Politician Archive

Perhaps if a bounty required the assent of a "jury", it could deal with most issues of fairness/griefing. Of course, the jury selection is a tricky problem. Perhaps you don't require Master Politicians to submit the bounty, but the jury is a group of Warmasters (Politician Martial Policy IV) from the planet - there's no good way to "stack" that jury!

- Syd

I like this idea a lot, but I also see the huge potential for griefing and, as others have pointed out, the disparity that this will create between the "haves" and "have-nots".

Now, as an alternative, others have proposed bounties being assigned as a penalty for the failure of a mission for Jabba or Valerian or some other criminal overlord, so why not combine the two ideas?

Here's what I propose, and let's take Jabba as an example: As was suggested, Master Politicians are the only players that can place bounties, but they don't place the actual bounty. What the Politician would need to do is actually travel and speak to Jabba, and convince Jabba that this player is "looking for work" and needs a mission. The Politician is essentially using their "negotiation skills" to convince Jabba that they are the player's representative, but what they are really doing is roping the player into a mission that they have no desire to take or complete. If the Politician is successful in their negotiations with Jabba, the player in question is sent an email informing them that they have been assigned a mission by Jabba, and that failure will result in a bounty being placed on their head.

Missions should be very difficult, but not impossible for player to complete, and the targets would only aggro for the player, removing the possibility that the player brings along their six commando friends to help them out. Missions could even be geared toward the target profession. If the player fails, the bounty is placed. This provides the target playeran opportunity toget out of the bounty, and somewhat tempers the griefing factor that such a system would inevitably create. Yes, you may have to go and do a hard mission, but at least you have a chance to avoid that price being placed on your head.

And not only does this provide a bit of a safety check, it introduces even more content for the politician. They would need to travel in order to negotiate with Jabba,and then act like real politicians, i.e., lie through their teeth/flatter/bribe to convince Jabba to assign the mission. You could even introduce a variable thatmight result in the politician having a bounty placed on their heads if they are sufficiently ham-fisted in their negotiations, so there would be real risk for the politician as well.

The idea of player bounties is sound IMO. It just needs to be addressed in the proper way or everyone will end up with a bounty on their head.