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The State of Robbery RP: Low effort, High gains


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Speaking of robberies, unsure if this has been mentioned prior in the thread but I'm gonna mention it again. One of my characters resides in Paleto Bay, and the amount of times that illegal roleplayers venture all the way out to Paleto in order to scout for cars to steal/lockpick, now granted, it takes 3 minutes to drive out there, that's not a lot of time, but realistically that portrayal is ludicrous, to drive all the way out from South Los Santos in order to scout for one car that's on a chopping list? 

 

Example scenario that has happened to me: Mobsters from Los Santos ventured out to Paleto Bay in order to locate cars on their chopping list, they found my car parked outside my house, went to lockpick it and the alarm beeped. (didn't run away either) I got outside, aimed a gun at the perpetrator, and told him to get the fuck off my property, if he returned he would be shot on sight. He left with bare minimum fear-RP shown. Only to return with his friends, lockpick the same car (this time knowing I am armed, knowing that I threatened him if he should return, but alas, came back to hit a quick lick to rob my gun.) However this time his friend who was armed was around the corner and when I stepped out with my gun drawn it turned into a firefight. I don't know about you guys, but that isn't really valuing your own life, risking it for the sole purpose of either:
A): Get the car on the chopping list

B): A pistol

 

The second issue that I want to bring up is the roleplay of knocking on someone's door for the sole purpose of robbing them once they exit, now committing home invasions is fine, but at the very least, roleplay it properly. The robbers often (9/10 times) have exactly zero emotions connected to invading someone's home, putting a gun to their head, and violate their most secure space. Not to mention the grey area where the script restricts us into actually roleplaying the situation properly, as the windows of the house cannot me fully utilized since mapped interiors are on a different dimension from the regular outside world. 

Example scenario: Random South Los Santos gangbanger drives up to Paleto on a BF-400, black clothes and mask, drives up on my driveway and knocks on my door, doesn't scroll the weapon before I actually get out. I sneak out through the backdoor but he saw my nametag and immediately rounded the corner to the house and proceeded with a robbery consisting of 2 /me's...


People only use this because it's the meta of getting guns, go to a house (preferably in a rich area or in the county = high chance of guns) knock on their door to lure them out or to get them to unlock, aim guns, swift pat-down get gun and leave. 

As multiple people have stated before me, it's not about the roleplay it's about the gain, the play 2 win mentality and not telling a story through the roleplay where each character involved can develop from the situation, be it good or bad.

 

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I've rp'd an illegal char for about 7 months, very actively I might add. I'm going to tell you straight up, there aint much reward, so it's genuinely about rping a criminal. I'll let you know why in later down the essay to knock down that "high gains" part in the title. First I want to depict a few things in the OP's first post.

 

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"Robbery isn't as big a problem as you make it out to be" or "this is an exaggeration" but I can tell you it simply isn't. I've got a main character that's robbed constantly and I respond to robberies all day long on my LEO character. It's a complete epidemic on the server which has forced legal characters into hiding behind closed doors and has made the streets desolate.

It's personal experience, cause mine says otherwise. But you state it as fact. I've been on this server since 2017 and only been robbed once, and funny thing was that was on-duty in an unmarked (unfortunate right?). Now I've been doing LEO RP for ages and maybe it's timing but I don't see that many calls as you are claiming. And I don't know about you.. but I still see a lot of people around, even in the forest. So, to quote your quote; "this is an exaggeration".  

My opinion? Don't walk the street alone? at night, specially not alley's or deserted places where there is no few from the main road. Common sense, even IRL.

 

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So. Robberies. They happen a lot in real life, no doubt, and even more ingame. A startling amount, actually, far beyond the crime rate of any developed country I've ever seen.  I have not a single doubt in my mind that both serious criminal roleplayers and legal roleplayers are fed up with the current status quo of armed robberies.

 

This is  a given in any RP server and TBH, I find it to be the least on GTAW. Unlike IRL where people are around and about 24/7 doing things 24/7? That's not the case IG, people come on at a certain hour to roleplay what they like. This case robbing people. Or doing there criminal RP. Chain robbing isn't even allowed, so if you don't trust it, report it.. But with 700-800 people with peak I can imagine there are quite a few criminals lurking around to do some robbing. Robbing someone unarmed or just with a knife or a bat isn't feasible in GTAW as 90% of the server (just a guess, no fact) has a PF or CCW or even there own illegal obtained weapons. 
 

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"It's kind of a self-defeating circle of escalation. Legal RPer gets robbed multiple times, so Legal RPer gets quick on the draw. Illegal RPer starts shortening or not typing their /mes to catch people off guard harder leading to faster and looser RP in the hopes of actually completing a robbery. Legal RPer gets fed up with "low effort" robbers and starts gassing them. Illegal RPer gets fed up with getting gassed and starts doing super quick /mes or none at all, extend, ruin, repeat."


Making my point clear that almost everyone has a gun. (which makes doing robberies even more difficult). I could also imagine the flip side. Robber comes up, does a lovely /me very detailed and novel like and uses an anim. (let's say in an alley). The victim notices the /me, and instantly pulls his/her firearm, to defend themselves, shooting the robber down. 0-1 for rping robber. (yes he/she could go to the forums too).

It's easy to only see the side of your own, but try standing in their shoes. There are a lot more risks for the robber than for the victim. 1. They could get killed loose their shit, 2. They could get caught by the police and serve 4 actual days in prison (at the least).  As for the victim, 1. They lose their shit (stolen). 2. They die (still lose their shit) but can continue there lovely rp. So imagine the pressure someone has who's doing some robbery RP. Cause where they say "low effort" on robbery sides, there definitely also is "low effort" on the victim side.
 

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 The fact of the matter is, no matter how good someone could be at roleplaying out their robbery, no matter how much effort they put into their emotes, the norm is for there to be minimal roleplay at all, with a mix of IC and OOC chatter ("/showitems", etc.) Granted, things must be taken into account when roleplaying out a robbery, such as time, and that's completely fair - this could be combatted by 'timescaling', which is something we did often on servers I had been to past.


A robbery IRL only takes a few moments, the robber robs the person in a secluded place, he holds a weapon for weight, threat, whatever. He either tells the person to give something or rummages quickly through it them selves, this could go very quick. A frisk (even a thorough one) Takes no more than 15 seconds. So I wouldn't have a problem if the robber would go /me dips his hands into each pocket of blablabla. /me slides his/her hand along the waistline. /me pulls the bag out of blablabla's hand and rummages through it's contents and a /me flips the wallet open and checks the contents. I don't mind /showitems, cause, just like LEO rpers do to criminals, what's on you is on you. This they can efficiently select what they want or not. It may seem rushed, but not everything needs to be a novel either. your rp doesn't need to be a novel either. /my body trembles as he/she faces the robbers, she holds her hands up allowing the robbers to go through her stuff, a tear would drop down his/her cheek. (takes a second to type!).  

 

All I'm saying is you need to take everyone in to account, not just your rp wishes, but also that of the robber. You know they have the risk of being caught the longer you drag it out just because you want a dramatic novel written about the situation. I'm not saying that the quality should go down of any rp situation. But do try to look from their standpoint.
 

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As we can see in these two clips and many others


Fragments of an RP scene, doesn't show what happened in its entirety. Just like any other video that is clipped on cops, showing a cop just shoving a guy and shouting. To paint a bad picture. Tho' the entire scene is completely different with context.

^so those clips and the pictures are pointless.
 

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Note the use of 'items' in the emote. Robbery should never be exclusively about items. If you're robbing for items first and roleplay second you are the problem.


What else are they searching for? They want stuff that they can sell for cash. That's what robberies are about. When I frisk someone IG, I would also ask if there would be anything on them.  It's not about Items first / roleplay later.  It's about both, getting your gains whilst you have an enjoyable rp sit. And honestly, 9/10 times, it's not even that much what they find. When I frisk someone IG, I would also ask if there would be anything on them.  

 

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One of the ways gangs initiate new members is having them run an armed robbery because it is scary to rob someone at gunpoint yet I never see any new-bloods trembling as they ask for a wallet, or any spare cash.

 

I mean this seems like all assumptions no? Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it's not happening. Who says those who robbed you were "new-bloods". And even if you knew one of them was? who says they didn't rp the aftermath? maybe at the time they were all beefed up on adrenaline and later on found the consequences of it. 

 

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It's always about the script items it seems, never about the roleplay.

 

How do you know? just because their RP wasn't sufficient enough according to you? And if that's the case, report them?  Or maybe they are learning? Went quick the first time, maybe not sufficiently roleplay even according to themselves. Don't tell me you never had a situation where you thought, ah, I could have maybe worded it a bit more, or better. Don't tell me you haven't been in a situation where you don't want to roleplay it out? But you do because you're expected to do so, but the quality cause of it may be less than usually (even tho' still sufficient).

I have, I haven't always given it my all, specially if I hated the scene that much. Or didn't enjoy the roleplay with the other person maybe because of their lack of skill, or the way they've rp'd things.

 

 

I'm not saying that there isn't a problem. But to generalize it all as I feel you've done in this post is disgusting. There are rotten apples everywhere both in Legal (Civilian, LEO, Fire and otherwise) and Illegal RP. No one is perfect either, and not everyone is the best at roleplay but do try! 

Last but not least;

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 So I propose this: Staff, if possible- please start paying more attention to robberies and enforcing roleplay standards as much as possible. 

 

We have a quote at work saying, if you didn't report, it didn't happen. Admins are overloaded with work. They won't just go and check random people if they roleplay proper. You got to report the person if there is an issue. If you don't report them, clearly it wasn't important enough for you to do something about it!



@ChromaticDeath Just my two cents! no hard feels! And yes, I understand what you encounter on a daily when it comes to pursuits. It's horrible most of the time. 



Last thing I want to add; I always refer to Quality over quantity of RP. I rather have one sit where the RP was so great. Then 10 situations where the RP was mediocre at best. As long as you keep that in mind, I think a lot would change. For anyone really in any area of RP. 

 

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3 hours ago, Smilesville said:

Robberies certainly do not do this. Especially two minute robberies where the only spoken line is "hands up fool."

 

I've proposed my solution - increase prison sentences. The overwhelming dissent seemed to be, as always, that an illegal RPer shouldn't be forced to roleplay in prison. It's hilarious to make this argument at the same time they want to subject the server to rote robbery after robbery.

 

Robberies do not provide development for the vast majority of characters engaging in them. "I experienced one good robbery, and/or I develop my character through robberies" is not an adequate response. The vast majority of them are shit, and over the several years this has been the case, I've seen not one suggestion from the illegal community to improve their quality.

 

You have highly unrealistic expectations of what robbery proceeds in real life can accomplish if you believe they can pay rent, buy cars, and keep your family in a manner to which they are accustomed. That's not a realistic expectation. If your rivals are having the same issues you are, you're theoretically on even ground when it comes to gang conflicts - but again, your argument isn't about crafting a story in opposition to theirs, it's about getting mechanical weapons to get the W.

 

In-game, robbers harass players minding their own business. That's just a fact.

 

Here are just a few of the things I've suggested to ameliorate the problem we face:

I wouldn't be so irate about the robbery problem if the criminal weren't released four days later. I also wouldn't be so irate about them if they were properly roleplayed without the OOC harassment that often comes with them (/b showitems, quit stalling, etc etc.) One of my suggestions has already been forwarded, so we'll see how it impacts the server when it's implemented - maybe prison times alone solve the problem by discouraging the grindfest and leave it solely to those who can engage in them realistically - the incredibly desperate.

 

I've been talking about this and proposing changes since before you even knew what GTAW was, dude.

 

 

"Robberies certainly do not do this. Especially two minute robberies where the only spoken line is "hands up fool.""

I've only robbed a person, once in my life, as a full-time illegal RPer... but, to claim that you don't have any character development from a robbery shows that you aren't creative with the results of the robbery. You don't end up discussing the incident with friends or with bartenders at bars? You don't undergo I.C. measures to prevent such acts from happening in the future? Every cause has an effect, and to claim that it doesn't develop your character shows a lack of creativity during losing situations.

Not stating it's all true, but it looks like it.

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42 minutes ago, Jeroen said:

What about adding a genuine supply chain for illegal weaponry?

 

Apparently there was some sort of mining job in the server, and I have no clue to what kind of system it was linked but I'm just tossing ideas here.

 

What if there was some sort of material market?

 

1. (Legal) miners mine ore / minerals.

2. A processing plant buys/sells steel at a specific price depending on supply and demand.

3. (Illegal) gunsmiths produce firearms from steel, quality depends on the available tooling and skills/RP of the gunsmith.

 

The material market could also be tied to automotive parts.

 

Now I have no idea how advanced the trucking system is currently, as the last experience I've had was over a year ago and only a few rides. But I feel like it could be expanded upon.

never make crime a minigame. roleplayers, by their very definition, can and will optimize the roleplay out of a roleplay server in order to get a number to rise; example here is mechanic garages.

where there were two, three, four open any hour of the day is now hours of nobody willing to do that kind of automotive roleplay. and why's that? because they lowered the financial benefits the players reaped from running a garage

make acquiring guns a thing that requires no admins and no licensing/character-account connection and people can and will just stop roleplaying in the pursuit of said guns.

that's why robberies are so widespread in comparison to other crimes; breakin requests require you to wait, while a lick takes between two to ten minutes to pull off. and yes, i believe that from what i've seen, people don't do them for your money. they try to get guns and for some (mostly unofficial factions or free electron illegal rpers outside of factions as a whole), they're the primary method of acquiring said guns.

next time someone pulls up on your character with a pasted emote of doing 6 actions at once and puts a knife to your character's throat from twenty feet away, you know you've caught such a roleplayer during their first, initial attempts at acquiring a gun, before they could move along and attempt to acquire the next one and snowball further.

you've seen the video from that attack from across the vanilla unicorn, you know the type of trash execution i'm referring to.

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I've been on this server for nearly 2 years, and have only been robbed around 8 times. If you're being targeted, then there's a good reason for it. 

I've even played as a passive civilian character in Davis, for around 2 months, and she wasn't robbed ONCE.  

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3 minutes ago, goddessoflife said:

long reply to OP

Hey I can't add anymore reactions but I want to say I appreciate your post, it's really well thought out and brings up a lot of good counter-points I didn't even think of. I remember you from PD for quite a while. Maybe the amount of robberies was a bit hyperbole, but on average I think there's at least 5-6 robbery calls a day (at least when I'm on.) It's gotten a LOT worse recently. It ramped up significantly around when 1.1 was deployed for some reason. I think myself (and many others) have just become jaded with poor roleplay shown during them. It's usually not people who have been around the community a while- one-offs and alts like @AlphaBatalsaid.

 

As for being targeted, probably because I roleplay (and portray) a wealthy character on one of my slots, but I've been robbed on others too. Said character doesn't wander into alleyways at night, and usually sticks to good neighborhoods, but still gets rolled up on regardless- last time it was in Rockford Hills at 9 AM, the time before that, Little Seoul at 10 AM. Always checking behind her, always moving, usually. The times I've been robbed have been in nicer neighborhoods usually during the day. Usually at low pop, too. Like in the example of the Rockford robbery, I watched him follow us from Sinner and Vespucci all the way through Rockford Hills to hop out and point a machine gun at us, so it's not exactly 'crime of opportunity' at that point!

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5 hours ago, EffPee said:

This argument about people 'not robbing for roleplay' always amuses me.

 

I understand that a large amount of robberies are poorly roleplayed and the players that partake in that should be punished and/or taught how to get better at it. HOWEVER, are robbers supposed to just like... not expect a reward? End of the day, our characters are robbing for monetary gain/a come up that might include a weapon or drugs etc. Just because we, the player, are doing it for roleplay, does NOT mean we don't want to actually gain anything from it.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to rob someone for their belongings, that's actually the dictionary definition of robbery.

robbery
/ˈrɒb(ə)ri/
 
noun
the action of taking property unlawfully from a person or place by force or threat of force.
 
The issue arises when people substitute sufficient roleplay for a quick come-up. This is where the line is drawn. 
 

While I don't wholly agree with this statement, it's pretty much hit the nail on the head. Alot of Illegal roleplayers commit robbery because they have barely any other options to get in contact with money and weapons. Even the best roleplayed robberies are done with the desire of some sort of scriptwise gain from it. 

I'll wait for your twenty-five page essay on the matter, but this is very ignorant. You're generalising YET AGAIN and it helps nobody. Illegal roleplayers that WANT to roleplay a robbery are also doing it for the scriptwise gain.,That's what a robbery is for. Even if it's the majority of robbers that don't roleplay sufficiently, this does not mean that there aren't a good amount of people that want to do it for roleplay too.

 

End of the day, do IRL muggers/robbers do it just for something to do, or do they do it for what they might gain out of it?

 

Illegal roleplayers don't have that many opportunities to make money and get weapons without abusing OOC contacts. Until this is remedied, you'll be seeing plenty of poorly roleplayed robberies and it'll be a never-ending cycle. I'm not excusing it, that's just how it is.

I personally find some of the statements untrue. I have like 3 illegal characters and if your plan isn't to portray an El Chapo, in which case robberies will get you nowhere, you have plenty of ways to get some quick buck. It will not make you millionaire, but most of criminal portrayals I saw til now, all suffer from a tunnel vision, guns and drugs are the best. And easiest way to get both are robberies. Well guess what? In 21st century majority of people. especially those who have actual money and work, will go to police EVEN if you tell them not to. Ofc most of people here have no balls to steal from other criminals and teens on the streets are left with only few options, but I was able to get something like five grand in two days, without robbing someone. I only did a car break-in, a pickpocket and small scam. And that's it. If you actually CARED about roleplay, you'd find plenty of opportunities. You just have to roleplay them. It's easy to find victims if you approach them with roleplay. Aiming your gun from a BF400 is the first that puts them off. They will give their items, but that's it.

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4 hours ago, ChromaticDeath said:

Your profile picture and post tells me all I need to know about your outlook on the post and that you didn't read it whatsoever, have a nice day.

10/10...the passive aggression in this one took it from a 7/10 to a 10/10 reply for me
Parking Spot Sign With Number 10 , SKU: K-6315

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