outside of trying to escape, and naturally when trying to escape, but otherwise it struck me as being heavily invested in the interaction between other inmates - whether or not they deserved to be there.

That's more in the spirit of what I'm aiming at.
This is by no means a punishment on those who choose absinthe over soda-pop.

I would get in IC trouble just to go there.

*Ideas.*

Not entirely sold myself. Primarily because of the setting's proposed and inherent insularity. I am not a fan of a prison colony for the same reason I am not a fan of the Underdark: it is wholly separate from the rest of the server with no significant interaction between the two. And that is not unusual. It is how it is supposed to be. But it doesn't make for a versatile online community.

And that doesn't even begin to tackle the fact that we would need to double the DM Team's size in order to properly handle that kind of scenario. Scripts alone would be deemed horribly unfair at keeping all of these prisoners in line.

Silent2001 wrote:

How wrong you are, bud. Evil is thriving and doing a lot of baaad shite, and has done in the past. As for this idea, well, it would seem to rely heavily on focused DM attention - I might revisit the thread later and post a more thorough response.

Thriving is something you can see. Only evil I've seen thrive was the Banites, unless you count Cordor.

Yossarin wrote:

And that doesn't even begin to tackle the fact that we would need to double the DM Team's size in order to properly handle that kind of scenario. Scripts alone would be deemed horribly unfair at keeping all of these prisoners in line.

Why couldn't it be like Escape from LA?

There wouldn't necessarily need to be guards everywhere, maybe a sanctum that people who were really interested in rehabilitation could go for protection and DM interaction. The rest of the island could simply be warded to hell and back. Dimensional Locks, Leyline Gordian Knots and such to prevent magical relocation, some hazards that would prevent (but not outright make impossible) attempts at escape. Set the PvP settings so you can't PvP (and thus there can't be mechanical griefing, people have to actually RP out their fights in general pop) but have several Areas that are optional to go to which are Arena style and people can beat the shit out of each other to their little, bloodthirsty heart's content.

I think that if it could be set up to require minimal involvement/oversight, it would be a great thing. People can go to or leave the Underdark at will. I think having a place that you were locked up at, but still had ample RP and story opportunity, is something this server hasn't done yet and it's a completely new dynamic (to my knowledge, anyway) that could bring a lot of new avenues of potential for interaction.

... I thought Amia was Alcatraz?

I think that doing this big enough to do it justice might be kind of a low effort/reward ratio for a permanent addition to the module, but if some enterprising DM were to run a "New Beginnings: Escape from Alcatraz" thing, I'd be first in line to sign up.

I think it would be a very bland thing to play an incarcerated PC whose criminal deeds, motivations, and regrets were wholly fabricated for the sake of participating in an alternate beginnings. I don't mean to bash your enthusiasm Lizzie, but I think it would really be a waste to use an idea that promises so much in the way of gritty conduct, raw emotion, and candid violence on characters whose only crime was being rolled-in that way.

Even the way the prison would have to be constructed is so over the top.

But having just finished playing Arkham City, I can understand the allure.

I could see it working as an alternate beginning campaign.

I'll just leave this here, and say TO THE MINES!

I've been dreaming of even a decent prison themed RPG ever since I re-watched Oz a few years ago, so I'd be breaking laws left and right to go to this island.

With that said, unless it could be done in the way Letum suggests, with minimal need for DMs to constantly be present, I doubt it'd be very succesful. I'd still go, of course, so I could shank people and call myself Adebisi.

Last edited by Palin489 on Wed, Feb 13 2013, 21:30 PM, edited 1 time in total.

I like the idea. You have to survive the initial encounter with the good guys to make it to prison though and in my past 2-3 weeks of playing a trouble-causing bad guy the two times he was killed he was indiscriminately set on fire and turned to a pile of ash (One of these times was by a character who was entirely dead during his showing up and subsequent defeat who infact had no idea what he was except "another body")

But like I said I love the idea, it gives people another option instead of "kill them set them on fire take something for scrying PEACE"

In regards to the "Evil is doing a lot" post I would love to see it and believe it but everywhere I look it's just not the case. Now I understand I may be looking in the wrong place, and if I am please tell me because I would love to actually get involved in some organized bad-guy shenanigans. Though I'm sure that's just another of many inhouse groups that are less open to additions than I consider readily acceptable.

I don't know if it's just what I run into but I also think there's a lacking GOOD aspect.. I see a lot of neutral actions but not so many things I would outwardly warrant as good actions of good people. That's an issue for another day though I'm sure. I don't consider those vicious zealots of goodness very good, but that might just be me.

Who says its just the bad guys that would get thrown in prison? :twisted:

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Who says its just the bad guys that would get thrown in prison? :twisted:

No one! But I think that is detracting from the course of the thread. If the idea makes it that far I would love to see the gray part of the law locking up the goodies.

Interesting!

Frankly I think it'd be more realistic for people to be in favour of capital punishment, especially when there are adventurer-type powerhouses who work for the city states of Amia who have, in the past, and will continue to deal with the threat of any other epic adventurer demigods who want to kick off a fuss. Especially since there are so many races that are perceived as inherently evil, such as tieflings, chromatic dragonkin, goblins/kobolds. Why would anybody bother packing them off to an island when there are easier and supposedly more permanent ways of dealing with them? It's not like they'd be afraid of getting their hands dirty if they thought somebody could pose a recurring threat, and from what I recall, adventurers aren't exactly welcome in most towns in the first place due to the amount of trouble they tend to cause.

Ignoring that, I don't know if you could sustain enough interest in such an isolated little area to warrant this much effort. Your crimes would need to fall into the category between 'capital punishment' and 'we'll just fine you for half of what you own, which is enough to build a small kingdom on the other side of Faerun, Mr. Fancypants Adventurer,' and then you'd need some decent organisation to ensure there were actually people online to interact with on the island, and DM oversight if you wanted to attempt an escape to get back to the mainland where larger plots are actually progressing. It sounds like a lot of work that could be spent on something less.. niche?

It's definitely an interesting idea, though. Prison RP would undoubtedly be entertaining.. Drow RP for surfacers, even? Heh. Just as long as the soap isn't too slippery.. :lol:

Now that I think about it, I believe I will start formulating my annual alt beginning around a concept similar to this.

Silent is my hero.

</3 I'll still try and participate though, because I'm just that silly.

I've long been suggesting the cordor prison alt beginnings!

Sunkin Sheep wrote:

Prison does not discriminate good from evil. Maybe someone who may be considered a hero in the eyes of the holy churches will find themselves paying for their dogmatic agenda, and they too can find themselves stuck in the pit with the bullies they may have once despised. Survival might even call these unlikely bands to work together if only to get the hell out.

I put a lot of emphasis on the baddies going into the prison in the larger context of the post. Nope!

This sort of place don't care about who you are, they care about your actions. Everyone is applicable to the 'mercy' of law, and prison is the judicial mercy. Yes. Those who slap at the law, in turn, slap at the king who writes them, and therefore should be punished. Shall our leaders give them torture and death or mercy? Politically, it presents the option of imprisonment as a kindness to their welfare's peeps. How ignoble their mercy may seem when you're inside the rock. But that's the game, isn't it? That's what law do, and those of you who challenge a law's existence will be made an example of, one way or another.

The Underdark keeps being brought up, but I don't think it's a nice comparison to a prison system, because it considers a specific environment of evil. The Underdark has always been more or less big, weird, and lame in my opinion. Yes yes, because it's dark, it hosts a lot of evil creepy crawlies, and plenty of sexy dark things to step on you with their stilettos. Lovecraft would be proud, BUT that fetish is dull (to me) and caters to a select few masochists, and it's far too big. (Except that I like duergars, because they remind me of my papa, of people who work like toads until they become toads, grow warts on their hearts and die. Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to work we go.)

I don't know how fleshed out we ultimately intend to make our world, but I think the prison is a vital piece of fabric that needs a place in the civilization. We have made more and more islands with various environments and settings, but nothing really of this kind before. I like to come up with ideas to make things more immersing, not because I think our playground lacks immersion, but there is a reason we have an Improving Amia forum with over 1000 topics. Right? We want to make something the best we can make it. That's so human, and I love that. If we have the tools, we should be over the top!

Anyway, this goes along with the project's advancement, not really meant to be taken as a burden for the people who work hard to make this game great. I know it's work to put a prison into the world and I would actually get behind this one and do work with you. If it helps at all. Written, scripted, or whatever. That would be a learning experience for me and likely, a fitting punishment for posing the idea. (Hee-hee.)

If anything comes out of this, maybe it is something to consider for the future should development ideas plateau.

You know, I just now read the other prison idea thread. So I apologize if it seems I stole this idea fro you and made it seem like my own, I hadn't read anything else on it before.
Reading the other topic at first glance, not sure what my thoughts are for now, but I think there is a general sense of interest in re-doing how we do imprisonment.

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

Silent2001 wrote:

How wrong you are, bud. Evil is thriving and doing a lot of baaad shite, and has done in the past. As for this idea, well, it would seem to rely heavily on focused DM attention - I might revisit the thread later and post a more thorough response.

Thriving is something you can see. Only evil I've seen thrive was the Banites, unless you count Cordor.

Look harder. :wink:

Dead wrote:

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

Silent2001 wrote:

How wrong you are, bud. Evil is thriving and doing a lot of baaad shite, and has done in the past. As for this idea, well, it would seem to rely heavily on focused DM attention - I might revisit the thread later and post a more thorough response.

Thriving is something you can see. Only evil I've seen thrive was the Banites, unless you count Cordor.

Look harder. :wink:

Sorry, Tar'kool isn't evil.

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

Sorry, Tar'kool isn't evil.

Uh, what? How the hell'd you come to that answer?

Actions speak louder than alignments.

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

Sorry, Tar'kool isn't evil.

Cool. It's working.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

Sorry, Tar'kool isn't evil.

Cool. It's working.

+1

I like the dangerous island of exile idea better than a prison.

We are all epic super overlords. How is a dangerous island going to keep us away?

Relativity.

You'll notice the Reavers that have been swimming around lately are also epic super overlords. So it's all relative.

GreatPigeon wrote:

We are all epic super overlords. How is a dangerous island going to keep us away?

If it somehow requires multiple types of characters to escape it maybe? I don't think it should be possible for a player to solo an escape.

Then slap on some level lowering when in prison to level 3.

Explain that with some magical force Icly with RP.

???

Edit: Temporary effect!

Nothing like that. The prison acts as a balance by its structure, not by imposing offsets.

Now obviously you won't be able to wear your sword and shields and technicolor dream coats, magic would be dampened, there would be treatment to keep your rage and shadowstuff in check,

but you can't just strike someone with a shiv when there are NPCs who have their eyes on you from their towers.
You might find some one-on-one time in the yard or in the mess hall, or back in your cell. And if someone is just a violent mess, the guards would likely take notice and let them play Solitaire.

And hey, prison has its mixed fractions! Some guys are scrawny, some are mountains. One is going to have to play it smart around the other to keep themselves alive. If you get tossed into prison at level 3 for acting a fool, with a level 30 bad ass who got caught in attempting murder. You're in for a hard time. But that's how it goes, you're left more or less with your attributes, your skills, and your personality disorders. Shake what yo mamma gave you. (You are the mamma.)

Upon further review I can see some problems with this. How long are we talking isolation here? I don't mean to knock the idea but spending a month, two months, perhaps the remainder of a character's life in a totally isolated location with few facets to RP with. (how many prisoners do we realistically expect to be on at any one time.) I mean we're already talking about finding "teams" together to escape this prison. Is the idea there so that people can escape it or is it there to foster RP between criminals? Not to mention you have to find like-minded criminals just to get your plans going which is a hassle in and of itself especially as far as evil chars go from what I've seen.

Palin489 wrote:

Upon further review I can see some problems with this. How long are we talking isolation here? I don't mean to knock the idea but spending a month, two months, perhaps the remainder of a character's life in a totally isolated location with few facets to RP with. (how many prisoners do we realistically expect to be on at any one time.) I mean we're already talking about finding "teams" together to escape this prison. Is the idea there so that people can escape it or is it there to foster RP between criminals? Not to mention you have to find like-minded criminals just to get your plans going which is a hassle in and of itself especially as far as evil chars go from what I've seen.

Yeah, its really not at all plauseable. Besides, it would take characters away from the bulk of the population- and that's not something Amia needs.

LetumLux wrote:

Relativity.

You'll notice the Reavers that have been swimming around lately are also epic super overlords. So it's all relative.

Reavers can also be quantum compressed to allow them to fit 500+ on one ship!

That said. I love the original idea of this post, even though it only works for some groups/cities. Wiltun, for instance, doesn't imprison big time troublemakers, it doesn't even have a decent jail, just something to hold people in for torture and then execution. Suddenly having prison island available probably wouldn't change this attitude of "We'll just kill our problems."

I dig the idea, too. I just don't see it as right for this server. Now a server dedicated solely to that? Been done, I believe, but that is better.

Murex wrote:

Yeah, its really not at all plauseable. Besides, it would take characters away from the bulk of the population- and that's not something Amia needs.

I am about to disagree, but I want to say that this is my own opinion and reflects no character or player in particular. Characters take themselves away from the bulk of the population. Most every Amian character I know wants to be mysterious, sexy, misunderstood, or part of a smaller clique that engages separately from the 'mass'. The prison thing does not isolate the character, it forces them to sit still and do something patiently and socially. In a way, it takes all the angry, smashy, lone wolf characters and puts them into a clique of their own.

Most of those lone wolf characters I'm talking about, don't really try to do anything on their free time. They just go on being mysterious, sexy, or total wallflowers... I don't care what your charisma score is if you sit beneath a bridge all day smoking cigarettes covered in magical runes and acting tough, watching your papyrus grow so you can sell it back for gold and save up to buy yourself an ioun stone so you'll do better in the next fight that comes your way.

No, I wouldn't say anyone is really isolated if they've got running mates they're stuck inside with. I imagine them in jail giving each other tough nicknames based on their personalities. There's Eyebrows, Beakface, and Scar-eye.

Palin489 wrote:

Upon further review I can see some problems with this. How long are we talking isolation here? Is the idea there so that people can escape it or is it there to foster RP between criminals?

To answer your questions, I think the time of the 'imprisonment' would last relative to the crime. That is, subjective to the force that catches you. You would have to be willing to put time aside for the sake of RP however, but that's the point. It allows RP in jail as opposed to total darkness. For example, I had a character imprisoned for about three months or so with mutual consent between me and the DM, I wasn't able to play that character for the time involved, not that I am complaining. What this would do, alternatively to having to play an Alt-character, is allow you to continue to play your character in jail/prison. So yes, it is especially for the purpose of RP, not for the purpose of having a 'Escape from Jail' Quest.

This sounds pretty interesting. The only real issue I'm having with it is the level of hands-on-DMing that would be required, especially in the case of escapes. DM's to me are a mythical creature, rumored to exist, but never seen. Like unicorns. So for us in horrible timezones, if we get our PC sent to prison, how will we ever get out?

A possible solution comes up in area design. If the area had, say, 20 possible escape methods, but only one was "active" or able to be used each reset, it would mean that you'd have not only a neat area for RP, but a neat area for RP that didn't require DM assistance once you exhausted all you could do there (or if you're alone there).

An escape route would be something like... Persuade a guard to give you a donut, use donut to bribe other character to give a shiv, use shiv + Strength to pull a brick out of a wall, Dex check to climb the wall, then the climber can open a side door to let the rest of the group out. Something varied that forces people to work together, due to the large varity of skills required. (This is actually a pretty terrible example, seeing as it only uses Cha/Persuade, Str, and Dex, but you get my drift.)

The large number of possible escape routes makes it harder for each to become common knowledge, and makes each escape different. If there's some way to install a counter on them, one could also set the least-used routes to be the most likely to be active, or even remove routes that get used more than a certain number of times (Guards smartening up, and figuring out how they escaped). Finally, you'd get PCs who'd become professional prison breakers, and may even be paid to get arrested and help break someone else out. Or the guy who climbed the wall could yell "Screw you guys" and run off laughing into the night.

Issue with the above is that it'd take a fair bit of scripting and area design to do. As in, a LOT, especially if old routes are removed, as something new would have to come in to replace them.

This could be summed up as a great idea that needs a healthy population of more than your typical NWN server to be feasible.

I see the Underdark as a different kind of insular; the kind that deserves to exist for the simple reason that the Underdark is an integral part of the FR universe and very different and interesting from a lore standpoint. There are not always enough Drow players around, but it is an acquired taste that otherwise might carry these players to other servers to get their Drow fix. And let's not forget that occasionally, Underdark and surface interact. A prison island "only" has a fun premise going for it.

No NWN server has the luxury of splitting itself up like that. Separate hubs need to be carefully weighed for cost (loss of interaction) and benefit. The DM upkeep this special hub would require is also an issue, but way secondary.

I know, I know..

But I think my argument would just be summed up better if I asked, why are we making more towns and shit that go unoccupied anyway? Who cares about Forrstakkr for example, save for a very small number of people who use it as their own 'this land is my land' frontiermanship. I'm not trying to be cynical, I like those areas, but on a popular basis, not a lot of people do anything there, and now comes Ostland...I don't know guys.

The prison is just another direction I don't think we've taken a stab at yet, that's all.

We're asking ourselves the same question. And working our way towards an answer.

Some people do try to make places like Ostland and Frozenfar a bit more alive. But sometimes things just go slow.

Hard Time

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