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Bribing: An essay
First of all, as a side note to those who doesn’t allow their characters to be bribed: You suck! Onto the subject!

During the medieval ages, roughly from 800 P. Ch. N. to 1450 P. Ch. N., there was a substantial lack of monetary resources, and food, amongst the commoners (Uo is roughly thirteenth century), which led to the fact that most people did anything for gold, or silver, or even copper. The most repulsive way of making gold was, of course, scavenging the corpses of the dead for rings, and the like, but also during the battles, to deprive them of their boots, and such, so that they could buy food for themselves and their families.

 Most soldiers and/or guards had families for whom they strived to put food on the table, occasionaly sending home money to buy food for, or directly sending food, since a lot of people was paid in this, as part of their wages.

Loyalty you say, might be an integral part of their societies. Bah! Certainly not, dear reader. They worked for the gold, and gold alone. Due to the poverty, it wasn’t uncommon for a soldier to desert their current lord and/or lady, and instead take employment at another lordship or county, which paid more and thusly was more awarding to the hungry soldier and his family.

On Uo, we don’t have poverty in that fashion, but facts remain, as it is a medieval game, and most people have roleplayed, though non-existent, families, for which the SHOULD care. The reasonable course of action should then be, not to reject the bribe since you’re “hopelessly loyal to your eternally fair and virtuous lord, whom would never harm a good person”, but rather take the bribe to fund your night-on starving family.

This, of course, applies to lowly guards, and not to officers. Officers and merchants, on the other hand, used to be terribly greed, generally like Phae Quaintly, not like some holier-than-thou modern priest. This also applies to priests.

Albin, player of Odenetheus, Hikage no Kumo, Erasmus, Theron, and many, many more

*points at Althie* He's evil!

This coming from a person who does not allow his character to be put a hit on without notice?
Even worse, someone who actually had a contract removed because it was "inconvenient" for him?

And no, the contract was not mine or issued by anyone I have close ties to. It is the principle though, do not dare to judge! If someone has an unbribable character this may be pure personality then taking a bribe would actually be bad roleplay, please to take that into consideration. For them it does not matter how poor they are, they will never allow theirselves to be corrupted. Or at least not that easily.

On a brighter note, good work on the essay.

me???? evil????? bah

on a more ontopic note - bribability can be seen as described above but would you realy be a bribable character you ask yourself? well i know althie would be IF it is in his intrest to be, so if you offered him ten gold to look the other way as someone sneaks into Kazuo's house it puts him out of work so he will just cut you down, same for milita command.  However if you wanted to slaughter a recruit *shrugs* theres plenty more what does althi care? so bribary whilst a possibility must be considered most carefully.

Also, Oden. You say that people would take bribes to feed themselves and their family, even if they were extremely loyal? Well, what if the person they were loyla to found out about the bribe, the person who took the bribe (and probably his family) would be murdered as a warning to anyone else who tried to take a bribe.

I like the idea of bribes....
Makes the game feal more real.
But i do think that more people will be loyal and not take it.
However Everyone would take A 1 million gold bribe to give up a bit of
info... No matter how loyal they are.

I agree that bribes would certainly suit the RP and of course are consistant with the period our world is set in but I can't see a guardsman turning for a few pieces of gold as would have been the case in RL or even 1,000gp so it could get quite expensive for the briber.

I could also imagine the punishment meated out for anyone taking a bribe would be quite severe.  ;)

Also, if you look in the 'Laws' section of the Baronship's Website, taking a bribe is actually a  criminal act.

one more thought on this subject is this, anyone hopping to join the underworld at some point so would be slightly more bribable than others but also more cautious and likely to kill anyone who wasn't very VERY discreet about such things.

And though you would accept a bribe in rl back then.... You also wouldn't go around killing etins back then would you...

Aslong as its not my chars right Althie? :D

depends on my mood :P althie is a very lonely elf maby you could divert his attention :D

We should rename this thread...

*winks to althie* Oh aye?

Anyhow heres my point of view.

In somethings i agree with Odene and others Kuzo. I've hardly seen anyone willing to be bribed which is a shame however it is up to the player to decided what their char is like not us.
My char Tina would never be bribed shes too good hearted where as Mela would do anything or say anything to earn a bit of coin (don't get any wrong ideas  >:()

Pffft you could bribe Darath any time

ill remember that next time i need some extra muscle :P

Khae's an elf, and I don't see Elrond being bribed... But I partially agree with Odene, but remember that in a fantasy world, there will be a lot more difference between good and evil, there won't be mercenaries, only evil ones.

Well... actually... anyone could be bribed :)
But that does not mean you have to be loyal.

Example, Od walks up to Kuzo and offers him a gigantic bag of weed. Kuzo would ofcourse be most pleased with this gigantic enormous bag of ganja because it would keep him and his men smoking for at least another 71,2 years. It was that big a bag! Lord only knows where Od might have gotten this, but... Kuzo wants it! So Kuzo accepts the bag and as it happens Od would like to tactically place some landmines in front of the Baron's office but ofcourse was not man enough to do this himself. Kuzo scoffed a few times and then eventually agreed to Od's terms.

A few days later Od receives a carefully forged letter that the Baron wishes to see him. He makes way to the Baron's office and KABOOM! Yes, you can already guess what happened here.... Indeed! Althalus popped out and shot Od with a big as mofo repeater crossbow with bolts that have purple potions attached to them *nods sagely*.

So the moral of the story is, if you want a big bag of weed, be clever ab... no wait... it is you can take the bribe, but it means nothing. Ofcourse it can go further than this. Because if you have taken the bribe and it can be proven, you will have committed a crime. But who knows, sometimes that might just be worth it!

Scheme away! The cleverestest wins ;)