Bribery System
Outline
This is to outline a new, proposed, system for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen based around the mechanic of bribery. Throughout history civilizations have “functioned” through the use, and in some cases, encouragement, of government corruption and bribery.
Mechanic Outline
The Bribery mechanic could be used for all sorts of things. Below is a list of a few of the items that come to mind:
Access to areas that one would not normally be privy to.
Access to information that one would not normally be privy to.
Access to people that one would not normally be granted access to.
Get out of trouble when discovered breaking the law/being allowed to break the law.
Officials looking the other way when one does things that they would not normally be allowed to do.
Bribery could be made in the form of monetary payment, item payment, information payment, or favor payment.
Mechanic Example
As a part of a Rogue quest, you must gain entrance into a certain official’s home to steal an important document to return to the quest giver. You bribe one of his kitchen staff to gain entrance into his home.
This is obviously extremely basic and not fleshed out. Intentionally. Lets hear some ideas It would, obviously, be a skill based system, maybe used in conjunction with the Perception system.
I can see how this skill would fit well in Pantheon, particularly in this genre. It could be risky for holier than thou clerics and paladins, while being very useful for say a rogue and necromancer etc. There would be many different environments and scenarios between the continents, cities, and interactions in Terminus that would be affected by skill. I can see it fitting well. Nice idea!
I'm pretty sure they had initially planned to do stuff like this with the Diplomacy system in Vanguard (example: talk your way past a guard instead of fighting or work your diplomatic magic to get plans for buildings for housing). Unfortunately as with many things with that game it didn't quite get fully fleshed out. Still, I like the concept. And if they ever bring Diplomacy to Pantheon, something like this as part of it could be fun if done right.
I like this idea, its such an interesting concept, I think it would be neat if you were able to grow a skill to gain new levels of interaction with NPCs. You could come back around to an earlier town/village and use it to explore new stories there that earlier they might not have trusted you to talk about or you could "entice" them to talk to you about them now ha. Very cool!
I like this idea, this could almost be a separate game! and coupled with the Vanguard dymamics it could be really fun, almost introduce a machiavelian flavor to game play. When I saw information or favor payment I instantly thought of faction. What if faction was tradeable to NPC's for bribery? it would make sense to ruin your faction with another race by offering faction points to another race for information or a perception boost for further questing. This could make for some nice cathaartic storylines for pallys- ruining everything along the way for good reason(?) in the hopes to be redeemed at the end, or great flavor or role introduction for evil races, or even make complex play for rogues who would need to find that grey balance between all but still having to remain in the shadows and stay just outside the law.
If faction could be tradeable to NPC's there could be rules based on faction like, if I wanted info or perception hints or just to trade with a NPC merchant and I met with the gypsys at the town fringes who are indifferent globally I could trade elf faction with thronefast human gypsies just to be able to enter thronefast and trade with one certain merchant. my elf faction would go down but thats it. And even then it would depend if the gypsy wanted that faction- they may want others.
Or, if I needed something from dark Myr that I have tolerable faction with, and I traded halfling faction for info, I would boost Dark myr faction- because dark myr hate halflings- reduce halfling faction because I gave it up- but also receive an additional halfling faction hit because I gave intel to the halfling enemy, the dark myr. So I would risk hitting my halfling faction, twice.
Unfortunately, to make this extreme and maybe impossible would need to code, a faction value relative to gear would need to be determined (not money) if you wanted to make an option to trade faction or gear for favor/perception clues or info. So like instead of offering halfling faction I could offer my nice helm I worked hard to get. Money could be used for bribes but for only certain things and then pegged to skill level or character level. The higher you are, the more you pay, a built in money sink like gem/reagent use.
This may get out of hand once faction has a value ascribed to it. Unless the only kind of faction that could be traded was earned or quested faction. If quested this may cause higher levels to go back to newbie cities? just to do faction quests? or maybe hire newbies to get the items so they can do the turn ins? or an incentive to mentor down to get those TLC faction quests.. oh I like that idea. That would subtly encourage older players to develop leadership skills because if they had to go back and mentor down- they would need to get a group at that level - maybe select from random newbies in the city to join them- and they would have to lead them in this quest they already know the strats for, for faction, and laugh and be patient and encourage and speak up and reply and run back and try along the way.
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I had a second thought on this regarding world impact and player impact on the world. If more players conspired to give up their faction to the dark myr the NPC AI may then cause the DarkMyr to want to begin to encroach upon the halfling lands, getting closer, setting up forts, as more faction gets poured into the dark myr form the players the dark myr positions get closer and stronger to the point where it reaches a critical mass and a NPC war is started and changing the face of the environment. Local rogue made good. Maybe this is the epic nature of the rogue, to be aware of this unbalance and take pains to keep the balance so one faction does not get too strong OR said rogue can be so persuaded to tip the scales by causing another faction to encroach upon the dark myr causing the dark myr to fall back. The tension between dark myr and halflings once started will still be there and subject to tweeking by players but its the rogue that can influence sucess or defeat in certain areas or battles- like getting into the kitchen in dark myr camps.