Spying: Good or bad for the game?

[Vellos]

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.

[loren]

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

[Mercer]

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. 

[Cadfan]

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.

[Gustav Kuriga]

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?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

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.

[Cadfan]

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

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.

[Dobromir]

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.

[De-Legro]

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?

[Peri]

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.

[De-Legro]

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.

[Indirik]

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.

[vonGenf]

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.

[De-Legro]

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.