Postmasters and bribery

Taraus

So after the reception of an anonymous letter, I had a (rather whimsical) thought.

What about the creation of some sort of system that allows you to bribe the postmaster of a particular location, and have them reveal the last five people that have sent letters from their (the postmaster's) post office?

Suggesting five as the number to only give a list of possibilities, and not -entirely- defeat the purpose of 'anonymous' mailing.

Not entirely fleshed out, was more interested in overall feedback on the topic than details at this point (details would come later).

Thoughts, opinions?

Xith

Based on the frequency with which mail is sent, I think they could hurry straight to the post-office that uses crows/gremlins/etc and see the last person, no matter how many you include on the list. Of course if he randomizes the order....

Anonymous letters are fine as is. You'll just have to wonder about that secret admirer forever.

(I did have thoughts for a Forensics system a while back, but it would reach down to levels of the code that it'd probably not be worth implementing. Maybe for a future game.)

Kyrra

It can take two minutes for mail to arrive sometimes, if not longer.

Taraus

Randomizes or alphabetizes. And Kyrra's right, the letters don't get sent right away. 

Blujixapug

This could be cool, but personally I value being able to send anonymous mail more highly than being able to tell who sent me unsigned mail.

If it were possible for the sender to somehow use mechanics/tactics/strategy to defeat the bribe, maybe it would balance out. eg. I send a letter, and pre-emptively bribe the postmaster 6000 gold not to reveal my identity if he is questioned. Someone comes asking about me, and bribes the postmaster 4000 gold, but because that is a lower value than I offered, he is not interested and will not reveal my identity (and refuses further bribes). Or some time- and resource-intensive method to replace my name in the "last five people that have sent letters" list with a random other person. (Or I could just pay some newbie to mail five letters after I do, to flood the "last five people" list, then bribe/threaten them not to reveal my name if they know what's good for them.)

Or the bribe could only reveal nonspecific details, eg. "he was a tsol'aa", or "he looked like he was between 150 and 200 years old", or "he spoke with a Cyrenian accent".

edit: Also I suppose you could send mail from a city someone is enemied to, preventing them from accessing the post office/postmaster to even attempt a bribe, if you wanted to send them ascii images of Betty Boop without them knowing who they came from.

Nim

I like the idea of the bribe revealing random details like that. I'm slightly afraid it'd be deemed useless, but I think it could be fun, and I think fun is more important in this case than any sort of hard usability.

Shirszae

A bribe-type thing would be interesting, so long as no actual names are given, but details of the person, as per Bluji's suggestion

Sylvance

I don't see any problem at all with the OP. Ya know why? Because, given the number of post offices and the time delay, the likelihood of you bribing the correct postmaster is pretty slim. Even if you did run to each city and Delos and come back with a list of 30 names, I just don't see that being useful in any way.

Good idea in principle, but...

Taraus

If you pay attention to what delivers the letter, you'll know which post office to check. Each city has their own thing to carry the mail!

Sylvance

Taraus said:

If you pay attention to what delivers the letter, you'll know which post office to check. Each city has their own thing to carry the mail!

Ah, very interesting! I didn't know that

That being the case, I also think that if a character is Hidden etc. then the clerk shouldn't be able to identify them to the recipient.

Wysteria

I get mail from people sending them from Mhaldor often enough to know this will just have me going, "Man, not again" and they're completely anonymous too. Bribing could be interesting, but the mechanics would be hard to code in.

Perhaps the only place this could work for would be Delos. If you're enemied to everywhere but someone sends you something from there, you can then maybe find out who tried to send something to you. Might help suss out that it could be an enemy trying to hide that fact given the neutrality of Delos.

Sorry brain is half asleep...I think that made sense?

Antidas

I used to phase into enemy cities to mail official letters to people, be it PoM business or Naga business. That is, if I needed to mail a letter to a Cyrenian, I'd use the Cyrene post office. I always felt it added a little something to the letter, for the recipient to know that whoever was sending it could have easily mailed it from their own post office

edit: slightly off topic, I know. But only slightly!!

Morro

I'm kind of on the fence here. I've got some really cool anonymous letters recently that seem like they would be wonderful opportunities for RP, but there's really no way for me to follow up with the sender. A mechanic like this could give me some way to interact with the sender, but could also kind of kill the magic of not knowing.

Shirszae

Morro said:

I'm kind of on the fence here. I've got some really cool anonymous letters recently that seem like they would be wonderful opportunities for RP, but there's really no way for me to follow up with the sender. A mechanic like this could give me some way to interact with the sender, but could also kind of kill the magic of not knowing.

Or down-right kill the magic of people sending anonymous letters at all.

Mizik

- anonymous letters.

Amunet

Frankly, if I get one more anonymous letter containing an insult or a retarded joke, I might send @Mizik after anyone caught standing in a post office.

Seriously, though, least funny prank ever. Pandorans/CIJ really need to get some fresh ideas.

Kyrra

Amunet said:

Frankly, if I get one more anonymous letter containing an insult or a retarded joke, I might send @Mizik after anyone caught standing in a post office.

Seriously, though, least funny prank ever. Pandorans/CIJ really need to get some fresh ideas.

That's kind of incentive to stand in a post office..

Iocun

Sylvance said:

Taraus said:

If you pay attention to what delivers the letter, you'll know which post office to check. Each city has their own thing to carry the mail!

Ah, very interesting! I didn't know that

That being the case, I also think that if a character is Hidden etc. then the clerk shouldn't be able to identify them to the recipient.

You say to an old postmaster, "Good afternoon, sir. I was wondering, do you remember who came to your office to mail a letter recently? Here's a little something to fresh up your memory."

An old postmaster says to you, "I'm sorry. The last letter I handled was given to me by a hand extended from beyond that curtain over there. Whoever gave it to me must have been hidden behind it. It's a rather common occurrence around these parts."