COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Types of Crime/Griefing

Goblij put out a topic on delineating where the line could be drawn from various perspectives and is somewhat of a philosophical topic.

This made me think that there are actually other types of griefing/crime then would be typically expected and was wondering what the community thought about it.

Here are a list of crimes that I shamelessly copied from Wikipedia:

  1. Inchoate Crimes - Basically "attempted to..." whatever; incomplete crimes
  2. Offence Against - Crime directly harms in some manner
  3. Crimes against Property - Property includes anything someone owns
  4. Crimes against Animals - Refers to wild as the domesticated ones fall under property
  5. Crimes against Justice - Just think about issues concerning crooked courts

There are two other types on Wikipedia but they don't seem as necessary to look into from a griefing standpoint (Sexual and the Public).

These crimes can be further generalized into white collared vs blue collared. Methods to deal with blue collared are more direct (guards, traps, increase personal strengths, etc.), but I am curious as to what individuals think of the possibility of white collared crime being used to grief on a much wider scale.

EDIT:
I was looking through the responses and I am in the "all crimes can be perceived as griefs depending on the victim party."

I just thought it was interesting to introduce the idea that crime will be more varied in CoE so people can get more creative in harming one another. I see crime types 1. and 4. not being a huge factor on the local level as they would only cause worry to those who worry about future potential damage (like a group of people trying to exterminate otterbears in an area in an attempt to pursue a kind of trade war). Crimes 2. and 3. will be the most prevalent on all scales. Finally, we don't even know if 5. is possible as it is unknown as to what degree players influence guilty/innocent verdicts.


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10/9/2018 4:27:58 AM #1

Griefing and crime are different things.

To address crime, the classic distinction is between malum prohibitum crimes (crimes that are bad because they are prohibited based on the idea that following the law is good) and malum in se crimes (crimes that are bad in and of themselves — actual immoral or evil acts). Role playing a deviant (even evil) character will involve crimes, but not griefing.

Griefing is more meta. It primarily involves an unfair exploitation of the program limits, limitations, or features. Secondarily, it involves anything that makes the game miserable for other players just for the point of causing actual misery.

Therefore, ingame crime is ok for role playing purposes. Griefing is not because it’s goal is to actually cause pain or harm in the real world. Ingame crime has an ingame purpose or objective (even if it is just to play a crazy person). Griefing is a sadistic act designed to cause another person to suffer in real life.

So, playing a criminal involves malum prohibitum acts of ingame deviancy. Griefing is malum in se, motivated by real life evil, not merely role play evil.


Count of Frostale, in the Duchy of Fioralba, in the Kingdom of Ashland, by the Grace of Haven. The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect those of my Kingdom or Duchy.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/17117/naw-the-duchy-of-fioralba https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/14124/naw-kingdom-of-ashland https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/30605/of-contracts-and-commerce-a-tldnr-post https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31835/on-taxes-rents-and-ancestral-lands

10/9/2018 5:46:07 AM #2

CoE is going to be a shit show when it comes to crimes vs grieving. There is so much that could fall under RP, no matter how many times you tell someone, it's going to feel like griefing. For example, if someone is trying to discredit a count by having a high crime rate in their county, I don't consider that griefing but for this method to be effective you have to do things that will make people upset..If everyone can just play as normal but know they are ultimately safe then the plan would fail. You would have to do things like burn farmer's crops. This makes sense the scheme of things but that farmer that has no clue what's going on will feel like his gameplay is being brought to a holt.

What do you do in a situation like that? The guy that is trying to discredit the county shouldn't have to tell his plan to anyone because that would directly impact their gameplay. At the same time if he does explain his plan to SBS and SBS considers that legal then the farmer is going to start yelling about how SBS allows griefing.

The easy solution is saying treat crime as crime no matter the why. But what actually needs to happen is people need to come together as a community and use the resources that's given to us to defend ourselves. If you want to be a farmer in some random part of the woods away from protected land, then you are going to have a bad time. You have to accept that, protect yourself, or get someone to protect you.

10/9/2018 8:57:32 AM #3

There is no such thing as griefing. People that claim there is in this game is fooling themselves. The range of things that people claim will be griefing is wide and extremely vague. Unless they personally threaten to kill you in real life and Harrass you in real life. They aren't causing you grief they are just playing the game the way they want to be seen in society.

Crime and people doing things you don't like aren't going to be that conjoined either. Some one placing a bunch of apples in your wagon before you could put them in your stuff is just going to be funny. That's also not against the law. Can be annoying that you now have to figure out what to do with these apples. Give them to a farmer lol.

But seriously, this topic comes up quite often. People in the real world are crazy. Expect the crazies to get charge with the crime they've done.

People that use exploits are likely to be banned. They're exploiting not griefing.

10/9/2018 10:38:39 AM #4

Posted By Beathan at 12:27 AM - Tue Oct 09 2018

Griefing and crime are different things.

To address crime, the classic distinction is between malum prohibitum crimes (crimes that are bad because they are prohibited based on the idea that following the law is good) and malum in se crimes (crimes that are bad in and of themselves — actual immoral or evil acts). Role playing a deviant (even evil) character will involve crimes, but not griefing.

Griefing is more meta. It primarily involves an unfair exploitation of the program limits, limitations, or features. Secondarily, it involves anything that makes the game miserable for other players just for the point of causing actual misery.

Therefore, ingame crime is ok for role playing purposes. Griefing is not because it’s goal is to actually cause pain or harm in the real world. Ingame crime has an ingame purpose or objective (even if it is just to play a crazy person). Griefing is a sadistic act designed to cause another person to suffer in real life.

So, playing a criminal involves malum prohibitum acts of ingame deviancy. Griefing is malum in se, motivated by real life evil, not merely role play evil.

see this is why i said the distinction falls on the victims response.. the same actions could be a crime based on the victims reaction to being robbed or killed unprevoked, while player b could raise bloody hell and rage quit, this would be a greif.


10/9/2018 11:56:46 AM #5

Keep in mind this topic is focusing on the politics/ organized crime/long term side of things. Not just whether or not griefing is a relevant term in CoE :)

Random example: I am a highly skilled deviant who signed a child contract with an alias that is presumed good, and worked their way up to a noble status in kingdom B. I have several other people in my crime group who have done similar or started full on families, and are from kingdom A. We then left on our mains and went to our originating kingdom. We all sparked into these children and inherited X amount of land/resources. We then stole a very large amount / expensive resources and delivered them to our main city and opened our homes to enemies of kingdom B that use them to begin a siege.

This organized crime could be seen as griefing, due to the pushing of limits on the "spark of life/ alternate character". Sort of like: You got kicked from a guild in one game, but used another character to rob the guild bank. That's pretty griefy to me.


10/9/2018 1:30:44 PM #6

Unless an action is outlined as such in the TOS greifing will not exist in CoE.

Crime is not against the design or tos therefore ALL forms of crime despite how it may fit within your personal “story” is ok under the game rules. Even if it means using meta data to pull off.

Tyranny is also legit gameplay. Even if you prevent other players from playing their chosen story. They have a remedy namely rebellion.

In short folks need to realize even stealing from a guild bank using an alt is legit and not greifing.

10/9/2018 2:23:11 PM #7

Posted By Deftly at 10:46 PM - Mon Oct 08 2018

The easy solution is saying treat crime as crime no matter the why. But what actually needs to happen is people need to come together as a community and use the resources that's given to us to defend ourselves. If you want to be a farmer in some random part of the woods away from protected land, then you are going to have a bad time. You have to accept that, protect yourself, or get someone to protect you.

This is the only reasonanle example I can think of as well. The devs coined the term MEOW for a reason, it Is an evolving world. If this was Europe back in the medieval times farmers worked the fields of their lords for purposes such as these. People have always had the capacity to be horrible and the serfs gave food and toil in exchange for safety.

If the villages crops get burned down they appeal to have some food supplemented to them so they can survive or plant crops again.

If crime is running rampant in the streets it is because the lords haven't hired enough guards (npc or pc) to keep the peace.

This game needs you to think of it not like a game but like the world it is setting itself up to be. Find a community you know will have your best interests at heart and work together to develop the system of laws to create order, or go off on your own and understand that your freedom is at the price of food, shelter, and security.


10/9/2018 3:29:06 PM #8

So I've seen a lot of people saying, that there is no "griefing" and I want to get this myth out and busted so here are some ways to grief that are out of my head, but there are probably many more.

Ways to grief:

Running and jumping through people who try to talk. Spamming chat. Knocking on everyones door and running away. Kill every deer around the city. Go into the dialoguetree of offline chars and just stay there to keep them from doing work. Making loud sounds in the city. Pick flowers/other stuff and just litter a city with garbage.

And probably so many more things.

Yes SOME of these you can account for with laws. But not all. And there will probably be many many more ways to abuse the A.I., cheat the system and all that that we cannot yet forsee.

So yeah. There will be griefing/bugabuse/hacking and more that does not fall directly under "evil alignment" that still causes damage and is just a pain in the arse to deal with.


10/9/2018 3:51:11 PM #9

Social grieving will be dealt with pretty fast. You can just ban people from your town..The game has a lot of ties to someone's social behaviour. If no one wants to be around you or work with you. You will suffer. People can get away with that in mmos now because you can play the game without people and you can queue with people who don't know you.

10/9/2018 3:58:50 PM #10

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 08:29 AM - Tue Oct 09 2018

Ways to grief:

Running and jumping through people who try to talk. Spamming chat. Knocking on everyones door and running away. Kill every deer around the city. Go into the dialoguetree of offline chars and just stay there to keep them from doing work. Making loud sounds in the city. Pick flowers/other stuff and just litter a city with garbage.

A lot of these are good examples, and things that can be worked around if the correct mechanics are implemented.

Talk in a private residence, or a tavern where the owner can remove nuisances.

Again, talk somewhere private, or report nuisances to the town guard.

Door dashing I cannot think of an easy fix. I guess have a yard and a crossbow for tresspassers.

For deer and fauna overcollection, this will be an obvious problem and is why traditionally in the middle ages and even in current times only certain people can hunt with permission or tags, otherwise its poaching and illegal.

Again, if there is a way to report disruptions of the peace to guards problem solved. Maybe yelling in town is not socially acceptable unless there is an emergency.

Littering is illegal in our world, why not Elyria? Induce a fine.

Will there be attempts, yes. Can we stop all attempts at griefing the day of launch, no. Can we as a community mitigate this without all powerful ban hammers or forced opc status (suspension) absolutely


10/9/2018 4:00:40 PM #11

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 5:29 PM - Tue Oct 09 2018

So I've seen a lot of people saying, that there is no "griefing" and I want to get this myth out and busted so here are some ways to grief that are out of my head, but there are probably many more.

Ways to grief:

Running and jumping through people who try to talk. Spamming chat. Knocking on everyones door and running away. Kill every deer around the city. Go into the dialoguetree of offline chars and just stay there to keep them from doing work. Making loud sounds in the city. Pick flowers/other stuff and just litter a city with garbage.

And probably so many more things.

Yes SOME of these you can account for with laws. But not all. And there will probably be many many more ways to abuse the A.I., cheat the system and all that that we cannot yet forsee.

So yeah. There will be griefing/bugabuse/hacking and more that does not fall directly under "evil alignment" that still causes damage and is just a pain in the arse to deal with.

All the examples you mention can be either dealt with in-character by both PCs and NPCs, or in the way mentioned by Deftly, both ic and ooc. Characters acting erratically will simply be confronted with a rapid increase of their Fame, and an equally rapid decrease of their Reputation. At least, that is how I envison it will be and I trust the developers to provide the means to effectively support that.

In many cases we're not even talking law enforcement here, at least not concerning the examples you bring forward, except for the two cases of blatant vandalism. Yes, it will be annoying to deal with disturbing non-roleplay behaviour in any in-character situation, malintended or not. Any of such behaviours may be experienced and called 'griefing' by some, I just call it inappropriate in-character player behaviour that is to be addressed in order to prevent continuation and potential escalation. ;)

Here's an interesting quote from this page on the phenomenon 'Griefer':

"A griefer derives pleasure primarily or exclusively from the act of annoying other users, and as such is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities, since griefers often cannot be deterred by penalties related to in-game goals."

I sense SBS is aware of this.

10/9/2018 4:13:53 PM #12

Posted By Snowmannumbertwo at 03:38 AM - Tue Oct 09 2018

Posted By Beathan at 12:27 AM - Tue Oct 09 2018

Griefing and crime are different things.

To address crime, the classic distinction is between malum prohibitum crimes (crimes that are bad because they are prohibited based on the idea that following the law is good) and malum in se crimes (crimes that are bad in and of themselves — actual immoral or evil acts). Role playing a deviant (even evil) character will involve crimes, but not griefing.

Griefing is more meta. It primarily involves an unfair exploitation of the program limits, limitations, or features. Secondarily, it involves anything that makes the game miserable for other players just for the point of causing actual misery.

Therefore, ingame crime is ok for role playing purposes. Griefing is not because it’s goal is to actually cause pain or harm in the real world. Ingame crime has an ingame purpose or objective (even if it is just to play a crazy person). Griefing is a sadistic act designed to cause another person to suffer in real life.

So, playing a criminal involves malum prohibitum acts of ingame deviancy. Griefing is malum in se, motivated by real life evil, not merely role play evil.

see this is why i said the distinction falls on the victims response.. the same actions could be a crime based on the victims reaction to being robbed or killed unprevoked, while player b could raise bloody hell and rage quit, this would be a greif.

Well, that isn't right -- and it is not what I said. The difference between ingame RP crime (or just aggressive play) and griefing is not the "victim's" reaction to it. It is the intent of the aggressor. If the aggressor sadistically wants the other player to suffer in real life, it is griefing.

The problem is -- how do you prove that? Unless you are dealing with an exploit (abuse of a game mechanic -- which is probably separately punishable), you probably can't (at least not easily and without a trial mechanic that gets way too realistic and therefore tedious and generally unfun).

I think the Devs solution is to give the players the tools we need to band together against ingame criminals, which then should allow us to band together against griefers, and then hope that there are enough good people to counterbalance the bad people.

By putting limits on the percentage of deviants, they have a good handle on this with regard to ingame crime. It remains to be seen if the tools will handle griefing -- because griefing is something sadistic players bring to the game, rather than something that arises from the game.


Count of Frostale, in the Duchy of Fioralba, in the Kingdom of Ashland, by the Grace of Haven. The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect those of my Kingdom or Duchy.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/17117/naw-the-duchy-of-fioralba https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/14124/naw-kingdom-of-ashland https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/30605/of-contracts-and-commerce-a-tldnr-post https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31835/on-taxes-rents-and-ancestral-lands

10/9/2018 4:21:28 PM #13

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 08:29 AM - Tue Oct 09 2018

So I've seen a lot of people saying, that there is no "griefing" and I want to get this myth out and busted so here are some ways to grief that are out of my head, but there are probably many more.

Ways to grief:

Running and jumping through people who try to talk. Spamming chat. Knocking on everyones door and running away. Kill every deer around the city. Go into the dialoguetree of offline chars and just stay there to keep them from doing work. Making loud sounds in the city. Pick flowers/other stuff and just litter a city with garbage.

And probably so many more things.

Yes SOME of these you can account for with laws. But not all. And there will probably be many many more ways to abuse the A.I., cheat the system and all that that we cannot yet forsee.

So yeah. There will be griefing/bugabuse/hacking and more that does not fall directly under "evil alignment" that still causes damage and is just a pain in the arse to deal with.

Yep. And there will likely be other examples, as well. If unconscious people can be moved before being finally killed, they can placed and then killed in inaccessible locations. Given persistence ingame, false imprisonment might be possible (walling someone into a double-thick town wall or something).

Every game has mechanics that can be abused for the "fun" of causing pain and aggravation to other players. This game has a lot of exciting new mechanics. We can be certain that many of those will give rise to new kinds of griefing.

And those griefers might not even be criminal -- and their behavior might not even be something the laws can address. ("There is no law against building a double wall, officer.")

If allowed, there might be legal-historical ways to address that. For instance, if "bills of attainder" are allowed (John Brown is declared an outlaw just for being John Brown), then nobles could maintain and even pass among themselves a list of griefers -- declaring them outlaws subject to criminal punishment. The problem is that bills of attainder can be used by griefer nobles to declare people they just want to hurt to be outlaws. However, I'm actually fairly OK with that. That's a lot like real life tyranny. That's how bills of attainder worked historically -- and the fight against such tyranny could actually be fun to play.

Another option is territorial exile. "John Brown is exiled from the County for griefing." That could act similarly, with criminal penalties if a person enters an area they have been outlawed from. (I don't think there should be hard, impassible, magic barriers keeping them out.) That would also be fun to play -- with disguised people trying to sneak in, with lawless areas the exiles are forced into.

So, I have great hopes that, if the law system is done right, we will have all the tools we need to deal with griefers (deviant players) as well as criminals (deviant characters). But that is a tricky thing to do -- especially given the number of new concepts and mechanics involved here.


Count of Frostale, in the Duchy of Fioralba, in the Kingdom of Ashland, by the Grace of Haven. The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect those of my Kingdom or Duchy.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/17117/naw-the-duchy-of-fioralba https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/14124/naw-kingdom-of-ashland https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/30605/of-contracts-and-commerce-a-tldnr-post https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31835/on-taxes-rents-and-ancestral-lands

10/9/2018 4:22:16 PM #14

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 10:29 AM - Tue Oct 09 2018

Ways to grief:

Running and jumping through people who try to talk. Spamming chat. Knocking on everyones door and running away. Kill every deer around the city. Go into the dialoguetree of offline chars and just stay there to keep them from doing work. Making loud sounds in the city. Pick flowers/other stuff and just litter a city with garbage.

And probably so many more things.

I can see all these as legit ways to bring down a settlement, therefore not griefing. The game has a DEVIANT tree!

All of these concerns can be handled through in game laws and enforcement. Example: Ban the annoying person(s) from your settlement and have them KoS by your guards... or hire a mercenary guild like Fist of the Empire (FoE) to go eliminate that person. By eliminate I mean wiping their home base off the map and not letting them go anywhere without being slaughtered. (Of course some would say that’s griefing, but griefing will be rare in CoE because of all the ways to justify actions that many consider griefing)

Bottom line: Fist of the Empire is the best in game means of handling your problems. And we are recruiting. NA-E


Kip from Fist of the Empire

Friend code: 72EC67

10/9/2018 4:33:16 PM #15

Safest answer?

All crimes get max penalty - to include as much loss of game time as possible.

Unless you are intentionally striving to create some type of "deviant haven", I can't see any reason why a settlement wouldn't be insanely harsh on crime.

There may be a few very committed RP communities out there that MIGHT manage to avoid the public eye, and as such, have a more "realistic" code of laws. However, I simply don't have enough faith in gamers as a whole to think they can be "trusted".

Death penalty, for everything. Period.


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