Unreliable Torture

[Vellos]

And I'll be frank here: I know this issue is really actually very complex. Kind of like strategic secessions; how do you define when it is "strategic," and when it isn't? You can't draw a clear line. Fair play isn't like that. I happen to think this one is slightly clearer than secessions, but I see it as a similar type of difficulty.

If we allow "friendly torture," we should just allow message forwarding.

[Chenier]

I find it to be poor form, regardless of whether it breaks any rules or not, and I wouldn't have expected this from a GM on a SMA island, because it is blatant meta-gaming.

[De-Legro]

Except that the game mechanics making torture 100% reliable:
1. Was clearly never intended as a mechanic for forwarding messages
2. Has absolutely no bearing on any real torture
3. Seems more likely a product of convenience (unreliable torture seems difficult to code, as we are discovering) than any type of intent

1. If it wasn't it wouldn't produce a scribe report that can be shared with everyone. Do you really think the devs coded that in there if it wasn't so a 100% reliable copy could be forwarded?
2. Like so many things in the game, no it has no relation to RL torture. That is the nature of games
3. Again, why would they generate scribe reports, one of the ONLY way to ensure 100% reliable information, like scout reports. Otherwise they could have just had it generate a message to the Judge.

[Chenier]

1. If it wasn't it wouldn't produce a scribe report that can be shared with everyone. Do you really think the devs coded that in there if it wasn't so a 100% reliable copy could be forwarded?
2. Like so many things in the game, no it has no relation to RL torture. That is the nature of games
3. Again, why would they generate scribe reports, one of the ONLY way to ensure 100% reliable information, like scout reports. Otherwise they could have just had it generate a message to the Judge.

Can you REALLY imagine having to copy/paste torture reports to people? These things are huge, and would have to be split up into many many letters, which would make it illegible, spamstastic, and remove all text formatting. In other words, they would be a hell of a lot of hassle if you couldn't share them.

I also *just* realized that the zuma aren't asking that this advy necessarily be tortured, he's asking that anyone in the 'moot be tortured, which makes it worse than I had first understood it to be.

[De-Legro]

Can you REALLY imagine having to copy/paste torture reports to people? These things are huge, and would have to be split up into many many letters, which would make it illegible, spamstastic, and remove all text formatting. In other words, they would be a hell of a lot of hassle if you couldn't share them.

I also *just* realized that the zuma aren't asking that this advy necessarily be tortured, he's asking that anyone in the 'moot be tortured, which makes it worse than I had first understood it to be.

I can't imagine a case were every message in a torture report would be relevant an require the whole thing to be copy pasted. Plus there is always the wiki to copy things too if needed.

[Chenier]

I can't imagine a case were every message in a torture report would be relevant an require the whole thing to be copy pasted. Plus there is always the wiki to copy things too if needed.

Yea, if you like reading fugly blobs of text, you can paste it on the wiki. Or, you can waste a ton of time to make it somewhat readible. Or, you know, someone could have decided it'd be better to save us the hassle by making a scribe report that conserves all of the original text's formating?

I personally like to read all of the torture reports, when I get them. Even the small administrative things help me grasp what's going on in their lands.

[Indirik]

Can you REALLY imagine having to copy/paste torture reports to people? These things are huge, and would have to be split up into many many letters, which would make it illegible, spamstastic, and remove all text formatting. In other words, they would be a hell of a lot of hassle if you couldn't share them.

Yeah, it would be a hassle. So what?

The point stands: If they were not intended to be passed around in 100% accurate and reliable manner, you wouldn't get a scribe note for it.

I also *just* realized that the zuma aren't asking that this advy necessarily be tortured, he's asking that anyone in the 'moot be tortured, which makes it worse than I had first understood it to be.

It's worse because he's giving you an option of who to get the message from? How is that worse?

[Chenier]

Yeah, it would be a hassle. So what?

The point stands: If they were not intended to be passed around in 100% accurate and reliable manner, you wouldn't get a scribe note for it.
It's worse because he's giving you an option of who to get the message from? How is that worse?

Because at first I thought it was to get that guy's letter from the dude who made him do a forgery. Which while lame, is somewhat acceptable.

I did not at first understand this to be a blatant request for a 100% reliable message from any random dude in a guild to confirm what someone else said. RP-ly, the Zuma should be conisdering Garret to be much more reliable than any torture report, because a torture report comes from the human realms with which there are issues. It's meta-gaming.

You assume that if it's there, the goal was so that people would have a 100% reliable report they could share. I disagree. It's existence doesn't imply that having 100% reliable reports is the reason why it's there. It *could* be the reason, but I'd be much more inclined to believe that it's for simplicity's sake.

You say "so what" if it's a hassle? This is a *game*. A game should *never* be a hassle. It should be fun. Copy/pasting stuff, breaking it into a ton of seperate letters, and ending up with blobs of unformated ugly text is *not* fun, not one bit.

Peronally, my issue is not that reports can be passed around in a reliable manner, it's that torture reports themselves are way too accurate. If the reports weren't 100% accurate, this thing wouldn't be an issue.

[De-Legro]

. RP-ly, the Zuma should be conisdering Garret to be much more reliable than any torture report, because a torture report comes from the human realms with which there are issues. It's meta-gaming.

Why should they have that level of trust in Garret? Because you say so? Because it makes sense to you. Because it is somewhat spurious human logic? First Zuma aren't human, the GM goes to great lengths to try and replicate this. What trust is to the Zuma and how the confer it is not to my knowledge something that has been revealed to our characters.

Second it is GARRET. They might find him useful in the role he fills, but that doesn't mean they 100% trust him. After all he is still human, so for all the Zuma know he would show bias to his own kind (Human Logic) or some weird alien concept.

It really annoys me when I see someone say oh but RPly this or that when neither their character, Nor the player behind them would have knowledge of the relationship, of the private interactions, of previous incidents that may or may not have affected the Zuma's trust in Garret. You want Meta-Gaming? There it is, trying to impose your view and conclusions when you lack the information to make a truly informed opinion to start with.

[Indirik]

RP-ly, the Zuma should be conisdering Garret to be much more reliable than any torture report, because a torture report comes from the human realms with which there are issues. It's meta-gaming.

You are assuming that the Zuma trust Garret. Perhaps they don't?

Claiming what someone else's motivations should be, especially for a non-human factor as mysterious as the Zuma, which are intended to be an enigma, seems pretty presumptive.

Also, you have no way of truly knowing what is going on between Garret and the Zuma. Thus making your claims of what the Zuma should and shouldn't be doing in regards to Garret even more ridiculous.

Peronally, my issue is not that reports can be passed around in a reliable manner, it's that torture reports themselves are way too accurate. If the reports weren't 100% accurate, this thing wouldn't be an issue.

Oddly enough, in the past 6 years I have been playing, I don't think I've ever heard anyone make that claim before. You picked a odd time to suddenly make that claim, and as justification why a case in which you are intimately involved should be judged in your favor.

[De-Legro]

You are assuming that the Zuma trust Garret. Perhaps they don't?

Claiming what someone else's motivations should be, especially for a non-human factor as mysterious as the Zuma, which are intended to be an enigma, seems pretty presumptive.

Also, you have no way of truly knowing what is going on between Garret and the Zuma. Thus making your claims of what the Zuma should and shouldn't be doing in regards to Garret even more ridiculous.
Oddly enough, in the past 6 years I have been playing, I don't think I've ever heard anyone make that claim before. You picked a odd time to suddenly make that claim, and as justification why a case in which you are intimately involved should be judged in your favor.

I'm sure he was quite happy they were accurate when extracting information from his enemies.

[Chenier]

Why should they have that level of trust in Garret? Because you say so? Because it makes sense to you. Because it is somewhat spurious human logic? First Zuma aren't human, the GM goes to great lengths to try and replicate this. What trust is to the Zuma and how the confer it is not to my knowledge something that has been revealed to our characters.

Second it is GARRET. They might find him useful in the role he fills, but that doesn't mean they 100% trust him. After all he is still human, so for all the Zuma know he would show bias to his own kind (Human Logic) or some weird alien concept.

It really annoys me when I see someone say oh but RPly this or that when neither their character, Nor the player behind them would have knowledge of the relationship, of the private interactions, of previous incidents that may or may not have affected the Zuma's trust in Garret. You want Meta-Gaming? There it is, trying to impose your view and conclusions when you lack the information to make a truly informed opinion to start with.

They want D'Harans to prove that the letter is true? I CAN TELL HIM. But no, they want a "torture report". There is nothing IC about that. If I RPed with the judge that he smacked me into making a detailed confession that the letter was indeed authentic, would Haktoo be content with that? No, because it's not a game-generated report. Which is meta-game, completely out of character. If the game didn't provide 100% reliable torture reports, then he'd never have been asking this. Or if the game allowed 100% reliable message transfers, he'd have asked that instead. It has absolutely nothing to do with being in-character.

There may be reasons for them to distrust Garret. That doesn't justify demanding a game-generated report for a friendly torture.

Really, stabbing your own realm mate to collect the gold and keep it in the realm is against the rule. Why would torturing your own realm mates to provide a 100% reliable report be any better?

You are assuming that the Zuma trust Garret. Perhaps they don't?

Claiming what someone else's motivations should be, especially for a non-human factor as mysterious as the Zuma, which are intended to be an enigma, seems pretty presumptive.

Also, you have no way of truly knowing what is going on between Garret and the Zuma. Thus making your claims of what the Zuma should and shouldn't be doing in regards to Garret even more ridiculous.
Oddly enough, in the past 6 years I have been playing, I don't think I've ever heard anyone make that claim before. You picked a odd time to suddenly make that claim, and as justification why a case in which you are intimately involved should be judged in your favor.

That's not quite true. The issue of 100% accurate torture risen up before, as a tangent of other discussions recently but I do seem to recall it being specifically discussed at least briefly on the discussion lists.

However, it wasn't quite the same. For one, because nobody ever, as far as I know, asked people to torture their own realm mates in order to have a 100% reliable report.

Secondly, in normal cases, nobody would back a realm that made such absurd demands. Internally too it wouldn't work. The player community, as a whole, would prevent it from being imposed. However, when you are dealing with one or two GMs that have as much force as the Zuma, then you don't really get that community justice and protection.

It was mentioned before, but since the disadvantages and benefits were reciprocal, it wasn't much of an issue in the end. This isn't the case when you've got GM factions demanding that certain game features be misused to unintended ends, though. And, after all, the game does say that torture is a *very serious* thing.

[Geronus]

You know you could always just turn it around on him RP-wise. I gather that you have the Adventurer. Can you make him admit directly to Haktoo that he lied?

Let's say he does. What is Haktoo going to say? 'No, you could coerced him into it. We want you to torture him instead'. Wait...

The GM could still be a douche about it, but then he'd really be, well, a douche.

[Chenier]

You know you could always just turn it around on him RP-wise. I gather that you have the Adventurer. Can you make him admit directly to Haktoo that he lied?

Let's say he does. What is Haktoo going to say? 'No, you could coerced him into it. We want you to torture him instead'. Wait...

The GM could still be a douche about it, but then he'd really be, well, a douche.

The judge could simply send a letter to Haktoo saying he interrogated the advy, and that he confessed about having forged it.

However, given the wording of his messages, I doubt he'd be content with this. I doubt he believed anything happened until a magical scribe note came to confirm it.

[Vellos]

There is nothing IC about that. If I RPed with the judge that he smacked me into making a detailed confession that the letter was indeed authentic, would Haktoo be content with that? No, because it's not a game-generated report.

This.

Also:

SCOUT REPORTS ARE NOT 100% ACCURATE.

Can we please stop propagating this falsehood?

Ever seen "misdirect"?
Ever seen the feature where units can buff/nerf their apparent stats?
Ever noticed how no two scout reports give you the identical numerical values?

They are substantively reliable and derive from game mechanics. But they are NOT perfectly reliable.

Also, scout reports are about military information, something that there is no reason to assume should be ultimately ambiguous. But the whole premise behind no message forwarding is that messages SHOULD have ambiguity; forgery SHOULD be possible. As is, the Zuma GM is asking us to circumvent game mechanics to make practical forgery impossible.