Ultima VII: The Black Gate/Stealing

This part of the guide covers how to be an effective evil Avatar.

Theft basics
The most important thing is to minimise observers. For example if you go into a house or a back room be sure to shut the doors, curtains and windows.

If you cannot do this (for example you are in a store while the owner is still awake) wait until they are a good distance away and their back is turned and then open your inventory. This pauses the game world and allows you to loot at your leisure.

Try not to move items around as this will often result in someone noticing your meddling; if you don't want to take it leave it where it is, and if you want it drop it straight into your inventory. If you grab an object by accident you can return it to where it was by attempting to drop it somewhere where it can't go, for example onto a wall or roof or in the water.

Be sure to have no open container obscuring the building's occupant; you need to be able to see them at all times, because when they say "Stop that, or else!" or similar it's time to stop looting.

Now you've dealt with observers, but if you bring your party inside with you they will also be observing! In Serpent Isle this is no problem as they have no qualms about you openly thieving, but it is not always so in The Black Gate.

Iolo/Shamino/Dupre will sometimes say "Avatar?!" or "Is that virtuous?" if they notice you dropping a purloined item into your own inventory. After only noticing this a couple of times they will either call the guards and attack you or else walk off saying they don't socialise with thieves. Sometimes you'll have a chance to apologise to them, but not always. However they won't complain if they themselves are the thieves; therefore you should give nicked items to anyone but yourself. Try to rotate between the three complainers so that they will always be used to the idea of stealing.

After an item has been in someone's inventory–not just in a barrel or crate on your ship or carriage–it becomes "yours" and can be freely moved and used without argument. However since you can't put chests, crates or barrels into your inventory without them being empty and having a lot of you cannot very easily "cleanse" them; therefore passersby will often say "Do not touch that!" if they catch you shifting them, even if you've had that container for hours and brought it from another town.

Cleansing party members
Sometimes it is hard to avoid party members leaving you. If they do and you can't convince them to re-join simply use your most powerful killing spell (Death Bolt works best but the Black Sword is also a possibility) and then resurrect them with whatever method. This will reset their guilt levels and they'll readily follow the dishonest Avatar once more. The other party members never seem to worry about the virtuousness of this particular action.