The confusion around guards in SW

I am not sure of how the community have decided this to be but to me it seems like there's guards flooding the place - from all kinds of guilds. In the newly written draft on Laws fro Stormwind it says that impersonating a guard is a crime. Good! But... who are the actual guards?
What I write here is entirely my own impression and I might be very wrong. But if I am still confused after several months in Stormwind (and I'm not that very stupid, most of the time) that means something is failing, even if that is just me. Then please correct me.

What we have (as I have understood it):

1 - <Argent Guard> Soldier-like guards of the Kingdom as a whole. These would probably be the national police force and only interfere with the city's affairs if it seems threathening towards the Kingdom as a whole or when the City Guards called for their assistance.

2 - <That Holy Guild I Can Not Remember The Name Of> Maybe not everyone in this guild do it, but I have seen and heard of some who act like some kind of Cathedral guard or... Holy guards... or what? What are they guarding? Are all of them guards or just some of them? Why would they join a religious guild if they wanted to be guards? Why would the Light even ask for any other guards than the city ones? I am really confused about these people and what they do, and why. I can see that the Cathedral is being attacked from time to time so I would understand the neeed to guard it, what I don't understand is why religious "fanatics" would guard a public building in Stormwind. I could agree on them guarding the Cathedral if they really want to, but they would need to leave the square in front and the rest of the city to the City Guards. No offence meant whatsoever, I just need this explained to me.

3 - <The Blazing Shields> These are supposed to be the city guard as far as I understood it. Awesome uniforms and all, guys! *thumbs up* Sadly they seem rather un-organised as of late and I actually don't see them around as much as I used to. I do understand that your internal affairs are completely your own business and I respect that, but when it means that my characters can be robbed or assaulted without anyone caring and trying to catch the criminal it has a big effect on me too. So please, for the sake of our lovely community, give us some updates on what is happening!

4 - Random people claiming to be guards. This will hopefully decrease with that new law but is probably really annoying. I have not encountered this much myself but I imagine that meeting someone in a uniform who claims to be a guard forces you to play along as everything else would be META-gaming. For me on my current characters, at least.

5 - Criminals who are not interested in consequenses. This is probably the biggest and most annoying problem to anyone roleplaying a guard as there is really nothing you can do but /e. I know there is at least one criminal guild out there who make absolutely sure their members will have respect for the guards and their emotes. Sure, everyone wants to win sometimes and that is just fine. But not if it involves power-emoting or god-modding. I bet this subject has been brought up several times before, I even remember reading a thread about it when I first joined the server. But it still hasn't been solved. Make a new thread if you wish to discuss this again, please, I will love to give opinions on solutions there. I rather do not start such a thread though as I have no experience in being either a guard or a criminal (at least none who ever got suspected) and therefor can not argue exactly what happens but only imagine it, see it or have someone telling me about it. Let this thread be about guards and guards only.

6 - A general feeling of anarchy. Gunshots, assaults, riots... the people in Stormwind do seem to be entirely unaware of the law. The only way to sort this would probably be to guard them and make them feel watched. Those laws and the courts together with a strong, firm City Guard would hopefully be the solution to that.

And this is how I would arrange it if I was some kind of dictator here (appealing thought ) :

ONE actual police force of Stormwind

These would be paid by the council and the King and also have to report to them weekly, possibly through the Minister of Justice. Statistics would be made, strategies to cut down crimes would be discussed and orders would be given to the guards directly from the council, through the Minister of Justice.

Some ranks in the guard guild:

Commander - This would be someone of authority. He or she would be the IC and OOC head of the guard and also the one responsible for what guards do and how they manage to solve crimes. This would include reading reports (more of that later), organising everything, attend council meetings, answer directly under the Minister of Justice, promoting or demoting the people in the force etc. Personally I would cut my right hand off for this position as organisation is my middle name.

Vice Commander - Would help the Captain and take over his or her duties when he or she would be unable. Is responsible for reports and the Archive.

The Thinking Branch:
Head Investigator - Basically George Clooney. A person with much sense for detail and organisation would be required. He or she would work to solve crimes and would be required to co-op with the Court and their prosecutors.

Investigator - Those who get called to a crime scene to take pictures, look for clues, dust for fingerprints (not really, but the equivalent), question witnesses and suspects etc. Intelligent people with a good sense of detail, respect and imagination required. If the guild ever gets big enough each Investigator could be tied to a Sergeant's group, although not taking orders from him.

The Muscled Branch:
Captain - Organises the troops and their duties as ordered by the Commander. Responsible for training, recruitment and equipment. Also patrols.

Sergeant - Leads a small group (3-4) Privates and Recruits and have the authority to give them orders that are not in conflict with the orders of the Captain. Patrols. Is not necessary before the guild gets big enough.

Private - Police man, simply. Patrolling force who follows a Sergeant's orders. Are, like all other ranks, meant to write reports on any events occuring during their patrol. (GHI or in-game Mail system used)

Recruit - New addition to the force. May NOT patrol without a Private around and will follow orders from a Private if no Sergeant or higher officer is around.
----------------
The guards would consist of two parts, one guarding part and one investigating part. These would work together. The guards would prevent crimes and the investigators would solve the crimes that happen. Nothing would stop an investigator from patrolling or a patroller from having ideas on who the criminal is, though, but these would be their main duties. Having an investigating branch opens up for non plate-wearing classes to feel at home in the guild (too bad there's no trenchcoats in-game) at the same time as it would help giving crimes a proper solution, make trials more interesting and overall increase the realistic feeling.

The guards would have regular meetings. On these meetings they would discuss what has happened lately and how they will deal with it, possibly a prosecutor and the Minister of Justice would be invited regularly.
Reports will be handed to the Vice Commander and end up in the archives (GHI) that can be accessed by the Commander, VC, Head Investigator and Captain (as well as shared on the guild forums for everyone to read OOC'ly). These could later be used to solve other crimes. All notes would also be saved in files for later access, just like in the real world.

This guard would by no means be all holy and noble. Some guards are tormenting assholes and highly efficient that way, they even seem a little funnier to be around in RP if they are scary. Good cop, bad cop, you know.



I probably have one hundred more ideas that I could not think of right now, this is just what came out of the top of my head. It's also 5 a.m. and I should probably start thinking about my bed.
I would be glad if this would be seen as friendly advice and brainstorming. Do post any feedback!

Interesting post, Menyet. Anyway, I try to control my guildmates as much as I can, since the majority (including me) is rather new to criminal-RP, but in case they're making problems not facing the consequences of their actions, just /w me and I will take care of this

Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.

i have to agree with Zinkle here.

And i do face the consequences of my actions, while i play a criminal. (other wise it gets boring for those else involed)
/rant why do people become god like while they are being mugged on there own surronded by 8 armed thugs? /end rant

as this is stormwind what are your thoughts on the mister of justice? and what role do you think he should take in this?

Skarre wrote:/rant why do people become god like while they are being mugged on there own surronded by 8 armed thugs? /end rant

A lot of the time the "muggers" pick targets at random, and the target might not actually be interested in that kind of RP.

There is a strict list of guard guilds and only those guilds have guard rights AFAIK. This list includes
- The Dcarlet Crusade
- The Disciples of Light
- Blazing Shields if they have been given their guard rights. Last time I heard, they were on trial or something but this could be out of date.
- some other guilds who I forgot.

However, this can sometimes be confusing if the guild 'is not limited to playing police'. On one hand my guild has guard rights... but I would find it confusing if a frail priest like me starts to roundhousekick criminals and detain them with brute force like a badass Texas Ranger.
The Disciples of Light, while religeous, are hardly fanatic. Maybe they have escaped your list/attention and that is because our troops aren't always patrolling Stormwind (yet)... but if you were referring to us as the fanatics well.. ehm.. please elaborate

I've also come to understand that a guard guild is not a police guild. Maybe there should be some clarification on their role or disambiguation between police and guards. Maybe I'm just being unknowledgeable

Menyet-Billiam wrote:But... who are the actual guards?
What I write here is entirely my own impression and I might be very wrong. But if I am still confused after several months in Stormwind (and I'm not that very stupid, most of the time) that means something is failing, even if that is just me. Then please correct me.

What a coincidence, I was having the exact same problem this week. As a criminal it is good to know who can arrest me or else it can easily happen that I'm attacking someone in front of a guard. In fact I asked Omanos, the Minister of Justice about this. According to him, four guilds have approval from the Council to act as guards:
<The Scarlet Crusade>
<The Stormwind Rangers>
<The Disciples of Light>
<Blazing Shields>

As he said, he is fairly new to his position so this information can be incorrect.
I'm a little confused why is the Scarlet Crusade acting as law enforcement in Stormwind, they look exactly the same as <The Crimson Flame> who are the bad guys (what I expect from a Scarlet-guild). Yeah, the good guys have an insignia, but I not sure what that means to me. Should I ask him for showing his insignia before stabbing my victim? Or is it a GHI buff? Or should I look at the guild tag?

Personally I have very good experience with the <Blazing Shields>, though I didn't witness the investigation/interrogation part yet. (Though it wasn't their fault, first Kainna went soft on me when I /smiled at her - gnome's are cute, y'know - and she released me with a warning, the second time the guard was outnumbered and the last time I was half-afk so I missed the arrest)

Menyet-Billiam wrote:A general feeling of anarchy.

Merandil wrote:A lot of the time the "muggers" pick targets at random, and the target might not actually be interested in that kind of RP.

That's why we're planning to be more active in certain parts of the city if we're in Stormwind (Dwarven District, Old Town). This way if someone wants trouble or to hunt criminals, he knows where is a bigger chance for that and can avoid those areas if he doesn't want to be a victim. By the way, if I don't want to RP with someone for some reason I don't go power-emoting and having lightning-reflexes: I simple tell that in a whisper.

Yo, in my ever so impressive week as the Minister of Justice before I begged Rasonal to come assassinate me. My main idea was to integrate the guarding guilds together, at the time they were pretty much just DoL and the Shields, but I was faced with negativity.

At the time, the Shields had no reason to want to work for the council, or me, and didn't want to merge. Even just on an IC front, I never expected the two guilds would actually merge under one guild tag.

Simply the idea of them training together and going under the Shield's impressive regime was too much for the guilds to bare despite it being a rather spiffing idea.

With more and more guarding rights given around, the idea of keeping them all under one banner, tabard, badge, commander isn't going to really stick. All the guilds have their own motives and ideals, that sometimes doesn't agree with the council's thus they like to keep their own commander, the guild leader doesn't really want to give over command of their guild anyway, so that they aren't forced to simply be the council's lapdogs which is a shame as I do believe this would improve the amount of guarding RP.

I disagree. First of all, it are the people who put the effort into guarding and their characters and as long as they do it reasonably, and it is clear they are not mischievous cultists impersonating guards for the Greater Evil, we should let those people role-play whatever role they wish REGARDLESS of council's permission.

First of all, why would anybody need a permission of a self-electing body to put effort into role-play and play the role? Isn't the RP based on some consent between parties involved? If the person RPing a guard does it right, and the criminal/civilian agrees that the person is doing it right - why the need for a permission? Besides, whom did the Council ask the permission from to have the power to give/withdraw permissions?

Applying and getting permissions is part of -political- Role-play. For instance it is clear that reason dictates that the Chapter will not get guard rights easily and that we are not actually legitimate guards. For us it makes sense to apply for rights and do politics to obtain them. If a dude rolls a warrior, gets to lvl 56, gets the armor and pvp tabard and starts guarding reasonably well - WHY THE HELL does he need anybody's permission other than consent of those he is arresting?

If it looks like a guard, acts like a guard and you trust the person OOCly not to be out for personal power, /care about the permissions he got and play along.

If you roll a character who isn't a guard, but wants to obtain the rights. Like a small-time villain, or a fanatic, or a gnome willing to serve human king (!?), then hell yeah! Applying for guard rights is awesome role-play!

I am Melnerag, and I support this messege.
We don't need permission to role-play, keep guard-rights as a tool to enrich Role-play, not limit or control it!

Imanuel spoke as from my mind, don't really have anything to add.

Menyet, while your post does seem like a very good idea people operate very differently from guild to guild and it would be hard to impossible to organise them under one banner as their leaders ideals of running a guild are very different and as said its close to nil to make them work togheder, that is why there are several policing orders currently with guards rights.

The Scarlet Crusade, The Disciples of Light, Blazing Shields, Stormwind Rangers and Argent Guard are on trial currently.

Now for the Guard rights themself, they are a legitimisation given to a guild who has proven that it has the will and the virtues needed to uphold the law and protect the civilians in the city of Stormwind aswell as the Kingdom.

More over, disregarding Melnerag`s cleverly disguised "Down with the council, they cant force you to apply!" post, we never forced or will force someone to not RP a guard if he does it good and conducts himself as a respected guard/guild. That counts for both individual guards or guilds, if they want to RP guards and do it good, be it a single invidivual or a entire guild aslong as they are good RPers and know what they are doing, noone will say anything or will do anything to stop them from RPing what they like.

The guard rights themselfs are there to show the public that "Here, this order is trustworthy of guarding this city, you can put your trust with them when you are in need of help and assistance." not say who can and who cannot play a Guard. For example the Stormwind Rangers, they never asked for guard rights from what I remember and they are awesome and respected guards and noone from the Council or anyone from the outside has said or done anything to prevent them from doing what they enjoy and like.

Naturally over the years we`ve had a number of imposters pretending to be Guards, for example the CF pretending to be the Scarlet Crusade guards, thats why for those from the Crusade and the other guard orders within the Protectorate of SW Guard guilds a insignia was made which is a GHI item that gives out a buff to the ones using GHI and wearing the insignia, and even those without GHI can simply emote: "reaches under his tabard withdrawing a Guard Insignia of Stormwind showing it to you." if ever asked by a citizen to legitimise.

As for the Guard Rights again, I mentioned above they are a method for showing that the guild applying for them are trustworthy and can be trusted with the task of guarding the city. How does that happen? Very simple, the guild itself proves their worth by completing different tasks, for example as the pesants came with the riot, their leader asked for more patrols around Elwynn and Westfall, having the Argent Guard applying for the rights was but a excellent opportunity for them to prove trustworthy of guarding the city by carrying out the task to patrol the the above mentioned areas for several days in the week for which they volunteered.

And to conclude this, as said above noone has or will stop you from RPing a guard with or without rights aslong as you do it properly, no matter if you are guilded or unguilded, rights are there to legitimise the orders infront of the public so they know who to go too when they need help.

Besides, whom did the Council ask the permission from to have the power to give/withdraw permissions?

QFT.

Besides...
"Hey, The King's back!"

Marrenus wrote:

Besides, whom did the Council ask the permission from to have the power to give/withdraw permissions?

QFT.

Besides...
"Hey, The King's back!"

Read the post above for the first quote, as for the second. Hey your avatar says Captain Obvious, right? "Hey surely the King as a NPC can create RP and organise events aswell solve people`s problems!"

Hey surely the King as a NPC can create RP and organise events aswell solve people`s problems!

Your Council does not solve problems. It only discusses them. xD

As for events... Personally, I have only 1 word to sum them up.

SPAM! (I know you people can write 16 awesome 4-line emotes per minute; 3 of you doing something = major overkill? xD)

Marrenus wrote:

Hey surely the King as a NPC can create RP and organise events aswell solve people`s problems!

Your Council does not solve problems. It only discusses them. xD

As for events... Personally, I have only 1 word to sum them up.

SPAM!

Indeed, the Council does not solve problems, its the people working in it and those around it that does - oh wait thats the same thing. And yes, discussions are there to find the best way for solving it and when that discussion is over its time for the practical bit. And so far it has worked out pretty well.

As for events, no the meetings arent the events I meant. Meetings are spammy, yes. Then again, within a week there will be some lovely projects seeing the sun for the first time. Those that enjoy charity and helping the less fortunate will be quite pleased!

Geldar wrote:
More over, disregarding Melnerag`s cleverly disguised "Down with the council, they cant force you to apply!" post, we never forced or will force someone to not RP a guard if he does it good and conducts himself as a respected guard/guild.

...paranoia?

First of all my post was directed at people asking the guards for permission. "Hey, care? If they do it right accept that they are guards." Secondly I applauded the council on the political aspect of it all.

And yes, discussions are there to find the best way for solving it and when that discussion is over its time for the practical bit.

Thing is, often those practical bits don't go beyond saying "Ok, we'll deal with it. NEXT!".

To your credit, you're no different from real life politicians. xD

But alas, as long as you lot keep your hands off my bomb-maker's rights, I'm good.

Spoiler:

...paranoia?

No, not really. Just a general feeling voiced in the form of a opinion regarding the post you made

Eitherway, another point in OP suggestion which I`d like to answer too.

6 - A general feeling of anarchy. Gunshots, assaults, riots... the people in Stormwind do seem to be entirely unaware of the law. The only way to sort this would probably be to guard them and make them feel watched. Those laws and the courts together with a strong, firm City Guard would hopefully be the solution to that

Most of the people doing these gunshots, assaults and riots are usually unaware of their current enviroment and have a healthy disregard for realism. Most of them are the Goldshierlings currently Cathedralings who shoot eachother and fight eachother on the steps of the Cathedral.

The real criminals know what they are doing, the Cartel, The Dark Sphere, Old Town Syndicate and all those unguilded individuals who are good at RPing a villian. It really goes vice versa for the guards and the villians, there are good ones and there are bad ones

Couple of things:

The council approving certain guilds with guard rights is both logical and helpful for RP. That way, people RPing in Stormwind have some idea of what they can expect city guards to look like (providing the guilds have some kind of recognisable tabard/insignia). Clarity is helpful to the human brain!

Even so, I fully agree with Imanuel that it makes sense for an RPer on the verge of being arrested to cooperate with someone who's not in one of those orders but is playing a perfectly reasonable city guard. One example would be this fellow Aleric Dylian that I've seen around: he's not in any of the abovementioned guilds, but he looks the part, speaks reasonably, and has helped to settle disputes (attempting to quell the angry peasants, for example), and I certainly would not go up to him and say 'So you're not a Shield, Disciple, etc. I'm not gonna listen to you, hah!' I prefer to give such RPers the benefit of the doubt.

Edit: Like Geldar said, there are good ones and bad ones, might as well take the cases as individually as possible, while recognising that guard guilds are a good thing, because they can train up their members to be good RPers!

You know that when I say "down with the council!" I do so -very- openly. So my post is certainly not a descrete manifesto.

As Aniane says, people do good. For instance I recall a moment with Lexius returned form vacation and Xsin pulled a "You got no permission, you are not a guard!" (as he got no permission back then) I think such cases are bad for role-play. Again, I am not speaking of the council issuing or not issuing rights, but people taking those permissions far too seriously, putting them on an altar and worshipping them.

I think Geldar pretty much explained the current situation regarding guard rights and whatnot. There's something else I'd like to address to though regarding this:

Marrenus wrote:

Hey surely the King as a NPC can create RP and organise events aswell solve people`s problems!

Your Council does not solve problems. It only discusses them. xD

As for events... Personally, I have only 1 word to sum them up.

SPAM! (I know you people can write 16 awesome 4-line emotes per minute; 3 of you doing something = major overkill? xD)

Sadly, it has become a trend as of late that guilds or single individuals abuse the large number of people present at the council meetings in order to cause trouble. The last meeting I can recall running smoothly must have been a year ago. No matter if it's an application which resolves into a brawl, or someone coming to ask for military help and is opposed by people who disagree, or the Chapter, or the Flames, or the Peasants.... people have simply began to use the council meetings as a way to reach as big of an audience as possible, for their own purposes.

Now, I'm not saying that the council meetings shouldn't be a place to bring forth IC issues that should be known by the public. However, having the meetings get interrupted repeatedly and pilling up new problems to the already existing ones, week after week, leaves the ones being in the council no time to solve issues or organize events, since we are thrown in a pit of never-ending problem solving.

So please, before pointing fingers about the lack of events, take a look at how the community is acting and what they are doing to help us with this. We all have some really nice event ideas which were mentioned and discussed amongst us, but sadly we never get to make them happen, not because we are lazy, but because the community itself isn't letting us.

For instance I recall a moment with Lexius returned form vacation and Xsin pulled a "You got no permission, you are not a guard!"

And that is why she was removed from office.

I am not speaking of the council issuing or not issuing rights, but people taking those permissions far too seriously, putting them on an altar and worshipping them.

Such things must be taken seriously if you want things to go smoothly. Ain`t a really big fan of naming and shaming, but having guilds and people asking for rights like Rosaline and some of the Stormbringer Regiment is just bad. I am not speaking about new RPers but for bad ones, who abuse the given responsibilities to such a redicilous extend that its as obvious as staring into the sun, not to mention the fact that when faced with the said abuse they go to the extend from redicilous excuses to swearing at you OOCly for you telling them ICly that what they have done is bad and they are not fit to serve with so much corruption in their ranks.

That is why when such rights are issued and given, they must be taken seriously so people can know that the order given such rights is good and trustworthy and can help them, rather than getting thrown in the cannals when asking for said help.

Council making events? lolwut. Go make your own events lazy git. :<

Geldar wrote:Such things must be taken seriously if you want things to go smoothly.

Exactly. Having rules is pointless if you don't take them seriously.

And besides a criminal should probably know who can arrest him, who is a threat to him. But if I don't know it OOCly, I hardly know it ICly. If I fight with a guard I presume that he's a skilled fighter because he is a guard. But for a random plate wearer I won't go down so easily, maybe he had just enough gold to buy that shiny armor (still talking ICly here). I want to avoid the guards ICly, but it's kinda silly to 'better be sure' and avoid all plate-wearers just because there is not a predefined list of guard-guilds.

In Ironforge it's simple: the dorfs come, the dorfs shoot, the dorfs send you to Gol'Bolar to socialize with the troggs.

So sorry Bobby, guildmaster of <Robert and the musicians>, I will ignore your attempt to arrest me and will go to jail with Ostekake of <Blazing Shields> instead.

Quikfizzix/Lazarous wrote:Ostekake of <Blazing Shields>

Someone is called that in BS?

Means "Cheesecake"

Thank you dear gnome, you just gave me a sinister idea.