Thieves Guild: How would it work? DM Advice.

[Hand of Evil]

In my games you never join, you are ask. You start out outside and are allowed to work, then when it is noticed that you are good and you have a rep, you are brought into the guild.

Current members can bring you in also as part of their 'gang'. This normally are kids that are bagmen, runners, and watchers to thugs.

Strangers are outsiders, they have to be known and have to do something that has impressed the guild to really get in.

 

[Deadguy]

What IS a Thieves' Guild?

It seems to me that in these discussions that people are discussing different things when they talk of a Thieves' Guild. I wonder whether role-playing game history is at work here. I seem to recall that in the early days of D&D (I started gaming in 1981-ish), the Thieves' Guilds tended to be described as fairly monolithic. Within a given city or locale the Thieves' Guild was responsible for all organised crime. Anyone who tried to muscle in on their territory, especially the PCs, was invited to join the Guild, by paying over their dues and a cut of their takings. People who dissented were eliminated.

Of course, this model isn't too realistic to human nature, which is why some prepfer to style their Thieves' Guilds after real-life organised crime groups like the American Mafia, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Chinese Tongs and the Japanese Yakuza. These groups are far tighter in membership, with only a relatively small number of people actually being part of the group. Outsiders may be 'licensed' or tolerated, according to circumstances. These groups are far harder to join, and may be highly selective over who is eligible, based on class, race, national origins or similar.

Note that I'm not saying that either way is 'right' for a D&D game. As a matter of fact I use both ways to represent different groups in different cities. I just thought that this might account for widely disparate statements regarding whether or not PCs can actually join the Guild.

 

[Joshua Randall]

If you can get your hands on the old (2nd edition) Complete Thief's Hanbook (it's available as an ESD), it has a useful section on designing a thieves's guild. As I recall, it doesn't specifically address how the PCs go about joining a guild, but it does contain mechanics for the size and makeup of the guild, its leadership, political clout, and so forth.

There is also a table for randomly determining what's going on in the guild over time; e.g., "two low-level thieves arrested, will talk if not bailed out of jail" or "disaffected bureaucrat agrees to serve as mole for guild." Needless to say this table can be an incredible source of plot hooks for a thiefish campaign. Or, if you want to keep the thievery in the background, just let the PCs know what's going on with the guild while they are out clearing dungeons.