Things I personally experienced from the Guards range from some good experiences to mostly negative ones. Lets see if I can come up with some good examples to try and give constructive critique and how I think they could handle situations better.
Guards have problems with deciding when to be Guard
What I mean by this is not only that many of them are very picky upon bias if they should act cause OOC friend is involved or someone they dislike, we all know they do it, and it to a degree human even though has nothing lost inside the guard force in my opinion, as its supposed to stop griefing...Not enhance your own griefing agenda. Neutral and fair behavior is kinda what I expect.
But what I actually mean is, that some guards are overzealous in when they jump in, to the point its not fun to RP...Guards need to understand that handing out Soft RP bans, in a silly system that stacks jail time even for entirely unrelated crimes is not a good thing to do. Especially since most play Absolute Imperial Nazis so Criminal is Criminal, no matter if you accidentally broke someone's pencil or if you mass murdered 500 people. Same treatment. I honestly think thats kinda bad RP if thats your only gimmick.
Example:
I remember long ago, there was a day in the Arena. Shivania (who had a bit of a criminal history back then already) was talking with one of her friends who was sulking and down, in a moment of him getting too depressed she gave him a little push followed by a little pep talk of "When you fall, you stand up!" or well attempted to but -> A guard saw the little push, and imprisons them for a couple of OOC weeks?
-> How did that help anyone? This action was obviously more fueled by OOC, cause people literally are hawking there trying to get the slightest excuse to mess with someone they do not like, no matter if its actually good for the RP or character development. You can't tell me that a friendly push is a criminal offense in Sigrogana that resorts in instant jail time with no prior warning (even a warning is kinda pushing is here) This is a toxic behaviour that guards fully support and unhealthy for RP.
Now an extreme example in the other direction:
Delphia/Fern was in the Arena, her character was extremely depressed and I think it was during the time where the char had a bit of an idenity criss ICly, so she litterally attacked someone who provoked her a little. PvP->won->guards witnessed but...Guess what? Nothing was done, and people started to OOCly joke that Delphia could literally kill someone ICly in front of everyone the guards wouldn't do shit... And I think up to this date, thats true.
-> However, do not get me wrong...In that specific incident? Inside the Arena where the intention was no clear harm, just beat them up for being an ass? I think its actually fine to not persue as an Guard. If someone speaks fighting words that might as well be a challange there. But thats not the rules that we have, and therefore its an favortism-case which shouldn't exist in the guard force where people openly claim its an extension for the GMs to decrease their work load...Not a tool for people to actively Bully/protect their friend circle.
Next example for this case I have was:
Spellthief was relatively new during that time. I made a new character that was supposed to be my new main, I played a few weeks, played ICly games with people and simply enjoyed RP with them and he was fairly liked ICly.
One day I made the mistake and went to the Arena with him and entered an agreed sparring match. So since the opponent was a mage, he used spell snatch to take away some of the opponent's attack options. I remember reading in Lore dev saying this specifically: "Spell snatch is as much a crime as someone ripping a page out of a book." Correct me if I am wrong but, I see that as a very, very minor thing. And I am convinced Dev didn't mean in an agreed sparring match. However, of course the overzealous Guards want to imprison them cause "CRIME, CRIME!"...No warnings no nothing. Even if that was a fairly easy to miss thing for for example new players (Okay that doesn't apply to me, but still).
Cause I know that guards actively target me, and having already one crime down your belt is making them go nazi mode on you I decided to suicide him on the spot and just go on with my life. Maybe not the best reaction but it saved alot of mental health for me and I think up to this date it was worth it and the right decision. Not because I didn't want to play him, but because I do not want to be targeted by Guard-bullies for OOC reasons. This is NOT helping RP, this is making people avoid public spaces because of whimsy guards ruining your RP for quite literally no reason while defending your friends from...What? Rp?
If you think "ripping the page out of a book" in a spar, is a jailable offense...Then you are an idiot, sorry. But the damage someone would receive in spars in the scale people have here in Sigrogana were they litterally throw miniature suns at each other or cast high class invocations? I ASSURE you their equipment would get more than just a chip away, and when they carry a book inside a huge sun thats dropped on them, it gets singed. Just because people don't rp every tiny detail, thats not true...At the same time me rping that my sword broke during the spar, after hitting a tank 500 times shouldn't get the tank jailed for basically breaking my sword or vise versa.
Guards have terrible issues with communication when it comes to important events.
This one is extremely weird for me. Guards are SO good at orcherstering ganks, traps for people to imprison them, if they annoy them or are generally actually there when something is indeed going down that needs their attention, that I am actually baffled at how events that play out for years and months are not communicated between the guards force in any form.
For example I have again my Character Shivania. Regarding a plotline and in my opinion, a decent way to handle "Alternative punishments", my character who is something of a known criminal collaborated with the Guards Commander because they have ICly the same enemy which was a person in a plot of a player, most people know. Because many of the crimes she has commited were dircetly tied to that person they came to the Following Agreement:
-You help us deal with him in exchange if you capture/deal with him all your crimes to this point are pardoned however because we do not trust you to go up and run, you are forced to live now in Cellsvich where we can supervise you.
So in theroy this meant I was still part of that eventline, But I was technically in a "Golden Cage" so to speak as I wasn't allowed to leave the continent at all, unless I specifically asked for permission. I was fairly happy with that, its only unfortunate that the event line never progressed and I therefore were forced to be imprisoned forever.
However here is where the info communication between the guards seems flawed and I believe needs to be improved. If agreements with players such as that are made, they should be made known to the guards force. More often than not I walked into guards who wanted to send me to go home to Laws End again, fully unaware of such events. Nor that they are supposed to "Watch me". The only ones that kinda knew about this where the guards that were there with me when the Commander made that deal.
Fast forward like a couple of OOC years later, I asked Chaos if there was mayhaps an alternative to do, cause people insisted on me not being able to make stuff fun for me and everyone else and therefore sticking in Cellsvich just brought me no joy to RP.
After a bit of back and forth we decided to just say that the watch time is over, since there is no reasonable time frame in where the plot would be continued if ever.
In my opinion a bad solution, but not really anyones fault. Just bad luck and a lot of potential character building tossed otu the window BUT...
Suddenly when I was traveling around again (And a guard being especially Hawky again with newfound powers) and came back to the Arena, like a week later they approached me about the thing that I left Sigrogana and stuff...Ihad to explain to them that Chaos lifted it already a bit ago and well...Thats where the issue lies, apparently that info was never given to the other guards, creating super awkward situations ICly.
Long story short? I think there should be a special media you use where you write down "Special Snowflake" cases that all guards can look up so they can instantly confirm what was said, instead of harassing the people for a longer period of time because they do not believe you.
Guards are way TOO active in businesses they have no reason to be active in
This includes Villian chasing, suddenly extending their reach to Laws End or other places out of their control(Not all do that, but its still dumb when it happens. you are IMPERIAL guards.)...In General, the Guards are a defensive/crime solving force but the setting is...Well not really meant as such...And if it is? Then you have to punsih every adventurere that is commiting vigilantism and not under your direct command (aka hired or something)
This is also something that seems to be a case by case, how ever I feel kind of thing when Guards actually punsih that and when not. I feel this needs to be unified. Either Adventures are allowed to deal with shit or they are not. However here is my prediction....If you make this "Guard Simulator" and everyone else is only supposed to watch you will find even less activity in open places and peopel will even more write their own Stories in their own reality bubbles, cause...The guard system is->
Not very supportive of RP as a whole.
This includes "Soft-ban" punsihment and other moments where guards overstep their boundaries and make themselves Protagonists.
However this isn't the guards fault. The Guard as a force NEEDS to exist. Its just turned into something pretty bad for in my opinion the following reasons:
-Players and Guards do not work WITH each other to make plot lines, and it kinda derails into a "I piss them off, because they piss me off", and both sides are guilty of that. there have been examples of how this CAN be done in a benefical way, but thats unfortunately not the norm.
-Many people avoid public areas mainly BECAUSE the guards exist. While their existance is indeed needed and a good thing, the way its handled is something that boils down to SL2 Community again...They play to win, not to create RP. Many times Events gets snuffed out long before they can even become interesting, simply by imprisoning someone without even a hint of IC evidence, cause the guards' force are->
-Omnipotent. What they say is Law at that moment, that a terrible thing for many reasons. Not only does this invite them to just lock away people they don't like based on suspicion, its once again not a tool to build stories, but to snuff them out early on.
now I understand that many times Guards are just having to deal with "Same Shit, I do not really wanna deal with"....But honestly? If thats your mindset, stop playing a guard. This just enhances the big divide in the community and enforces this stale world that we have cause no one wants to deal with a guard like that either. Heck I would LOVE to make collaborating events WITH the guards, towards certain goals. Thats awesome and fun...But if I feel like they just snag me in for a soft ban at any point in this, for whatever reason they might be able to think of at that time or snag someone away I that is basically the antagonist of that plotline just to early end it (Read protagonist Guard, with meta build)....I rather play with my friends in my own reality bubble where guards exist in huge numbers, but are more human instead of walking gods.
Overall I think Guards and Players need to communicate more, many issues can be solved or even plotlines build that way.
Another thing is, but thats more a community problem, than a guard problem but they are certainly part of it... Try to play less for the sake of winning. I know sometimes people are annoying and do really stupid shit to force your hand...But other times you just...Overact.
As much as you are tired of this shit, peoples are tired of the guards overacting and the staleness of the world...Both sides handle things wrong though in my opinion but thats also the games fault for having no real alternatives in a world thats simply too big for our small playerbase.
Just my 2 cents and experiences that I think could have been handled better and are by no way singular cases. Many guards are simply not qualified in my opinion or go into this with a different mindset that isn't clearly communicated when they start the job. Guard training should be less about "How to PVP" and more about actually OOCly schooling them that they aren't meant to be the RP-Police that stops it all, but are meant to stop stupid things in places where those stupid things shouldn't happen, like Cellsvich.
Edit:
I forgot to mention that one huge problem with the Guards is not that they exist, but that they are a singular "Faction" that has unfair advantages over for example playermade factions. And Since Sigrogana (the continent) is the only place RP actively happens in public, this quickly becomes a turn off for lack of alternatives, and people feeling railroaded that the highest thing they can reach is being part of the guards.
Now this isn't really a "Guard issue", but the game desprately needs more avenues for people to go to and ACTIVELY do something that feels not like a complete waste of time or a chatroom, with other background.
Guards have problems with deciding when to be Guard
What I mean by this is not only that many of them are very picky upon bias if they should act cause OOC friend is involved or someone they dislike, we all know they do it, and it to a degree human even though has nothing lost inside the guard force in my opinion, as its supposed to stop griefing...Not enhance your own griefing agenda. Neutral and fair behavior is kinda what I expect.
But what I actually mean is, that some guards are overzealous in when they jump in, to the point its not fun to RP...Guards need to understand that handing out Soft RP bans, in a silly system that stacks jail time even for entirely unrelated crimes is not a good thing to do. Especially since most play Absolute Imperial Nazis so Criminal is Criminal, no matter if you accidentally broke someone's pencil or if you mass murdered 500 people. Same treatment. I honestly think thats kinda bad RP if thats your only gimmick.
Example:
I remember long ago, there was a day in the Arena. Shivania (who had a bit of a criminal history back then already) was talking with one of her friends who was sulking and down, in a moment of him getting too depressed she gave him a little push followed by a little pep talk of "When you fall, you stand up!" or well attempted to but -> A guard saw the little push, and imprisons them for a couple of OOC weeks?
-> How did that help anyone? This action was obviously more fueled by OOC, cause people literally are hawking there trying to get the slightest excuse to mess with someone they do not like, no matter if its actually good for the RP or character development. You can't tell me that a friendly push is a criminal offense in Sigrogana that resorts in instant jail time with no prior warning (even a warning is kinda pushing is here) This is a toxic behaviour that guards fully support and unhealthy for RP.
Now an extreme example in the other direction:
Delphia/Fern was in the Arena, her character was extremely depressed and I think it was during the time where the char had a bit of an idenity criss ICly, so she litterally attacked someone who provoked her a little. PvP->won->guards witnessed but...Guess what? Nothing was done, and people started to OOCly joke that Delphia could literally kill someone ICly in front of everyone the guards wouldn't do shit... And I think up to this date, thats true.
-> However, do not get me wrong...In that specific incident? Inside the Arena where the intention was no clear harm, just beat them up for being an ass? I think its actually fine to not persue as an Guard. If someone speaks fighting words that might as well be a challange there. But thats not the rules that we have, and therefore its an favortism-case which shouldn't exist in the guard force where people openly claim its an extension for the GMs to decrease their work load...Not a tool for people to actively Bully/protect their friend circle.
Next example for this case I have was:
Spellthief was relatively new during that time. I made a new character that was supposed to be my new main, I played a few weeks, played ICly games with people and simply enjoyed RP with them and he was fairly liked ICly.
One day I made the mistake and went to the Arena with him and entered an agreed sparring match. So since the opponent was a mage, he used spell snatch to take away some of the opponent's attack options. I remember reading in Lore dev saying this specifically: "Spell snatch is as much a crime as someone ripping a page out of a book." Correct me if I am wrong but, I see that as a very, very minor thing. And I am convinced Dev didn't mean in an agreed sparring match. However, of course the overzealous Guards want to imprison them cause "CRIME, CRIME!"...No warnings no nothing. Even if that was a fairly easy to miss thing for for example new players (Okay that doesn't apply to me, but still).
Cause I know that guards actively target me, and having already one crime down your belt is making them go nazi mode on you I decided to suicide him on the spot and just go on with my life. Maybe not the best reaction but it saved alot of mental health for me and I think up to this date it was worth it and the right decision. Not because I didn't want to play him, but because I do not want to be targeted by Guard-bullies for OOC reasons. This is NOT helping RP, this is making people avoid public spaces because of whimsy guards ruining your RP for quite literally no reason while defending your friends from...What? Rp?
If you think "ripping the page out of a book" in a spar, is a jailable offense...Then you are an idiot, sorry. But the damage someone would receive in spars in the scale people have here in Sigrogana were they litterally throw miniature suns at each other or cast high class invocations? I ASSURE you their equipment would get more than just a chip away, and when they carry a book inside a huge sun thats dropped on them, it gets singed. Just because people don't rp every tiny detail, thats not true...At the same time me rping that my sword broke during the spar, after hitting a tank 500 times shouldn't get the tank jailed for basically breaking my sword or vise versa.
Guards have terrible issues with communication when it comes to important events.
This one is extremely weird for me. Guards are SO good at orcherstering ganks, traps for people to imprison them, if they annoy them or are generally actually there when something is indeed going down that needs their attention, that I am actually baffled at how events that play out for years and months are not communicated between the guards force in any form.
For example I have again my Character Shivania. Regarding a plotline and in my opinion, a decent way to handle "Alternative punishments", my character who is something of a known criminal collaborated with the Guards Commander because they have ICly the same enemy which was a person in a plot of a player, most people know. Because many of the crimes she has commited were dircetly tied to that person they came to the Following Agreement:
-You help us deal with him in exchange if you capture/deal with him all your crimes to this point are pardoned however because we do not trust you to go up and run, you are forced to live now in Cellsvich where we can supervise you.
So in theroy this meant I was still part of that eventline, But I was technically in a "Golden Cage" so to speak as I wasn't allowed to leave the continent at all, unless I specifically asked for permission. I was fairly happy with that, its only unfortunate that the event line never progressed and I therefore were forced to be imprisoned forever.
However here is where the info communication between the guards seems flawed and I believe needs to be improved. If agreements with players such as that are made, they should be made known to the guards force. More often than not I walked into guards who wanted to send me to go home to Laws End again, fully unaware of such events. Nor that they are supposed to "Watch me". The only ones that kinda knew about this where the guards that were there with me when the Commander made that deal.
Fast forward like a couple of OOC years later, I asked Chaos if there was mayhaps an alternative to do, cause people insisted on me not being able to make stuff fun for me and everyone else and therefore sticking in Cellsvich just brought me no joy to RP.
After a bit of back and forth we decided to just say that the watch time is over, since there is no reasonable time frame in where the plot would be continued if ever.
In my opinion a bad solution, but not really anyones fault. Just bad luck and a lot of potential character building tossed otu the window BUT...
Suddenly when I was traveling around again (And a guard being especially Hawky again with newfound powers) and came back to the Arena, like a week later they approached me about the thing that I left Sigrogana and stuff...Ihad to explain to them that Chaos lifted it already a bit ago and well...Thats where the issue lies, apparently that info was never given to the other guards, creating super awkward situations ICly.
Long story short? I think there should be a special media you use where you write down "Special Snowflake" cases that all guards can look up so they can instantly confirm what was said, instead of harassing the people for a longer period of time because they do not believe you.
Guards are way TOO active in businesses they have no reason to be active in
This includes Villian chasing, suddenly extending their reach to Laws End or other places out of their control(Not all do that, but its still dumb when it happens. you are IMPERIAL guards.)...In General, the Guards are a defensive/crime solving force but the setting is...Well not really meant as such...And if it is? Then you have to punsih every adventurere that is commiting vigilantism and not under your direct command (aka hired or something)
This is also something that seems to be a case by case, how ever I feel kind of thing when Guards actually punsih that and when not. I feel this needs to be unified. Either Adventures are allowed to deal with shit or they are not. However here is my prediction....If you make this "Guard Simulator" and everyone else is only supposed to watch you will find even less activity in open places and peopel will even more write their own Stories in their own reality bubbles, cause...The guard system is->
Not very supportive of RP as a whole.
This includes "Soft-ban" punsihment and other moments where guards overstep their boundaries and make themselves Protagonists.
However this isn't the guards fault. The Guard as a force NEEDS to exist. Its just turned into something pretty bad for in my opinion the following reasons:
-Players and Guards do not work WITH each other to make plot lines, and it kinda derails into a "I piss them off, because they piss me off", and both sides are guilty of that. there have been examples of how this CAN be done in a benefical way, but thats unfortunately not the norm.
-Many people avoid public areas mainly BECAUSE the guards exist. While their existance is indeed needed and a good thing, the way its handled is something that boils down to SL2 Community again...They play to win, not to create RP. Many times Events gets snuffed out long before they can even become interesting, simply by imprisoning someone without even a hint of IC evidence, cause the guards' force are->
-Omnipotent. What they say is Law at that moment, that a terrible thing for many reasons. Not only does this invite them to just lock away people they don't like based on suspicion, its once again not a tool to build stories, but to snuff them out early on.
now I understand that many times Guards are just having to deal with "Same Shit, I do not really wanna deal with"....But honestly? If thats your mindset, stop playing a guard. This just enhances the big divide in the community and enforces this stale world that we have cause no one wants to deal with a guard like that either. Heck I would LOVE to make collaborating events WITH the guards, towards certain goals. Thats awesome and fun...But if I feel like they just snag me in for a soft ban at any point in this, for whatever reason they might be able to think of at that time or snag someone away I that is basically the antagonist of that plotline just to early end it (Read protagonist Guard, with meta build)....I rather play with my friends in my own reality bubble where guards exist in huge numbers, but are more human instead of walking gods.
Overall I think Guards and Players need to communicate more, many issues can be solved or even plotlines build that way.
Another thing is, but thats more a community problem, than a guard problem but they are certainly part of it... Try to play less for the sake of winning. I know sometimes people are annoying and do really stupid shit to force your hand...But other times you just...Overact.
As much as you are tired of this shit, peoples are tired of the guards overacting and the staleness of the world...Both sides handle things wrong though in my opinion but thats also the games fault for having no real alternatives in a world thats simply too big for our small playerbase.
Just my 2 cents and experiences that I think could have been handled better and are by no way singular cases. Many guards are simply not qualified in my opinion or go into this with a different mindset that isn't clearly communicated when they start the job. Guard training should be less about "How to PVP" and more about actually OOCly schooling them that they aren't meant to be the RP-Police that stops it all, but are meant to stop stupid things in places where those stupid things shouldn't happen, like Cellsvich.
Edit:
I forgot to mention that one huge problem with the Guards is not that they exist, but that they are a singular "Faction" that has unfair advantages over for example playermade factions. And Since Sigrogana (the continent) is the only place RP actively happens in public, this quickly becomes a turn off for lack of alternatives, and people feeling railroaded that the highest thing they can reach is being part of the guards.
Now this isn't really a "Guard issue", but the game desprately needs more avenues for people to go to and ACTIVELY do something that feels not like a complete waste of time or a chatroom, with other background.
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