As long as you didn't get caught there was no karma hit.. although I always thought you should get a little from populated areas. Sure, you might not immediately get caught but they should eventually realize something is missing and sometimes figure out that it was you. I feel like that was the case in some game?.. I think it was Gothic.. If you returned to an area you stole from they'd say something about it, if you continued to steal then eventually they'd just attack on sight. Gothic 1-3 really had a fun thieving system and there was lots of stuff to steal in those games as well. I also really liked that they would go spare on you for stealing but wouldn't kill you. They'd just beat you down. (unless you kept getting caught then they'd eventually kill you.) Gothic had that cool combat system where you actually had to perform a death blow on people to kill them.. Otherwise, just getting their hp down to 0 simply left them unconscious for a bit. You could beat up people and then steal all their crap and leave them alive.

Regarding the newest Thief game, it's pretty bad. Given that "crime and punishment" consists of "if you're caught, you are attacked", there's really nothing to it. Plus, I HATED Dishono(u)red, but even I have the good sense to say that Dishono(u)red was considerably better than Thief.

Seriously, maybe this Gothic game people are talking about is worth checking out, but avoid the newest Thief game. It offers nothing but tedium.

Maybe the older Thief games were better. :/

If you could not sell back to the same owner it had an stolen tag, or at least an owner tag who was not you.

Stolen tags got introduced in Oblivion as the owner tag works on stacks so if you stole an stackable item the entire stack got marked stolen and it was no way of knowing if item was stolen or not.

I think they could drop the stolen tag on cheap stack able items. yes stealing them is still a crime, but if you stole some ammo or chem from an merchant and sold back he would not know.

Fallout should also get an crime result in fine for minor stuff in towns and petty stuff ignored if you are well liked, Skyrim did this well.

I agree at least with reputation, not much so stealing a few items should have no measurable impact, clearing out places totally should.

• http://www.gog.com/game/thief_gold
• http://www.gog.com/game/thief_2_the_metal_age
• http://www.gog.com/game/thief_3
• http://www.gog.com/game/gothic
• http://www.gog.com/game/gothic_2_gold_edition

Let's Plays might good for Gothic 1 & 2 first; to see an experienced player. They games have an eccentric interface.

________________

My own preference for karma/rep, is that witnessed crimes affect the reputation ~in addition to karma. But perhaps karma (and good standing with the witness) might affect whether the crime gets reported. For NPCs... not reporting a crime should still eat away at their perception of the PC, to a point where eventually they will not trust them, and will report them.

Part of the issue, I think, is that they based the whole "stolen or not" thing on factions. If a faction was designated as something other than "automatic badguy", their stuff gave a karma hit when you took it.

i.e, Raiders, Enclave, etc..... kill them, take their stuff

Powder Gangers, Roy Phillips & Co, those emo vampire dudes (any of whom might end up as enemies based on quest/dialogue/etc).... no, sorry. Kill them, and their stuff is marked as "owned".

Factions are more or less collectives so the items belong to the group as a whole. Even if you kill one, the group maintains possession.

Negative karma from stolen items has never been an issue for me, simply because historically, there have been so many ways to get positive karma to offset it.
Then there's the fact that you have to steal quite a bit for it to even affect karma.
This is the third or fourth thread ive posted this in, but...
-Karma shouldn't need witness, it's an omniscient cosmic construct. Reputation is something that should be witnessed.
-Karma should only be a luck modifier- it should have no bearing on peoples disposition towards you (unless we come across an NPC known to be highly superstitious).

Try not to spoil it for people who might like it... people like me, who are not so judging for every mechanic the game has and values overall experience... and I had a lot of fun with Thief. So, saying it is bad is not really fair. You could say you didnt like it because of the mechanics that bothered you. But that does not mean that other people might be okay with it. It sure had it flaws and was not near perfect... but it is a game and i had fun playing it.

I kind of find the logic funny in the thread, i did not steal this i just killed the guy who owned it so i am not a thief, that is right my friend you are a murderer but not a thief at least we cleared that up.

But yeah some of the baddies that you killed it marked you as stealing from them even the powder gang guys.

Some things need to be revamped if that sort of issue shows up, but that was also in NW so they might not even have this issue in game this time around since it is a Bethesda title.

I really hope they've improved the whole crime, reputation and disposition thing. There's so much potential with the way Bethesda games handle NPCs to have much more interesting possibilities.

For instance, it would be great to have a powerful and feared character who can walk into bar, punch someone in the face and take their drink while everyone just sits their muttering that you're an arsehole. Until they get sick of your behaviour and try to lynch you next time you stroll into town.

Or maybe you're caught stealing by someone who's a bit of a crim themselves and they demand a cut.

OK, my examples are probably not going to happen, but just general improvements to how NPCs react to you would be nice.

A more in depth system would be great. The old system could be abused to insane levels.

In preparation for Fallout 4 I've recently started playing through F3 and New Vegas again. Last night I walked in to Van Graffs and stole just about everything that wasn't nailed down and then walked out the door without incident.

That shouldn't even be remotely possible. Somehow I think a room full of guards, not to mention the storekeeper herself would notice if I walked out with their entire stockpile of weapons and ammo, especially as I was unarmed when I came in!. But seeing as I was hidden...so long and thanks for all the gunz I guess

I know, I know, I should stop gaming the system but sometimes I can't help myself, for some reason Fallout seems to turn me into a kleptomaniac.

I was thinking the same thing when I posted that further up.

Why not? (Seriously, it's the same thing; the exact same thing.)

That sounds great, but what are the chances we see it though? I'm not going to hold my breath.

Pretty sure I didn't spoil it, but I've been gaming for about 27 years, so I've played my fair share and I found Thief to be pretty bad tbh. I preordered it and got it on release solely on the reputation of previous Thief games and was very disappointed.

But, if it makes my post seem fairer, I'll gladly state that this is merely "my opinion" and not everyone will think or have the same experience as I did. I'm sure there were some people that enjoyed it.

I don't think there should be a karma hit from stealing - or really anything you can do a lot with relatively low consequences. Honestly, I'd prefer if karma was awarded solely through quest-related actions, or senseless murder.

As for the stolen tag, I guess I never bothered to steal enough in the Fallout games to know if stolen items are even marked as stolen or can be sold to their owners. I'd guess an ideal system is that there'd be no karma loss from stealing in general, and stolen items are marked as the property of a faction like Diamond City or the Brotherhood; so, you couldn't sell a stolen item to anyone of that faction, but others wouldn't know or care. Morrowind did something like this, but since items were never marked as owned it was impossible to know for sure if you could take something without everyone flying into a rage. And the way the crime system handled stolen items, and the general terribleness of stealth in Morrowind, made it a pretty lame experience.

*Blows whistle* "Roughing the Morrowind! 10 yd penalty. Repeat Third down".
Lol, seriously though, sure Morrowind had its flaws and is very dated now, but for its day it was quite an accomplishment. I played stealth characters all the time and I don't remember having too much trouble with it once I got the hang of it. I guess it just goes to show how people can have totally different experiences.

I'm not really concerned about the Karma issue with stealing so much as ownership of items ceasing when a person dies. Like in my above example in Skyrim, Anise is killed by skeletons, why is her stuff still marked as owned? She has no evident next of kin, finders keepers, right?

Hmmm

I think the possessions should still be marked as owned, and must be stolen - after all that house NPC X owns doesnt know they are dead, its still their stuff albeit they are dead.

That reminds me when I pickpocket someone in Skyrim while in perfect stealth, he somehow know I am the one who pickpocket him and send thugs after me, and those thugs somehow able to find me when I am invisible.

GOD KNOWS!

What about her sister? The one who sent her the letter. I did like Morrowind's system of ownership where you could sell things to anyone but if you tried to sell someone something you stole from them they would take it back. They could probably expand on that so that there are some things that are obviously someone elses, like some unique items that are expensive but everyone in town knows that it belongs to the magistrate so if you try and sell it there you could get the guards called on you depending on how law-abiding the shopkeep is, but other than the obvious items shopkeeps would buy anything that's not theirs or that they don't know is someone elses. It could also be that if two NPC's are friends and you try and sell something that belongs to a friend of the shopkeep that's somewhat generic but partly unique like "Belathor's Ring" or something like that they will notice but if they aren't friends with him then they won't know the difference so you'd have to be careful who you sell what to. It'd also be nice if they removed all the visible ownership tags and instead if was more intuitive like if it's in someone's house its gonna be theirs and for other things that might or might not be free for the taking you could pick it up and then have someone object and tell you to put it back and if you dont THEN they call the guards on you.

I see the problem here, however, it doesn't really change the fact that stealing stuff from people you murdered still isn't legal/good karma =)

True. But on the other hand, if I stumble across a scavenger camp where the owner was killed by raiders..... how is picking up that stuff (just lying around because it's owner met a bad end) different than picking up stuff in various other buildings (just lying around, etc, etc)?

(because the "ownership" system isn't that complex and just operates off simple rules, not AI-like judgement calls)

I agree. I was just thinking in terms of present day laws, where it would still be considered theft if you walked into someone's house, found them dead and then took their stuff. In the Wasteland that's conveniently considered "scavenging". It's a gray zone for sure, but in the perspective of the game it's definitely annoying, even if it's still bad mojo. Besides, they may have family that would like to claim their belongings.

I sure hope that if I die that everyone won't think they can just come sleep in my bed and lay claim to my property. I mean, I may have willed those things to friends and family.

Why would it be ok in a game?

Do you have time to make will before raider shot you?