Nen's Thief Bible - Do we need a "Victim RP Guide?"

[Kronus]

Out of all the times I've been stolen from, I can't say I've ever had any interaction. Typically, the thief has just hidden, grabbed what they could, and left without my knowing they were even there. Bravo for them, that's what a good thief should be able to do, but from a roleplay aspect it's just lame.
The one time I can think of where the thief did interact with me, I'd already felt some hands in my pockets a few times, and then this person posed bumping into me on the way out of the room. Again, I felt hands in my pockets, so when I went to pose grabbing for their wrist, they fired off one last (successful) thieving attempt and left the room without another emote. I only discovered later that they'd made off with my favorite weapon on that last grab.

I wish I was the exception, but I think most people's experiences with most PC thieves on Arm are negative, not positive. The thief-twink is probably the worst one there is, because you can't really protect yourself from it the way you can from pk-twinks.
I would love to see more good thieves. The ones who buy you a drink, sit down and talk to you for an hour, and during that time happen to steal one thing from you that you won't notice until days later. That would be cool. That would be fun.
Instead, all I ever encounter are people who try to grab everything they can get to the exclusion of all else, then run when they mess up but the code hasn't made them wanted. Sure, these people don't seem to last too long, but they can be exceptionally irritating in the meanwhile. You can't even subdue them, because then you get hauled off to jail.

[Kronus]

After re-reading my post, I realized something. I probably have encountered the 'good thief' I mentioned  before, and they've probably done exactly what I described to me, and then I've gone to later attribute the missing item to some imaginary thief-twink.
So, like Krrx was saying in another thread that people don't even notice when the Imms help them, it probably goes that people don't even notice that the good thieves are even thieves.

I'd like to give a little round of applause to the good thieves, whoever you are. You do a fine job.

Yeah, I have seen a few thieves do exactly what was described, as pretty much a good thief should. I only found out about it because it was gloated to me later, which is pretty cool. But then again I've been the victim of some crappy thieveries. Well, can't say they were too crappy, just scant on the emotes.

[A non-thief thief]

Thieves come in all shapes and sizes. My character recently stole a backpack from someone sleeping. He's didn't have the steal skill, but I didn't see why he couldn't do it, given that situation. Now, I can understand how thieves don't want to emote in fear their target will wake up, so just do what I do: steal first.

The guy was wearing the backpack. I took out a knife, wielded it, and stole the backpack. I then emoted that I slashed the straps and yanked it off, then turned and ran away.

I like to try and make victims of my theft get reasonable explanations on how I did it. I'm not a pickpocket or whatever in real life, but I've heard of a few of those tricks (i.e. how people will slash your backpack open in real life and steal things from it). My best advice to thieves is to steal, then do your emote and get out of there. There ARE PCs who'll suddenly 'wake up' when you creep near them. This way, you're saving yourself the trouble.

[Anonymous]

I like to try and make victims of my theft get reasonable explanations on how I did it. I'm not a pickpocket or whatever in real life, but I've heard of a few of those tricks (i.e. how people will slash your backpack open in real life and steal things from it). My best advice to thieves is to steal, then do your emote and get out of there. There ARE PCs who'll suddenly 'wake up' when you creep near them. This way, you're saving yourself the trouble.

Yes there are. But that's their problem. They're the lousy rper. I like to emote as much as I can when stealing. If I get caught, I get caught. I'll rp that out too.

I had a pc once, who stole from someone passed out from the way. Emoted the whole thing. They were out for atleast a rl half hour. Somehow, they -knew- it was my pc. I enjoyed blinking innocently and saying, "I'm so sorry that happened to to. I don't know anything about it." Even more, I enjoy smugly looking at their pc everytime they show up on my screen and thinking, "Ha! I'm better than you."

Good RP is it's own reward. If they wake up, they do. More rp opps.

[Sweet Little Tuluki Thief]

Personally, it always irked me as a thief that NPC targets were so few.  The places where I wanted to steal form people were not the places I could steal from people.  If you are a human thief in Allanak, who would you target?  I personally would go for the poor in the commons and shoppers in the bazaar.  To be mores specific, I would target elves very heavily.  If you get caught stealing from an elf, it isn't that hard to talk a templar into ignoring it.  The problem is that it doesn't take long for one person to clear out the commons in Allanak of things to steal.  Further, the rest of the city lacks anything to steal.  The bazaar in particular has very little to steal.  Most NPCs are bolted down tighter then a PC with a dozen closable containers.  The only thing left are PCs which tend to hang out in places where a thief would be antsy about being.  Caravan way generally has a horde of guards along it.  If you fail a steal in the Gaj, your chances of getting some places to let things cool off are slim.  The problem is further exasperated by the fact that you can't sneak past guards no mater how skilled you are.

Things actually much worse in Tuluk.  There is literally nothing to steal from NPCs in Tuluk.  I have searched Tuluk high and low, and I have found a grand total of one dagger to steal.  Being a pick pocket in Tuluk is nearly impossible.  Your only remaining options if you want to live as a pick pocket is to either pray on people in the sanc, or pray on the occasional person who happens into the Tembo's Tooth or Firestorm.   Both of these options are down right crappy in my opinion.  No thief in his right mind would want to steal in the Sanc unless he is damned sure of himself.  The place is always teeming Templars and Nobles.  Theft in the Sanc is a good way to commit suicide.  Theft in other pubs is just as problematic.  In the other pubs the cliental are still often times fairly high in class, and worse, the PC population is very small.  The result is that if you get caught once you are marked in that pub forever.  It is just bad business to steal in such pubs to begin with, as I would assume that those are the places where your thief kicks up his heels after a hard days work.  You want to leave work behind you, not wander into a place where your last victim might show up.  Shitting on your own lawn is generally bad policy.

If there is one thing that could be done to give thieves a helping hand and cause them to be less inclined to target PCs in  the out of proportion abundance that they do, it would be to give NPCs more things to steal.  They don't have to be good things, just something.  Personally, I would be completely content if most NPCs had just 5 'sid on them or a loaf of bread.  Almost all people, PC or NPC should be a potential target.  As it stands, the number of NPCs that can be targets are very small (or in Tuluk's case, nearly zero).  Just throwing out small trinkets to all city NPCs would do a great deal to help the situation.  I don't need metal daggers or signet rings, but giving all NPCs at least something of less then 5 'sid value would be a blessing.

[Barzalene]

I disagree that thieves are targeting pc's in an out of wack proportion, at least not in the larger cities. While the pc thieves are stealing from pcs, I imagine the vnpc thieves are stealing from vnpcs.

[Eternal]

Even giving all the npc's a small item or two would only solve the problem until the first new thief came through, and cleared out the stealable items.  Then we'd see the same thing we see with hunter/crafters... a mad rush to the next set whenever the game crashes.  I'd rather see more pc's carrying their goods in a reasonable fashion.  Only new players tend to carry -anything- in non-closed, or inventory spaces.  Everyone else seems to have locked/closed containers, usually wearable.  While this makes sense, it is probably the single most deterrent to thief pc's, but then... the life of a thief should -never- be easy.

[Lazloth]

Maybe open up some <worn> spots as stealable, shrug.

[John]

Not too sure what you mean there Lazloth. Do you mean make it possible to steal from a backpack? IMO a thief SHOULD be able to open up closed containers that a N/PC is wearing. Although only once they've become extremely skilled.

Before I say anything, I want to make it clear I don't know how difficult it is atm to play  a successful thief, so what I say might not be suited for how things are atm.

I think playing a pickpocket should be EXTREMELY hard. I'm all for making thieves' lives difficult, but in a realistic and IC manner. In my other few posts I've said how victims should act, now I'm going to say why things should be hard for thieves.

In places like Rome (that's a well known thievin' spot right?) thieves' have perfected the act of stealing into an artform. So to a degree, they can live off pickpocketing only and live fairly well off (at least be able to get food from day to day). However an important thing to remember, is that the thieves' in these sort of places don't target people who live around there, but they target tourists who come from places where pick-pockets aren't as bad. The reason they target tourists is because everyone who lives there has had to adapt to the fact that it's a dangerous place to be. They keep their valuables in "safe spots", so it's generally impossible to steal from them. But the reason thieves are so successful is because of us silly tourists.

There aren't any tourists in Armageddon. This means that EVERYONE who lives in a city is use to the fact that there are thieves around so they make themselves become "thief proof". The only possible tourists are tribal folks who come to trade for items, but if they trade on a regular basis, they'll probably wisen up fairly quickly.

I imagine Zalanthas is like what England use to be back in the 17th century. Back then poverty was pretty high and law-breaking was extremely high, which is why they carted all their criminals to Australia. But thieves weren't living a comfortable life back then either. They were starving most days, and would steal anything, successfully stealing a loaf of bread would be a triumph.

I guess we're use to thieves from our society. Thieves nowadays who live in Australia, America, etc. Do have it easier then Zalanthans do, but that's for good reason. Thieves _aren't_ as common out here as they are in Greece, so people will put wallets in back-pockets. Whereas in Greece, money is generally only safe inside a pouch that's kept underneath your shirt around your neck. And even then it's not completely safe.

As for thieves cleaning out an area. Should this be happening? How many successfull steals an IC day should occur? IMO only one or two per day per thief. IMO the way for successful thieves to exist is not by stealing a lot, but by slowly increasing the value of items they do steal. I imagine an entire day can be spent thievin' and you only make one or two attempts, and the rest of the time is spent watching people and looking for targets.

IF the respawn rate for items IS really bad, then perhaps a script that respawns items in a NPCs inventory could be created so NPCs aren't only becoming restocked when they're killed or the Mud crashes. But I'd be wary of implementing something like that.

In real life, thieves often work in groups. I'm sure you've all heard of scams where a mother will throw a baby at someone so the person goes to catch the baby, and her children steal his bags, and she runs off (the baby being tied around her neck) or similar tactics. The problem is, in the game thieves are often forced to work by themselves for IC and OOC reasons. An example is the more people involved increases the chance of one of the people getting blamed, another example is often being logged in at the same time as your partner in crime isn't possible. This factor also helps to increasing the difficulty thieves' have.

Also such direct tactics as throwing a baby at someone will cause that PC to know you stole from them, and because there's a limited PC population, thieves can't just melt into the city like they do IRL. So perhaps victims might want to consider forgetting that someone tried to steal from you if you didn't get a good look at them. I'm not saying you should forget everytime, just maybe every once in a while.

[Anonymous]

Not too sure what you mean there Lazloth. Do you mean make it possible to steal from a backpack? IMO a thief SHOULD be able to open up closed containers that a N/PC is wearing. Although only once they've become extremely skilled.

I completely agree.  In real life people adept with sleight of hand and pick pocketing can pull of some amazing feats.

And really, which is more amazing, being able to dip your hand into a pack stuffed to the gills with items and clasped with a single tie, or slip a sword out from someone's belt?  (The latter being very possible in RL)

It should be a capability available only after you've progressed in the skill a great deal, like other skills allow you to do more things after you get better with them.

[Lazloth]

I wasn't exactly saying 'maybe they should allow thieves to open containers', but sure, I'm hip to that!

I meant, if some slots like <worn on finger> were steal-able, thieves would have more with which to harass N/PCs.

[Anonymous]

Well, I take it back.

Was it just last week I was saying how good people were getting with being victims? Well, I was dissapointed tonight. At a certain table, when I emoted when hidden there was the closing of packs, there was scanning and generally a rise in tension.

If I'm hidden you can't see me, so why would you be looking for me?

Booooooo. Shame on the lot of you.

[Anonymous]

That should be tavern, not table.

[Lazloth]

If I'm hidden you can't see me, so why would you be looking for me?

*cough* semote *cough*

[rnix]

Now just because you have no idea of the 'rinth doesn't mean there aren't tons of pcs living in or just passing through the 'rinth, It has the best characters there. The most emoting goes on there then i've ever seen, and you just don't know what to expect, You have to think in character to be able to live the 'rinth..

But the talk about it rots to have a 1000 coin sword stolen-- Yeah that's terrible, But the thing is only going to sell for 200 if its that good well unless it was a targeted item the theif has been following you all over town for... Just because you are behind a closed door, or locked door, Or you are on a balcony or rooftop doesn't mean there isn't someone right behind you watching and listening.... Now for hiding I dislike how its hard to emote in certain conditions especially in allanak you shoot an emote everyone OOCLY closes up there backpacks emotes on there swords and coins, Sudden jumps up and scans the room as a hole.... I mean Doesn't mean ya' gonna find the person but you all have beef with the theif now think about what is done, Especially when something is stolen,

Personally nobles take it the best when they have something stolen because they fully roleplay it out and **cheers** to those who i've had the pleasure to rp with.... Also rinthers' (that don't exist hehe) rp it out the best,!! not saying there aren't the average characters that have good rp with theives but not too many of them!

Drop me an email if you have other thoughts then I do....[/quote]