Witch trials

Forum for suggesting changes to Salem.

Witch trials

Postby Chrumps » Wed Nov 09, 2016 4:20 pm

Disclaimer: This idea has as little to do with witchcraft as possible. The witch status is merely one of variables to be guessed and bet on. This is a variant of prisoner dilemma game.

Everybody knows the witches live among us and do wrong things. It is a right and duty of the law abiding Pilgrim to identify and bring to prosecution anyone dabbling in witchcraft.

New skill: Witch hunt. 150 Law & Lore, 200 Faith & Wisdom
    Allows pilgrims to buy and use an Indictment document from the Providence judge.

New item: Indictment. (*)
    This item is a document which can be bought from the judge for 500 silver (fixed amount, not reduced with L&L).
    This item can be used by a Pilgrim with a Witch Hunt skill on ANYONE if the player thinks said person is a witch.
    *) As a non-English speaker I lack a better name for this.

New flower menu item: "Accuse"
    This menu shows when a player right-clicks another player while holding an Indictment document and having learned Witch Hunt skill

Accusing someone creates a link between an accuser and his target. The link is terminated by death of either one or when the target is acquitted in a witch trial. The link is later used to determine what an impact on the accusing Pilgrim will be caused by the witch trial. Accusation has its weight which is equal to the sum of L&L and F&W levels of the accuser at the moment of the accusing act. A pilgrim can defend from being accused by pointing at someone else to be a witch. In this case the value of his L&L + F&W will be subtracted from his accusations counter and added to the other person counter. The subtracted value is capped by the target's L&L+F&W to make scapegoat alts not feasible.
Using a witchcraft scent on the indictment document doubles the accusation weight if the scent belongs to the target and reduces it by half if it does not.
It is not possible to accuse the same person twice before trial.
Praying in the church slowly decrease the accusation counter. It is possible to accuse someone while he/she is praying in the church.
When accusing Pilgrim dies his accusations become null and void.
When accused Pilgrim dies all the reductions of accusation counters are cancelled as well. In extreme cases this may result in a trial of the accuser. The only exception is when the reason of death is being convicted and burned (because that proves accusations).

The sum of accusation values (accusation counter) is an internal server variable. For a moderate fee judge can tell one's current accusation status in vague terms like:
    "People think you are a good Pilgrim"
    "Some people have doubts about you"
    "There are accusations towards you"
    "I do not talk to witches!" (while still taking money)
    "I have a stack for you"

When enough accusations accumulate towards a Pilgrim the witch trial begins.
The suspect is tied to a pole in Providence and exposed to the public view. The trial lasts 24 hours.
Light drain and madness gains are adjusted so after 24 hours the defendant is still alive unless a Blood Moon begins.

All the pilgrims who have Rights of Englishmen are allowed to vote whether the defendant is guilty. Voting is performed by right-clicking the pole and selecting either one of two options. After 24 hours the result of voting is determined and the suspect is either released or burned on the stack. Released prisoner receives a Writ of Habeas Corpus. If the suspect is deemed guilty and burned his/her heir receives Remains of Old through the postal office or, with a very small chance, a doll. The item appears in the post ONLY if there is a heir.

Voting in the trial creates another link between the voting Pilgrim and the suspect. After the trial is concluded both accusers and jury receive rewards according to the result of the trial.

Accusing:
    Witch and convicted: L&L & F&W proficiency increase by 2, some witch hunter trophy gained, maybe Malleus Maleficarum - a club type weapon (shaped like a book)
    Non-witch and convicted: L&L decrease by 2, F&W increase by 1, Remains of Old or Ashes of Maudney
    Witch and acquitted: L&L & F&W decrease by 2-4, 1-3 level of madness gained, higher chance for lower madness gains, cursed Teddy Bear 70% chance or Tinfoil Hat 30% chance
    Non-witch and acquitted: L&L & F&W proficiency decrease by 2-4, 1-3 level of madness gained, higher chance for higher madness gains, cursed Teddy Bear 30% chance or Tinfoil Hat 70% chance
When the suspect is acquitted the rewards and penalties must be defined as higher / lower probabilities of certain outcomes to avoid direct revealing witch status of the suspect


Voting:
A)voting ending with burning: all voters receive a bone or a darkenbone through the post office depending on the witch status of the suspect
    voting guilty and witch : +2 F&W +2 L&L
    voting guilty and non-witch: 50% penalty to L&L & F&W inspirationals until 5 points of F&W are gained (visible debuff)
    voting not guilty and witch : -1 L&L, -1 F&W, 1 level of madness
    voting not guilty and non-witch : +1 L&L, +1 F&W, 1 level of madness

B)voting ending with releasing the suspect: (cannot make a much a difference here because it would tell the status of a living Pilgrim)
    voting guilty and witch : 60% chance to receive Pilgrim's Bible, 1 level of madness, invisible 10% buff to L&L & F&W inspirationals until 10 points of F&W and L&L are gained
    voting guilty and non-witch: small chance (5-10%) to receive Pilgrim's Bible, 1 level of madness
    voting not guilty and witch : small chance (5-10%) to receive Pilgrim's Bible, 10% penalty to L&L & F&W inspirationals until total of 10 points of F&W and L&L are gained (invisible debuff)
    voting not guilty and non-witch : bigger chance (15-30%) to receive Pilgrim's Bible
Everyone who did not receive a Pilgrim's Bible gets a knotted woodblock (supposedly remains of the unused stack)

By invisible buff/debuff I mean there is no other indicator than faster gain of proficiency points towards filling the progress bar.

I'd rather define trial rewards in terms like "voting with crowd and right" or "voting with crowd and wrong" but that would most likely lead to revealing true witch status of the released suspect. The overall scheme is like in the original prisoner dilemma game: voting with crowd gives lesser rewards and lesser penalties, voting right against the crowd gives the highest reward and voting wrong against the crowd is a disaster.


Items to be given via postoffice, except of the Tinfoil Hat which is applied directly on the target head. Tinfoil Hat is cursed. Ways of removal of said hat - TBD.

The list of names of people accusing in the last trial (just top 10 maybe) should be available at the judge to give the victim a chance to retaliate.

This mechanics can be extremely dangerous and can lead to lynching any player without any relation to him/her being a witch. In extreme case a powerful faction can try to kill a player through spamming alts. That's the reason the requirement to accuse were set quite high. The threshold for actually starting the trial should be set at 30% or more of total L&L + F&W worth of active players with Witch Hunt skill.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Rifmaster » Wed Nov 09, 2016 6:06 pm

So you're suggesting a way for people to kill others by leaving 0 scents and at the cost of gaining some madness?

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Re: Witch trials

Postby TotalyMeow » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:20 pm

Hmmm... kinda complicated, I'm going to have to look at it again when I have more time.

We do have some ideas and plans for a witch accusation system in the future, tied to a more public voting system. Some of your idea might work with it though.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Taipion » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:25 pm

TotalyMeow wrote:Hmmm... kinda complicated, I'm going to have to look at it again when I have more time.

We do have some ideas and plans for a witch accusation system in the future, tied to a more public voting system. Some of your idea might work with it though.


Voting?

Any "voting" in Salem would be as useful as voting in the USA, this is game of alts, after all.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Judaism » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:29 pm

This would require a complete revamp of witchcraft, which is going to happen eventually anyway I think. In its current form witches are not that powerfull, yet another lazy punishment system is not wise I think. Surely when witches have alot more power, people might have some sort of influence, however voters should obviously run risks aswell.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Chrumps » Wed Nov 09, 2016 9:50 pm

Rifmaster wrote:So you're suggesting a way for people to kill others by leaving 0 scents and at the cost of gaining some madness?

I have been told about other ways of killing without leaving a scent (witchcraft related).

I assigned gaining madness to being unsuccessful either in accusing or in voting. Actually there is a reward for successful accusing ended with death of the target.

I suggested publishing the list of names as a very minimal guidance to retaliate. I am not satisfied with it but as Meow wrote this is already complicated.

Note how people are using groups or commissions to avoid taking personal responsibility. Any member of such commission and likewise any voting player may say: "I did not do that, it was a community decision." Why allow to retaliate against any particular voter or accuser when his guilt is only partial. Against whom would you want to retaliate in particular ? The whole idea of lynching someone is about murdering and getting away with it, by pointing the guilt to the community.
Also the trick is in the balancing the threshold level when the trial begins. It should be set high enough to not allow any single faction to trigger a trial. Instead they will have to convince other players for support.
The current scent mechanics is somewhat 0-1 style, so the revenge limits and methods are always the same regardless of crime gravity. It would be way too much to drop scents for everyone. Instead I am thinking about a kind proto-scents dropped from everyone involved, requiring a huge effort to both collect and to develop into actionable form to the point it is not feasible to target even 10% of involved players, but still allowing to target a random few of them.
Suppose each of voters drops 20 and each of accusers drops 40 items, let's call them for the moment Seeds of Hate. These seeds are thrown around the burning place. There will be literally thousands of these seeds thrown around, for sure more than inventory capacity. The seeds will be available for 24 hours only. It might be reasonable to allow only heirs to collect them. T2 witches would need a "spiritual heir" (= earlier designated other player) for that job. Once the seeds are collected they have to be combined together in the similar way reeds are combined into woven reeds. The catch is one has to fit together seeds belonging to the same player to combine them. It takes 15 combined seeds to create a Hate Sprout which can be planted in a pot and tended every day by watering it and supplying with humus (more than one piece) to grow into a Hate Fruit after two weeks. Each day the plant is not tended will subtract two days from it's growth. The Hate fruit can be given to witches to curse the target. There is no way to tell who is the target other than by seeing him when the curse is activated. The strength of curse depends on the fruit purity. Initial seeds are 0 purity and the growing process takes 2% of pot purity every day.

Taipion wrote:Voting?
Any "voting" in Salem would be as useful as voting in the USA, this is game of alts, after all.

No, if the requirements to vote are set high enough to eliminate all cheap alts. Using expensive alts is OK.

Judaism wrote:This would require a complete revamp of witchcraft, which is going to happen eventually anyway I think. In its current form witches are not that powerfull.

It is not about witchcraft per se but about accusing and killing a player using possibly false accusations. Surely, it should be a bit easier if accusations are true.

Judaism wrote:yet another lazy punishment system is not wise I think

This is a faction-level offensive system, having very little to do with punishment. For sure mobilizing 30% of server population is not an easy task. Not to mention tens of thousands of silver for be paid for indictment documents required to accuse successfully. But, yes, when witches will be more powerfull, killing witches of another faction will have more meaning.
On a side not I do not see the two (maybe three) most interested players protesting fiercely against this system. ¦]

Judaism wrote:Surely when witches have alot more power.

Because of role-playing reasons targeting witches is easier and more profitable than targeting non-witches. It's just that's how it is. Being a witch is a risky business.

Judaism wrote:however voters should obviously run risks aswell.

I agree. See above.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Nsuidara » Wed Nov 09, 2016 9:58 pm

but why ?
you know ? made witch 2th circle or 3th circle isn't easy...

and you know ? in this game... is very very easy lose permament character... no need more mechanic for lose permament character... this game need repair bugs and made more content...
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Reviresco » Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:21 pm

I've seen Marp Tarpton teleport around, conjur items from thin air, and move houses with his mind.

Just sayin'.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Chrumps » Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:00 pm

Reviresco wrote:I've seen Marp Tarpton teleport around, conjur items from thin air, and move houses with his mind.

Just sayin'.

Burn him.
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Re: Witch trials

Postby Nsuidara » Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:13 pm

i think all salem player is witch.. because teleport from pclaim - boston and swap :F <joke> this name is travel...
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