The criminal "Jack of all trades"

[Martyn]

It's called the illegal mallrat and they're frowned upon by proper illegal roleplayers too. (Usually official faction members of OCG's will crack down on this sort of thing)

[Lindsie]

15 minutes ago, Martyn said:

It's called the illegal mallrat and they're frowned upon by proper illegal roleplayers too. (Usually official faction members of OCG's will crack down on this sort of thing)

Or DavisLTDrats?

[Martyn]

Just now, Lindsie said:

Or DavisLTDrats?

 

No there's a difference. The illegal mallrat isn't held back by territory or a certain location. They don't really RP much of a theme either apart from simply just being a criminal. They usually have 2-3 other mallrat friends which they use to basically roleplay a mini-group of men who all take the same risks and do the same shit. One day they'll go around acting as a 4man navy seal team robbery squad. The next day they'll show up with military grade jammers to break into your house. There's no theme, story or development and its all just an asset grind through illegal means. As people mentioned before, it's the equivalent of legal bartenders.

 

DavisLTDrats are usually either people who are ban evading and just login to troll or  came through the application process using a translator or used ChatGPT and have no idea how to roleplay so going to the most populated area on the map is their go-to strategy to interact with folk where they obviously have to be the main character, thus take no shit and constantly start fights/conflict. 

[tony genovese]

1 hour ago, liq said:

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.

and the sad part is we've been saying the same shit for years and we prolly got 1/2 boderline changes, idk about you but I gave up a long time ago, the most I can do is just try to enjoy the roleplay I create with my homies. I started viewing this as just a game mod and not a community, best thing I ever did.

[NickyW]

4 hours ago, Alys said:

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.

I think the fact that your definition of a Mary Sue applies to a huge number of real life criminals kind of undermines the meaning of the word. 
 

Additionally, having a wide variety of criminal rackets doesn’t strip your character of any depth or validity anymore than having a wide variety of hobbies does.

 

Unless someone is an NPC that just does one thing 24/7 in which case they’re honestly replaceable by a few dozen lines of code and aren’t all that necessary . 

 

 

OP:

 

I think it’s sort of a played out concept to harp on realism in a game where you are literally restricted by the script and even the game world/mechanics as to how realistic you can be. There’s only so many things you can do as an illegal RPer, and whether we want to pretend that OOC money is important to faction/character success, it very much is.

 

But if we’re talking about realism,  99.9999 percent of IRL criminals are opportunists and don’t have a “trade.” This isn’t an RPG where you go to the fake ID guy to get your fake ID and the counterfeit shoes guy to get your counterfeit shoes.  Hustlers hustle, any way they can.

 

The only thing that stops you from doing a certain criminal act in real life is your nerve/guilt, which doesn’t really exist on GTAW because theres not actually any consequences to your actions. This, on the other hand, I agree is a ginormous issue. but everyone’s terrified of fixing it because when we have they conversation it’s “just a game” and we “have to balance fairness and realism”

 

TL:DR

 

I think it’s silly to generalize a character’s actions as “poor portrayal” or “bad RP” without examining any of the context behind it.

 

there are nearly zero RP concepts/behaviors that are *inherently* poor Roleplay, outside of blatant rule breaking. 

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by NickyW

[kketamine]

6 hours ago, liq said:

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.

 

on god

[DLimit]

R.P. opportunities, within the illegal community, were endless without script, back in 2019-2020. I will say this again, nothing really restricts criminals from RPing criminal activities. We use to RP crimes without the need of a dozen scripts, and it exceeded beyond just narcotics deals, robberies, brawls, and shoot-outs. Script can boost illegal RP activity, but now a days, people are TOO dependent on scripts to R.P. that they actually put "script" over actual R.P.

in 2019-2020, storylines seemed more in-depth since people relied on R.P. more than just scripts to create content. Currently, on a general level, people rely more on scripts than the actual R.P.

That, in my opinion, is the real problem. The mentality.

P.S. I am not stating "abolish scripts", but mentioning that people shouldn't rely on scripts to R.P. crime.

Edited June 3, 2023 by DLimit

[radreaper100]

i grab my xannies (50 bucks a pill) and my shitty .38 special (400 dollars) and my surgical gloves (10 bucks for a box of 100) and my ski mask (5 dollars), cant forget my dora the explorer bandaids (2 bucks)

 

god im so equipped………..

 

in case it isn’t obvious most of the items with the exception of the signal jammer—which the staff team has made abundantly obvious won’t be available on a widescale basis or cheap—are pretty dumb cheap even in todays economic environment. it’s furthermore not that out of whack for someone to have those items on themselves, especially with nefarious intent

 

and this is coming from someone that primarily mains a leo 

 

as for your jack of all trades point you gotta realize hustlers are gonna hustle, it doesn’t matter what product you push as long as you have the right connection and story to support that kind of thing. it’s not like you get a degree in criminality or thugging or something and now ur stuck pushing coke and weed and god help you if you sell some jewelry you took off someone or something. That’s narrow minded

 

 

Edited June 3, 2023 by radreaper100