Oddly, your pouch seems suddenly heavier for a moment. Knowing the lands as you do, you doubt it was a donation.
You feel a faint tugging at your belt, and look down to find Blixxer pulling his hand out of your purse with some coins.
Blixxer just came out of hiding.
You say, "blixxer"
You say, "May i have my coin back?"
You hear the voice of Blixxer ask, "or what?"
You say, "or i go to the law".


needless to say he didn't return the coin and stole from me twice more

Just go accuse him. I caught him in my pockets (with only 50 perception and 20 stealing) so he can't be that good. He'll get taken care of eventually, and if he's stoopid enough to try it on the routes he'll get thugged till he gets the message.

Teefs are part and parcel of being a trader. Get used to it.

Besides, the worst part is the REAL teefs never get caught. So enjoy it when you can deal with a bad one.

---

What happens in Dirge, stays in Dirge.

---

>>Since (and i think this is conventional wisdom) I'm a gifted and superior thief, and even I get caught on the first pull in very rare instances, you should be satisfied that judging Blixxer's abilities the way you are may well result in some sound perforation.<<

Actually I've caught you in my pockets twice too ;)

I think I'm ok with Blixxor because my lil trader (circle 7) caught him too...which means he probably A) Isn't a teef and doesn't care about the penalties to successive rolls when continuing to steal after being caught or B) Knows and doesn't care.

I know about snake eyes, and the possibility of Uberteef getting caught..but again. "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it."

Traders and Teefs are two sides of the same coin... it just depends on who is currently holding the coin. You take from my pocket, you buy from my table or tip from my pouch sales. The teefs have an advantage till the trader hits mid circles, and then the profits outweigh the "tolls."

Except for rare ocasions when a gang infests the ferries or docks it's just part of the business.

---

What happens in Dirge, stays in Dirge.

---

they call it stealing we call it markup

::ducks::

I caught Blixxer stealing from me once....I killed him and he hasn't stolen from me since. I personally like the 'trouble makers' because they add some spice to the game. If I ever managed to have decent stealing, I'd probably try to have fun with it.

~Aerander

I've never had a problem with getting cleaned out by some thief and never knowing who did it.. It's an acceptable part of this game that the designers put into it from the very beginnings. But all this blatant in your face I'm takin yer stuff deal with it mess has got to stop. Can the Thieves Guild do something about its own that refuse to listen to what their leader tells them? Can (or even will) the Paladins seek justice at the end of a blade in the name of those less fortunates, as they should? There's a big missing rift there in the game..

The thieves guild has killed and dumped, warned, etc... blatant thieving in the past if it was putting too much attention upon thieves in general.

This applies to guilded and un-guilded thieves.

As far as the "in your face stuff", one way to handle that is if you're on a trade route and they are making it obvious that they're robbing you but you don't catch them is to do a report like below (though a GM here may say no it shouldn't happen)

report So and so is here robbing me on the NTR but I can't catch him/her and they are taunting me. I can't accuse them to the clerk to get a posse sent after them even though they stand here and admit to robbing me of all my hard-earned coin. Could someone perhaps allow me to accuse once I reach the outpost?

Something like that, though it would depend on if anyone was around and if they then observed the actions happening.

If there is no response, you can post here and ask where you should send an e-mail and if it's possible they'll watch out for that person or persons doing the same thing and perhaps a possee will be sent out to deal with them.

I am --- Navak

I've been incarcerated, so the late response can't be helped. Also, taking into account that I'm a recent ex-con, fear me, if you consider mocking, disagreeing with, or insulting my post.

Navak responds to a recent victim of crime by suggesting he report the following:

<report So and so is here robbing me on the NTR but I can't catch him/her and they are taunting me (translation: waaaaaaaaaaah!). I can't accuse them to the clerk to get a posse sent after them even though they stand here and admit to robbing me of all my hard-earned coin(translation: waaaaaaaaaaah!). Could someone perhaps allow me to accuse once I reach the outpost? (translation: can we please change game mechanics for me because i don't like getting my coin stolen?...and...waaaaaaaaaaah!)>>

I thought Navak and his friends are rightfully anti-report except in very very extreme situations because its a lame OOC solution to really common in-game roleplay situations? You seem to have a real hair-trigger there, Navak.

Highwaymen(women) never slipped their hands into the pockets of merchants safely perched in the seat of a wagon, cart, etc. They stopped the caravan, yanked the driver off the thing, tied them up at the point of some instrument of perforation, then took their coin. If they were nice, they'd spare the men, and leave the women unspoiled. So a little in your face RP,I think you should be able to live with.

To the whiner: you are a trader. You will be robbed. Suck it up. Don't take his advice and run to game designers to save you. That's why the money here is referred to as game money, not real money.

:oP Ragran

When i look at the sort of complaint this person was making I dichotomize to determine if 1. this a policy infraction or 2. is this a roleplay issue. Noone is breaking rules here, so in my estimation this is a roleplaying issue. And clearly, it is.

<<Being a thief to the point where you tell someone you're stealing from them should result in even worse penalties>>

This is a very narrow view. I suggest that your view is narrow because of your unwillingness or inability to either imagine what may go on in wilderness environments between the wealthy and the criminal element (vis-a-vis how it could be roleplayed out) or your unwillinglness to accept/entertain how other people roleplay - and as a result tell this guy to slam some report macro.

In real life, the vasssst majority of thieves aren't pickpockets or jewel thieves or grifters. The vast majority of thieves are people with enough gumption to walk up to you, punch you in the face, demand your wallet, punch you two more times, then either walk or run away.

Attempting to deny roleplayers the right to interpret thievery however they like (within policy) is such a waste of their time. Its disruptive to their RP.

And suggesting to a newb that they turn to reporting is just plain immoral. You are screwing them right from the get-go. It's hard enough trying to get the old players, that don't RP, to stop hitting report when things don't go their way is hard enough. We don't need another generation of players that come here to RP, then are immediately robbed of that fun because someone conditions them to report - instead of accepting that the world of RP is also a world with criminals.

:oP Ragran

We need a gamehost to play an NPC guard or constable that we can go and have a real conversation with. Someone gruff and strictly buisness, but fair. They need the ability to be able to issue warrants for various activities. And the ability to investigate the offense. (RP - talk to witnesses, check tracks, general sluething etc) This could solve the problem, or create a whole pot more of em.

Either way it's fun!

The ideal situation is for the justice system to eliminate the need for npc bot-guards, and put the power of policing the populace into the hands of the players. Gives a whole new meaning to "you only get in trouble if you get caught."

MM.. thunderclaps and roars in the city.

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as far as WARN COMBAT, yes that is one of his options, if he feels HIM fighting you is the right choice. I doubt most traders would want to resolve theft from fighting. (We're not exactly the strongest fighting guild).

[QUOTE]
But think RP! Who ever knows the name of the person that robs them.
[/QUOTE]

I don't think of the "accuse" to the guild as telling them the persons name, I think of it as describing the person. Same as you'd do in RL with cops if you were to have the same situation. "I keep loosing money from my pockets, and this guy keeps mocking me, claiming he's taking it. He looks to be about as strong as the Wrestler 'tripple-H' and here I am, just a geeky boy. He is 6' tall, about 300 pounds, etc. etc. etc." Yes, we refer to people by name in DR, but that doesn't mean we "know" their name, RP-wise.

The ideology is much stricter in plat for example, and if this happend in plat, I'd ask for the same sort of help that has been suggested here for PRIME.

Not to further complicate an already sticky issue, but the way that we're handling thieves lately has me shaking my head in disgust.

I was on the ferry to Crossings just now and a well-known thief boarded. He was well stocked with RP actions of intimidation and proceeded to search and point out persons that were in hiding. As soon as he pointed out someone in hiding he issued a nifty, and rather fun, series of ACTs and demanded some cash. (Much classier than point and steal at any rate).

At this point, the victim instantly logged off. This repeated as he went around the ferry until he got to me. I know at least one of these people logging was a trader as he left his caravan sitting there on the ferry.

I mean, yeah, it sucks, but... aren't we here for RP? Yeah, I've lost fortunes over the years to thieves, but then again, I've also roleplayed my way out of many, many encounters, and now I'm able to rob some of the smaller ones after many, many months of training stealing up myself.

Yeah, it'd be great to get a GH to log in to a constable and talk to them about the general level of thievery as well as the usual suspects, and having a player-run justice system would be outstanding, but as far as loading us up with new skills, abilities, and other things to make us immune? Nah. I'd rather have to stay on my toes and have some risk in my life.

As far as the trader who logged leaving the thief with his caravan? I'd also like the ability to bring up his name to a guild spokesman for administrative action...

-Bedan, the limbless trader.

I know that I've been completely cleaned out several times on that ferry, and yeah, the advice given to me was to load up on bronze and train my skills. But in my experience, just interacting with the would-be thieves has been the best deterrent to crime.

I was the only one not pointed out today because I was interacting, and having fun in the process, with the thief. The other two (and I ran into the second logger up in the Market Day, he's a guilded Trader too), instantly logged. I mean, if a thief is going to take the time out to roleplay before doing anything, odds are you're going to come out with most, if not all, of your money.

The fact is that, even outside of these two traders who instantly logged, most traders that I catch running contracts are just flat-out not there. I spent a day hiding and hanging out with a high level thief not too long ago and I was sickened at how easy we make it for them. I think that if it weren't for zombie traders, a lot of these problems with thieves wouldn't be here right now.

Now, yeah, I really did like the idea of player-run justice system as well as perhaps a GM/GH playing the local constabulary to allow certain problems with blatant thieves to be addressed, and I would be the first to complain about how much money we lose to the thieves, but, in fairness, we are given the ability to tell when we're robbed, and of how much, and we can lead our caravans while hidden... heck, we can even have our caravans lead, hide, then appraise during the trip. We have trader justice over a large portion of the routes, and when we're watching the screen, a lot of the thieves get noticed and watched before they can do anything.

I don't want a system that gives us immunity along our routes, or even in specific segments. Even before I had great amounts of perception, or even stealing for that matter, I always found a way to trade where my risk was minimized. I can't be mad at the thieves for stealing, even if they do wipe me out from time to time. But what really gets me going is when traders run routes for hours with packs of thieves on them like leeches, robbing them over and over and over again because they're not watching the screen (and I've seen this), or when we log off the second that a thief notices them. We're just tanking our own reputation and making ourselves more appetizing targets for the unsavory types. For a while, it was like a game show, "Who is lurking in the shadows outside of the massive doors today, Bob?".

My best advice for dealing with the thieves? Pay attention and let them know that you're paying attention. Vary your routes, avoid the routes of SFTrader, XTrader, and EZTrader that everyone else runs Zoluren by. Mix it up, spend some time gem selling. Go to the islands for a while, you'll be like a god out there. And yeah, make bank runs frequently to protect your profits, carry loose change, keep your gem pouch well secured, and if you see a thief eyeballing you, cower, beg, grovel, raspberry, whatever. You'll be surprised how much more money you keep that way.

-Bedan, the limbless trader.