Thieves Guild Campaigns

[Sparky McDibben]

Hey y'all,

I've got an idea for a thieves' guild campaign, where the PCs all play members of a gang trying to establish a thieves' guild. However, I ran into a couple of conceptual hurdles, and I'm interested in discussing them with y'all.

Anti-Heroes. The core concept of a thieves guild game involves organized crime, and that generally involves some very dark stuff. Slavery, forced prostitution, drugs, child labor, etc. Now, that content doesn't bother me, per se, but it will definitely bother my players. And while they are free to stop all the activities they find morally repugnant, and only rob "bad people," the financial incentives are still there to engage in those practices. So it's going to keep coming up.

I can see two ways of dealing with this: 1) Set them up as Robin Hoods, where they'd prefer to live within the law but the corrupt nature of the law forces them to step outside of it. Or 2) play a game where the PCs have to engage with the scum of the multiverse in order to survive.

The problem with the Robin Hood model is that it doesn't really feed into the fantasy of being a professional thief. Robin Hood uses theft as a form of redistributive justice, not because he actually derives meaning from it. He's a part-timer, not a professional. Also, this inherently destabilizes the campaign - what happens when the corrupt authority goes away? Oops, there goes the premise.

The problem with the "Gritty" model is that it may involve content way outside player boundaries, which means it's obviously a no-go.

Am I putting myself in a box here? Any other ideas on campaign frames around building a thieves' guild?

Authority. So if the PCs are criminals, there must be somebody passing laws. I'd love to get ideas about structures of illegitimate power. Is it black helms and iron fists, with compulsory attendance at the Hextorian Church? Or are there other ideas y'all wouldn't mind sharing?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I think a lot of the things you mentioned in your post could be the things that the powers that be are supporting. A lawful evil empire could definitely be engaged in slave trade, child labor, etc; a gritty medieval world likely doesn't have friendly rulers, and history has lots examples of the ruling class taking advantage of commoners to inspire you. Trying to re-direct the profits from such enterprizes would clearly fall under the mandate of a guild, so I think there's a lot here to work with and keep your players 'Good' in a way the bucks the system.

[MrStabby]

Hmm. Have you considered running a "spy" campaign instead? Still having a lot of the same elements of cloak and dagger subterfuge, still have a lot of sneaking about. Still having opportunities for smuggling, extortion, assassination etc..

[Tanarii]

I've had players work for and run thieves guilds before. Usually they're running high-end burglary, and somewhat benign protection rackets, gambling dens, & (willing) working girls parlors. Benign as in protection is against "non-licensed" thieves (thank you Terry Pratchett!), usually use light intimidation as opposed to brutality to encourage debt repayment, won't allow common folk to destroy themselves gambling, not exploiting their employees ruthlessly and giving them opportunities to better themselves, etc.

Other common themes have been strong relationships with beggars guilds (especially recruiting them as spies), building strong ties and investments within their neighborhood/territory and looking out for the common people in them (to gain their loyalty), and ruthlessly trying to crush opposing organizations that engage in the kind of 'Evil alignment' activity you're describing.

And of course lots of corrupt officials and law enforcement, some in their favor that they encourage and some trying to exploit them or working with opposing organizations. I also like to have a straight man law enforcement official they have to figure out how to deal with, which often results in grudging two-way respect.

If you're in a big enough city, there's also potentially figuring out if you want the Assassins Guild to be like Pratchett's, only taking expensive contracts (which mean targets are inevitably other rich people that could afford serious defenses), or thugs for the players to oppose. Also cultists are a good chance for them to simultaneously defend their territory and work with any straight man law enforcement you've established.

Edit: to be clear, these weren't players being Robin Hood characters. Most were quite pragmatic law breakers who knew how to run an effective empire based on loyalty instead of naked force, exploitation and sadism. In D&D terms, most were Neutral, not Good or Evil. It may still be an idealistic take on the whole thing, but it is a successful strategy when the DM goes along with it and it makes for a good game.

[Sparky McDibben]

I think a lot of the things you mentioned in your post could be the things that the powers that be are supporting. A lawful evil empire could definitely be engaged in slave trade, child labor, etc; a gritty medieval world likely doesn't have friendly rulers, and history has lots examples of the ruling class taking advantage of commoners to inspire you. Trying to re-direct the profits from such enterprizes would clearly fall under the mandate of a guild, so I think there's a lot here to work with and keep your players 'Good' in a way the bucks the system.

That is an interesting idea! Illegitimacy by kleptocracy sounds pretty good.


Hmm. Have you considered running a "spy" campaign instead? Still having a lot of the same elements of cloak and dagger subterfuge, still have a lot of sneaking about. Still having opportunities for smuggling, extortion, assassination etc..

This is a good idea, but it runs into the same problems as the Robin Hood frame - what happens when the spies win? At that point, you either need a new premise (which could be fun!) or to retire the game.


I've had players work for and run thieves guilds before. Usually they're running high-end burglary, and somewhat benign protection rackets, gambling dens, & (willing) working girls parlors. Benign as in protection is against "non-licensed" thieves (thank you Terry Pratchett!), usually use light intimidation as opposed to brutality to encourage debt repayment, won't allow common folk to destroy themselves gambling, not exploiting their employees ruthlessly and giving them opportunities to better themselves, etc.

Other common themes have been strong relationships with beggars guilds (especially recruiting them as spies), building strong ties and investments within their neighborhood/territory and looking out for the common people in them (to gain their loyalty), and ruthlessly trying to crush opposing organizations that engage in the kind of 'Evil alignment' activity you're describing.

And of course lots of corrupt officials and law enforcement, some in their favor that they encourage and some trying to exploit them or working with opposing organizations. I also like to have a straight man law enforcement official they have to figure out how to deal with, which often results in grudging two-way respect.

If you're in a big enough city, there's also potentially figuring out if you want the Assassins Guild to be like Pratchett's, only taking expensive contracts (which mean targets are inevitably other rich people that could afford serious defenses), or thugs for the players to oppose. Also cultists are a good chance for them to simultaneously defend their territory and work with any straight man law enforcement you've established.

Edit: to be clear, these weren't players being Robin Hood characters. Most were quite pragmatic law breakers who knew how to run an effective empire based on loyalty instead of naked force, exploitation and sadism. In D&D terms, most were Neutral, not Good or Evil. It may still be an idealistic take on the whole thing, but it is a successful strategy when the DM goes along with it and it makes for a good game.

This is great! Questions I have:

1) Do you recommend any of Sir Terry's works in particular for this style of game? I just got back into Discworld, and it's amazing, but there's so much there.
2) From what I've seen, your views kind of lean toward the OSR - do you have any recommendations on supplements for this style of game, either D&D or otherwise?

Thoughts in no particular order:
1) What if I leverage Lies of Locke L'Amora, where the nobility's in on the grift, so long as they are never targets? That gives me two levels of corrupt authority, both formal (the nobility) and informal (organized crime) for my PCs to oppose!
2) Didn't Justin Alexander have a campaign structure for something like this (Edit: here (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36473/roleplaying-games/thinking-about-urbancrawls)

[Tanarii]

1) Do you recommend any of Sir Terry's works in particular for this style of game? I just got back into Discworld, and it's amazing, but there's so much there.Anything about the Night Watch involves criminality, what's acceptable levels and what's not, corruption in the system in the early novels, a straight-man that's a decent model for a foil in early Sam Vimes (before he got too powerful), and "acceptable" corruption in the form of Sgt Colon and Nobby.

The assassins guild is touched on several books, including a couple where Vimes is getting powerful and making enemies, but also in the beginning and flash-backs of Pyramids.



2) From what I've seen, your views kind of lean toward the OSR - do you have any recommendations on supplements for this style of game, either D&D or otherwise? They do now. These are games from previous editions, 3e and older, and always for single group of players. I would basically think up a bunch of ideas for upcoming problems (usually in the form of effectively 'factions') and mostly just totally wing it. :smallamused:

I don't even know if they could be done in an true OSR style, which requires procedural generation and game structures for the players to interact with. Although the Alexandrian did some articles on urban game structures, they were more musing than anything concrete. Honestly, I'd take a look at Blades in the Dark and see what concepts you can steal from that.

[Dualight]

For the "What if the players 'win' and remove their original justification?"
I'd argue that that makes for a valid end-point for the campaign.

Alternatively, make it difficult, if not impossible, to actually remove the conditions that caused the party to commit to their path.
If they target only those corrupt members of the nobility, have them operate in a large enough area that by the time they have hit every single corrupt noble, the new ones have arisen.

Likewise, in a spy scenario, after the initial threat has been defused, another polity grows threatening.

Another option would be to use time-skips. Once the party clear the problem, but the players and you aren't done with this campaign, have the characters retire to a peaceful life, then jump to however many years in the future works for your suspension of disbelief, and have a new problem provoke the party to come out of retirement.

[HPisBS]

... Robin Hood uses theft as a form of redistributive justice, not because he actually derives meaning from it....

That's a common misconception. Robin Hood stole from the Sheriff of Nottingham – the tax man. That was only "redistributive justice" in the sense that it "redistributes" the people's own stolen money back to them after that money was first stolen by "taxation."


Authority. So if the PCs are criminals, there must be somebody passing laws. I'd love to get ideas about structures of illegitimate power. Is it black helms and iron fists, with compulsory attendance at the Hextorian Church? Or are there other ideas y'all wouldn't mind sharing?

Keeping with the Robin Hood example, the "structure of illegitimate power" was Prince John abusing his authority as Regent for King Richard in order to enrich himself. Of course, enabling this was the Sheriff of Nottingham, who acted as his enforcer.


Another source of inspiration could be the TNT show "Leverage," where, essentially, a party of Rogues with different subclasses "provide... leverage" for regular people against rich and powerful politicians, merchants, etc, who do shady dealings, strongarm, and often use the law as a shield.

(That tends to be more of an inspiration for Shadowrun games and PCs, but it could fit with this, too.)

[Sparky McDibben]

Anything about the Night Watch involves criminality, what's acceptable levels and what's not, corruption in the system in the early novels, a straight-man that's a decent model for a foil in early Sam Vimes (before he got too powerful), and "acceptable" corruption in the form of Sgt Colon and Nobby.

The assassins guild is touched on several books, including a couple where Vimes is getting powerful and making enemies, but also in the beginning and flash-backs of Pyramids.

These are all great recommendations, thanks!


If they target only those corrupt members of the nobility, have them operate in a large enough area that by the time they have hit every single corrupt noble, the new ones have arisen.

See, this is fascinating to me because it implies I would need a heist restocking structure! Brilliant!


That's a common misconception. Robin Hood stole from the Sheriff of Nottingham – the tax man. That was only "redistributive justice" in the sense that it "redistributes" the people's own stolen money back to them after that money was first stolen by "taxation."

I ought to have said, "restorative" justice - as opposed to "retributive" justice. A good callout!


Another source of inspiration could be the TNT show "Leverage," where, essentially, a party of Rogues with different subclasses "provide... leverage" for regular people against rich and powerful politicians, merchants, etc, who do shady dealings, strongarm, and often use the law as a shield.


Honestly, I'd take a look at Blades in the Dark and see what concepts you can steal from that.

Man, Leverage and Blades in the Dark are the two I really should have thought of first! Good calls, y'all!