I think I remember hearing a while back these were supposed to be in Skyrim, and that the thief breaking into steal that dragon claw in Riverwood (that you could witness, apparently) was supposed to be something that could occur regularly and dynamically in the world.

Not sure whether accurate or not, but I'd love to see random crimes occur in the world, whether occasional drunken brawls or pickpockets. The problem I see is that is would just result in NPCs dying more frequently given the system of justice that exists in the wastes, as cool a novelty as it may be. I guess they could be randomly generated NPCs for those specific events and crimes, so when/if they are killed you're not missing out on anything.

You'd have the option to ignore, intervene, aid the criminal or alert guards (assuming any existed in that particular settlement), if the criminal survived they would disappear from the world upon leaving the cell.

Can we say "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!"?

Seriously though, I would like to see this as well. Kind of like in Red Dead Redemption where you could save the harlet from being knifed by the a hole, or not.

This is actually what Radiant AI was intended to do in Oblivion. The problem is, like you suggested, it can lead to anarchy. NPCs end up killing other NPCs and you have no control over the world. I don't think a lack of control is necessarily a bad thing, but BGS would have to implement it in a way where it doesn't lock away content and possibilities from the player.

That is a worry though, I posted a similar thread in the Elder Scrolls board a while back. In those games NPCs (with criminal tendencies and likelihood of committing crimes randomly actually programmed into their AI) could be peacefully arrested for their crimes and you could witness them in their cells for a short time, which would be [censored] awesome. In Fallout however it is more difficult as they're just going to get a bullet in their skull.

Yeah we need jails. Civilization should have advanced enough that petty criminals shouldn't be lynchmobbed for lifting a spoon.

I remember using a mod for Fallout 3 some years ago that added pickpockets....

Had to watch your gold as you walked by certain NPC's or else they would steal your caps and make a run for it.

That sounds awesome! Please tell me they cried "Heeheehee!!" as they ran away!

Don't really remember... think it was something like...

"Got your caps!"

Followed by the vault dweller replying...

"You just got capped!"

Pickpocket guy died... left the caps though

I wonder, if an item is labelled as 'owned', so the player taking it would be theft and result in karma loss/a bounty, does the game know which NPC owns it? It seems to me like this would be needed for NPC-on-NPC crime, at least theft.

Well if they used a system based off Skyrim (which to me seems likely), the game actually does recognize who owns what. Example: I stole the ingots beside Alvor's armor bench and later 3 thugs came to "teach me a lesson". Well needless to say the only lesson they taught was what their corpses looked like littering the ground. So while going through their possessions I found a "contract" telling them to make me pay, signed by Alvor.

Yes that does sound like the game knows who the original owner is, that's interesting, thanks.

Children stealing armed C-4.

Don't remind me of that kid in Freeside that could blow her little sister up with a satellite...

Lol sometimes this would happen when you stole stuff that was marked as being owned by little kids...I remember reading a note indicating Alvor's ten year old daughter called a hit on me

Oh she's gan'sta that one!