How to Deal with Strangers

Strangers are random NPCs you’ll encounter in cities and the wilderness. Some of them have unique personalities while some are generic. Most encounters with these strangers are random, which adds life to the environment. How you deal with these strangers will directly affect your honor positively/negatively, or even yield immediate rewards such as cash and items you can sell. Here are some of the strangers you’ll meet and how you can deal with them.

Animal Attack Victims

You may encounter strangers getting attacked by vicious predators. You can leave them to their fate or kill the animals for them. If they survive the attack unscathed, talk to them with your weapons holstered to get a reward.

If they survive the attack but end up getting gravely wounded, they’ll ask for something to ease their pain. You can give them medicine but to avoid wasting it, you can give them liquor instead. When they die, looting their body and their horse’s satchel will cause honor loss.

Beggars

You can find these commonly in towns and cities. The amount of alms they’ll ask isn’t much so giving them money shouldn’t be much of a problem. In addition to a huge honor boost, some beggars can even warm up to you like Mickey in Valentine and the one in Rhodes. Continue giving them donations or even talking to them whenever you meet them and they’ll share to you what they saw or hear in the streets. Moreover, sometimes beggars in Saint Denis will give you valuable items and consumables in exchange for a miniscule amount of alms so lend a helping hand whenever you can.

Challengers

You may encounter strangers shooting at targets. If you approach them, they’ll challenge you to a contest on shooting more targets over the other. There’s a monetary bet; if you win, you’ll get money but if you lose, you have the option to hand over your opponent’s prize as a gentleman or refuse and ride away. This will agitate your opponent and force him to shoot you. Killing him will result to an honor loss.

Conmen, Activists, Etc

These colorful characters are present in towns and mostly in Saint Denis. They’ll be preaching about a lot of different topics like eugenics, womens’ rights, getting rich quickly, and more. Wehn talking to them, you can agree or antagonize them. There’s no honor to be gained for them but if you happen to assault them for some reason, be prepared to be punished lawfully.

Crime Victims

You may encounter a crime in progress, like a stagecoach or even a train robbery. You can intervene by killing the perpetrators and releasing the hostages for a great honor boost. You can also loot the outlaws’ bodies and nearby containers, provided that there’s no witnesses. Be careful since if you didn’t holster your weapon and attempt to talk to a victim you saved, you might aim your weapon at him/her, prompting him/her to run away. Rescued victims will often give you valuable monetary or item rewards.

Duelists

So far I’ve only encountered this in Valentine. The winner of the duel will be challenging anyone and you can take up the challenge. Once the duel starts, you can shoot your opponent’s hand or weapon off his hand to gain a huge honor boost. If you happen to kill him, you won’t suffer from honor loss but looting his body or his previous opponents body will.

Escaped prisoners

A chained prisoner may ask for your help in shooting the chains from his feet. If you help them, they might give you a robbery tip. Otherwise you can scare them away by pointing a gun at them. Killing them while they’re fleeing may result to an honor loss.

Horse Thieves

While riding in the wilderness, you also have to look out for hijackers pretending to be someone who needs help. When you stop by to help them, they’ll knock you over your horse and attempt to leave.

You can shoot them immediately or better yet, whistle to your horse to stop it and throw the thief off. You can then kill the thief without any honor loss.

Kidnap Victims

While riding, you may encounter a hogtied person loaded on another rider’s horse. Usually this person will ask for help. One variety of this encounter is a possible suspect being hauled by a couple of bounty hunters. It’s up to you how to deal with them. If you attempt to rescue the hauled victim, you’ll be forced to kill the two bounty hunters with no honor loss. And there’s also no guarantee of the victim’s innocence.

The other variety is a woman being hauled by a single rider. You’ll have to kill the rider and even lasso the horse to stop it on its tracks. After calming the horse down, you have to pick the victim and release her. This will result in an honor gain but be careful of witnesses that may see the scene.

Pickpockets

Be on a lookout when someone bumps into you while you’re entering a establishment. You should immediately notice that your money was deducted. You have to act quickly since a pickpocket won’t steal chump change; depending on how much you’re carrying, he may take at least 10% of it.

Fortunately, Arthur will immediately notice and the pickpocket will be marked as a red dot in your radar, allowing you to track him immediately. Give chase and threaten him. If he ignores you, you’ll have no choice but to take him down. However, since you’ll be most likely in an area with lots of witnesses, you have to take him out without gunning him down.

To do this without calling the attention of lawmen, close the distance and quickly equip your lasso. You should be able to stop him in his tracks. Hogtie the thief and loot him. You’ll get your money back, as well as whatever he’s carrying. In the example below, he took $93.68 from us but we got $243.56 in return. This method will not be registered as a crime and you won’t lose honor as well. You can then leave him there without causing further commotion.

Stranded Riders

While following the main roads, you may find a dead horse and a stranger, usually a woman, walking away. Approaching that person will make her call your attention and ask if she can hitch a ride. Agree and deliver her to her destination to get a good amount of honor and and rewards.

Snake bite and bear trap victims

You may encounter a stranger yelling for help. If you approach that stranger, he will tell you that he’s bitten by a snake. You can give him medicine or volunteer to suck the venom out of him. The victim will not give you anything yet but you may encounter that person you saved in a nearby town, talking about his fellow strangers about how you saved his life. When this happens, the thankful stranger may offer that you get any one item from a store for free and he’ll pay it in your behalf. You’ll receive the same reward by rescuing a stranger whose foot got caught on a bear trap.

Other Random Town Events

There are certain events involving strangers that seem to be unique per location. Like one in Valentine where a prostitute will ask for your help in disposing the body of a man she killed accidentally by feeding it to the hogs or shooing away the peeping toms in Strawberry and taking their place instead. (You'll have honor loss and get reported in that second example by the way) The results of these events might be unpredictable so save your game if you want to preserve your honor or if you want to be safe.