discussion How does one roleplay as a burglar?

[MisstressThief]

I've asked this question to myself, many times. But how exactly do you roleplay as a burglar that breaks in and steals a prize possession? Because letting someone know that you stole X thing kinda defeats the entire purpose. I mean this like /em took Player's trophy and placed it in her bag without being seen isn't really what I call thieving. So how do you actually roleplay as a thief or a burglar?

 

More over, I guess you can just go into another person's mansion and steal an item from there but how will they know it's missing?

 

Forgive my english. Im not adept at it.

[Damien]

I made a thief character to RP on at one point because it easily allowed me to a good excuse to approach lonesome strangers on my own and start up some RP with them. Firstly I'd say letting someone know doesn't always defeat the entire purpose. People can't know you've stolen anything ICly if they don't know OOCly either!

 

If you're wanting to steal from someone you could go with the simple case of emoting, like you said - trying to steal, and seeing what happens... either dealing with the situation if they catch you, or trying to get away with it. Maybe later on they find you trying to sell what you stole and the chase begins again, maybe you try to sell it back to them - maybe it gets broke, who knows. What's more important than the act of actually thieving is what RP you can make out of it.

 

Secondly, get in touch with someone and mention that you're a thief RPer, and if they're looking to have some possession of theirs taken or their house broken into for the same of some story or something, you can be the one to do it. Or perhaps someone's RPing a character who had some precious heirloom stolen in their backstory, but the person who stole it is just an anonymous thief who only exists on paper for the sake of the character's story. If you could offer your own character to be that thief instead, that opens up some options and reasons to RP with that person and is far more exciting than just saying it was a random anonymous guy.

 

And if you're not out thieving, there's other ways your character can give away their nature just through how they normally behave. Constantly looking at people's coinpurses as they walk by, checking over their shoulder just to make sure they aren't being watched by some guardsman or authority figure, that sort of thing.

[Valence]

The potential easy hooks to be had with strangers aside as said already above, to me burglar is the exact same thing than for most jobs. I just find that RPers tend to try to stick to them too literally and let themselves be constrained and imprisoned by the primary definition of their RP job/occupation.

 

What I find the most interesting with a burglar for example, isn't necessarily the act of breaking into someone else's room or house, or stealing coinpurses. It's just the background it gives your character and how it fleshes said character out. It's exactly the same with combat RP: action RP can be fun for some of course, but why bother if you never have any slice of life parts where you can actually flesh out your character on the experiences they got during said actions earlier? How do they deal with it, live with it, etc?

 

Also, being a burglar brings a sheer amount of very specific emotes and personality quirks that you can use. If you think about The Hobbit and how Bilbo is considered a burglar, and what he actually does during all the story... well you'll see that even the small time where he actually gets to play the part related to his skill with Smaug, isn't exactly your typical burglar stuff either.

 

I myself play a character that's into racing and flying mostly. The game isn't really suited for that kind of RP. Maybe I could over mediums like Discord but that's beyond the point. I care more about what it brings to my character, what opportunities and businesses it can bring, the kind of struggles it can bring, maybe incidents too? Someday she might show up messed up and people will wonder why, or maybe they will actually know why immediately (and that's where you know your RP is successfully ingrained in that last case). Some other day she might be starving because business isn't exactly fruitful or had complications, that can also be RPed.

[MisstressThief]

The potential easy hooks to be had with strangers aside as said already above, to me burglar is the exact same thing than for most jobs. I just find that RPers tend to try to stick to them too literally and let themselves be constrained and imprisoned by the primary definition of their RP job/occupation.

 

I'd really like to know what you mean by this?

 

 

I honestly find myself hard at making connections since there's so many good allied players and the fact that I just can't tell them directly that "hey I'm a thief! Let's do some rp!" It removes any genuine reaction to the unveiling imo and well just defeats the purpose.

 

I'd really like to know if I'm in the right in doing this.

[ExAtomos]

Hmm, it's not fun to just force someone else to deal with your character successfully stealing X item from them. This is why ooc info is necessary.

 

But why are you stealing from them in the first place?

 

If it is because there is a plot going on (with your FC or friends), then the theft would be part of the plot and everyone knows something is going to happen and could help or hinder the theft.

 

If it is just because you are a thief. Don't. Make up npcs that you've stolen from.

[Valence]

The potential easy hooks to be had with strangers aside as said already above, to me burglar is the exact same thing than for most jobs. I just find that RPers tend to try to stick to them too literally and let themselves be constrained and imprisoned by the primary definition of their RP job/occupation.

 

I'd really like to know what you mean by this?

 

 

I honestly find myself hard at making connections since there's so many good allied players and the fact that I just can't tell them directly that "hey I'm a thief! Let's do some rp!" It removes any genuine reaction to the unveiling imo and well just defeats the purpose.

 

I'd really like to know if I'm in the right in doing this.

 

As I said with the Bilbo reference really. Just go with the flow. You don't have to tell everyone OOCly "I'm a thief" immediately. You don't have to try stealing a purse immediately, or breaking into someone else's house immediately. You can because it gives a nice and convenient hook for sure, and you'll have to OOCly agree with your target about it before the act, but you don't have to.

 

If you're creative enough you'll often find ways to relate your skills or bring them on the table over various situations.

 

Also as I said above, I tend to value more what and how that job/occupation shapes a character and defines them rather than what it allows you to do.

 

 

It's the same for me. I don't get around telling everyone "hey, I'm a pilot, I can do things" until something happens. Sometimes, the opportunity presents itself, but most of the time what I like about it is what it implies on the life of my character on an every day basis.

[Damien]

It might help to think about character first, rather than occupation.

 

An example I like to make is that you can have a wizard character - but depending on how you flesh him out, the fact that he's a wizard could be a fairly minor detail or the most crucial thing.

 

The first version of the wizard could be a scholarly librarian type who spends his time buried in books, perusing arcane scrolls, discussing magic with colleagues - his whole life revolves around magic.

 

The second version of the wizard could be a wanderer, an explorer. He goes about and meets new friends, tries his luck with women, works odd-jobs to make coin and has a plethora of talents he's picked up along the way like being able to improvise funny rhymes or eat anything no matter how spicy it is. But he's also a wizard - but it's hardly as centric to his overall character as it is to the other version.

 

So it could be with your character being a burglar. Is it something centric to who he is, an all-encompassing definition? Or is it just the means through which he's able to survive as he does something else? 

 

Anyway you say you don't want to mention stealing OOCly because it ruins the surprise of it, and I can sort of get that. I prefer to keep people out of the loop OOCly if I can because it makes what happens ICly more genuine if they didn't know it or weren't expecting it. But sometimes it's simply for the better. What if I wanted my character to lose something ICly and it turned out be stolen? Rather than go on a hunt for a fictional NPC, bringing a character into the mix would be a better thing to do because your character is going to be more fleshed out than my only-exists-in-emotes characters who'll only be there for the sake of a storyline event to get back what was stolen.

 

Think about it that way and I'm confident you'll find plenty of people requesting your stealing-stuff-ICly-services!

[Erah'sae]

About being a thief.... 

 

We are in a non-moderated environment there are no GM/DM/etc to vet our actions against one another.  This requires that there be some sort of OOC collaboration on conflicting events.

 

In short, you can do nothing to another player that they don't want you to do.

 

Additionally without that OOC communication there is no one to tell you how said item you're trying to steal is secured.  Is it bolted into the wall?  Is there some pressure sensor to set off an alarm when you lift it or other esoteric system one might have in place for a rather valuable item.

 

If they're in an FC, work it out with an officer of said FC perhaps?  This would allow the mark to be ignorant of your actions, but things like how the item is secured could be covered.

 

What I tend to do is just emote pocketing something mid conversation and take whatever consequences happen from that.  Erah'sae tends to only do it with foodstuff though (oranges and the like) so I think I get away with more that way then you will be likely to with stealing something irreplaceable.

[Thorbought]

I'm going to second what Erah said. It may seem like you're giving them interesting RP but check with them oocly first before you go into a house and start burglarizing it. I run a restaurant and we had a customer come in who started RPing they were starting a fire. Now from their end they probably thought they were making an interesting scenario but from my end she's just causing me unneeded work and disrupting my customers.

[Warren Castille]

I've asked this question to myself, many times. But how exactly do you roleplay as a burglar that breaks in and steals a prize possession? Because letting someone know that you stole X thing kinda defeats the entire purpose. I mean this like /em took Player's trophy and placed it in her bag without being seen isn't really what I call thieving. So how do you actually roleplay as a thief or a burglar?

 

More over, I guess you can just go into another person's mansion and steal an item from there but how will they know it's missing?

 

Forgive my english. Im not adept at it.

 

I want to call attention to this, because I don't feel it's true. OOC communication to help establish a framework for a story can be very effective! Otherwise, you know, you're either godmoding in a result without considering their countermeasures/awareness/whatever and that's prone to get you treated like a real life burglar, which is to say not well at all.

 

You have two options from what I can see: You can either do a lot of your thievery off-screen and just try to find mutual contacts who do the same, or you can ask around to see if anyone would be interested in writing with you. Given the give-and-take nature of collaborative roleplay, you kind of need explicit permission from someone before doing something that impacts them negatively and personally.