stop pickpocketing at differing sublocs
No you can't pickpocket me from the bar if I'm at the table

I'd say that this shouldn't be allowed as it breaks any kind of suspension of disbelief if I'm seated at a table and someone picks my pocket from the floor of the bar, or even sitting at the bar.

You should have to either share sub-locations to be able to pick pocket someone or have a pose of getting near to the table or bar to interact with someone. Your arms would have to be Inspector Gadget long to not even have to get near to me to pick my pocket. And the allowance of this as a mechanic is intensely frustrating as it violates the RP immersion of the world.

Also it would lead to people using bars/tables as anti-theft armor and metaing even more than they already do every time they got robbed.

I mean I understand but without cybernetic long-arms or telepathic powers, that makes no sense to me that someone can dip from that long a distance.

The skill/stats requirement in additional to the RP balancing act to be a successful pickpocket is difficult enough. Let it be.

What Mephisto is trying to say is that, if you're sitting in a crowded bar ICly packed with bodies, you aren't going to look and watch every single person who approaches you. There will be a volley of bodies just floating around all around you. Are you going to notice all of them approaching you, whoever approached you, and what they look like? There will be hundreds and hundreds of characters there with you.

Meph is right in the sense is that you simply didn't ICly see it happen, it happened, and you didn't realize.

When you pick-pocket someone, it's assumed they get close to you, to obviously, pickpocket said item. What's the difference between the check telling you "PC X pickpocketed you" and "PC X suspiciously approached you and walked away"? They'll serve the same literal purpose.

I can agree with maybe having to stand up before doing the 'pickpocket' command, but the rest is moot.

Standing up is fine that's literally all I want. I want them to have to put some effort into the RP. Don't let people who pickpock, pickpocket people in a sublocation that isn't their own. Going from main to sub fine kind of, but sub to other sub location shouldn't be possible.

I get where mechanically the post is coming from and kinda agree but like others have said the meta-ness around suspecting dippers is already easy enough it just feels balance-wise like a tradeoff that would make one thing too much worse at the expense of making something else feel a little slightly more realistic.

If you get the pickpocket notification, you assume ICly that you see them approaching you, taking your stuff, and going back to wherever they were. They don't magically teleport behind you then back to where they were, or your belongings into their hand - the game will assume they get up and approach you to do it, albeit in a sneaky way.

As for the need to ‘stand’ – there are lots of times in the game where my Character might not stand or may do something that perhaps I should have ‘roleplayed out’ but it can sometimes get overlooked in the larger RP going on. Meaning, not every action my PC does is going to be emoted but it doesn’t mean that I did or didn’t do it?

And, remember. Your PC can accuse anyone they want and RP that they believe so-and-so is robbing them blind. You may be wrong, and there may be consequences to that RP, but as far as I know, you can still do that. Just expect backlash if you can’t explain your accusations ICly.

They dipped you before they sat down or they stood up, dipped you and sat back down. If they dipped you and you didn't see it, you didn't see them standing up and sitting back down. It's not rocket surgery.

How is your effort of regaining the chyen, writing a pose, informing security, making a scene, building a case, equivalent of the risk of the dipper and the time they put into developing their skill?

It's quite clearly not, because the risk is low, with how easily hoods disguise you. I can't know your identity if you are in a hood, and can easily lose you in a crowd. If you manage to pick pocket me on the streets, are wearing a hood, and take off, I have no recourse. Other than beating the shit out of everyone wearing a hood, of which there are thousands. It's a catch 22.

[...]"

Then stop assuming that. And pickpocketing is already balanced. This has gone off topic from the initial idea. This hasn't been a problem for 20 years of SD roleplaying. I invite you to make a dip character and see how easy it seems for you. I think you'd be trying to make changes so that people stop being meta the other way around, like you are being now, and that you'd feel like it's too hard.

If the PC spent UE and time into perfecting disguising, then yes, what you're saying is true - but it's not as easy as you assume to be. Like Meph said, play a dip yourself and see how hard it is. We're saying that if the PC spent effort and skilling up thievery and subterfuge based skills, that's their character build and you can't change that. You're assuming every immy out of the gate or non-focused character can put a hood on and just go around doing shit without having their identity revealed.

It doesn't work that way, chum.

If I am sitting at a table and someone is sitting at the bar and that person at the bar pick pockets me, and I don't notice it, then I count and notice money missing, the last person I'm going to suspect is the person who has literally been sitting at the bar the whole time because there was no IC indicator that they stood up, walked over to my table, and got close enough to pick pocket me.

That's a fair argument. I think any pickpockets who are doing that kind of thing should stop. I am pretty sure it's possible to pick pocket while sitting down, but if you're pickpocketing people who are physically far away from your character, that's pretty meta and an abuse of the system. Don't do that.

I'm interested in hearing ways we might mitigate that without having to deal with sub locations.