Anyone ever play or DM a game with this style? How did it work out?

[ejja_1]

A den of thieves

I played in a game day one shot at Games Plus with Mark Clover and some others from the boards.

It was set in a city that was in the path of an invading army.
A large city with several shall we say "Opportunities" to be explored in the wake of the impending conflict.

We created 7th level characters that had to be at least 4th level rogues.
The last 3 levels were yours to play with, and we had a couple rogues/fighters and a rogue/wizard.
We were all to meet at a local tavern for instructions from a local operator, I was also a local member and had a house where we could stay.

Our local guy never showed, and I took the gang back to my place to plan our job. The other players assumed since I was a local I knew what I was talking about and did not question when I suggested we move forward without our meeting the other local guy.

The other players and I then used my house to scout the city for probable targets, and we settled on a precious gems house deep in the heart of the market.

At this point we returned to my home to further plan the operation, all the while trying to plan my own way to screw the rest of the party out of whatever it was we made off with.

We approached the building on the last day you could still get out of town before the invading army would reach the city and block any hope for an escape.

We did this in broad daylight and basicly approached it in a what was the most poorly planned robbery attempt ever staged.
We all went into the shop asking for a tour of the facilities, and wanting to know if we could speak to the owner about a large cache of gems we had turned up adventuring.
The clerk informed us that the owner was not in town due to the inpending invasion, and that they did not give tours of the facility.

We tried to talk him into it all failing persuasion rolls, and by the time we were done talking to him he had asked us to leave before he called the local guards and had us escorted out.

It was at this time that Suzy panicked and stabbed the clerk in the throat with her rapier instantly killing him. The owner who had been watching in the back triggered a mechanism that locked and barred all doors and windows until the local watch got there.

For the next few rounds we all argued with each other as to who did what wrong when, and then we were all brought out and individually put in chains and taken to prison. I was able to bribe my way out by giving a guard a minor magic item on my person, Suzy was taken to prison and executed for Murder.

The play was fast and furious, and when things got tense it prompted us to make very poor choices. Our greed ultimatley got the better of us.

But it was absolutley one of the best games I have ever taken part in, everyone had a riot and Suzy earned herself the nifty new knick name of "Stabby Mcstaberson".

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've run such campaigns before in the City State of the Invicible Overlord, Lankhimar, Thieves World, Free City of Haven, and a few other choice locals including home brew.

When doing so, I generally try to make sure the players are all on the same side. I'm not in it for the thraot slitting of each player for a few copper pieces. After all, the tales of the Twain would've been mighty boring indeed if the two were continously trying to cleave one another outside of a few... misunderstandings.

It can be fun and I enjoy a city based campaign more than a random dungeon but at the same time, if the players aren't actually doing anything other than whoring and looting with no overarching story, well, that, almost by that very definition, is a grind.

If it's boring in 4e, it's boring in 1e, 2e, and 3e.

 

[moritheil]

I have. I don't think we had any actual rogues in the party, ironically enough.

The problem is that sooner or later governments (or other organizations) take notice and come after them. When this happens they will either have to smash those other organizations, go on the run, or enlist other, opposing organizations to protect them. Doing the last pretty much ends your independent streak.

Much of that is minimized by being on the move all the time, but eventually - as they discovered - it is possible to make an entire plane too hot for you. Bounty hunters can travel just as much as you can. The game that starts out as "take what you want and laugh at the world" winds up as "spend all of your time avoiding enemies and never knowing which ones are really powerful and which ones are idiots drawn in by the huge bounties on your heads."

 

[Olli]

This sounds a lot like cyberpunk or shadowrun to me. I think with the right group this will be a blast. also, if you are interested in this sort of campaign you should read "the lies of locke lamorra" and "red sails under red skies" by scott lynch. They deal with exact this sort of characters, setting and adventures.

 

[kitsune9]

Never played a game like that, but did play an evil adventure once where we had evil characters. We all had a blast and would love to play in it again.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Yes I have and they can be very fun if anyone wants to play in that kind of game. As someone else mentioned it is very much like the book series Thieves world which I am personally a big fan of. If you ever run such i recomend reading the books and checking out Green ronins game products for it.

 

[SteveC]

There were a series of game supplements that came out in the early to mid 80s called "Thieves Guild" that are essential with Joe is looking for. They used a modified version of D&D at the time that was actually pretty good. The really neat thing about them was that they had huge lists of tables to generate different types of encounters that thieves would get involved with. I saw a PDF of the books a few years ago, but I seriously doubt it was a legit product.

I recommend it highly!

--Steve

 

[mmu1]

I'll be another one to say "Sounds like Shadowrun to me."

I have played campaigns with those elements, but not purely - I agree with Umbran that without something else besides a series of "heists", things get dull pretty quickly.

You need the occasional double-cross, the fallout from a less-than-perfect plan, a favor you owe a friend/business partner that suddenly gets called in, or some purely personal complication to spice things up.

 

[joethelawyer]

thanks for all the input guys. While I didn't come out and say it, what I was looking for was a game in the style of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Many of you hit on the Lankhmar setting. I will definitely checkout the Lynch books. I have the Thieves World books somewhere, I'll have to get them out. I heard that thing disintegrated into a sort of author feud, although a friend of mine was addicted to them as they were coming out in the 80's.