Shoplift and Die: Difference between revisions

 

See also [[Badass Bystander]]. Compare [[Ballistic Discount]], [[Disproportionate Retribution]], [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']], [[I Fought the Law and the Law Won]], and [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[Nethack]]'''s shopkeepers. The trope was [[Trope Namer|formerly called]] Izchak's Wrath for a reason.<ref>Izchak is the only shopkeeper guaranteed to be in [[Randomly Generated Levels|any playthrough.]]</ref> They get indignant if the player tries to steal, trying to kill the player themselves or sending the police - which happen to be the [[wikipedia:Keystone Cops|Keystone Kops]] - after the player. The shopkeepers will also charge you for damaged or eaten merchandise. They tend to be well armed (with the occasional Wand of Death); the Keystone Kops would be predictably ineffective but for their overwhelming numbers. [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|There's a delightful variety of complications:]] they're killable but that counts as murder for the non-chaotic, they can grab the character's backpack if they try to tunnel through the floor while standing too close, characters with uncontrolled teleportitis should be very careful indeed... On the other hand, a trained housepet ''can'' steal items and somehow avoid attracting any attention.

* Pressing the attack key instead of the purchase key in ''[[Spelunky]]'' is a good way to be instantly killed by the shotgun-toting shopkeeper.

** ''Spelunky'' shopkeepers get angry over quite a few offenses, and there's a fairly complex system to determine their response to you. Killing a shopkeeper at any time, for any reason, causes the rest to be hostile to you for the rest of the game. Any other crime merely increases your [[Wanted Meter]], which goes down by one each floor. Notably, for whatever reason, stealing from a shopkeeper who is already angry doesn't count as a crime, which can be exploited for consequence-free robbery. As if that wasn't bad enough, some shopkeepers will not be in their stores, but waiting for you at the level exit hoping to catch you.

* In ''[[Wizardry]] 7'' [[PC]]s can steal from traders, but can be caught and then [[NPC]] gets angry (leaves ''or'' attacks with reinforcements). In ''[[Wizardry]] 8'' traders can eventually figure out where their stuff gone even if they fail to catch [[PC]]s immediately (obvious protection from The Mighty [[Save Scumming|Wand of Save/Load]]).

** “Smiley's Shop” in ''Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land''. This time you get two chances to return the item and if you take either of them nothing happens. Not to mention they actually warn you on the sign the security guards are very powerful. Ignore both warnings and you get attacked by a group of four enemies collectively much harder than even the final boss and that you normally fight one at a time, very rarely on the final level of the main game. Defeat them (which actually isn't as hard as it sounds) and you get to keep the item (not really a big deal), get a lot of experience and gold... and the shop closes forever.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Steal This Index]]

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]