D&D General Why the Great Thief Debate Will Always Be With Us

[TiQuinn]

AL games make up a tiny amount of the player population though.

Those same players are more likely to be posting on forums so it probably seems higher.

I agree about the online implementation though, it will probably be more difficult to have more options there.

I’m not even gonna get into the player population question. I can argue one way, you can argue another and because neither of us have any data about the whole, neither or either is right.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

The true art of DMing includes the merging of these play spaces.

If not, it’s mostly “pretend time” vs. advanced squad leader. There is a middle ground and fluidity of going back to one space and then the other.

By all means say what you do—-speak as eloquently as you can. If it makes clear sense, you did it/failed.

If we are not sure, roll a d20. I don’t know the perfect formula and I think it’s hard to articulate. You learn by doing and seeing.

I do not like overly prescriptive but am also done with pure theater of the mind. Find that balance…it’s there to be found.

 

[Minigiant]

I more or less believe anything in a game where

1) an event matter to the games story.
And either

2) the success and failure matters
OR
3) The difference in competency between two or more characters matter...

...then there should be a rule.

The thief issue matters because thievery became a major part of the game and the difference between competency of multiple characters was deemed to matter.

 

[CreamCloud0]

If we go back to the example on swinging a sword vs. the talky bits, both seem to me to hinge on one shared rule: "Pretend to be your character."

In certain circumstances, pretending to be your character means doing something with a chance of failure, and that's when we roll a die. Swinging a sword - at an enemy in combat - is one of the common times we roll a die. But to get to that position in the first place, you're just applying the more fundamental rule - "Pretend to be your character." You wouldn't be swinging your sword if it wasn't something Bill the Dwarf wouldn't do.

We don't always use dice when swinging our sword, though. Like, you can hack through underbrush without rolling a die. Or cut a rope. Or, idk, shave.

underbrush and rope typically don't fight back whereas talking with someone requires interacting with a conceptually independent free thinking individual.

So this doesn't feel like a push/pull between two forces to me. It feels more like...if the base rule is "pretend to be your character," then when do we want to add complexity? Why is making an attack something we roll dice for, anyway? In a game where we've killed and questioned every sacred cow, why is 1d20 still worth preserving? Like, functionally?

Turning this question around in my head, there's a lot of potential answers. In the lens of game design and player experience, rolling dice to attack is an attractive element, something that is quite fun to do. Luck and uncertainty make for a nice player tension, and that mirrors the character's own tension ("pretend to be your character"). It's a situation where chance would play a meaningful role. It's entertaining.

That also helps reveal why we don't do much of that in the social role, though. It makes less sense that chance, luck, and uncertainty would play a meaningful role there.

...no it doesn't? like i just said you're dealing with an independent individual, and just like combat social situations have a ton of unseen yes still impactful extenuating influences on if you hit, in a conversation there are an equal number of influences on a person's mood and reaction in any given situation, this includes how articulate and of course charismatic your character manages to present themselves as (which is far from the same thing as how charismatic YOU manage to present them as).

Like, sure, you can make some excuses, but if I am pretending to be my character, and I make a case as that character that would be persuasive to the other characters hearing it....why am I rolling?

because when you 'pretend to be your character' in a conversation you don't pretend all the little things that might go over poorly or imperfectly, taking such direct control of your character is IMO antithetical to properly simulating them and the world that they exist in, being able to so precisely declare what your character says is no different from being able to declare 'my character brings their blade up past the opponent's defence cutting their throat instantly' instead of making an attack roll to see if you hit.

Why add complexity to something that was already pretty difficult? My character said what they said, either that's persuasive or it isn't, people's minds aren't so disconnected from what's going on around them that randomness plays a big part in it. It's a binary result based on the dispositions of the characters and the words said, none of which is random. (Though in modern D&D we tend to randomize some of that disposition or some of those words when we roll a Persuasion check). This isn't to say that there isn't a case for more roll-based social junk, just that there's an explanation for why it's been pretty minimal overall: no need to roll, most of the time.

oh but it is very random, your character said what they said, but there are a thousand different ways they can say what they said and how it came off and how the recipient recieved it and how they were feeling that day. there's no perfect combination of words and tone that you can be certain will come off right.

if you've ever had someone take your words the wrong way or misinterpret you then i don't know how you can genuinely say conversations happen without chance and unpredictability.

 

[abirdcall]

I’m not even gonna get into the player population question. I can argue one way, you can argue another and because neither of us have any data about the whole, neither or either is right.

That just isn't true.

 

[Emerikol]

I admit, I think too much rolling by players in social situations takes something away from the game. At some point, even if you are smart and charismatic, you have the right to do the wrong thing as a PC. I might warn a PC if he has a high diplomacy that calling the King fat is not going to go over well, the player can still do it.

What I typically do is keep track of social skills that each of the PCs have and roll behind the screen to see how things go. If the PC makes any sort of genuine effort, then I take his social skills into consideration and they tend to prevail even if the acting job was subpar. Doing the acting even if subpar though is fun for many. If the PC though deliberately wants to act "out of character" and insult high officials even though he knows better, then it is his character.

 

[abirdcall]

underbrush and rope typically don't fight back whereas talking with someone requires interacting with a conceptually independent free thinking individual.

...no it doesn't? like i just said you're dealing with an independent individual, and just like combat social situations have a ton of unseen yes still impactful extenuating influences on if you hit, in a conversation there are an equal number of influences on a person's mood and reaction in any given situation, this includes how articulate and of course charismatic your character manages to present themselves as (which is far from the same thing as how charismatic YOU manage to present them as).

because when you 'pretend to be your character' in a conversation you don't pretend all the little things that might go over poorly or imperfectly, taking such direct control of your character is IMO antithetical to properly simulating them and the world that they exist in, being able to so precisely declare what your character says is no different from being able to declare 'my character brings their blade up past the opponent's defence cutting their throat instantly' instead of making an attack roll to see if you hit.

oh but it is very random, your character said what they said, but there are a thousand different ways they can say what they said and how it came off and how the recipient recieved it and how they were feeling that day. there's no perfect combination of words and tone that you can be certain will come off right.

I would add to this that the DM can't possibly know what it is like to be the NPC and how they will react to these situations.

Maybe the NPC is used to dealing with highly charismatic and influential people and sees right through them. The DM can have that as a note but won't have the life experience as a character in the fantasy world to truly understand that experience.

So dice can be a good way to resolve that uncertainty.

 

[TiQuinn]

That just isn't true.

Okay.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There are only four certainties in life-
1. Death.
2. Even though you know better, you will respond to that person who is wrong on the internet.
3. Taxes.
4. A long, meandering post by Snarf.

Look at the bright side ... this isn't death or taxes, and I am sure you will be able to resist telling me that I am wrong...

Anyway, I wanted to go back over something I reference every now and then- "The Great Thief Debate." I realized that I never made a full post about it, and why it matters, and what it tells us about current issues and debates in RPGs. In addition, given that I have written often and at length about how awesome and amazing TTRPG jargon is, I decided to include some jargon-y terms!


A. The History That Led to the Great Thief Debate

I will sometimes refer to the "great thief debate," as one that continues to echo throughout TTRPG history. In doing so, I am talking about the introduction of the Thief class, and why it was considered controversial at the time. This is, perhaps, why Gygax subconsciously kept the thief class so underpowered while he was in charge; if you think it was bad in the PHB, don't even think of reading his further explanation destruction of thief abilities in the DMG.

So, a quick bit of history... what, you thought you could escape one of my posts without history? That would be like escaping Love Island without an STD- technically possible, but not going to happen.

Aside to newer gamers- "Thief" was one of the core four original classes in OD&D - Fighting Man (Fighter), Magic User (Wizard), Cleric (....Cleric), and Thief (Rogue). Later, it was renamed Rogue. But the thief was the original, um, "skill monkey" class.

The thief class that we are familiar with first appeared in Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #9 written by Gygax prior to OD&D (Greyhawk). But ... Gygax didn't invent the class. Gary Switzer (misattributed as Gary Scweitzer in the newsletter) had called Gygax and told him about this amazing class that had been invented and was being played at Aero Games. But but ... Switzer, apparently, also didn't invent the thief. Darrold Daniel Wagner claims that he invented the class, and Switzer simply called Gygax and told him about it. Anyway ... the original Aero Games thief used a magic user chassis, and the thief abilities were invoked like spells, not like skills. In addition, the original Aero Games thief abilities related to the idea of a box-man (traps, safes)

So Gygax borrowed the idea for the class, and made a few transmogrifications- first, he switched the spell system to a skill system using percentiles. That Gygax and his percentiles and his bespoke subsystems! He added some more stuff (sneaking, climbing) and a touch of Vance and Zelazny for a few additional abilities (reading magic scrolls at high level etc.) and released his version, which remained largely unchanged for the entire TSR run, other than Gygax continually saying, "Eh, let's nerf it some more." The Great Plains Newsletter thief is the thief that eventually ended up in AD&D (and B/X).

Technically, however, neither the Gygaxian thief nor the Aero Games thief was the first thief. The first thief was McDuck in Arneson's pre-D&D campaign. But McDuck, played by Dave Megarry (of Dungeon! fame, among many other things) didn't have "thief skills," McDuck just did "thief stuff." In other words, and this will become very important in about, oh, the very next section- McDuck didn't need thief skills, because McDuck (and other characters) just could do things like hiding in shadows. He wasn't a thief because of defined skills within a class; he was a thief because that's what the character did.


B. The First Great Debate in D&D (and RPGs)- THE GREAT THIEF DEBATE!

Okay, before getting into the debate, please allow me to re-introduce myself two "jargon" terms that I have invoked in the past. I am going to use them solely because they are a good shorthand for this topic.

1. "Gygaxian Space" is the area of play prescribed by the rules.
2. "Arnesonian Space" is the area of play not prescribed by the rules; it is the negative space that the rules do not have an answer for.

... trust me, this will become important (and more clear) shortly. But if you need a concrete example now, this is a good example- swinging a sword at a monster is in Gyaxian space. The rules tell you what you need to roll "to hit," and if you hit, the rules tell you what you need to roll for damage, and the rules tell us that the damage is subtracted from the monster's hit points. On the other hand, a lot of social interactions are traditionally partially or fully done without reference to the rules- the players and DM "roleplay" the situation. This is Arnesonian space.

The reason for the initial controversy over the thief class was that it made certain abilities ... like hiding in shadows and climbing walls and listening at doors ... enumerated and specific abilities within a particular class. For many players, this was an encroachment on the Arnesonian Space- these were all things that any character, from Fighter to Magic User, should be able to do! In effect, by codifying abilities to a certain class (expressing them as thief abilities), the game system was also excluding those abilities to other classes.

There is an old common law principle called expressio unius est exclusio alterius, which literally translated means "the expression of one thing is the exclusion of the other." For example, in its most basic form, "No dogs allowed," would mean that cats would be allowed, but not guide dogs. Or if someone says, "The pizza toppings I like are pineapple, anchovies, and kiwi fruit," you would know that this person is a monster, but also that they are excluding pepperoni from the toppings that they like. This tends to have a lot of relevance, even if we don't name it as such, in rules debates in D&D when people invoke it to say that when something is covered by a rule (it is mentioned) then that rule excludes other methods from handling it. So, for example, if a particular class has an ability, then you cannot just "do" that ability without using that rule.

To put this in my jargony highfalutin' terms- the expression of an ability in Gygaxian space foreclosed the use of the ability in Arnesonian space. It's an eternal and evergreen debate. Does codifying abilities into rules help, because it provides certainty to the player? Or does codifying hurt, because it necessarily means that without the express ability, you can no longer do it, thereby limiting players? Or, put into the less highfalutin' terms we see on the internet ... WHY U PLAY BUTTON MASHING RPGS? Or ... WHY DO YOU PLAY MOTHER MAY I? Yeah, the original debate in D&D, the great thief debate ... it's that one that we still see. It's always all or nothing on the internet- either you are demanding that players are chained to looking up stuff on their character sheet, or you are demanding that players beg permission from an arbitrary and capricious GM to do anything.

But I don't think that's a good way to look at it; RPGs (especially D&D) have always provided for the push and pull between rules codification and allowing the negative space for play within the world. In acknowledging the existence of this, I don't think that there is one right answer, or one right balance.


C. So What Does this Mean Today?

Well, a few things- first, it is always helpful to understand that "The Great Thief Debate" was there in the beginning, and will always be with us. It is also important because, moreso than most RPGs, the Gygaxian/Arnesonian divide is hardbaked into the very essence of D&D. Heck, in the mists before time, Dave Arneson began using the rules of fantasy combat rules for Chainmail in the proto-game that we now think of as D&D. Notably, in Chainmail, there were no "hit points." But as Arneson's game took shape, one thing became clear. Combat wasn't fun. Apparently, using the base rules of Chainmail (however it might have been construed) resulted in player characters getting killed every time they were hit. Which might appeal to some of us grognards (Serves you right for getting into combat, instead of sneaking around and stealing the gold!), but was very unsatisfying. So whether through the influence of Chainmail, the influence of naval wargames, or some general gestalt and his inspired ability to improv rules, Arneson started using hit points to allow player characters the ability to take multiple hits.

There, we see Arneson codifying rules to make something more fun. But as D&D moved on, we saw both the codification of rules in increasingly overcomplicated ways as well as the continued reservation of Arnesonian space that remained resistant to codification- everything from social encounters to today's "Rulings, Not Rules" space for DM adjudication. But this strange hybrid has served as both a source of strength but also a continual source of division- those who want more freeform and Arnesonian play chafe at perceived encroachments on that terrain (How dare you talk about social combat?) while those who are more comfortable with prescribed rules are uncomfortable with areas of the game that lack them (Gold is useless, because I am not told how to spend it).

Anyway, I will leave with the following idea/prediction- as D&D moves further into an on-line future, with VTT and so-on, I would expect that we will see continued expansion of the Gygaxian space, and a concomitant shrinking of the Arnesonian space.

Good post. I tend to favor rulings in spaces not covered by rules, and having an open minded approach to rules in general, so that the players have a sense that they can try anything. And with things like Thieves skills, you definitely see codification of this space. I started in 86 so thief skills have been around since I began playing, but I do find myself often resisting when that spills over (for example I remember really not liking when 3E made skills an official part of the game)

 

[payn]

Part of my problem with much of the "great thief debate" is that a lot of the anti-rules positions seem...pretty blatantly disingenuous, and @I'm A Banana asked exactly the question which pokes that hole in said positions.

That is: why is it that we should presume (to use Snarf's legal term) expressio unius est exclusio alterius?

It has always been exceedingly clear to me that, for a game like D&D, three general principles always apply.

1. If the rules make a clear statement, you should do what you can to make that statement make sense, within relatively lenient bounds of reason. E.g., a gelatinous cube falling prone sounds weird if we rigidly define the "prone" condition as falling flat. But if we take the spirit of the statement--the cube is in a weak position defensively and will need to gather what little wits it has in order to improve its defensive position--then there is clearly no problem with the cube being badly thrown off, losing full awareness of its surroundings, and not being particularly well-comported to avoid incoming attacks. We just happen to call that condition "prone." Most times, it does in fact literally mean "prone." But unless it would egregiously violate reason and sense, we should try to make sure that reasonable game effects work as they're designed to. Yes, it may take a little bit of explanation or thinking. That's okay, it's going to happen some of the time no matter what, so we should prepare for that.

What if the spirit is actually a target being knocked flat? I think sometimes it makes sense why something is immune to a particular ability rule. If the entire identity/ability of a character is "knock things prone" and the character is invalidated by immunity, then the system isnt terribly robust for an RPG.

"Lenient bounds of reason" are going to vary exceedingly. Which is why I can envision players who will argue that their character's fire attack is so hot it can even kill a fire elemental, or that their trip ability is so good it can even trip snakes. Sort of a mental gymnastics to make sense of a character combat power that makes the game function. Now, on the flip side, I can also see GMs using immunity as a way to counter an ability that is too good/powerful. The GM is making the game function with a ruling thats not favorable to the player.

Which ever rules/rulings or rulings/rules philosophy you ascribe to will inform your take on the above.

2. If the rules don't explicitly say something is forbidden, and doing that thing is not clearly a violation of the spirit of the rules, you should go along with it unless and until it produces undesirable consequences. Or, to put it simply: Anything not forbidden is permitted, unless it is obviously bad or you realize later that it's bad. You see this, for example, with 4e's skill system. 4e skills were big, chunky, and intentionally open-ended. ANYTHING you could do involving Do Magical Secrets Stuff is Arcana. ANYTHING you could do involving the weird-@$$ monsters that fill dungeons in D&D? Dungeoneering. ANYTHING you could do involving knowledge of current affairs, gossip, rumor, etc., etc.? Streetwise. ANYTHING involving the past, or social structures, or practices and traditions, etc.? History. The world is your oyster, so long as you can give a reason why it falls under the associated purview. Hence why I say I'm so baffled at how people run skills in 5e. The way skills are written in 5e is actually much more similar to 4e than to any other past edition. Yet the way people run them is nearly identical to how they were run in the 3e era, which very much was "anything not permitted is forbidden."

I think there is too much of a gulf between does and doesn't belong under those skills. The player doesn't know where the guidelines are, and the GM doesn't know how to adjudicate an action made up on the fly. (Insert nobody reads the DMG here) This is particularly difficult since combat is entirely made up of guidelines and strictly written out abilities. The contrast is difficult to parse, so actions are declared in the strictest sense or just assumed not possible.

3. A formally defined rule is simply a guaranteed way that something does work; if you successfully improvise the same solution multiple times, you should write it down as a new, formally defined rule. This is sort of the opposite side of the same coin as #2. Well-designed rules are useful patterns that were worth keeping because they produced the kind of experience the designer intended. If the players in a particular group have repeatedly improvised something for which there are no rules, and the DM has in fact actually been consistent about how that improvisation works...they really should just turn it into a new, actual rule. That way there's no "Mother May I," no guessing, no constant concern that the rug gets pulled out from under you this time because some gotcha you didn't know about suddenly pops up. Having a rule does not tell you that's how you HAVE to play. It tells you that you CAN do X thing.

This sort of flies in the face of #2 though. What is the point of chunky and open ended if the eventual destination is specific and concise? I think this adds to what I was saying, if gameplay hasnt demanded a ruling in a consistent need, then its ambiguous for both player and GM. That leads to a lot of anxiety about treading new territory. If the game was all open and chunky and the point was for the GM and player to narrow through exercise, you;d see it more. Though, the combat system being so precise and detailed makes for a game mode code switch that is confusing for a lot of folks.