The Quisalis/Ivory Marks

Santar

So, the new system for Marks is over a year old now, and we've all had plenty of time to use it and see what works and doesn't work about it. There was a lengthy discussion about it in the latest couple of pages of the rants thread, and this thread is here to discuss the issue. Below I've provided a summary of the issues, and what I believe is the best possible fix to the Mark.

To summarize what's wrong with the current system: Too many non-viable Mark candidates. Contracts get soaked up by people that do not have the necessary ability to kill the breadth of targets that being a Mark requires. This results in people having little to no faith in the contract system, because they're not guaranteed to receive a good Mark when they hire. The current point system fails to accommodate the system properly, and I don't think any amount of tweaking numbers or automated coding fix is going to change that.

So to fix this, there are a couple of options.

1. Change the system back to the old way where people get to pick their Mark. However, flaws have been voiced about this system as well. This would be better than the status quo, however, it would be ideal to find a way to further fix the current system. 

2. Continue using the current system, except get rid of the point scales, and simply allow players to police who is allowed to take contracts. Some concerns have been brought up that this way would not be fair, however, I believe the following system I have created would allow for the fairest possible outcome. 

Xinna voiced her concern on this subject, and I will post my reply to her, which describes the foundation of my idea for changing the Quisalis(and an Ivory fix could be done similar to this):

Santar said:

Xinna said:

I don't really think a player council determining which marks are "competent" enough is a good idea. It's too subjective and would cause too much drama.

I'm gonna address the above for a bit. While I agree that just going back to "Pick your Mark" would be the easiest solution, I do think my idea for a Quisalis council has merit. I'll flesh out the idea a bit, and hope that the following elucidation will alleviate some concerns. 

The subjectivity and the drama issue are obviously at the forefront of the perceived problems with an idea like this, however, if you structure it properly, you can minimize the risk of those problems. 

For starters, there are no Quisalis in Cyrene or Targossas. That eliminates a lot of potential issues immediately by decreasing the amount of people that have to "get along" with this, so to speak.

So we're working with four cities and rogues. Each city should appoint one assassin to be their council member of the Quisalis. You have one from each city: Mhaldor, Ashtan, Hashan, Eleusis. Then from those four people, you have them select a rogue Quisalis to fill out a council of five.

Now, this council would review all prospective members of the Mark. There would be two compartments of the Mark. Assassins that can take contracts. And members of the Mark that are trying to prove themselves. 3/5 council members would need to give their blessing to a Mark member to allow them to become a true assassin. The blessing could be removed at any time. It'd essentially be a blessing on behalf of that city/rogues. 

Any good fighter that can kill people regularly should have no problem convincing 3/5 council members to give their blessing. For the most part, high-end fighters value and respect other people that are good at killing people. This usually supercedes personal differences to a large extent. There could still be some personal bias, but it'd likely be a small amount, and it'd be minimized by the fact that you only need 3 votes. Thus you couldn't be held out just because 1-2 people don't like you. The council members would also be accountable to their cities. And the rogue council member would be accountable to the other council members. This sort of structure would keep things reasonable.


To give an illustrated example of what you'd likely end up with: You'd probably see Xer for Mhaldor, Jhui for Ashtan, Hhaos for Hashan, Rangor for Eleusis, then whatever rogue gets chosen. Do you believe that these five people would be capable of properly judging whether or not someone should be allowed to take contracts or not? Personally, I have faith that they would do a fine job.

Edit: Also, for added integrity, could even add in a Patron, not necessarily for overseeing this day to day, but dealing with any bias problems.

I think this idea would function well. And, didn't see the Ourania post. Could move this to ideas for discussion. 

This idea would keep the current system in tact, but it would remove one of the core problems: Dormant/inactive/unmotivated/unskilled marks. Anyone would still be allowed to be Mark if they want to try to work their way up and prove themselves, or if they just like the status for PK/etc, but they wouldn't be able to accept contracts unless they were judged worthy of doing so by their peers.

As far as how high the standard would be set for the above idea, I'm of the opinion that there should still be some leniency, and that all high tier fighters that are regularly engaged in combat and can kill a variety of people should still be able to be a Mark and take contracts.

The hope is that this change will restore faith in the Mark system, and that people will be willing to hire, since they know that any Mark they get will have been approved by their peers as a valid Mark.


I believe this is a fair and balanced way to set things up, but I am open to hearing any concerns regarding it. Just trying to build a better system.

Aedin

First off well done on this. I have to say whenever I came back from dormancy and seen the new system I didn't quite like however this new system you proposed looks great. If this was in place and had a little more time and worked all my stuff out for jester I would so join the mark would seem more like and organization.

Achimrst

Also, let city allies be able to take bounties in cities to help out cities that don't have high tier combatants. ty.

Silas

I think the best idea for the Ivory Mark is that all cities have their own chapters of the Ivory organisation, which people can join, but to become a Champion you'd need to gain the sponsorship of a majority of the ruling council (perhaps even an elected/appointed council specifically for recognising new Champions?). Contracts are then handed out at random to Champions from the hirer's city.

Achimrst

Silas said:

I think the best idea for the Ivory Mark is that all cities have their own chapters of the Ivory organisation, which people can join, but to become a Champion you'd need to gain the sponsorship of a majority of the ruling council (perhaps even an elected/appointed council specifically for recognising new Champions?). Contracts are then handed out at random to Champions from the hirer's city.

Adding to the idea, have the Champions use city bounties as a way to gain points and recognition for being a 'City Champion' since just being appointed could make any non-com a champion for doing nothing. Their deathsight could change to something like, 'Silas has been slain by the Champion of Eleusis'

Most people hire assassin for random murdering anyway, or at least seem to, unless they are hiring on an assassin :P could just be my perception on it but idk.

Nim

I really like the city champion idea. It handles what the Ivory Mark was always sort of meant to do and ensures that there's systematic bias in favor of monitoring the quality of city champions.

Another possible idea for assassins is to keep the point system to some extent, and require assassins to kill one another to prove themselves, only handing out actual contracts to people above a certain point quota. Until that quota (or possibly even after it), assassins would be given contracts on other assassins. The possibility of losing access to those contracts and being required to regain it again, I think, would also be a good mechanism.

The downside is that there's an assumption that a good assassin is also capable of thwarting other assassins, but I think it'd be one systematic way of ensuring only capable assassins are given contracts.

I think that having the two mark systems work differently will go a long way for establishing why there's two to begin with. Right now, as far as I'm aware, there's no real purpose for having two, since they seem to operate the same, unless I'm missing something. If the organizations are changed to have radically different operating procedures, it might make sense to allow overlapping membership.

Bluef

Changing the Mark system back to the old way of doing things is not a good idea in my opinion. First and foremost, it's unnecessary. Second, it doesn't address the fact that some people would simply be unable to garner retribution IC, leaving them with no IC alternative but to issue. Third, the cliques of the realm's cities would once again hold the keys to the gates of retribution; again, this is not ideal to anyone but those prospective keyholders. It is especially bad for anyone not a part of a faction.

The Councils idea is just the formation of another type of clique, by the way. I think that's a really poor and incredibly subjective way to address the problems with the current system. There is so little factional roleplay of any kind between the two Mark organizations as they are now anyway, it seems like adding cities to that mix would just further dilute everything.

What's the idea behind totally doing away with what we have now in terms of the point scales, which should be ensuring that contracts go to the most active/best Marks, if they were working properly? 

Why couldn't there just be a re-working of the rankings system so that dormant Marks (or those who haven't completed a contract) fall into a kind of limbo. If they don't complete the next contract they're handed, they're cast out of the Mark system in disgrace (world reaction for the arpee) and can't rejoin for a year (and when they do it costs double or some special task).  

Aerek

Silas said:

I think the best idea for the Ivory Mark is that all cities have their own chapters of the Ivory organisation, which people can join, but to become a Champion you'd need to gain the sponsorship of a majority of the ruling council (perhaps even an elected/appointed council specifically for recognising new Champions?). Contracts are then handed out at random to Champions from the hirer's city.

Came here to say this, found it already said.

Not only is that system desirable, it would be a good way to make the Ivory/Quisalis distinction meaningful, instead of the flip-a-coin-join-one reality that we have now.

Quisalis rev-amp is harder. Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, but a player council would be hard-pressed to be "unbiased". Don't have a good solution, though.

I think part of the problem is that people still use Marks for an "Open PK" flag. A fair few Marks probably don't even want contracts, it's just a rite of passage or a bragging right to say they're getting jumped all the time. Offering that Open PK flag through some other means, and perhaps tightening the noose on when the Quisalis auto-kicks you, might ameliorate some of the Mark problem without a huge re-write.

Xinna

I love the idea of the two orgs functioning differently, with an Assassin Council regulating the Quisalis and cities each regulating their own chapters of the Ivory, which can only be hired by that city's citizens and allied Orders (something like that, at least). Really improves the flavor of both orgs, and would make contract completion more likely.

Greys

Any reason why there should not be a partial refund (say what the mark would have gotten if he/she was successful) on a failed attempt? Hardly seems fair the org gets to keep more of the money when its members fail.

Silas

Bluef said:

What's the idea behind totally doing away with what we have now in terms of the point scales, which should be ensuring that contracts go to the most active/best Marks, if they were working properly?

The idea is that something needs to change because they're not working properly. It'd be very difficult to balance a point ranking system in such a way as to weed out people who just don't belong, because as long as contracts can be nullified and fulfilled in raids and group skirmishes, it's never going to be fair to punish people for involving themselves in that part of the game while also being a member of one of the mark orgs.

And, again, I don't think you need to put much consideration on outliers in the system when you're coming up with a framework. If one or two people struggle to get people to accept contracts based on their own established character or roleplay, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Quite apart from not being relevant because of the retention of the current randomly assigned and anonymous contracts from Santar's proposed idea, that situation is just one example of a consequence for people's actions if they prove themselves unable to play nice with others. Achaea needs more consequences, pitfalls and dangers, not less.

Grandue

An interesting option would be to have a bounty system where an assassin could log in and check to see if there were any contracts available currently. Perhaps even only show the contracts for the people who are currently in the realm, but not display their name. The assassin could then accept  a random contract for the next 1-24 hours and if they fail to kill the target during that window the contract gets put back on the board and another assassin can pick it up. Or people could pick and choose how much they want to pay for a contract and this would be displayed on the contract board, so an assassin might see 10 open contracts ranging from 1k-3k and one contract for 20k and will be able to choose to try to 20k contract. Thus there would be an incentive for people to pay more for their contracts if they want them done sooner and the assassin would be pressured to complete the assassination as soon as they can because it will expire and be available to another assassin in 1-24 hours. 

This would solve a couple of problems. The first being that it almost eliminates the possibility of someone putting a contract on someone and then the contract either running out because the mark becomes inactive or can't kill the target. 

The second problem this would fix is the target would never know who their assassin is for any length of time. One of my biggest frustrations when I was a mark was jumping someone and then them earringing out and whenever I hit their mindnet or they see me logged in they hole up in a city or ship somewhere. With a system like this, after so many hours you could have a completely different mark after you. 

And third, it would allow the most active marks to actually make a decent living at it. Instead of waiting for a new contract to be put on someone and hoping it gets assigned to you you could go check the board, be assigned a contract, complete the contract and go back to the board for your next target until the board is cleared. I would suggest that this board only allow you to take a contract if the target is in realm at the moment. 

Eld

Grandue said:

An interesting option would be to have a bounty system where an assassin could log in and check to see if there were any contracts available currently. Perhaps even only show the contracts for the people who are currently in the realm, but not display their name. The assassin could then accept  a random contract for the next 1-24 hours and if they fail to kill the target during that window the contract gets put back on the board and another assassin can pick it up. Or people could pick and choose how much they want to pay for a contract and this would be displayed on the contract board, so an assassin might see 10 open contracts ranging from 1k-3k and one contract for 20k and will be able to choose to try to 20k contract. Thus there would be an incentive for people to pay more for their contracts if they want them done sooner and the assassin would be pressured to complete the assassination as soon as they can because it will expire and be available to another assassin in 1-24 hours. 

This would solve a couple of problems. The first being that it almost eliminates the possibility of someone putting a contract on someone and then the contract either running out because the mark becomes inactive or can't kill the target. 

This is only true if killing an assassin with a contract on you no longer nullified the contract - if it does, then putting out a contract and having it fail because the mark who takes it can't kill the target (and is killed by them in the attempt) is still perfectly possible, albeit somewhat less likely if marks are realistic in assessing the likelihood of completing a contract and only pick up those they have a good chance at. If you do mean to suggest that contracts in this system would not be nullified by the target killing the assassin, that seems like a bad idea for a couple reasons.

1) It eliminates the possibility for the target to get rid of the contract except by waiting for it to expire (while being perpetually open to attack by whoever happens to have the contract at the moment) or getting killed. In addition to being overly onerous for the target, that seems like it would make contracts too likely to succeed. I understand that a high rate of failure is a disincentive to use the mark system, but giving the mark (or multiple marks) essentially unlimited attempts to fulfill a contract would be a pretty major overcorrection. If you kill me without provocation, I'm well within my rights to try to kill you back, but generally if I try and you kill me again, I'm not justified to keep trying every time I see you for the next month. Similarly, if instead I decide that I'm not up to seeking revenge for myself and hire a mark, if the mark tries to complete the contract and you kill him, that should be the end of it; you shouldn't be obligated to kill or escape from every assassin who wants to take a whack at you for the lifetime of a contract.

2) It eliminates a disincentive for people who aren't good enough to be effective assassins to join the Mark. Under both the old system and the current one, an assassin who consistently fails to complete contracts will lose reputation and fail to attract new ones (either mechanically or through player interaction), which provides an incentive not to join until you're good enough to at least stand a decent chance of completing a reasonable fraction of your contracts. If the only consequence of failing to complete a contract is that it goes back on the board for the next scrub in line to take a stab at it, the only incentive not to join is the open PK flag, and the Mark's only means of keeping the standards high and maintaining some of the prestige of the org is for the established assassins to grief out newbies they find unworthy, which isn't a very fun mechanic.

The second problem this would fix is the target would never know who their assassin is for any length of time. One of my biggest frustrations when I was a mark was jumping someone and then them earringing out and whenever I hit their mindnet or they see me logged in they hole up in a city or ship somewhere. With a system like this, after so many hours you could have a completely different mark after you. 

Maybe just a difference in preference, here, but I'd count this as a point against this system. The onus should be on the assassin to figure out ways to deal with people's escape and avoidance mechanisms; it's one of the required skills for the job. If there are particular mechanics that make it TOO easy to avoid/escape, look for ways to fix those mechanics, but don't make people have to worry about being jumped by potentially any mark for the duration of a contract.

Grandue

Eld said:

Grandue said:

An interesting option would be to have a bounty system where an assassin could log in and check to see if there were any contracts available currently. Perhaps even only show the contracts for the people who are currently in the realm, but not display their name. The assassin could then accept  a random contract for the next 1-24 hours and if they fail to kill the target during that window the contract gets put back on the board and another assassin can pick it up. Or people could pick and choose how much they want to pay for a contract and this would be displayed on the contract board, so an assassin might see 10 open contracts ranging from 1k-3k and one contract for 20k and will be able to choose to try to 20k contract. Thus there would be an incentive for people to pay more for their contracts if they want them done sooner and the assassin would be pressured to complete the assassination as soon as they can because it will expire and be available to another assassin in 1-24 hours. 

This would solve a couple of problems. The first being that it almost eliminates the possibility of someone putting a contract on someone and then the contract either running out because the mark becomes inactive or can't kill the target. 

This is only true if killing an assassin with a contract on you no longer nullified the contract - if it does, then putting out a contract and having it fail because the mark who takes it can't kill the target (and is killed by them in the attempt) is still perfectly possible, albeit somewhat less likely if marks are realistic in assessing the likelihood of completing a contract and only pick up those they have a good chance at. If you do mean to suggest that contracts in this system would not be nullified by the target killing the assassin, that seems like a bad idea for a couple reasons.

1) It eliminates the possibility for the target to get rid of the contract except by waiting for it to expire (while being perpetually open to attack by whoever happens to have the contract at the moment) or getting killed. In addition to being overly onerous for the target, that seems like it would make contracts too likely to succeed. I understand that a high rate of failure is a disincentive to use the mark system, but giving the mark (or multiple marks) essentially unlimited attempts to fulfill a contract would be a pretty major overcorrection. If you kill me without provocation, I'm well within my rights to try to kill you back, but generally if I try and you kill me again, I'm not justified to keep trying every time I see you for the next month. Similarly, if instead I decide that I'm not up to seeking revenge for myself and hire a mark, if the mark tries to complete the contract and you kill him, that should be the end of it; you shouldn't be obligated to kill or escape from every assassin who wants to take a whack at you for the lifetime of a contract.

2) It eliminates a disincentive for people who aren't good enough to be effective assassins to join the Mark. Under both the old system and the current one, an assassin who consistently fails to complete contracts will lose reputation and fail to attract new ones (either mechanically or through player interaction), which provides an incentive not to join until you're good enough to at least stand a decent chance of completing a reasonable fraction of your contracts. If the only consequence of failing to complete a contract is that it goes back on the board for the next scrub in line to take a stab at it, the only incentive not to join is the open PK flag, and the Mark's only means of keeping the standards high and maintaining some of the prestige of the org is for the established assassins to grief out newbies they find unworthy, which isn't a very fun mechanic.

The second problem this would fix is the target would never know who their assassin is for any length of time. One of my biggest frustrations when I was a mark was jumping someone and then them earringing out and whenever I hit their mindnet or they see me logged in they hole up in a city or ship somewhere. With a system like this, after so many hours you could have a completely different mark after you. 

Maybe just a difference in preference, here, but I'd count this as a point against this system. The onus should be on the assassin to figure out ways to deal with people's escape and avoidance mechanisms; it's one of the required skills for the job. If there are particular mechanics that make it TOO easy to avoid/escape, look for ways to fix those mechanics, but don't make people have to worry about being jumped by potentially any mark for the duration of a contract.

Nope, I wasn't suggesting that the contract isn't cancelled if the target kills the mark. I would suggest that there be a penalty for a failed contract though, like a timed probation where the mark can't pick up any more contracts or something similar so that you avoid the situation where a terrible mark is just burning through contracts and losing them over and over again, or perhaps have the Assassins/Champions automatically place a contract on the assassin's head for bringing shame and dishonor to the organization. 

I don't think having the marks switch up who holds the contract is a negative thing. The client is hiring the organization to kill the target, and if the organization feels the best way to accomplish this is to switch up who holds the contract, how is this a bad idea. There are some classes that excel at killing other classes and people who excel at killing people in certain environments. Have a target that spends 100% of their time on a ship hopping islands but the contract gets assigned to someone who has never sailed a boat and doesn't even know how to get to islands? Why in the world would that contract be stuck on that mark for eternity when there is another mark who is a pirate that would leap at the chance to pursue a target on an island? Or perhaps you're assigned a contract on someone from a different time zone and the only time they play is from 3am-5am your time, would it not be unreasonable for someone who keeps the same hours to pick up the contract? And there are people who will literally just flat out stand on a guard stack or docked ship and have their system scanning for your name, waiting for their contract to time out. Man, ain't nobody got time for that. 

Silas

The client is actually paying for the organisation to put out a single hit on the target, which will succeed or fail. If it fails, the client needs to stump up more cash.

The problem with the system at the moment is that the failure rate is too high because there are too many marks that either don't try to kill their target, or are just unable to kill a majority of targets. Assassin's guilds would and should be much more stringent in their selection process when handing out writs, so that they're an appealing option to their potential clientele.

Eld

Maybe I misunderstood the first problem you were trying to solve. If your mention of losing contracts because the assassin can't kill the target just referred to not being able to because of time zones, etc, then sure, having some choice in what contracts you take would help with that. I'm not sure how big a problem that is in reality; if it's an occasional problem, but not all too common, you could address it in the random assignment system by allowing assassins to yield contracts back to the mark with a small hit to their rep (much less than what they'd get from failing a contract, but enough that doing it constantly to try to get easier contracts will leave you not getting many at all), or maybe just allow yielding a limited number in a given time period. Anyway, no major objection to the idea of picking up contracts from a board when you want one, as long as there's accountability for consistent failure to complete them.

As for the contracts shifting between marks, I could see a few cases where it would be desirable (like, again, time zones), and having some way to shift them to people better suited to the particular contract would make sense, with some limits on how often it happens. Thinking from the point of view of the target, if I know I've got a contract on me but don't know who holds it and a mark jumps me randomly, I'll figure he's got the contract so I know to be ready for a fight if I see him. If the contract reverts to the board every 24 hours or whatever, all I know is that I have to be ready for a fight any time I see any member of that Mark for the next month, which is a significantly larger burden, and if I really want to avoid getting attacked, will probably make me even less likely to go out and do things where I'm more open to attack. Sure, there will be people who will be people who will just sit somewhere safe any time they see you around, but those are the people most likely to go to the extra effort to avoid any danger of being attacked even if the contract changes hands every day. If someone is motivated enough to not die to restrict their play to guard stacks and docked ships whenever you're around, adding uncertainty about who might be trying to kill them isn't going to make them more likely to leave those safe spots.

Considerations about good class matchups, not knowing how to get to islands, etc, are the sort of thing that you just have to deal with as part of the job. Being a good assassin isn't just about being good at 1v1 fights in agreeable conditions, it's about being able to kill anyone, anywhere, try as they might to hide or escape. If you have a contract that you don't think you can complete, or just don't want to, because you're bad at fighting that class or because they hang out somewhere that's hard for you to get to, or whatever, I don't have a huge problem with you being able to pass it off to someone else, but it should count against your reputation to do so, and should be pretty strictly limited in how often you can do so. 

Sena

I like the idea of a player council approving competent marks. If bias is a problem (or council members not being active enough), there are several ways it could be tweaked. For example, you could have it require only 2/5 approval instead of 3/5. There could also be an option to explicitly disapprove of someone, and have 2/5 approval overruled by the other 3 all disapproving, or require that the approvals outnumber the disapprovals (minimum of 2 approvals needed). There could also be 2 representatives from each city (and rogues) instead of one, reducing the power each individual council member has and making it more likely that there will always be enough of them active.

It's also possible to keep the current point system with the council, just have it only apply to approved marks, and make anyone above a certain score threshold able to remain a mark regardless of approval (mostly to prevent abuse) as long as they're active. The Silent Executioner could also be a 6th (or 11th or whatever) council member in addition to the appointed members.

Jarrod

Keep the ideas for the Council approval system, keep track of every Mark's score from some arbitrary point in the past.

((Successful Contracts x 2) + Infamous Kills + Mark Kills) - (Failed Contracts x 2) = Mark Score

On transition to new Mark system, anyone with a score of +10 or better is automatically eligible to join as a full Assassin. From this pool of players, cities can choose their representative to the Council. If nobody from a city is eligible, the remaining Council members can choose to offer a place to a member of that city on a 50% or better vote. Silent Executioner is automatically part of the Council as a tiebreaker position.

This establishes the initial Council. At this point, anyone can join the Quisalis as an applicant. This opens them up to full Mark PK rules. Can be attacked by anyone, can attack Infamous. Once an applicant, a member can choose to apply for a full assassin qualification. At this point, their Mark Score is set to 0, and the vote goes to the Council. If the Council approves 3/5 or better, they're now eligible for contracts.

If the Council doesn't approve them, they now have a one year time frame to prove themselves from receiving the 'no' from the Council. If they can get their Mark Score above 10 by killing Infamous/Mark members within that year then they are granted contract eligibility anyways. There's already rules in place against letting others kill you for various reasons, so gaming this system is already against the game rules.

If you are contract eligible and ever fall below +10 Mark score, you're immediately removed from the contract pool, your contracts are reassigned, and you must go through the approval process to become eligible again. Failed contracts are removed from the pool, not reassigned.

Razzlo

Hmm. I am not sure how it would work out well with activity levels. What would stop all contracts going into a contract pool? The. Have members of the council divvy out the contracts to the right person for the job or takes the contract themselves? Have a hard limit of how many contracts one can have and let the council decide who gets what? So if someone hires on me, since I suck at combat and have no reputation for it in any case, an assassin can see the pool and ask a member of the council for the contract. Council members can also claim any contract on the list until the hard limit is reached.

So in summary a person would hire the organization. Their contract would go into a pool for all of the mark to see but the hirer is still anonymous. The council has the power to accept a contract up to a hard limit. A fledgling member must ask for a contract to be assigned to them. 

Kayeil

Most of my other concerns have already been addressed, but another issue is different orgs having a requirement at some stage of their members joining the Mark which I think also adds to the list of Marks that might not be able to really do their job properly as a Mark.

Exelethril

Silas said:

I think the best idea for the Ivory Mark is that all cities have their own chapters of the Ivory organisation, which people can join, but to become a Champion you'd need to gain the sponsorship of a majority of the ruling council (perhaps even an elected/appointed council specifically for recognising new Champions?). Contracts are then handed out at random to Champions from the hirer's city.

What about players from Cyrene/Hashan though? I don't think they have a lot of Marks but have large populations. Maybe certain cities can ally their Marks with another city's?

Nim

please don't

Cyrene and presumably Hashan do have combatants, maybe not as good as the best combatants from other cities, but they do exist. This would give them more things to do, and there's nothing stopping a citizen from hiring an assassin rather than a champion if they feel their city's champions aren't up to taking down the target in question.

Jacen

Well shit I dunno if I wanna be an assassin on the league of assassins or a champion of the Crown. 

Aerek

Nim said:
Cyrene and presumably Hashan do have combatants, maybe not as good as the best combatants from other cities, but they do exist. This would give them more things to do, and there's nothing stopping a citizen from hiring an assassin rather than a champion if they feel their city's champions aren't up to taking down the target in question.

I like this in theory, but it does mean that the "safe bet" for those cities is to just ignore their own Champions, whoever they might be, and go Assassin. Sure, a mid-tier Cyrenian Champion may well be able to handle a contract on your average mid-tier thief, but why take the risk if Assassins are, in all liklihood, more powerful Marks?

Nim

Aerek said:

Nim said:
Cyrene and presumably Hashan do have combatants, maybe not as good as the best combatants from other cities, but they do exist. This would give them more things to do, and there's nothing stopping a citizen from hiring an assassin rather than a champion if they feel their city's champions aren't up to taking down the target in question.

I like this in theory, but it does mean that the "safe bet" for those cities is to just ignore their own Champions, whoever they might be, and go Assassin. Sure, a mid-tier Cyrenian Champion may well be able to handle a contract on your average mid-tier thief, but why take the risk if Assassins are, in all liklihood, more powerful Marks?

I imagine cities could have some control over the pricing, and if their champions are typically underpar compared to the assassins, they could simply make them cheaper.

In fact, I imagine champions being cheaper would be the most likely case in general, since the reasons you'd become a champion would be more social than financial. There are bragging rights for being an assassin too, of course, but you're not directly helping your city's cause by taking contracts from others.

That said, the real problem is dealing with the social implications of which contracts an assassin should be able to take. For example, let's say we have a Mhaldorian who is a really, really good assassin, but enemied to all cities. Should he still get contracts from those cities? I'd personally say yes - otherwise, he's only marginally better than a Mhaldorian champion because he can take rogue contracts.

Otherwise, it'd put assassins in a strange place, but I could still see ethical reasons for saying no.

Cresil

I think, along the Quiasalis line, it'd be easier to have a bounty-board like contract system.

Go to the board, request a contract. You don't see which contracts are available, or who hired or anything of the sort. You just ask and receive a random one in the queue.

Marks that are dormant or unavailable won't go to the board, so that eliminates getting a mark that is useless and won't complete your contract.

Make a limit of 1-2 contracts per mark at a time, so you can't gather multiple contracts at a time and sit on them. You keep the anonymity of the system, randomness of which marks get which contracts, and can still ensure that with the point system, that the better marks still get higher paying contracts by toying with the numbers.
  - Mark with 100-104 points (baseline) gets random contract from range 3k - 7k gold, 105-109 points gets 7k - 10k, so on so forth.

Edit: Could also, if this got out of hand, add a hard cap to how many you can take per month. That way, if you get lucky and get Dajio after Dajio contract, you can't just enjoy harvesting your luck. So maybe after the third contract for that month, hard cap it so that you have to wait until the following month to accept a new one.

This, I think, removes any possible bias and keeps a more 'assassin' clan feeling than a council. The RP of an Eleusian, Ashtani, Mhaldorian, Hashani and Rogue getting along for enough as assassins to approve of a random mark of one of those cities seems flakey at best.

Saeva

I'm pretty sure I'd actually start hiring for things if I knew that people who were active were drawing them as they came up as well as the thought that paying more would assure that a mark of high point was more assured to actually get the contract.

Seftin

In regards to marks making a living why not have it so that contract prices vary based on what "ranking" of mark you want to use - can pay 5k for an "initiate" (anything below 105) 15k for 105-120 and 50k for 120 +.

The mark gets 70% of the contract as payment - people can then decided how much they want to pay - alternatively have a flat fee that is given to the mark regardless of the price of the contract so any contract they take they get paid X000 gold etc.

Darkender

Thoth could be the patron to the mark council too :->

Exelethril

Could have Mark ranks to provide an incentive for Champions/Assassins to fulfill contracts properly

As an idea :

• 10 ranks that reflect on a Mark's Honours and that will increase in proportion to the points the Mark gathers(non-decay) akin to City/House ranks.
  
  
• For example, rank 1) Fledgling of the Ivory Mark, rank 2) Initiate.. rank 9) Grandmaster of the Ivory and only one top rank 10) The Avenging Arrow. So it'll be pretty obvious when someone joins a Mark but is actually a deadbeat. 
  
  
• Also, an easily accessible Mark board/bulletin where a hirer posts his desired contract on someone along with the desired Mark rank he wants to have complete that contract, the price will be a reflection of the Mark rank he wants. That way, a hirer will know that he/she is getting proven quality.
  
  
• An incentive to not simply grab whatever contract pops up for the higher ranked Marks would be a penalty for every failed contract on points, so the Mark could drop in rank after successive failures.

Silas

It'd be nice if you had to go to the Mark offices to take out a contract on someone. Much better flavour than just standing wherever and hitting an imaginary command to transmit your contract instantaneously to the orgs.