I'm DM'ing a Player Who Just Announced his Bard is a Kleptomaniac Pickpocket. Crap.

[Storminator]

Thanks for the advice guys. So far Toolbox is a great source of stuff. I also broke out the old City System book which has a decent pickpocket chart.

I think the root of the probem is that this guy is a new player to D&D. He's only been doing it for 2-3 years. Myself, my brother and the other guy we play with each have been doing it for 25 years. This new guy wants a character like tasselhoff. That may fly in a novel, but in a setting like Freeport, the guy is gonna die. I figure I will ram up the scale of cause and effect. First time caught, run away or talk his way out of it. Second time ass-kicked. Third time arrested. Fine and maybe jail tme. Fourth time = arrested and loss of a hand or something. Or, an option to bribe his way out of it but be in debt to the mob bigtime.

It should be interesting how it all turns out

I think you're going about it all wrong.

You should have him steal plot devices and hooks all over the place. Have him steal evidence of crimes... wanted by half a dozen factions involved. Let him nab the scroll that summons outrageously powerful demons, but doesn't bind them. Have half the stuff he pilfers lead to dire consequences for the party, the city, and the world.

Oh sure, put him in a world of hurt when he gets caught, but have the successes become legendary.

PS

 

[tallyrand]

I think you're going about it all wrong.

You should have him steal plot devices and hooks all over the place. Have him steal evidence of crimes... wanted by half a dozen factions involved. Let him nab the scroll that summons outrageously powerful demons, but doesn't bind them. Have half the stuff he pilfers lead to dire consequences for the party, the city, and the world.

Oh sure, put him in a world of hurt when he gets caught, but have the successes become legendary.

PS

This.

Have someone who's pocket he just picked, be brutally murdered/assassinated just moments after for the plot hook the PC just stole.

Although the Magic Mouthed purse screaming "Help! Help! I'm being violated!" is always good for a few yucks as well.

 

[aboyd]

Ok, so it works like this:

Wandering into the astral sea and killing githyanki and their dragon pets - sensible.

Stealing rolls of twine and copper pieces from city folk - deadly and stupid.

I guess a DM can rationalize anything in his world, but this seems odd.

That doesn't seem odd to me in some ways. First of all, "killing githyanki" may be done as part of a war or in isolation from the rest of gith civilization. In those ways, the characters may be able to escape consequences. If they kill a wicked powerful gith, it may be that no other gith stand up to retaliate, or that no other gith even see it happen. The dead may be written off as casualties of combat, and the leaders may soldier onward with grim determination rather than taking it personally.

However, with thievery, you risk getting caught by everyone and jailed. It is essentially a social crime rather than a war crime. Because of this societies tend to view them harshly in the sense that "it hurts all of us" (as opposed to "honoring our fallen" in a war sense).

Also, you kill some monsters and likely the whole party is on board and ready to oppose enemies with solidarity. You pickpocket your way into jail behind the other players' backs, you have no solidarity. You may rot in jail while the rest of the group goes after hobgoblins. That's not just a metagame consequence, that's an in-character reality, too.

Of course, if the DM is cool with it and the players are on board, I think becoming thieves sounds fun. I've often daydreamed about a low level game where wizards & rogues & bards coordinate -- the wizards using Mage Hand and Open/Close to aid rogues who snatch what they can, and the bards using social skills to talk their way out of jail time if caught.

So, I think your way of looking at it is reasonable, but I think this is also a valid perspective:

Using teamwork to overcome monstrous enemies who endanger civilization (and who write off their dead as "cost of war") - sensible.

Splitting the party so one player can hog the spotlight and make enemies of entire towns - injurious and stupid.

 

[SiderisAnon]

There's also a question of risk versus reward.

You go out and you kill a bunch of githyanki and their dragon pets, you end up with magic items, treasure, and dragon skins. You go out and pick a bunch of commoner pockets, you end up with chump change where a day's work is less than one monster's treasure.

If you have the skills to take on monsters in a D&D world, committing petty crime is just foolish. Both risk death or dismemberment, but the rewards are so much higher for adventuring. Plus society values it.

There's also the fact that sitting around the table making rolls for picking pockets and rolls for perception is not interesting. Where's the story? Where's the epic? Where's the adventure? Seriously, would you watch a movie that was about a guy going around and picking average people's pockets all day?

 

[Derulbaskul]

What about killing the player?

Too many DMs solve these sorts of problems "in game" and try and find solutions "in game" too. Save time: just kill the player. It will also make the other players realise that you're the type of DM who is not to be messed with.

 

[Noumenon]

If someone came to me with this kind of character I would do everything I could to help his character concept work. I would set DCs, I would make interesting things to find, I would set up chase scenes he could escape from and jails he could wriggle out of, I'd make a judge he could bribe.

And the rest of my players would go "That's evilness! I'm turning him in to the authorities!" Sigh.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I'm with Noumenon. Instead of denouncing the concept out of hand, why not use it as a plot hook for stuff? Be clear from the start (ie, before the game starts) that the character will not be making money this way. Also be clear that there could be repercussions if it's done deliberately too often.

Don't make the character roll Thievery unless it's someone special - perhaps a local rogue, or a noble who might have valuables, or a soldier who might notice. Just pick a couple of things and at each extended rest and tell the player that's what they got.

As for random items? I'd say random useless stuff, depending on the person. Most people are not going to be carrying gp on them. I'd say something along the lines of:

1d4 cp
Natural items: twigs, bark, leaves, etc (occasionally 1gp Nature components)
Flask with random drink (water most common)
Small pieces of food (breads most common)
Random tools of trade (nails, pins, etc.)
Small keepsake (cheap - 10cp at most, be creative)
Anything small and amusing (again, be creative)

 

[Desdichado]

1d3 to determine the random items found in a picked pocket:
1. handses
2. knife
3. string or nothing.

Urg. I hate that old shtick. Player's who decide rogue = compulsive thief in my games usually quickly learn the fate of most thieves in a medieval world. And if they steal from their fellow adventurers, I don't even have to make any effort!

Who said anything about D&D being a medieval world?

 

[Desdichado]

I think you're going about it all wrong.

You should have him steal plot devices and hooks all over the place. Have him steal evidence of crimes... wanted by half a dozen factions involved. Let him nab the scroll that summons outrageously powerful demons, but doesn't bind them. Have half the stuff he pilfers lead to dire consequences for the party, the city, and the world.

Oh sure, put him in a world of hurt when he gets caught, but have the successes become legendary.

That's exactly what I do. Although: world of hurt is what makes the games fun. After all, it is the characters who are in a world of hurt, not the players. One rule I've learned from DMing is that success or failure; either way, never let it be boring. A gloriously catastrophic failure can almost be more fun than a heroic success.

In fact, I could build an entire campaign around the idea of a pickpocket. When he somehow ends up with the McGuffin that every Church, government, cult and ne-er-do-well for hundreds of miles will kill for, that kind of stuff just writes itself.

 

[The_Warlock]

Ed Greenwood wrote a FR pickpocket table a long time ago for an issue of Dragon magazine (I don't remember the issue #, I'll check later this weekend).

However, I do remember one of the items being warded by Lich who used it to watch the world as it passed from person to person, occasionally teleporting to the location of said trinket if he felt the newest owner was particularly ripe for the pickens...