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Muz
2008-03-06, 12:24 PM
And no, I don't mean the thieves themselves are short. :smallwink:

I'm soon going to be running a short 1-PC campaign for a thief character (the stealing for fun-and-love-of-nice-things kind but not out to really hurt anyone unless they deserve it kind), and I'm looking for ideas.

It's going to be set in a capital city, and the thief in question has just arrived there, isn't currently part of any guild, and had a bad experience with guilds in the past so isn't too eager to join up again. ("I HAD a BAD experience!" -Left Ear)

Since this is sort of a side-campaign while a larger, longer-running one is on hold, I'm not looking for anything far-reaching, but I've never run something tailored to a thief before. Any thoughts? :smallsmile:

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 12:38 PM
Have a guild recruit him but make him go through their "gauntlet"... a large mazelike dungeon full of traps and obstacles. He has to find the gem at the end and make it out.

Benejeseret
2008-03-06, 12:44 PM
I like political quandaries and scandalous mires for the thievish feel.

Crash the baron's ball, make eyes with his daughter, avoid the guards, avoid blowing your cover and be the life of the party while picking-pocketing them blind.

Make the city be undergoing elections (or nobles power struggle) and employment abounds to dig up dirt on the other nobles and sell it to the highest bidder.

Thieves are usually thieves because they like to play smart, tactical games where they feel they are out-witting and out-daring something....not just dungeon snooping...but that is just my impression.

Muz
2008-03-06, 12:46 PM
Have a guild recruit him but make him go through their "gauntlet"... a large mazelike dungeon full of traps and obstacles. He has to find the gem at the end and make it out.

That'd be good for after they decide they WANT to join a guild. They'll be resisting the idea for a while at first, and I need to give them other things to do while the guild is harassing them to join. (Or, rather, things to do that will make the guild take notice of this un-sanctioned thief operating in their midst.) :smallsmile:

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 12:49 PM
Combine the dungeon idea with Ben's idea of crashing a Baron's party... sounds like a good time to me :)

Human Paragon 3
2008-03-06, 12:49 PM
He's been framed for a crime he didn't comit and is now on the run from the police. To make matters worse, a vicious and cunning bounty hunter has been tasked with taking him down, so he's being relentless tracked through the city scape. The only thing the thief has going for him is that he has a pretty good idea of who DID do the crime, but now he has to prove it.


Optional: As a further complication, if he doesn't meet Person X at Location Y at a certain time Bad Thing Z will happen. This gives you a good final showdown locale and a compelling reason for him not to just leave the city all together.

Best for a mid level adventurer, maybe 7, but scales up and down well.

BRC
2008-03-06, 12:55 PM
The theif looks a good deal like somebody who owes money to a local crime boss. He gets dragged in by the Crime Bosses goons who ignore his protests that he's not the right guy. When he says he dosn't have the money the crime boss mentions a place where he could get it, and that he better get it by the end of the week or else. He goes and gets it, but by that time the Crime Boss has found the guy who actually owed him money and "taken care of him". The crime boss apologizes for the mistake and lets the theif keep the cash.

Premier
2008-03-06, 12:58 PM
Ever played the Thief computer game series? Full of ideas you might want to use.

Bryn
2008-03-06, 02:29 PM
An extremely valuable artefact is being temporarily displayed in the city as a part of some festival or celebration. Naturally, this artefact is one of the most heavily defended items in the city. For some reason, the thief wants it - maybe for the prestige of stealing it, maybe because he needs/wants it for some reason (possibly plot-related), or maybe just for the money. Of course, the Thieves' Guild also wants this artefact, and the City Watch are especially alert for anyone trying to steal it.
A rich and important character such as a nobleman, a city watch captain, or another criminal annoys the thief for some reason (the nobleman is doing something that the thief is opposed to or perhaps publicly humiliates him, the watch captain has some sort of vendetta against him, or to blatantly steal from Oblivion, he is making life difficult for a certain part of the city so the player must cause trouble in a different part to draw the guards away) and so the player decides to steal something important to them, perhaps for revenge, perhaps to publicly humiliate them, or perhaps to frighten them or coerce them into something.
The thief's hiding place is found by the watch. After (dramatically) escaping from their clutches, the player must flee across the city, but wherever he goes the city watch soon find him. It turns out that there is an informant who is telling the city watch of the thief's activities, and he must be silenced. Alternatively, the Watch have a new magical device that can track the player, which must be stolen or destroyed.

Hope those are of some help :smallsmile:

Human Paragon 3
2008-03-06, 02:34 PM
An extremely valuable artefact is being temporarily displayed in the city as a part of some festival or celebration. Naturally, this artefact is one of the most heavily defended items in the city. For some reason, the thief wants it - maybe for the prestige of stealing it, maybe because he needs/wants it for some reason (possibly plot-related), or maybe just for the money. Of course, the Thieves' Guild also wants this artefact, and the City Watch are especially alert for anyone trying to steal it.
A rich and important character such as a nobleman, a city watch captain, or another criminal annoys the thief for some reason (the nobleman is doing something that the thief is opposed to or perhaps publicly humiliates him, the watch captain has some sort of vendetta against him, or to blatantly steal from Oblivion, he is making life difficult for a certain part of the city so the player must cause trouble in a different part to draw the guards away) and so the player decides to steal something important to them, perhaps for revenge, perhaps to publicly humiliate them, or perhaps to frighten them or coerce them into something.
The thief's hiding place is found by the watch. After (dramatically) escaping from their clutches, the player must flee across the city, but wherever he goes the city watch soon find him. It turns out that there is an informant who is telling the city watch of the thief's activities, and he must be silenced. Alternatively, the Watch have a new magical device that can track the player, which must be stolen or destroyed.

Hope those are of some help :smallsmile:

Those are good! The last one could be combined with my suggestion for maximum effectiveness.

valadil
2008-03-06, 02:36 PM
I did a thieves guild game about a year back. Once you get used to thinking in terms of rogues its a really fun sort of game to run.

The problem I ran into was that too much of the game involved planning heists. If I gave the players something to steal they would sit there and plan for as long as they possibly could. Since they were doing this planning in character I was inclined to let them be until they had a plan, but it turned out that some players got bored with this formula.

If you decide to take a game like this seriously I highly recommend reading Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora. Actually I recommend reading it anyway.

Anyway, here are some thiefy ideas.

- Steal some object.
- Improvise around your player. Some players just want to pick a shop, loot it, and flee from the guards. There's nothing wrong with that.
- Undercover roleplaying. Have the character bluff their way into a group of people. This should require actually bluffing instead of using the skill.
- Thief succeeds at stealing. Guilds pressure/bully/try to recruit him.
- Thief steals something valuable with political consequences. Gets swept into plot.
- Thief steals something which turns out to be ancient artifact. Artifact becomes important. Has to get it to the right people without revealing his crime.
- Thief steals something. Gets caught. Captor doesn't send him to jail, but blackmails him. Thief has to do work for captor or be revealed.
- Thief goes stealing. Someone gets killed. Thief gets blamed and has to evade cops while seeking the actual murderer.
- Thief tries to steal something. Is found but bluffs his way out of it. Due to the nature of the bluff (something like "I'm an undercover guard") he can't just flee the scene, but has to keep up the lie. Even after he escapes social consequences demand his return.

Muz
2008-03-10, 01:14 PM
Just wanted to say thanks for all the ideas. :smallsmile: I've figured out a few things, and I'll be starting off with the thief in question witnessesing an assassination of a member of the larger thieves' guild in town. (There's an upstart guild that's got a few decent assassins, and while they're not acting against the main guild TOO much yet, this particular guy snitched on one of the upstart's members.)

The slain thief, his mind sluggish and confused with the poison, mistakes the PC for another thief in town and hands her a sketch of a particular noble's house that he's been casing, and we'll see how things develop from there...:smallsmile:

Prometheus
2008-03-10, 10:18 PM
A very nice resource on the subject (http://www.thievesguild.cc/traps/)

I like "The Heist". Think Ocean's Eleven or Italian Job. Have the entire campaign about setting up a very difficult thieving task. There is information to recover, helpful items to take, difficult NPCs to recruit, or distractions to engineer. In the end their efforts are put to test (be sure to throw in a couple of curve-balls, so that they have to have back-up plans and extra plan coverage).

CASTLEMIKE
2008-03-10, 11:53 PM
Kidnapped baby stolen at birth (Minor Noble House with a distinctive house or clan birthmark similar to the six hidden houses and is the spitting image of one of his parents) or a very young child in a tragic childhood accident. With a family tragedy of that nature they never searched for the child because they didn't know the child was missing.

The child was fostered with commoners the salt of the earth who were killed by......... enroute to the big city moving or making a pilgrimage travelling with a caravan.

He was left alone in the world without family and friends at a tender age when he was framed for stealing by ............ and left to survive in the big city alone by himself hundreds of miles away from his former home.

Street urchin and minor gang member stealing to survive much better than many of the alternatives alone in the world.

Rogue -1 in his or her mid teens and has acquired some skills and a little wealth and is currently faced with remaining an independent or joining the local thieve's guild.

Anon-a-mouse
2008-03-11, 12:23 AM
Have him steal a pair of stilts.