Thieves’ Guild?

[Crothian]

Another interesting thing would be adventurer shake down.s THe Thieves Guild has to know that there are people that go off and get rich exploring and other things that adventurers do. That's a great source of unmarked wealth. Adventurers can be dangerious buyt the Guild can set them up on the Guilds terf and really take advantage of those soon to be poor adventurers.

 

[Telas]

Is it too much to ask for a sidebar on a Thieves' Guild a la Terry Pratchett? Where they've become "domesticted", and their primary income is from "insurance" (protection money).

I second the "random item in pocket", "random house", and "random job" generators.

Perhaps some kinds of protection against theft? Invisibility alarms?

Also, how are conflicts handled between guild members? Guild business vs. non-guild?

I strongly suggest reading the "Fafhrd and Grey Mouser" stories by Fritz Leiber, especially those involving the Thieves' Guild of Lankhmar. Great ideas there.

Also, the relationship between the various guilds. Anything with a presence in a city for that long will have friends and enemies.

PS I had TG 1-6 or 7. The Bowie Blade kicked much arse.

Telas

 

[Hand of Evil]

As a FYI: AEG's GM Toolbox has a 'what is in the pocket' table.

 

[fusangite]

I think the most important thing to give GMs options for is different relationships that can exist between a thieves' guild and a local town/civic government. There are lots of relationships these entities can have to one another and different ways they interpenetrate. I only got it right when one of my players founded a local guild and then I had to think it through.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I think the most important thing to give GMs options for is different relationships that can exist between a thieves' guild and a local town/civic government. There are lots of relationships these entities can have to one another and different ways they interpenetrate. I only got it right when one of my players founded a local guild and then I had to think it through.

Also, conflicts within the guild too.

Another item that may need to be addressed is when a guild becomes a 'mob family'.

 

[Felix]

Suggested histories of the guild. In Gangs of New York you were clued in a little bit about how these gangs were begun, and for what reasons. If given a starting point, then the DM can more easily flavor the current guild; the PCs might see opulence, but below that is the thuggish origin of the place that sometimes shows its head. Also reminds you how ruthless criminal lords must be.

Information on the small-timers. It seems to me that all Thieves Guild stuff seems to rotate on big, over-arching, 500+ member guilds (the Triads, the Families, the Smuggling Cartels, etc.). I want to hear about the three thieving pals who obsensibly make their living cleaning chimneys, while cat-burgularing at night. Or the n'er-do-well horse rustler. Give the small, unnoticible, under-the-radar guys a chance in the spotlight. After all, the less visible you are, the less likely you are to be caught, eh?

Something on the economics of a thieves guild. Under what conditions do they grow? What conditions drive them out? When does a thieves guild (instead of a bunch of independents) make good economic sense?

An editorial (completely your opinion) on where thieves guilds (whose profession is to take what is not theirs) lie on the Good-Evil/Law-Chaos axis. While this opinion might not be subscribed to completely, a clear definiton of the profession would help to enlighten each DM's opinion.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Motivation

This sort of ties in with the last few posts. Basically, pretty much every Thieves' Guild or gang I've seen in a D&D setting is just a group of greedy antisocial types who decide to get together and rob people for no real reason. Without background, or connections to the society at large, or a motivating reason for the group to exist, there just isn't much cohesion.

The motivation angle could work for individuals as well- one of the key elements of the noir and crime genres is examining how these people got into the lives they lead, tracing things from the starting point to the gallows. Obviously this is mostly up the PCs, but some sort of background packages such as used in Spycraft or D20 Modern could flush things out mechanically.

In a similar vein, someone mentioned packages for criminal specialities, which would be great for me. I've been wanting to run an all-thief game for some time, but didn't want to just give everyone rogue levels (or use the gestalt option). I've got a sort of levelled template system worked out for criminal specialties, sort of like the Heroic Paths from Midnight, but it isn't nearly done yet. So something like that, or another method to "criminalize" the core, non-rogue classes, would be quiite cool.

 

[tigycho]

A couple pages on different types of law enforcement, something other than fantasized versions of Modern Police would be cool.

Any book on thieves should include information on thief takers and bounty hunters. Not necessarily PrCs, but who they are and what they do and how they do it.

Also some notes on typical punishments for those crimes. The Harn Encyclopedia have some good stuff on that, as a starting point for what to look at.

Often overlooked in D&D is the impact of Diviniation magic on Crime Prevention/Enforcement. Some discussion on how diviniation can be used, and who that affects the activities of D&D thieves would be good... along the same lines, some spells and goodies for thieves to use to foil said diviniation would be appropriate.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

When reading about Thieves, their Guilds and their victims in a Fantasy Setting I always wonder, why nobody really adresses the use of magic on both sides.
Every merchant who deals with expensive goods and cann afford it will put magci security in his shop (like a permanent alarm or a protection from charm spells).
A Merchant who deals with magic goods (who is a magic user -divine or arcane- in most cases himself) will invest a lot of money to protect his goods.
As a side note: This is my explanation, why magic items sell only at half price. It is VERY expensive to protect these goods.

On the other Hand, Thieves who go for the BIG catch will use magic Items. See, there are wonderous Items in the DMG for Spot, Search, Move silently and so on. But there is no magic Lockpick who gives an enhancement Bonus to Pick Locks (Ok, there are also no magic Locks). A good Thief will also have detection magic that warns him from Alarms and so on (hmm, and there will be magic, that negates this detection too...).

So, put a little thieving magic into your Thieves Guild Porduct!

 

[Ed Cha]

Canting Crew has a lot of great thief terms.