Wow. Great thread. I originally started something like this when I was designing a game based aorund committing crimes. However, the game has now changed direction, and the idea has become a kind of 'cause and effect' engine, whereby any action by the player has an effect on the game world. Crime is included in this still, and the original idea that you can;t just run around killing people is still the basis of how it works.

The game now centers around the player being wanted by various intelligence agencies etc, and at first these people do not have a lot of information with which to track the player down. However, an act like renting a car or doing anything that draws attention to the player will result in NPCs possibly contacting the authorities, or remembering details about them that they may recall later. This depends on NPC stats concerning social class, etc but it's getting very complicated!

Lots of good ideas here that I will have to read through properly though, so thanks to everyone who has contributed their thoughts.

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Original post by Wavinator You know, what strikes me (taking into what I talked about in the politics thread about labeling) is that while the three above values are important, don't you wonder if what's really important is the story someone's going to make up about you when you present these items? I'm starting to think that without factor in the relationship between the player and his/her perceived standing you won't really capture how this process works.

Deffinately, the relationship we have with someone strongly determines how we react in situations with them.

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Original post by Wavinator The location I think is a good factor, but you run into the problem that information should spread and the player's rep may precede them. You may be treated like scum in a new territory EVEN IF YOU'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG simply because there are good enough rumors about you on the tradelanes.

I think their are two distinct sides to this, information about your rep as a player spreading, and information about the crime itself spreading.

Both can be accomplished by expanding an area of influence around the location of the player/the crime. For a player, the more you make waves, the faster your area of influence expands, for the crime, the bigger the crime, the faster news travels.

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Original post by Wavinator The value of the item may work, but what about a rich character who is also a thief? Reasonably, they could have also bought a Mona Lisa which they now (coincidently) intend to sell. The relationship between buyer and seller would determine suspicion, as a merchant with a long standing relationship with someone who's considered a pillar of the community would factor in whether the merchant even conceives that his client stole a product.

It's not so much the value of the item that determines whether someone thinks it's stolen, but the value/rarity (mostly rarity) of the item that determines whether someone heard that it was stolen.

Sure, you may be be rich enough to buy the mona lisa, but if it was stolen, chances are most people will know about it.

But I do agree your relationship with the people you're dealing with should determine how quick they are to judge you a thief.

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Original post by Wavinator btw, here again is an opportunity for factoring relationships: If I run through the backyard of my local grocier who I've maybe known for 10 years (but am not exactly a friend), he's more likely to forgive me than a complete stranger.

Deffinately. Relationships have a huge affect on everything, it's not the only variable, but it's an important one. Sometimes we'll disregard everything else solely because of our relationship.

In your example above, sure the grocier will usually forgive you based on your relationship, but not if you trample through his vegetable garden :)

I really think everything must be weighted together to find an outcome, it's how we weight all these variables that determines what type of gameplay we have, and what type of society. You could even change the weighting depending upon the society in game.

Would be interesting if with just a few variables, you could turn one area into a very family oriented (weighting heavily on relationships) place, and another is all about crime and punishment (weighted heavily on the act).

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Original post by Wavinator Just keep in mind that all of these somehow have to be presented by either the game's logic, interface or visuals. Fingerprints might be invisible IRL, but in-game you'd need some kind of mechanism for getting rid of them, even if you don't see them. Same for footprints.

Idea here would be to have your level of thievery skill possibly determine how visible your fingerprints are, the better you get, the more easily you see them and can dispose of them.

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Original post by Wavinator Witnesses would be tricky because you need to be able to indicate whether or not detection is based on line of sight or radius, and if the former, where the NPC is looking.

In my design, I'm building curiosity into NPC's. They'll investigate things going on in their areas, sometimes even following people if somethings up.

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Original post by Wavinator Being seen at the location ("casing the joint" :>) I'm not sure I'd add simply because you can't reasonably tell why the player is anywhere; same with asking about something.

Isn't that the case in the real world too though? I plan on maintaining a short list of who NPC's saw and where for the last couple of days. After a crime at a location, some NPC's will go through their list and think about every person seen at that location, factor in the relationship of that person VS the person who lived there and then decide if they think they should have been there. If not, they may contact the police with that info.

Again this is all about relationships, if an NPC saw 10 people near that house last night, and 9 of them are friends of the NPC who lives there, and the 10th is new in town, and somewhat shady, they'll be quick to judge them the culprit.

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Original post by Wavinator Cutting yourself (or leaving fibers) would again need a remedy, as would curing the "suddenly not being found in town" item (alibi?) It shows you why games rely so heavily on arbitrary, easily depictable aspects like cameras and alarms.

Cutting yourself could be similar to footprints, if you're bleeding you leave trails, cover them up or they may follow them. If you're bleeding, you would have an option of bandaging up your wound.

As for not being found it town afterwards, thats not really an alibi, but an admission of guilt. After a crime you could have the police run through a list of PC's/NPC's that are suspects, if any can't be found in town, they are pushed higher up the suspects list.

Alibis would be great though, if you're in a bar when the crime is committed, that could let you off, depending upon the relationship of the bar attendee's to the people of the town.

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Original post by Wavinator I think these are good elements to be concerned about, provided the game gives you a clear way of addressing them.

I think their are three aspects to a crime, what you did up to the point of the crime, during the crime, and after. If you have all three elements in play, it will make the act of committing a crime an experience the player won't soon forget :)

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Original post by Wavinator I loved this aspect in Thief, especially hearing a guard bellow, "I know you're in there" then after you've been still, mutter, "maybe it was just the wind." (They needed to be more ruthless about searching thoroughly, though).

Deffinately, you need to factor in things like what time of day/night it is, during the day noises are everywhere, at night it's a different story. Where was the noise made? My own house? Or my best friends? If it's some strangers place, maybe I don't care. Again, relationships are key.

Also, short term memory is a must, multiple noises in a row should be a clear sign somethings up.

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Original post by Wavinator Yes, I'm really intrigued by the possibility of the personal story the player creates, which in this biz is a bit of a holy grail.

It's a holy grail yes, and though I think a full system including everything we've talked about is doable, it's a long ways off (though that doesn't stop me from designing it now hehe). I think the first step is to really lay out what would be the ultimate system, that would accomplish everything you want, then look at each piece and figure out which ones are doable, which aren't, and abstract the ones that aren't doable.

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Original post by Wavinator I think that because designers have abused players over the years with arbitrary victory conditions it's now impossible to wean people away from the save or quick save. Toward this end I favor loss bonuses which only manifest when you play through a setback. It's the carrot rather than stick approach to encouraging no saves.

I agree, ultimately I'd love a game with no ability to go back and replay, as long as you could solve the death issue it could work. Even with a replay ability I agree something needs to be done to make it a last resort, and not something players do on a whim.

"Damn they figured out I killed the shopkeeper! Now everyone's after me. I better load up that game and try again.".

Then again, maybe most people will find the act of evading the authorities such a fun experience they don't want to change it.

On the save/load issue, I think the most important thing is to make it very, very, very clear that everything you do in the game can either be fixed or will have no consequenses whatsoever on what you can achieve. I.e. you'll always be able to become a paladin, no matter what you've done. It may be tougher if you commit horrible crimes, but nothing should be unattainable. If nothing else works, make it possible to get a completely new identity. that would be cool...

Or rather, that's the second most important thing. What's *most* important is that it actually is that way. :)