Criminal PCs

[Pariah]

There are certain people who are "off limits" to me. I don't generally bother "builders" who are trying to create player clans or do something that takes time UNLESS they insert themselves into that PK world.

But there are other roles I feel are fair game and when they rolled out of chargen they "enabled" their pk flag.

Templars, nobles, gemmers or any witch of any type, pitchcloaks, muls, or raiders.

If you're playing one of those roles, you are fair game. If you have a complaint about being pkilled, then use the request tool. Otherwise, your opinion is no more valid than my own.

I play this game because it has blood in it. Permadeath. Stakes. Things that matter.

I don't want padded rails on everything. I GET pkilled about nine times as often as I DO pkill. Staff hasn't smacked me down for it, so I refuse to accept criticism from the typical GDB carebear crowd.

You people remind me why I stop posting here.

This is why certain people play and there is nothing wrong with it.

Some people just play to chop muthafuckas up with bone swords.

Miradus is what I call a murderhobo and I say that with all the respect in the world.  They are the perfect ones for your crimson raiders and antagonistic roles.

[Kavrick]

There are certain people who are "off limits" to me. I don't generally bother "builders" who are trying to create player clans or do something that takes time UNLESS they insert themselves into that PK world.

But there are other roles I feel are fair game and when they rolled out of chargen they "enabled" their pk flag.

Templars, nobles, gemmers or any witch of any type, pitchcloaks, muls, or raiders.

If you're playing one of those roles, you are fair game. If you have a complaint about being pkilled, then use the request tool. Otherwise, your opinion is no more valid than my own.

I play this game because it has blood in it. Permadeath. Stakes. Things that matter.

I don't want padded rails on everything. I GET pkilled about nine times as often as I DO pkill. Staff hasn't smacked me down for it, so I refuse to accept criticism from the typical GDB carebear crowd.

You people remind me why I stop posting here.

I just play this game for the roleplay enviroment, not to play a pvp pk-fest. I don't think any sort of PK should happen without rp leadup or motivations, that's my only point. This is an RPI MUD, roleplay should always come before mechanics.

[Miradus]

This is why certain people play and there is nothing wrong with it.

Some people just play to chop muthafuckas up with bone swords.

Miradus is what I call a murderhobo and I say that with all the respect in the world.  They are the perfect ones for your crimson raiders and antagonistic roles.

What's amusing about this is how little I actually kill people. I trap them, I scare them, occasionally I maim them. Once I trapped some in the sewer and made them answer riddles to earn back their torches. I ate some aide's tongue and forced him to Way for the rest of his career.

But I don't really kill that much. Mostly I try to create characters who exist to motivate people into moving the story along. The grand story, not any individual story. I don't know how many times I've seen where I was an antagonist to some fucker for awhile and then they finally catch and kill me. And then about two weeks later they store, I assume because they're bored now.

People are like, "Well why don't you limit your murder to NPC's?"

What rank hypocrisy that statement is. Why don't you sell just to vendor NPC? Why don't you go sit in an empty bar and talk to NPCs? Why don't you go into your apartment and mudsex with NPCs? (Well some of you might. I don't know. I have found weird shit in apartments.)

If you're in a clan right now, go look at the rumors post and you will see over the past few RL years postings of this or that terrible thing or person who has tormented the group and generated a ton of content. And most of them will have been me.

You're welcome.

[Ibzie]

If you're playing characters with the pure intention of hunting down PCs and to top it off realize that's a high risk endeavour, there's really no stakes for you. There are stakes for the people you're targeting, since they're putting effort into creating a narrative, on your end the only stake is loss of stats, which while annoying doesn't in any way compare to several ruined plotlines. Death is a reality in Armageddon, but I don't find the criticisms 'carebearish'. Death is and should be a reality with *good reasoning* and *proper storytelling*. Not just: 'I feel like backstabbing a noble, today.'

The duality of (criminal) man:

I try to value interaction a bit above code mechanics and while I agree that the first few days I just kind of held my head down and worked my way up to make sure I wasn't spotted too easily, after that it was mostly about trying to act as someone's eyes or reminding people that their pockets aren't always safe.

This is why certain players (me) are drawn to it. I find stalking and killing players to be vastly superior to killing chalton #893. I also happen to believe that the potential of death improves the overall game.

[Gunnerblaster]

I don't want padded rails on everything. I GET pkilled about nine times as often as I DO pkill. Staff hasn't smacked me down for it, so I refuse to accept criticism from the typical GDB carebear crowd.

You people remind me why I stop posting here.

You're taking this too personally, I think. My post, for example, was made as an in-general statement but it feels like you took that as a direct insult. If you haven't had any issues from Staff, in regards to how you play, then clearly you're putting in the necessary legwork to enrich the game and not just going around, senselessly killing people.

If you're going to take every post in this forum as a direct critique to you, then maybe you shouldn't be posting here.

[Miradus]

Don't worry yourself overly much about how I take things.

I'm too old to be gaslighted.

[Gunnerblaster]

There have been some pretty awesome contributions to the thread and I wanted to repost them because they're very valid and insightful into how the criminal code will react to things, such as petty theft. I think, in order to allow players interested in getting more involved in criminal activities, without having to learn via having PC's die to relatively silly mistakes, there should be a bit more coded clarity on how the crim code works.

Know an escape route is the best one.
Steal something, get caught, run off. Find your hidey hole (rinth, rooftops, others), and wait it out. Then try again. Yes, tedious. But so is waiting for your combat skills to raise.

1. Start out by trying to stay -off- the beaten path. There are NPCs (and PCs) who roam in all sorts of places, not just right in front of the bar, or at the most populated crossroads in the city.  Explore those places. Read the room descriptions (SO important). Look around in every available coded direction.  In other words, case the joint. Make a plan. Make another plan for failure. Then execute.

2. Don't spam-peek. Twice or thrice if you're sincerely trying to see what someone has worth stealing, sure. But if you're just trying to get your peek skill up, do it once. If you don't see anything then either you failed (at which you have likely moved up a smidge in skill and the timer won't let it budge again for awhile anyway), or your mark doesn't have anything you want to steal (in which case there's no point in peeking further).

3. Learn how to be more attentive toward others trying to steal near (or from) you.  You can learn - from a RP perspective - their techniques, methods, and what they did wrong when they fail.  What is happening when someone fails to see you reaching for his pocket? He is failing his perception skill check. You should probably learn a little more about what the intended victim experiences when he fails his perception checks. Increasing your own perception skills is always a good thing whether you're a victim or a thief.

4. Keep a couple hundred sids on you at all times so that in case you get caught - you have something to offer whoever caught you to "thank them for helping you be an upstanding citizen."

Steal very lightweight things. Particularly in inventory. That sword may look great but you likely won't succeed unless you're at master and have very high agility.

Don't steal from vendors. Ever. It's an auto-fail.

In Allanak, if there's not a guard npc in your room or an adjacent room, then crimcode won't be activated on a fail.

There's two fails for theft: 1. You didn't get the item but nobody noticed. 2. Everyone noticed and your ass is in trouble.

The Gaj, while attractive, is for high skill thieves. Not for learning. There's guards EVERYWHERE and no easy escape. And if one player sees you, the entire city will know you are a thief. This may not matter, but if it does ... be aware.

As for escaping ... always escape upwards. You shouldn't be working on STEAL until you've gotten very good at CLIMB. Even if soldiers jump you, FLEE UP is a thing. Don't steal anywhere that there's not open ground that's free of guards between up and an up exit to a rooftop.

If you got dinged you will see in stat that you are wanted ONLY in a zone where crimcode exists. If you run into the rinth or up to a rooftop you won't know when it wears off, but generally 90 minutes is the norm.

If soldiers nab you, you don't HAVE TO go to jail. They will drag you extremely slowly from wherever you were caught down to the jail. So long as you have stamina to burn, you can attempt to break free. Do this especially in rooms where there is an up exit nearby, or only one soldier. The soldier you break free from will have a delay when you break free giving you time to run. PLUS, he won't be wielding a weapon so even if you're slow you won't get whammied.

1) Vendors:. Either they can't be pickpocketed from, or the difficulty is so high it's not worth the effort.  So if relying on code only, don't try to steal from vendors. Unless you are so great you almost never fail and you want to fail in a controlled environment for training purposes.

2) Practicing theft by learning how to sneak stuff off the ground does provide a certain level of skill.  Consider doing that first before switching to life targets.

3)Only because the person who saw you was an NPC, does not mean you should disregard them. Don't just go to a different room and continue stealing, react to getting spotted the same way you would if it was a PC.

4)Don't look like a thief.  If you are decked out in city sneaking gear, don't be upset when anything and everything missing gets blamed on you. If you show yourself in public, you best be known for other source of income. Even if it means you bought those Obsidian shards and gems you just sold to a PC merchant in the view of the tavern gossips.

5)Theft is very powerful, but in itself is a net zero mechanic. Please use the skills creatively instead of destructively. If the total sum of your existence equals to the fact that nobody in the entire city can keep hold of a mount ticket, or a trinket in their apartment, and nothing else, then you are doing it wrong.


5)Fun and Content often plays a role in the effort other people go to find you out. If you are a 3 dimensional persona that steals sometimes that is interesting and engaging to play with, people will go out of their way to hire you, pay you off, or just ignore your antics.   

Principles of playing a successful, long-lived pickpocket:

1. Max your stealth skills before you even attempt to steal anything.

2. Stay away from people who can detect you.

3. Have a plausible cover story for how you make a living.

4. If the cops show up, leave. This is not modern Western civilization where you must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

5. Give up on pickpocketing, join a clan, and only play your subclass.

Most successful criminals, both in real life and in-game, are actually deeply connected with establishment figures who benefit from having people at their beck and call who can get their hands dirty with plausible deniability. This is a good thing to keep in mind if you want to keep your criminal PC alive for longer.