BattleMaster Community

So, another topic that often comes up: Spying on other realms. By spying I mean passing one realms plans to another realm, such as movement orders, line settings, strategic plans, etc., to an enemy realm. Do you think this is perfectly acceptable, or that it hurts the game?

First, some reasons to spy:

• Sometimes characters just don't like the reasons their realm is in a war, and don't want their realm to win.
• The other realm is paying someone to do it, either with gold or promises of titles/positions.

Second, some reasons why spying is bad:

• Reduces trust in other players. Lots of people complain that the people in power often don't share information, or plan things behind closed doors. Well, guess what? It's not because the people in power are greedy idiots who want to hog all the power. It's almost always because they know that there are people that will immediately send all these plans to their enemies.
• We've all seen this happen: A war starts, and in the next two days your realm gets four brand new characters that start in your realm. "*groan* here come the spies..." The prevalence of spies causes people to be suspicious of new players, and new characters. As a result, it can often be hard for new players to become trusted members of a realm.

So what do you think:

• Is spying OK? Does it add to the game, or make it more frustrating?
• Have you ever found yourself not discussing future plans in your realm because you were worried about spies?
• Have you ever had your military plans frustrated because you knew someone in the army was sending your orders straight to your enemies?
• Is it OK to search OOC for people that are willing to do it? i.e. asking an RL friend to do it, or asking on IRC if someone will move a character to an enemy realm to become a spy.

I don't like it, but there's nothing that can really be done about it.
Yes.
Yes.
No.

Quote from: Indirik on March 16, 2011, 07:13:31 PM
So what do you think:

• Is spying OK? Does it add to the game, or make it more frustrating?
• Have you ever found yourself not discussing future plans in your realm because you were worried about spies?
• Have you ever had your military plans frustrated because you knew someone in the army was sending your orders straight to your enemies?
• Is it OK to search OOC for people that are willing to do it? i.e. asking an RL friend to do it, or asking on IRC if someone will move a character to an enemy realm to become a spy.

1. Hard to say.  It can add a lot of fun, but it makes it harder for new people.
2. No.
3. Yes.
4. Hard to say, but certainly only if you have ties between the families in question and use IC methods of communication.

I picked #4. Spying was part of pretty much every war in history, so it's only normal it happens in BM as well. Personally, I've been a spy once. My character was asked to stick his neck out and travel to the enemy realm as a plant. He was banned on some fabricated charges, hurled a couple insults at the ruler for good measure, and fled to the target realm to hopefully ascend the ladder and gain access to their higher councils. After about two weeks I got so bored in the realm I left again.

Thrice I've recruited a spy to report on an enemy realm. The first time, I just sent a letter after a big battle asking if anyone was tired of being sent to another defeat and wanted to help facilitate his realm's final defeat and surrender, thus ending the war. I got 3 or 4 positive replies within the day. The second time I took a noble who had a bit of a falling out with our ruler and had him 'defect' to the enemy as a plant. The third time I contacted an old enemy (who boycotted a tournament I hosted) who had led a failed rebellion in his realm, after which he fled to his ally (my enemy) and agreed to spy for me, and in return he would 'get what was coming to him'. After his usefulness expired he was kicked to the curb, so to say. I've heard of others outright buying spies, too. All that I consider acceptable forms of subterfuge.

But then there's people who just recruit their RL friends, more often than not people who've never played BM at all, and have them join enemy realms with the sole purpose of spying. They have no IC reason at all for doing so, their characters just up and decide that they want to be spies, and they know exactly who to talk to in the other realm. That's incredibly cheap in my book. It's not even that difficult to plant or recruit a spy through 'acceptable' means, but they won't even take that trouble, probably because recruiting RL friends is a surefire way of making sure the spies don't get a change of heart and stop reporting, or become double agents. For shame...

Quote* Is spying OK? Does it add to the game, or make it more frustrating?
    * Have you ever found yourself not discussing future plans in your realm because you were worried about spies?
    * Have you ever had your military plans frustrated because you knew someone in the army was sending your orders straight to your enemies?
    * Is it OK to search OOC for people that are willing to do it? i.e. asking an RL friend to do it, or asking on IRC if someone will move a character to an enemy realm to become a spy.

1. It's perfectly fine. It adds to to the game. Just like a character can rebel against the Ruler, or a Duke can secede away from a Realm. That's all part of IC and nothing wrong with that.
2. Hmm, I don't worry too much about it usually. Sometimes I just share with trusted Nobles because it are delicate matters and not so much due possible spies, but sometimes I know those Nobles may or will be sending things to others, yet I still do it.
3. If you know there is a spy, try to use it to your advantage. I'm sure there have been military plans of my character/Realm ruined due spies, albeit I can't come up with an actual example right now, but that's all IC and totally fine. I've had more military plans frustrated because other influential Nobles strongly felt different on matters ;)
4. I would go here with no. Use IC methods. Nobles of OOC friends are just the same as any other random Noble and shouldn't get preferential treatment or be used to spy without it happening IC like it could to any other random Noble. Though I will accept there may be grey areas here in certain situations.

1. Spying is great IG, its a fact of life and completly reproducible IG in all possible variations.
2. No (but i dont wanna win that much).
3. No.
4. Bad bad bad! where is the fun in that? Also it could be considered power gaming or even ooc clanning. Much better (and most likely much harder) to get a spy IC.

1. Spying is great and allows for smaller realms to sometimes upset the balance
2. Never really been in a position to worry about it
3. Again never been in a position to worry about it.
4. No this is NOT okay. If for some IC reason you recruit a spy that just happens to be played by a friend sure, but I am against OOC recruitment. I just so happen to run a spy ring. By ensuring that everything happens IG and IC I in effect limit the effectiveness of my group and set up a far bit of constant work for it to remain effective. I need to have 2-3 spies in any one realm to be able to verify information for example, I often get info too late as I can't just ask my friend to log in and check his messages etc. I also run the constant risk of my operation being outed by my own spies. I should probably also note that I don't run the group exclusively for a realm, I'll sell info to anyone that offers the right price :)

Spying is always bad for the game in my opinion. Just look at what happened in SoA a while back. There used to be about 20 characters in the realm that were included in military planning. One spy and poof, you were down to the council and marshals. That one spy took quite a bit away from 10 or so players with his actions.

Simply put it does more harm than good. All it does is create mistrust and that ends up taking fun away from everyone.

Quote from: Indirik on March 16, 2011, 07:13:31 PM
So what do you think:

• Is spying OK? Does it add to the game, or make it more frustrating?
• Have you ever found yourself not discussing future plans in your realm because you were worried about spies?
• Have you ever had your military plans frustrated because you knew someone in the army was sending your orders straight to your enemies?
• Is it OK to search OOC for people that are willing to do it? i.e. asking an RL friend to do it, or asking on IRC if someone will move a character to an enemy realm to become a spy.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
No.

I think spying is fine until it leaves the game itself because then there are significantly fewer options available to deal with it.

Quote from: Indirik on March 16, 2011, 07:13:31 PM
So what do you think:

• Is spying OK? Does it add to the game, or make it more frustrating?
• Have you ever found yourself not discussing future plans in your realm because you were worried about spies?
• Have you ever had your military plans frustrated because you knew someone in the army was sending your orders straight to your enemies?
• Is it OK to search OOC for people that are willing to do it? i.e. asking an RL friend to do it, or asking on IRC if someone will move a character to an enemy realm to become a spy.

As a huge fan and propagator of the intrigue side of BM, I am very pro-spying.
1. It adds. It gives players a new means of forming cross-border relationships, and deepens them as it introduces moral qualms. I think of Riombara/Irombrozia cross-border espionage for this. Many Riombarans fed information to Irombrozia at one time or another, or helped us in various ways, and in so doing added new depth and complexity to their characters. Moreover, as Sacha noted, the process of recruiting spies is usually very player-intensive, and egalitarian. Spies are not usually high-ranking when they START spying. Most spies I have worked with are ambitious young players, besides a couple old-hands at espionage that are always around.

2. My character's realm is not his team, so yes. My characters have more in common with their co-religionists, with their secret society comrades, with their guildmates, with their personal friends and correspondents. So yes, I plan in secret quite often: not because I'm afraid of spies in the realm, but because I don't believe in anonymous team mates. If I have a goal, I establish mission parameters, identify key needs, and enlist the proper people to accomplish those needs. If it's a large-scale land-war, yes, I probably need a whole realm. But most of the things I enjoy don't require that.

3. Yes. And vice versa.

4. NO. Not at all. Not under any circumstance. Nor is forum-recruiting or IRC-recruiting acceptable.

Speaking mostly technically, betrayals are funny IC stuff, but I can hardly see any spying that is not related to some level of OOC abuse.

Betrayals are committed by characters who already developed their personalities, but lost faith in their loyalties for any reason.

Spying means someone is planted to the other realm, and be it character specifically came from the other continent, or new-created character, it is the same - it is just use of slot for transmitting messages and his mere existence is based on OOC plan, and OOC plans and plots kill the best part of game, over the fact that they are really unfair.

Sometimes character leaves one realm to join the other for spying, but such case I would mostly put in category of betrayal (or fake betrayal) - he is known and developed his history, he needs to gain confidence in new realm to achieve anything, so we can say all is purely IC, and that is intrigue (or can be).

Quote from: Stue (DC) on March 21, 2011, 10:22:33 PM
I can hardly see any spying that is not related to some level of OOC abuse.

Good spies don't get caught.

OK, but  how do you convince someone to become spy? If he is already in your realm and leaves to the other realm, that again falls into category that I provisionally called betrayal or false betrayal. The same applies to someone from other realm whom you convince to spy his own realm.

That is very different from "slot use" way of spying and is possible the place where we can draw fine line between good contribution to fun in game vs. adverse effect on fun.

Quote from: Stue (DC) on March 21, 2011, 10:22:33 PM
Speaking mostly technically, betrayals are funny IC stuff, but I can hardly see any spying that is not related to some level of OOC abuse.

Betrayals are committed by characters who already developed their personalities, but lost faith in their loyalties for any reason.

Spying means someone is planted to the other realm, and be it character specifically came from the other continent, or new-created character, it is the same - it is just use of slot for transmitting messages and his mere existence is based on OOC plan, and OOC plans and plots kill the best part of game, over the fact that they are really unfair.

Sometimes character leaves one realm to join the other for spying, but such case I would mostly put in category of betrayal (or fake betrayal) - he is known and developed his history, he needs to gain confidence in new realm to achieve anything, so we can say all is purely IC, and that is intrigue (or can be).

Your definition of betrayal vs spying is arbitrary. If they are feeding information to the enemy it is spying. The spying MIGHT be the result of a betrayal, but it is by definition SPYING. So far everyone agrees OOC spying is wrong, which is really a no brainer, its OOC of course its not right. However some of us put in a lot of time developing IG spy rings. Most of my spies haven't really "lost the faith". Most are lower in the realm, weren't ever that involved in the realm, or simply like the amount of gold I pay them. I think I only have one spy on the books that purposely wants to get revenge on his realm.

Quote from: De-Legro on March 21, 2011, 10:59:05 PM
Your definition of betrayal vs spying is arbitrary. If they are feeding information to the enemy it is spying. The spying MIGHT be the result of a betrayal, but it is by definition SPYING.

It'd be classed as treason, which is a form of betrayal. 

Okay, the thread is not about betrayal or treason broadly. It's about spying.

Quote from: Draco Tanos on March 22, 2011, 04:37:41 AM
It'd be classed as treason, which is a form of betrayal.

And the treason would be a result of what, oh yes SPYING. Most actions in life will come under multiple designations, that doesn't mean you should pick only one and insist the others are not relevant. If you are feeding information back, it is spying. It might also be treason or betrayal, but it is STILL spying.

Spying IS a betrayal, it's a form of treason.

While Stue was misconstruing his definitions, yours isn't correct either.  There's no an/or.  Spying IS a betrayal.  You were saying it *might* be one.

It would depend on the kind of spying. An enemy agent hiding in your country sending back messages is ALSO spying, yet not a betrayal. So in game terms, an advy that I send into your realm who sends back what reports they can, is a spy but is not betraying anyone.

Valid.  Though...  How much information can Adventurers gain?  I know priests can't get troop numbers, etc. 

Ok this may be long, but spying is a topic I am quite interested to discuss, and actually wanted to start this very post myself. Too bad Indirik reads my mind.

In a broader sense I agree with Lilwolf. Spying is bad because it considerably reduces the spread of informations in a realm, and having informations is something that makes bm fun. Having been for 3 years in Sirion at war as Marshal then General then Ruler in a realm that constantly had more than 100 players and even 150 sometimes it was imperative to keep things restricted, and even if I always struggled against the spy paranoia to actually broaden military stuff a bit, it was a fact that constantly every time the councils got bigger, leak was always present. This means that in Sirion all the time around 10% of the realm was aware of what was going on. Often even less.

On the other hand spying can be fun and realistic. Again going back to my Sirion experience I must say that giving different orders to the whole armies/loyal knights, discussing plan A within the council and then going for plan B planned only with some few people and things like that in order to confuse and expose spies has been very funny and gave a taste of real war so to say. The risk of leak gives to the whole planning and discussing phase a thrill coming from the additional cleverness required that is quite amusing in my opinion. On top of that spying gives a concrete chance to all nobles, regardless of their hierarchical position, to actually influence a war. Thus it forces rulers to be extra careful: a war declared for a whim is almost certainly disapproved by someone in your realm, and that can turn him into a spy. Realms internally split are thus even weaker than a cohesive counterpart.

The true downside of spying is the rather elevate chance not to be catch at all. There is no price to pay for being a spy whatsoever. You can spy and then be a good noble at the same time, going for a reward either realm wins, no risks at all. This spoils a bit the complexity of the spy phenomenon making it a cheap way to win, and increasing even more its social consequences that are the close mindedness of the realm with respect to newcomers and the scarce spread of information to the nobility. Were there a way for, so to say, rulers and judges to actually have a chance to catch a spy that would truly improve this side of the game, for instance forcing spies to be smart and not giving away some informations for the sake of remaining hidden and keep their cover or perhaps forcing them to spend some time in the realm loyally to gain the trust of the leaders - that would perhaps remain focused on newcomers or troublemakers.

This is more or less my point of view on spying in general. Going to more concrete cases connected to Indirik's questions once again I put forward two spy cases I ran into during my experience (again, in Sirion.)

The first one was back when Sirion was attacked by Fontan, SoA, Westmoor Perdan and OI all together. As some of you may know, a guild for purpose of organizing their huge armies was created in Ashfort and, needless to say, there was a spy into it. Many were aware of that already, because the spy was just the son (or brother? or whatever) of the ruler of Old rancagua, killed by SoA in Pedrera before their realm was wiped out. He disliked SoA, opposed the entrance of Perdan in the war and then spied in order to help Sirion. I would call these IC reasons, especially because the Perdan leadership was quite aware of his legacy, and could have excluded him from the operations on this basis perfectly. In addition, he just reported some broad strategic talk, and not day by day orders by choice, in order not to ruin the game too much - something I approved.

This is a kind of spying in my opinion that is fine and tolerable.

The second one happened recently. A character joined SoA and soon became a Marshal there, and the very same day this char joined SoA a new noble joined Sirion. To make the long story short, they somehow knew each other and the sirion guy started to spy for the soa one, almost immediately after his joining. We first knew there was a spy and took some time to discover who he was, and this was around when he was in sirion since one month more or less, meaning he has been spying from almost the very first day he joined Sirion. I have no idea what kind of IC deal could have been between these chars, but the coincidence joining of two realms at war coupled with the unknown heritage of the sirion one lead me to frown upon the robustness of their ic connections. Clearly what was reported were only day by day orders, nothing else.

This is kind of spying that greatly ruins the game in my opinion, because leads people in charge to doubt about everyone, and invites them to leave armies as clueless as possible about what is going on.

So, in conclusion, to answer Indirik's questions:
1- I don't know. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If spies could be catch it would definitely be a yes.
2- yes almost every time. I liked dwilight because the lack of hate and the one-char limit led to a less suspicious situation. Now it's no longer like that even there.
3- yes. several times risky moves were not done because of the suspicious of spies. On the other hand sometimes misleading orders to the spy were sent on purpose to actually gain something from it
4- as I said, no. I personally don't like even the IC approach to it, that would be asking a realm mate of yours who is bored of the realm or maybe a member of a failed rebellion to come along with you to a certain continent and start a spy network just for the sake of becoming more powerful there quickly.

cheers and sorry for the length.

Quote from: Peri on March 22, 2011, 12:31:05 PMThe first one was back when Sirion was attacked by Fontan, SoA, Westmoor Perdan and OI all together. As some of you may know, a guild for purpose of organizing their huge armies was created in Ashfort and, needless to say, there was a spy into it. Many were aware of that already, because the spy was just the son (or brother? or whatever) of the ruler of Old rancagua, killed by SoA in Pedrera before their realm was wiped out. He disliked SoA, opposed the entrance of Perdan in the war and then spied in order to help Sirion. I would call these IC reasons, especially because the Perdan leadership was quite aware of his legacy, and could have excluded him from the operations on this basis perfectly. In addition, he just reported some broad strategic talk, and not day by day orders by choice, in order not to ruin the game too much - something I approved.

Yes, I remember that one. My character refused to work with that guild, because it was obvious there was a spy in the organization. I had no idea who it was. It would have required going through the family histories of all the people in a large, multi-realm guild, most of whom my character didn't know, and had never interacted with. You could probably come with all kinds of reasons that just about anyone would want Fontan or Perdan to fail. Singling out the real culprit after the fact is just a case of 20/20 hindsight.

Quote from: Indirik on March 22, 2011, 03:02:06 PM
Yes, I remember that one. My character refused to work with that guild, because it was obvious there was a spy in the organization. I had no idea who it was. It would have required going through the family histories of all the people in a large, multi-realm guild, most of whom my character didn't know, and had never interacted with. You could probably come with all kinds of reasons that just about anyone would want Fontan or Perdan to fail. Singling out the real culprit after the fact is just a case of 20/20 hindsight.

Yes you are probably right. That's why I voted that spying is always bad for me :p

Quote from: Indirik on March 16, 2011, 07:13:31 PM
 

   
• Is spying OK? Does it add to the game, or make it more frustrating?
• Have you ever found yourself not discussing future plans in your realm because you were worried about spies?
• Have you ever had your military plans frustrated because you knew someone in the army was sending your orders straight to your enemies?
• Is it OK to search OOC for people that are willing to do it? i.e. asking an RL friend to do it, or asking on IRC if someone will move a character to an enemy realm to become a spy.

1. Of course it's okay.  It also adds a lot of frustration to the game.  As others have said, it's just a part of life in BM.

2. Yes.  This is when spying starts to interfere with attempts to involve more players and promote a better experience for everyone.  If everyone were to stop spying tomorrow, the game would probably be a much better place.  There are also people who don't understand the idea of non-competitive play and will use spying to disastrous effect.

3. Yes.  Who hasn't?

4. I used to think that any kind of OOC brainstorming, coordination, or discussion was bad.  I've grown out of that opinion.  Indirik (and others) said that spying can really have an impact on trust within the game.  I agree, but I also think trust is a far more basic problem.  Realms can barely function when trust is lacking.  Things like IRC, the forums, and the d-list allow people to find like-minded players and gain an understanding of (if not always an appreciation for) opposing viewpoints.  That helps build trust.  Communication, action, and anything that can be done IC should be done IC.  Hashing out a realm concept, planning a religion, anything that requires notes or graph paper... these kinds of things should take place in whatever environment is most conducive to them.

Something should also be said about players in positions of power who claim to be disdainful of the practice of spying: they're almost always full of crap.  There are two ways to survive for any length of time as a ruler.  The first is by spying, the second is by setting up alliances and client states in such a way as to starve a continent of fun.  I think the latter is far more harmful to the game than the latter.

Quote from: Solari on March 22, 2011, 06:54:19 PM
Something should also be said about players in positions of power who claim to be disdainful of the practice of spying: they're almost always full of crap.  There are two ways to survive for any length of time as a ruler.  The first is by spying, the second is by setting up alliances and client states in such a way as to starve a continent of fun.  I think the latter is far more harmful to the game than the latter.

What about having ass kicking armies that make sure enemies don't get near enough to beat the hell out of you?

Quote from: Peri on March 22, 2011, 09:55:20 PM
What about having ass kicking armies that make sure enemies don't get near enough to beat the hell out of you?

Also worth mentioning, yes.  Of course, if I could throw 120 nobles at a wall, I'm sure several would eventually make a hole in it.  ;)

Quote from: Solari on March 22, 2011, 06:54:19 PM
I think the latter is far more harmful to the game than the latter.

I dunno, I personally prefer the latter.

Spying IC: Good. It allows for a level of depth other games lack. Creating networks to gather information, share it, and act upon it is what our human society has accepted from one end of the Earth to the other for as long as we've stood upright.

Spying OOC: Terrible. Anyone who does so should be immediately punched in the face repeatedly.

Quote from: Vellos on March 23, 2011, 02:35:39 AM
I dunno, I personally prefer the latter.

XD

And now it's too late to correct it.

I think spying is great for the game, look at what happened in Westmoor recently.  It brought down a King, and they even managed to point the finger at the other guy!  Reminds me of the good ole days when Oligarch had spies in Fontan.  That was so much fun figuring out who they were and feeding them false info.

Now it's more fun to just chat with old friends in other realms and figure out whats going on by reading through the lines, and writing in your messages there yourself.  It's pretty clear that Gregor wants peace in the North and a return to the old alliance pre-Fontanese betrayl of Sirion (read as forced war by Tom).  Of course nobody has bothered to ask him exactly what he wants, but they might be shocked to find out.

Hah, feeding false info. Ya'll never came within three bowshots of our spy network. We just never had the manpower to fully exploit it, and, by the siege of Oligarch, most of'em had given up.

I seem to recall taking out five of them at one point... *shrug*

A noble who become disaffected with the direction his realm takes due to the actions of an unassailable leadership or majority may feel justification in giving secrets to the realm's enemies.  To me, this is an example of legitimate spying that has a place in the game, and is along similar lines as rebellion.  A large part of this game is the role-playing, and this action as a result of a character's experiences may fit well with the emotional drama of the game.

I do not approve of making a new character in a realm for the purpose of spying.  This does cause trust problems for other people's new characters, and leads to a decrease of information flow and transparency, also interfering with the fun of the game for many players who aren't in the leadership cliques.  Despite being realistic and practically unpreventable, it hurts the game. 

Quote from: Mercer on April 10, 2011, 08:29:53 PM
A noble who become disaffected with the direction his realm takes due to the actions of an unassailable leadership or majority may feel justification in giving secrets to the realm's enemies.  To me, this is an example of legitimate spying that has a place in the game, and is along similar lines as rebellion.  A large part of this game is the role-playing, and this action as a result of a character's experiences may fit well with the emotional drama of the game.

I do not approve of making a new character in a realm for the purpose of spying.  This does cause trust problems for other people's new characters, and leads to a decrease of information flow and transparency, also interfering with the fun of the game for many players who aren't in the leadership cliques.  Despite being realistic and practically unpreventable, it hurts the game.

Its not that realistic really. In RL someone joining a faction for the purposes of spying would need to spend large amounts of time and great risk to establish themselves to the point where not only do they have access to useful information, but also have a method to get that information out to their employers.

So you are saying in RL it would take much effort to get into a position to gain info, exactly what he said, but you are also saying it is unrealistic? How does that make sense?

Who knows, but in real life, the risk is considerably larger since you can die (for real, and permanently, you know...). In BM, your character might get a bad reputation. In worse situations, you get labelled as an untrustworthy player. Big deal, start from scratch if needed. Doesn't work that way in real life, so usually either the reward has to be huge to offset the risk, or there's some really strong incentive (revenge is a good bet), or there's extortion involved.

Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on April 11, 2011, 06:08:16 AM
So you are saying in RL it would take much effort to get into a position to gain info, exactly what he said, but you are also saying it is unrealistic? How does that make sense?

I'm saying this comment

Quote from: Mercer on April 10, 2011, 08:29:53 PM
I do not approve of making a new character in a realm for the purpose of spying.  This does cause trust problems for other people's new characters, and leads to a decrease of information flow and transparency, also interfering with the fun of the game for many players who aren't in the leadership cliques.  Despite being realistic and practically unpreventable, it hurts the game. 

Is incorrect, since the whole point of creating a character in a realm for spying is that it takes very little effort in BM to be able to access useful information to whoever. Its not realistic for new characters in a realm to be such effective spies. It is also much harder in game to work out who a spy might be.

My reading of Mercer comment make no reference to the difficulty of spying. He simply proposed that one case is more RP acceptable then another.

My opinion

In characters situations that cause someone to get angry against the realm they serve under and thus become a spy (aka - no prior OOC collaboration done and its someone you dont know OOC whatsoever) is fine

Spying and trying to RP it ingame as validation is using IC reasons as an excuse for planned OOC spying.  Obviously top circumstances are rare.

I currently have 2 created by their own realm who messaged me out of the blue.

I actually had a good friend IRL of mine in DoA and he decided to get his character deported once it got entangled in war with Caligus to prevent OOC knowledge of the place.

Simply those who want the OOC spying to be ok if it is reasoned IC is the main problem.  Its impossible to track first of all and its something that will likely always be in battlemaster and a problem because it is a small community and pretty much everyone knows each other so in its own place is it very hard to have IC situations where spies are not OOC created.

Quote from: Menethil on April 11, 2011, 02:53:39 PM
My opinion

In characters situations that cause someone to get angry against the realm they serve under and thus become a spy (aka - no prior OOC collaboration done and its someone you dont know OOC whatsoever) is fine

Spying and trying to RP it ingame as validation is using IC reasons as an excuse for planned OOC spying.  Obviously top circumstances are rare.

I currently have 2 created by their own realm who messaged me out of the blue.

I actually had a good friend IRL of mine in DoA and he decided to get his character deported once it got entangled in war with Caligus to prevent OOC knowledge of the place.

Simply those who want the OOC spying to be ok if it is reasoned IC is the main problem.  Its impossible to track first of all and its something that will likely always be in battlemaster and a problem because it is a small community and pretty much everyone knows each other so in its own place is it very hard to have IC situations where spies are not OOC created.

There are other IC ways to establish spies. For example IG I run a spy network. I constantly recruit nobles into that spy network IG. On occasion I have too many spies in one realm, and none in another. Are you saying its OOC to ask one of my agents to move to another realm and try establish himself high enough in the hierarchy to get info worth selling?

Quote from: De-Legro on April 12, 2011, 12:50:21 AM
There are other IC ways to establish spies. For example IG I run a spy network. I constantly recruit nobles into that spy network IG. On occasion I have too many spies in one realm, and none in another. Are you saying its OOC to ask one of my agents to move to another realm and try establish himself high enough in the hierarchy to get info worth selling?

I do not think it is ooc, but I think this is exactly the kind of spying that ruins the game. If your guy moves to realm X, there will be no way for people in power of realm X to discover he is a spy, and can play on all tables attempting to gain trust without any meaningful risk. As soon as people in power suspect there is a spy somewhere, this freezes all promotions, councils get tuned down, no info goes outside the few in power. If the spy is excluded or not, well, that depends on his skill and it's a nice mechanics. But a lot of non-spies will suffer the consequences.

Let's face it: spying is just incredibly easy. Justifying it with a "I am part of a spy network" makes it amazingly cheap to perform, and all the game suffers the consequences. If you at least have good ic background reasons it can be tolerated and it adds fun as I wrote in this topic before, but someone joining a realm with the particular purpose of spying -be it because of ic or ooc reasons- makes just too hard for people in power to trust everyone.

Nothing against you de-Legro, but that's just my point of view.

Quote from: Peri on April 12, 2011, 01:52:16 PM
I do not think it is ooc, but I think this is exactly the kind of spying that ruins the game. If your guy moves to realm X, there will be no way for people in power of realm X to discover he is a spy, and can play on all tables attempting to gain trust without any meaningful risk. As soon as people in power suspect there is a spy somewhere, this freezes all promotions, councils get tuned down, no info goes outside the few in power. If the spy is excluded or not, well, that depends on his skill and it's a nice mechanics. But a lot of non-spies will suffer the consequences.

Let's face it: spying is just incredibly easy. Justifying it with a "I am part of a spy network" makes it amazingly cheap to perform, and all the game suffers the consequences. If you at least have good ic background reasons it can be tolerated and it adds fun as I wrote in this topic before, but someone joining a realm with the particular purpose of spying -be it because of ic or ooc reasons- makes just too hard for people in power to trust everyone.

Nothing against you de-Legro, but that's just my point of view.

You can't have it both ways. All spies are just as easy to detect. You have the same chance of working out it is a disenfranchised member of the realm as you do the professional spy. Both will result in non-spies suffering the consequences.

In my experience, fear of spies is the major reason why those in power in realms hesitate to add people to planning councils. I have had personal experience with cases where people have spied on our realm with absolutely no discernible IC justification for their actions. Like the guy who's been in your realm for three months, says almost nothing but posts some scout reports, never disagrees with any plans or policies, and then you find out he's been sending your army order to your enemy the whole time.

I can understand the attractions to gaining info from spying, or the possible thrill from running a "spy ring". But personally, I think it has an overall negative effect on the game.

Quote from: Peri on April 12, 2011, 01:52:16 PM
I do not think it is ooc, but I think this is exactly the kind of spying that ruins the game. If your guy moves to realm X, there will be no way for people in power of realm X to discover he is a spy, and can play on all tables attempting to gain trust without any meaningful risk. As soon as people in power suspect there is a spy somewhere, this freezes all promotions, councils get tuned down, no info goes outside the few in power. If the spy is excluded or not, well, that depends on his skill and it's a nice mechanics. But a lot of non-spies will suffer the consequences.

I think this is fine, as long as the spy network really is in-game, and not a bunch of friends who play together. The important thing is that every character really is a character, with its own motivations. This means that spies can be turned, and can change allegiance, and then it is part of the game.

Quote from: vonGenf on April 12, 2011, 07:47:21 PM
I think this is fine, as long as the spy network really is in-game, and not a bunch of friends who play together. The important thing is that every character really is a character, with its own motivations. This means that spies can be turned, and can change allegiance, and then it is part of the game.

That is very true. I lost some very good spies when one of my other spies decided there was more gold to be made naming names. I've also had a one or two occasions where it turned out that a spy was playing for multiple sides selling me info and also selling info he gained from me. Spying when handled IG and not just a bunch of friends or close allies has many risks. Sure if I set up a spy ring of ultra patriotic knights, sent out to strengthen the realm we might be pretty hard to crack. However I avoid recruiting people like that, and also my network is not tied to a single realm. We will sell info to anyone and everyone if the price is right.