Thieves Guild aka The Fantasy System

[Mercule]

So, I was going through some old gaming stuff of mine and found "The Thieves' Guild", "Roguish Adventuring in the Age of Swords and Sorcery" from GameLords and uses "The Fantasy System" for its rules. It's a boxed set and I've got "Thieves' Guild Special" #1 through #9. I don't remember ever playing it, so I'm assuming it's something I inherited from a friend (I've gotten a couple of windfalls from other people's divorces).

So, my question is: What is it? Is it worth anything? Either way, is anyone interested in it -- I'm about to just pitch it.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

There was some good stuff in the old Thieves Guild. It tied loosely with Free City of Haven, which was a wonderful fantasy gaming setting, with huge maps. The basic premise was that thieves were adventurers already, why would they need to stick around a bunch of armored or pointy hatted people?

Some of the traps in the adventures were amusingly lethal. I seem to recall one that involved a swinging weight, right at the top of some stairs. Gods, it has been a long time, early eighties. Conversion will likely be a pain, but worthwhile.

If you are ditching them I am indeed interested. (But I would recommend holding onto them, they were pretty good.)

The Auld Grump, I also seem to recall a quest for 'Dwarf Women with Beards'.

 

[kobold]

You've actually got the 2nd go around of the rules. The 1st time thru they where 3 hole punched and came in zip lock bags - you had to supply the binder. There where several of them, pre specials that you mention, and I don't kow that a full rules system ever cam of it. The adventures where really something special given the time and still relative infancy of roelplaying.
Worth something money wise - most likely not, worth a lot of fond memories -hell ya!
Link http://www.diffworlds.com/gamelords_thieves_guild.htm

 

[SteveC]

Ah what great memories!

This is an old-school D&D takeoff from the early to mid 80's. I had the whole set as well, and I'll tell you that the production values went up drastically over the product's run.

What was great about the Thieves Guild rules was that they were all intended to be run as morally gray thief based campaigns, and have plenty of nifty rules and encounters based on that exact premise. If you're planning on running an urban thief based game, I recommend them strongly, as they have a lot of good scenarios as well as crunch for setting up burglary/robbery scenarios.

The system, well, it's clearly D&D based, and shows its age, but it has a bit of charm to it. If you can pick this up cheap, then I think you might like it.

--Steve

 

[noffham]

I really enjoyed them back in the day, and would be happy to give them a home. The Grump, of course, beat me to the punch though. Drat his auld self.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Agreed with the others - this is some classic old D&D-ish stuff. I'm not sure what it would bring (I have a goodly amount of their stuff myself) but it is excellent material. Certainly don't pitch it!

 

[grodog]

Mercule---

You can learn more about TG from Different Worlds Publications at http://www.diffworlds.com/gamelords_thieves_guild.htm. Tadashi Ehara (who was editor for the old DW magazine and a founder of Chaosium) owns the rights to the Gamelords lines, and has been thinking about republishing TG for some time now. There's sporadic support for the adventures and the system on ENWorld, Necromancer Games' board, and some other places, as well as among the original authors, but in general it looks like folks aren't that interested in the Gamelords materials any longer.

FYI, your Thieves Guild items, if they're the hole-punched versions, could be valuable, so I wouldn't recommend that you just trash them. If you email me the details of which issues and their condition, I'd be happy to give you a general sense of their worth.

 

[Mercule]

So, are some of these adventures, then? Anything that'd make a fun solo game for my (hack and slash happy) wife?

(Yeah, I could read, but I'm betting you guys are going to give me a better idea of what's in there than me skimming the contents.)

 

[ColonelHardisson]

The Thieves World stuff was, as has been said, basically a D&D knock-off. That doesn't mean it was bad stuff, by any means. What was interesting about it was that it focused pretty closely on thieves, as you might have guessed. At the time I first got Thieves World and Haven in the early 80s, I hadn't seen much material for D&D (or D&D clones) that was centered on roleplaying. The adventures I saw for it had the PCs going to masquerade balls and other such roleplay-intensive situations, which provided thieves a chance to shine. In effect, it was a precursor to games like Ars Magica or Iron Heroes, which focus on one "class" or type of character. You could play other "classes" or types, but the game was made to cater to one specific archetype.

Definitely hang onto it, or make sure it finds its way into the hands of someone who'll appreciate it.

 

[Steel_Wind]

As I recall, the early Midkemia and Raymond Feist's old gaming crew had something to do with Thieve's Guild did they not such that part of the setting found its way in time into some of Feist's novels.