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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 801308" data-attributes="member: 7240">On the Thieves' Guild question...Am I correct in thinking that the Thieves' Guild concept comes to D&D via Fritz Lieber? (I haven't read him) I always found the idea of a Thieves' Guild very strange and pretty well nonexistent in any literature (fantasy or otherwise) or history that I read. It seems to me that the only modern equivalent to a Thieves' Guild is the mafia -- and I'm guessing it's that which people are trying to recreate in D&D.It seems to me, though, that a Thieves' Guild is an oxymoronic thing: a chartered legal entity that exists for the sole purpose of doing illegal things. The mafia has no legal existence; it has no public headquarters; the public face of the mafia are the legitimate businesses it acquires. However, because Thieves' Guilds appear to be demanded by the D&D genre, I have had to create one in one of my campaigns. However, it (1) has an obfuscating name "The League of Open Hand" (2) is constituted as a charity with a a two-tier membership system -- one which is the actual thieves' guild, the other of which is a philanthropic gentlemen's club (3) has nothing like a monopoly on illegal activity -- most illegal activity is more closely associated with the organizations whose cooperation it requires: the guard and the state.I'm happy to give Mor's End my League of Open Hand, bylaws and all if people want it. But I'm really hoping that one of the benefits of 3E is that with no one classed as a "thief", the Thieves' Guild idea can die a natural death.Instead, I'd prefer that we look at what the city's laws are, which laws there's an economic advantage to breaking and then looking at what type of organizations would form around the individual economic advantages.</blockquote>

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