I like this idea, not so much the others. Have the spies actually be citizens of the place they are spying on, then recruited by the enemy organization.

Rather than giving anyone special skills that can be abused for personal advantage (which I think most of the above would be), make a quest for each city/commune whereby certain key documents/information can be collected only by citizens, and then passed on to enemies via a hardcoded means (that rules out newbies/novices).

If certain levels of information flow are reached, the spy ministry of the enemy city gets bonuses of some kind. Maybe a coded 'free' raiding time for a certain village in which the guards won't attack, or a way to redirect a tiny fraction of the city tithe to their own organization.

I prefer this sort of 'quest'/achievement based method as opposed to individual benefits for a spy superclass. Just my thoughts.

Hmmm ... thats interesting. I like that idea, Elryn.

In any case, there would be a limit as for how many agents a MoI could recruit. Being either local agents (for counter intel biz) or field agents (meaning infiltrators).

And maybe there is a city power upkeep for each agent in the agent pool. Perhaps in power? Perhaps in gold?

The point is not to create a superclass. But instead, to grant a small bath of special skills DISGUISE, TUNING, KIT MAKING, TRACKING, to expand the war resources each city/commune has. Just like special village influence skills are given to people with high Cityrank, in the influence skillset.

City and guild leaders have the power do a number of things, but that is the point of this realm. Players are given responsabilities. Just as real life leaders are given great responsibilities. The thing is to choose carefully, WHO you give these privs to.

And of course, there will be great punishements to those who abuse of their power.

Aye, I think that's reasonable for the agents to require gold or something to keep them 'in your pocket'.

And I do understand what you mean about having special privileges for positions in an organization, but I feel those privileges should always relate directly to the commune/city you are working for, not give individual characters an advantage in other areas. Especially when we start talking about 'skills' rather than 'privileges', we have to be careful we aren't stepping into class territory.

For example, disguise and tracking are not directly related to city benefit. You can use them for that, sure, but the same goes for any guild skill. You'll note that even the special influence attacks we learn still only apply to villages in play... they give no other advantage to the character outside that time.

Hmm, when I think of the commands that a spy/agent might have access to, it is more along the lines of recording restricted information in a hardcoded manner, and how it will be transferred to the enemy.

Hmmm .... how would you set it up then? I think im getting a little confused now. -chin- Need to think about it again.

According to you, what would stay and be alright, and what should be removed because it will likely bring unbalace?

Bear in mind, this is only my opinion. If you like what you're suggesting, stick with it.

I personally like the idea of a ministry in each organization that does 'spy' stuff, but I would keep the distinction clear between a position and a class. I feel a position should always grant privs that are only meaningful within your organization and directly to it. I see a spy ministry being able to organize their funding of agents/counter-intelligence, conscripting and cutting off agents, intercepting communications and deliveries from agents, and applying earned credit for city bonuses.

To me, a lot of the skills you're suggesting would do better in say a fourth class for each organization, sort of like assassins/shadowsnakes. They could still be organized to compete heavily amongst each other through spying and stealing (er, probably not stealing so much) and so on, but they would be a separate class that can either use their skills for the city or their own personal benefit. If you give special skills to someone from any existing class, you have to be very careful with balance. What if a Druid spy puts on his disguise to get into a protected area of Magnagora, forests a small demesne, then when he's ready lets a coven flow in to rage?

Actually, yes, i had this in mind. Combining class skills with a special set of skills to gain full effect. Instead of a specialized class.

Then again that druid has to be careful. If someone eventually percieves his identity (by checking out who did the demesne belong to) after the commune army flows in, then the spy/agent's identity would be uncovered. Thus, a setback to his own ministry.

On the other hand knight/warrior class spies would use poisons and weapons to infiltrate an enemy city, request a meeting with a someone important, get into the office and while the person is unspecting. Swing , swing , swing ... kill.

Or a guardian class person infiltrates with disguise, lusts someone pretending they are playing around, walk out normally, and use the empress trick to capture the target.

I was actually thinking of combining the classes with the special skills. To make each spy different from the other, instead of a single kind of class.

-chin- -ponder-

How about one of the next cities has a ninja/spy sort of guild?
Thier offense can be stealth using some of the skills aether has here, that way they can't mix their skills with the spy aide skills.

The only problem is that these guys better not be able to jump people as such, as there's too much of that anyway.
Hmm.. it would be tricky to put into a guild.

Having been a successful Lusternian spy I would just like to say that having a formal means of espionage is good but I would be extremely suspicious of it if it was a recognized city ministry. Spying and infiltration is uncomfortable if everyone knows its definitely happening. The risk of having someone rat you out is just too high.

What cities do need is pure 100% counter espionage means. Ways to intercept communications: messages, tells, mail, track and find persons. Anything... because spies as are can function very well.. be hidden, and send information, they don't really need more help. You ideas are good, Aether. But I think they should only be use as a way to catch the moles within the different places... but who can be certain if such "organization" would remain uncorrupted, too. One of the biggest moles could even work from deep within a city's intelligence ministry and spy for another.

Counter intel is my main concern.

Doubtlessly such a ministry can find its way into the hands of a corrupted minister, and maybe a team of corrupted aides. But that is how life works. There is always talk of governments abusing of their power and secret agencies conspiring against the citizens, but that is how it is. Many of the "real" problems get filtered into Lusternia, because after all , we are all humans, and share a similar "real world experience".

With such power as being able to watch over the communication lines of your own city/commune, comes a great responsability (yes, its just like in Spiderman, but hell, its true). It is not something that can be given lightly, and the City or commune must give it to someone they trust with their life. At the same time, the identity of the people who are part of this ministry must be kept secret at all times. If the identity was to become known, they contract would have to be terminated. Thus, they really cant go about bragging about it.

The TUNING skill described above allows the characters with such power to oversee mental communications (tells) that are what most people use. Someone stated that overseeing main would be a bit too much, and i agree. The point is not to see the contents of the letters, but instead to oversee the deliveries of these letters. (Current covernments do that anyway -snicker-) Its just to keep track if someone is Celest is sending many many letters to Magnagora, and things like that. Perhaps the identities of the sender and reciever are not even exposed. It is only logged as which city/commune sent how many letters to which city/commune and at what times and dates of the month. Maybe most recorded logs indicate that most letters are from Celest to Celest. But if the MoI, detects a monthly send of Celest to Magnagora, and at roughtly the same time and date, then suspiciousness begins and the MoI posts an agent near the Post office.

Lets remember that Lusternia is a strong RP game. People -have- to mail letters to stay in character. If they are NOT spying, they have nothing to fear anyway.

The simple knowledge that someone is and might be overseeing them, will tone down the ammount of spying done. Both IC and OOC. Keeping in mind that any OOC spying is simply very against the rules and very low in general.

But an intense inter city/commune spy war, would be interesting, and it would open up a new level of gaming.

IRE games tend to have a "spy/ninja/sneaky" type guilds. That is exactly why Lusternia should NOT have one. Integrate Spycraft as a formalized system within each city, instead of making it a fourth guild or a new guild for a certain commune or new city.

And i insist that the Disguise skill and the Tuning would be fun for them spy aides! It will serve an RP pourpose, it will serve as police to counter lame spying and RP spying, and it will make Lusternia stand out from the IRE crowd. (those two skills are the only two im thinking of right now. It is true that we already have enough proficient thieves -grin-)

Reminding once more that there should be a power cost to these skills, as to prevent over use and abuse, and a power cost for each agent in the agent pool.

And a counter abuse protocol in case the MoI is suspected of abuse. The city can expose the logs to the city officials in order to investigate if such abuse was true.

Erm .. ill keep thinking. And i hope people keep dropping ideas in and feed back -smile- -bounce-

Ok now, had a little idea to add here.

Assuming the only skills that are accepted are DISGUISE, EAVESDROP, KITMAKING, and TUNING (with power cost), here comes one more to make things more interesting.

MEMORY:

that uses three Syntxes

MEMORIZE: Costs 1 power to activate. This will record everything you hear on your area, anything you eavesdrop, anything you tune out a target by means of using the Tuning skill, or anything you overhear on your aetherwaves. The skill remains activated for a total time of 1 day, and all this information will never leave your mind, until you decided to MEMORY WIPE.

MEMORY WIPE: As a skill that requires equilibrium, you can erase everything you have recorded into your mind. Allowing your mind to become ready to use MEMORIZE ones more. (Taking note that you cannot MEMORIZE if you have not previously emptied your mind.

MEMORY TRANCE: By entering a memory trance, you will recount every single thing you overheard, that being says, tells, tunings, aetherwaves ..etc. You will imitate the voices, allowing them to be recognized, and yes, someone else can memorize the things an agent repeats by means of a memory trance. By means of this skill you can present solid proof to your superiors or to anyone of concern. Doing -anything- will break the memory trance.


------

Using this skill, the aides become true information gatherers, allowing them to use the Disguise skill to enter an enemy city to eavesdrop or tune infomation from the enemy, and report back to his or her bosses. Or as counter spy agents, prowling the streets and recording the happenings of the city waves, or the conversations of a certain area where something happens.

So if someone says, "Oh yeah? You think i am a spy? Well prove it!" and the MoI calls his agent and presses the play button. Of course that will never happen, as it will not be spart to reveal who the agents are .. but remember the agents can disguise themselves as someone else, or even as the accused person to approch them with the proof. Who knows .. there are many ways to use these skills.

Now, imagine one of the agents has very sensitive information, and he needs to get it off him so he may go back into the enemy city, needing his memory to be open again, so what does he do? He calls on a fellow agent, and has the other agent memorize the information the first agent was carrying, so that the first agent can return to his work, and the second agent can report to the MoI, or keep it in storage.

Powerful skills like these should require power to limit their use. As i have posted before, each agent should also require a monthly power tithe.

Anyway .. thats me adding some thought. Feel free to pitch in? Heh .. i hate talking to myself. Hey, Desdemona, help me out! -grin-

I'm somewhat late here, but here goes anyway. I like a number things about this, with certain exceptions (facilitation of theft) that you mentioned already as not particularly crucial.

PENALTY: For starters, it is possible, as I believe Desdemona mentioned, that these organizations could become corrupt. But... If a harsh penalty was imposed for being caught as a spy or for making a guess as to someone being a spy incorrectly like it was suggested, corruption wouldn't be a problem, it would be a cherry on top. Think about this- a double agent can be accused -by his own ministry.- Even without a scripted MoI ability to do so, information could be released to the rival ministry as a last resort internal affairs option, for whatever the nasty penalty would be. Then, the rival ministry can say "the game is up" and zap the double agent, or leave them there to sit uselessly (maybe) in the first ministry. If the double agent who was zapped was any good, he might be able to blow the whistle on some of his home contacts to the rivals!

"But then, everyone who tried to be involved would be getting nailed with harsh penalties."

I don't think so. The gravity of danger could serve to keep them down, since no one wants to cause a cascading stream of penalties that will hit them too. Ie, lost some info? Get the other spy back by getting their info, rather than trying to get them officially, because you can't tell if they've got info to do the same to you. Got a spy you're unsure of? Don't give them the best info, or give them the wrong info. And hey, if the penalties fly, such may be the nature of the business, perhaps you should carefully consider signing up.

SPYHONORS: Being discovered as a spy and punished could add an "honors" line. "Convicted of (espionage, crimes against the city/commune, or what have you) by (city name)." If you quit being a spy, maybe you could have an honors line in one RL year from the date you quit or something, "a former man/woman of mystery from (city name)." Basically, time passes, old secrets eventually come out/don't need to be kept... You could enjoy some prestige there, and also some danger, as others might think you're still in the business. If you're not, hey, a lot of time has passed, former enemies are probably not interested anymore if they're around at all. If you are still in the business, you accept the danger that could come with that too. Make the honor line stack, even- if you come out of retirement, people will know eventually. If you were a spy for more than one city, someone would have to think very carefully before hiring you again (or maybe telling you anything important!), etc. Also, perhaps it shouldn't be possible to be fired. It should be assumed that the ministry can't afford to just shoo you off with whatever info you may have. If the MoI suspects their own agent, they have to stage a trap of some sort (since killing a spy in Lusternia is like leaving Bond for dead). The end goal of course would be getting them trapped with the punishment and notoriety, but at how much risk? Also, to prevent rotary abuse of accusations, a city/commune MoI could lose all of its abilities for a time with a false accusation, along with the penalty on the person making the claim.

SPYCOMMUNICATION: Secret inter-MoI communications are a great idea. You have to be crafty to not reveal who you are, and you have to be crafty to find out who someone else is, just via their communications, unless you've earned such incredible trust that they actually reveal themselves to you. As far as secret comms, you could portray yourself as someone else and get a less crafty, unfaithful spy zapped! Also, the help file on it could say something like "you don't apply to work for this ministry, it will find you if it thinks it needs to."

QUITSPY: If you want to quit the MoI, you should have to quitspy, and be in "quitting the MoI" status for 50 RL hours. It would take into account that, let's face it, your ministry probably knows more about you than you do. You can't just quit without them knowing about it unless you disappear from the face of the, er, realms. During that time, if your ministry needs to put vengeance upon you for quitting, as RL agencies sometimes would, they can try to get you "discovered." If a spy is discovered in his quitting time period, the ministry can put a hit on them (ie, the avenger with another flag), so they die once and get the unfavorable honors line. The ministry doesn't get to sit and think about it or blackmail after the fact though, 50hrs isn't exactly forever. Maybe the agency can mark a spy as inactive, too, so if a RL month goes by without a spy with that mark logging in, it's as if they retired successfully (no penalty), and they can appoint another one, with a total specified. Two or three max, with no minimum, maybe.

The results? If the people you work for are poor employers, you're probably screwed. If you are a poor spy, you're probably screwed. If you doublecross your agency, you're probably screwed. If you quit and you were a bad spy, you're probably screwed. If your leaving pissed off your agency and you were a good spy, you might convince them "for the right reasons" to leave you alone, or you were so good you had friends high up. Or maybe they'd just have to save face and you'd wind up screwed anyway. If you quit one agency to join another, you'd have to be the master to not have the black marks for it that everyone "in the know" could check. Just like the real thing! Being a spy is the equivalent of signing a contract saying that you understand that if you get caught, you're (you guessed it!). Have a contract when you sign up even! "We will disavow all knowledge" and all that.

Also, think about how much more use this could give to so many other things. I think Daganev mentioned people would use letters less often. I would think that they might use them more often, actually, to send information, misinformation, anything. It might add a more official face to things, since that face could then be manipulated both from straight RP and from a character ability set. Some might argue channels would be used less, but I wouldn't think so. Not with IC spying that would need proximity for the "TUNING" example, it wouldn't be that widespread. Maybe it would even add a more authentic political feel to some situations, as city ties could be more important (and have more weight leant to their consideration, challenging and championing).

From a coding perspective, I can't claim that my own suggestions would be easy to make, since I've no idea, but perhaps if substitutes were used that already exist in game? Suppose the ministry hit would be an avenger described differently, and quitspy status would be like requesting a sort of disfavour.

Aether, you should be ashamed of yourself for suiciding!

Anyhow, regarding espionage... with Dreamweaving on, espionage on Lusternia can take a step forward. It would be great if said counter espionage ministry had a skill called ABDUCT. Spies could be able to ABDUCT target, which takes the target to a room from which a person can't escape, is paralized and asleep. In here, Spies could do Teleport Interrogation room, teleport to the person abducted, and place them to sleep and kind of DREAMWEAVE possess them. It would be great and allow people to review the messages, news boards of people considered as potential spies.

Guys, I wanna start a theives + spy clan. Probably new chars alone would be admitted, at least to start.

If your interested in making a char to join a team of spys/theives, please send me a PM. I have taken some time to figure out how the different classes can work together to steal stuff well.

Please PM if your SERIOUSLY interested. And intend to keep good RP.

Just a small note:

A healer (Moondancer or Celestine) working together with a Nihilist would make an excellent thieving duo. The healer, of course, can cure the target of deafness, while the Nihilist invests dominate.

Or said Moondancer healer could do it on his own, with a pooka.

Dominate and a demon can be timed for efficiency.

I was mainly mentioning that 'cause Dyr mentioned how different classes could work together.

Oh, your only scratching the surface. It goes much further than that... I would explain here, but don't wanna tell everyone.

Please, someone, I'm dying to try this.

Bah *bump*

Would anyone be interested in joining with existing characters?