Why do we need thieves??

[Thomas Shey]

We live in a technological world but most people know nothing about how that technology works.

Maybe in a magic heavy world magic items would be more common, but actually use magic?

“Why won’t my bag of holding work?”
“Grandpa, I keep telling you, it’s inside out.”

It would probably turn on how common/easy it is to do enchantment, but really, until you do the magical equivelent of mass manufacture, its going to be hard to have common magic items and not have a fair number of people who know (at least in general, like any craft there will be matters of degree) how to make them.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It would probably turn on how common/easy it is to do enchantment, but really, until you do the magical equivelent of mass manufacture, its going to be hard to have common magic items and not have a fair number of people who know (at least in general, like any craft there will be matters of degree) how to make them.

All true. Prior to mass manufacture people at least knew how to fix things, if not make them from scratch.

I guess the claim I'm pushing back on is that it's logical that in a world with dragons and fairies lots of people would know how to use magic. It's not illogical, in the sense that it's magic, and it's fiction, and you can rationalize whatever you want. But to assert (unless I'm mis-reading) essentially that "everybody else's simplified, dice-based simulation of a make-believe world is illogical, but mine is logical, because..." is about as big of an eyeroll as I can think of.

 

[1QD]

"everybody else's simplified, dice-based simulation of a make-believe world is illogical, but mine is logical, because..." is about as big of an eyeroll as I can think of.

Literally the worst take on this I can think of. No where near the mark.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Literally the worst take on this I can think of. No where near the mark.

If I mis-read then I apologize.

 

[Retros_x]

Well, honestly, you can do all of it with skills if you want to. Or at least skills and separately acquired talents and the like. Sometimes I think people coming from the D&D sphere are overly focused on handling everything with classes.

Yes, because it is a class-based game. You could do everything with skills, but then its a different game. So the easy answer is we have a fighter and a thief because the distinction of character mechanics is done in D&D via classes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, because it is a class-based game. You could do everything with skills, but then its a different game. So the easy answer is we have a fighter and a thief because the distinction of character mechanics is done in D&D via classes.

Yes, but this thread isn't dedicated just to D&D. If you prefer, you can adjust my statement to "Everything is not about D&D, you know." Neither the original post nor where this thread is should make someone think that, even if there's some D&D terminology in use.

 

[Retros_x]

Yes, but this thread isn't dedicated just to D&D. If you prefer, you can adjust my statement to "Everything is not about D&D, you know." Neither the original post nor where this thread is should make someone think that, even if there's some D&D terminology in use.

I did oversee that, but it doesnt change anything about my answer. Class-based games - like D&D - have the thiev as class because the distinction of character mechanics is done via classes. Skill-based games don't have this "problem" because they don't have any classes at all. It is a non-problem. I don't understand what gets discussed here. Class based games have classes, skill based games don't.

 

[Jahydin]

@Retros_x
I'm with you here. The entire premise of the question doesn't make sense when talking about classless systems...

@1QD
If this is the case, then I suggest name dropping some specific systems and examples for us to answer your question better since leaving it open to "all systems" is too vague to help you.

In my experience, labels like Thief and Warrior in classless systems don't matter since you're building your PC exactly how you want and labeling it exactly how you want.

Class/Job based systems do differentiate Warrior and Thieves in many ways - the skill set is just one. In what other ways is going to depend on the system. For instance, Hackmaster, Thieves are the only class that gets to burn off Luck Points to increase their die rolls. That's a pretty distinct feature!

 

[Staffan]

In my experience, labels like Thief and Warrior in classless systems don't matter since you're building your PC exactly how you want and labeling it exactly how you want.

In my experience, it's not uncommon for skill-based games to still have some class-based elements. This often comes in the form of determining starting skills, changing skill costs, or just having class abilities and skills layered on top of one another.

For example, the predecessor to Dragonbane with which I started playing, part of character creation was choosing a profession. Your profession did two things: it determined your starting money, and it provided a list of potential skills. You chose 5 of those skills to be "OK" (which would probably give you a skill of about 50%, depending on stat and whether the skill could be used untrained) and another 3 to be "Expert" (~80%). This has the advantage of guiding players into archetypes without locking them into them. Once the game had started, the professions didn't matter at all anymore, mechanically (except wizards which had some special rules about max levels in certain skills).

A later edition of that game had a system where skills were split into three categories: base skills, secondary skills, and class skills, with different costs to increase them. Base skills were cheap, started out with a few points for free, and could be increased at the start of the game. Secondary skills were expensive, started at 0, and could normally not be increased at the start. Class skills were somewhere in between cost-wise and also started out with a small base value. Your profession provided a list of potential class skills, of which you got to choose a number to turn from secondary to class skills. In addition, it provided a special ability (which as I recall was pretty controversial at the time, as it was seen as making the game less skill-based).

Even games that are totally open-ended, like Savage Worlds, often offers things like templates to guide character creation, because being completely open-ended can be really confusing if you haven't spent a few weeks reading the books before playing. These can come in soft ("To make a thief, here are some skills and advantages you'll find useful, and you probably want to focus on X over Y.") or hard varieties ("Here's a pre-made thief which you can modify if you want.").

 

[GMMichael]

“Why won’t my bag of holding work?”
“Grandpa, I keep telling you, it’s inside out.”

That sounds . . . cataclysmic.

Even games that are totally open-ended, like Savage Worlds, often offers things like templates to guide character creation, because being completely open-ended can be really confusing if you haven't spent a few weeks reading the books before playing. These can come in soft ("To make a thief, here are some skills and advantages you'll find useful, and you probably want to focus on X over Y.") or hard varieties ("Here's a pre-made thief which you can modify if you want.").

Case in point: Modos 2 (deluxe). Character options lean toward the Physical, Mental, or Metaphysical, with a "thief" suggested as a Mental character. Why suggest a thief? Because stealing stuff either leads to adventure, or it IS the adventure. Can't a warrior (Physical) or wizard (Metaphysical) do the stealing? Sure, but the thief is the one who doesn't get caught.

if you like thieves, what do you like about them?

Well, there are two kinds of thief: the ones who take what you don't need, and the ones who take what you do need. I dislike the ones who take what you do need - food, water, and shelter - although they're just trying to survive. The ones who take what you don't need can be summed up by Taylor: