A shift in the fabric of reality: I launch Grand Theft Auto 5 and, following the now-customary hitch-and-stutter loading screen that can last anywhere from 10 seconds to five minutes, Franklin spawns into his familiar void apartment. Within seconds, he begins plummeting, screaming.

All of this is fine and normal.

But something new: Franklin carries a duffel bag with him into the abyss now, and I am unsure as to why. My guess is that it is a byproduct of my newly installed mod, ScamV, which “turns Los Santos into your digital playground.” Let the possibilities unfurl ahead of you—”Take on the role of a cyber-criminal, exploit vulnerabilities, use cloned cards, and build your underground fortune.”

Mostly, though, it has given me a bag. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that all of these things would be present in a regular installation of ScamV, but unfortunately ScamV in my world is forced to compete with an armageddon of other mods: the flying cars, new interiors, deleted exteriors, credit ratings and so on.

So mostly it is a bag. But wait, there is also this—the possibility of walking into a bank, any bank, and interacting with the teller by paying in fake cheques. “You don’t have any fake cheques,” the game tells me when I attempt this. It does not tell me where or how to obtain them. Kafka-esque. Five stars.