Just started New Vegas. Having trouble understanding karma and red text. Please help.

[Neonetik]

Note: I'm going to be really simplistic here, and just use the terms "good" and "bad". Just a heads up.

So whenever I play a role-playing game, I always do my best to be a goody two shoes who does whatever they can to help good people. However, I just got to a point in the game where I rescued a deputy, and he asked him to find a new sheriff. Being a nice guy, I said sure, and I had two choices. Some military group, or some ex sheriff. The deputy didn't seem happy about the military option, so I figured I'd go save the ex sheriff. I went to that facility or whatever, and was immediately attacked by powder gangers.

Ok, so these thugs (clear bad guys) attacked me first, possibly because I killed a few at the start of the game to protect Ringo or whoever it was. I mean, it seems pretty obvious that they are evil (literal convict gang members who invade towns), and they are shooting me, so I fight back and kill a bunch of them. Once I kill them, I loot a key off a corpse, and go to open the door, and... the option to open the door is highlighted in red. What? Isn't red supposed to be a BAD thing? From what I gather, any time an option has been highlighted in red, it's been a clear "bad guy" thing to do. Usually stealing or something. I do not want to lose Karma and be labelled as a bad guy.

I've got saves from before, so just to test it, I enter, and get attacked by like 4 guys. I kill them, and then see that for all the objects around, I get the same red text as though I was stealing it. I mean, I suppose technically I am, but I've killed everyone already, and besides, these are evil people who tried to kill me on sight. Finally, I go to save the Sheriff, and he says that he would pay for his crimes, fair and square. Wait, what? What did he do? Why is he apologizing? Isn't he a good guy? Isn't he being held captive by gang members here?

This really confuses me. Was me saving this Sheriff actually an evil thing to do? Why would taking stuff from a completed empty camp that was previously filled with evil gang members be bad? Am I misinterpreting how the red text works? Does it just mean that committing that action would cause the surrounding people to be hostile towards me? Why was it red if they were ALREADY hostile? Would it reduce my Karma to loot their ♥♥♥♥? Furthermore, if it would not reduce my karma, does that mean I can loot good people without losing any Karma if they don't see me doing it? Is there an easy way to tell?

Just trying to wrap my head around this whole system.

Thanks for any answers.

[Dustin81]

It makes you lose karma for stealing from any faction no matter their morals. Karma really doesn't affect much in this game aside form a few things. Most npcs only care about your reputation with their faction. You can get karma up pretty easy just by killing ferals or fiend gang members.

The sheriff isn't really with the powder gangers, he just laid low during the revolt and stayed in the prison to wait out his sentence till the ncr takes it back.

[Castyles]

Karma is there for roleplay reasons. Dustin81 is right. It doesn't matter that much.

In Fallout 3 karma meant which companions you could recruit but here faction takes that spot.

[𝕊𝕋𝕌ℝ𝕄-𝕂𝔸𝕋]

If you are doing something against bad people for the favour of good people, and it shows up red for the action against the bad people, doesn't that make you 'good' for going against the bad people?

[Loremaster]

"So whenever I play a role-playing game, I always do my best to be a goody two shoes who does whatever they can to help good people. However, I just got to a point in the game where I rescued a deputy, and he asked him to find a new sheriff. Being a nice guy, I said sure, and I had two choices. Some military group, or some ex sheriff. The deputy didn't seem happy about the military option, so I figured I'd go save the ex sheriff. I went to that facility or whatever, and was immediately attacked by powder gangers. "

-So I believe in order for him to become sheriff you have to get him a Pardon from the NCR. He didn't assist in the breakout but he hasn't left the prison because he doesn't want to be an outlaw. The sheriff, Meyers, was arrested because he speed up the wheels of justice too many times. The location the sheriff is a prison controlled by the Powder Gangers, from what you say later in the post you killed Joe Cobb and his group of Powder Gangers. That's why they attacked you on sight because by killing a few of their guys you're now that factions enemy, same thing will happen if you shoot a few NCR troopers or shoot up a casino.

"Isn't red supposed to be a BAD thing? From what I gather, any time an option has been highlighted in red, it's been a clear "bad guy" thing to do. Usually stealing or something. I do not want to lose Karma and be labelled as a bad guy."

-So an option displayed in red generally means that it's something if you're seen doing will get you in trouble. Say for example at a highway camp the tin cans on the ground are in the default color because the item isn't marked as owned by anyone but the beers behind the counter are because someone owns it. The other posts on this thread explaining that theft always gives you negative karma are correct and unfortunate. I always felt like stealing from Caesar's Legion ought not to give negative karma for obvious reasons. The karma lost from theft is relatively low so you can afford to steal the ammo they keep in that room and have your karma be positive.

"Finally, I go to save the Sheriff, and he says that he would pay for his crimes, fair and square. Wait, what? What did he do? Why is he apologizing? Isn't he a good guy? Isn't he being held captive by gang members here?"

-Somewhere an NPC says that Meyers (the ex-sheriff in the NCRF) got arrested by the NCR for taking the law into his own hands and not following proper procedure too many times. I assume they mean he saw a guy steal and instead of locking him up shot the guy, something like that. None of the choices for New Sheriffs are bad or good really, NCR brings taxes, Primm Slimm brings robot logic to law and Meyers from what I remember tries to be more formal with his policing but still has the occasional vigilante justice.

TLDR For you ending questions:

-The sheriff skipped proper legal procedure too many times, which I think is understandable due to the state of the world, and was arrested for it. Being a true lawman he doesn't want to just break out and wants to pay his debt to society. He isn't an evil man so no not a bad thing
-Theft in Fallout New Vegas always rewards bad Karma. It's an underdeveloped mechanic.
-Red Text generally means that doing that action will make everyone hostile if they see you do it, even if they are already hostile because they could have not been. Your choices in the starting quest in Goodsprings antagonized the Powder Ganger's faction. If you hadn't done that you could have bribed the guard to get let into the prison and they would have been neutral with you. If you opened that one door while they say you they would have become hostile.
-Theft is always a karma loss if it's an Item but opening red marked doors normally doesn't give a Karma penalty (I think).

My last word of advice is not to worry too much about minor negative Karma infractions like these. Even when I'm a good character i take the faulty negative karma hit to pick up the Powder Ganger's dynamite and ammo boxes because it provides very little negative karma points. Also consider, every time you kill a powder ganger you get positive karma, so the 20ish guys you killed outweigh the loss of the few items you might steal.

I hope this helps.

[gruetoo]

yeah, the Powder Gangers are a wierd case where the individual members are evil and killing them is considered good, but the orginazation as a whole isn't flagged as such for some reason so stealing from them is considered an evil act.