Quote from: tenbones;802024The thing is you need to break the misconception that most players think "Thieves Guilds" are only for the Thief Class.

Thanks for this. Probably the most useful thing I've read on this board since I joined...

Quote from: tenbones;802024Yeah... I could go on and on...

Please do so. Seriously, this is great stuff tenbones. I snipped your post to add to my adventure ideas file. Also, I bet I am not the only person here who would be interested in seeing more about this e.g. "...a list of scams and con-artists jobs."

Something like this would make a great article or a useful series of blog posts.

Not with D&D.
 Run a few groups of underworld types working together, trying to work around a few local guild and a national level group, sort of playing them all off against each other, with the group themselves being secretly members of different political and mercantile factions.  Went on for 3 years in Igbar, until there was only one PC left (and he had not killed everyone else...he had only arranged for one 'accident').  He ended up actually joining another Igbar group.

Quote from: Bren;802029Please do so. Seriously, this is great stuff tenbones. I snipped your post to add to my adventure ideas file. Also, I bet I am not the only person here who would be interested in seeing more about this e.g. "...a list of scams and con-artists jobs."

(CHEERLEADING) ACKS mechanics - stereotypically, the fighter gets his domain, the cleric gets a temple (either a religious domain or temple within some fighter's domain), the mage gets a tower (and good reasons to build a dungeon and let it attract monsters)...

and the thief founds a guild, which gets ~4 pages of rules:

"Assassins, elven nightblades, and thieves can build a secret
stronghold called a hideout. Being secret, hideouts do not
secure domains and do not attract peasant families. However,
when an adventurer has established a hideout, he will become
the boss of a syndicate of 2d6 1st level followers of his own
class. Each time the adventurer gains a level thereafter, he will
attract an additional 1d6 1st level followers to his syndicate. All
followers must be paid standard rates for ruffians. In addition,
the syndicate boss may hire ruffians to increase the size of
his syndicate (similar to how a fighter hires mercenaries to
increase the size of his garrison)..."

Stock mechanics are for assassinating, carousing, smuggling, spying, stealing,
and treasure hunting: 1 page.
Getting caught: 1 page.
Founding or taking over a guild (guild warfare) guild income, etc: 1 page.
(/CHEERLEADING)

There are people having fun with this, and also people exploiting loopholes, so YMMV. Also, I think the intent is that the free followers only show up at name level (9th+); you can try to start a guild before that, but will need to fund all the startup costs and hiring yourself.

I'll see if I still have the original pitch on file. I was going to publish it for Goodman Games - but I never got around to it as I was shifting careers and ended up dropping it altogether after finding myself loathing 3e (and a health scare).

The Thief-centered campaign as I envisioned it had three elements:

The Guild, the Law, and the City. Each of these things required development. How the Guild is structured. What extent was their power? What do they control? My default straightforward setup was ripped from the Mockers of "Riftwar" series, since it was easily understood - I then provided several different variations of Guild structure that were a lot different.

1) Guildmaster - The prime shotcaller. He set all the policies, and made all the decisions that the guild lieutenants would undertake. He would sanction any moves against people that were legitimate threats against the Guild - meaning the GM would have to establish what those boundaries were.

2) The Lieutenants (or whatever you wanna call them) - those that answered directly to the Guildmaster. Most Guild members would not even *know* who the Guildmaster was. The LT's would be the mouthpiece of the Guildmaster to their underlings. This keeps a level of security from upstarts trying to take the GM out and wreaking havoc on the Guild system of leadership.

3) Nightmaster/Daymaster - a Revolving title for the direct underlings of the LT's. The Nightmaster/Daymaster handles guild business from Guild members during the Night or Day. Each one is responsible for handing out assignments to those that run various rackets. One might be in charge of all those in the Guild that are capable of second-story work. They line up jobs for smugglers, control the enforcers that run the extortion rackets. Maybe they have assassins in the Guild? One might run the rackets for new prospects that are good at con-games, or pick-pockets. Others might handle Guild-business for their semi-legitimate business - or the illegitimate ones. Gambling rackets, pit-fighting, brothels etc. All the money and goods filter to whomever is the Nightmaster for those that work the night-shift, and the Daymaster - for those that work during the Day.

4) Rank and File - Guild Thieves. A Guild Thief is just that. You've worked your way up through the ranks of the streets - maybe you were a bruiser that fought in the pits and caught the eye of a Guild-member that needed muscle that wasn't too stupid to know when to say nothing. Maybe you were the leader of the street-gang and your scores got large enough that the Guild took notice and told you "No more scores unless you're with us. Pay up. You're in." - the offer you couldn't refuse. Maybe you're the Apprentice caught up in smoking too much Black Lotus and your master tossed you out. The Guild has need of your unique skills and taps you. Either way - it's better than living on the street, and now you'll have access to books of power your master would previously - of course they come from illegal means. The idea is that here is the meat-and-potatos of the campaign.

At this stage the PC's should be part of a crew. Handling jobs that the Nightmasters/Daymasters are giving to them BECAUSE of what they establish for themselves. Because the idea should be there are other crews jockying for jobs - and prestige - and you're only as good as the last job you did. Each PC should have their collections of contacts and associates. They might be tapped to handle smuggling, extortion, maybe some burglary... or assassination. Maybe they're given jobs to scout out a location of another group. The PC's should have professional rivals. And that might be the Law. The Law should be *dogging* the PC's - and the GM should flesh them out. A magistrate, the Watch Commanders - might be known to the PC's. If they get caught doing something bad - toss them in prison. Show them what prison is really like. Maybe the Prison is ruled by another Guild? Or your guild. Maybe there's a way to escape? sounds like an adventure to me.!

4) The Riff-Raff - Low-level scum. You're beneath the notice of the Guild, but not the Law. At this low level you're going to meet and come to know the Watch and all the assholes that work in it. At this end of the cesspool you're trying to earn a living scamming people. Some might have aspirations of being an actual gang - and maybe one day be in the Guild.... Maybe. It all goes down to giving the PC's a chance to prove themselves. Again, low-level play is a great chance to learn the streets (and sewers and rooftops) of the city - where you'll gain a lot of contacts and enemies and rivals.


I'll look for that list later.

Quote from: tenbones;802072I'll see if I still have the original pitch on file.

Great. Thanks!

Quote from: tenbones;802072The Thief-centered campaign as I envisioned it had three elements:

The Guild, ...

Just a quick note, while RPGs (and fantasy novels) use guilds, the gang is more historically accurate, with one city containing several gangs, each of which would have control of a home neighborhood (in essence guilds would be neighborhood sized rather than city sized, with some larger and some smaller).

So rather than a city having A thieves guild, it would have several thieves guildS (gangs), which makes it easier for PCs to start a new one.

Played in? Not yet unless Thief teamed with Assassin counts?

Though I have been in groups where just about all the players were one class except say 1 player.

An early group was a mage and three thieves. The thief players tended to focus on different areas of expertise. One did all the trap detecting and disarming, one did all the pickpocketing and fencing/haggling, the last was into climbing for some reason. If there was a weird wall in our way. Hed eventually find a reason to climb it. They all went with ranged and carried lots of arrows with me as backup firepower, but mostly I did scans of items for magic or curses, and also saw to dealing with magical problems.

This was based in a big city. Possibly inspired by Lankhmar. Come to think of it. I dont think we ever left the city once. Mostly focused on raiding a series of ever more difficult palaces.

Quote from: The Butcher;801979City-centered fantasy campaigns can get quite biased towards thievery.

Thieves are to cities as rangers to the wilderness.

then what are druids to cities for that matter what would be the urban version of a druid who revers Phyton a druid who wants to tear down the city and make it all into a forest or something maybe

Druids are druids of the city. A city is as natural as a bear cave, or a squirrels nest. It is a place humans and others live. I could see city druids being an interesting take on things. Hanging with the rats and wild dogs. Pigeon messengers etc. Would be an interesting twist. Entangle cast on garbage piles etc. I would work with someone who wanted to go that route

Quote from: The Butcher;801979City-centered fantasy campaigns can get quite biased towards thievery.

Thieves are to cities as rangers to the wilderness.

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;802101Druids are druids of the city. A city is as natural as a bear cave, or a squirrels nest. It is a place humans and others live. I could see city druids being an interesting take on things. Hanging with the rats and wild dogs. Pigeon messengers etc. Would be an interesting twist. Entangle cast on garbage piles etc. I would work with someone who wanted to go that route

For that matter, rangers could be the rangers of the city. Sam Vimes from Discworld comes to mind, given he can tell where he is in the city by the feel of the cobblestones through the thin soles of his cheap boots.

Heck, you could just swap out and reskin any class as city-focused. Barbarians could be sewer-jacks, or homeless, etc.

Not a strictly thief campaign, yet. However I have been running a D&D sandbox where thieves have gathered and done several sessions all on their lonesome. (For other systems... I guess you could call them thieves. So, yeah?)

I am currently digging 2e Complete Thief Handbook. I am prepping for a Thief-Centered Campaign to be started within a week from now. I am already constructing various competing thief guilds, and their requisite law and merchant factions, all with their structural dials adjusted. It will be either in Phlan or nearby Melvaunt on the Moonsea.

I'll be scouring this topic for advice and ideas.

Like I said uptread this has basically been our default d&d for years. It even bleeds into other games like the cyberpunks games which are basically just all thief games with tech.

I am surprised more folks haven't played d&d Godfather, d&d sting or d&d alias smith and Jones .... I mean come on surely.

Does inspire me to create a board game though. Imagine medieval city laid out like arkham horror. Players get a character card they draw mission cards to complete jobs for the guild and collect cards for equipment tricks and stunts etc. Give all the characters stats for stealth, parkour, combat and maybe a sprinkle of magic, fill the streets with guards and a deadline to gather as much loot as possible. Arkham assassin's creed on a board.... I would play the shit out of that......

Quote from: Opaopajr;802112Not a strictly thief campaign, yet. However I have been running a D&D sandbox where thieves have gathered and done several sessions all on their lonesome. (For other systems... I guess you could call them thieves. So, yeah?)

I am currently digging 2e Complete Thief Handbook. I am prepping for a Thief-Centered Campaign to be started within a week from now. I am already constructing various competing thief guilds, and their requisite law and merchant factions, all with their structural dials adjusted. It will be either in Phlan or nearby Melvaunt on the Moonsea.

I'll be scouring this topic for advice and ideas.

well like i said temple raider of olidarma it gives some great targets of heists in the form of religious artifacts (watch out for the level loss on the relics but remember not all religious artifacts are relics so save the relics for higher levels) and what kind of player does not enjoy doing stuff for there god

plus theres a ready made hideout right on page 69 of complete divine

also just because they raid temples they dont need to steal artifacts most of there missions will just be stealing valuable goods that have no religious significance

you can also have them steal all the holy symbols

the first instict is to have everybody take 7 levels of rogue then pick up the class however it may be better to have a more generic mix of classes with temple raider on top of that but i will have to look closser at that

the disadvantage there of course is that say the fighter will reach the +5 base attack bonus requirment 2 levels eariler then the thief and then the wizard will need to wait till level 10

although i have always played prestige classes that are a part of a group as you can join the group before you qualify you just cant take any levels yet

Steven Brust's Dragaera series has great background/ideas pertinent to this topic.

Elves, witches, divine intervention and influence etc often at play in these books as well; may well give inspiration to GMs.

Hope this helps.