Towns killing you from stealing or hitting someone.

[Internalprimate]

Well think of it this way. You and your family live together. You make a decent living. Enough that through hard work. You your friends and family all have food and some idea of where a next meal and shelter is going to be. Everyone knows eachother in your community. And you cant remember the last time you went somewhere that you didn't know everones name. There are no police. Police are the products of establishments of a time gone by and this piece of dirt you inhabit is far from a metropolitan utopia. You and your co habitants in town fought of the wolves and dug the new well and even killed a raider or two trying to rustle livestock. Now when you get home you see a strange group of people in town. They call themselves rangers and they look badass. Their " face" makes trades in town and you've since you took up in the old warehouse you've had more room for the storage of the towns munitions and it seems you have just enough room to acomodate the traveling rangers provided they keep their hands to them selves. Well the night goes well aside from a few bumps thwtnmake you very uncomfortable. The next morning you get up and offer some mildly satisfying food stuffs. Some roasted corn tops off a can of dog food and the rangers excuse themselves to get ready to go explore some ruins nearby. As the pack up you notice that four or five magazines of ak97 munitions aren't in their place. You look around.being exact on the numbers is your pride as the watcher of the fire(s) you look into your books. You see there is a discrepancy of 6 Mag's. After a fruitless search you decide to finally ask the rangers. You politely inteript their business and ask" did and of you trap an magazines last night? . The " face" a charismatic womansquints her eyes as she looks at you " we are here as a signal of hope that we can restore some order. Do you really think we would steal you munitions in Lew of bartering for them". You ponder her questions and ask then if it would be a problem if you searched their bags " she timidly says that if you looked you would only find their magazines they brought with them. You politely say that she may be right. Hut if some one has stickey fingers then the magazines that were taken would have the towns logo. You tell her as you show her the logo on the magazine and receiver of your ak97. She hesit

[Internalprimate]

She hesitates and then says that this is ridiculous. She appreciates the kindness but the ranters are leaving tonight so you should just think that you lost the Mag's and shes sorry you blame the rangers for it. Now what do you? Seriously what are you gonna do. Take the blame or are you going to do what it takes to make the rangers show their cards. You think that they are going to want to he caught stealing? You don't think they should he punished? Oh yeah not event after one punches you in the face for asking one more time? And you think that everyone in town should do the same as you did and bitchch out whennyou see a ranger on the way out of town taking a familiar looking mag out of his picket and use it as a base to roll a cigarette on. The tobacco lichen you notice belongs to the locale merchant. But it doesn't matter it belongs to the rangers. You just rollbover because the world is already theirs you just occupy the space they currently don't need.



Sorry for double post. Kindle fire sucks

[Woolfe]

If I were him, I'd say fair enough, then quietly indicate to the other townspeople that we got trouble a brewin. Then just before the rangers leave I walk over and ask one more time to see there bags. When they refuse I point to the various townspeople in various defensive positions with long arms and pistols.
I also pull out the dud grenade I have been saving for just such an occasion, and show them the removed pin.
I also point out that there are several people ready to run to the next township to warn them in case anything bad should happen here.
Finally I offer a peace offering, that we would be willing to avoid searching the Ranger's gear if the Ranger's are willing to pay the small fee for services. (which just happens to add up to the price of 6 magazines and a bunch of local tobacco)

Smiling all the time

[stonetoes]

Internalprimate, your scenario sounds like a good place for stat checks. Rangers can get away with stealing a few things if they have a high intimidate score, or charm, or a high body count, or a low enough karma, or whatever. People are going to keep their heads down. The more you steal, however, the harder those checks get, and the more chance there is of being run out of town. If you take a towns whole ammunition supply, or every water canteen in the store, they're going to get desperate, no matter how well armed you are. But chances are, unless you really back them into a corner, they're going to start with threats before risking violence.

[Vryheid]

I just think the idea of some old lady with a butter knife attacking my party of minigun toting desert rangers because I stole her toaster is ridiculous.

Some sort of crime/jail system seems like a good minimum.

[Internalprimate]

We'll an old lady with a butter knife is taking it a little far. Fallout 1 and 2 both had places where if you had to fight the whole town there were a few non- combatants. But the thinking in that statement says that people should fear you enough to let you take whatever you like. Well then I imagine that you would logically be considered a raider. Sounds like a similar game. Only raiders get put down like dogs while pc's get asked " please don't steal anymore. If you do then ill be forced to ask you not to steal again". I still think that if you get caught stealing then its your ass. If the shtf I'm not chastising anyone for stealing from me apart from seperating them from their mortal shell

[Woolfe]

I just think the idea of some old lady with a butter knife attacking my party of minigun toting desert rangers because I stole her toaster is ridiculous.

Some sort of crime/jail system seems like a good minimum.

No thats awesome... You now have a choice kill the old biddy, and suffer the consequences or don't kill her and suffer those consequences.

Maybe you shouldn't have nicked her toaster

[Internalprimate]

I agree. I think that the old lady deserves a good jab and maybe de-stbalizes your power armors reactors on accident. Shame on you for risking the mission over a toaster

[Wisteso]

Additionally you could have penalties like stats/experience degrading the longer you're in, guards stealing your stuff, having to pay bribes.

I suppose a decrease in Maxcon for a couple of ingame days could work (only getting a piece of bread and a glass of water each day oughta drag the energy out of your body, need some time to recoperate(?)) but preferrably not The Elder Scrolls' way of "Oh you went to jail? Well, we'll reduce your speechcraft skill for that" cause I never thought that made any sense and it was mildy annoying having to level up the skills you lost.

Though guards stealing stuff would be great, take 1/3 of all money and ammo the character has on him.
And if you call the guards out on it they might become... Defensive...

Paying bribes would be awesome, we definitely need more ways to spend money in RPG's so that we can try to avoid the whole 999.999 cash problem by the end of the game like usual in RPGs.

This won't fly. 95% of players will just reload a previous save.

If you want people to play out things like this, you have to give them incentive or reason to...

The draconian approach would be to disable reloading. A better approach might be to have jailed party members gain a useful perk as a result of their experience... such as "Big-house Paranoia" which increases perception. The cost is already there... you lose them for a time.

[Noble]

Are you kidding me? Everybody knows that the only possible reaction to somebody poking an eraser is shoving a bowie knife through someones gullet! this is sarcasm

[Internalprimate]

Yeah reloading is the general idea. Why make a game that caters to players who want to make a choice but don't far ranging consequences. Last time I checked the idea of serious consequeences was the best way to emulate a more realistic world in game. And saving before the actions that caused said consequences was wise on the players behalf. I mean is there any reason you feel like npcs should have a lack of rational self interest in this game? If the rangers are the watchmen then who watches the rangers? I haven't seen anyone in the wasteland misdemeanor argument propose exactly who this enigmatic imprisioning system is run by. Are private corporate prisons alive and well in the wasteland?

[Gabriel77Dan]

Additionally you could have penalties like stats/experience degrading the longer you're in, guards stealing your stuff, having to pay bribes.

I suppose a decrease in Maxcon for a couple of ingame days could work (only getting a piece of bread and a glass of water each day oughta drag the energy out of your body, need some time to recoperate(?)) but preferrably not The Elder Scrolls' way of "Oh you went to jail? Well, we'll reduce your speechcraft skill for that" cause I never thought that made any sense and it was mildy annoying having to level up the skills you lost.

Though guards stealing stuff would be great, take 1/3 of all money and ammo the character has on him.
And if you call the guards out on it they might become... Defensive...

Paying bribes would be awesome, we definitely need more ways to spend money in RPG's so that we can try to avoid the whole 999.999 cash problem by the end of the game like usual in RPGs.

This won't fly. 95% of players will just reload a previous save.

If you want people to play out things like this, you have to give them incentive or reason to...

The draconian approach would be to disable reloading. A better approach might be to have jailed party members gain a useful perk as a result of their experience... such as "Big-house Paranoia" which increases perception. The cost is already there... you lose them for a time.

If players don't want consequences in a game revolving around consequences by your actions then they are free to reload all they want to, I won't reload unless I'm goofing around or my entire party dies.
And they should not gain anything from jail, the player is being punished, not rewarded.

"But they are being punished because the NPC is taken out of the party for X amount of time".
Si, they are, but then they are rewarded, and whats to say people won't abuse this system to grind the jail-time rewards?
What if I don't want a reward for being in jail? I never liked perks being forced on me in Point Lookout, Old World Blues or Lonesome Road for Fallout.


[edit]
Just so that there is no misunderstanding: The decrease in MAXCON after starving in jail which is weakening the body is only temporary, say a week or so, then it goes back to normal. Any -stat or -skill from jailtime is temporary.