Robbery Roleplay

[DLimit]

On 11/25/2020 at 5:37 PM, stijn said:

Have you ever been in touch with drug crime at first hand? Maybe I shouldn’t of have mentioned Marijuana as the sole drug. Drug dealers do make enough profit to live off’ and it is not really up to realism In Game where making a single drug deal is hard to come by. 

"enough profit to live off’"... that's the point. They're not living in luxury. Most of them are simply scraping by.

Banged for around 10 years... haven't banged in 10 years. 

 

EDIT: Even if it were to be cocaine, bottom-dealers aren't earning a lot of wealth. They either A) Paid for 80% of the value of their product to attain a 20% profit or B) Owe a debt to their superior.

Dime-bag dealers don't profit, much, simply because the narcotics have been passed down several times. If you're growing or producing it, your self? Then, you'll profit well enough to be able to save up for some thing expensive. However, that's almost like a full-time job.

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by DLimit

[symphony]

7 hours ago, Sush said:

 

You've barely been on the server for 45 minutes in and of itself. And as you can see, I killed the people doing it. I usually do. It really makes having to be the god damn terminator every hour or so frustrating as hell. It makes no sense. Because of this kinda nonsense happening basically every day my character has like 50-something CCW kills, it's absurd. 

What? Yes I fucking have lol. And you're over-exaggerating and lying, stop it.

[Martyn]

18 hours ago, DasFroggy said:

Alas, this is not the case. While the victim can have their character permanently killed as a consequence of the encounter, the mugger is almost never given a punishment more severe than a PK. It is a one-sided dynamic that removes the fear of consequence for the perpetrator, that is being exploited more often.

 

Now, if a CK was a risk for both sides? That would make sense, and it would certainly decrease the rash of low-qualily mugging encounters.

 

I would personally prefer no CK risks at all, but that is unlikely...

Amen, on a hardcore roleplay server? If your character purposely and consciously makes the decision to rob people in a country where there's more firearms than people. The person taking the obvious and conscious decision to still risk their lives at performing said action should be subject to a CK if the person who defends themselves from said hostile action did it through a none PG action. Not only will this ensure the robber takes more a more realistic precaution and approach to robberies. It will most certainly even the playing field. If your character isn't willing to risk his own life by risking some another persons life. Perhaps your character should reconsider his choices. Only this way, can we expect realistic behavior from people.  There's no other way to accomplish this. 

 

At the same time, legal roleplayers should start to realize a CCW will not help you in robbery situations as 9/10 times you'll have a gun pointed at you before you'll be able to withdraw your own. And most of the time, it's your gun they're after anyway. Not your cash, not your phone. But your PF weapon. That's what they all aim for. That's what they're doing it for, to either arm up yet another individual to continue their spree later on. Or to sell it for high profits.

 

Start carrying nothing but a little amount of cash, and your phone. That's the way to do it at the moment since this is slowly becoming Gotham City roleplay. Where everyone's a bad ass. And nobody's vulnerable. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Martyn

[The OG Juicebox]

Personally, I think there's just as much problem with the legal side as there is on the illegal side of this whole thing. If someone gains the upper hand on you with a weapon, more often than not a sane, rational person would not try to engage in a wild west gun fight with the robber. A lot of legal role players seem to have this mentality of shoot first, ask questions later and it's completely unrealistic in most situations. In rare cases where someone has properly developed their character with documented role play into reasoning for being able to do so, sure. The average person is not going to think angles such as, "if this guy drops his gun or turns his head, ITS JOHN WICK TIME." Take the loss. I know that sounds harsh, but that's the way it is.

 

http://lapd-assets.lapdonline.org/assets/pdf/cityprof.pdf

 

For those complaining about the frequency of robberies, here's a snapshot of crime in Los Angeles year-to-date in 2020. Sure, we aren't role playing Los Angeles 1:1 but it's a decent guideline considering Los Santos is based off of it. 6,962 documented robberies in just about 11 months. Robberies are just part of criminal RP, so honestly robbery frequency shouldn't bother anyone. What should concern people is the quality of the robbery. @Charlesvito summed up my same thoughts pretty well, so I'll just leave this here on the note of issues on the illegal side:

On 11/24/2020 at 8:10 PM, Charlesvito said:

Here's my take without reading anything but OP.

 

I feel like RP in general when surrounding robberies should be situational. If you're robbing someone in area where you have to constantly type '/b stop stalling!', you're not robbing in the right place. Sure, there are some incidences where people are GENUINELY stalling - I get that. But in the cases where people are being robbed in Nikola place and Mirror Park in general, leads to the questioning of the validity of that robbery. Is it good portrayal to go out with your homeboys in broad daylight and start chain robbing on dirt bikes? Because realistically, someone is gonna see three dirt bikes flying down their white suburban neighborhood street whilst them and their family are trying to sleep.

 

I am not anti-robbery, as I believe that robbery does indeed cause and bring consequence for those that carry valuable goods on them in low-income areas where street crime is relevant. 

 

tl;dr, stop robbing people in mirror park in broad daylight, and find areas to rob where you won't be on edge because of the location. Rob smart, not unrealistically.

Robberies should be realistic and make sense for your character, not because you think OOC'ly it will be an easy cash grab. Stop expecting people to /showitems after 5 seconds and conduct them in locations where you're not looking over your shoulder every 2 seconds. It's not role play if nothing is allowed to develop on either side. We're here for the experience. Both sides should benefit from a role play perspective. At the end of the day, if people are genuinely breaking common courtesy rules, report them. Stalling, poor robbery RP, whatever it is. Report them. The problem can't be addressed if you just let it go.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Juicebox

[Smilesville]

1 hour ago, Juicebox said:

For those complaining about the frequency of robberies, here's a snapshot of crime in Los Angeles year-to-date in 2020. Sure, we aren't role playing Los Angeles 1:1 but it's a decent guideline considering Los Santos is based off of it. 6,962 documented robberies in just about 11 months.

The number alone doesn't mean much, however - if we compare that to the total population of Los Angeles, 4,015,940, then what we arrive is to the conclusion that about 0.17% of the population will experience a robbery each year. What is the likelihood that the same person is robbed multiple times in the same month with that statistic, do you figure?

 

To be fair, GTAW's proportions of criminals and police each far outstrip their respective shares of the population, but even if we multiply the number of absolute robberies tenfold, that's still only a 1.7% chance of being selected for a robbery in that year, on average. I'd be very interested to know the exact percentage of characters (not players) who have been robbed at gunpoint on the server in the past year - and I suspect the number would be in excess of 70-80%.

 

That is not remotely realistic, regardless of the quality of the robbery (near universally maligned by itself.) Consider also that victims of crime are statistically more likely to own firearms. You paint individuals who fight back when they spot a chance as poorly developed and potential powergamers, but my retort would be to ask how many robberies must one person endure before they formulate a plan of action for when one occurs? Were such instances relatively rare, your point would be more valid - and perhaps a poll would prove me wrong, but I highly doubt the percentage of characters who've experienced robberies dips anywhere below 70%. Who's to say this robber won't just shoot you when he's finished robbing you anyways? There are plenty of reasons one may fight back even in the face of what seems to be total loss of control, especially if they've been a victim multiple times in the past.

 

I will continue to maintain that just as we control the quality of burglaries, so too should we control the quality of robberies and substantially increase the risk thereof.

 

Until then, I'm not terribly receptive to any victim blaming.

[yerro]

1 hour ago, Smilesville said:

That is not remotely realistic, regardless of the quality of the robbery (near universally maligned by itself.) Consider also that victims of crime are statistically more likely to own firearms. You paint individuals who fight back when they spot a chance as poorly developed and potential powergamers, but my retort would be to ask how many robberies must one person endure before they formulate a plan of action for when one occurs? Were such instances relatively rare, your point would be more valid - and perhaps a poll would prove me wrong, but I highly doubt the percentage of characters who've experienced robberies dips anywhere below 70%. Who's to say this robber won't just shoot you when he's finished robbing you anyways? There are plenty of reasons one may fight back even in the face of what seems to be total loss of control, especially if they've been a victim multiple times in the past.

 

I will continue to maintain that just as we control the quality of burglaries, so too should we control the quality of robberies and substantially increase the risk thereof.

 

Until then, I'm not terribly receptive to any victim blaming.

Let me just chime in here to address this part of the post and ask you something back. Does that plan of action have to include getting an own weapon? How many people do you think would go for that, especially given their first-hand experience with robberies?

 

How many would seek to be more careful, change their neighborhood if it's a bad one (move to another district or even city), or seek IC ways to solve it like reporting it to the police, getting neighbors on board with the need to have heightened measures against muggings (increased patrol presence, CCTV, non-sworn officer patrols, etc)?

 

I'm just saying, you seem to be focusing on "get a gun and blast them fools" as the only response.

 

But hey, if you ask me, I think the part you're separating this into victims and robbers makes it an even greater issue. You haven't really been willing to accept my position on that earlier though. 😕

[cracked]

/me puts the knife to his throat, and then assuming it is successful would be PG. End of discussion?

[negs]

I'm glad to see that people are finally beginning to see the complexities of roleplay... Be careful though. You are treading on stone that are the bed rocks of everything we know about this game. 😉

[Ink]

I respond to this 11-page monstrosity knowing my response is likely to be drowned and unheard, and that little will change because of this topic, but I want to say my 2 cents about this issue.

 

@Smilesville's last post is brilliant and says a lot: there is no legitimacy to the scale of how much robbery happens on this server. Robbery is treated like a script job for illegal players. Robbery is one of the main circuits from which criminal characters, especially low-ranking criminals, gather guns by stealing them from other criminals, or more commonly, "legal" characters. I know for a fact that many criminal characters are intentionally targeting people they think have firearms so that they can score up to 5k and snag a gun. You start with one gun, you rob a second gun, now you have two guns. You give the second gun to a homie, now your outfit is twice as strong. Rinse and repeat. Stonks.

 

We're supposed to be RPing a realistic-ish world, but there's nothing realistic about the third world country that our characters live in. Why would any law-abiding citizen in their right mind stay in a city like Los Santos where robberies happen all day every day in every single neighborhood? My character has been robbed, all of my character's friends have been robbed, it's actually canon IC knowledge that my character has that robberies happen everywhere and at any time, constantly. Why does any character even stay living in this shit-show city? It really fucks with my immersion as a roleplayer, and it fucks with any person who is RPing a realistic regular character that our city is so corrupt and dangerous that the police literally can't do anything about the fact that people rob with impunity here. I have literally seen people robbing on the busiest IC streets in the city on a regular basis. It's retarded.

 

My problem isn't even "losing" or "taking an L my dude," no, fuck that. My problem is that I literally cannot roleplay in the public without bringing the risk closer and closer to 100% that I am getting robbed. Yes, robberies happen in real life, but holy shit, I don't worry about getting robbed while I'm having a picnic at 9 AM in a public park in downtown. I don't worry about getting robbed while I'm standing outside of my apartment having a cigarette. I don't worry about getting robbed while I'm on the beach in a heavily touristed area. Is it theoretically possible? Yeah. Does it happen? Well according to the numbers crunched above, to something like 0.17% of Los Angeles's population in a year, if the numbers are to be believed. I hate the fact that I cannot really enjoy RPing anywhere because someone driving by seeing two people standing and talking sees an easy mark. I hate it that I need to ICly and OOCly be worried that I'll be robbed just because I'm spending more than the time it takes me to run to my car on the street. That's not realistic. That's not immersive. That ruins roleplay.

 

Robberies are usually not fucking interesting. For anyone. The meta is to walk up with a gun aimed or a knife pointed and then, woo, you instantly win the roleplay! Amazing how that works! "I have a gun aimed at you, so you now need to do absolutely every single thing I tell you, and if you don't I kill you and/or shout non-RP fear." Everyone in this city has guns. And to the people who are like "that's not realistic" fuck that, we're living in Los Santos. Our characters are following their legal rights to carry a gun in this city. This city has gun laws, every single person without a criminal record is allowed to legally apply for a concealed carry license, and in Los Santos, electing not to carry a gun is literally unrealistic behavior and non-RP fear. Why would any rational person in Los Santos not exercise their legal right to carry a gun when literally every single law-abiding person they know has a horror story of how they've been accosted, mugged, robbed, beaten, threatened, attacked, shot at, or how they know people who have been shot? It only makes sense in your first month or two, but if your character doesn't start carrying a gun after that it's because you are blatantly roleplaying them ignoring the threats their life faces every single morning they show their face outside of their apartment door.

 

I joined this server with a character who had no reason to carry a gun. I ignore the CCW/PF licenses because "guns don't make sense for her." Guess what, assorted bottom-of-the-barrel criminals of Los Santos. Your fantastic roleplay changed that. My character has been robbed. My character's friends have all been robbed. My character's friends have been involved in robberies where people were viciously beaten and murdered in addition to robbed.

 

(On a side note, because I imagine people will mock me for "u just mad u got lacking" or "sry u lost some assets whiny legal RPer" or whatever stereotypical shit criminal RPers say, I actually enjoyed the RP of the first robbery, the robber properly roleplayed her emotional state, clearly scouted the area first, and acted like a real life robber did. She also realistically roleplayed a sense of urgency and took whatever we gave her and ran off without any question. All of us liked that RP. It was 3v1 and we did not just blast her, it was good RP from all sides.  The 2nd time I was robbed was really retarded, but the players involved were gentlemen OOCly at least, and their leader was doing his best to make them RP having a sense of urgency. My problem with robbery RP is that it happens way too much, that it's usually barely RP, that the whole point of it for most criminal RPers is to score some easy money and guns. And most importantly, that the culture of robbery on our server makes it so that our server's heavy roleplay setting becomes less friendly for roleplay.

 

So yes, it's realistic in a city like Los Santos where such a disproportionate amount of criminals are really unrealistically violent, aggressive, and active that everyone carries a gun. And it's realistic that when you carry a gun you start to think of how and when you'll use it, if you'll use it. It's a big decision all gun-owners have to make. And it's realistic when your character knows everyone gets robbed and robberies always happen that they'll know the chances of them being robbed when a masked individual approaches are like 90+%. It's realistic for them to think they're about to be robbed whenever some black guys or some Mexican guys walk towards them on the street. It sucks that that's the Los Santos we RP in because that's not really realistic to real life, but that's the Los Santos we have thanks to shitty criminal RPers. Oh well.

 

The only way to fix this is to make some stricter OOC rules about robberies. I hate that. I hate OOC rules getting in the way of RP. But the solution here is definitely not "report all the bad robberies." That's how you make a lot of really boring, frustrating work for really over-worked admins, and it solves nothing. You report and prosecute one shitty robbery RP, 40+ more happened in the 5 days it took to solve. You can punish every shitty robbery, and they'll still keep coming. You address the source, not the symptom. 

[Engelbert]

16 hours ago, Martyn said:

it's your gun they're after anyway. Not your cash, not your phone. But your PF weapon. That's what they all aim for. That's what they're doing it for, to either arm up yet another individual to continue their spree later on. Or to sell it for high profits.

That's actually the issue on the server.