I don't want to bomb everyone. I never said that. I'd prefer we didn't need to bomb anybody. I won't hide my head in the sand and pretend everything will be hunky-dory if we do nothing though. On that we'll have to agree to disagree I suppose. The last time the US decided to sit things out didn't work out so well...
@Balrog99 Afganistan wasn't always under Taliban rule, look it up around the 60s, children in the middle east also weren't afraid of clear sunny days before we started bombing them.
Russia invaded Afghanistan. The mujahideen were supported by the west, but that wasn't the wrong thing to do at the time. That after the Russians withdrew the Afghanis themselves carried on killing each other is down to them.
The rise of fundamental Islam in Afghanistan and the Taliban had little to do with the west. Just as that same rise (sponsored by Saudi with billions of dollars) has occured throughout the Arab world and anywhere Muslims are in a majority. And in plenty of places where they are a minority. Just as the ongoing conflict between Suni and Shite Muslims has nothing to do with the west, 1500 years and counting.
This whole idea that if "we" were nicer, kinder, didn't interfere things would be a whole lot better is based on one thing and one thing only. The sure knowledge that "we" can do sweet FA about millions of people deciding to have a massive religious uprising so instead we flail around kidding ourselves that we can. And if that includes blaming the west for everything, so be it. It makes people feel better. Being powerless is far more scary.
@Balrog99 Afganistan wasn't always under Taliban rule, look it up around the 60s, children in the middle east also weren't afraid of clear sunny days before we started bombing them.
Russia invaded Afghanistan. The mujahideen were supported by the west, but that wasn't the wrong thing to do at the time. That after the Russians withdrew the Afghanis themselves carried on killing each other is down to them.
The rise of fundamental Islam in Afghanistan and the Taliban had little to do with the west. Just as that same rise (sponsored by Saudi with billions of dollars) has occured throughout the Arab world and anywhere Muslims are in a majority. And in plenty of places where they are a minority. Just as the ongoing conflict between Suni and Shite Muslims has nothing to do with the west, 1500 years and counting.
This whole idea that if "we" were nicer, kinder, didn't interfere things would be a whole lot better is based on one thing and one thing only. The sure knowledge that "we" can do sweet FA about millions of people deciding to have a massive religious uprising so instead we flail around kidding ourselves that we can. And if that includes blaming the west for everything, so be it. It makes people feel better. Being powerless is far more scary.
So far this thread has discussed sociology, politics, philosophy, ethics, and even role-playing... Amazing how some threads evolve with time
But regarding the OP question I believe there is no role-playing reason to enter everyone's house and steal everything of value the group finds there. IN PnP even a chaotic evil group wouldn't do that unless they just destroyed the city and every law enforcement they could find.
@UnderstandMouseMagic We destabilized a country even further and our military carried out terrorist actions against the populace. Yeah, we made things worse, and we had no reason to be there.
On the original topic I think Alora fits her act of stealing pretty well. I usually play her as a kleptomaniac that can't help what she does, and does it not for the items or use thereof but just to see what she can find. As I play mainly neutral characters my reaction is I don't really care what she does and who am I to tell her what she can and cannot do. She does not go around murdering folks for their stuff. I also try and play her as if she is doing this without CHARNAME'S knowledge at times and as if she can't remember who she took it from in the first place. My characters are usually so engrossed in their own story line (or mental condition) or that they don't care so much as to where an item came from, but if it can be of use to a person being hunted or fund their cause (or research-advancing the cause so to speak). If playing an evil character however, I will have them take anything by force if the desire to have something comes around, otherwise I limit it to stealing only. CN seems fine as a pickpocket to me, taking something if they need or want it but generally stop at outright murder to get something. I play my CN gypsies with the mindset their their is no private property unless it is actually being worn by another. Even then, it is seen as a necessity in their mind to have enough to survive and to put themselves in a better position monetarily TO survive. The LN alchemists (the only lawful I will do) I play are only interested in their research and discoveries, above all else, and just do not think so much on where something comes from but just want to fund and advance their 'scientific' activities. Usually, unless attacked, I'll steal, but don't kill. My CE gnome C/T's of Udlen are played a bit different. The justification there is that beautiful creations (magic items, gems, etc) are to be stolen in order to destroy them. It is an appeasement partly to keep Udlen's attention off themselves, and in general are at partly mentally disturbed as they have taken on their deities hatred of creation, whether it be life or things created by hand. Now these are just some in game justifications and I have quite a few depending on the character and their connection/ feelings (with some mental illnesses that I include as well), or not, to the general populace. Playing humanoids also gave me several different perspectives in this regard and often it I saw it as the case of being labelled a monster,(ogres and kobolds), and just trying to survive and react to things with a different mindset over time.
As far as reputation goes, as far as I am concerned, if someone does not see, notice, or report acts of such nature, their should be no drop in rep. I like the changes to stealing given in RR for the options to talk your way out of a limited number of failed attempts based on ability scores (or known rep). Just a few disjointed ramblings for today.
@BelleSorciere My understanding of the op's post, was that it was frustration at players who supposedly play good alignments and go about pillaging the general populace. My addendum is that people typically will abandon "their" morals without some outside force compelling them. Hence the lack of player consequences.
Baldur's Gate type games give reputation penalties but this is only if you're caught. And if you fight law enforcement in self defense, it affects this. But having a high reputation is different from alignment. For instance Stalin is known for killing over 20 million innocent civilians, but early on for a couple of decades, Western news media depicted him as this good guy. And during this time, Joseph McCarthy was depicted as crazy then in 1995, the US government declassified the Venona cables that proved McCarthy was vastly understating the amount of USSR spies in the government.
So, no progress in the last millennia? Should we go back to the days of slavery, then? How about going back to monarchy and endless wars for spits of land? How about slaughtering entire cities and villages because they're not the same race, or religion? Maybe we should go back to the glory days of feudalism.
Western culture, that being from Europe, if based on D&D's alignment, is very chaotic. It's the most for personal freedoms (since the time of ancient Celts and ancient Greeks) and has been doing the most changing. Now go back 20,000 or 30,000 years in Europe and the changes took thousands of years and for personal freedoms, who knows, but in the last 2000 years, it's been changing faster than other parts of the world, and it's been changing faster and faster in the past few centuries.
Change often goes in a circle. Ancient religions believed in a cyclical nature of existence where things repeat over and over.
Days of slavery? Slavery actually never went away. Slavery existed since before modern humans left Africa and even the Native Americans in the USA and Canada practiced it (I'm differentiating them from the Aztecs and Mayans who built pyramids and such). Well a couple centuries ago, certain people in the world went on a moral crusade to end slavery and today they are blamed for all the slavery of all the world since it started. Let's say in Baldur's Gate II there's a quest to free the slaves in the Copper Coronet. Well let's say you do the quest, free the slaves, and the result is you are blamed for all the slavery in that place since it started.
Well that 2013 number was from globalslaveryindex.org and that was before Libya's open slave markets and well now the site has 2016 stats and it says, "In the 2016 GSI, we estimated that 45.8 million people are in some form of modern slavery in 167 countries." https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/
Monarchy? Many countries still have something like that. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest. A number of small countries still have monarchies. And authoritarian regimes like China, Cuba, and North Korea have something similar that's not free.
Endless wars for spits of land? The only thing that kept that at bay was fear of nuclear war. The countries without nukes still get invaded and they're getting invaded right now. There's always been a country somewhere getting invaded, usually multiple.
How about slaughtering entire cities and villages because they're not the same race, or religion? It still goes on in areas near the Middle East and in parts of Africa.
Maybe we should go back to the glory days of feudalism? Google is creating a Google Village in San Jose, which is bringing this back. You work for Google, rent from Google, buy at Google's stores. It's like Sharecropping. And the tech companies use H-1B workers which are literally slaves. They can't go to another job. If they quit early the contract says the employee must pay the tech company $30,000 or something and Indian courts enforce it if the employee goes back home.
Slavery, that's not an efficient use of resources once you get past a level of automation/machine.
Actually slavery is what keeps automation from developing. People over 2000 years ago had the steam engine. There were simply slaves so it was cheaper to use slaves. The Industrial Revolution happens with attempts to ban slavery.
Africa is going to destroy itself if it doesn't sort out the birth rate. So at this present time, the population maybe better off, give it fifty years, possibly less, and those same people may all be dying.
Africa's population was in balance for thousands of years...
Let's say aliens came to earth and were all, "Oh you humans die of old age! That's so sad! Here's some technology so you don't grow old anymore." That would completely destroy the world.
While Africans are simply migrating to Europe, the animals species in Africa probably will mostly die out.
But regarding the OP question I believe there is no role-playing reason to enter everyone's house and steal everything of value the group finds there. IN PnP even a chaotic evil group wouldn't do that unless they just destroyed the city and every law enforcement they could find.
On the original topic I think Alora fits her act of stealing pretty well.
[quote snipped]
CN seems fine as a pickpocket to me, taking something if they need or want it but generally stop at outright murder to get something. I play my CN gypsies with the mindset their their is no private property unless it is actually being worn by another.
[quote snipped]
My CE gnome C/T's of Udlen are played a bit different.
As far as reputation goes, as far as I am concerned, if someone does not see, notice, or report acts of such nature, their should be no drop in rep.
For role-playing, I always went into these games thinking, "I need to ignore the reality that I wouldn't go looting everywhere because the game is designed where I'm supposed to and so if I don't go looting, well I miss out on all these items and such. I'm supposed to." Then I thought, "Wait am I really supposed to?"
In real life, a neighbor might have some nice stuff in their home but I can go and buy it. In role-playing games, people will have unique items in their place you can't buy anywhere and it seems like the designers meant for people to go looting.
But being a looter is nonsensical. Even real-world looters usually only do that during hurricanes and riots.
For not doing the games like reality, talking to every single NPC is another thing that is a complete break with reality so it went along with looting as a break from what I'd actually do. I don't go up to every stranger and try to find out if they have some interesting stuff to tell me. I'd normally walk through the city, talk to nobody except stores, then find some entertainment and relax oh and there's quests but naaa I'd rather relax.
...
CN for a pickpocket. Well... there's a lot of rich celebrities that still go shoplifting because of some klepto compulsion. They can afford the stuff because they're millionaires but they just shoplift for the challenge. Both actors/actresses for a long time and recently some basketball players in China a few months ago. China treats shoplifters like The Flaming Fist and wanted to lock them away for 10 years.
...
Gnomes stealing -- I'm reminded of The Underpants Gnomes. They sneak into your room, real late, late at night and steal your underpants! They are geniuses at business. Their plan is: Step 1: Collect underpants Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit
And for reputation if no one sees you: 1) If you kill someone and no one sees you, you drop reputation. It's basically something coded where if you kill them anywhere, you drop reputation while other characters you kill in full view of others and they don't go hostile and no reputation drop. This isn't an era of modern crime scene investigation. And even in the modern era, mafias have ways of preventing the cops from figuring out who killed whom, such as freezing the corpse to confuse the time of death. Oh and as for D&D, there's literally disintegration spells that leave no remains so no body and no murder weapon but still that negative rep.
2) If you in BG2 change into The Slayer with nobody in your party, in a closed room and nobody sees you, you drop reputation.
I just started a no-reload RP run with a chaotic good F/M/Thief.
The in-game world is a very dangerous place. People get murdered all the time all over the place - bandits, monsters, etc. A lot of people need help all over the place but have nobody to ask. A lot of people are committing crime and are hiding behind locked doors. There are kids with demons for pets. Things are often not as they seem, there is intrigue and danger all over the place.
So:
- Freely entering both unlocked and locked houses - I'm an adventurer and as soon as I show up in town I go to every house and introduce myself, locked houses as well. If I can unlock your house others can, too, so you should know that and change the locks. You're welcome. Me or a friend distracts the owner while somebody else is going through the house to make sure these's no funny business. No stealing gold, potions, non-unique items. If you happen to be skinning people in the house, your luck has just run out.
- Unique or other items that I need (not many of them) - The NPC (or chest) gets a letter to not panic and keep on reading about their mysteriously missing item - there has been a deposit to the temple in their name, which they'll receive as soon as they go there, to an amount higher than the value of the item (temple gets gold for the transaction as well). Also, the item is being used to stop the impending war. Kisses.
- Looting bodies - If we've killed you, it was because you tried to kill us. Your items are ours now. I won't make Imoen put on that leather armor from the ambush dead guys. We'll just sell that. If we leave it there, probably a bandit would take it and attack little children with it, because bandits are evil.
- No depreciation mod - Look friend, if your shop is willing to buy 16 swords for 5gp a piece in one go, then you would surely buy 16 swords for 5gp each even if I sell them to you one by one. Oh, and I might be able to earn enough to stop a war ravaging the whole Sword Coast without having to rob the whole Sword Coast.
@naughty101 , Those justifications work really well for a chaotic good character, or even neutral good, but not lawful good. As a lawful good paladin or cleric, I believe in due process and rule of law. My character would feel compelled to try to arrest or report your character to the Flaming Fist for unlawful breaking and entering, as well as petty theft. I doubt the local magistrate's court would buy your "But I had good reason and I left a note and some money at the temple" defense.
@naughty101 , Those justifications work really well for a chaotic good character, or even neutral good, but not lawful good. As a lawful good paladin or cleric, I believe in due process and rule of law. My character would feel compelled to try to arrest or report your character to the Flaming Fist for unlawful breaking and entering, as well as petty theft. I doubt the local magistrate's court would buy your "But I had good reason and I left a note and some money at the temple" defense.
The only way I see a Lawful Good character would agree to invade someone's home is if the group saw a villain or monster entering it first. Then protecting the innocent would take precedence over not invading a home.
@naughty101 , Those justifications work really well for a chaotic good character, or even neutral good, but not lawful good. As a lawful good paladin or cleric, I believe in due process and rule of law. My character would feel compelled to try to arrest or report your character to the Flaming Fist for unlawful breaking and entering, as well as petty theft. I doubt the local magistrate's court would buy your "But I had good reason and I left a note and some money at the temple" defense.
The only way I see a Lawful Good character would agree to invade someone's home is if the group saw a villain or monster entering it first. Then protecting the innocent would take precedence over not invading a home.
Or if, say, they knew a slavery operation was going on and felt that local authorities were involved. At that point, it could be argued that the law has broken down and other options must be considered.
@naughty101 , Those justifications work really well for a chaotic good character, or even neutral good, but not lawful good. As a lawful good paladin or cleric, I believe in due process and rule of law. My character would feel compelled to try to arrest or report your character to the Flaming Fist for unlawful breaking and entering, as well as petty theft. I doubt the local magistrate's court would buy your "But I had good reason and I left a note and some money at the temple" defense.
Unfortunately, even when I play a cavalier, the epitome of lawful good, I can't get into RP enough to justify the goodies I'd miss out on by not looting. I guess I don't have enough suspension of disbelief to play my make-believe character as properly as I should. I'd never be able to play a paladin if I took their alignment as literally as portrayed by the game. I'm also a bit chaotic by nature which makes it even more difficult...
I am playing a solo no-reload run. Therefore, if I die, the bad guy wins. I need Algernon's Cloak to take down the bad guy. Therefore, Algernon must die in order to save the world.
Certain people might argue that there's nothing really stopping me from turning on Story Mode, using reloads, using cheat codes, using mod-introduced items, or playing with more than one character, all of which could let me complete the game with Algernon still alive. To those people, I have only one response:
@naughty101 , Those justifications work really well for a chaotic good character, or even neutral good, but not lawful good. As a lawful good paladin or cleric, I believe in due process and rule of law. My character would feel compelled to try to arrest or report your character to the Flaming Fist for unlawful breaking and entering, as well as petty theft. I doubt the local magistrate's court would buy your "But I had good reason and I left a note and some money at the temple" defense.
You're right. I guess that's why I don't like playing lawful stgood Also, I'm guessing the magistrate might be willing to turn a blind eye after I've helped the village in myriad of ways and paid for said item more than it's market value by leaving the money for collection at the temple. Yes, your honour, I'd have been glad to offer payment and fair exchange directly, but I just seemed to be incapable of uttering the words!
For LG paladin... as somebody mentioned above, talking to somebody inside a house in BG is the closest thing to knocking the door and starting a conversation after the door has been opened. For locked doors - after the door has been kept locked for ages (you've tried, left and came back) it might make sense to unlock the door and make sure there isn't a granny with a broken hip starving and waiting to be saved... or something. No peeking in chests though. Or play one with 7 Int, then bursting into houses in the name of good just makes sense for reasons
By the way, this looks like a good idea for a mod - to make some items available through conversation instead of theft. For example, by telling NPCs that you are looking to purchase magic items with lots of gold or favors (for Algernon, etc) or asking if by any chance the owner of the house has any potions or scrolls for sale (random indoors NPCs). Also, good way to spend money so you're not carting around enough gold to buy a castle. Getting the items would be delayed though, which is actually good for immersion.
@semiticgod , No-reload runs are different animals from roleplaying runs, in my opinion. I'd say that when the goal is to win a no-reload, survival is all that matters and anything goes. Alignment becomes irrelevant to the object of the game.
I've occasionally seen no-reloaders report on roleplayed runs as challenge runs, but I don't think they usually succeed.
For example, you could set lawful good behavior as a challenge condition of the run, which would mean no Algernon's Cloak, and no Stupifier Mace.
I myself am not a no-reloader, although I've been influenced by the no-reload mindset, and I always minimal reload and avoid save-scumming. When I play games like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, I like to self-express my own ethics into that imaginary reality. What would I do if this were real and I were here? That's part of how I have fun with it. When I want more of a hack-and-slash challenge where killing and looting are always the right things to do, I play Diablo or one of its many clones.
Good old @BelgarathMTH. I'm not surprised you like to RP good characters. You're a sweet and kind person and I doubt there's even an ounce of malice in your heart. You'd make a great paladin.
I do believe @Grum has managed to do a no-reload roleplaying run using either a Dwarven Defender or a dwarven Berserker.
Good old @BelgarathMTH. I'm not surprised you like to RP good characters. You're a sweet and kind person and I doubt there's even an ounce of malice in your heart. You'd make a great paladin.
I do believe @Grum has managed to do a no-reload roleplaying run using either a Dwarven Defender or a dwarven Berserker.
You remembered
Dwarven Defenser. Sadly ended in BG2 due to the RP meeting vampire Level Drain...
Comments
The mujahideen were supported by the west, but that wasn't the wrong thing to do at the time.
That after the Russians withdrew the Afghanis themselves carried on killing each other is down to them.
The rise of fundamental Islam in Afghanistan and the Taliban had little to do with the west. Just as that same rise (sponsored by Saudi with billions of dollars) has occured throughout the Arab world and anywhere Muslims are in a majority. And in plenty of places where they are a minority.
Just as the ongoing conflict between Suni and Shite Muslims has nothing to do with the west, 1500 years and counting.
This whole idea that if "we" were nicer, kinder, didn't interfere things would be a whole lot better is based on one thing and one thing only.
The sure knowledge that "we" can do sweet FA about millions of people deciding to have a massive religious uprising so instead we flail around kidding ourselves that we can.
And if that includes blaming the west for everything, so be it. It makes people feel better. Being powerless is far more scary.
But regarding the OP question I believe there is no role-playing reason to enter everyone's house and steal everything of value the group finds there. IN PnP even a chaotic evil group wouldn't do that unless they just destroyed the city and every law enforcement they could find.
My characters are usually so engrossed in their own story line (or mental condition) or that they don't care so much as to where an item came from, but if it can be of use to a person being hunted or fund their cause (or research-advancing the cause so to speak). If playing an evil character however, I will have them take anything by force if the desire to have something comes around, otherwise I limit it to stealing only.
CN seems fine as a pickpocket to me, taking something if they need or want it but generally stop at outright murder to get something. I play my CN gypsies with the mindset their their is no private property unless it is actually being worn by another. Even then, it is seen as a necessity in their mind to have enough to survive and to put themselves in a better position monetarily TO survive.
The LN alchemists (the only lawful I will do) I play are only interested in their research and discoveries, above all else, and just do not think so much on where something comes from but just want to fund and advance their 'scientific' activities.
Usually, unless attacked, I'll steal, but don't kill.
My CE gnome C/T's of Udlen are played a bit different. The justification there is that beautiful creations (magic items, gems, etc) are to be stolen in order to destroy them. It is an appeasement partly to keep Udlen's attention off themselves, and in general are at partly mentally disturbed as they have taken on their deities hatred of creation, whether it be life or things created by hand.
Now these are just some in game justifications and I have quite a few depending on the character and their connection/ feelings (with some mental illnesses that I include as well), or not, to the general populace. Playing humanoids also gave me several different perspectives in this regard and often it I saw it as the case of being labelled a monster,(ogres and kobolds), and just trying to survive and react to things with a different mindset over time.
As far as reputation goes, as far as I am concerned, if someone does not see, notice, or report acts of such nature, their should be no drop in rep. I like the changes to stealing given in RR for the options to talk your way out of a limited number of failed attempts based on ability scores (or known rep).
Just a few disjointed ramblings for today.
Baldur's Gate type games give reputation penalties but this is only if you're caught. And if you fight law enforcement in self defense, it affects this. But having a high reputation is different from alignment. For instance Stalin is known for killing over 20 million innocent civilians, but early on for a couple of decades, Western news media depicted him as this good guy. And during this time, Joseph McCarthy was depicted as crazy then in 1995, the US government declassified the Venona cables that proved McCarthy was vastly understating the amount of USSR spies in the government. Western culture, that being from Europe, if based on D&D's alignment, is very chaotic. It's the most for personal freedoms (since the time of ancient Celts and ancient Greeks) and has been doing the most changing. Now go back 20,000 or 30,000 years in Europe and the changes took thousands of years and for personal freedoms, who knows, but in the last 2000 years, it's been changing faster than other parts of the world, and it's been changing faster and faster in the past few centuries.
Change often goes in a circle. Ancient religions believed in a cyclical nature of existence where things repeat over and over.
Days of slavery? Slavery actually never went away. Slavery existed since before modern humans left Africa and even the Native Americans in the USA and Canada practiced it (I'm differentiating them from the Aztecs and Mayans who built pyramids and such). Well a couple centuries ago, certain people in the world went on a moral crusade to end slavery and today they are blamed for all the slavery of all the world since it started. Let's say in Baldur's Gate II there's a quest to free the slaves in the Copper Coronet. Well let's say you do the quest, free the slaves, and the result is you are blamed for all the slavery in that place since it started.
In 2013, there were a bunch of news articles how there's 29 million slaves in the world, mainly in Haiti, Subsaharan Africa and Southern Asia.
https://inhabitat.com/ecouterre/more-than-29-million-people-enslaved-says-worlds-first-global-slavery-index/
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=29+million+slaves&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1
Well that 2013 number was from globalslaveryindex.org and that was before Libya's open slave markets and well now the site has 2016 stats and it says, "In the 2016 GSI, we estimated that 45.8 million people are in some form of modern slavery in 167 countries."
https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/
Monarchy? Many countries still have something like that. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest. A number of small countries still have monarchies. And authoritarian regimes like China, Cuba, and North Korea have something similar that's not free.
Endless wars for spits of land? The only thing that kept that at bay was fear of nuclear war. The countries without nukes still get invaded and they're getting invaded right now. There's always been a country somewhere getting invaded, usually multiple.
How about slaughtering entire cities and villages because they're not the same race, or religion? It still goes on in areas near the Middle East and in parts of Africa.
Maybe we should go back to the glory days of feudalism? Google is creating a Google Village in San Jose, which is bringing this back. You work for Google, rent from Google, buy at Google's stores. It's like Sharecropping. And the tech companies use H-1B workers which are literally slaves. They can't go to another job. If they quit early the contract says the employee must pay the tech company $30,000 or something and Indian courts enforce it if the employee goes back home.
Actually slavery is what keeps automation from developing. People over 2000 years ago had the steam engine. There were simply slaves so it was cheaper to use slaves. The Industrial Revolution happens with attempts to ban slavery.
Africa's population was in balance for thousands of years...
Let's say aliens came to earth and were all, "Oh you humans die of old age! That's so sad! Here's some technology so you don't grow old anymore." That would completely destroy the world.
While Africans are simply migrating to Europe, the animals species in Africa probably will mostly die out.
For role-playing, I always went into these games thinking, "I need to ignore the reality that I wouldn't go looting everywhere because the game is designed where I'm supposed to and so if I don't go looting, well I miss out on all these items and such. I'm supposed to." Then I thought, "Wait am I really supposed to?"
In real life, a neighbor might have some nice stuff in their home but I can go and buy it. In role-playing games, people will have unique items in their place you can't buy anywhere and it seems like the designers meant for people to go looting.
But being a looter is nonsensical. Even real-world looters usually only do that during hurricanes and riots.
For not doing the games like reality, talking to every single NPC is another thing that is a complete break with reality so it went along with looting as a break from what I'd actually do. I don't go up to every stranger and try to find out if they have some interesting stuff to tell me. I'd normally walk through the city, talk to nobody except stores, then find some entertainment and relax oh and there's quests but naaa I'd rather relax.
...
CN for a pickpocket. Well... there's a lot of rich celebrities that still go shoplifting because of some klepto compulsion. They can afford the stuff because they're millionaires but they just shoplift for the challenge. Both actors/actresses for a long time and recently some basketball players in China a few months ago. China treats shoplifters like The Flaming Fist and wanted to lock them away for 10 years.
...
Gnomes stealing -- I'm reminded of The Underpants Gnomes. They sneak into your room, real late, late at night and steal your underpants! They are geniuses at business. Their plan is:
Step 1: Collect underpants
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
And for reputation if no one sees you:
1) If you kill someone and no one sees you, you drop reputation. It's basically something coded where if you kill them anywhere, you drop reputation while other characters you kill in full view of others and they don't go hostile and no reputation drop. This isn't an era of modern crime scene investigation. And even in the modern era, mafias have ways of preventing the cops from figuring out who killed whom, such as freezing the corpse to confuse the time of death. Oh and as for D&D, there's literally disintegration spells that leave no remains so no body and no murder weapon but still that negative rep.
2) If you in BG2 change into The Slayer with nobody in your party, in a closed room and nobody sees you, you drop reputation.
I just started a no-reload RP run with a chaotic good F/M/Thief.
The in-game world is a very dangerous place. People get murdered all the time all over the place - bandits, monsters, etc. A lot of people need help all over the place but have nobody to ask. A lot of people are committing crime and are hiding behind locked doors. There are kids with demons for pets. Things are often not as they seem, there is intrigue and danger all over the place.
So:
- Freely entering both unlocked and locked houses - I'm an adventurer and as soon as I show up in town I go to every house and introduce myself, locked houses as well. If I can unlock your house others can, too, so you should know that and change the locks. You're welcome. Me or a friend distracts the owner while somebody else is going through the house to make sure these's no funny business. No stealing gold, potions, non-unique items. If you happen to be skinning people in the house, your luck has just run out.
- Unique or other items that I need (not many of them) - The NPC (or chest) gets a letter to not panic and keep on reading about their mysteriously missing item - there has been a deposit to the temple in their name, which they'll receive as soon as they go there, to an amount higher than the value of the item (temple gets gold for the transaction as well). Also, the item is being used to stop the impending war. Kisses.
- Looting bodies - If we've killed you, it was because you tried to kill us. Your items are ours now. I won't make Imoen put on that leather armor from the ambush dead guys. We'll just sell that. If we leave it there, probably a bandit would take it and attack little children with it, because bandits are evil.
- No depreciation mod - Look friend, if your shop is willing to buy 16 swords for 5gp a piece in one go, then you would surely buy 16 swords for 5gp each even if I sell them to you one by one. Oh, and I might be able to earn enough to stop a war ravaging the whole Sword Coast without having to rob the whole Sword Coast.
I am playing a solo no-reload run. Therefore, if I die, the bad guy wins. I need Algernon's Cloak to take down the bad guy. Therefore, Algernon must die in order to save the world.
Certain people might argue that there's nothing really stopping me from turning on Story Mode, using reloads, using cheat codes, using mod-introduced items, or playing with more than one character, all of which could let me complete the game with Algernon still alive. To those people, I have only one response:
"Well, yeah. That would definitely work."
stgoodFor LG paladin... as somebody mentioned above, talking to somebody inside a house in BG is the closest thing to knocking the door and starting a conversation after the door has been opened. For locked doors - after the door has been kept locked for ages (you've tried, left and came back) it might make sense to unlock the door and make sure there isn't a granny with a broken hip starving and waiting to be saved... or something. No peeking in chests though. Or play one with 7 Int, then bursting into houses in the name of good just makes sense for reasons
By the way, this looks like a good idea for a mod - to make some items available through conversation instead of theft. For example, by telling NPCs that you are looking to purchase magic items with lots of gold or favors (for Algernon, etc) or asking if by any chance the owner of the house has any potions or scrolls for sale (random indoors NPCs). Also, good way to spend money so you're not carting around enough gold to buy a castle. Getting the items would be delayed though, which is actually good for immersion.
I've occasionally seen no-reloaders report on roleplayed runs as challenge runs, but I don't think they usually succeed.
For example, you could set lawful good behavior as a challenge condition of the run, which would mean no Algernon's Cloak, and no Stupifier Mace.
I myself am not a no-reloader, although I've been influenced by the no-reload mindset, and I always minimal reload and avoid save-scumming. When I play games like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, I like to self-express my own ethics into that imaginary reality. What would I do if this were real and I were here? That's part of how I have fun with it. When I want more of a hack-and-slash challenge where killing and looting are always the right things to do, I play Diablo or one of its many clones.
I do believe @Grum has managed to do a no-reload roleplaying run using either a Dwarven Defender or a dwarven Berserker.
Dwarven Defenser. Sadly ended in BG2 due to the RP meeting vampire Level Drain...