Bounty Submission Board

[Terminally Chill]

Hello, Chill here.

I know you guys usually don't see me posting stuff like this, but I had an idea for the bounty system here on BV. It isn't a novel concept, but I thought it might help improve efficiency and kind of get rid of some of the mystique surrounding how to get a bounty since they're such a big part of the One Piece world.

As far as I know, bounties are assigned by graders... Sort of? <.< I don't really see this done (maybe because no one does anything bounty-worthy), but I do know there was an issue in the past where Kuro thought people weren't given their fair bounties and had everyone PM her with stuff their character did. I think we need a cut and dry explanation as to how people can achieve bounties.

My best solution would be to make another sub-forum in the Ministry of RP called the “Bounty Submission Board” or something. The template could be something as simple as:

Character Name/Link:
Character's Current Bounty:
Link to Thread(s):
Summary of Crimes:

While I think this would give members easier access to bounties and make it a more efficient process as a whole, I think it would improve story a lot as well. Instead of members potentially given little bounty increases with each thread that's graded, they instead save up the threads and submit them when THEY want an increase. Did Luffy get a little bit of an increase with each crime? Nope – he got fairly large jumps each time the Straw Hats did something particularly huge. His first bounty wasn't even awarded until a decent ways into the story. I just think by giving the members the chance to choose when they get a bounty would be a cool device in their plots. They could even submit it for whole crews kind of like how it's done in the Plot Submission board to avoid the board getting too spammed up since the crimes will most likely be fairly similar and can be looked all at once.

I'll leave it up to the staff as far as how they want to go approving bounties, whether it's interns or graders or one person tasked for it. I also know there isn't a set criteria for a bounty, but I know we have guidelines in place and I'm personally fine with those. I kind of like bounties being subjective like how Bonus EXP is and up to the staff member to decide after looking at the crimes.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think. Peace!

~ Chill.

[Kurosaki]

Oooo, so back to the old school way of doing it? Cool. I can get behind that.

[Mirra|Robin]

NPC bounty hunts are difficult subjects as well.

Can you make your own or must you use a premade? What are the limits? How do you let staff know you are hunting a bounty? How do you turn one in? I actually hunted a bounty in a previous thread, and I don't think I ever got rewards for the hunt itself but just the thread.

The bounty system really needs to be reworked and given some solid guidelines, in my opinions.

We need to know how to get them put on, taken off, hunted, and turned in.

I like your idea pirate characters requesting a bounty added due to their own actions. Perhaps go a step further and allow bounty hunters to turn in bounties they hunt. Maybe something like this:

Bounty Hunter Character Name/Link:
Name of the Captured/Link if Applicable:
Summary of Crimes:
Requested Payment:
Thread Link(s):

[Kurosaki]

Actually, it's supposed to also be the role of the grader to give you the beri you made based on your hunt according to the "Making Beri" rules.

Turning in someone with a Bounty that is a NPC: (twice a month) 5,000,000-15,000,000 in the Blues and 5,000,000-50,000,000 beri in the Grand Line depending on the plot level. Anything higher will be an Event created by staff members and controlled by them. 1,000,000 beri bounty is = to 5,000 beri received by the member.

Essentially if you hunted and turned in a catch that fit in the proper bounty amounts you should have gotten a reward for that. =o

It's possible that rather than making that a separate area, we might want to just revamp the grader template to include this? Since they're already reading the thread and all.

[Konaa]

I actually was also pretty curious about the procedure of hunting NPC bounties.

[Terminally Chill]

Yeah, I think Kuro answered your question, Mirra. NPC bounty hunting should just essentially be a believable plot and stay within the bounty constraints she quoted above.

As far as adding it to the grader template, I think that sort of defeats the purpose of letting people submit multiple threads at a time to control how often their bounty goes up. It would be kind of hard on graders to submit one thread to essentially read in its entirety and then go look at however-many-more to determine a bounty. That's why I'm proposing a separate board.

It makes sense for bounty hunters to still submit their bounty in the grading board (it's currently in the template - I've used it for bounty hunter) because they'd be getting it immediately for that single thread.

However, if the rules are too obscure to people for gaining and cashing in bounties as a whole, this could be a good opportunity to consolidate it in one board and make everything about bounties clearer.

[Deleted]

If I may bring any staff's attention to this thread over here. It'd keep me from having to repeat myself, and I'd appreciate if I can get a director's take on it.

I don't think a separate sub-board should be made for bounty submissions. I've seen people who wanted their bounty to grow bring it to the grader's attention already by making their own little section in their plot submission threads. In fact, Black just raised a few of the White Wings' bounty today. Aubs requested it be considered, and Black responded with what he deemed they deserved. I thought that's how it went down anyway. If you cared about your bounty increasing, or getting your reward for capturing someone, I don't see why you'd just turn in a plot submission without saying anything. I wouldn't expect any graders to consider it for me.

I have a few concerns about that rule you quoted, Kuro. The first is the limit for the Blues. Can the cap be 30 Mil or something? East Blue was considered the weakest of the Blues, and Luffy was the highest coming out at 30, so perhaps it wouldn't be farfetched to see someone who was around 17 Mil, or even matched his, especially in any of the other Blues. My second concern is these "events" for the NPC's above 50 Mil. Do you mean a staff member will be controlling the tide of one of your plot threads along with the NPC, or the more juicier catches can only be pursued in a forum-wide thing?

I agree with Mirra that the whole bounty hunter system needs a bit of work put into it. The rule on capturing bounties, as it stands, sounds like it was created before the NPC posters were even conceived; like one of those things you can just say: *such and such* is here, and he has a bounty of *somewhere between 5-15 Mil (to keep people from going overboard)*. Now that there are actual NPC's with prices that are pre-approved, perhaps it'd be safe to raise the collection limit a little.

Chill, if you think about it, Luffy's bounty raised in huge intervals most of the time because he did big things; rough up Enies Lobby, break into/out Impel Down, etc. To save the graders a bunch of 4+ page threads to read at once, it'd make more sense to have your bounty validated in your plot submission after the thread, then control how the Marines handle your increase in your own plot. Like, after 3 or 4 threads, mention how you find a poster, or newspaper, with the increase from the accumulation of all of those threads that you weren't mentioning in the plot until that point. You can control the way your own bounty is increased, now, by either not posting the full thing in your updated profile, or not updating your poster on the forum until you want it updated in your plot (if you requested a poster).

[Terminally Chill]

Haha, your way of controlling a bounty in story is a more practical take on it (and still valid), but I'll come to that later.

I suppose with this board I wouldn't expect staff to read the threads like they do in grading - just have the staff have a reference in case a claim seems too outlandish. So I'm definitely not trying to put dump a ton of reading and threads of work on anyone.

As far as the graders doing it now, I guess I haven't been satisfied myself with how it's worked out. We have new graders now though from when I was around, so maybe it's more feasible to task them with going through with figuring out a bounty. It's just never been made clear, so if it the grader's job, it should be made clear now. I'm just never sure if graders feel like assigning bounty after reading a thread and coming up with individual grades and stuff like that - it was more or less to maybe take some weight off of their shoulders since grading another roleplayer's work is hard enough. That might be a moot point though.

In regards to the thing about Luffy's bounty, it was more in reference to how I see "threat" working in bounties. Think of his first bounty. Did he get little increments from beating up every individual pirate and every individual act of piracy? Nah. He got it after beating three big name East Blue pirates (Buggy, Don Krieg, and Arlong). With that in mind, who is to say that his next bounty increases, while they were certainly sparked by huge events like messing up Enies Lobby and escaping Impel Down, didn't take into account the events leading up to those occurrences as well?

I guess my point is that I think submitting threads in a bundle has a functional use outside of in-character plot. I think if multiple events are submitted together, the character's threat can be determined a lot better than if they're doing small and potentially similar events in each thread (I could see that even being annoying) and their bounties are being judged by just those single crimes. Yes, you can control when you see a poster or whatever in your threads, but I don't think doing them individually, one-by-one, gives accurate results in an out-of-character sense.

[Mirra|Robin]

@kuro A revamped template might help. However, the grader taking into account what happens in a thread would also help. If someone turns in a captured bounty in the story should they have to spell it out to the graders who are already supposed to be reading the thread? I'll contact you about my bounty thing in a message.

[Deleted]

Oct 30, 2013 1:09:41 GMT -5 Terminally Chill said:

In regards to the thing about Luffy's bounty, it was more in reference to how I see "threat" working in bounties. Think of his first bounty. Did he get little increments from beating up every individual pirate and every individual act of piracy? Nah. He got it after beating three big name East Blue pirates (Buggy, Don Krieg, and Arlong). With that in mind, who is to say that his next bounty increases, while they were certainly sparked by huge events like messing up Enies Lobby and escaping Impel Down, didn't take into account the events leading up to those occurrences as well?

I guess my point is that I think submitting threads in a bundle has a functional use outside of in-character plot. I think if multiple events are submitted together, the character's threat can be determined a lot better than if they're doing small and potentially similar events in each thread (I could see that even being annoying) and their bounties are being judged by just those single crimes. Yes, you can control when you see a poster or whatever in your threads, but I don't think doing them individually, one-by-one, gives accurate results in an out-of-character sense.

Threat does play a role in someone's bounty increasing, however I don't believe judging them in groups of incidents will give you more accuracy when discerning how much to add on. Yeah, Luffy defeated three big names before he attained his 30, and I'm sure that it's because of everything that happened from the time he went to Loguetown to the end of the Alabasta arc that warranted the additional 50 Mil, but imagine if he were someone's OC on here. The adventures that took place between his 30 and 80 Mil bounties would've been a couple different threads. After each thread, according to the bounty rules we have, he would be receiving percentages of the 50 Mil add-on that we saw him get after defeating Crocodile. It'd include everything from the time he resisted and escaped Smoker in Loguetown, and then again in Alabasta (Smokersucks*cough*), to defeating the agents and the big boss of Baroque Works. On the forum, I don't think looking at all of those events together would give him a higher bounty than it would by letting them accumulate gradually. You can only get a set amount for every type of crime you commit per thread, so they'd still have to be judged individually before being added altogether.

I see what you're saying, but since your current bounty is an indicator of your threat level already, you wouldn't need to present a group of incidents for anyone to gauge how much of a dangerous element you may be to the World Government. You're being judged crime by crime because your threat level goes up gradually depending on what you do. I doubt Kidd's bounty, albeit higher than Luffy's when they reached Sabaody, jumped as much as his because he committed lots of acts of terrorism. The same thing, everywhere he went, that may not have involved challenging the Marines directly, probably only made his threat level increase little by little since he was being more of a nuisance to the citizens. His bounty would only jump significantly if the Marines waited until he commited multiple crimes that added up to 50 Mil or whatever. At the end of the day, you'd just be asking the graders to add up your bounty for a few threads at a time rather than just one.

[/justify]

[EriChar]

Personally, I'd prefer to have bounties on my characters go up in large amounts every few threads, than have a tiny increase after each one.

I'd also like to have the ability to 'choose' when new bounties are awarded, for plot convenience and such. If the member chose when they submitted their crimes for evaluation, they could plan their plots around the bounty they receive, rather than leaving it as a bit of a 'pot luck'.

Finally, I think members should have more of a say in what their 'crimes' would be, rather than someone observing it. While I don't think they should dictate the actual figure their bounty becomes, it is the person in the plot who best understands the situation in which the Bounty was received. That way, if one has a particularly spiteful witness, or other party to 'manipulate' the bounty, it could be better represented.
Just look at the Ohara incident; nothing that was reported as Robin's 'Crimes' were actually hers, they were just used as 'covers' to make her dangerous abilities a crime, without admitting the truth of the situation.
The opposite of this, of course, is Choppers bounty; which was ridiculously low despite his monster form being responsible for a lot of the damage to Enies Lobby. His actions were easily on par with Nami, who defeated a CP9 agent, but received a fraction of her bounty, because he was mistaken for an ineffectual member of the crew.

Can you say that these kinds of circumstance would be produced from a graded method? I think the answer is no.
While I'm sure graders do their best to understand the threads, they are mere observers in the process, and with that in mind, they are not 'invested' in anything they observe, so they would likely assign bounties in a rigid 'fact-based' system. I think our process should have some flexibility and leniency in it to accommodate the story people are trying to write, and to do that, I feel the members need a bigger say in what bounty they receive.

Even from personal experience, I can tell you I'm not satisfied with the current bounty situation; I did a thread last year in which my character fought some criminals and in the course, had a tussle with a small marine force. I wouldn't think this worthy of a bounty, since all she did was hit and run away from a few grunts, and yet I was awarded a sixteen million bounty for my efforts. To be honest, I wasn't satisfied with that; while I appreciate the acknowledgement of writing that such an awarding would give me, I would have preferred to choose when my 'crimes' were recognized by the government, and so, I managed to convince the awarding party to repeal the award and have it contribute to a bounty later on.

So yeah, Char gives Chill a big thumbs up, and also supports his system! ( >.>)b