Or am I supposed to grab every loose item I can stuff in my inventory?

In the original campaign, it's very rare that you should not take everything that isn't nailed down; I can't think of any instances off the top of my head (then again I can't remember the last time I went through the OC), but I'm sure they would be mentioned to you ahead of time either by dialogue or by examining the item/container. Other than that, the only consequence are the extra weight and decreased inventory space from everything you are carrying.

In custom modules or persistent worlds, the rules can change.

Thanks.

You have a weight limit, but you can fix that with Bags of Holding or Magic Bags, and potions like Bull's Strength to add weight. Have fun taking everything that's not tacked down.

Yes, I love how in RPGs, people ask you to leave their houses intact, after watching you taking everything that's not nailed down.

I got in trouble in Fable because I wasn't thinking and waltzed into a random person's house and started looting it. Way too many JRPG's.

Then you smashed all his pottery looking for money inside, harrassed his chickens with your sword, and left?

Oh, as an update to the OP, I came across some information (on <span class="podkreslenie">Tropes</span> of all places, but that page is seriously funny) that there actually are consequences for breaking into things you're not supposed to in the expansions.

# <span class="podkreslenie">Kleptomaniac Hero</span>: Leading to some <span class="podkreslenie">Moral Dissonance</span> considering you can effectively steal from the poor and desperate—in the original game this caused no penalty, in the expansions unlocking the doors and chests of towns shifts your alignment towards Chaotic.

* However, <span class="podkreslenie">these poor and desperate people have the same level of wealth lying around as do archiwizards and dragons</span>.

a bigger issue isn't that you steal from the poor, but that loot is based on your level...

so a high level hero walks into the home of a dirt poor farmer and finds giant diamonds and +3 weapons.

in the official campaign, yes you ARE expected to steal anything that isn't nailed down...

but in a lot of custom campaigns people made this isn't the case.

You're supposed to kill the guy so that he can't call the guards. Unless it's one of those games where a mysterious force informs all guards of your misdeeds...

No problems in OC but in the expansions there is a affect on your lawful/chaotic rating

Yes to the first, yes to the third, I didn't start punting chickens 'til I was outside. I swear though, the whole time I was kicking them I kept checking the sky for that ominous squawking...

This is something they handled really well in Ultima VII, and I wish would have carried over into newer games. There were real moral consequences for your actions - you could steal from pretty much anyone if you had the skill to do so. However:

* people would call the guards if they caught you
* your companions might leave you if you stole too much or from the wrong types of people
* people you stole from might start attacking you, leaving you to decide if you should run away or fight back

Conversely, some of the hardest places to steal from were really worth it; this meant that, as a previous poster mentioned, it would be worthwhile to steal from the royal armory, but not from a peasant's hut (at least, not after the first few hours of the game).

This also meant that they didn't have the fake "choice" between good and evil paths found in most modern RPGs - where, sure, you can be evil, but you simply won't have as many available side quests or companions if you are (which strikes me as basically moralising to the player - see what happens when you aren't good, hmmm?). Providing you with an evil choice only makes sense if you get some benefit out of choosing that path.

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to The Old Republic - finally, you can roleplay more than just a Knight In Shining Armor or a Generally Good Guy Who Sometimes Does Crazy Chaotic Things.

MMORPGs.... heh... Yeah you can roleplay in them... but I'd rather have a roleplaying game than just a level grinding sim where you can role play.

I know not all MMORPGs are like that. In EVE most people don't roleplay in the traditional sense of pretending the backstory of the game is real, but they are still forced to roleplay someone living in a dangerous world where actions have consequences, because in EVE they actually do.

It was the same to a lesser extent in Star Wars Galaxies since even though people couldn't attack you whenever they felt like it, if you joined the rebels and overtly supported them you became susceptible to attack from empire players and would have to be strong enough to beat them, or fast enough to avoid them.

Then there's MMOFPS' like Planetside where you were constantly shifting the battlefield one way or another or Battleground: Europe where the whole game is broken into campaigns fought across a massive map with a finite amount of resources so that eventually whoever does better will push the other side back and win. Then the server resets.

Wow I got way off topic.... Um, so Yeah... Anyone know any mods that don't have meaningless hack and slash combat or where combat can be mostly avoided? You know, games where combat has some consequence to it, like most decent tabletop gaming sessions.

The lack of meaningful consequences in most Bioware style cRPGs really leaves me feeling uninterested in the majority of them.