Crime and the law

Crime on your sim is mostly roleplay, and the HUD helps in three ways: pickpocketing, lawful zones that report outlawed magic, and a bounty board. There’s no arrest, jail or search on the HUD itself. Those are for you and the other players to roleplay, and your sim may have its own objects for them, such as cuffs. Your sim switches each of these on separately.

Pickpocketing

If your sim uses it, you can try to lift coins from someone’s purse. It’s only on sims that use coins.

Before you try

• Emote first. Within the last 5 minutes, emote on your RP channel near your mark. The emote must be at least 20 characters, your mark within 20 metres, and you must be in a region your sim tracks for roleplay. A plain /me in local chat doesn’t count.
• Get close. Your mark must be within 2 metres of you.
• Once a day each. Your account can try each character once a day, whichever of your characters you play, and win or lose.
• Your mark must be another player wearing their HUD. NPCs and your own characters aren’t listed.
• Neither of you can be in a fight. Your sim may also protect new characters’ purses until they reach a level.

Try their purse

1. On Home, press Trade, then Pickpocket.
2. The page lists everyone within reach. Someone you’ve already tried today shows “tried today”. Press Look around to check again.
3. Press Try their purse beside your mark.

You roll 3d6 plus your Agility against 10 plus their Spirit. Meeting it is enough.

• Success: you take up to 30 coins’ worth, in steps of 5. On most sims it comes out of their purse. On some, your coins are made fresh and they keep theirs. An empty purse gives nothing, and still uses your try.
• Failure: they feel a hand at their purse. Miss by 5 or more and they see your face.

The page tells you what happened. If you can’t try, it says why, for example “Emote it first: pickpocketing needs an emote near Corwin Dane in the last 5 minutes.”

If someone picks your pocket

On a failed attempt, your HUD tells you: “You feel a hand at your purse, but don’t see whose.” or, if they missed badly, “Corwin Dane just tried to pick your pocket!” A successful theft isn’t announced. Check your Purse, and tell staff if you think you’ve been robbed out of character.

Lawful zones

A lawful zone is a place, such as a town, where some magic is against the law. Your sim decides which spells, usually the hostile ones. Raising the dead can be an offense of its own.

Casting one of those spells in a lawful zone isn’t stopped. The spell works as normal, but:

• Your HUD tells you: “You cast Fire Bolt in Market Square, a lawful zone: unlawful magic. The City Watch has been told, and you’re Wanted for 2 hours.”
• Staff get a report, and members of the groups that watch the zone are told if they’re on the sim.
• You’re Wanted for 2 hours of real time, or what your sim sets.

Nothing tells you when you walk into a lawful zone. Ask in character, or ask staff where they are.

While you’re Wanted, your titler shows it in character, and your Status page lists it with the time left. Casting again within 10 minutes only restarts the clock. Being Wanted doesn’t change anything on the HUD by itself: what happens next is roleplay. Staff can clear it.

The bounty board

Press Bounties on Home, or open Bounty board on your sim’s website. A bounty is an in-character offer: someone will pay to have something done about a character. No money moves on its own. The poster pays the hunter in roleplay.

Each bounty shows who it’s on, the amount, whether it’s Legal, Illegal or Legal requested, who it’s for (yourself or a group), its state and when it was posted. Press one to read it. The website board can also filter by state and legality, and search.

Post a bounty

1. Open Post.
2. Pick who it’s on under Wanted. You can search by character or Second Life name.
3. Set the Amount and write a Description: what you want, and how to reach you in character.
4. If you like, post it On behalf of one of your groups, give it an end date (1 to 90 days, or none), tick Ask for legal, or tick Anonymous.
5. Press Post bounty.

Every bounty starts out illegal. Ask for legal asks an authority to approve it: staff, or the groups your sim trusts with bounties. You’re told when they decide. Anonymous hides your name on the board, but staff can still see it. You can’t post a bounty on one of your own characters, and the person it’s on isn’t told.

Claim a bounty

1. Open the bounty and press Claim it. Add a note if you want, such as how you did it.
2. The poster decides. They’re told on their HUD.
3. When they accept, you’re told “Your claim on the bounty on Corwin Dane was accepted.” The bounty closes as collected.

You can’t claim your own bounty, or one on any of your characters, and you can have one claim waiting on each bounty. Withdraw claim takes yours back.

Your own bounties

Mine lists the bounties you posted and the claims waiting on them. Accept or Turn down each claim, press Collected if it’s done another way, or Cancel it. A bounty with an end date expires on its own, and your HUD tells you.

If you can approve bounties as legal, a Legal requests tab shows the ones waiting for you.

When staff pause things

Staff can pause the economy or switch the server off, for example while fixing a problem.

• The economy: your HUD says “The economy is paused by staff” and why. Trading, vendors, crafting, banks and pickpocketing are closed until it reopens, and the HUD tells you when it does.
• The server: the HUD shows Server offline with the reason. Chat commands answer the same way. Your HUD comes back on its own when the server is back, and your sim’s website still works meanwhile.

In a fight

Holding someone down is part of fights, not the law. A bolas can leave someone Restrained, and Grapple holds a target in place. See Statuses and conditions and Tactics. After a fight, your sim may let the winners loot the people they downed. See After a fight.

Related guides

• Money and trade
• Events and rewards
• Around the sim
• Magic
• Your titler