Gold transfer in the field

[egamma]

I have discovered a workaround for our current inability to transfer gold from one noble to another. ANY noble, regardless of realm, in the same region, with no bankers fee or guild needed. I'm not sure if this is ethical or whatever, so I thought I'd post it here.

1. Noble in need of gold has a unique item. Let's call him "needy".
2. Needy offers the item to the wealthy noble (Let's call him "rich") for whatever amount of gold he needs, possibly plus one gold.
3. Rich accepts, Needy gets the gold he needs to pay his men or perform repairs.
4. Rich can then sell the item back to Needy for 1 gold.
5. Needy now has his gold AND his item.

There are several possible variations. For one, if Rich has both the gold and the unique to begin, as long as needy has 1 gold to begin, he can buy the unique, then turn around and sell it back. An entire army could be paid by a single noble who joins them in the field.

For another, Needy can 'pawn' the item, and pay back Rich when they return to their home realm.

So...are all three of these scenarios ethical? Or just the last one?

And...has anyone else thought of this?

True, there has to be some trust involved, but if you're paying off a spy, then you're basically trusting them to give you good info, right? And if the unique you're using for all this is only a +1 item, then it's not particularly valuable, and you may be willing to part with it for good in order to keep your unit from deserting.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

I thought you could give it for free. I know I have as a noble, to commoners and other nobles alike.

I can't imagine this was ever intended, but realistically, you wouldn't be able to keep it up unless you have a lot of items and/or dedicated adventurers. In the cases you mentioned, those shouldn't be problems.

The only unique item "exploit" I know of that is not allowed is attempting to circumvent the mechanic that disallows trading among your own characters. Otherwise, even though it is potentially exploitable (a lot of stuff is, actually. It depends on the player whether to follow through.) it does make some sense, as in collateral and payment. But, again...most likely an unintended way to send gold directly to someone.

[vonGenf]

The pawning scenario is fine with me, it is something I could imagine happening ("I need gold now to finance the enlarging of this temple, will you give me the gold, I swear I'll repay you? You can hold this as a symbol of good faith."

If the "pawning" lasts for a whole 4 minutes and the intent is just to finance an army, then it's wrong.

[Indirik]

If what you are doing is using the item transfer as merely a way to circumvent the gold transfer restrictions, then you are obviously exploiting game mechanics.

[De-Legro]

If what you are doing is using the item transfer as merely a way to circumvent the gold transfer restrictions, then you are obviously exploiting game mechanics.

I agree, no matter how you rationalise it, it would appear the only purpose of this is to circumvent game mechanics. I'm sure MANY of the previous exploits that Tom has had to plug also had wonderful RP or excuses, the only thing that really matters here is the player intent, no the characters excuse.

[egamma]

So if I didn't buy the item back, then the fact that I sold the item outside my home realm would be okay?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Yes, as that would describe a normal transaction. From what I've seen, it's not that there are people watching your every move to make sure you do everything in line. Just don't go around trying to exploit things for the sake of exploiting, and if you stumble upon it, report it, and that's a good way to go about in your BM playing.