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Pickpocketing
Taken out of Ideas because it's drifting from the point

Was gonna post this in OOC in game, but, I'll put it here instead, Hearing the lack of sublocations blew my mind and made me a bit less tilted cause I can understand it not being possible to implement something like a boundary check because of that. And you should be able to pick pocket the guy you are sitting next too. So I took about 30 minutes to just think, and I've come up with an idea, I want to discuss what's wrong and what's right with pickpocketing.

The problem right now with pickpocketing as I see it is, well is that is the RP just doesn't support it. There can be no lead up, no chase, no pose to react off of. The effort the pick pocket would put in is far less than the effort I or another player would have to put in to start a scene to spot them... Is it even possible to report thieves to security, assuming that it's a place with security characters 24/7?

Beyond those issues, Pickpocketing IRL is like street magic, the people who are good at it, don't just grab your wallet, and run, that's a suckers game, they engage a target, steal the cash, and leave the target unsuspecting that anything happened. It uses a lot of techniques that are social manipulation, sleight of hand, and distraction. Not just blunt dexterity... Because even in a busy bar, personal space is still pretty easy to maintain, especially when seated at a table or a booth. A quick hit, or purse snatch as it's usually called, relies on a target being in the streets. A personal preference of mine would be that this be RP'd out, because Sindomes model seems to encourage everything else being a function of RP, but pickpocketing seems to be the one place where people seem to turn a blind eye to pure mechanical play...

Want to read up on how to RP pick pocketing, look up a book called "Techniques of the Professional Pickpocket" by Wayne B Yeager, the second result on my google was a full PDF, the actual 70 or so page document is expensive as fuck to find a copy of. But it gives a very brief rundown of common pick pocketing techniques. Get flavorful with your RP, get into character, don't just, "I pickpocket the man," Roleplay it, and if they aren't perceptive enough to notice the switch, they shouldn't RP that they do... I'm basically asking for pickpockets not to be sanctioned meta here. Because that irritates me in my very black and white heart. If you want to be covert you should have to be so in character.

As an aside having never Pickpocketed in game, I'm not sure if some of this next bit is actually possible.

I would love to see much harder pick pocket checks to steal Phones, Wallets, and watches, even if the watches are being worn.

I would love to see random NPC snatchers and pickpockets wandering the streets and bars that are easier to foil than the average PC. So that we don't know for absolute certain when we get pick pocketed it was probably a player. At times while the atmosphere is great in the writing, I don't feel much fear in Red Central OOCly, because I know the only people likely to harm me are players, and they are easier to notice.

That's about all I've got. Hopefully a bit more respectfully presented than before, as I did get pretty tilted in that thread.

It is not that it's easy to steal, it's that your character is probably an easy target.

Complain about this IC and find someone to help you work on that.

Also assuming other people aren't RPing just because you aren't let in on what they're doing is acting in bad faith.

Not at all what I was saying. Please actually read what I wrote and... Please don't accuse me of acting in bad faith... That in and of itself is acting in bad faith.
If you want an RP experience, you can talk to the person who mugs you. They likely have the appropriate stats/skills to beat the shit out of you and if you choose to engage them it's a risk to both of you.

Pickpocketing is about subtlety and being unseen. The stakes are high and the rewards can be as well.

At this point, I recommend you take a PC vacation and try being a pickpocket for a week then come back to what you're asking for with some newfound appreciation for the hustle it requires.

I think you are making a post about something you are not entirely well versed about. I played a pickpocket/thief/mugger. There is a certain art to it. Just because you are not directly engaged in a pickpockets RP doesn't mean the RP didn't occur. When I would pickpocket, I would go find the most crowded bar/club in the mix. I would go in, try to RP being a fly on the wall, and I would watch people. You counted your money or handed your money to another character? Guess what? Now I know you or them have some. You take out your wallet and open it, look through it, put some in or pull some out. Now I know you have a wallet. Same with everything else. Now I size you up. Are you decked out in the latest street armor with a hand cannon on your hip? Hmm probably not gonna try that guy...Oh, this sucker who's been drinking all night, slurring his speech, striking out with all the joys? Yeah, I'll probably try him. Why? Because I'm not no sucker trying to get murdered for a handfull of chy notes or the random one in a million chance you forgot to put something in a holster, or the briefcase you have hidden in your underwear. High skills and stats doesn't always mean success either. I've been caught. When I get caught, I fuckin run. I burn holes in my shoe heels from running so fast. The point is as you've stated yourself, is to move in, take what you're trying to get, and move out without being seen.

When I would mug people, I typically used the exact same tactics, except this time I got a big weapon to scare you with so you hand over what I want. Instead of trying to change the game mechanics, which work fine, maybe present yourself as someone not to be fucked with, even if you are totally fuck withable.

Red and even Gold are extremely overpopulated. You jostle and are in contact with at least one person at any given time. One of them is going to jump into you and dip your wallet off your pocket without you realizing. When you forget the ambiance population and how extremely disorienting the city can be for new players who don't have the stats designed to enhance their situational awareness and their perception at all times, they could be getting their hands in their pockets and they wouldn't ever realize.

Do you expect dippers to come to you with lead up RP all the time? If so, I don't want to see how you will react when somebody comes out of the shadows and kills you with NO POSES. But the RP is not there! The RP is in the aftermath. The conflict that this brings if they fuck up, if you get away alive. The conflict is not in the lead up most of the times, it's in -what if- you catch the dipper in your pockets and how do you decide to make them pay for it. This is because Sindome is an extremely fast paced game where everything that is important takes at most just a few seconds to be executed.

You can be a dipper without having to walk up to your target and be a con artist and tell them a joke or try to sell them a magical pen with elaborate poses, and that doesn't make you a bad RPer. The fallacy is here: you have never played a pickpocket. You aren't even sure what are the mechanics and roleplay in hand. You've never had to stalk your victim for hours, examine them, see what they are wearing, carrying, holding, saying, you have never had to pay off somebody to give you paydata on who's carrying expensive shit in Red (Grizzly666 is super 100% accurate). You've never provoked conflict upon a player just for them to draw their gun on you, get away alive, then -dip- their gun. All the heavy risks it carries and how one bad die roll could send you to the vat trips for free.

I do agree wholeheartedly with you in that dippers should policy themselves and not be meta (i.e. dipping a stripper on stage while sitting at a bar lol). But asking them to RP their techniques is not necessary. It can be done and it can be nice, but it can be nice in the same way as a hitman could 30 minutes RPing with you and posing their evil acts instead of just coming out of the shadows and killing you: both are 100% fair play.

I completely agree with both Villa and Grizzly here. I've seen dippers sizing up their targets and striking random conversions to test their reactions, I've seen dippers stalking their targets or getting paydata on them and I've seen dippers just doing the command. While the first two are interesting, even if the second can be imperceptible most of the times, it's good roleplay. But that doesn't mean that it should be required.

As it is right now, dippers have to police themselves to not be meta, but with your proposed changes, everyone else has to do the same and it's much harder. Not to mention that I really can't see any possible way to code forced roleplay in any way, not that it would be good if the Devs could do it.

For what it's worth I didn't get the impression RheaGhe was bringing this up in bad faith. They seemed interested in a discussion and that's what these boards are for.

RheaGhe I don't think what you described would be bad for the game or bad for RP, but it's difficult to enforce. I do think that Grizzly and Villa raised good points about the RP happening out of view of the victim, and that the aftermath, where RP / conflict is created is a good thing, is an important note.

I think this is a good discussion to have. It brings up ideas that could be implemented that would improve the system. For instance, I am not opposed to certain items being more difficult to steal than others.

Let's keep this discussion going.

I was not bashing on RheaGhe about it. Not at all. I do believe something should be done, I just disagree with what they proposed.

I mean.. You could easily code it so it picks a random sentence from a list, explaining how it happened if it failed. Won't take much time and you already have a similar system for NPC dips anyways. But that doesn't solve anything, instead of getting a bland message that someone dipped you, you get a more detailed one and that's about it.

I agree with Slither that certain items should be harder to dip that others according to skill. But as for the roleplay factor, it's up to the dipper on how to do it. In the end if they're successful on the checks against you, you shouldn't get any message anyways.