This is just a little Idea I had to allow players to play bounty hunters in games. It also includes a way to "Punish" people who commit crimes in games. Lets start off with Crimes. There are certain things that if you do and you get caught doing, you're going to get in trouble for. Stealing, attacking, Killing etc while in a town. If seen and reported to the athoraties they will come after you. If you do NOT get spotted, you will begin to gain a certain notoriety. The higher a notoriety you have, the closer people will pay attention to you. The better a crook you are, the slower it will rise. However, eventually with a high enough notoriety, you WILL get noticed trying to commit acts. Punishment Whatever foul deeds you decide to do in town comes with a certain fine. Once captured (in game terms once someone belonging to the town or town guard knocks you out) that money will be taken from you. If you do not have the money to pay for you're crimes, or you reach a fine over a certain amount, your character gets thrown into jail. Jail time is a certain amount of time based off of the total fine you owe the city. For example a fine of 2000 might result in you're character being thrown in jail for a sentance of 200 minutes. However, once you're character goes outside of town his fine will gradually decrease. Once his fine reaches 0 he will be free to enter the city once again. (This same concept works with notoriety, but that goes down much slower...better to have the thief move on to a different city for a while) Jail/Player Bounties Now what do you do when you get caught? Well instead of sitting there, you could try to escape, or you COULD get you're friends to break you out (instanced dungeons either way, and solo is ALOT harder than with a group) Should you manage to escape the game puts a bounty on you're head equal to you're fine x 3. Bounties are posted in local taverns/inns and bounty hunters MUST read/accept a bounty in order to collect it. Once a hunter has a bounty, if they run across a person they are hunting that person will have a symbol (money, highlighted name, icon etc) that lets the hunter know they have found thier prey. They may freely attack that person to bring them to justice. Once brought in by a bounty hunter the person gets another jail sentance/fine this time its the original sentance, PLUS an additional escape fine, and any fines they may have racked up on thier escape. They cycle will then repeat. The boutny goes away, in the same way that the fine does, and at the same rate. Only since the bounty is Fine x 3, the bounty lasts 3 times longer than the fine. (*note: Even though I say the fine and bounty go away, if the player goes into town, or is caught by the bounty hunter the full amount is expected to be paid...the fine/bounty also serves as a timer)

Nothing?

So what's to stop me from loading up my "Blondie" character and have my buddy's "Tuco" character commit some halfassed crime, then bring him in, get the cash, bust him out, bring him in for cash x3, bust him out...

Well for one, odds are you're blondie character will probably have racked up quite a fine for busting out her friend.

So trying to repeat the process will eventually cause both persons to end up being wanted.

But you did bring up a good point.

I dont think its a problem. Supposing criminal bounty hunters dont get accepted to any job in the city, it will easily end with them 2 being hunted.

To avoig exponential reward grow you could put a maximum value, or you could put diferent security prisons. The highest prison would be almost impossible to leave with perpetual sentence, wasting his char.

I liked your idea

Im actually working in one similar idea to punish realistically player killer without prohibit PvP. Mine would have some diferences. Ill try to resume:

- each city has its penalities for each crime. The crimes would be pick pocketing (steal from players), murder, illegal sell (drug/poison dealer?), assault (steal from buildings), resistence to prison, escape prison and "city enemy" (enemy countries, thief clans, assassin's contractor etc). Penalities include money payment, death, and prison.

- each crime (with exception of "city enemy" which is tagged by the city autorities) would be automatically logged by the system but not visible by the players at first.

- any citizen can call autorities to investigate a crime. Then a police would investigate it inside the city, and raise a "quest" with reward to get the criminal, that quests would stay for a limited time in bulletin boards situated in different places (inside the city).

- a skill called "forensics" (similar but better than UO) would be hard and slow to use, but would allow police and mercenaries to see the logged crime tracks and hunt the criminal down.

- when cauth whe criminous would respond to all his crimes (even if the quest expired)

- then found the criminal can be convinced to surrender. If dont the mercenary can defeat him without killing him, knocking him out.

- if death sentence is allowed, the mercenary could kill the criminal without penalty

- although I dont think its viable, a trial made by PCs and agreements to lower sentences could exist to find new criminals (a crime mastermind or employer, for instance)

- prisons would be forced larbor (the prisioners working in mines or building something to the city). Escape would be stupidly hard. Prisons would relay in full armed guards but could be raided (though it would be very hard to a group, impossible to 1 person).

- Death MUST have a very high in-game penalty to the death sentence and surrendering work.

Well.. I told you it was similar :P

I'm not in favor of a "Death Penalty" Mainly due to the fact that in an MMO world, death cannot be TOO harsh, and if too soft holds no effect.

As for the forensics, I'm all for letting the person get away scott free...so long as he's not seen. But each successful crime adds suspiscion on him. Which makes it harder each time for him to avoid being seen.