Crime and Punishment Overhaul Mod

[Slade37]

As I have been reading all of your posts, and reply's to others concerns as well as suggestions, I personally love the idea, and cannot wait to see it reach completion. I also feel like the original system didn't make much sense at all. Why have a system for crime, and punishment when all you do is activate the bed, and everyone forgets all about it. So boring, and unrealistic. It will give a nice angle to the game, and add in some nice new challenges!

[drewsbrew]

Thanks, I'm glad you like my ideas, it's always encouraging to hear people are looking forward to your mod! I did make a VERY simple mod that allows you to create skooma in game, the link is here. Although there isn't much to the mod itself yet (and work on that specific aspect has stopped to work on the core features of the mod instead) there is some more info there, plus some videos I posted. Tose videos are on my YouTube channel and I'll be posting updates to progress on all my mods there if you're interested. By the way, if you watch the development videos... don't worry about the 'invisible bottle problem', it's been resolved :)

[michael199310]

After reading the mod description, there's one thing that caught my attention: Life in Prison. That seems great but the problem lies within dull and terrible vanilla prisons.
Perhaps your mod should expand and add more prisons and solitary cells around the world of Skyrim for the most notorious criminals. Secret escape routes, bribing guards, maybe even adding some support for followers, so they can rescue you or use your resources to get you out of prison. Special features, like reputation affecting the type of cell...

Hah, I got carried away. Anyway, keep on working :smile:

Edited June 6, 2016 by michael199310

[drewsbrew]

Just to clarify, the 'life in prison' feature means 'things to do', not necessarily 'you go there forever'. It was a poo choice of words I know. Anyway, every dungeon will have inmates there, and there who you will be able to interact with, and there will be some quest like elements-- think about going to jail in Markarth, and having to trade Skooma to get a shiv for the Orc, and you'll have some idea of what to expect in jails in the rest of the holds. Ideally, I'd like to have new quests when/if you go back to jail after completing the initial quests. You'll meet the same characters again, but this time they'll have different things for you to do.

Having a literal 'life in jail' feature would be awesome and immersive in a way, but it would also be game breaking. I suppose I'll work something in where (if you would normally be in jail for life, the Jarls will let you off the hook because you have important things to do... you know, saving the world and all.

 

Solitary cells are already in the works, but I was planning on adding them to existing dungeons (and maybe adding more cell blocks to existing dungeons too). Towns like Falkreath, Dawnstar, Morthal, etc. are getting whole new dungeons while towns like Whiterun and Solitude re jut going to have changes made to existing dungeons.

 

I love the idea of having your companions bust you out of prison! I'll definitely try to work that in! Although, I think it would have to be to only certain companions who would be willing to do that though, and I don't know how feasible it would be to have support for followers added by mods.

[michael199310]

Ah, yes, I didn't mean playing the rest of Skyrim in prison :D Just spending there some time, like you had to do in Cidhna Mine in Markarth. Something immersive but not game breaking. That could tie in to the idea of followers rescue - depending on the sentence, there would be higher chance they would help you.

Following that way, your relationship with followers could degrade, based on the crimes. So, let's say, Lydia would not follow you anymore if you kill someone innocent.

Well, if you could do that with some vanilla followers, compatibility patches with most popular followers mods would be relatively easy.

But I think you should focus on the basics - implementing the whole crime system and then tweaking it.

[drewsbrew]

Yeah, that's the Idea... to focus on the basics, especially since I'm still learning. In all honestly the quests in prison probably won't be included in the initial release because I won't do them without having voice actors for all the characters and I feel like I'll probably have to have something more than just ideas to recruit the help. Little by little the mod is getting there though!

[Shinkoku]

This looks really awesome!

 

Would there be a racism element? Could just be 'you start with a reputation' - e.g. Khajiit start with a reputation as a thief, even if you've never done anything. Or affects what you're most likely to be framed for and how believed you are. E.g. Khajiit being framed for theft, elves being framed for treason against Stormcloaks.

 

Also will speech checks have a role? Like, if I have a reputation as a criminal and shopkeepers are suspicious of me, can I persuade them into believing that I was falsely accused? Or conversely can I use my reputation as a vicious murderer to help intimidation checks? Will I be able to talk to the jarl and persuade him/her into dropping all charges because I'm clearly innocent? Could this be affected by my relationship with someone? E.g. if I've done a quest for a shopkeeper they'll be much more likely to believe that I'm innocent

 

Will selling debuffs vary based on shopkeeper? Like, is it limited to the hold I committed the crimes in, do the Thieves' Guild fences care at all, is the Dark Brotherhood exempt, etc.

 

Also since some of the guards will whisper 'Hail Sithis' after you become Listener, will there be corrupt guards who'll let you go if you're far enough along the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves' Guild quest-lines?

[drewsbrew]

This looks really awesome!

 

Would there be a racism element? Could just be 'you start with a reputation' - e.g. Khajiit start with a reputation as a thief, even if you've never done anything. Or affects what you're most likely to be framed for and how believed you are. E.g. Khajiit being framed for theft, elves being framed for treason against Stormcloaks.

 

Also will speech checks have a role? Like, if I have a reputation as a criminal and shopkeepers are suspicious of me, can I persuade them into believing that I was falsely accused? Or conversely can I use my reputation as a vicious murderer to help intimidation checks? Will I be able to talk to the jarl and persuade him/her into dropping all charges because I'm clearly innocent? Could this be affected by my relationship with someone? E.g. if I've done a quest for a shopkeeper they'll be much more likely to believe that I'm innocent

 

Will selling debuffs vary based on shopkeeper? Like, is it limited to the hold I committed the crimes in, do the Thieves' Guild fences care at all, is the Dark Brotherhood exempt, etc.

 

Also since some of the guards will whisper 'Hail Sithis' after you become Listener, will there be corrupt guards who'll let you go if you're far enough along the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves' Guild quest-lines?

 

Glad you like the idea for the mod!

 

Will there be be a racism element/will your race have an impact on your reputation?;

 

Well, ideally yes, but the main priority in terms of design is to prevent script bloat. I don't want people to have to choose between this mod and their other favorite realism mods, so basically I want to make this as in depth, feature rich, and immersive as possible without overladening the papyrus script engine. Also keep in mind that the first version of the mod will almost certainly not have all of the planned features... it will be a basic version of the main concepts, and I'll refine it more and more in later releases.

 

Will speech checks have a role?;

 

Short answer: 'Yes' although I don't have the specifics worked out just yet. The vanilla game does not have nearly enough speech checks for them to have a meaningful impact on the reputation system so I want to add more-- without them feeling like they were added just for the sake of being added. One idea I had was to add a speech check dialogue option to all NPCs to insult/intimidate them (unlocked as you begin to develop a reputation as a violent thug) and the NPC will respond by going into a brawl (throwing you in jail if it is a guard/Thane/Jarl/etc.) or becoming afraid and running away. The more you build that reputation the more likely NPCs will respond with the latter. I would also like to add an intimidate option to a lot of the quests too. With the race thing, I think races like Orcs for example should have an easier time intimidating someone than say a High Elf for instance... maybe even body weight can play a role... but I digress.

 

I don't know what you mean by selling debuffs...

 

Will some corrupt guards let you off the hook if you're in the Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood?;

 

Yes, and there will be a chance that they might even let you out of jail if you're arrested by another guard.

[Slade37]

Matter of curiosity. Have you considered making the actual arrest when you commit a crime more realistic than the original system?

[drewsbrew]

I've got some ideas I'm toying with... There will be stockades added to the game where the criminals there will be pelted with produce, I've thought about also having citizens pelt you with produce (using the same animations and whatnot) as you are dragged through town in chains (if you have a reputation as a notorious bandit/murderer/slaver something along those lines). But what do you mean by more realistic?