Post by Hanah on Aug 10, 2004 10:01:58 GMT
Sorry for adding this after a lock but I thought it might be of value...
If the rate of successful prison escape attempts is at issue here, what is the regular rate of successful escapes in real life?
The numbers I was able to find quickly were pretty shoddy but I got this from a US military site.
Currently the prison described has 1028 inmates. Over the past twenty years there have been seven escape attempts involving ten inmates. Now... even if all those attempts occurred within the last 12 months (a false assumption), when there have been 1028 inmates, that is slightly slightly less than 1%, and substantially lower than the 7% success rate cited by Phoenix for Fredian's prison. The real rate for the military prison I cite is much, much lower, because we don't have the number of how many prisoners were incarcerated over that twenty year period. Moreover, all the escape attempts described for this prison ended in re-capture.
I think that what it boils down to is along the lines of what JoScMa said: if jail is a bigger inconvenience for the arresting knight than it is for the arrestee, what is the point? I bring up the real world statistics to support the argument, independent of game mechanics, that escaping from jail is possibly too easy. Potential arguments (and rebuttals) against this:
(1) Building a character to be an escape artist. It is not unreasonable that known escapees get special treatment, IE, max. Your actions have earned you this privilege. Congratulations, we recognise your skill! (Won't even touch the fact that the NWN engine makes it very easy to amass lock pick skill.)
(2) We are all epic... epic people have better chances at difficult things. Well, why can't (NPC) guards be epic? Locks? Confinements appropriate to such a criminal? Another reputation issue is raised here: if your character is known to approach walking godhood perhaps they would be treated appropriately on arrest. Movie reference, think of what they did with Magneto in the X-Men movies.
Anything that is 'easy' or 'predictable' becomes stale and boring. I would hate to see something as potentially dramatic and exciting as a prison break become stale and stagnant due to excessive ease and overuse.
Hanah
If the rate of successful prison escape attempts is at issue here, what is the regular rate of successful escapes in real life?
The numbers I was able to find quickly were pretty shoddy but I got this from a US military site.
Currently the prison described has 1028 inmates. Over the past twenty years there have been seven escape attempts involving ten inmates. Now... even if all those attempts occurred within the last 12 months (a false assumption), when there have been 1028 inmates, that is slightly slightly less than 1%, and substantially lower than the 7% success rate cited by Phoenix for Fredian's prison. The real rate for the military prison I cite is much, much lower, because we don't have the number of how many prisoners were incarcerated over that twenty year period. Moreover, all the escape attempts described for this prison ended in re-capture.
I think that what it boils down to is along the lines of what JoScMa said: if jail is a bigger inconvenience for the arresting knight than it is for the arrestee, what is the point? I bring up the real world statistics to support the argument, independent of game mechanics, that escaping from jail is possibly too easy. Potential arguments (and rebuttals) against this:
(1) Building a character to be an escape artist. It is not unreasonable that known escapees get special treatment, IE, max. Your actions have earned you this privilege. Congratulations, we recognise your skill! (Won't even touch the fact that the NWN engine makes it very easy to amass lock pick skill.)
(2) We are all epic... epic people have better chances at difficult things. Well, why can't (NPC) guards be epic? Locks? Confinements appropriate to such a criminal? Another reputation issue is raised here: if your character is known to approach walking godhood perhaps they would be treated appropriately on arrest. Movie reference, think of what they did with Magneto in the X-Men movies.
Anything that is 'easy' or 'predictable' becomes stale and boring. I would hate to see something as potentially dramatic and exciting as a prison break become stale and stagnant due to excessive ease and overuse.
Hanah
.
