Why do I lose Karma by stealing from Powder Gangers?

[Das Boot]

Recently I was purging the correctional facility of the Powder Gangers, and while I was doing that I took supplies from a medical box on the wall. Doing so caused me to lose karma. In other words ...

killing bandits = heroic
stealing from bandits = evil

Why is that?

[Mr_Faorry]

The Karma system is ♥♥♥♥, best to just ignore it because the way it works Robin Hood would be the ultimate badguy and some psycho who murders everyone would have good karma.

Basically the Powder Gangers are a faction you can join, so all their stuff is owned by them so that if you steal from them they'll turn hostile, the game can't differentiate between sometime owned by a faction already hostile to you and something owned by one that is still friends, it's all just owned by not you and taking things owned by not you bad.

The karma system doesn't affect anything anyway beyond a couple of words on a single end slide, just use these mods to effectively remove the karma system from the game because it's stupid it's just a skeleton system left over from Fallout 3.
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66016
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38897

[Scythia]

Moralistic answer: Stealing from thieves means you aren't any better than they are.

[ZZZZZ]

Originally posted by Mr_Faorry:

The Karma system is ♥♥♥♥, best to just ignore it because the way it works Robin Hood would be the ultimate badguy and some psycho who murders everyone would have good karma.

many historians say that robin hood was a crazy mass murderer who cut people into pieces, no matter if they were rich or not and that he was so good in it that people made a tale of it and somehow made him a hero lol

@to op, as said, powder gangers even have quests and arent aggressive npcs

[Du-Vu]

Killing powder gangers and feral ghouls spikes your karma so much in the other direction that you'd have to actively avoid killing any to have "stealing" to add up enough to actively count against you. Not the most immersive, but you get used to it. This game was very rushed and karma was just one of the things they didn't get to implement or cut. It's also not consistent -- sometimes killing guys will unmark their property as owned, sometimes not.

There are a few mods that fix it, starting with the original sjawyer mod (put together by the game's director, updated version here https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61592/
), but that makes a bunch of other changesas well (full changelist here https://fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/JSawyer ). There are mods that deal with karma exclusively (like this one https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/59470/ ?) but I haven't tested them myself. Not sure how good they are, but they can't be much worse than the base game.

Not meaning to rag on Obsidian, btw. They literally put this thing out in like 18 months. It may be buggy but we're still playing it 10 years later.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Das Boot:

Recently I was purging the correctional facility of the Powder Gangers, and while I was doing that I took supplies from a medical box on the wall. Doing so caused me to lose karma. In other words ...

killing bandits = heroic
stealing from bandits = evil

Why is that?

Stealing is stealing.

And its because the Karma mechanic was ignored in this game but not removed. So stealing owned items dings karma.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Mr_Faorry:

The Karma system is ♥♥♥♥, best to just ignore it because the way it works Robin Hood would be the ultimate badguy and some psycho who murders everyone would have good karma.

Basically the Powder Gangers are a faction you can join, so all their stuff is owned by them so that if you steal from them they'll turn hostile, the game can't differentiate between sometime owned by a faction already hostile to you and something owned by one that is still friends, it's all just owned by not you and taking things owned by not you bad.

The karma system doesn't affect anything anyway beyond a couple of words on a single end slide, just use these mods to effectively remove the karma system from the game because it's stupid it's just a skeleton system left over from Fallout 3.
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66016
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38897

But Robin Hood *is* a bad guy.

[Vex Hilarius]

Becuase you're technically stealing from the NCR. Its called NCR Correctional Facility not Powder Ganger Hotel.

[Das Boot]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Stealing is stealing.

The bandits are all dead though. You expect me to believe it'd be more moral to leave their ill-gotten goods to rot in the desert even after the bandits are dead?

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Das Boot:

killing bandits = heroic
stealing from bandits = evil

Why is that?

Because Obsidian was not competent enough to set their ownership so that it won't reduce one's karma upon stealing.

[Doctor Go-Go]

Originally posted by Synthetic Pink:

Becuase you're technically stealing from the NCR. Its called NCR Correctional Facility not Powder Ganger Hotel.

Yes, they must be turds. I don't expect much of this game to make sense.

[spaceweezle]

Geez, I thought there was something wrong with my installation, or a mod conflict somewhere. I'm somewhat relieved that isn't the case.

Makes no sense to me either. In reality, parties that seize ill-gotten gains or property without any legally binding beneficiaries aren't branded thieves or considered evil. The government does this all the time.

It makes even less sense in the context of a game world and especially in the context of a post-apocalyptic society lacking the systems of government to validate any claims of inheritance or deeds to prove one's ownership of property. Then there is the elephant in the room that conveniently imposes its own moral belief system upon the world and magically records and conveys every action you make to your peers.

Seems more like a glaring oversight to me. I suppose the same could be said about the Karma system in its entirety.

So happy I found this though, as it means my installation and mod config are doing just fine.

[Necron Monolith ₿]

This is a textbook example of why modding FO3 & mentions of it on these forums is relevant to this day. That crummy karma system sure annoyed the bejeesus outta me, so folks had a sense for what to prepare for in this incarnation of a Gamebryo Fallout release.
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34994
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/37546
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34784

[spaceweezle]

Originally posted by entom6ed:

This is a textbook example of why modding FO3 & mentions of it on these forums is relevant to this day. That crummy karma system sure annoyed the bejeesus outta me, so folks had a sense for what to prepare for in this incarnation of a Gamebryo Fallout release.
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34994
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/37546
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34784

Good finds there. I think I'll make good use of at least one of those.

The statement made in the opening paragraph of the second one did not surprise me nearly as much as it should have.

[NisseDood]

Read that J. Sawyer himself didnt like how the karma system in FONW ended up.
If a karma system really was needed it would make more sense to have good karma is helping by being as nice as possible - Bad Karma is just murdering innocent.
Getting good karma from killing raiders is kinda dumb since its more self defence and the daily life in the apocalypse.
example. denying a reward would be good karma accepting reward or using speech check to ask for more would be just neutral.

[Elkian Lionblood]

Probably has something to do with the game being shipped after less than 2 years in production lol.

Serious answer, the Karma system is incomplete and kind of a mess. There's no downside to taking everything out of Doc Mitchell's house, but stealing explosives from the violent criminals who were murdering indiscriminately with those explosives is evil. But, killing them before you even know about the indiscriminate murder thing is.... good?

I recommend grabbing a Karma mod. If you're looking for Lore-friendly, I really enjoyed the Karmanaut (https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/50810) who kindly raises or tanks your score for a handful of caps (well, 2k). My friend accurately described it as "buying indulgences... and un-dulgences".

There are some mods that decrease the opportunities to get Murder Karma in ways that make more sense than not, but it's up to you if those are worthwhile (F O O K is one, also has a ton of bug patches and content restoration).