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.
