Best RPG for Sneaking, Thieving and Heisting?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I'm looking to run a Thief-centric game in the coming months. I have a setting somewhat fleshed out (will be in Worldbuilding forum sometime), but I'm not sure about the system we're using.

We'll be using Trailblazer (3.5 mod), but adding the Wounds/Vitality System, Actions points are shared by the party and scarce, Druids and Clerics and Paladins are banned, and the Scout replaced Rangers. But Trailblazer, even E6 Trailblazer, features very powerful classes (one member of my group once said Trailblazer characters could curbstomp Pathfinder equivalents).

tl;dr What I'm looking for in a system is:

1. Players are fragile. This can be mitigated by Luck, or maneuvers, or Action Points, but ultimately the PCs are no more durable than a normal human being. Side Note: Combat should be quick and decisive!
2. Stealth works. The PCs will be slipping into and out of homes, businesses and perilous Wizard keeps, so being able to go unnoticed reliably is key
3. Magic is Mysterious. Most Wizards make do with simple enchantments, illusions and occasionally a well swung club! Think Gandalf, if that helps. A Fireball is seen as the spell of a Master Wizard (and should reflect that), but magic should still be within the players' reach.

So, anyone got a system in mind that does this well?

[AMFV]

WoD of Darkness could easily fill that sort of niche, particularly if you focus on the mortal side of things.

[Rhynn]

Define "stealth works" - do you want a complex and detailed system, or one that simply "works" ? Because the latter is largely a matter of how you run it.

RuneQuest (in its 6th edition) comes to mind; it's very customizable, with four magic systems that work side-by-side (but you can just use the ones you like), and pretty good backwards compatibility with Mongoose's RQ2 material (which included Elric, Lankhmar, and more). Stealth will be simple unopposed or opposed rolls, although you could come up with your own maneuver system for it easily, using the maneuver system from combat as a model.

Older editions of Runequest could work as well; RQ6 is IMO the best out of the last three (Mongoose's two editions and RQ6); I haven't looked into OpenQuest (in its second edition just recently). Chaosium's RQ2 and Avalon Hill's RQ3 are probably very, very hard to get your hands on by now. RQ3, at least, didn't have good stealth/opposed roll mechanics (in fact, the proposed mechanics for stealth were downright horrible, with Stealth skill 100% defeating Perception skill 100% basically every time, IIRC), though, but you could just steal those from RQ6 or Mongoose's RQ.

The Riddle of Steel could work, too; stealth would be simple opposed tests (with the "let it ride" principle, where you roll once and keep the result for the scene). The focus mechanically is definitely on combat, which is realistic (the single most realistic and detailed, yet incredibly playable, combat system) and lethal, and magic is strange and mysterious (and very, very costly).

[paddyfool]

Fantasy Craft does stealth pretty well, thanks to its Spycraft roots. Also, although the PCs are highly effective under the standard ruleset, alternative "campaign qualities" are set out in the core rulebook for making them fragile etc., and the most spellcasting-focused base class in the game at present is limited to cantrips for the first two levels, playing most easily as something of a scholastic skillmonkey until 3rd level (although they're generally rather better than the cantrips you know). If you have the rules, I suggest particularly taking a look at the Fragile Heroes, Lost Magic and Difficult Magic qualities.

[Jay R]

I've never played it myself, so I can't offer a clear recommendation, but I think you should at least consider the possibility that Thieves' World might be pretty good at this.

[Zavoniki]

I suggest Shadowrun 5th edition though if you want to do a not so Modern world you would need to adjust the skills a little and ignore the Matrix Rules and write some new gear, but the basic systems does everything you are asking for.

[The Mormegil]

Try to read GUMSHOE's system. You might like it and think it's the best thing ever created, or you might hate it with passion. It was created to do "space private investigators" campaigns, but it's very very easy to adapt to your setting with just a few tweaks (changing a couple skills names and descriptions).

[Zavoniki]

Try to read GUMSHOE's system. You might like it and think it's the best thing ever created, or you might hate it with passion. It was created to do "space private investigators" campaigns, but it's very very easy to adapt to your setting with just a few tweaks (changing a couple skills names and descriptions).

The specific GUMSHOE system you would want to look at is probably Night's Black Agents.

[Jlerpy]

It's worth having a read of Leverage. It's very narrative (which means the fragility side of things is really up to you) and doesn't come with magic, but it's very well done for its focus on heisting (especially in the "flashback to how we prepared for this contingency" mode).

[Piratecat]

Will Hindmarch just (by which I mean last night) fired up a stealth-based RPG Kickstarter. Worth taking a glance at.

Project Dark: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...o/project-dark

[jpreem]

tl;dr What I'm looking for in a system is:

1. Players are fragile. This can be mitigated by Luck, or maneuvers, or Action Points, but ultimately the PCs are no more durable than a normal human being. Side Note: Combat should be quick and decisive!
2. Stealth works. The PCs will be slipping into and out of homes, businesses and perilous Wizard keeps, so being able to go unnoticed reliably is key
3. Magic is Mysterious. Most Wizards make do with simple enchantments, illusions and occasionally a well swung club! Think Gandalf, if that helps. A Fireball is seen as the spell of a Master Wizard (and should reflect that), but magic should still be within the players' reach.

So, anyone got a system in mind that does this well?

GURPS with basic options does 1 and 3 very well out from the box. For good stealth rules you might have to make some of your own work,
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...38&postcount=8 seems pretty good way to handle stealth in a quite hands on way.
(for a game where stealth is CENTRAL I think it might be cool to run sneaking corridor by corridor corner by corner etc.) How effective the sneaking will be you can choose the modifiers or skill levels etc. yourself