Well, no that was kind of my point. Despite "stealing" from my enemies, I still have a positive karma rating.

Also my rebuttle to the definitions provided here:


"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men,
they create for themselves,
in the course of time,
a legal system that authorizes it,
and a moral code that glorifies it.”
– Political economist Frederic Bastiat, The Law [1850]


I think in a world like Fallout this thinking takes precedence over traditional law. At least it would in my ideation of what living in a wasteland type setting would be like. If you have read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" there are many instances where they are forced to either take something from someone who meant to do them harm, or to take advantage of supplies that were previously owned by others that are now deceased. It is very interesting because there are conversations between the boy and his father about what constitutes stealing. Taking something useful from a deceased enemy wasnt one of them.

Yeah, but what about the stranger with the big iron on his hip? (...the big iron on his hiiiip)

What the hell!? No, seriously. We where specifically taught in school that Morals and Ethics ain't the same thing. Hell, our class was even called Morals and Ethics.

I'm gonna go with wikipedia on this one.
Morals: Sense of behavioural conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong)
Ethics: Addresses questions about morality — that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice, etc.

Stealing from someone who is lawless is still stealing. It's bad Karma, especially if you understand Karma. (which I don't think the people in here do) You're doing that person an injustice - it doesn't matter how much injustice they've done to you or others, you're still don't an injustice to them.

If you're truly a good person you will never take anything from another, you wil try to help everyone, in fact if you want to be VERY good you wouldn't actually own any possessions (besides the absoluely necessary ones like clothes).

By stealing from a criminal you're only making their life more difficult and forcing them to resort to stealing more. You're perpetrating a downard spiral.

Killing a criminal and then taking his stuff is the same thing. It's not right to steal from a criminal just because you murdered him.

Killing a criminal gives you good karma because you've ended the life of a harmful being.

And I know someone said my first statement was oversimplified but it's not. STEALING IS ALWAYS IMMORAL. Or I'd like to rephrase Stealing always causes bad karma to yourself.

So basically you're saying you're not evil, you're just misunderstood. :wink_smile:

But... you're just proving my point.

I think we all agree stealing is morally wrong.

Those who are questioning the karma system are asking why is it ok to loot a corpse, once you KILL that person. But looting their footlocker or whatever else they have around them is a dink on our karma. It's inconsistent. How are people not understanding this? O_o

Someone else posted about this earlier in the week, before I had a chance to play the game. I have since played, and didn't get any bad karma from stealing for dead enemies, or looting as it were. So I am wondering if it's a glitch with some players. I did get bad karma for taking an "item" from someones yard. So I know that part works correctly in my game.

Someone else posted about this earlier in the week, before I had a chance to play the game. I have since played, and didn't get any bad karma from stealing for dead enemies, or looting as it were. So I am wondering if it's a glitch with some players. I did get bad karma for taking an "item" from someones yard. So I know that part works correctly in my game.

It's kind of hard to call it stealing when you're scavenging and looting from dead people in a survival situation like Fallout. Killing somebody and taking their watch to hock for some money to go get high? Yeah that's stealing. Killing a gang of outlaw murdering bandits/raiders/slavers and looting their clubhouse or base of operations for essential supplies like water, ammo, and medicine that you need to survive in the wastes? If you call that stealing, I don't know what to tell you.

My main problem, as mentioned in another thread, is that the morals in the game are inconsistent. The karma impact for killing a person does not change based on your reputation with them, and that's fine. Killing a bad person will give you good karma, killing a neutral person has no karma impact, and killing a good person will negatively impact you. You always lose reputation with that group. That all makes sense. But when it comes to stealing, i.e. looting, there is only one label - EVIL. It would make sense to me to have a similar set of rules set up for stealing from people. In other words, stealing from a bad person, a la Robin Hood, should give you a karma boost, but make you lose reputation with the people you stole from. Eventually you would be vilified, and they would attack you on sight, so you wouldn't be able to milk it for endless good karma and loot without a fight. A large part of the game world revolves around possessions and resource management, so it would be nice to have a more nuanced system in place.

State run school?

________

It is unethical to say... accept a position as a judge in a competition where some contestants are in your close family. It is immoral to ask bribes and favors to buy your vote; but it is unethical because of the possibility that a family member's relationship might "buy/win" your vote.
Its a close thin line that I would say has some overlap at times.

**You could say that it is unethical to be put in a situation where its easy to be immoral. :shrug:

That's why I've never "got" RPGs. People just stealing all the time. I mean, if you steal from a thief, it's still stealing! I found that odd in Dragon Age - realising that I had to take a pendant from somebody's drawer, and thinking, "How rude! You can't just go around rooting through other people's stuff!"

It's just not on at all!

The problem with this arises when you get rewarded for killing "the bad guys" in this game. If you murder someone who has committed murder, isn't it still murder? Also, why is it okay to take their personal possessions - i.e. anything on their corpse, but it's a strike against you if you pick up the ashtray on the table near them?

The bottom line is that it's a system that needs to be more refined.

When I played Baldur's Gate, I would divide my party by alignment for thieving missions (thieves will be thieves).
I would not play it having the Paladin accompany the thief and defend them if they are caught.

In BG1&2 and others, I would not have the group run through every house looting what they could grab, but I might say... have the thief walk upstairs while the rest of the party was down in the tavern.

***That's a real problem I have with the recent RPG's... Party based games have a selection of personality types, resulting in a varied player experience. Unless you are playing a thief... you miss a lot in the single PC games where they assume you will rummage through everything, but your PC's persona prevents this. :shrug:
(It encourages single PC's to all be apathetic of other's rights and possessions.)

After reading all this, it seems that people who want to play really good players are most affected by this? I see this as a, albeit flawed, game mechanic meant to keep the looting in check should you want to maintain good karma in the game. Regardless of who you killed first or what not, should you run into items to steal, 'good' characters need to be a little more choosy in their selection of stolen loot. Basically what would have fixed this issue was if items could be changed from 'red' to regular status depending on the actions of the player. Sounds complicated, due to the amount of items with marginal gameplay pay off? I am playing a generally good character and when I'm running into items I can steal from dead enemies or enemy factions, I don't clean the place out and only take what I think I absolutely need.

Not really. Oh, Lords, I svck at explaining this. It's high school all over again.



Yeah. Private schools here are for elitists and rich families.

Don't forget that Karma is a [censored].

So 'looting' from a dead body is ok but 'stealing' from his tent is not?

killing is killing, its an evil deed

Its broken IMO

Even funnier in Mass Effect 2; Shepard: "You there, looters. Stop your looting, it is wrong! Never mind that i already looted every house in the district..." :lmao:

Old jRPGs were even funnier, in the lauded Final Fantasy 7 for example you went trough peoples houses and took everything that wasn't part of the background graphics :lmao:

Are you trying to provide an ethics lesson for everyone, or are you discussing game mechanics? Because this thread is about game mechanics. Cool?

IN THE GAME you can shoot someone in the face, loot their lifeless corpse until it's baking in the Nevada sun in its underwear, and you get no karma hit.

IN THE GAME you can wander into a random hut and loot the place empty, and you get no karma hit.

IN THE GAME you can rob Doc blind, and you get no karma hit.

However, IN THE GAME you can kill a Powder Ganger and loot his corpse with no karma hit, and turn around and take his beer off the table behind him... and bam, karma hit.

We're talking about GAME mechanics, which clearly aren't making much sense. If "STEALING IS ALWAYS IMMORAL" why is there no karma hit when I rob Doc Mitchell? Why no karma hit when I loot the corpse I just killed? Why no karma hit if I rob random huts in the wastes? But if I swipe a hammer from a table in a faction owner's house, that's a karma hit....

I guess none of us understand karma as well as you, so explain why it's all good to rob Doc Mitchell, please.

Simple. Spoils of War



No owner.

Yeah. That Doc Mitchell son of a [censored] had it coming the moment he patched up your sorry corpse.

The solution to this is VERY simple... red items should be "owned" by an actor. When you kill that actor, remove him / his items from the faction. Make the karma penalty for killing someone to include looting him, since that goes without saying. Easy fix. You kill someone, that effects karma, then you pick up the now un-owned loot. If you steal owned stuff, you lose karma. If you wipe out a gang, you can then loot them.

Exactly right. There is a major inconsistency in the karma system that cannot be ignored. I noticed how off it was in the first 30 minutes of playing. Anyone else trying to debate morals and ethics in this thread are just laughable.