Stealing

Overview

The overwhelming majority of game items in Empire cannot be taken without the player's knowledge. You can trick or threaten another character into giving you an item, or you can loot them if they are unresisting, but you can't take items without the player being aware of it. The only exception to this rule is for unique game items that have a gold ribbon attached.

Gold Ribbon Items

• Game items that have a gold ribbon attached are the only items that can be taken without the player's knowledge
• Gold ribbon items must be handed into GOD at the end of each event
• The ribbon must remain attached to the phys-rep at all times

Unique items in Empire, such as the Imperial Crown, are indicated with a gold ribbon. These are the only items that you are allowed to taken without the player's knowledge. You can only take such an item from an in-character area during time-in, and provided you don't enter someone's tent without their invitation, to take them.

The vast majority of these have a phys-rep which is provided by Profound Decisions. The item will have a special gold ribbon (instead of a regular white item ribbon). The ribbon must remain attached to the item at all times. You must hand the item into GOD at the end of each Profound Decisions event; it can be collected at the start of the next event by you or someone you nominate.

All Other Items

• Do not take any other items without the owner's knowledge

You are not permitted to take any other item in Empire without the player's knowledge.

You are allowed to threaten or trick a character out of their valuables, so you can take items if they are given to you by the player, even if you have intimidated or tricked the character. Provided you are roleplaying and interacting with a character over the exchange of items, then that is acceptable to take any items the player gives you. Interaction includes searching an unresisting character - if you search a target, then you can take any items you find or can point to. What you cannot do is take regular items without their OOC knowledge.

Searching a Character

• You must not touch another participant while searching
• You must use appropriate roleplaying searching for at least 30 seconds
• You can always take any in-character item that you can point to from an unresisting character

You can always take any in-character item that you can point to from an unresisting character. You can search an unresisting character to attempt to find any valuable items that they are carrying on their person that are not visible. You can only do this if you have both hands free. To search a character you must use appropriate roleplaying for at least thirty seconds. You can mime patting a person down, while keeping your hands well away so you don't come close to touching them. If you complete the count without interruption then the target must give you every IC item that they are carrying.

Looting Items

• You can loot items from a fallen character
• If you are looting a magic item, only take the ribbon unless the victim explicitly asks you to take the phys-rep
• Any phys-reps looted from a battlefield must be returned to GOD before you resume playing your character in Anvil
• You can replace a shattered weapon or shield if you can loot an equivalent item on the battlefield

You can loot items from another character but you must check with player whose character you are looting. If you are stealing a ribboned item they you should take only the ribbon unless the owner asks you to take the phys-rep and keep it with the ribbon. If you take a ribbon you should put the ribbon on a suitable phys-rep of your own as soon as possible after the battle is over.

If you loot a phys-rep from a battlefield, either an item or banner or equivalent, then you must return it to GOD before you resume playing your character in Anvil. All phys-reps, including barbarian banners, must be returned in this way.

If your character is looting a weapon or shield from the battlefield so that you can replace a shattered item then you must loot an item that is equivalent to the phys-rep you are going to use. If your character has a large round shield - you must loot another large shield (not a buckler). If your character has a spear - you could replace a shattered spear by looting a similar size polearm - not a sword or axe. You must check with the character you are looting the item from; you cannot loot a shattered item or an item that has already been looted by another character. In any case, you must not take phys-reps from our volunteer monsters, you must have your own phys-rep ready to use.

IC Tents

• Do not enter people's in-character tents unless you have been invited to do so by the owner

Many people sleep in their in-character tents at Empire and may need to store important OOC belongings in their tents. You must treat other people's spaces with respect - this means you must not enter an in-character tent unless you have their invitation to do so.

Lost Property

• Lost property should be brought to GOD
• You will be allowed to keep any IC valuables you find and bring to GOD

If you find any lost property at the event that includes IC valuables then you should bring them straight to GOD. Our GOD team will go through any pouch or purse to identify the owner if possible and separate any IC and OOC valuables. The GOD team will take your CID and then you will be allowed to keep any IC valuables if you found them outside a tent, if your character wishes to do so.

Game Design

The core game design of Empire includes a major focus on player-versus-player (PvP) politics. We try to be as explicit as possible that Empire is a PvP game, that the primary source of conflict derives from the tension between different players' ambitions. We want inter-personal rivalries and clashing political agendas to form the mainstay of the plot for each event.

That conflict includes the possibility for criminality but Empire deliberately aims to discourage PvP combat. The conflict between characters is intended to be social and political in nature - you can defeat a rival in many different ways, none of which require violence. The explicit social contract for the game is that murder is allowed provided it is the absolute last resort for any character.

We took the decision to adopt that approach because we weren't interested in supporting PvP combat in Empire. Our experience from previous games was that PvP combat can be deeply unsatisfying unless it is carefully managed. It is often over incredibly quickly and usually because one side is attacking with surprise and overwhelming numbers. It also tends to be overwhelmingly fatal - involving one side wiping out the other. In summary, it often involves only the most limited interactions that are utterly one-sided and very rarely enjoyable for the loser. We realised that we were simply not interested in creating a game that provides experiences that we no longer think the majority of our players are going to enjoy.

There are undoubtedly live roleplayers who enjoy being the victim of a clever theft but unfortunately that is the game many people come to Empire wanting to play. They simply don't enjoy returning to their tent to find it has been robbed and everything of value they spent years working to accumulate is gone. There's rarely any interactions between the thieves and their victims. IC theft can be fun for the thieves, but it can be a really miserable experience for the people who get robbed. It is not consistent with the broader game design of Empire to support that.

Previously we have shied away from the logical conclusions of this line of thinking because there are some types of theft that we do want to support - the idea of the clever confidence trick is an integral part of the League brief, so trickery and deception have to be supported in the game. Likewise we want to allow players to loot characters while they are on skirmishes and battles or other encounters outside Anvil, so we need that to still be possible. We also want people to be able to steal unique game items - such as the Archmage regalia. For a long time we were stymied by the apparent difficulty in creating a single definitive rule that would rule out the kinds of petty theft that add nothing to the game, but still leave room for this and still allow the overwhelming majority of players to play the game without intrusive restrictions.

Over the years we have tried to tighten up the rules in specific ways to make theft more difficult, by introducing rules for locked boxes and rules for sealed tents. The latter in particular was especially important, as there are many people sleeping in in-character tents who find the idea of anyone coming into them deeply unpleasant, especially when there are children sleeping in the field. In practice, we've no doubt that nobody engaged in IC-theft wanted to be entering a tent with anyone in it, but just the potential for it to happen was unpleasant for many.

Having spent some time examining our rules over winter, we've decided that the best way to support our desired approach is to simply write the best set of rules we can that support the game we want to run and then supplement that by trying to clearly spell out how we want people to play Empire. All our experience shows that having a clear social contract of what the game is one of the best ways to get a vision on how to play the game and what you can expect that is shared between everyone who plays Empire.

We have to recognise that any rules we create for this won't be perfect. There are bound to be questions and edge cases and with broad rules such as these that include an element of judgement. We want to allow looting on the battlefields - that is important, but we don't want players mugging each other for their lose change. Empire is a game of grand politics in which the great and the good come together to make crucial decisions about the future of the Empire. That's the game we want to run, that's what we want people to play. Larceny, muggings and random murders are not part of what we want players at Empire to do. In theory we could prohibit mugging but we can't see how to do that without making it impossible for characters to threaten and cajole others in negotiations. But we hope that by clearly communicating the kinds of roleplaying that Empire does and does not encourage, participants will be able to identify the spirit of the rules and be able to pursue that when playing at events.

In theory there is a risk that people might cheat and steal game items and then claim they were lost property. In practice very few people come to GOD to cheat, but again this is another compromise. Lost property frequently includes things that are important out-of-character, like credit cards, a phone or personal medicines. Our overwhelming priority is to ensure it gets back to the rightful owner by the quickest route possible. So we write our rules to support that goal and try to explain why we want to reward players for bringing lost property to GOD as quickly as possible.

Of course these new rules won't stop all IC thefts at events, because there are players that will cheat, so securing your IC valuables is still the best course of action. However it does mean that if your tent has been robbed while you were out, then you should report it to the referee desk so that they can take note of it. From this point on, stealing items in this way is cheating, and will be treated as such when it happens.