Oct RPG Book Club: Thieves World Box Set

[Crothian]

Time to break my own rules. The TW box set was published over twenty five years ago and it still stands a great product. It is old school with many traits associated with such items. It has countless random encounter tables but these are a lot more creative then just a list of monsters. It comes with three books one for players, one for DM, and then the personalities of Sanctuary. In that book it has conversion rules for seven different games including AD&D and Traveler.

I broke out my old box set and used it this weekend. The full sized city map is still one of the most useful props in gaming. The module Traitor turned out to be a good non linear mystery with red herrings and little railroad. Of course it stresses that it is a Role Playing Module as well.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Sounds neat. I never got ahold of the Thieve's World RPG stuff. But I'm currently re-reading the book series (again) so my love for Thieve's World is strong as ususal. One of the more interesting fictional settings I've read. I can only imagine a large poster map of Sanctuary.

 

[Psion]

Um, how many people are you expecting to participate?

To make this relevent to me: how would you compare the boxed set to the Green Ronin game? What does it give you that the GR game doesn't? What does the GR game give you?

 

[Crothian]

Sounds neat. I never got ahold of the Thieve's World RPG stuff. But I'm currently re-reading the book series (again) so my love for Thieve's World is strong as ususal. One of the more interesting fictional settings I've read. I can only imagine a large poster map of Sanctuary.

The stories are very hit and miss. But the box set really presents enough to game in the city plus there are a few essays written by the authors who wrote many of the short stories and that's very cool.

 

[Crothian]

Um, how many people are you expecting to participate?

Very few. It wasn't like there was a lot of people participating in the other ones. I didn't have any suggestions for this month so I went with something I've been using.

To make this relevent to me: how would you compare the boxed set to the Green Ronin game? What does it give you that the GR game doesn't? What does the GR game give you?

They compliment each other nicely. The box set is all about Sanctuary with little information on the surrounding world. GR has great information on the surrounding world with lots of rules for were one is from. The Box set has very little rules as it is written to be used in whatever game system you want. It does have stats for most of the main characters in seven different game systems that were out at the time (I've only heard of five of them).

The best thing about the box set is the full size map of the city, separate map of the Maze, and seperate map of the sewers. It also has a better feel for the city and is only based on the first few novels. I think only the first three novles were out when the Box set was printed.

GR's stuff is about 50 years later and after many novles and events. It is a little rules heavy at times but that's the way d20 is.

 

[tenkar]

I might have to dig this out of storage. If I remember right Carse and Cities followed a few years later, trying the "generic" city approach that was muti-stated for different systems. Chaosium put some good stuff out back in the day (CoC has been consistantly good for the most part)

 

[Crothian]

There was a book on Carse? That's news to me. I know there is a module called Traitor, and a a book on the S'Donza called Spirit Stones because i have those two. Then there is one on the Beysibs, one called Dark Assassin, and The Blue Camel. There might be something called Vengence of Markeesh but I've never been able to confrim if it exists. Then there are a few magazines that had TW content in them.

 

[tenkar]

There was a book on Carse? That's news to me.

Yeah, I have the Chaosium printing of it... somewhere.

RPGnet RPG Game Index: Carse is a link for the cover shot.

 

[Crothian]

Great, another book to track down. Thanks for the information.

 

[CaptainChaos]

Looks like the GR Thieves' World Gift Set is onsale at Paizo for $40.

paizo.com - Store / On Sale Now / Green Ronin Apocalypse Sale - October Only!