Revisit SCF for alternative sentences.
From townhall.

Fengshui says loudly, "That's why we have to be very careful about how we dole out the more interesting punishments. Because they can be very intensive from a GM perspective."

Johnny asks loudly, "maybe we do something where the Judges are trained to send them to prison anytime they bust more than one person?"

Mono says loudly, "Also, we GMs usually use clone death as a punishment only as a last resort, and even then we don't generally steal bodies, so people can try to revive or corpse clone."

Johnny says loudly, "we can always put a suicide booth in the prison to give folks a way out too."

Fengshui says loudly, "Prison sounds boring, unless there are a bunch of people in there."

Fengshui asks loudly, "The majority of interactions would have to be with NPCs, and what do you do when there isn't a GM around?"

Fengshui says loudly, "And you run out of private SIC credit""

The speaking queue is closed and I know at least svetlana and myself wanted to add thoughts.

You could circumvent some of this by creating a linked up security camera system between the Hall and the prison so Hall employees can watch and an intercom system can address prisoners.

You could allow TERRA more free access with checkpoints to part of SCF to interact with prisoners (opening up lots of plot ideas)

You could open up SCF prison guards again.

You could merge TERRA and SCF into a joint operation with different career paths.

You could allow non-contraband goods be slipped into prison and delivered to a central room or rented as day long locker to a person who could pick up a wallet, drawing from the horrific ideas of real life prison capitalism and preying on people in poverty. Allowing characters to buy overpriced sic credit or progia credit. Maybe a way to work in the old progia-3 models, self-destruct after a day or a minute limit.

These are just starter ideas without revealing too much IC information.

Each time the concept of imprisonment comes up it's brushed aside as being too boring and therefore not a viable punishment, but I think that is entirely up to the player to decide. I can think of several ways in which I would find this kind of consequence enjoyable, immersive and have long-lasting effects on my character. And I say this entirely without expecting anyone to puppet guards or otherwise pander to me during the course of my stay, at least from a glance there seems to be a means for your chums to come and visit you while you're in the clink so it isn't as though you'd have no interaction with the outside world.

I absolutely love your ideas crashdown and agree 100%, there's so much to work with here and I think it could overall create a much more engaging crime and punishment system. Ultimately I think giving players the option to CHOOSE this or the alternative is key.

I believe some main points would be: Access to SIC and maybe a factory-like mundane activity that grants the character a tiny amount of chyen or something. Give gang members some NPCs on the inside that provide them with a little bit of extra, because it makes sense to have someone on the inside at that point.

A lot of people stay locked up as is inside of their apartments, why not let them experience the inside of a cell or common room? Let the WJF overlook from their cushy little booster seats in the Hall and bang, fun for all sides.

Plus, if you're given the option between a 5k fine and two days in a prison, wouldn't you rather take the latter considering 5k is more than you make in a week at your job, chummer?

As I said it should be a choice. Those players that want to interact with punishments that want to affect their characters meaningfully for days, weeks, months can have that option and those that don't can go for clone death.

There are clearly players that want that long term challenge for their character to overcome and RP now. The idea of a memory scramble is to move away from being vatted out after interigation as a default 'clean up the mess'. The result is the same, from the interigators view "They won't remember the interview" but the player who was interigated has the option to die or to be mind screwed for the duration of the interview and take that RP in a direction they might like.

It is opening up RP rather than shutting it down, and granting OOC autonomy to it.

Having been vatted A LOT I really really would adore an alternative.

I cannot disagree with you more. But I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

This is also about SCF and the kind of punishments that get doled out by PCs in law-enforcing positions who usually have the time and ability to offer different outcomes because they aren't under threat of having their mark run or being dogpiled by the person's backup. I don't want to come across as combative here but I'm having a very difficult time understanding your perspective on this and the adamance that having some options is worse than keeping death as the default go-to. If you prefer your character to die then that is your choice.

Unless there is a major overhaul in the kidnapping and imprisonment rules, you're basically asking for a GM or player to babysit your character for hours, days, or weeks.

Like you can probably OOCly volunteer for longer term imprisonment as a vacation or break because there are sometimes punishments that suit a player's own needs, but regular reintroduction of prison seems like a lot of time and effort for a small audience.

* Some insane, and capable oldbie needs to sit in SCF for like a 3-6 months turn. They need to be provided the same sort of resources as a syndicate member, and transform SCF into their base of operation.

* SCF needs to hire-on employees who would be the grey area of enablers and watchers.

* SCF needs a rotation of regular players serving out sentences to create a sphere of interaction.

And even with all that, I'm really not sure it would work.

Like there is nothing to do in SCF. It's ninety percent locked doors and half of it doesn't get signal. I struggle to see the appeal except for the scenario Reefer outline.

You have 3 players in this thread who are expressing an interest in that RP. I am not sure I think it is fair to dictate anyone RP within the realms of the community guidelines as 'kind of strange'.

And you say TiDi, banishment and so on. But there has been I think on character in the last year who has received such a thing. (happy to be corrected)

Fines have the advantage of teaching players that chyen is everything, there is no amorality there is only expenses, and when you have money you can do anything.

Corporate servitude teaches that the corporates own everyone, and everything, your value is how much you can contribute to them, the only true crime is not being productive.

Executions teach that death is not the nuclear option, that death is Tuesday. They normalize the brutal uncaring setting that doesn't value life because life is just a fee at Sense/Net.

I feel about imprisonment more or less how I feel about banishment, it can make sense realistically but in practice it tends to be a big headache for everyone involved. This is not to say there isn't a way to make it work in a way that creates even better outcomes than what is available now, but I pretty strongly disagree with the underlying idea that imprisonment would be a better alternative to the punishments characters face now.

Which is why I think it's important to explore alternative punishments which have consequences and that players will take seriously.

I get the fears about coded additions and people growing tired of being imprisoned in SCF very quickly, those are all quite possible. But on the matter of training - modern WJF is trained enough on imprisonment and punishment to both know when to send people to SCF and for how long, how to maintain interaction with those WJF people who are trained could in turn train TERRA (or a merged TERRA-SCF type of operation).

Not enough to alleviate the entire sum of concerns and see the changes implemented, but maybe a bit to feel less worried about some of the ones listed.

I'd also like to see it utilized more as a Red sector base for implementation/carryouts of higher end sentences. There is currently one which nearly always (though not all the time) done in SCF. But moving multiples of those there of the higher end could open up more opportunities for Red sector intervention and sabotage attempts. But that works better if there's an ovehaul of the area and going back to hiring SCF people/biringing TERRA into the fold of the prison more.

Major factions that I would consider vital to the existence of the game are left mostly empty, and something new like this feels like it would involve player participation on the scale of WCS. Unless the game attracts more people, those future megaprison staffers are coming from somewhere else and it would seem like anathema to the Mix to have even more of it dedicated to the administration and enforcement of law and order.

To throw out some rough numbers to illustrate my concerns:

In 2018-2019, at what I would consider the highest point for the Mix since I've played, the Syndicates alone between members and primary associates had 11 or 12 veteran players active in them. Plus about eight junior criminal allies, plus six active gangers.

Then in 2022 at their lowest there was 4-5 players total between all the street gangs and Syndicates combined, while there was about 17 active players between police and security roles in comparison.

The IC and OOC is going to be shaped by the roles people play, I really think having even more based around legal enforcement and stopping the bad guys is the wrong way to go and will move us further from the central themes of cyberpunk. The idea that so much thought would be put into what happens when people are regularly and inevitably caught by the police, would have been laughable five years ago. Criminality was the rule, and it ruled over the outcomes that players had. Breaking the rules of criminality then would involve being dragged into a basement and being hacked apart by axes, not being awkwardly conversed with by your 4000c a week prison guard.

So there's absolutely nothing wrong with more creative or elaborate or interesting punishments where player efforts and time allow for it, but there is in my opinion a lot wrong with building more of the game around law enforcement administration of it.

I do agree with 0x1mm here that introducing SCF as an alternate career isn't the right path. It's complicated and as I've said would need players that are absolutely dedicated to the role, and it would be a role that would be highly specific (requiring criminals, requiring Judges to judge said criminals with the SCF). This can be solved somewhat by mixing TERRA in, sure, but the problem still stands that it will need a lot of dedication from said players to ensure the people in there get the RP and interaction they need. Although the idea might be nice at first, I have a feeling most players will just want to get out of prison after a few times due to the lack of freedom.

You also have to bear in mind there might be scheduling conflicts where the players who can give you RP or permit others to give you RP might not be around at the same time as you, and so on. The playerbase isn't large enough that we could have a Mix faction with 24/7 oversight of SCF. Maybe if you allowed the Judges to participate (since the faction is plenty active at this time in terms of timezone coverage), but that's another can of worms entirely and I don't think it's a good idea to introduce Judges to the Mix either.

I do however agree that Judges exercising more creative punishments (dependant on the circumstances) is a good thing and I'll think on this to post my thoughts on the other thread.

Get rid of this traditional prison idea. It is too resource intensive and confusing. I'd suggest going more towards the 'pit prison' idea like Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a huge communal area. Rooms you can claim but no locks. A few areas like a yard, a work room, some kind of food dispenser. Not much else. All prisoners are together and require no PC or GM effort to RP with each other.

Create a system for getting people into prison. Maybe a room in the Hall that, when activated, opens the floor and drops the prisoner into a waiting areo that then drops them into the pit of the prison. Most of this can be automated like a lev ride. It is possible to get them there other ways if GMs/PCs have the time and will to do it but this is the basic go straight to jail option.

The work room doesn't have to make money. Maybe just have work done add SIC credits. I think the simpler the better. It can always be adjusted over time but mostly it should just be crazy simple to start with just the essential points addressed.

What Johnny said. Tell GMs and PC Judges to use prison only when you will end up with more than one prisoner. Being solo for short periods is okay but generally save it for those who WANT the option or when you you can ensure more than one will be in there at a time.

In all I would adjust the SCF to have sleeper cells, TERRA, short term holding cells if appropriate for TERRA and then 'prison pits'. Only one needs to be fleshed out and used but maybe call it Pit C to suggest there are others. The Pit has the basics I described above and is a communal area.

Fancy extras:

To give it more bite, maybe have the pit vented with a gas that knocks PCs out. While out they get a message that time seems to extend and they awake feeling like they spent a month navigating nightmares made real. ICly the venting can be random but maybe have it occur X to XX minutes after a PC connects to the game and wakes up in the pit. This way most every prisoner will get misted. It's just a minute or two in real time but pushes the PC to talk about the horrid months or years spend in living nightmares during their sentance.

Also, maybe have a couple NPC prisoners in there full time. One who is a fixer asking for specific items. Give PCs a reason to try and smuggle things in. Maybe chums on the outside brave the walls and throw things into the pits, trying not to be killed or fall in. Another NPC who is in the 'chatter' system but also has some persistent, GM generated chatter about lore and crime stuff.

Visiting area. Keep it hands off. PC on the outside can enter visiting room on their own, paying a nice fee. Once paid the visiting room closes for X minutes and the window between the outside visitor room and inside visitor room opens for X minutes. While open they can talk and see each other. The prisoners can always go into the pit side of the visitor room. It's just an open room like all others in the pit. To see a visitor, just go in when the visitor pays to open the window.

Surveillance. Add cameras to the rooms of the pit and have them linked to a monitoring room with a 'dispense gas button' and maybe an intercom that broadcasts across the whole pit. I like the idea of doubling up SCF and TERRA so just let Agents sit in there if they want to to monitor prisoners if they want.

Okay. Another long for essay from Grey0! Just my ideas on how this COULD work. I hope that some of it might inspire and be useful to staff!

A little off topic, but related I'm very pro-death, but I'm very anti how Sindome has done death, especially recently. Without getting into too much detail, I've died quite a lot in my four, almost five years of playing here. I don't mind the financial losses. In some ways, the financial losses provide avenues of RP and also show me how much better my character has become at flexing their connections than the previous few deaths. What I do mind is how death has been 'given.'

Out of the myriad times I've died in Sindome, I've only been given RP by my murderer twice. Other than that, there's been no engagement. Shroud killed, stuff taken, chrome ripped, and wake up in the vat. Rinse and repeat. There are some ways, of course, for the victim to take initiative and find out who killed them, but those often require access to parts of the game that are highly dependent on whoever is active in the Mix.

In the spirit of cooperative competition, I feel like it is necessary to provide a smidge of RP concerning the hows and whys by the attacker, whether it be a mysterious phone call, a private SIC, or an immy runner that you send with a message, or, hell, meeting the person at the bar and they act a little sly about what happened. Because as of now, killing someone is less about RP PVP and more about just PVP. I'd strongly encourage a rule or at least some encouragement in a help file that says that murder should not -end- RP. Because if killing is meant to 'teach someone a lesson' or 'end conflict,' how would someone know what lesson or what conflict if they have zero clue who killed them.

I acknowledge this might not be everyone's experience in Sindome, so feel free to correct me or tell me to politely shut the fuck up.

At the same time I can appreciate that not everyone wants to play how I want to play. Or how you want to play (I mean each of you). In some cases staff will decide that an element of play is required or not permitted but, outside of that, I am not going to try and force everyone to play how I like best and how I think is best for the game.

I don't want to force archetypes, histories, personalities and the like on other players. If it's not breaking the rules and in the ballpark of cyberpunk theme, I'll deal with it even if I find it personally distasteful. I feel the same about imprisonment. I'm not going to tell anyone they are wrong for wanting to enjoy that particular role play experience. Or that they are wrong about preferring death. I prefer RP and ramping up and the like, but if you aren't breaking rules, go for it! Kill and get killed.

My post above is about this: If staff decides to remodel the prison and add another avenue for IC punishment and RP, then they will. I am simply trying to present ideas on how to structure it in a way that reduces the work required from GMs and PC Judges/Agents/Guards. I don't have to think something is necessary or optimal to help by presenting what I think are good ways to do it.

Do I think this should be the first thing staff works on? Probably not. It's not that high on MY priority list. But if there's a member of staff who would just love to work on it and they all agree on making prison playable, then I say go for it. Staff, in my experience, frequently grows the game via passion projects and I think that's an awesome thing for volunteers.