A lack of enforceable CK's are also the downfall of good 'Hitmen.' Now, a few will still pay good money to see that a nice roleplay is put into action, but quite frankly, I can't see why they would bother most of the time. I'll tell you what I mean, by telling a little story that sums up the extent of the problem;
Last night, I took a second try at the art of contract killing as my Hitman character Arthur Templeton; working for Kei Sprague, I took $7,000 to kill Lieutenant Ivan Drago((By the way, I took a picture to verify my client, and asked an admin before I made any move on actually killing Drago)). I made sure I did everything by the book. My fraudulent company, 'Templeton Therapy,' helped me concoct a nice little trap to seek out and kill the man, in a not-so-efficient, but very thorough manner.
(If you want the full details, here they are. Learn from the best, mofuckas. If not, its very lengty, and the next bold lettered message marks the end of the story..) I called Valerie 'Peany' Ryuden, the Assistant Police Commissioner, and fed her my BS story. I knew only the name of my target, but I had no means of knowing what he looked like, or how to get into contact with him personally. The general idea was, that I had recieved a domestic disturbance report from a client of my Therapy company, and that the client was the spouse of Ivan Drago--I needed his badge number to fill out some paperwork. I hoped that Ryuden was a bit out of the loop on any of a Police Officer's personal information, as I didn't know Drago even had a wife. My suspicions were correct; she gave me the badge number I needed to properly identify the Cop I was looking for.
Then, I scouted out the Cops around the area; I bumped past a few beat Cops, starting idle chat or just staring at them. As per Proper Roleplay, if there were a few cops around, and Drago was one of them, I didn't follow him like a hawk because I saw his name on my screen. Eventually, I crossed his path in the Department lobby, where I hung to the side, keeping my head down and my sunglasses on. In a dodgy, somewhat uncharacteristic tone, I asked him about some method of Police Procedure(I think it was Capital Punishment, or something like that), and read his badge; he said he was busy, and headed off. I had a face to put on my target now, and started following him.
For a few minutes, I followed him around town at a distance, never seeing him stray too far from the Department. I looked up his name in the phone book, and memorized the number; I asked a few bystanders what they knew about him in a very hush-hush tone, but nobody saw him much from what I asked. When I lost track of him, I went back to the PD lobby and stayed as much out of sight as I could of the vigilant employees. Sure enough, I saw him walk around past the Armory a few times.
I realized the best way to get to him would be to talk to him inside the Police Department; it would be risky, and I'd have to do it unarmed, but I knew it might be worth the daylight robbery prices I charged. I left the Department for the Hotel room I squat in, and dialed him up; I gave him another horribad story, which he halfway bought, with a bit of suspicion. I had a paperwork problem; he was confused with ANOTHER man by the name of Drago, affiliated with an entirely different Police Department in another State. The client complaining of abuse, his 'wife,' was referred to sister therapy Office. The whole thing was set up to be an act of God problem, where the paperwork had to be sorted out ASAP, so that charges were not pursued that might besmirch the Officer's good record.
I saw him once again at the Department; angry I couldn't draw him out, and short on time, I ditched my gun out in the alley behind the Police Station, and got together a lot of random files for a folder, to look as official as possible. I talked to the Lieutenant at the Lobby, and though it probably isn't, I knew that the glass of such a touchy building would RPly have bullet-resistant glass of some kind-- shooting him and running was a no-go. I talked my way up to the point, where I might get in and finish the job in some quiet corridor of the Police Department, and quickly slip out before they found the body.
BUT ALL WAS FOR NOTHING.As I stood in line waiting, a man behind me began pestering me. I told him to "Jog on, wanker," after he barked "Move!" Apparently offended, he walked off. I returned to talking the Officer into letting me in, a lot of round-about, needlessly pedestrian dialogue; perhaps I could have bored him to death. Then, the man from behind me walks in, and without a word, nay, without even an action, begins stabbing.
As I fall dead, midsentence of typing my next question to the Officer, I realize the Job Title I've just read on the amateur killer, Omar Suarez.
"Hitman." He runs hopping out of the Department lobby, and kills a fully-armed Officer with his knife down the road. I had to abort the job, as I go by the policy that, should an act of God intervene, my intended victim ought to be spared any further pursuit(part of the Roleplaying code of conduct, 'Forgetting' what you're doing I suppose). I sent back my Client the $7,000 dollars.
The Moral of the Story? With today's Generally-Accepted system of CK's being optional, you can't kill someone in any sort of meaningful way. Life is cheap, and in the Hitman Business, why bother with that much time and effort? A cycle of shooting someone and running has been put into place, where the Hitmen are just random assholes off the street, with no prerequisite test of Roleplaying ability. It's not beyond me to assume that metagaming is frequent, and that the pay for one of the kills is probably nothing more than $500 or $600. Neither is it beyond me to assume that anyone paying for such a simple hit with such bogus advertisements (**Need someone out of the picture, for good? Call 555-0555.** **Someone giving you trouble? We'll take care of them.** etc, etc) must not expect much justifiable motive would be needed. "That guy called me a bitch, I'll show him!" might be all that's needed.
It's no fault of the players involved, other than to the extent of killing without decent roleplay. The price is down, the standard is down, and for what? Because it's not a character-kill anymore, and the only ones willing to pay a painful price to have a nuisance removed, are dinosaurs like me. I suggest we bring the industry a new standard of a tightly-run, feesibly escapable method of enforceable Character Killing--and expect me to outline it at some point or another.
What do y'all think?
Wake wrote:
The ideas stated here are the reason Nukesilo is such a good server.
Also, this.
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