Gothic/The Old Camp

Despite being criminals, those in the Old Camp do have laws regarding tresspassing and fighting. Usually you can get off with just a warning if you are caught breaking the law, but if you aren't seen or nobody minds you can act with impunity.

Housebreaking
The first thing you'll discover is that you can't go into most huts. The exceptions are the huts of named characters. Most named characters (such as Diego) don't care about you entering their houses, so you can rob them in broad daylight. The named characters who do mind about this can be robbed when they are in the house when you enter (even if you wake them up in the process). No-name characters can be robbed if nobody sees you enter, or if you knock them down first (more on that later). As a general rule, if you hear "hey you!" simply leave and try a different approach or come back later.

Since a hut's owner is often the first to accost you if you enter it, knocking him down first (see Fights below) often means you can run in and loot it. If he gets up and challenges while you're picking the chest you can just hit him again and re-enter the house.

Each locked chest or door has a combination. The combination is static; it will always be the same every time you play, even if you start a new character. Combinations are made up of left/right tumbler movements: the combination for Diego's chest, for instance, is R L L R R R.

Once you know the combination to someone's chest their presence in the area no longer matters: you can rush in, break it open, and take some or all of the contents before they get to you and start shouting or attacking. If you don't have time to get all the loot simply leave and wait for them to calm down and go back to where they were and then go back to finish emptying the chest. If it's someone safe to attack (see below) you can just knock them to the floor and continue your work.

Once a lock has been picked it will stay unlocked for the rest of the game. If you make a wrong move you will have to start over, and sometimes this will result in your picklock breaking. Picklocks never wear out from correct tumbler movements, so if you always do the right movements you'll never lose your pick. Early in the game you'll have a very limited number of picklocks and they do come in handy, so make sure you always have a few left.

Fights
If you draw your weapon within the camp everyone will react. They won't attack unless you attack first, however. As a general rule you can attack any unnamed character without punishment (attacking named characters will often result in the guards attacking you). Guards are invulnerable as are many named NPCs, and they will remain so until their role in the plot is finished, so it's best not to pick fights with them.

With your standard attacks you can't kill anybody, only knock them down, and except for protected NPCs (see Protection) nobody will care who you beat up. Your victim will drop their weapon and stay down for a while, and you can take their weapon and loot their prone body without anybody caring. Giving them a sound beating has no repercussions as they forget soon after you leave the area; except in a few cases you can beat even named NPCs and they'll still treat you as a friend when you return later.

When your victim gets up he might be angry but he won't attack you, and he's weak and weaponless anyway. Those who ran away or were only wounded may resume attacking you when you next see them, but that shouldn't be a problem either. If you wait for your victim to be completely healed you can beat them again and again for the experience (it's not much, but it's pretty safe to collect). If a wounded victim flees for the safety of the castle don't bother pursuing him, since the guards will probably start shooting at you; just wait until he returns to his hut and get him then.

Protection
A handful of no-name NPCs are under the protection of the guards, so attacking them will earn you a crossbow bolt in the neck; if you get shot at simply run away for a while and both the guards and your victim will forget all about it. Diggers are a sure bet as only a couple of them are protected, and the guards will just watch and laugh as you beat them into the dust. You can attack the protected diggers without problems as long as the guards are offscreen.

You can pay for protection as well. Simply talk to the named guards patrolling the fenceline of the three areas of the Camp. You'll know who they are because they'll almost always initiate conversation with you upon first seeing you. For a small sum of Ore (paid on roughly a daily basis), they'll watch your back. The one exception, as they explain, is that they won't help if you attack someone who is also protected.

If you don't have enough Ore you can pay as much as you have, but they expect the rest later. Each must be paid individually, so if you pay one protection money but then get into trouble in another's area the first won't come to help you. You can stop paying protection money at any time (either by talking to them or by simply avoiding coming within talking range of them) without any consequences other than (obviously) losing their support.

Finishing moves
To kill an NPC perform the coup de grâce (use attack while standing over their prone body). If you do this you'll usually be in big trouble (unless it's just an unnamed digger who didn't pay for protection). It's best not to kill anybody as you may break a quest by doing so.

As a general rule, NPCs (even guards) won't deliver a finishing move when fighting you. If you get knocked down the person who did it will take a percentage of your Ore. If you get finished with magic or a projectile, however, you'll simply die straight away. To avoid these problems you can save before, and maybe consider storing some of your Ore in the vacant house Guy tells you about.

The Arena
The Old Camp also features an arena. You can fight here as part of the status quest for Diego. Note that when you fight in the arena every NPC in the nearby area comes to watch (even the guard in front of the locked door), and they stay standing there for a while even after the fight is over. You can quickly lose a fight and then go rob a couple of otherwise inaccessible houses with nobody around to stop you. Repeat as necessary.