Without crime?

Hi,

This may be a dumb question, and defeat the whole purpose of this game, but after you get started, is it ever possible to be successful in this game WITHOUT crime? Or is crime the whole point? Is Torn simply for everyone to live out their fantasy of being petty criminals or crime lords or cogs in a crime syndicate machine? 

Like is it possible to be a corporate overlord who is "mostly" not a criminal (besides the crime of capitalism)? 

Just curious!

Depends.

Is your definition of "crime" exclusively related to the crimes system? If yes, then you can absolutely go ahead and play the game without ever doing crimes. You'll lose an avenue of income (crimes and OCs) and a tonne of merits but you can still do other things with your time.

Does it also include actions related to energy like attacking, mugging and hospitalizing people? If yes, then it's gonna be hard. You can just train your energy, sure, but few factions will be willing to take you in if you refuse to attack people and some events like the upcoming halloweek will be unavailable to you. On the other hand, there's still reviving (effectively, being a doctor) and reviving factions where you can fit in just nicely (ask DocFox about it, he's a pacifist and a reviver, and he's doing just fine).

Then there's flying and companies, both completely unrelated to doing crimes (for the most part...).

There's also other activities like racing, hunting, stock trading and just trading in general, none of which are criminal activities.

More than anything, you'll be hurting for merits since most merits come from attacking and crimes.

TL;DR: You can but you'll close yourself off from a few sources of income. That said, there's plenty of other things you can do instead.

By signing up for an account you've already committed a crime as the 5 welcome screens bring you into the underworld, as a criminal...without even buying your first weapon. So...there's no going back now...just do your crimes.

I would like to see someone taking this path

Yes, it's 100% possible to become extremely successful without crimes, however it's going to require a good fair bit of work on your part and makes little to no sense outside of a personal choice to not do crimes.

That said, you already have a criminal record, so you're already tainted.

Lots of crime merits. Merits make you stronger as you develop in the game.

This reminds me of the guy who played Skyrim as an NPC. Never did a mission, never picked a fight. Just woke up each day in-game, ate his meals and worked as a blacksmith. For hours.

So yeah, doable; but fun?  

Honor_Scholar - this guy has played for 6 years, and never committed a crime.

Though I guess the same could be said for the thousands of accounts that have signed up then immediately quit.

You can always trade plushies and flowers?

Flower and Plushie Running Chart | Tutorials & Guides | TORN

Somehow the Land of the Lost alien people are in this

Don't forget the point Market collapsed and the museum is now. A Wendy's.

Thanks everyone. Yeah I’ve already dabbled in some crimes, scavenging, graffiti, bootlegging, and the basic tutorial mission makes you shoplift. I probably won’t try to play it totally straight (it seemed really hard to start from scratch without it since your job pays so little) but I did wonder if it was possible. I may play a more defensive style (at least initially) rather than offensive, but I guess we’ll see what faction I end up joining and what they need. 

the kingdom of God is always at hand ! 👌 

It's possible but long and boring

Absolutely.

Crimes have been reduced to a side activity recently, with most crimes not even earning enough to cover the cost of extra nerve, especially with PA nerf coming this year, you will miss a lot of very easy merits tho, which will delay your progress.

You can completely ignore crimes and you'll be alright, you'll just have less things to do and less merits to invest.