The criminal "Jack of all trades"

[Amellis]

I wanna start things off with a disclaimer. My experiences IG have been largely civilian / LEO for the past year or so so I'm talking from an outdated... Call it uneducated point. Take that as you wish and please keep it civil. If I'm wrong I'd love to hear it but also keep the discussion rolling if one pops off in the first place. This is more of a ramble of mine.

 

With the upcoming update, we're getting a handful of new cool ways for criminals to make money. Cool, really exciting changes, but this made me wonder...

 

It's easy to call oneself a career criminal, many do, and rightfully so. what throws me off is when these are 'undefined' careers. Feels like every two-bit crook you see is into the drug or gun trade... Or both? House robberies, carjacking, mugging... Killing even. I don't doubt there are people like that IRL but I feel like those don't last long... For obvious reasons, or are simply not as common as they once were. A dwindling species thanks to new technologies to fight crime.

 

I feel like being a career criminal is generally portrayed in a pretty vague manner. I know there are some career criminals out there who are very knowledgeable about a specific topic and keep their ill activities largely related to that field and that doesn't necessarily mean they can't do other types of activities... But do they really need to risk it and step foot into the unknown when that could mean an end to their lifestyle? Are we doing that for the actual roleplay behind, the gains, or because... Consequences are easy to avoid?

 

Yes, it's a game, okay some people find it fun to do everything in one char... But where should we draw the line quality-wise? Because when a legal character does stuff like that (doing a handful of different jobs) they can be told off and the "Jack of all trades" term pops up. This isn't a why-them-but-not-these type post... I'm genuinely curious. What marks the difference? Now, I'm all in for letting people RP whatever they want within reason and we all know there's a sadly big part of this community chasing the dollar rather than the experience for some reason. Are we gonna have every [Insert SoCal name] (M) rocking signal jammers (just an example) on top of a revolver, HP drugs, bandages, mask, and nitrile gloves? They're expensive, right? But don't they make a shit ton of money anyways from all the other things? Who on their sane mind would be leaving home with no particular purpose other than be outside and think "Oh, snap! I almost forgot my surgical gloves"?

 

I know of factions that enforce this, precisely. Factions that put their people to do specific tasks and get better at them. Maybe it's the faction-less criminals who do this?

I'd love to hear more about this, and please don't see this as "an LEO complaining about illegals again". I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to RP and generally try to avoid the parts of enforcing the law that annoy people when I'm at it. I'm here for the ride, be it one good for my characters or a bad one. I'm not even asking for more ways to catch criminals, but what I'd really love to see is these to portray fear of consequences a bit more often. To have bank robbers rob banks and not everything that isn't bolted to the ground, or if they do so... To be justifiable. Maybe encourage readers who aren't into it already to give this a shot? Or learn something... I want to hear your thoughts on the topic and learn myself too!

[Zoinks]

I think it comes down to an unspoken culture surrounding illegal RP where if your character turns down something, then they are not 'all for the gang/mob/MC' and therefore this is a bad thing to do. The phrase "are you willing to kill for [X]" is thrown around a lot, and again, if you say no, this is seen as a lack of dedication to the cause, stunting your character progression, and in some extreme cases, resulting in your character death. This combined with the fact that its a game, and people want to experience everything possible, has made it so being a jack of all trades and/or a coldhearted murderer in the illegal world (or atleast, poorly portrayed illegal world) is more of a requirement than something to be shamed. 

I also think it comes down to justification. If a person has legal employment, you could perhaps justify working two jobs due to being broke, but for the most part, more than two jobs would just... not happen. Realistically speaking, an individual in two part time jobs would have to dedicate 15-20 hours a week to each of those jobs, resulting in 40hr work week. A full time job with a weekend job would be a work week of about 60hr. Add any more employment onto that and it becomes ridiculous. However a criminal slinging weed on the corner and then hitting a house for a robbery at night works on their own schedule and simply puts in as much hours as is needed to complete their task, meaning they can do varied things with less time limitation. 

 

Lastly I think it's due to activity levels and faction longevity.  Say the gun guy(s) are inactive and on LOA. But the customers who expect their guns are still very much active, coming to you on the regular. While they're inactive, someone has to take over, while in real life a person wouldn't simply just go inactive lol. So it's easier for factions to have all-rounders in the faction who can handle this or that, taking pressure off a certain individual or small crew to handle a niche aspect of business.  

I agree with your point though, I just don't think anything will change while those 3 things are a thing. I personally always think of an area of crime I want to explore when creating a character and aim to avoid the other stuff but I can't say I blame people for just taking on any job the faction gives them bc that's the culture as far as i'm aware at least. Non-faction criminals are probably just bored and doing any activity they can get involved with.
 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Zoinks

[tony genovese]

I do agree that some criminals are similar to the typical bartender, business owner, car sales man, but you also have to point out that one is much more sensible than the other, I want to see less of that but then again you have to realize that there are little options for criminal roleplayers, let's say I just want to focus on drugs, I'm a gang member who just wants to push work, what are my options? I have an undervalued product, I would get little interactions with real people, obviously I am going to want to do other shit. Roberies are so stingy, it's impossible to just roleplay around just that. I actually had the idea of doing only doing robberies the right way but then you look at the rules, and then you look at the wait time to do one house robbery, you're better off just doing what every other criminal does. To sum this up, I think there would be more people specializing on one aspect of criminal RP if the option was viable to do so but with the current system it isn't.

[varthshenon]

5 minutes ago, tony genovese said:

I do agree that some criminals are similar to the typical bartender, business owner, car sales man, but you also have to point out that one is much more sensible than the other, I want to see less of that but then again you have to realize that there are little options for criminal roleplayers, let's say I just want to focus on drugs, I'm a gang member who just wants to push work, what are my options? I have an undervalued product, I would get little interactions with real people, obviously I am going to want to do other shit. Roberies are so stingy, it's impossible to just roleplay around just that. I actually had the idea of doing only doing robberies the right way but then you look at the rules, and then you look at the wait time to do one house robbery, you're better off just doing what every other criminal does. To sum this up, I think there would be more people specializing on one aspect of criminal RP if the option was viable to do so but with the current system it isn't.

It's the same thing with the usual bartenders tho'. Business don't open daily, if even weekly, so they take other jobs. It can be said with anything basically, since things don't run 24/7. What I'd like to see is for people to approach it realistically.

[liq]

Because the server constricts you to shitty rackets whereas the main illegal market is guns, drugs and electronics. It took a year to get some really cool updates in that should've been here for years already as is. It'll only get better from here on out.

 

And to get anywhere within illegal role-play, the concept has to revolve around one of those if not all unless you wanna role-play with your own self. This isn't unheard of. A drug dealer always starts small and graduates to weight and selling number 2s. The more you're in the game, the more you may have opportunities. 90% of the server always roleplays being pushers and flippers instead of narrowminded users etc.

 

With the restrictions put on criminal RP as is, the lack of script and community support, and the confines of GTAW as a community itself when it comes to role-playing in or around crime, it is what it is. It's up to you as a player to draw the line somewhere and not be some uber cringe bosslike char that does everything and thankfully IFM is super hard on people for their standards and quality & the people that do that never actually get anywhere but in the unofficial faction archive, eventually.

 

Anything creative like heists take up weeks of review to be approved, RP planning etc. and require full admin supervision to CK people if they get killed by cops or somehow wind up dead in the process. Break-ins need admins. Vandalism of a higher scale or arson needs admins. CKs are the way they are.

 

You don't know what it's like to wanna go do a robbery, RP up to that point, wait for an admin for 1 hour of your OOC time and when nobody comes unfortunately there's no one to even complain to. When the same thing happens to cops needing admins for search warrants, they usually source one quickly. Cops genuinely throw you in jail for 20 days then scramble to backtrack raiding properties WEEKS later because they never even had a case & when a case is dismissed by the courts or DA, nothing happens to them, and the court process takes months anyway. The server as a whole reacts badly to criminal RP.

 

And when you put all of these facts together, you understand illegal role-players are fucking tired. The usual factions people consider "DMers" are just trying to RP in peace but often get provoked and surprise surprise surprise posting reports takes weeks or laughably months to deal with meanwhile your faction suffers etc.

 

So no, criminal RPers aren't the problem of being jacks of all trades. We just adapt to the environment. And the environment fucking sucks.

Edited June 2, 2023 by liq

[CowboyYoda22]

Mainly the limitations that come with the mechanics is why you'll see someone dabble in a bit of everything. Personally I think that illegal characters should show some restraint themselves and limit themselves to one or two core criminal activities. (For example: I try to limit one of my characters from participating in aggregated robberies, car thefts, or what you'd see as very physically demanding jobs). 

There's a lot of crime you can do and even RP, but a lot of crime is a solo activity in the real world. You're going to be extremely limited in terms of who and what you can RP with. Things like selling I can see be justified as being more of a street salesman and while you might not be an expert on everything about a certain product, you know how to work the streets and make sure that deals are followed through -- so drug / weapon trading are skills that have a lot of cross over traits. 

Ultimately there's only so many certain illegal activities that you can do that will let you go out and interact with other characters, even less that aren't just outright hostile to another player and their experience. If you're a character that is a crime boss, master burglar, the top shooter, car chopping expert, cyber criminal, and an illegal drug manufacturer? That's poor portrayal. 

But, if you're just some guy selling whatever they can get their hands on, might partake in an aggravated robbery to make ends meat every now and then? That's a more grounded portrayal. It all comes down to thinking about what position your character is in and also putting limitations on yourself so that other people you operate with can do things.

So much of illegal RP on a macro level is dependent upon individuals and organizations. One LOA can have a compounding effect on the larger economy for a week or two, depending on what products have slowed down their transactions, causing some factions to stall and have to pause their own deals. A lot of the time, relying on one person to handle something (while realistic) can have a negative game experience for a server as a whole. 

I personally have never cared that some legal character might work at four different bars, because while we want to argue about realism, 95% of businesses do not open regularly for someone to dedicate their RP time specifically to that job alone. There's always going to be some leeway in terms of grounded portrayal and the limitations of the game and the server, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of a more enjoyable server experience.

[Alys]

3 minutes ago, CowboyYoda22 said:

Mainly the limitations that come with the mechanics is why you'll see someone dabble in a bit of everything. Personally I think that illegal characters should show some restraint themselves and limit themselves to one or two core criminal activities. (For example: I try to limit one of my characters from participating in aggregated robberies, car thefts, or what you'd see as very physically demanding jobs). 

There's a lot of crime you can do and even RP, but a lot of crime is a solo activity in the real world. You're going to be extremely limited in terms of who and what you can RP with. Things like selling I can see be justified as being more of a street salesman and while you might not be an expert on everything about a certain product, you know how to work the streets and make sure that deals are followed through -- so drug / weapon trading are skills that have a lot of cross over traits. 

Ultimately there's only so many certain illegal activities that you can do that will let you go out and interact with other characters, even less that aren't just outright hostile to another player and their experience. If you're a character that is a crime boss, master burglar, the top shooter, car chopping expert, cyber criminal, and an illegal drug manufacturer? That's poor portrayal. 

But, if you're just some guy selling whatever they can get their hands on, might partake in an aggravated robbery to make ends meat every now and then? That's a more grounded portrayal. It all comes down to thinking about what position your character is in and also putting limitations on yourself so that other people you operate with can do things.

So much of illegal RP on a macro level is dependent upon individuals and organizations. One LOA can have a compounding effect on the larger economy for a week or two, depending on what products have slowed down their transactions, causing some factions to stall and have to pause their own deals. A lot of the time, relying on one person to handle something (while realistic) can have a negative game experience for a server as a whole. 

Well said.

[Lindsie]

Doing only one thing can get boring, so its not just criminal thing. Lots of people do variety of things to keep the RP more interesting and fun. I'd say its totally fine.

[Alys]

Just now, Lindsie said:

Doing only one thing can get boring, so its not just criminal thing. Lots of people do variety of things to keep the RP more interesting and fun. I'd say its totally fine.

Depends in my opinion, if your character deals with both firearms, card skimmers, different sorts of drugs and a chop shop on top of that? I'd say your character is the definition of ¨jack of all trade¨ or a Mary-Sue.
Doing one or perhaps partake in two different schemes depending on the amount of roleplay you may get out of it? Sure.

[Robis]

It sounds like this could be more addressed to the loners who doesn't take part in any illegal factions or might be special occasions. Because all the illegal factions that I know usually enforce their members to take part only in crimes that that specific kind of group would be involved. Since most if not all illegal factions are based on at least one very similar group in real life, they also do enough research to know what exactly kind of schemes and crimes they are committing. 

 

Another thing is here. People can always apply for something more crazy. Don't just sit on what scriptwise you are allowed to do. Be more creative and come up with some other schemes that maybe exist world wide, but adjusts it for game. For example nobody has forbidden you to roleplay stealing exclusive cars, roleplaying whole deal with key scanner boosters through the walls and later take these cars in to your garage, change their VIN's and try to sell/export to imagined person outside San Andreas. Bring in more passive roleplay and rest is on your own shoulders, your imagination and how much you wanna commit to unknown.