Ain wrote:
The goal here is to provide a punishment that keeps people in the game and playing as opposed to idling away pressing 'l' every few minutes. As for it being an alternative - of course it is, that's what we're discussing here. Alternatives to jail time. Thing is, however, the collar jennbo wore (and something I forgot to mention as I jotted down collar conditions), is that there's a time-limit on the collar. Certain number of ticks, it pops off. So, what would you rather do? Spend 36 days inside a room where you can't really do anything besides send an occasional tell, or spend 36 days doing whatever you like while having some of your skills/spells effectively disabled (and not to mention that if you die you don't necessarily HAVE to worry about the collar anymore).
Edoras - I know you're defensive about your idea, and I'm semi-defensive about mine because I like it, and I know it works, but:
Judgement will appear on one's affects list as "Judgement" And disable him from using any skills or spells above Journeyman status.
Don't like it. My collars would block either/or active skills/spells, or possibly neither depending on regionary laws. Disabling both is, in essence, reducing them to the level 5 character you mentioned.
You say Solanum lycopersicum, I say tomato. I'm really convinced that we're arguing for basically the exact same change for the exact same reasons with only cosmetic differences: You're advocating a skill-limiting item with a limited duration proportional to crimes that can't be removed and doesn't decrease in duration during death, and I've suggested a skill-limiting debuff that has a duration proportional to crimes that can't be removed and doesn't decrease in duration during death. We're really on the same page here.
But I would advise you to take a closer look at the difference between A) disabling all active skills OR all active spells and B) Disabling both active skills and spells that are -above journeyman.- If you look at that you'll realize that removing all of a mages' spells, for example, is completely nullifying, whereas removing just self defense, scribe, locate object, mass invis, polymorph, summon, detect aura, enchant armor, enchant weapon, recharge, depetrification, gate, petrification and final strike is much less crippling.
Journeyman spells and above is very close to crippling, while not nullifying, in my opinion. Sorcerers still get charm person, shamans still get spirit aura, paladins still get spear of faith, swashbucklers still get finesse, mercs still get specialize, mercs and barbs still get third attack, etc.
I'm not posting this to advocate that the "above journeyman skill/spell removal" idea is the best way to go: I even said in my Judgement thread idea that there are plenty of similar alternatives, such as lowering stats similar to spirit disorientation, or lowering hp or me or something else. I'm posting this to point out that we really are striving for the same goal here. There's also no reason why Judgement, for example, couldn't vary from nation to nation.
Also, I'd really advise against making the collar removable by death: If you do that, then you're essentially setting the hard cap on punished crimes to that of a single spirit disorientation. Bad idea. Also, disabling mental communication can't be a side-effect if this were to be put into the game: That could actually limit being involved in the game -more- than the current law system.