History Main / KleptomaniacHero

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/{{DreamWeb}}'', where taking everything that wasn't nailed down would result in having an inventory full of useless objects.

* The ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' series averts this one. If you pick someone's pocket and fail the skill check, a nice little pop up appears stating that you "Go Directly to Jail, while you're in jail the bad guy wins." and you need to reload. Thus it pays to level your pick pocketing on target dummies rather than people.
** Every game averts the "Take everything that isn't nailed down" idea; in the first place, there is a maximum amount of weight that you can carry, and every item has some weight. In the second place, "everything that isn't nailed down" includes an infinite number of small rocks.

* In ''VideoGame/LostPig'', the custodian of the Place Underground has [[DiscussedTrope several grumpy things to say about earlier encounters with the type]], and [[spoiler:the LastLousyPoint is awarded for [[AvertedTrope ''not'' acting like one]], and putting stuff back how it was when you're done with it]].

* Partially Subverted in the RPG ''SepterraCore'', where taking items from peoples' houses isn't problematic, but if either of the two "thief" members of your party get caught stealing from stores, your prices there go up. Also, stealing from stores in a town, caught or not, increases the prices of all items sold by all stores in the town until you purchase enough items to placate the shop keeps. This usually involves buying the still useful and ridiculously cheap Bread or Core Relics in huge quantities.

* Being a game with simular gameplay mechanics as Terraria, it shouldn't come as a surprise that stealing whole structures is doable in {{Minecraft}}. Possibly justified in that certain types of blocks can only be optained through either Creative mode or mining them from pre-generated exisiting structures. Subverted that said blocks may contain [[WallMaster Silver]][[ZergRush fish]].
* The adventurer mode of ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' partially averts this, since if you take an item owned by an NPC you'll become an enemy of that civilization. However, since the game is [[PerpetualBeta still in alpha]], there are lots of things which ''should'' be marked as NPC owned which aren't, letting you steal them out from under the noses of the [=NPC=]s without them reacting.

* A deeply unnerving example is Homura from ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. Like many of the magical girls Homura can summon ludicrous amounts of weapons from her HyperspaceArsenal to destroy witches. The difference is that Homura has no ability to fabricate weapons, the nature of her wish only granted her [[spoiler: [[TimeStandsStill time magic]].]] No, Homura has been ''stealing'' them, from the the {{Yakuza}} and military, over the course of [[spoiler: her GroundhogDayLoop.]] By the time we see her in the series she has amassed enough weapons to make a South American dictator blush including (but not limited to): assorted small and heavy arms, pipe bombs, hundreds of rocket launchers, thousands of pounds of C4, and ''a battleship''.

* Since [[ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable KoDT]] is about a group of tabletop RPG players that embody almost all gaming tropes, this trope is par for the course. It's probably best captured in one of the early strips, ''FiveGreenTowels,'' in which the group has their first adventure since acquiring a BagOfHolding and strip the dungeon of everything - including the furniture, soiled handkerchiefs and toenail clippings.

* ''ComicBook/GillesDeGeus'' was once a thief before he became a hero. When he is exposed to an ArtifactOfDoom that enhances the worst habits in people, nobody notices any change in him. After the artifact is neutralized, he is confronted with that fact, and he shamefully reveals that he has been stealing small items from everyone.
-->''Leo: "Gilles, you have been exposed to the cameo too, and thus it should have enhanced your weakness too, but nobody noticed any change in you. Why is that? What is your weakness?"''
-->''Gilles: "Pickpocketing. Once a thief..."''

* Maude Cousland in the ''[[Franchise/DragonAge The Keening Blade]]'', a CloudCuckooLander FallenPrincess who has become used to, in her words, killing people and taking their stuff--or recruiting allies while robbing them blind.
-->'''[[OnlySaneMan Loghain]]''': Maude, you can't steal from your allies. It leads to all sorts of trouble, and it's ''wrong!'' I know you were at the palace of the dwarven king at Orzammar, when you killed that dragon of his. You didn't go about stealing when you were there, did you?
-->''(beat)''
-->'''Loghain''': You did, didn't you? You absolutely did. You totally looted the palace of the dwarven king!

[[folder:Film]]
* The Fiddler from ''KinDzaDza'' tries to get his hands on as many pieces of alien technology/materials as he can, whether it be by bargaining or just stealing. At one point, he attempts to make off with a giant (and very heavy) iron coffin ''with an alien inside''. While he already has a ''fully functional RayGun.'' On the other hand, his antics do end up [[spoiler:accidentally getting the team a [[{{Macguffin}} gravitsappa]], which they desperately needed.]]
* In ''SoylentGreen'', Thorn, despite being a police detective, repeatedly steals food from victims and suspects alike. Due to the incredible rarity of fresh produce, it's not as petty as it sounds.
[[/folder]]

* Kender from ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' are renowned for doing this -- they never really ''mean'' to steal it, they're just impulsive, inquisitive and don't understand personal property much. This is one of the many reasons why people hate them InUniverse. The fact that the TabletopRPG systems usually encourage players to emulate this behavior is why many people hate them ''outside'' of the setting.
* Silk, of ''Literature/TheBelgariad'' series is described as having "the soul of a burglar" and being fundamentally incapable of passing by any small, valuable item without stealing it. At one point when the party is fleeing from pursuing forces and needs to shed all extra weight, he produces a truly astonishing number of items stolen over the course of their quest; he is philosophical about abandoning them, noting that the theft is the fun part anyway.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* On {{Leverage}} [[ClassyCatBurglar Parker]] is this. When they are tasked to infiltrate a mental institution she poses as someone with kleptomania, something she probably posesses. Later when Hardison is wanting for the two of them to go on a vacation, she wonders what they are stealing. When visiting an art museum she gushes about the motion sensors, when asked about the paintings she has no answer.
[[/folder]]

Fortunately, hardly anyone ever notices. In fact, as you wander around the world, particularly in [=RPGs=], you will repeatedly just waltz uninvited into every house in the town, [[RewardingVandalism smash the breakable items]] and loot it ''right before the owner's eyes'', and simply be told "[[WelcomeToCorneria There are many guards in the castle.]]"

For items you may obtain in this fashion, see VendorTrash and ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest. Contrast MoneyForNothing, WorthlessYellowRocks.

** Averted in its mod, TheNamelessMod; stealing in front of [=NPC=]s will cause them to sound alarms or attack you.
** Also averted in the sequel, where if you get caught breaking and entering, stealing, or hacking, the guards and/or other NPC's will turn hostile.

->''It's not "Stealing". It's "Adding to my Inventory."''

Any game where theft is the main object (e.g. the aptly named ''{{Thief}}'' series) or thieving is a major character option will make stealing many things quite challenging, naturally enough, and there will usually be quite a few red herrings in the way of worthless items, booby traps, and so on. There will still probably be some sucker who leaves his door and chest unlocked, though.

* ''VideoGame/Payday'' - Justified: You're a [[VillainProtagonist professional bank robber]]. In addition to the main quest, your character can grab money and gems that are found in reasonable places - bank offices, unorganized narcotics labs, fancy jewel cases, and Franz-Jaegar safes. In the sequel, there's an entire mission dedicated to stealing small loot from bank's safe deposit boxes.

* Done in ''Videogame/{{Dishonored}}'', where you can take nearly anything and it is converted into money which is spent on various goodies from [=NPCs=]. Almost necessary for a pacifism run as you need to buy a LOT of sleep bolts. Even funnier when you consider the size of somethings, most notable paintings being almost twice the size of you.

** Averted in its mod, TheNamelessMod; stealing in front of [=NPCs=] will cause them to sound alarms or attack you.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' also contains a large number of items that can be stolen and sold for money. However, stolen items can only be sold to special "fence" {{NPC}}s (how a shopkeeper can suspect that an item is stolen when you got from a little shack in the middle of the forest at the other side of the world is another matter entirely), and if an NPC sees you stealing an item he will call the guards, who will try to arrest you. Additionally, the game world contains great amounts of "clutter" -- items which may have theoretical value to the [=NPCs=] who own and use them but have no resale value, so that the protagonist cannot make money from looting them. This fact spawned several user-made modifications, which "corrected" this mistake.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' tries to correct the problem of the walking shopkeepers: now they'll run everywhere to keep you in their sight. This problem can be fixed by... putting a bucket on their heads. Remember, if line-of-sight is obstructed they won't notice missing items, and apparently [=NPCs=] in Skyrim are perfectly OK with strangers adorning them with large, heavy items.

** Used in a sad way in ''The Lost Age'': when looking through the tidalwave-hit coastal city of Alhafra, you can find the local [=NPCs=] raiding pots for loose change so they can buy dinner for their families.

** At least later generations put the focus less on stealing, but random NPCs tend to be strangely generous to someone who just barged into their house, and anything outside of houses is still fair game.

* The adventurer mode of ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' partially averts this, since if you take an item owned by an NPC you'll become an enemy of that civilization. However, since the game is [[PerpetualBeta still in alpha]], there are lots of things which ''should'' be marked as NPC owned which aren't, letting you steal them out from under the noses of the [=NPCs=] without them reacting.

* ''MogWorld'', a book focusing on [=NPCs=] in an MMORPG, lampshades this. Turns out local villagers are not very fond of adventurers, and among their long list of complaints against them is this.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' tries to break this habit as well. You can open the cabinet in your Knight Academy dorm room for a free blue Rupee, but opening other people's cabinets rewards you with the message "You really shouldn't look through other people's things..." Since the surface has been going through an apocalypse for a few thousand years at this point in the timeline, there are no houses to vandalize, but you ''can'' break the pots in an ancient temple holding something very, very important and plot-related (protip: one of them always contains a fairy). There are hardly any pots in the residential quarters of Skyloft. Even sitting in other people's chairs gets you called out (Gortram scolds you for sitting in his chair, Fi says that [[DeadpanSnarker you really should find that thing you were looking for before you take a rest]]). Most notably, breaking the chandelier with the heart piece on it in the Lumpy Pumpkin gets you a hilarious facial expression from the owner, a good talking-to, and [[SideQuest unpaid work until you pay the thing off.]]

*  A deeply unnerving example is Homura from ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. Like many of the magical girls Homura can summon ludicrous amounts of weapons from her HyperspaceArsenal to destroy witches. The difference is that Homura has no ability to fabricate weapons, the nature of her wish only granted her [[spoiler: [[TimeStandsStill time magic]].]] No, Homura has been ''stealing'' them, from the the {{Yakuza}} and military, over the course of [[spoiler: her GroundhogDayLoop.]] By the time we see her in the series she has amassed enough weapons to make a South American dictator blush including (but not limited to): assorted small and heavy arms, pipe bombs, hundreds of rocket launchers, thousands of pounds of C4, and ''a battleship''.

* Parodied in ''CollegeSaga''. In his dorm room, the hero acquires items "Roommate's Car Key", "Roommate's Passport" and "Roommate's Credit Card".
** And then the roommate attacks the party for being thieves.

* In ''DivineDivinity'', you can take anything that isn't nailed down, and a few things that are, but more often then not the owner of the house or tavern (alive or otherwise) will refuse to help you, beat you up and take back what you stole (sometimes with the rest of your money), and occasionally will keep attacking you until one of you is dead.

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'': Phoenix will snatch up anything that looks like it might help him in his court cases (and a few things that [[ChekhovsGun seemingly don't]]). Apparently, this does not count as theft by the law system in their world. A lot of these things are even things that would be too big to fit in Phoenix's pockets. It's ''possible'' that a lot of these are just ''pictures'' of the evidence, but...
** This is parodied in the first game in case 3, when Phoenix grabs a copy of a map for Global Studios and Wendy Oldbag demands 50 cents for the map. Phoenix ignores her.
*** Maya steals the map, but Nick still doesn't pay for it. Maya also steals a vital poster in the second game, and the key card later in 1-3 - it's Lampshaded at that point: "Let's steal it!" "Borrow. You mean borrow." Ema also persuades Phoenix to steal evidence, except that stealing stuff while Ema's around is ''scientific''.
** Based on a comment by Wright in game 3 case 2, this has gotten Phoenix some bad karma, seeing as how he is one of the series's {{Butt Monkey}}s.
** Godot shares this trait; he thinks the "safest place for crucial evidence" is his pocket.
*** As does Edgeworth; his satchel is the safest place he knows. [[spoiler:Godot is present when Edgeworth says this line chronologically prior to Godot's use, meaning that Godot probably stole the trope, and line, from Edgeworth.]]
** In case 2-4 Edgeworth manages to grab a ''life-sized stuffed bear''. It doesn't disappear from the room, sure, but the game actually says, "Stuffed bear snatched up by Edgeworth", leading to the hilarious mental image of him wrestling it out the door while Phoenix just stands there and gapes.
** This is actually acknowledged in 1-5, when you have to [[spoiler: present the evidence hidden in Gant's safe]]. He even says that he's going to press charges, so Phoenix learns his lesson. It's doubtful that this went very far, considering how that trial went, though...
** Averted in the ''AceAttorneyInvestigations'' series, as whenever Edgeworth finds something, he will often jot it down in his organizer rather than take it, possibly because some of the pieces of evidence are part of crime scenes.
** Lampshaded in the ''Miles Edgeworth Case Files'' manga. Franziska asks Edgeworth for the criminal record of a defendant she's prosecuting. Edgeworth suggests that she could just have taken it, but she says she "would never imitate the foolishness of a certain sham defense lawyer".

* In ''MysteryCaseFiles: Dire Grove'', you need to break into several buildings as you search for the missing students. However, at one point you crack open a safe containing a key (which you need) and a stack of cash. Clicking on the cash will cause the game to scold you.

** Also, Link can bust pumpkins to get Rupees (somehow). But if he keeps it up, he'll [[WhatTheHellHero get yelled at]] for wasting food.

*** JRPGs as a whole get a DesconstructiveParody on the Trope with ''You Are Not the Hero''. As noted in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb1gcAr6mK4#t=10 PSA video.]]

* In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', the player character is the head of security for his company. You can run around breaking into offices and stealing all manner of things, but you'll start receiving e-mails concerning the break-ins and eventually realize that you've created a huge web of paranoia and nobody suspects you because you're the head of security who they trust to find the culprit.

* ''DeadIsland'' If it's not nailed down, grab it! Deodorant, soap, nails, rags, Floater meat, doesn't matter. Just pick it up and put it into your modding bag.

** Also parodied with [[KleptomaniacHeroFoundUnderwear a lady's silk negligee]]. Which Isaac then [[CrowningMomentOfFunny attempts to steal]].

** Subverted in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker''. When you enter the house of a wealthy man on Windfall Island you are confronted with a row of beautiful expensive vases that [[EverythingsBetterWithSparkles even sparkle]]! However, if you smash one, not only do you not find an item hidden within, you are also chastised by the owner of the vases and warned to not break any more. If you ''do'', not only do you not get any rupees, you are forced to pay a fee relative to the number of vases you destroyed.* If you wreck all his jars and you have no money to pay, he'll be more upset that he has to pay to replace the vases with his own money.
** [[http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h245/DRCEQ2/VG/Nintendo/Linkinvades.jpg When it comes to Link, it's best if you just act like nothing happened...]]