During last night's DarkRadiant build stream, I said that making the neutral NPCs in the tavern go hostile only if the player grabbed gold off their table would be difficult.. in fact, it was much easier than I thought.

DarkRadiant's "Stim/Response" system is actually very handy... I managed to create a Response on each gold pile to convert the armed thug at the gambling table from a neutral to a hostile faction when frobbed by the player. Both NPCs at the table notice if gold is missing and go to alert immediately, but only the armed thug will attack the player if he spots them. The other NPCs will mind their business... until the thug is killed, at which point spotting a body (and possibly seeing the player as the killer) will make them flee the common room and call for help.

In the end, the results all come across as pretty organic and I like the way it plays out.