2026-09-10 23:18:01 UTC#1
Player [nodecay Command
A couple of us have been discussing this possibility and trying to flesh it out.
Would it be possible to introduce a limited [nodecay command for players, mainly as a way to leave temporary marks on the shared world without needing staff to place or lock things down?
Something like:
[nodecay 14
[nodecay 3
...with the number determining how many days the targeted item remains before normal decay resumes, up to a maximum of 14 days.
It might make sense to tie access to the same registration process that currently directs players toward the forums. That would give us a natural point where the privilege can be tracked and, if necessary, revoked for abuse.
The purpose would not be secure storage or outdoor housing. Items would remain completely movable and stealable. It would simply let players create some temporary permanence in public spaces.
Examples might include:
newspapers or books left around a common room;
chairs around a campfire;
drink dispensers or event props;
a small memorial or shrine;
outdoor decorations for a player-run event;
litter in a street or alley for someone else to complain about or clean up;
crates, debris, signs, tools, or other evidence that an area has actually been used;
a shared water barrel beside a garden that players periodically refill.
Keeping these objects movable would be preferable to locking them down. A newspaper on a bench, chair beside a fire, or crate in an alley should be something another character can steal, move, throw away, or complain about. In that sense, leaving an item in a public space is also accepting the normal risks of leaving property unattended.
That interaction can itself become RP. A barricade can be dismantled. Garbage can be cleaned up. Someone's outdoor chair can disappear. If you leave something valuable in public, you probably should not expect [nodecay to make it safe.
That also means most minor misuse can be player-policed simply by picking up or disposing of the offending objects.
There would still need to be a common-sense expectation attached: the intent is to add little bits of lived-in permanence, not cover town in compost and argue that the NPC population somehow failed to notice.
For accountability, these items could also work consistently with the existing graffiti system and Forensics. Ideally, Forensics could establish roughly when something was placed without immediately revealing who placed it. That gives players something useful to investigate without turning every clue into an OOC answer of, “Viktorie set this up.”
My preference would be for the actual character responsible to remain hidden from normal Forensics results, while still being recorded so staff can access if abuse needs investigating. This is mostly to keep things grounded in reality and not force the investigator to make up some convoluted reason why Miss Bellamy clearly left this bloody knife here.
The 14-day cap should also mean abandoned clutter eventually cleans itself up without staff intervention.
Player Environment Tiles
As a companion feature, we also talked about giving players a very small number of active environment tiles, similar to the ones staff have used in places like the watchtower.
Even one active tile per player could be extremely useful. A slightly higher limit might be reasonable, but I would keep it deliberately low so nobody turns every hallway into twelve consecutive paragraphs of environmental narration.
Environment tiles produce a short descriptive message when someone steps onto it, sometimes with a skill requirement.
That would give the players the ability, like the staff, to indicate:
*The apartment carries a faint smell of baked bread. *
*There are muddy footprints here leading toward the alley.*
*Someone has scratched three shallow lines into the wall.*
*The snow here looks recently disturbed.*
We also discussed, if they attach a skill requirement, the creator should also need to meet that requirement themselves. Someone should not be able to create a Medicine, Tracking, or Skullduggery clue beyond their own character's ability to establish.
The existing staff environment tiles can, I believe, also use optional/ranked skill checks. Something obvious like:
Everyone: *Broken glass is scattered around the doorway.*
Skullduggery/Forensics 50: *Several fresh scratches around the lock plate suggest someone may have tampered with it.*
These could follow the same temporary persistence rules as [nodecay and remain removable by other players.
And that vulnerability is intentional. Someone can leave tracks and someone else can erase them. Ideally, removing an environment tile would clear its visible message while leaving enough of a hidden record for Forensics or staff investigation, rather than completely deleting it.
Like graffiti, a player could mark a smell, stain, disturbed snow, damaged wall, hidden clue, or scrub all of the above without requiring staff to physically build the scene.
Taken together, [nodecay and environment tiles would give players a lightweight way to leave both physical objects and descriptive evidence for other players to discover and react to.
Common-sense RP rules would still apply. These features should describe things your character could reasonably place, alter, or establish in the world, without dictating another character's reaction or conclusions. They shouldn't be used to harass players, circumvent normal RP limitations, or create environmental changes the surrounding population obviously would not tolerate.
Thoughts?
