In-game rewards instead of in-game punishment - I can ditch the Mary Sue and not be penalized? Cool!

[UnKillFill]

Not sure about punishment, but..

In Secret of Evermore on SNES, if you leave the upstairs bedroom of a house WITHOUT opening the chest, the owner of the house comes up and gives you a special magic spell that you can only get from him in that cutscene.

This one always stuck out to me.. in games you go in people's homes, opening their chests, taking potions, smashing pots, etc. but if you don't in this one instance = kickass spell.

Can you go back in after the fact and steal his shit too?

 

[The Captain]

Can you go back in after the fact and steal his shit too?

Once you get the magic spell you can open the chest without any issue.

Basically, you go upstairs in his house and the chest is right there, very prominently. If you go downstairs without opening it a cutscene is triggered where he comes upstairs as you're going down and you get the spell. You can literally turn around and take it right after.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnGQbolpZc8&t=183s

Go to 3:30

 

[UnKillFill]

Once you get the magic spell you can open the chest without any issue.

Basically, you go upstairs in his house and the chest is right there, very prominently. If you go downstairs without opening it a cutscene is triggered where he comes upstairs as you're going down and you get the spell. You can literally turn around and take it right after.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnGQbolpZc8&t=183s

Go to 3:30

Oddly enough, according to that clip, he actually *encourages* you to steal the shit he rewards you for not taking.

 

[Wärring Ornac]

One of the random event in FTL have you jump to a pirate attack on some remote settlement. The pirate warns you to not interfere. You then have two option
A. Attack the pirate. It will reward you with medium rewards upon destroying them, and the settlement give you some little reward too
B. Ignore them. "You can't save everyone in the galaxy" or something

However, if you have a Fire Beam or a Fire Bomb, you unlock the third and fourth option: Show the pirate how to properly intimidate settler!
C. Burn all the settlement's crop with the Fire Beam
D. Blow up the settlement's shelter with the Fire Bomb
Both of these option impressed the pirate so much that they gave you a high amount of rewards and a random drone.

And people wonder why the Federation are losing support to the rebels

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Isn't a lack of reward a punishment? The reward is you get some item, the punishment is you don't get to have some item. I suppose the presentation is what sells it as one or the other. I'm usually annoyed by the kinds of stuff like you guys are talking about, like in Dragon Warrior if you opened a certain guy's treasure he'd get mad at you or not give you some prize or something, but you're supposed to open all the rest of the chests, so why would you think you shouldn't open that one?

I guess I felt like the people who made the game were acting like I should have known not to steal, so the punishment/reward made sense, but the game itself required you to steal everything you could, except this one thing. If it's in a treasure box, it's for the player, everyone knows those are the rules.