Roleplaying against thieves

[Hymwen]

Double

[mansa]

Hymwen, I highly suggest to use hemote when doing thieving things.  It solves a lot of problems.

If their skill is good enough to see you bump into them, then they should know you bumped into them.  If they didn't see you bump into them, then they shouldn't know you did.. .  Because you're so sneaky they thought it was an everyday bump.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Let me reiterate what others are saying.  Pickpockets have always gotten the short end of the code stick.  Their ability to steal something remotely meaningful is nonexistent.  Anyone who wants to make themselves 100% thief-proof can, easily.

When you hear complaints on the GDB, you're hearing the voices of irredeemable whiners who can't emotionally accept something bad happening to their characters and are convinced that anyone who stole from them must be a twink.  Their small brains futilely try to justify their convictions and they then decide that their attackers lack of emotes makes him or her a bad role-player.  When a thief does emote, these same people will decide that it wasn't realistic for that theft to have taken place in that matter for whatever reason (How could he steal my sword?  It was underneath my cloak!).  They will then proceed to use every OOC method available to track down that thief and make their character unplayable.

Needless to say you aren't doing yourself any favors by listening to that self-serving garbage.  Use only thinks and hemotes when you're attempting a steal.

Furthermore, don't steal from the playerbase until your skills are high enough.  Some people will call this metagaming or using OOC knowledge but I quite frankly don't give a shit.  With maybe 20 PCs in any given city and hundreds of thousands of NPCs, any theft attempt against a PC is a statistical anomaly.  Of course, PCs are usually the richest targets, so when your character is confident enough in her abilities (no longer failing at steal and peak), it only makes sense for her to start going after bigger prizes.

I hope this helps.

[Folker]

Actually, I dislike the idea of stealing coins from a person who draws them from their pack in order to buy something. It's just the idea is kind of odd. How can my character literally steal something without being noticed, when those coins were JUST taken out of a pack, and therefore are supposedly still held in their hands. Short of grabbing it, wrangling itout of their hands, and taking off, I cant imagine doing it.

But overral, yeah, I agree pick-pockets is an extremely complicated class. First of all, their main 'skill' is also used by every single other guild from assassins/burglers, to a good third of subguilds, to a varying degree of proeffeciency. And second of all the lack of other skills make them actually pretty reliant on the actual characteristics of the thief then his class skills. Which is actually quiet a rush sometimes, but 'is' a challenge compared to other classes.

[InsertCleverNameHere]

Notes:
  Avoid using this command for emotes that would physically interact with
objects or characters.  They will not get a message if they don't notice it.

Yeah, you 'could' use hemote to brush past people.. But the help seems to suggest you shouldn't, because it should not be something that interacts. And, bumping is an interactive gesture.

RL, you may not notice getting brushed past or walked near, true. However, for the less delicate grab where someone physically jostles you, bumps, or nudges, you're likely to realize your personal bubble has just been violated. You may not get a good look at "the cranky old granny" in the grocery store who just rammed you with her cart and kept going (bitch), but you're very aware you were "interacted with".

If you notice a person standing around.. maybe they're really just standing around. Consider how many NPC/VNPC people are also standing around. Go to your local dance club (or honkytonk/biker bar, whatever's the most popular) on a Saturday about 11pm. And look for 'The lean, black-haired dude' or 'the skankily dressed ho'. You get the idea. There's so many people you couldn't possibly get a look at them all (unless you live in hickville, population 30). So you saw somebody whose profession wasn't clearly defined standing around there? And.. somebody stole something from somebody, at sometime, which you heard from somebody else? Get real. And now, you're telling everybody who'll listen, including people you aren't well acquainted with, and they're telling people, and somebody just told me.. and you expect me to do the same? Yeah. No.

Not to mention, we are no a huggy hand holding city (weird tribes do not count *grin*), what do I care if Amos Miner got his skinning knife stolen, unless Amos Miner is a personal, close friend. How do I know he didn't lose it? And again, why should I care? Unless the thief is stealing from a person of "high influence", what's the big deal, it's not personal. The hero architype isn't supposed to be a dominant one on Arm, afaik, and if you're running around trying to save all the good citizens from papercuts.. You're weird.  

[Maso]

Personally, I think the best way to interact with people, if it is what you want, as a thief is to do it while hidden and disguised. That way you can bump someone, or brush against them and instantly fade back into the 'crowd'.

I have seen this done, and personally it seems the most entertaining way for me, this is...if you want to emote while thieving and don't want to instantly get named a thief.

[Folker]

considering thieves dont even begin with hide skill, that's not all that easy a feat to do, Maso.

[Maso]

Well they can hold out till they get better. Or they can emote their little hearts out and get caught. If my char was sat in whatever tavern and someone emoted bumping into me, I would check my inv. and if there was something missing I would question them.

I don't know where all of you guys are from, but I grew up in London, and having grown up in a city that is thriving with pickpockets and totally over-populated...I always check my stuff if someone comes near me, no matter how busy it is. If I'm forced into close quarters with people...I keep my hands *on* my valuables. So I take this experience and think...if I had grown up in Allanak, another city thriving with pickpockets, thiefs and general scum, I would pretty much be the same. I would be suspicious all the time.

[Hymwen]

One of the problems is that there's usually only one or two PC pickpockets around at any given time, so most people will automatically suspect the one PC out of thousands of vNPCs, even if said PC was never actually caught. And once they know there's one PC thief around and fairly certain it's the only active one, any theft gets blamed on that one person. Doesn't matter that they're never seen stealing.

[Apocalyptic_Cow]

Why emote the bump, Hymwen?

In the past, I've found the best thing to do is to emote things that get you close to people, but are casual. If someone is sitting at the bar, emote walking along the bar towards a seat (yoink!). If someone is standing at the door, emote pausing by the door and giving the room a last look over your shoulder (yoink!). Then, use hemote or a think to indicate your hand slipping out, or whatever else you're actually doing.

However, my favorite steal has to be:

steal (whatever) victim
Got it!
emote suddenly bursts out the the crowds, snatching %sucker (whatever), then whirling and hurrying down the road!

The chase is on! :shock:

The problem is keeping a thieving character unknown as a thieving character, but sometimes its fun to play a character people know is likely to lift their coins.

[spawnloser]

'semote' is another command to look into.

[Hymwen]

It's not necessarily a bump, that was just an example emote. I've tried many different things, almost always with the same result. I've decided to stop attempting any kind of interaction while playing a thief "on the job". Sorry to those who play responsibly, I'd love to give you some interesting RP in trade for your goodies, but it's proven hopeless again and again.

[Folker]

Truth be said, the time of lone pickpockets sort of passed since the watch command got introduced. Now pickpockets are ment to work in teams and 'that' ends up pretty good. Where one's a known thief and the other isnt. This way, one thief keeps getting caught and checked, and the other one actually does the stealing. One's a regular, the other's specifically suspicious. This allows the emoting to be present, and circumvents all the poor responses since they all end up directed at the bait.

[Jherlen]

I would think hemote and semote were put in in part to allow thieves more freedom to emote during thefts. I don't see anything wrote with 'hemote brushes past ~man', myself, because sometimes people can brush by you and you won't really even notice.

But yeah, to echo what many other people have said, coming out to the playerbase as a thief is just as bad as coming out as an ungemmed mage or a mindbender... people will just never treat you the same. The best played thieves are ones absolutely nobody will suspect.

[Rindan]

It's not necessarily a bump, that was just an example emote. I've tried many different things, almost always with the same result. I've decided to stop attempting any kind of interaction while playing a thief "on the job". Sorry to those who play responsibly, I'd love to give you some interesting RP in trade for your goodies, but it's proven hopeless again and again.

Seriously, don't bother with this or feel bad.  RP to your hearts content.  Put on public displays of RP showing the depth of your character when NOT robbing people.  Hell, merrily RP away while robbing people so long as it doesn't hint OOCly that you are a thief.

"emote bumps into ~dude" does not 'give' anyone anything.  Sure, they OOCly know who you stoled from them.  Great.  That is like a Templar OOCing you right before he kills you that "OOC BTW, it was Amos that sold you out.  Doesn't that suck?"  It just isn't needed, and a lot of time flat out isn't even welcome.  For me personally, I don't even want to know that you just stole from me.  I don't want you to emote at me unless you are trying to broadcast to my character that your movements are so blatant and suspicious that I should take notice.  

If you don't want someone to respond to something, simply don't tell them.  You don't OOC to people that you are a hidden Tuluki magiker, even though technically they should ignore such OOCing, because you don't want to create a conflict of interest.  Think of thieving as the same sort of thing.  Don't create conflicts of interest where a player knows that you are the thief but you expect him to ignore this tidbit.  It doesn't enhance the RP of the world.  If anything, it wrecks immersion for the player who would prefer to be as ignorant as his character.  The only thing that can happen is people either being pissed off that you are broadcasting OOC information they don't want to know, or you pissed off because they decided their character noticed your bump and got suspicious.

There is a hell of a lot  more to thief RP then the occasional steal.  Quietly think and hemote your way through stealing and ignore the whining on the GDB.  If you steal a warriors sword and he comes on bitching the next day because there is NOWAY anyone could have stole his two cord long sword, just ignore it.  That whiny bastard thinks it is impossible to steal anything bigger then a coin but doesn't bitch when he takes on a mutli-ton insect and wins or locks down every object on his body with a backpack of d00m.  Screw the whining on the GDB and just play the game for a way that is fun for you.  

Pick pockets have been given the shaft.  You don't owe anyone anything.  The only person  you need to prove you are playing realistically to are the imms, who can see your hemotes and thinks just fine.

[jhunter]

Don't create conflicts of interest where a player knows that you are the thief but you expect him to ignore this tidbit. It doesn't enhance the RP of the world. If anything, it wrecks immersion for the player who would prefer to be as ignorant as his character. The only thing that can happen is people either being pissed off that you are broadcasting OOC information they don't want to know, or you pissed off because they decided their character noticed your bump and got suspicious.

I just wanted to quote this again since it states exactly how I feel on the matter. It is so very true.

[Hymwen]

Again, the proverbial bump is just an example. What I meant was that I like to emote what my character actually does - if the way I stole your dagger was to reach across the bar for a mug while pinching the item with the other hand, I would emote the reaching across the bar part. Things like that. My personal (possibly incorrect) opinion is that you should emote as much as possible as long as it doesn't come at the expense of other important things, and it doesn't feel right to me if the way my character steals something should have an emote connected to it yet I can't do it because that means people will OOCly know I stole something, and act ICly on it. Of course I can't dictate what another player's character will and will not notice, but sometimes it's really obvious; another somewhat related example is when you're hiding and someone with an active scan looks at you, and someone else instantly does "stand;scan;sit bar". What I wanted to explain are OOC-motivated IC actions that your character realistically probably shouldn't be doing, and thus forcing others to, IMO, not roleplay optimally. I guess I'm asking for the impossible, and I've learned not to trust anyone, not because everyone's bad but because a lot of them are and it's not worth the risk to try and be fair to the minority of reasonable players.

I'm not trying to tell you OOCly that my character is a thief, I'm simply emoting what my character does, but since that often includes things that noone normally bothers emoting, I guess it turns out that way.

[Tisiphone]

Hymwen.

I understand and sympathize with your dilemma.

This is why I have only ever played a thief-class character once.

That is all.

[Rindan]

Again, the proverbial bump is just an example. What I meant was that I like to emote what my character actually does - if the way I stole your dagger was to reach across the bar for a mug while pinching the item with the other hand, I would emote the reaching across the bar part. Things like that.

I understand what you are angling at, and I think that it is a tricky balance to maintain.  My pick pockets have really never had any issues with people catching on.  Maybe it was just luck, but I have found the following things work for me to still emote, but not to throw an OOC I AM A THIEF over my head.

1)  Always be an active emoter.  If the only time you emote small gestures or describe how you move across the tavern is when you are stealing, you might as well just drop a sign over your head.  If you are a person who is constantly describing what you are doing, especially when you are NOT stealing, you are far more likely to have your countless small gestures go unnoticed.

2)  Never mention your target in the emote.  If the way you are going to steal from a guy sitting at a table in the middle of the tavern is to steal from him as you walk by and flitch something from his pocket, don't mention that you walk past him.  Emote that you walk across the tavern, pushing your way past patrons.  Don't single out people unless you want them to notice your actions and get suspicious.

3)  Either steal very rarely from the tavern you spend your time in, or don't spend time in that tavern.  If stuff starts to vanish whenever you are in the tavern, people are going to put two and two together pretty quickly.  Either be a bar fly who only steals when the target is very juicy once on a blue moon, or spend your time somewhere else... preferable in an entirely different zone (like the 'rinth).

4)  Deny, deny, deny, deny.  Unless they catch you red handed, deny.  Even if they catch you red handed, deny.  It won't convince everyone, but if you do it right, it will convince a lot of people.

5)  Make liberal use of the 'rinth or pay off Templars.  If you are not doing one of these two, you are asking for trouble.  You can't spend all of your time in Allanak proper (and I assume Tuluk) without paying off someone and not get fucked by a Templar or soldier.  Either spend most of your time in the 'rinth, or pay off soldiers and Templars BEFORE you get caught committing a crime.  If a Borsail aid comes to a Templar you have not paid off and complains that you are a thief, you are dead.  If a Borsail aid comes to a Templar that has been paid off that you are a thief, he is going to tell the aid to stop wasting his time with such petty crap.  

You WILL get caught or at least suspected at some point.  If you don't have a job but are a regular fixture someplace, you will eventually attract attention.  Be prepared.  Either make use of the 'rinth, or pay off the law.

In general though, error in favor of yourself.  You only need to get caught once to get fucked.  Screw worrying if your mark feels satisfied about how he was stolen from.  Do what you can such that you are satisfied and don't worry beyond that.

[Fathi]

Notes:
  Avoid using this command for emotes that would physically interact with
objects or characters.  They will not get a message if they don't notice it.

Yeah, you 'could' use hemote to brush past people.. But the help seems to suggest you shouldn't, because it should not be something that interacts. And, bumping is an interactive gesture.

RL, you may not notice getting brushed past or walked near, true. However, for the less delicate grab where someone physically jostles you, bumps, or nudges, you're likely to realize your personal bubble has just been violated. You may not get a good look at "the cranky old granny" in the grocery store who just rammed you with her cart and kept going (bitch), but you're very aware you were "interacted with".

If you notice a person standing around.. maybe they're really just standing around. Consider how many NPC/VNPC people are also standing around. Go to your local dance club (or honkytonk/biker bar, whatever's the most popular) on a Saturday about 11pm. And look for 'The lean, black-haired dude' or 'the skankily dressed ho'. You get the idea. There's so many people you couldn't possibly get a look at them all (unless you live in hickville, population 30). So you saw somebody whose profession wasn't clearly defined standing around there? And.. somebody stole something from somebody, at sometime, which you heard from somebody else? Get real. And now, you're telling everybody who'll listen, including people you aren't well acquainted with, and they're telling people, and somebody just told me.. and you expect me to do the same? Yeah. No.

Not to mention, we are no a huggy hand holding city (weird tribes do not count *grin*), what do I care if Amos Miner got his skinning knife stolen, unless Amos Miner is a personal, close friend. How do I know he didn't lose it? And again, why should I care? Unless the thief is stealing from a person of "high influence", what's the big deal, it's not personal. The hero architype isn't supposed to be a dominant one on Arm, afaik, and if you're running around trying to save all the good citizens from papercuts.. You're weird.  

Well, regarding the hero archetype, I totally agree with you. In fact, I agree with most of the post. What I'd like to emphasise, though, is this:

If Miner A is stolen from and knows who it was and tells Miner B, and Mercenary or Aide or what-have-you overhears and decides to start spreading the news to all the good tavern citizens, I can almost guarantee that it's not for selfless reasons.

For example, if your character hears that 1 or 2 of the PCs in the crowded bar have been known to be the thieving types and they're negotiating a deal with some merchant, informing the merchant to watch their shit because soandso is a nasty evil thief could be advantageous for them.

Or? The person doing the spreading of information could just love the idea of watching the thief be antagonised because they're a sadistic bastard. Miner A isn't telling Miner B about getting robbed because he cares about Miner B's well-being, he just wants to see the jerk who stole from him squirm. And sure, in some cases if players aren't able to separate IC and OOC, their character's actions could be fueled by OOC anger, but if Miner knows what was stolen from him and knows who stole it then he'd be angry IC, too.

Looking back on my time playing, one of the best scenes I remember witnessing was an utterly masterful theft. The thief made liberal use of hemote interspersed with her regular emotes, so that when she emoted walking through the tavern, she hemoted paying a bit of attention to a particular table. I caught the hemotes, the mark didn't, and he got his crap taken. He then proceeded to accuse an NPC of it. Hilariously.

If a character accuses your character of being a thief, you don't necessarily know the accusor's motivations. He could just be trying to spread nasty rumours about you in public because you pissed him off, he could be being PAID to spread rumours about you in public, you could actually be a thief and he could actually know, or he could just be paranoid. Playing a character thinking they've been stolen from when nothing has actually been stolen isn't unheard of.

[InsertCleverNameHere]

**Lots of stuff**... You're weird.  

***Lots MORE stuff***

True enough, it could be any one of those, a combo, or variation on possibilities. Though my post wasn't just supposed to be about the person who is spreading the rumor for whatever reason. It's the sudden widespread panic of everyone involved because.. *gasp*... there might be a petty thief in their midst? Unless they have A) A personal vendetta, B) A personal bond with Amos Miner, C) Many valuables that can be easily stolen... they probably shouldn't care that Barny Saltsifter says that Cassie Stickyfingers lifted Amos's favorite carru leather sunslit case. And now the rumor's moving to David Swordsell and Edd Merchant.. and people expect them to actually care.

Really. How valuable is that junk? "30 sids is the difference between life and death" but.. when's the last time some level-headed person you knew RL (or you did it yourself) has forgotten something important in public? A wallet, a purse, an ID... $90 sunglasses? Just because your items have value, doesn't mean you are going to cling to them in a life or death fashion. Then instantly assume when it's gone missing, *dramatic tone* That they have been the victim of a cruel and vicious crime! *end drama*. Anyway, yeah. S'my take on it... I had 4 hours of sleep, I hope it doesn't show.

[path]

I agree with Hymwen.

[jmordetsky]

Hemote.

Semote.

[Hymwen]

Hemote.

Semote.

...should only be used for their purposes, not just because you don't want the target to see what you're doing. As an example, ever see a pickpocket stealing a watch off some guy's wrist while shaking his hand on a TV show? You shouldn't be using hemote for that. The apparently unsolvable dilemma here is that people don't want to know OOCly that they've been stolen from, which means thieves can't emote how they steal stuff. In return, others complain that thieves don't emote when stealing, and other others respond with poor victim roleplay. I've found a new favorite guild though, where I don't feel restricted because of what other people do or don't want to know OOCly, or where my character's life doesn't depend on how responsibly people react to the game environment. Plus I can travel in sandstorms, it's neat.

[Morfeus]

Hemote.

Semote.

...should only be used for their purposes, not just because you don't want the target to see what you're doing. As an example, ever see a pickpocket stealing a watch off some guy's wrist while shaking his hand on a TV show?

I might be mistaken, of course, but I always thought this would be a good case to use hemote. How many times did you notice the pickpocket stealing a watch? Perhaps we don't have the "right kind" of TV shows here, but I never noticed it. If it is something what would most of people unnotice, I would not emote it at all and just do it code-wise or I would use hemote. But as I said, I might be mistaken.