LE The Problem of Stolen Goods

[thedisgrace]

Ever since Oblivion it has bugged me that the entire world has Robocop-like capacity to recognize stolen goods.

 

How on earth can a shady shop owner in Whiterun can tell the difference between a silver chalice I grabbed from a dungeon or a bandit camp(which was probably stolen in the first place), and a silver chalice I nicked from a house all the way in freakin' Solitude? It never made sense to me.

 

I realize that the original intent was to make the thief guild more appealing and relevant by making it the only way to fence goods. And to prevent people from feeling like they can just nick any old thing when nobody's looking, and thus make the game easier. However, we're all (mostly) mature here and mods can make the game play however we like. However, thus far I haven't seen anyone try to address the issue of stolen goods and fences.

 

Also, unlike in Oblivion, the Thief Guild already has its own appeal by giving you more specific 'jobs' if you are into that sort of thing.

 

So I'm curious if anyone has any ideas on how to open up the seedy underworld to not be quite so exclusive to the Thieves Guild. Honestly, you shouldn't need to join the thieves guild just to sell a few stolen goods; surely there are plenty of unsavory types around Skyrim who are more than happy to take useful items off your hands without asking any questions, and aren't necessarily affiliated with the thieves guild.

 

Personally I rather miss the Morrowind way of handling it, where the 'owner' of an item is tracked and they will recognize things when you try to sell them. I'd even like to go one step further and say that if you are openly wearing a stolen item then the owner will recognize it and call the guards. But this type of thing might be rather hard to script. So we might never see that kind of mod - it might not even be possible with the way Skyrim tracks objects, I really don't know.

 

So that failing, I'd love to just see the addition of new merchants (smugglers, gamblers, skooma dealers, etc) who maybe don't have a lot of gold, and might be picky about what they buy, and may not give you as much gold as a thieves guild fence, but don't turn their nose up at suspicious goods.

 

Ideally I'd like to see at least one such shady merchant in every Hold, and more scattered around in various locations where it would make sense, such as travelers' inns and orc encampments and the like.

 

Yes, there are is a mod that add fences to player homes but this tends to be a bit 'cheaty' for my tastes. Some random dude who hangs out in your house and buys stolen goods just feels like a vending machine. There's a difference between a convenience mod and a mod that makes thievery more accessible.

Edited September 25, 2012 by thedisgrace

[AnkhAscendant]

I would actually like to see this addressed a different way (assuming the Morrowind version is not possible, which I think it might not be). I'd just like to disable the 'stolen' tag on most non-unique items, definitely anything worth less than, say, 100. The description of missing gold jewelry and such might circulate, but seriously, one potion or mug or bear hide or piece of casual clothing looks very much like the next.

[thedisgrace]

That would be good if you could somehow make it so that people still react to the object being stolen.

 

From my understanding if you remove the 'stolen' tag then you could just run around town stealing 90% of the items laying around and nobody would bat an eye.

 

But yeah, if there was some way to keep that behavior and still let you sell those items...

 

Maybe a script that removes the stolen tag on items after a certain amount of time, perhaps related to their value? So an item worth 10 gold might only take 1 hour of game time, but something worth 100 gold might take days. And anything above that would need a proper fence.

[JanusForbeare]

In Oblivion, I use(d) this highly underrated mod. It simply removes an item's ownership flag if the player isn't detected while picking it up. I can't see any reason why this couldn't be done in Skyrim.

[thedisgrace]

That would definitely work too, and might be easier and less script-intensive than putting every stolen object on a timer.

 

I think Skyrim tracks objects in a pretty similar way to Oblivion, so maybe it wouldn't be too hard to port that mod?

[Redbeard007]

I think that the star tree for "Speech" has a perk that allows the player to sell any stolen item to any merchant they have invested with. As for the 'tag' I just ignore them unless I am being pursued then I use one of my invisibility potions and sneak away to a safe location and go to a trader I have invested in and sell the item(s).

[AnkhAscendant]

I think that the star tree for "Speech" has a perk that allows the player to sell any stolen item to any merchant they have invested with. As for the 'tag' I just ignore them unless I am being pursued then I use one of my invisibility potions and sneak away to a safe location and go to a trader I have invested in and sell the item(s).

 

Well and good from an actual gameplay perspective, I suppose, but it doesn't really change the fact that no one should now the items are stolen in the first place. Really, a shopkeeper in Windhelm shouldn't know that this exact goblet was stolen from a home in Solitude. For me at least it's a realism thing. I'm picky ^^;

[RidingNerdy]

its an immersion thing, which honestly i think it should work like crime, say you kill some moron that pissed you off in solitude, so you get the 1000 ( vanilla ) bounty on your head.. if you head to say riften they dont "know" about the bounty,since its not the hold you committed the murder in (evil laugh).... since that engines already in the game anyways, why not make a mod that uses the same engine/tracking/w/e for stolen items, as well as crime? .. or ill even go to say create a "black market" or something though the idea of a regular market set up just for buying and selling stolen crap is a little out there even if its across holds. ....actually maybe make a new option on any merchat that gives them a more "black market" option, or only ones in more seedy/shady places, like the gray quarter in windhelm .. or the entire town of riften and "belathors general goods" in whiterun ( a sleezy little man..but has good stock ;) )

[qwertybattle]

there is now a mod that comepletely fixes this for skyrim it is called better stealing http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/75296/?