K wrote:Ignoring the right-wing racism, have you ever lived in a major city? There are points of darkness and parts of town where a man with anything to lose does not go unless he wants to lose it.
Unless you lived in Somali, I just don't see this. I lived in Compton for 2 years, had crack addict hustlers, coke (and other drug) dealers and just regular 'ol white bread pill poppers as friends and STILL the worst that ever happened was that some friends got robbed (learn to carry two wallets) and some got pinched by the FBI.
It was NEVER this "blood on the street!" situation you're describing, even in my worst acid-induced 4am wanderings.
Where the hell did you live that you think this sort of thing is ANYTHING other than a crazily rare anomaly in the developed world?
Last edited by mean_liar on Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gary, IN, Washington DC, Louisiana during hurricane Katrina, there are plenty of places where murder is merely uncommon but not rare in the US alone and I'm really sure there are places in other developed nations that are the same.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Caracas, unofficial world murder capital, has a murder rate guesstimated at 160 deaths for every 100,000 people.
Lets so there's the Deathville Neighborhood in Caracas with 10 times the city's rate, to 1,600 deaths every 100,000 people.
In DnD terms: there's a den of goblins 1000 strong and 16 die a year.
That's not PoD. That's Points of 'Too Bad For Those 16 Goblins'. Real-world places are so safe in DnD terms that its comical to even entertain the idea.
I live on the West Coast, and even I know that gentrification has been happening in New York for the last 20 years. Feel free to Google "new york gentrification" and read the dozens of articles on this social trend happening near your own home.
It doesn't take a genius to know that pushing out all the poor people leads to a drop in crime. Heck, New York City government is even systematically relocating their poor. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/j ... et-voucher.
But yeh, I grew up in Fresno which is the fighting ground between the territories claimed by the home-grown Crips and Bloods and there are parts of the city patrolled by units of cops in night fatigues and M-16s. I now live in Bakersfield which is the fighting ground between the Mexican Mafia and La Neustra Familia, both gangs based out of US prisons. I lived in Oakland, CA for a few years where 13-year old prostitutes would proposition me every night after work and several times people tried to rob me for such treasures as "a chicken burrito" and the local dealers would daily accuse me of being an undercover narc as I walked by because I was white with blue eyes and blondish hair. I left after I got shot by street criminals.
I could go on, but you get my point. I think Ice-Cube said it best in his role in Boyz In The Hood: "Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood." Which one are you?
K, I’m not trying to dismiss your argument, but you can’t use “gang warfare” as an example of a “point of darkness.” Basically gang warfare is just another form of warfare whether it is between ethnic groups, religious groups, political groups, or even family clans. Since law in general decreases when such clashes happen, the area becomes a generally not safe place to live.
A “point of darkness” would be a meth lab. Let’s call it a level 2 encounter. You are not going to get a team of rookie cops to take that lab down. You get a level 10 swat team loaded for bear to go and take than meth lab down and they do that without breaking a sweat.
In order for “points of darkness” to mean anything you need to have those points of darkness be real, to be of a level that the generic resources cannot take them down and that have the potential to expand (thus preventing either a “containment” or an “ignore” attitude to them) into the general light.
I'm not sure why warfare wouldn't count as a POD. As far as the meth lab goes, the adventurers could be level 5 and take down the meth lab, which would be challenging to them. They have to be higher than level 2 but less than level 10 for it to be an appropriate encounter, so what's wrong with that?
Count Arioch wrote:I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.
Ant wrote:
Chamomile wrote:Ant, what do we do about Psychic Robot?
In the basic point of darkness model, you are the light and they are the darkness. In any conflict situation those who are fighting with each other may either be both light, both darkness, a combination of the above or just a shade of gray. Your relation to them in turn becomes “complex.”
The point I’m trying to make with the meth lab example is that in the real world, we have the power to always use superior force against any small point of darkness that we detect.
tzor wrote:In the basic point of darkness model, you are the light and they are the darkness. In any conflict situation those who are fighting with each other may either be both light, both darkness, a combination of the above or just a shade of gray. Your relation to them in turn becomes “complex.”
The point I’m trying to make with the meth lab example is that in the real world, we have the power to always use superior force against any small point of darkness that we detect.
The points of darkness model is not "and there is this fort in the woods where bandits live." The points of darkness model is "The Black Woods are full of ghosts and manticores and bandits and if you go in you will die, be robbed, or both."
There is no one crack house in the Oakland where you can bust everyone there and magically end crime in the area. Oakland has been a high-crime area for a long time, and no number of swat teams ends the crime. Individuals continue to have "adventures" in the area and the fact that there are swat teams in Oakland did not stop the criminals that shot me (and did not even catch them, even after they killed some people a week later). In fact, look at crime statistics for how many crimes are unsolved vs "solved" where they have a trial and you will quite easily notice the almost complete powerlessness of the police.
You give the government way too much credit if you think they actually have the power to control anything other than certain individuals.
tzor wrote:
The point I’m trying to make with the meth lab example is that in the real world, we have the power to always use superior force against any small point of darkness that we detect.
Yes, but to bring the example back to the fantasy world, that would, at best, stop the darkness for a while, then whatever cause created that first point of darkness wold create others, maybe in the same place, maybe elsewhere, yeah, you can destroy the necromancer's tower and his army of undead, but as long as there is necromancy around there will always be someone that will think that raising an army of undead to conquer the world would be a good career move.
K wrote:
There is no one crack house in the Oakland where you can bust everyone there and magically end crime in the area. Oakland has been a high-crime area for a long time, and no number of swat teams ends the crime. Individuals continue to have "adventures" in the area and the fact that there are swat teams in Oakland did not stop the criminals that shot me (and did not even catch them, even after they killed some people a week later). In fact, look at crime statistics for how many crimes are unsolved vs "solved" where they have a trial and you will quite easily notice the almost complete powerlessness of the police.
Though that's actually more the legal system's fault than the police. I mean the police could fix the problem if they were allowed to.
Orca wrote:Even when the police do have power unconstrained by a legal system, they can't end crime. There are some 3rd world places which have proved this.
It's not just the power corrupting the policemen, though that is a factor, the police just can't be everywhere and do everything.
My method of heavy handed justice to suppress gang violence.
Well yeah, you can't end all crime. But armed thugs are pretty easy to deal with in any country with a fairly large police force. You get a bunch of cops pretty much doing random searches of people for firearms. If you find an unregistered gun on someone you arrest them. Pretty much taking away prohibition against illegal search and seizure would allow this. The next step is to make the penalty for unlicensed firearms ridiculously high. I personally recommend involuntary organ "donations". To avoid this steep penalty, and get something like 1 year in prison instead, the guy has to turn in 5 of his friends.
And really, most gang members will be loathe to have one of their lungs ripped out so they're going to turn in their buddies (or their rivals, but who cares honestly). Then you catch those 5 guys, and you offer them the same deal.
You also set it up such that if people run from the cops or provide any resistance at all, the cops shoot them. To prevent police corruption, you basically just have a series of mobile enforcement units that go from city to city to prevent any cops from really getting too knowledgable or attached to one cities undergrounds. Also it's more similar to a SWAT style raid, so you have lots of team members to watch out for each other, and you'd need to corrupt the whole team.
Basically it just amounts to 1984 style tactics where you convince everyone to turn in their neighbor to Big Brother.
Now you may still end up with punks with knives and stuff, but the number of guns on the street will get dramatically reduced.
Last edited by RandomCasualty2 on Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Check out the legal system of China or Saudi Arabia, or just about every totalitarian regime ever. Cutting people's hands off does not stop thieves, and complete lack of human rights just encourages the criminals to arm themselves better because they know when they get caught they are losing hands.
Its no coincidence that these same regimes always have secret police and keep guns out of the hands of the populous.
Congratulations. You have failed to learn the lessons of history.
Last edited by K on Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
RC's seriously holding the opinion that gang violence would be solved if it weren't for that pesky 'human rights' getting in the way? Boy that's deluded.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
The next step is to make the penalty for unlicensed firearms ridiculously high. I personally recommend involuntary organ "donations".
Then you'll have people planting weapons in other people's homes and an exponential explosion of supposed "gang members" as those arrested would sell out just anyone "suspicious" ("my son locks his bedroom door at night, he must be cooking explosives").
We had something of the sort in Soviet times, when middle-class people were reporting on each other for various reasons. Seriously, KGB terror is utter bullshit, what happened was that KGB was always flooded by reports from "watchful citizens", which they had to act upon. And for middle-class people, KGB attention was always bad, whether they took minor bribes or were smuggling diamonds.
You want to get rid of crime? Get rid of fear. Give people hope. You are always going to get a couple maniacs and psychos but other than those - have you ever seen or heard of someone with a good life, a secure job and a loving family committing a violent crime?
Kids spraying their classmates with automatic fire, Somali pirates, french rioters, drug-dealing gangs and islamic terrorists all have this in common. They live in fear, they have no hope for the future and it seems like everyone around them is out to get them. By adding to their fears, by taking away what little rights they still have and by turning them against each other you just create more of them. You are being immoral, evil and dumb at the same time.
For the record, I grew up in Oakland, and it's a pretty nice place if you stay out of the bad neighborhoods. I volunteer at the Oakland Public Library, and the worst I've seen is overly-gregarious drunks and people yelling that they totally don't have a library card already and that the records saying they owe fines must be wrong. There's around 5 distinct ethnic groups represented in my neighborhood and they're all perfectly lovely people. That said, there are places you definitely do not want to be after dark and/or on foot. Gang violence and relate problems definitely exist.
hogarth wrote:Can we get back to talking about the Shire and Mordor instead of Oakland and China, for fuck's sake?
I suddenly find myself tempted to write up fantastic Oakland as a game setting. But you may have a point.
hogarth wrote:Can we get back to talking about the Shire and Mordor instead of Oakland and China, for fuck's sake?
Personally I blame the lazy attitude of the police department of the Shire for allowing Saruman to run the place through modernization. Oh wait, that's not the discussion you had in mind.
Perhaps a more gradual topic shift is needed. Tell me, if some of the gangs in Oakland were made of flesh-eating zombies, could I call it an "Alternating Polka Dots of Light and Darkness" setting?
