Story Mode
Honor, law and bounties
Two systems run side by side. Honor measures who you are. The law tracks what you are caught doing. They overlap, but they are not the same thing, and many old community myths mix them up.
Checked Sep 30, 2026 · Sources: CommunityCGN
Honor
Honor is a hidden score from -320 to +320, shown as a bar that moves through eight steps in each direction. Small choices move it: greeting people, helping them, chores and donations push it up; theft, rough treatment and killing innocents push it down. Early in the story it is capped, so you cannot reach either extreme right away. Community
What it changes
- Store prices. High honor gives discounts: about 10% at step 2, 25% at step 4, and 50% at steps 7 and 8.
- Loot. Low honor means better items from the dead.
- Gun grips. A high-honor Cattleman grip opens at step 4, and a low-honor Double-Action grip at step -4.
- Scenes. Arthur's honor changes some dialogue and small moments, and shapes the end of the story. Play how you want. Neither direction is "wrong".
- It cannot be turned off. Unlike the first game, a bandana does not stop honor changes. It only hides your face from witnesses.
Quick guide to what moves honor
| Direction | Examples |
|---|---|
| Larger gains | Capturing a bounty alive, helping people in trouble, giving to beggars, doing camp or homestead chores. |
| Small gains | Donating to camp, releasing fish, surrendering to the law, killing rats in cities, greeting people. |
| Small losses | Robbing people, stealing, antagonizing, looting innocents, knocking out innocents, leading enemies to camp. |
| Larger losses | Killing innocent people, horses or domestic animals, letting wild animals suffer, stealing from beggars. |
Source: Community checked Sep 30, 2026. The story also has major honor choices. They live in the spoiler-marked chapter guide, not here.
The law
When you commit a crime, a witness can report it. If they do, lawmen turn up. How it goes depends on whether anyone recognized you.
- Masks. A bandana or mask hides your face from witnesses. Your clothing can still give you away if townsfolk have already seen you commit crimes in the same outfit.
- Witnesses. You can threaten or kill a witness before they report. If a crime is reported with no known suspect, you can defuse the lawman who comes to look into it. For a petty crime, apologizing and leaving can end it.
- Wanted and bounty. If you are caught, you get a wanted level and a bounty. The higher it is, the more lawmen join. At a high bounty you become "dead or alive" and bounty hunters and marshals appear.
- Getting out. Surrender to a lawman before a shootout begins and you will be jailed and released with some money taken. Or pay your bounty at a post office.
- Lockdowns. Commit enough crimes in a town and it locks down: shops close and lawmen confront you on sight. Most towns recover after a while. Saint Denis never locks down in free roam. Blackwater is closed to you for most of the story. Sisika Penitentiary, Fort Wallace and one location you only visit during the story stay locked down for good.
Bounty hunting
After an early mission, you can take wanted posters from sheriff's offices in several towns. The set of bounties is fixed. Some must be brought in alive or the mission fails; others can be dead or alive, with no reduction in the reward for killing them. Once a sheriff's office has no bounties left, the sheriff stops posting new ones. A lasso and a hogtie are how you bring someone in. Five bounty hunter missions count toward 100% completion.
Sources: Community checked Sep 30, 2026.
Red Dead Online
What changes in Online
| Topic | In Red Dead Online |
|---|---|
| Honor | Starts neutral. Crimes in Free Roam lower it a little, and good deeds such as bonding with your horse or releasing fish raise it. Honor can be reset at Old Man Jones for 3 Gold Bars. High honor does not give store discounts. |
| Honor in missions | Some story missions and stranger missions give major honor swings, and they tell you in advance. Online has a high-honor path and a low-honor path, and both lead to the same final mission. |
| Bounties | A bounty on your head is capped at $100 and covers every territory. You can pay half of it at a post office or your camp. At $10 you cannot start stranger missions, and bounty hunters begin tracking you. |
Source: Community checked Sep 30, 2026. The Online numbers have changed over the years: confirm anything that costs Gold Bars in the game.