Whenever someone manages to raid a shop, it can be pretty devastating for the shop owner. Whether not noticing a sigil decay or inadvertently picking up a sigil, or not noticing someone sneakily following them in, or however it is managed, is the trauma of losing the contents of a shop so great that we should take greater measures to secure shops? Or should the possibility of theft simply be a hazard that shopowners must willingly accept for running a shop? There are passionate arguments on both sides (even admin are split on this issue) so I thought I'd open it up for discussion here.

(I've usually maintained the status quo because ruinous thefts happen so infrequently; however, they do happen and when they do I cannot help but be sympathetic to the victim. Now, I'm leaning towards considering security upgrades to make shops more impenetrable--but I'm still on the fence so try and convince me one way or the other!)

I don't think it is a big enough problem that you need to improve security. I would likely sympathize with shop owners if it was more common, but I can only remember a few people in my entire time playing that have robbed a shop in a sneaky fashion.

I'm all for increasing security so long as it doesn't equate to the Admin telling people, "You aren't allowed to steal things from someone's shop".

Hmm. I've never had any trouble at all with shop theft. The sigils you use for protection don't decay do they? If so, as long as you have all the protective sigils, it should be next to impossible to get in.

I might like to see some form of purchasable or rentable security, like a form of insurance that doesn't amount to being paid back for everything. But that's the perspective of a non-shopkeeper, and probably pays more attention to what would be fun than what would be balanced or helpful.

Well, the way I understand shop taxes, the taxes are supposed to pay for guards that prevent theft- so if you made shops harder to attack, cities could be pressured to drop their taxes some. Not sure if this is good or bad, but it should probably be considered.

(While you're looking at shops- could you add an ' ENEMY OF ' to the list of price policy modifiers allowed? Most cities require that you refuse service to enemies- yet this is mechanically impossible.)

But yes, as long as defensive sigils don't decay, shops should be fine.

It might be nice to be able to have some way to keep from inadvertantly losing your sigils. ATTACH SIGIL TO STOCKROOM would be a nice feature that you could implement so that sigils attached in that manner would not decay, could not be priced/sold, and could not be picked up. Could even cost 25k per sigil you attach, or something. That beefs up security a little bit without going too much into it.

This.

Also "enemy of shopkeeper" would be awesome.

As someone who's paid hundreds of credits for the privilege of owning and maintaining a shop, I'm all for securing them against theft completely. I believe that non-manse shops could be left more vulnerable, because they are generally MUCH less expensive and guards and other defenses could be used to discourage the thieves. Manses have permissions to keep out the riff-raff, but the clever thieves seem to find a way.

I was robbed in Achaea once by a tactic I never expected. While I had to admit it was clever, I was still incredibly put out by the theft. It will never happen to me again, either.

Would it be possible to make a shop able to buy a guard? Maybe a shopkeeper can pay 10-25k gold to buy a city guard which stands in their shop, won't move, and attacks anyone who is enemied to the city/shopkeeper. For obvious reasons, this guard should be able to attack people out of phase/pull them back into phase.

I find that theft adds very little to the game. It is one of those situations where the victim only has to make a mistake once to be punished. Constant vigilance gets very tiring and thus eventually a mistake is made.

I am all for better shop protections.

I do not want the increased security though to make it harder to infiltrate places than it already is. Sneaking into a city to kill someone or listen to something is great RP. A single death is no big deal, nothing at all compared to losing a shops contents. So when you are thinking about changing things just try to keep it restricted to shops only.

I.E. Stronger guards that patrol shops would be worse than better sigil/enemy support in my mind.

Honestly, I don't see why theft of shop items should be allowed at all. It doesn't happen often, but when it does happen, it really hurts the shop owners because they pretty much lose everything.

I agree thoroughly with Zarquan on this. Many pay a substantial amount of credits for a manse shop for instance, and for that amount they should get all the protection they can get. Oftentimes in addition to losing one's hard-earned savings due to such a theft either through stocked items or actual gold, the shopkeeper is in danger of losing any unique items they might have chosen to store in their stockroom. We must also take into consideration the actual RL effort and time they have put in stocking the shop, on occasion with unique designs even - one shop robbery could thus easily ruin months and months of collecting enough resources (and designs, in some cases!). I do not consider such to be an attack at the character, but at the player instead and as such, hardly justifiable.

Sure, jump me while I bash. I lose experience but I come back. Rob my shop and you could potentially destroy months and months worth of work. Frustration ensues.

I am all for upping shop security and making theft harder.

(Edited for grammar.)

For increased security, I was thinking more along the lines that only those authorized would be able to pick anything up off the floor of the shop except for gold (i.e., thieves could get the gold but not the things in a shop). I don't want to get too fancy with guards and whatnot.

Pretty much agreed, there's really no reason to be allowing shop-robbery. Might as well just disallow it across the board. What does allowing it add to the game, really? What "good things" come of shop theft? At best you might get all your items back, after a significant amount of trauma. At worst, you get nothing back and the person laughs at you. And gets his/her buddies to tell you that it's all your fault (I'm not usually a fan of blaming the victim, it's entirely the shop-thief's decision to do it )

Oh, I like that idea. I'd go for that.

That's actually pretty acceptable to me I think, still have banks for excess gold for the "extra" security (with a 2% tax paid). If you're that worried about the theft.

Is there any chance you could change shop perms to allow a list of people access instead of "all allies" (basically, let people set perms for shop-tenders just as they set perms for a manse)? "All allies" can also be manipulated which would circumvent this change (though it is admittedly much more difficult).

These perms would only work for pricing / picking stuff up, would still need a key to get in and out.

Make a flag for shop stock rooms to the effect of SOULS CANNOT ENTER SHOP STOCK ROOMS. Problem solved. If you still get your shop robbed after such a change, clearly you should not own a shop.

This.

Epitome of brilliance, I know.