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Post by geoffrey on Mar 27, 2014 22:12:31 GMT -6
'Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter"...'
--The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, p. 24
Of course the 1974 rules do not include the thief character class, and Gary did not add the thief class to his D&D campaign until after the publication of D&D in January 1974. Thus he envisioned plenty of thieves (and perhaps even a Thieves' Guild from his reading of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories) in D&D without needing a thief class. It is easy as pie to include the entire seedy underworld with all its grime and grit and nefariousness without needing character classes beyond the original three.
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Post by Finarvyn on Mar 28, 2014 3:46:23 GMT -6
Nice catch. I wonder if (1) maybe Gary used thieves even at that early date, or (2) if he envisioned every character having the potential to be a thief. I could see it going either way.
If #1, perhaps Gary knew that adding the thief to the OD&D boxed set would have required a lot of additional work. He might have been using them in his house campaign.
If #2, perhaps Gary was simply making reference to F&GM and other fiction as you've noted. The actual creation of the thief might have been still in the future.
It would be interesting to check dates on the "original Gygax thief class" thing that Jon has posted about, to see when it was written compared to when the LBB were penned.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 28, 2014 4:30:33 GMT -6
'Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter"...' -- The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, p. 24 Of course the 1974 rules do not include the thief character class, and Gary did not add the thief class to his D&D campaign until after the publication of D&D in January 1974. Thus he envisioned plenty of thieves (and perhaps even a Thieves' Guild from his reading of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories) in D&D without needing a thief class. It is easy as pie to include the entire seedy underworld with all its grime and grit and nefariousness without needing character classes beyond the original three. All manner of thieves have existed in society since pre-history, These are well represented in fiction, They don't serve a meaningful function on the battlefield and so are not represented in Chainmail, Hence they didn't appear in the first iteration of D&D. But a thief class was already in use by the Wagner crew sometime after the '73 pre-production OD&D was distributed--before the EGG published his "original thief" (June'74). This might even have been before OD&D was published (Jan'74), but we'll probably never know for certain. Classless 1 HD men can be involved in a local militia, but that doesn't imply "EGG envisioned plenty of fighters without needing a fighter class." All U&WA really says is that villagers (classless 1 HD men) can be involved in a thieves guild. Nothing more, nothing less. We don't usually equate "villagers" with PCs. And note also that as soon as EGG heard about the thief PC (pre- June'74) he added it to D&D--so clearly he recognised there was a gap in D&D, and immediately took the opportunity to fill it. Moreover, if nobody wants to play a sorcerer, then there's no need for a magic-user class. If nobody wants to play a cleric or a fighter, then there's no need for those classes either. In all cases the ref can employ more abstract NPCs; "Wizards" can simply be men with magic tricks. "Clerics" can simply be ultra-zealous sorts. And likewise, if no-one wants to play one, then "thieves" can simply be men that spy and burgle. You don't need a thief class in a world of fighting. Nor do you need wizards or elves. Nor dragons. Nor dungeons. Nor treasures. Scratch all that and you're right back where it started. All these things (and more) are options that add richness to the game--and make it more than just a world of fighting. |
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 28, 2014 7:57:08 GMT -6
I have Gary's article "A NEW CHARACTER TYPE FOR DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: THE THIEF!" from The Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #9 (June 1974). The article starts with the following introduction: "Recently I received a telephone call from Gary Schweitzer who hales from sunny California. It isn’t all that sunny out there, however, for are many dungeon expeditions regularly being led beneath the grim pile of the castles which are scattered throughout that land. Anyway, during the course of our conversation he mentioned that his group was developing a new class of character – thieves. Gary gave me a few details of how they were considering this character type, and from these I have constructed tentative rules for the class. These rules have not be tested and should be treated accordingly." Dungeons & Dragons was published in January 1974. Gary Gygax mentioned that he "recently" received a phone call from Mr. Schweitzer. I think it safe to say that this recent phone call was made more recently than six months in the past. Further note that Gygax mentioned that the rules for the thief class were "tentative" and "have not be[en] tested". Thus even as late as June 1974 Gary was not using the thief character class in his own D&D campaign.  |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 28, 2014 17:16:23 GMT -6
I have that article too.
Yes, we know that EGG wasn't using a thief class before Jun'74.
But we also know that Daniel Wagner's group were using a thief class prior to Jun'74. And also that their thief must have been sufficiently developed before Mr. Switzer decided to call EGG. What we don't know precisely is:
When Daniel Wagner's group first developed the thief concept,
How long they spent developing/playing their thief before Mr. Switzer called EGG,
When Mr. Switzer called EGG,
How long it took EGG to then develop his own thief,
How long it took for EGG's version to get into print after he'd written it.
We do know all of the above must have occurred before Jun'74.
None of this matters anyway, because: there are thieves. How you implement them in your game is up to you.
edit: corrected spelling of "Switzer".
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Post by aldarron on Mar 28, 2014 20:05:52 GMT -6
'Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter"...' -- The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, p. 24 Of course the 1974 rules do not include the thief character class, and Gary did not add the thief class to his D&D campaign until after the publication of D&D in January 1974. Thus he envisioned plenty of thieves (and perhaps even a Thieves' Guild from his reading of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories) in D&D without needing a thief class. It is easy as pie to include the entire seedy underworld with all its grime and grit and nefariousness without needing character classes beyond the original three. Sure. There's also bandits, and what is a bandit if not a particularly dangerous sort of thief? An interesting thing about bandits is the leaders can be any class.... (M&Tp6) Imagine a dual class bandit/wizard for example. You would still have to add some kind of skills or abilities honed in skullduggery. "Thievery" is bound to come up in the game in some form or other whether you go with a dedicated class or prefer some other means. |
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Post by Red Baron on Mar 29, 2014 6:44:27 GMT -6
Or just use the term "thug" or "goon" for fighting men.
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Post by inkmeister on Mar 29, 2014 18:10:49 GMT -6
I've often caught that reference to the thieves guild as well, and wondered if Gary had considered the thief class as of that writing. Anyway, I'm down with excluding the class.
Maybe I'm a lame DM (probably the case - I've never taken pride in my DM abilities), but the thief seems to push me into including things in the game that I otherwise would not, like locked doors, and zap traps. In other words, I feel like I have to come up with situations for the thief to excel, and it feels contrived to me. I like a faster and more loose style of gaming.
On the other hand, I can understand players being interested in a less brawny sort of character that skulks around in the shadows and so on.
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Post by Anathemata on Mar 30, 2014 2:39:35 GMT -6
Imagine all three classes as having niches in the "Thieves' World"--fighters of course serving as bravi (hired assassins and muscle) or straight thieves and burglars, wizards hawking dangerous magical items or pickpocketing at a distance, even clerics of outcast, foreign or just plain evil gods looking for ways to scam or undermine the infidels.
For the first, all you need is a costume change and a particular set of tactics and connections.
For the second, you need to invent a few new first-level spells for crooks, or just have a couple of simple magic items ready-to-hand.
For the third, all you need is a religious caste system (think Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages) or a dangerous cult with access to some powerful (and/or bizarre) patrons.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 30, 2014 3:48:54 GMT -6
Or just use the term "thug" or "goon" for fighting men. Yep, you can fudge anything from 10,000 feet. But when you take a closer look you'll see a fighter isn't a proper thief, any more than a thief is a proper fighter. E.g., Alexander The Great; "Goon". The Artful Dodger; "One-man army!". I feel like I have to come up with situations for the thief to excel, and it feels contrived to me. You don't need to "come up with situations" for thieves any more than you need to set up rows of baby seals for the fighters to club. It's the players' job to excel at their chosen craft--if they suck at it, that's too bad. |
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Post by blackbarn on Mar 30, 2014 7:07:58 GMT -6
I always assumed that thieves guild reference came from it appearing in fantasy fiction, not from some proto-thief class.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Mar 30, 2014 7:50:11 GMT -6
[...] the thief seems to push me into including things in the game that I otherwise would not, like locked doors, and zap traps. That's interesting, I've always thought of it as the other way around - the thief class exists to let me include things like locked doors and traps and things that must be sneaked past or climbed over. Re: the thieves' guild / thieves' quarter reference, I agree with others that it sounds more like a reference to a fantasy trope than a foreshadowing of the thief class. |
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 30, 2014 9:30:13 GMT -6
There's also bandits, and what is a bandit if not a particularly dangerous sort of thief? An interesting thing about bandits is the leaders can be any class.... (M&Tp6) I had forgotten about bandits. Very good point. I've just re-read the text about bandits (as well as brigands, buccaneers, and pirates), and we have even high-level thieving fighting-men, magic-users, and anti-clerics. I like that much more than I do a thief character class.  |
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Post by sepulchre on Mar 30, 2014 23:56:49 GMT -6
redbaron wrote:
This.
Waysoftheearth wrote:
Ways, I think what red is driving (with compliments to Geoffrey for his find) at is that 'thieves' existed initially as fighting men, because that is the default classification for normal humans in OD&D (0-lvl in AD&D).
Vile wrote:
Agreed, but I think it also support Geoffrey's point that the thief as a separate class was as of yet not conceived.
Geoffrey wrote:
As do I.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 31, 2014 3:27:49 GMT -6
Ways, I think what red is driving (with compliments to Geoffrey for his find) at is that 'thieves' existed initially as fighting men, because that is the default classification for normal humans in OD&D (0-lvl in AD&D). Thanks sepulchre, I understand but I don't agree. I don't believe that normal men are 1st level fighting-men; I believe they're classless, 1 (or 1+1) HD "monsters". They're listed as such in M&T. In Chainmail there is a "Leader" who has +1 on all dice throws. I believe that this guy is equivalent to a 1st level fighting-man, and all the other normal men around him are just that: normal men. Ultimately, it's for each of us to decide... |
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 31, 2014 7:50:57 GMT -6
In Chainmail there is a "Leader" who has +1 on all dice throws. I believe that this guy is equivalent to a 1st level fighting-man, and all the other normal men around him are just that: normal men. Naw, all of the non-peasant troops are equivalent to 1st level fighting-men. They're Veterans. |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 31, 2014 16:42:33 GMT -6
Naw, all of the non-peasant troops are equivalent to 1st level fighting-men. They're Veterans. In Chainmail normal troops have the fighting capability of a "Man". This is the standard to which all other fighting capabilities are compared. A "Leader" has a fighting capability equivalent to a normal man with 1 added to each die. I.e., he has fighting capability of "Man +1". In D&D a Veteran has fighting capability of "Man +1". In terms of fighting capability a Chainmail Leader is equivalent to an OD&D Veteran. In OD&D "Men" are explicitly stated to be normal men: And are also described in terms of Chainmail troop types (e.g.): So OD&D Men are equivalent to normal troops in Chainmail terms. Hence they have fighting capability of "Man". Not "Man+1". Moreover, if all the non-peasant troops were Veterans, then so too would be all the orcs and goblins, and other normal troops of the fantasy supplement. But we know orcs have the fighting capability of a normal "Man", not a "Man+1". "Normal troops" are not Veterans in AD&D either; According to the DMG they are 0-level men with 4-7 hit points. I.e., they are classless men, not proper 1st level fighters. |
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Post by sepulchre on Mar 31, 2014 17:44:26 GMT -6
Simon, not trying to be Cheeky, but you had posted this in a recent exchange, which is why I almost hedged equating normal men with veterans "0 level: fighter men don't exist in OD&D. In OD&D "normal" men have 1, or even up to 2 HD". So are you now stating normal men then 0-lvl?
Also, even if thieves should fail to be equatable with veterans, 0-lvl humans in the DMG engage in melee and save on the same matrices as fighters. It seems reasonable that thieves could be equated with normal men for one, and two that they are essentially a 0-lvl figure like a bandit, with the possiblity of having a class as a leader type. This is a position I have advanced a few times previously on the board.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 31, 2014 18:22:59 GMT -6
Simon, not trying to be Cheeky, but you had posted this in a recent exchange, which is why I almost hedged equating normal men with veterans "0 level: fighter men don't exist in OD&D. In OD&D "normal" men have 1, or even up to 2 HD". So are you now stating normal men then 0-lvl? I'm not sure I understand your question exactly, but if I do: I'm not saying OD&D's normal men are "0-level men". I'm just suggesting that OD&D's normal men have a fighting capability of "Man", regardless of how many HD they may have. Also, even if thieves should fail to be equatable with veterans, 0-lvl humans in the DMG engage in melee and save on the same matrices as fighters. It seems reasonable that thieves could be equated with normal men for one, and two that they are essentially a 0-lvl figure like a bandit, with the possiblity of having a class as a leader type. This is a position I have advanced a few times previously on the board. I agree that the thieves inferred in the 3LBBs are equivalent to normal men, yes. I just don't agree that normal men are Veterans. 1st-5th level magic-users and 1st-4th level clerics attack as a 1st-3rd level fighter, but this doesn't make them fighters. A ten-headed hydra attacks as a 10th level fighter, but this doesn't make it a fighter either. So too a normal men attacks as a 1st level fighter (on the ACS's Attack Matrix I), but this doesn't make him a Veteran. |
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Post by sepulchre on Mar 31, 2014 21:11:57 GMT -6
You surmised my question squarely - right, you are not stating that OD&D's normal men are '0-lvl men'. So, In Chainmail, there are distinct differences between leaders (essentially 1+1 HD or veteran) and a normal man (levy or regular). In the 3LBBs + supplements a veteran is 1+1 HD as you have noted, a normal man is 1 HD, and both roll on the same part of the attack matix. If I understand your angle, you are approaching the difference between a normal man and a veteran from that of the 3LBBs + supplements and not so much from Chainmail. If this is so, what is the weight of that distinction (barring role playing) when discussing the thief, for as it appears mechanically there is no difference between the normal man and the veteran with the exception of a hit point?
Be a thief a veteran or not (of which I agree nominally the denotation of veteran to be absurd, barring becoming a leader type with a class), and whether Geoffrey's find is reducable to a fantasy trope or suggests a hireling/bandit - a normal man of some ill-repute, Geoffrey's citation still suggests the presence of thieves in the absence of a class by such a name.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 31, 2014 22:57:14 GMT -6
So, In Chainmail, there are distinct differences between leaders (essentially 1+1 HD or veteran) and a normal man (levy or regular). I'd rephrase this as: In Chainmail, there are distinct differences between leaders ( Fighting Capability "1 Man +1" or veteran) and a normal man (levy or regular). There were no HD yet in Chainmail. it appears mechanically there is no difference between the normal man and the veteran with the exception of a hit point? A Veteran has all the advantages of a proper fighting-man (he is one). These include (among other things) use of all weapons including magic weapons (in Chainmail normals are forbade these) and armor, and the ability to gain experience levels. He also has the possibility of an additional +1 hit point (total of 1 HD +2 hit points) due to high constitution--as well as other ability adjustments--while normals don't usually have ability scores. Not to mention he can have hirelings/retainers and the utility of this can't be overstated! If using the 3LBB rule regarding attack capability (M&T p5) a Veteran adds 1 to his attack rolls versus normal types while a normal man does not (i.e., the Veteran is +1 to hit compared to normals). If using the (2d6 based) MtM combat rules, this +1 attack adjustment is roughly twice as significant as it is when using the (1d20 based) ACS Attack Matrix I. Some people also rule that 1+1 HD Veterans are not subject to multiple attacks from creatures with more than one HD--because they are not themselves 1 HD creatures. This in itself is a conundrum for the "normal men are Veterans" camp: If a Veteran is "not normal" with regard to multiple attacks, then how can a "normal man" also be a Veteran?? It's paradoxical. Geoffrey's citation still suggests the presence of thieves in the absence of a class by such a name. Sure, thieves are a staple of the medieval and fantasy genres--we'd be amazed if there were not thieves among the angry villagers. All I'm saying is that I can't draw Geoffrey's conclusion from his observation--for all the above mentioned reasons. |
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Post by Stormcrow on Apr 1, 2014 7:50:40 GMT -6
Chainmail and D&D are not identical, and comparing D&D's hit dice to Chainmail's combat tables does not produce an exact match. If you want an illustration of this, consider the Hero, who in Chainmail can kill twenty men in one minute, but in D&D can only kill four in one minute.
When I say that Chainmail's non-peasant troops are equivalent to D&D's Veterans, I do not claim they are identical, and I do not in any way mean that "normal men are Veterans." I mean what I say: when D&D was written, Veterans were taken from the idea of professional or experienced fighters, i.e., non-peasant troops. "Fighting-men." Peasants are just ordinary people pressed into battle. They may roll the same on the combat tables, but professional troops are still more effective than peasants. D&D's mechanical resolution is greater than Chainmail's.
Bandits are normal men: that is to say, they are men without fighting experience. Thus, like all normal men, including peaceful peasants, they get one hit die. They have leaders, which does not simply mean +1 to a hit die, but higher-level fighting-men, like Warriors, Swordsmen, and (Anti-)Heroes. These leaders have fighting ability beyond what is available to Chainmail leaders.
The reference to thieves in D&D's original set simply means seedy men who steal, just like in the stories D&D (and not Chainmail) is inspired by. They are men: usually normal men, because they haven't been in battle. They'll undoubtedly have leaders who are members of a PC class; these are especially likely to be fighting-men, simply because magic-users and clerics usually have other things they'd rather be doing.
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Post by cooper on Apr 1, 2014 11:50:05 GMT -6
There are also spies, sages, assassins and alchemists in 0d&d. The question isn't are there expert hirelings out there that are thieves who may have 1 hit die or 8d4 (sages), but is there a codified system from levels 1-10?
It's certainly fine for a 1HD thief to have high skill levels. There is no need for x level thieves necessarily, just as there is no need for 3rd level sages, necessarily.
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jdjarvis
Level 4 Theurgist
Hmmm,,,, had two user names, I'll be using this one from now on.
Posts: 123
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Post by jdjarvis on Apr 2, 2014 7:12:48 GMT -6
The thieves quarter could be full of gutter snipes, ruffians, doxies, smugglers, bawds, charlatans, mad prophets, beggars, and others who prey upon their fellow man's weakness in one form or another there is no need for any of the above to be of the thiefly class and give a campaign city a dark and nasty thieves quarter.
The thieve quarter should have theatres, drug dens, curiosity shops, and other trades along with sleeper houses and taverns to draw customers and victims to the quarter. The thieves quarter could feature laundries and tanneries on its edge or nearby as those are smelly unpleasant trades most decent folk wouldn't want next door or down the street.
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Post by Red Baron on Apr 2, 2014 13:09:06 GMT -6
The thieves quarter could be full of gutter snipes, ruffians, doxies, smugglers, bawds, charlatans, mad prophets, beggars, and others who prey upon their fellow man's weakness in one form or another there is no need for any of the above to be of the thiefly class and give a campaign city a dark and nasty thieves quarter. The thieve quarter should have theatres, drug dens, curiosity shops, and other trades along with sleeper houses and taverns to draw customers and victims to the quarter. The thieves quarter could feature laundries and tanneries on its edge or nearby as those are smelly unpleasant trades most decent folk wouldn't want next door or down the street. Another use for the random harlot table! |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 2, 2014 18:33:19 GMT -6
At the risk of veering off topic... comparing D&D's hit dice to Chainmail's combat tables does not produce an exact match. I agree; there is no clear-cut, generally-applicable relationship between CM's fighting capability and D&D's HD. If you want an illustration of this, consider the Hero, who in Chainmail can kill twenty men in one minute, but in D&D can only kill four in one minute. That's true, but it's the 1:1 scale combat rules (MtM/FCT) that are relevant to D&D, and the MtM rules produce similar results to the first few rows of the ACS's Attack Matrix I. With either method a hero could kill four men per turn because, in the specific case of a hero, he has the fighting capability of 4 men in CM, and 4 HD in D&D. Naw, all of the non-peasant troops are equivalent to 1st level fighting-men. They're Veterans. I do not in any way mean that "normal men are Veterans." I don't claim to follow your logic Stormcrow but, FWIW, I disagree with the former and agree with the latter. |
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Post by Stormcrow on Apr 3, 2014 7:53:37 GMT -6
That's true, but it's the 1:1 scale combat rules (MtM/FCT) that are relevant to D&D, and the MtM rules produce similar results to the first few rows of the ACS's Attack Matrix I. Similar results are not identical results; the two systems are different systems, and are not interchangeable. The logic is that Veterans are so named because they are veterans. They have seen battle, and have learned from it. Peasants in fyrds or militias are just farmers who have been put on a battlefield and told to fight. D&D encapsulates this by making experienced fighting-men Veterans, while those farmers are not fighting-men at all. Chainmail also makes the distinction, in the "Historical Characteristics" section. Peasants and Levies are equivalent to (not identical to) D&D's non-classed characters. All other (non-fantastic) unit types are equivalent to (not identical to) D&D's Veterans. Army Commanders do not correspond to any D&D character-type: their function is only to improve the dice-rolls of their unit; they do not fight separately. Coming from Chainmail and D&D's source material, it is obvious that thieves, being described as part of "the realm of angry villagers," are not meant to be fighting-men but are just another kind of peasant as far as the rules go. They may have other skills, but D&D's original rules are mostly concerned with a character's ability with fighting or with magic. Stealing, assassination, and deception are not considerations, but are left to the referee to handle. Likewise, Bandits and Nomads are stated to be normal men with leaders who are of the three classes. They're thieves banded together. Pirates are chaotic bandits; buccaneers are half-hearted pirates. Brigands are superior troops (not like peasants or levies), as are Berserkers and Dervishes. Thus, as in Chainmail, all of these non-fantastic monsters are broken into two levels: the fighting-men (Brigands, Berserkers, Dervishes) and the non-fighting-men (Bandits, Nomads, Buccaneers, Pirates). They all fight, but only the fighting-men are experienced and good at it. |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 4, 2014 1:16:18 GMT -6
The logic is that Veterans are so named because they are veterans. They have seen battle, and have learned from it. Peasants in fyrds or militias are just farmers who have been put on a battlefield and told to fight. D&D encapsulates this by making experienced fighting-men Veterans, while those farmers are not fighting-men at all. Chainmail also makes the distinction, in the "Historical Characteristics" section. Peasants and Levies are equivalent to (not identical to) D&D's non-classed characters. All other (non-fantastic) unit types are equivalent to (not identical to) D&D's Veterans. I suspect the dissidence here is largely in the difference between equivalent to (not identical to) Veterans and They are Veterans. I agree that rank and file fighters attack as do D&D-Veterans; both attack as a 1st level fighter on Attack Matrix I, and those men with 1+1 HD also add 1 to their to attack roll versus normals, as do D&D-Veterans. I agree that thieves are not equal to these rank-and-file fighting-men, as I said above. I'd add that peasants are worse off than rank-and-file troops in CM because they require a morale check to do anything at all; to attack, to hold if attacked, even just to move. D&D has a notion of non-combatants/females/young who don't normally fight--or who will be subdued automatically when pressed--which may be applicable here. Army Commanders do not correspond to any D&D character-type: their function is only to improve the dice-rolls of their unit; they do not fight separately. FWIW--I was referring to the CM- Leader (CM p26) having equivalent fighting capability to a D&D-Veteran. Leaders fight separately in MtM and add 1 to all their rolls. I.e., they are equal to a normal man with a "+1" adjustment in MtM combat. This is what M&M ascribes to a D&D-Veteran in MtM combat. The rest is further off topic, but a worthy discussion... That's true, but it's the 1:1 scale combat rules (MtM/FCT) that are relevant to D&D, and the MtM rules produce similar results to the first few rows of the ACS's Attack Matrix I. Similar results are not identical results; the two systems are different systems, and are not interchangeable. What is "interchangeable" depends on what you consider to be important, but there is no hard and fast requirement that a combat system must produce "identical" results to the ACS to be legit. MtM and the ACS produce "equivalent (not identical)" results for fighters on the first few rows of the ACS Attack Matrix I. In the particular case above, both systems enable a hero to kill four men each turn, so why does it matter that they differ in how the arrive at the result? These two systems are similar enough that you could run a combat with one side using the ACS and the other side using MtM and it would work. I'm not saying you should, I'm just saying it's possible--and easy even. EGG used whatever combat system he felt was appropriate, even mixing two "systems" in one encounter: I only once got to play in one of Gary's games, a too-large game at GenCon 7 or 8 (Horticultural Hall and the American Legion in Lake Geneva, the one where Judge's Guild first showed the City State map and took subscriptions). We had a gaggle of about 15 newly rolled PCs at a long table in the Legion Hall, and just before playing Greg Swenson from Gary's local group turned up and his fighter, The Great Svenny, something like level 12-15, "escorted" us on a Greyhawk run. We were in an interminable spiral staircase and eventually beset by a large horde of orcs. I forget the exact sequencing, but in each round the fighters among us each attacked once conventionally and Svenny rolled 2D6 for how many orcs he killed. No attack roll, kept it simple, but because of the extreme level difference, the rest of us were pretty much pointless to be there other than as Greyhawk tourists. So it was a mechanically simplified example of the Superhero kills lots of mooks each combat round version. FWIW I agree with this guy: you're invited to use the most appropriate combat system available to you, not blindly stick to one. |
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Post by murquhart72 on Jul 21, 2017 17:37:19 GMT -6
'Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the "thieves' quarter"...' -- The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, p. 24 Of course the 1974 rules do not include the thief character class, and Gary did not add the thief class to his D&D campaign until after the publication of D&D in January 1974. Thus he envisioned plenty of thieves (and perhaps even a Thieves' Guild from his reading of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories) in D&D without needing a thief class. It is easy as pie to include the entire seedy underworld with all its grime and grit and nefariousness without needing character classes beyond the original three. Thieves (and their guilds) have been around far longer than D&D or the "Thief" class made up later. As far as games before the Greyhawk supplement, a thief was someone who steals. Isn't that more or less what EVERY PC is? There was a merchant's guild too, even an artisan's guild. Put any of these guys to battle and you've got either "normal" men or Fighting-Men. Too many people assuming how characters were originally classed somehow indicated their profession. |
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Post by howandwhy99 on Jul 21, 2017 22:09:32 GMT -6
I argue strongly that the PCs are not thieves. Characters of the Thief class are thieves - but that's the whole focus of the game for them. Steal treasure, avoid the dangers of combat, magic, and alignment, and get back to safety. The other classes focus on completely different game goals.
Can the PCs steal? Well, of course... but that doesn't mean they are trained professionals getting XP for it...
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