Change of kidnapping and hostage rules

[tigerpet15]

CHANGE OF KIDNAPPING AND HOSTAGE RULES

Hello I’m tigerpet15

Id like to address a current issue with the kidnapping and hostage RP (during bank robberies) which I personally don’t agree with how it works at the moment and my opinion how it kills RP opportunities. I’m writing this post in reaction to yesterday’s Empires bank robbery where from my pov the robbery ended with LEO shooting the hostage and arresting the empire in the bank. It seemed heavily unrealistic and it killed high quality rp. The situation was being solved by Goddamnitkopi and he decided it was according to the rules and he probably knew something I didn’t (I heard that the LEOs thought that the hostage was fake and it was not intention to kill him as they used breach shotgun round, also I heard voices from Empire saying that the hostage was real lured into the bank etc. So it’s hard to tell). The suggestion is not about yesterdays situation though so please keep the topic/possible crims vs cops fight not here! We are all playing on the RP server winning never should be more important than RP! (Especially for LEOs whom doesn’t really loose anything). It’s sad to see a gang planning RP scenario fun for everyone and actually pulling off hostage in bank (instead of fleeing the bank instantly on bikes). 

I am aware of a similar suggestion I believe is way less specific and its not really feasable and thats the reason Im adding this suggestion
 

We need to remember that LEOs and crims are dependent on each other. Crims produce RP for LEOs and LEOs make it so not easy so crims would feel achievement. If one of them is stronger it breaks the balance and one part starts to get bored. 

I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO NOT MAKE THIS TOPIC CRIMS VS COPS. As both sides would be able to benefit - cops would get a lot of action and more rp scenarios and crims would have more options how to plan and execute their criminal RP. Lets work together guys!

 

Id like to make this topic fluent I wanna edit this post with the suggestion depending on the community opinions to reach a meaningful conclusion and hopefully change. I would love to hear all the ideas from criminal or LEO side! So go on write a comment.

 

 

The issue 

• You cant according to the rules kidnap players who you don’t have DM rights against 

 

• There are no rules which would make players fear not only for their life’s but lifes of their close friends (LEOs for the hostages life)

 

• No rules surrounding the ransom (limiting it) to make it feasible for both sides - two years ago I was part of operation when I kidnapped a gang member and we demand ransom from his gang companions. They decided to let him die as they would not have to pay the ransom and it would really have any ic consequences for them. This is unfortunately uncommon for LEOs either (Take in mind that I wasn’t criminally active for months so my opinion might be little off)

 

• Lack of rule defining boundaries about hostage negotiations.

 

 

The solution

I Am aware of the reasoning of needing DM rights to kidnap players and it makes sense most of the time. Until u wanna produce RP for the server with a hostage. This is what I suggest:

 

• Allow in the rules to kidnap random players for reasonable IC reasons if he does give OOC consent without DM rights, with the limitation that u can do this once a week (not sure about the frequency though) no matter if the LEOs are involved. Allowing the OOC consent would also mean that the hostage might get hurt as the kidnappers would have DM rights against him if the demands are not met and the OOC consent would also be consent to this (and have enough time for the planned scenario). I need to add that the OOC consented hostage can’t be robbed.

The purpose of this is to give players possibility of getting a hostage for reasonable RP reason even though they dont have DM rights.  Kidnapping the hostage should take in account the time of day and the current rules surrounding the risk of doing so. THE IMPORTANT THING IS THE OOC CONSENT FOR IT (what should limit random players getting kidnappped from a street just because of bank robbery).

I think this used to be a thing back in the day. I have trust in the community that this would allow criminals to produce better and more often high quality RP - hostage situation at bank etc. etc. I believe there are a lot of players who would love to get kidnapped for fun RP and that there are a lot of players who would rather not to. And I think the OOC conset should give the player the chance to decide. I believe this would diversify a lot of RP scenarios which are like most of the times the same (like already mentioned bank robberies). 

• Change FearRP rule to not fear only for your own life but also of a life of a hostage which is close friend for criminals and or just existing hostage for LEOs. You can take action against the kidnapper(s) ONLY if you are 100% sure you can eliminate them before the harm the hostage (taking them out with sniper rifle for example). You should attempt to reach agreement with the kidnappers when hostages life is at risk and attempt to agree with the demands.

This change adresses the lack of fear for the life of hostages from Crim/LEOs side because they are not obligated to. I believe it would be realistic to have to fear for a life of a hostage and act accordingly. I am aware that formulating this is gonna be rather hard and setting the boundarie right also.

• If agreed upon something during hostage negotiations the agreement should be met no matter what (if crims would get free passage from a bank for leaving the hostage they would be given that)

I believe this should be in place at least for some time as both sides would be attampting to cut the other. This would equalate the hostage negotiations and result in happiness of all sides. For example if bank robbers agrees to leave the hostage for free passage and chase without heli the LEOs should give them that.

• Rule defying appropriate ammount of ransom for the hostage depending on his status (like a gang leader would need to be paid for more than regular member, police chief should be paid for more than police officer 2). I believe the appropriate amount would be 100k for the first ones mentioned and 50k for second ones mentioned. Also I would encourage allowing players to get more if approved with alt rp request (and big enough RP reason for that). If a ransom was paid for the player he cant be kidnapped and paid ransom for again for a month.

I think this part could be the most controversial part. And maybe the community is not ready for it. Also setting the boundaries right with also being able to control it (admins) could be difficult. Its a thing I would love to see. But can Imagine not adding this part.

• With all the context it would make sense to disallow to take “fake hostages”  

To be honest if we introduce bigger allowance for hostages during RP this rule would be a need. It would not be for LEOs easiry recognisable if the hostage is fake or not and it would open up a lot of options for abuse.
 

 

Script support 

• When holding hostage with /takehostage command typing out /killhostage would make your character shoot him in his head injuring him instantly (as shot from such a distance would do so).

It would make sense to add this command or the scrip support for killing the hostage to make the fear for the hostage higher.

 

 

Conclusion

I am aware that if we loosen the rules surrounding kidnapping RP we should be mindful of the limiting such RP - like you can attempt kidnap someone once a week no matter on LEOs. Tho I highly believe this would open doors for much more diverse RP and make possibility of comming up with new interesting scenarios.

I believe the current rules limit the possible RP too much and loosening up the rules would benefit everyone crims would get more RP ways how to do crime and LEOs would get more diverse crime to fight.

Also Id like to encourage everyone to write a comment add a suggestion opinion or any idea you have. I would like to add it to the suggestion Ive made. 

AND PLEASE STAY CALM and lets make this as meaningful as possisble!

 

 tigerpet15 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2024 by tigerpet15

[Ash]

There’s a lot here but for now I just want to address one specific point, the kidnapping rules state:

”You are for example not allowed to kidnap random players off the streets to use them for other roleplay such as bank or store robberies, this must happen naturally at the locations you intend to perform a robbery on.”

And for the situation yesterday I can confidently say there was a few people around the general area at the time, including myself who was stalking them all because I overheard someone talking about the bank when I was at the clothing store down the road . But I think this part of the rule is something worth keeping in mind that I don’t think a lot of bank robberies use, lingering around the area for an opportune legitimate hostage.

 

edit: this was made prior to edits to the original post.

[Diligo]

From what you have said the one thing that stands out and would completely change a lot of roleplay is the change to Fear Roleplay.
Specifically - Fearing for your friends life.
So real but right now if I dont have IC consequences for sacrificing my friends life (because, you know, he will just come back to Pillbox after dying without IC memory so basically nothing happened)
I probably wont bother saving my friend, so what's the point?
Instead I would use that as DM rights(or shortened escalation rights) to take revenge on people that have ''killed my friend''.

More fun for me, less chance to lose anything(because fearing for my friends life would incluce giving up moneyz/valuable things for basically free while going after revenge I would lose the couple guns i have on me or win a lot more guns).

What I described sounds like PvP mentality - you kill my friend, i kill your friend.
PvP mentality is not good imho.


+1 to the FearRP change. No opinion on the rest

[tigerpet15]

1 hour ago, Nikolia said:

From what you have said the one thing that stands out and would completely change a lot of roleplay is the change to Fear Roleplay.
Specifically - Fearing for your friends life.
So real but right now if I dont have IC consequences for sacrificing my friends life (because, you know, he will just come back to Pillbox after dying without IC memory so basically nothing happened)
I probably wont bother saving my friend, so what's the point?
Instead I would use that as DM rights(or shortened escalation rights) to take revenge on people that have ''killed my friend''.

More fun for me, less chance to lose anything(because fearing for my friends life would incluce giving up moneyz/valuable things for basically free while going after revenge I would lose the couple guns i have on me or win a lot more guns).

What I described sounds like PvP mentality - you kill my friend, i kill your friend.
PvP mentality is not good imho.


+1 to the FearRP change. No opinion on the rest

Thanks for the support. I thing the suggestion might be little overkill though the fear rp change may cause the most significant impact on quality of RP. I personally hate the win mentality and as a player who mains a crim character it is uncomfortable to interact with player who do have win mentality. There way more of them among criminals (cause when they loose they loose a lot what is understandable)

[Quietthecutie]

Biggest issue im seeing is the "fearing for a friends life" FRP. because it would immediately complicate the subject and leave us open to metagaming on what the definition of a "friend" is. 

Is a friend someone youve known for a few years and never killed? do they have to be in your organisation? could you have friends in rival organisations? is everyone in your organisation automatically classed as a friend? are family friends? 

what is friend?

This sounds silly I know but its important to ask those questions now because they will be contested in later form reports and arguments will happen around it. its a very grey area compared to the very cut and dry FRP rules we currently have.

[tigerpet15]

8 minutes ago, Quietthecutie said:

Biggest issue im seeing is the "fearing for a friends life" FRP. because it would immediately complicate the subject and leave us open to metagaming on what the definition of a "friend" is. 

Is a friend someone youve known for a few years and never killed? do they have to be in your organisation? could you have friends in rival organisations? is everyone in your organisation automatically classed as a friend? are family friends? 

what is friend?

This sounds silly I know but its important to ask those questions now because they will be contested in later form reports and arguments will happen around it. its a very grey area compared to the very cut and dry FRP rules we currently have.

Ngl I was looking forward to ur response . Honestly I didn’t think about that. I’m gonna figure something out and add it to the original post because this is actually good point. Also formulating this is gonna be pain in the ass (and think it might have to have some boundaries also some open areas). 
 

What I’d see as a fair point would be for LEOs any hostage (unless having big enough reason like beeing a dirty cop and hating icly the person in hostage situation - tho thus would be better solved w alt RP) 

Now the crim/civ side. Definitely your crim/civ organisation members, then your family (unless you have prolonged RP of hating them), girlfriends/boyfriends… Now comes the open part and that would be other close people (this would probably depends on individual cases…). The last open part may be missing because most of the situation would be defined well (and obviously nothing can’t be perfect). 

[Demonmit1]

The meta around banks is really boring.
if you dont have a hostage, you have scouts and dip the moment a cop is seen headed that way. the goal is just to get money, not have any player to player interaction. thats why you see everyone disperse in every direction on bikes, as thats the most effective way to profit from a bank with minimal loss.

If you chose to interact with cops, like having a hostage, you already lose.

Currently, the only way a bank hostage plays out is cops surround the bank, and after some talking, shoot everyone. some cops in charge seem to like the concept of shooting fish in a barrel, and prefer the instant win over more interaction with the chance the crim gets away. on the RARE chance they do let a crim attempt to evade, they barricade the entire place in with invincible barriers and set spikes everywhere to completely shut down the evade attempt right outside the bank.  This is one of many instances of the play to win mentality law enforcement on this server has that people complain about. you're not given a chance as a crim, your only option once cops show up is die or give up.

What should change is, if you have a hostage at a bank, and chose to interact with cops, the cops should willingly accept the hostage in trade for a chase. this is the best option overall for everyone in terms of RP and fun. Cops save the hostage that crims took, so positive RP. Crims get a free 5 seconds to start evading, giving them a choice to react. Cops and Crims get a chase, which basically everyone enjoys the process of being in. all of this allows so much more interaction to happen, but its actively not being allowed to happen by law enforcement side.

If players spend the real time and effort to acquire a real hostage to use, they should be rewarded for that RP effort. having a hostage should be the correct way to do a bank, as it should ensure a fair evade attempt by law enforcement without getting instantly shot at. The way law enforcement currently react to hostages at banks actively discourage RP, and promotes the current no interaction bike scatter meta.

Edited November 26, 2024 by Demonmit1

[Quietthecutie]

Probably the rule i would like to see implemented the most would be:

"if the hostage takers make reasonable demands to the negotiators which can be fulfilled, the negotiators must fulfil them to secure the hostages safety. if the hostage taker makes unreasonable demands/stalls/asks for more once his demands are met then this is seen as an escalation."

Something along those lines makes the most sense for me. as Demon said, for a bank robbery this could just be the usual safe passage and 5 second head start. all parties seem fine with that. in a pure hostage situation with no banks, it could be a reasonable amount of cash based on the persons standing, faction leaders, prominent figures in legal factions being worth more than the smallfolk etc.

The escalation part i added in there to stop hostage scenes going on for an UNREASONABLE amount of time or just getting silly, keeping that constant threat timer ticking in the back of the hostage takers head and stopping them from just presuming safety because they have a hostage, which is just rule playing. many hostage situations IRL end with use of force when negotiations break down. This also stops us having to rethink FRP and the whole friends mechanic which i swear would cause people to do such amazing roleplay as "john you and i are not friends anymore." /time *screenshots RP Proof*

[tigerpet15]

48 minutes ago, Demonmit1 said:

The meta around banks is really boring.
if you dont have a hostage, you have scouts and dip the moment a cop is seen headed that way. the goal is just to get money, not have any player to player interaction. thats why you see everyone disperse in every direction on bikes, as thats the most effective way to profit from a bank with minimal loss.

If you chose to interact with cops, like having a hostage, you already lose.

Currently, the only way a bank hostage plays out is cops surround the bank, and after some talking, shoot everyone. some cops in charge seem to like the concept of shooting fish in a barrel, and prefer the instant win over more interaction with the chance the crim gets away. on the RARE chance they do let a crim attempt to evade, they barricade the entire place in with invincible barriers and set spikes everywhere to completely shut down the evade attempt right outside the bank.  This is one of many instances of the play to win mentality law enforcement on this server has that people complain about. you're not given a chance as a crim, your only option once cops show up is die or give up.

What should change is, if you have a hostage at a bank, and chose to interact with cops, the cops should willingly accept the hostage in trade for a chase. this is the best option overall for everyone in terms of RP and fun. Cops save the hostage that crims took, so positive RP. Crims get a free 5 seconds to start evading, giving them a choice to react. Cops and Crims get a chase, which basically everyone enjoys the process of being in. all of this allows so much more interaction to happen, but its actively not being allowed to happen by law enforcement side.

If players spend the real time and effort to acquire a real hostage to use, they should be rewarded for that RP effort. having a hostage should be the correct way to do a bank, as it should ensure a fair evade attempt by law enforcement without getting instantly shot at. The way law enforcement currently react to hostages at banks actively discourage RP, and promotes the current no interaction bike scatter meta.

I can’t agree more. I am still a little disappointed in the community with how creative we don’t want to make our RP. When I was in the empire my RP ideas were shut down often (and I felt the win mentality). And it’s rather rare find players who want to make high quality RP with lesser concern for winning. Like for real we need to realise that LOOSING GIVES US RP OPPORTUNITIES - if u get robbed you can rp looking for the guy to get revenge, if criminal kills one of your fellow LEO you spend time looking for them giving u fun RP!
 

The bank robberies are BORING! Like when you try pull up RP with a hostage the cops just rush you and the RP sucks so it’s understandable to do it with bikes. What I quiet hate ngl. 
 

Either way I don’t want to make this cops vs crims post. I’d like to see plenty of ideas players can come up to with hostages beside bank robberies. Like actual negotiations can be hella fun for it you need both sides willing to pull it off (CRIMS NOT SCARED TO DO BANK WITH HOSTAGR AND COPS WILLING TO NEGOTIATE) 

I believe the purpose od the rules us to guide community toward better more fun RP. And this may be it. 

[tigerpet15]

36 minutes ago, Quietthecutie said:

Probably the rule i would like to see implemented the most would be:

"if the hostage takers make reasonable demands to the negotiators which can be fulfilled, the negotiators must fulfil them to secure the hostages safety. if the hostage taker makes unreasonable demands/stalls/asks for more once his demands are met then this is seen as an escalation."

Something along those lines makes the most sense for me. as Demon said, for a bank robbery this could just be the usual safe passage and 5 second head start. all parties seem fine with that. in a pure hostage situation with no banks, it could be a reasonable amount of cash based on the persons standing, faction leaders, prominent figures in legal factions being worth more than the smallfolk etc.

The escalation part i added in there to stop hostage scenes going on for an UNREASONABLE amount of time or just getting silly, keeping that constant threat timer ticking in the back of the hostage takers head and stopping them from just presuming safety because they have a hostage, which is just rule playing. many hostage situations IRL end with use of force when negotiations break down. This also stops us having to rethink FRP and the whole friends mechanic which i swear would cause people to do such amazing roleplay as "john you and i are not friends anymore." /time *screenshots RP Proof*

Actually this sounds REALLY GOOD. When I get home I’m gonna edit the post. I see opportunity for less heavy RP players as more heavy rp players with this. You can pull of bank with just wanting free passage or you can try exchange hostage for something else. I will probably add part saying that the agreed upon terms has to be fullfiled (like LEOs not shooting your tires after ur trying to flee or crims just getting money for the hostage and then killing him)

[tigerpet15]

8 hours ago, Ash said:

There’s a lot here but for now I just want to address one specific point, the kidnapping rules state:

”You are for example not allowed to kidnap random players off the streets to use them for other roleplay such as bank or store robberies, this must happen naturally at the locations you intend to perform a robbery on.”

And for the situation yesterday I can confidently say there was a few people around the general area at the time, including myself who was stalking them all because I overheard someone talking about the bank when I was at the clothing store down the road . But I think this part of the rule is something worth keeping in mind that I don’t think a lot of bank robberies use, lingering around the area for an opportune legitimate hostage.

 

edit: this was made prior to edits to the original post.

I believe there has to be some misunderstanding I found few mistakes in the post (they are fixed now) when I wrote opposite of what I meant. 
 

Your point sounds good. I believe a lot of crims doesn’t realise it or find it too boring to wait for the hostage (ngl good to see empire actually pulling that off). The other thing is like u have experienced that the community needs guidance in the hostage RP (with rules). 

[Diligo]

7 hours ago, Quietthecutie said:

Biggest issue im seeing is the "fearing for a friends life" FRP. because it would immediately complicate the subject and leave us open to metagaming on what the definition of a "friend" is. 

Is a friend someone youve known for a few years and never killed? do they have to be in your organisation? could you have friends in rival organisations? is everyone in your organisation automatically classed as a friend? are family friends? 

what is friend?

This sounds silly I know but its important to ask those questions now because they will be contested in later form reports and arguments will happen around it. its a very grey area compared to the very cut and dry FRP rules we currently have.

1)LEGAL FACTION FRIENDS 
good point. what is a friend?
because if someone in my faction is automatically a friend and I should have to fear for his life?
One of my characters works at Bayview and the other at DCC - i literally couldnt care less what has happened to 90% of people there(the 10% are nice friends to me).

2)DM rights - IS A FRIEND
Though talking about crim factions - lets just all be clear that this is an easy one.
If someone from my crim faction gets shot at - I get DM rights.
That means it is automatically my friend, so here is your answer.

3)Script wise - NO
But if we talking about a scriptly `add friend` then there should be some benefits of having a friend or roleplaying with them.
because that would mean adding friends is just net-negative if only roleplay bonus is having to fear for an extra person`s life.
Sounds like real life, which is not fun, that is why we are in a roleplay server, not trying to mimmick real life.

4)Roleplay wise - YES
But I would say - if crim factions are upholding their lore - they should all be basically family.
Lost MC - bikers through thick and thin sworn brothers and sisters working together through the hard life of San Andreas
Rooks - literally in their name Legacy, automatically they care for each other
ESM - a mob, meaning if you disrespect one then that means you disrespect the whole mob
Empire - literally a whole family
ect.

EDIT:
5)Opposite faction friends - NONRP
Also to answer your other question - Can a friend be in an opposite faction?
No. That does not make sense. You can be friendly acquaintance, but being friends for ever besties while not rolling the same vehicles and repping the same colors? Does not make any sense.

TL;DR
So yeah, to answer shortly to your question, if we want to nerf crims but at the same time give them a lot more roleplay opportunities - 
everyone in the criminal faction would be considered a friend and they should fear for their friends life

Edited November 26, 2024 by Nikolia

[Quietthecutie]

13 minutes ago, Nikolia said:

1)LEGAL FACTION FRIENDS 
good point. what is a friend?
because if someone in my faction is automatically a friend and I should have to fear for his life?
One of my characters works at Bayview and the other at DCC - i literally couldnt care less what has happened to 90% of people there(the 10% are nice friends to me).

2)DM rights - IS A FRIEND
Though talking about crim factions - lets just all be clear that this is an easy one.
If someone from my crim faction gets shot at - I get DM rights.
That means it is automatically my friend, so here is your answer.

3)Script wise - NO
But if we talking about a scriptly `add friend` then there should be some benefits of having a friend or roleplaying with them.
because that would mean adding friends is just net-negative if only roleplay bonus is having to fear for an extra person`s life.
Sounds like real life, which is not fun, that is why we are in a roleplay server, not trying to mimmick real life.

4)Roleplay wise - YES
But I would say - if crim factions are upholding their lore - they should all be basically family.
Lost MC - bikers through thick and thin sworn brothers and sisters working together through the hard life of San Andreas
Rooks - literally in their name Legacy, automatically they care for each other
ESM - a mob, meaning if you disrespect one then that means you disrespect the whole mob
Empire - literally a whole family
ect.

EDIT:
5)Opposite faction friends - NONRP
Also to answer your other question - Can a friend be in an opposite faction?
No. That does not make sense. You can be friendly acquaintance, but being friends for ever besties while not rolling the same vehicles and repping the same colors? Does not make any sense.

TL;DR
So yeah, to answer shortly to your question, if we want to nerf crims but at the same time give them a lot more roleplay opportunities - 
everyone in the criminal faction would be considered a friend and they should fear for their friends life

I just think the whole idea of classing someone as a friend is impractable at a conceptual level. That is to say, its impossible to effectively do that.

If its beneficial to be a friend, people will claim so and if its not, they wont. from a reports perspective, it would be a shitshow. and impossible to resolve in a timely manner. we dont need that.

[Diligo]

1 hour ago, Quietthecutie said:

I just think the whole idea of classing someone as a friend is impractable at a conceptual level. That is to say, its impossible to effectively do that.

If its beneficial to be a friend, people will claim so and if its not, they wont. from a reports perspective, it would be a shitshow. and impossible to resolve in a timely manner. we dont need that.

lets imagine for example all the crim factions from tomorrow have to roleplay that everyone in their faction is not just another colleague to roll labs with but rather a friend/family and that they need to fear for their life as well

could you maybe think of positives or negatives of that? you always have amazing insights but i just want to see your perspective on the pros and cons of that

[Quietthecutie]

1 hour ago, Nikolia said:

lets imagine for example all the crim factions from tomorrow have to roleplay that everyone in their faction is not just another colleague to roll labs with but rather a friend/family and that they need to fear for their life as well

could you maybe think of positives or negatives of that? you always have amazing insights but i just want to see your perspective on the pros and cons of that

I just dont think theres enough Pros or Cons to consider there...its one more barrier for so many things....forcing friendship simply because you are in the same organisation...particularly in large orgs, dozens deep. you might only have a passing knowledge of certain members. might have only spoken to them properly once or twice...i dont think its reasonable or realistic to then put your life in these persons hands or the other way around....so i really dont see a blanket rule of "all gang members must consider eachother friends" as being able to work. same with legal orgs. i really dont think we should be trying to alter FRP here with ambigious rules and arbitary classifications. it simply wouldnt work in practice imo.

Lets set that aside and focus on what we can do. i think the rule i laid up previously solves most of the issues people had around bank robberies i.e LEOs going in too heavyhanded or crims being too demanding when it comes to randsom. this way everyone knows where they stand and what the limits are in that situation. there is still room for escalation but not before a more peaceful outcome has been explored.

Edited November 27, 2024 by Quietthecutie