Introduction[]
This section covers the design of a thieves' guild. As you flesh out the details of your own guild, you'll want to record them on paper for reference during play. Following the details of the system, a worked-out example is given to show how to build up a well-detailed, atmospheric guild from the bare bones of the tables.
This section is also not just for the DM. Players can be asked by a DM to do some work for him! A player can roll up a guild for the DM to use in some other setting, or some distant city (which the PCs will visit some time later after the DM has tweaked the players' dice rolls a little!). Also, a DM can allow a player to roll up details of a guild which the PC is about to take over as guildmaster, if he trusts the player enough! There is also a special section on PC guildmasters later on.
Using the Tables[]
There are quite a lot of tables on the following pages. This shouldn't be intimidating; the system is detailed, not overly complicated.
Using the tables which follow can be done in more than one way. Random dice-rolling is OK, and will not give silly combinations of results. Sometimes odd-appearing combinations result, but these can often be a spur to DM creativity and generate the most interesting guilds! The DM may also ignore the dice-rolling and deliberately select results from the tables which he feels will fit his campaign needs.
The system which follows is detailed, as noted. This for DMs who like lots of detail! For those who don't, the best bet may be to combine the dice-roll and deliberate-design approaches; use dice rolls, and alter one or two when the DM especially wants some result or wants to maximize consistency. Or can't be bothered to do all the dice-rolling! Also, a few sections of design do not use tables.
Lastly, the tables mostly have suggested modifiers for basic d20 rolls. For example, the attitude of the law is determined on a d20 roll which is modified by social alignment (more hostile for Lawful societies, etc.). It is quite impossible to list all the possible modifiers for each table. This would eat up masses of space and no system can foresee all possible modifiers anyway, so only the key modifiers have been listed in each instance. The DM can easily add further modifiers as he sees fit, to reflect special circumstances.
What Isn't Covered[]
Some of the idiosyncratic guild details aren't covered here. For example, any oaths of fealty the thief may have to pledge, and the exact rules and constitution (if one exists) of the guild isn't covered here. If a DM wants this kind of depth of detail, he will surely want to write such details for himself.
Also, infrequent reference is made to any of the kits, proficiencies, or magic items introduced in this book. This is deliberate, ensuring that DMs who wish to be cautious about introducing such new elements are not prevented from being able to use the design system.
In summary, all the really important stuff you are going to need is here, and for any frills you want to add—go ahead!
Guild Background[]
First, we need to establish the background of the guild. Such details of the guild as size, rulership, and the like will be affected by social factors, alignment, and so on. Therefore, this background is developed first. In this way, later dice rolls for aspects of the guild can be given modifiers for previously established background.
Many of the tables to follow will refer to background elements already detailed in the previous section, so the DM will know what brief entries mean. This obviously aids the process of DM selection, if dice-rolling is not being used.
Social Alignment[]
This is an optional step. In some game settings, communities will have definite dominant social alignments (see WORLD OF GREYHAWK® Fantasy Game Setting). Sometimes, while a specific alignment cannot be stated, a general trend (for example, to good rather than evil) can be given. Social alignment along the good-neutral-evil, and lawful-neutral-chaotic axes, should be recorded if the DM is happy that he knows them.
If the alignment is divided, the alignment of the rulers should be used for later dice roll modifiers, but the fact that the common people are different should also be noted.
Special Social Factors[]
These include racial divisions, religious persecution of thieves, unique historical factors, and the like. The DM should note any of these which are important. Since such factors will always be unique, there is no way the design system here can accommodate them. The DM will have to ascribe modifiers to certain dice rolls for these factors as he sees fit!
Size of Community[]
The DM should have a reasonable idea of how many people live in the town or city where the thieves' guild is located. Most sourcepacks give such figures, and if the DM has designed his own campaign world then he should ascribe a suitable figure. For DMs uncertain about this, in medieval times only capital cities in Europe had a six-figure total of inhabitants, and many villages and hamlets had but a few score. Prosperous major towns would have in the order of 4-10,000 or so, and important cities perhaps 20-60,000 (depending on which century is taken for reference). There is no need for the DM to be ultra-accurate, but population will greatly affect the number of thieves in the guild, so the DM should record this.
Wealth of Community[]
No absolute figures are given here, because different DMs will work on different absolute scales—some campaigns are money-poor, others almost swim in gold. So, Table 7 uses relative divisions of wealth. A simple d20 roll on this table will determine the effective wealth of the community the guild is located in. There are many modifiers to this dice roll, and these are shown directly below the table.
| d20 roll |
Relative Wealth of Community |
|---|---|
| 1 | Very Poor (subsistence)* |
| 2-5 | Poor |
| 6-9 | Fair |
| 10-14 | Average |
| 15-17 | Comfortable |
| 18-19 | Wealthy |
| 20+ | Rich |
* Maximum population around 1,000.
Modifiers to d20 Roll:
- Capital City: +5, never less than Average
- Major Town: +3
- Port: +3
- On Major Inland Trade Route: +2
- Purely Agricultural Economy: -2
- Population of 500 or Below: -1
What is important to remember here is that this dice roll does not actually indicate how wealthy the average citizen is. What the dice roll indicates is how much money is whizzing about which is up for grabs (literally). Thus, in a port a lot of trade passes through, much money changes hands, and the passing-through trade (and wealthy merchants) makes the city much richer in effect than the average income would suggest. The effective wealth level is another important factor in determining how many thieves will be guildmembers in the city.
Attitudes of the Law[]
This is a major factor affecting any thieves' guild. Roll d20 on Table 8 to determine the attitude of the militia, watch, police force, etc., in the city or town where the thieves' guild is located. Modifiers to this d20 roll are listed below the table as before.
| d20 Roll |
Attitudes of the Law |
|---|---|
| 1-3 | Persecution |
| 4-7 | Hassle |
| 8-11 | Opposition |
| 12-13 | Complex/Mix |
| 14-17 | Tolerance |
| 18-20 | Corruption |
Modifiers to d20 Roll:
- Lawful social alignment: -2
- Chaotic social alignment: +2
- Good social alignment: Reroll 1s and 20s
- Evil social alignment: -1
Relationship with Merchants[]
This will also have a slight effect on the number of thieves in the guild; the easier it is to extort the goodies from merchants, the more light-fingered thugs will sign up to be part of the organization responsible for extracting the shiny gold stuff from them! Roll on Table 9 to determine the relationship the thieves have with the merchants.
| d20 Roll |
Merchants' dominant attitude to thieves |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Warfare |
| 3-6 | Opposition |
| 7-13 | Standoff |
| 14-15 | Complex/Mix |
| 16 | Submission |
| 17-19 | Infiltration |
| 20 | Submission |
Modifiers to d20 Roll:
- Lawful social alignment: -2
- Chaotic social alignment: +1
- Society is Poor (or worse): -4
- Society is Wealthy: +1
- Society is Rich: +2 (but a roll of 1 still means Warfare!)
- Law is tolerant of thieves: +1
- Law is corrupt: +2
Relationships with other Guilds[]
Table 10 is provided for DMs who need for some reason to determine, at random, the relationship between thieves and the guilds they are most likely to cooperate with: assassins, beggars, and bards. It is strongly suggested to the DM that these relationships should be scripted, rather than dice-rolled, but if a DM needs to develop a guild and its background quickly a dice roll will do the job. Separate d20 rolls should be used for each guild.
| d20 Roll |
Relationship of Thieves Guild with | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Assassins | Beggars | Bards | |
| 1-2 | Hostile | Hostile | Hostile |
| 3-4 | Indifferent | Hostile | Indifferent |
| 5-6 | Indifferent | Indifferent | Indifferent |
| 7-8 | Indifferent | Neutral | Indifferent |
| 9-10 | Neutral | Neutral | Indifferent |
| 11-12 | Neutral | Favorable | Neutral |
| 13-14 | Neutral | Favorable | Neutral |
| 15-16 | Favorable | Co-operative | Neutral |
| 17-18 | Favorable | Co-operative | Neutral |
| 19 | Co-operative | Close | Favorable |
| 20 | Close | Close | Co-operative |
Modifiers to d20 Rolls:
- Law attitude is persecutory or hassling: +1 to assassins/beggars
- Social alignment is good: -2 to assassins, +1 to beggars
- Social alignment is evil: +2 to assassins
A Hostile result doesn't mean open aggression unless the DM wants a running feud as a storyline! For example, if hostility exists between thieves and assassins this is most unlikely to explode into open aggression (unless, say, an assassin has slain the thieves' guildmaster). Indifferent means the groups have few dealings; Neutral differs in that the two groups have more dealings, maybe for practical reasons, although they have neither fondness nor enmity for each other. Favorable means that the two guilds get on well enough, though they may not always trust each other too well! Cooperative means that the groups enjoy a good relationship, may plan together, and that a fair level of trust exists between guildmembers. Close means that the two guilds work closely together, exchanging information, helping with common-interest tasks, with one guild even prepared to help the other if it is under threat or attack (at least until the bodies start to drop!).
Details of the Guild[]
Having established these background details, it's down to the nitty-gritty. The first, crucial, determination is how many thieves there are in the city or town where the guild is. This is not necessarily the same number as are in the guild, but working out how many light-fingered gents (or ladies) are about town is a necessary precursor to that.
Table 11 does not use a d20 roll. Instead, it is a matrix from which the DM only needs to read off one figure. If the DM knows the population of the town/city, and the wealth level, a single read-off gives the range for the number of thieves. After each dice roll indicated in a column, a bracketed figure is given—this is a (rounded) average which the DM can use if he hasn't the time to roll dice on the table.
Totals from Table 11 are not cumulative, save for populations of over 10,000 (where the "per extra . . ." number, or a multiple, is added to the "5,001-10,000" number).
We now know how many thieves there are in the town or city, but how many are actually in the guild? This depends in large part on the rulership of the guild, which should now be determined.
| Population | Economic Level | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Very Poor | Poor | Fair | Average | Comfortable | Wealthy | Rich | |
| Up to 5000 | 0 | 1d2-1(1) | 1d2-1(1) | 1d2-1(1) | 1d3-1(1) | 1d3-1 | 1d3 |
| 501-1000 | 1d2-1(1) | 1d3-1(1) | 1d3-1(1) | 1d3(2) | 1d3 | (2) | 1d4+1(4) |
| 1001-2000 | n/a | 1d3(2) | 1d4(3) | 1d3+1(3) | 1d4+1(4) | 1d3+2(4) | 1d4+1(5) |
| 2001-5000 | n/a | 1d4+1(4) | 1d6+1(5) | 1d6+2(6) | 1d6+3(7) | 1d8+3(8) | 2d6+2(9) |
| 5001-10,000 | n/a | 1d6+2(6) | 1d10+2(8) | 2d6+2(9) | 2d8+2(11) | 2d10+2(13) | 4d6+2(15) |
| Per extra 5,000* |
n/a | 1d4+1(4) | 1d6+1(5) | 1d6+2(6) | 1d6+3(7) | 1d8+3(8) | 2d6+2(9) |
Modifiers to totals rolled. Add the following percentages to the total rolled, rounding fractions over one-half upward:
- Social alignment is chaotic: +10%
- Attitude of law is tolerant or corrupt: +10%
- Merchants are infiltrated or in submission: +10%
* Or fraction above 2,000.
Guild Rulership[]
A roll on Table 12 determines the nature of rulership of the guild. The DM wishing to select, rather than roll, this rulership might want to look through the following section to look at the effects of rulership on the guild before making his choice.
| d20 Roll |
Guild Leadership |
|---|---|
| 1-13 | Guildmaster |
| 14 | Complex/Mix |
| 15 | Democracy |
| 16-19 | Council (d3+2 members) |
| 20* | Reroll on Table 13 |
*Natural 20 (regardless of modifiers) only.
Modifiers to die roll:
- Social alignment is lawful: -1
- Social alignment is chaotic: +2
| d20 Roll |
Guild Leadership |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Leaderless |
| 3-8 | Complex/mix |
| 9-10 | Special Guildmaster (dragon,etc.) |
| 11-12 | Special Council (concealed Drow, etc.) |
| 13-20 | Reroll on Table 12, ignoring any roll of 20 |
At this stage, the DM can also determine the rulership style of the ruler(s). Table 14 can be used for all cases in which the guild has a guildmaster, and also for council leadership. It is not suitable for democratic guilds, where there is no real rulership as such. On Table 14, three d20 rolls are needed.
| Strong-Weak | Cruel-Just | Despotic-Populist | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| d20 Roll | Rulership | d20 Roll | Rulership | d20 Roll | Rulership |
| 1-5 | Strong | 1-4 | Cruel | 1-4 | Despotic |
| 6-12 | Fairly Strong | 5-11 | Fairly Cruel | 5-10 | Fairly Despotic |
| 13-17 | Fairly Weak | 12-16 | Fairly Just | 11-16 | Fairly Populist |
| 18-20 | Weak | 17-20 | Just | 17-20 | Populist |
| Modifiers to die roll | Modifiers to die roll | Modifiers to die roll | |||
| –1 if social alignment lawful | +1 if social alignment lawful | -1 if social alignment lawful | |||
| +1 if social alignment chaotic | -2 if social alignment evil | +2 if social alignment chaotic | |||
| -1 if wealth level poor or fair | +2 if social alignment good | +1 if social alignment good | |||
| -1 if rulership style weak | -1 if social alignment evil | ||||
| -1 if rulership style strong | |||||
| -4 (-2) if rulership style cruel (fairly cruel) | |||||
The final step is to determine guild organization, and this is done with a single d20 roll on Table 15. Some of the results from this table may need particularly careful thought, because some odd-looking results can emerge. The DM can crop out such oddities if he wishes.
| d20 Roll |
Guild Organization |
|---|---|
| 1-6 | Centralist |
| 7-12 | Cohesive |
| 13 | Complex/Mix |
| 14-17 | Fractionated |
| 18-19 | Oppositional |
| 20 | Anarchic |
Modifiers to dice roll:
- -2 if social alignment lawful
- +1 if social alignment chaotic
- +2 (+1) if Guild rulership is weak (fairly weak)
- -1 if Guild rulership is strong
- +2 if Guild is Leaderless
A major shake-up of what the DM has rolled may be indicated if a dice roll indicating Oppositional or Anarchic guild organization is rolled on this table. Oppositional means there are competing, small guilds (and Fractionated means there are sub-guilds within the guild); Anarchic, that there is no real guild at all. The worked example later shows that the combination of such results that at first seem at-odds (e.g., guild rulership by a single guildmaster) is actually workable, although the overall picture which emerges may be a strange one!
Some results may need re-rolling, however. The one notable case is the Oppositional structure if the absolute number of thieves in town is small. You can't really have a plausible collection of competing guilds with only six thieves in town, for example (but maybe two very small gangs could exist, after all . . .)
The final step is to determine how many of the thieves in the town or city are actually members of the guild.
Guildmembers and the Rest[]
The base percentage of thieves who will be members of the thieves' guild is 75%. The following modifiers are applied to this number:
- +10% if social alignment is lawful
- -20% is social alignment is chaotic
- +10% if the attitude of law is persecutory
- +10% if merchants are submissive or infiltrated
- +10% (+5%) if guild rulership is strong (fairly strong)
- -10% (-5%) if guild rulership is weak (fairly weak)
What of the other thieves (assuming there are any)? What is the attitude of the guild to the residual freelancers? Table 16 gives a die roll for determining this attitude, which may also be taken to reflect the guild's attitude to outsiders who stray onto its patch. Thus, a guild which is punitive to indigenous non-guildmembers ("join up or we'll cut your hands off") will likely be hostile to outsiders as well.
| d20 Roll |
Dominant attitude |
|---|---|
| 1-5 | Hostility and persecution |
| 6-10 | Hostility |
| 11-15 | Neutrality |
| 16-18 | Co-operation |
| 19-20 | Special relationship |
Hostility means that the guildmembers will make it very clear to a non-guildmember working in the guild's territory that he isn't welcome. They may rough up the offender, send him threatening messages, play an unpleasant and only half-joking practical joke on him, and the like. The message is, join up (or get out of town), or else. If Persecution is added to this, the offender will be given an even starker choice: Join up or die. Neutrality means that the guildmembers may try to persuade non-guildmembers to join up, but they will tend to stress the benefits to all concerned rather than using threats. A determined freelancer will probably be left to go his own way by such thieves, but they will certainly not assist him or have any fellow-feeling for him. The guild will not sell equipment or offer training to the freelancer, except perhaps at exorbitant prices. If a guild is neutral to foreign thieves, it may allow them to work on the guild's patch providing that only small-scale operations are involved and a fee is paid to the guild.
Cooperation suggests that freelancers may work with the guildmembers, maybe on a special-case basis. The guild may take the attitude that if these people won't join, it's better to keep them friendly. Equipment and training is charged at a premium, though. Special Relationship suggests some unusually close link between guildmembers and outsiders. The example of the Thieves' Guild of Mallain gives an example of how this can be scripted by the DM.
Experience Levels of Thieves[]
Table 17 below shows the experience-level ranges of thieves as a function of how many there are in a guild. More populous guilds, which will always tend to be in major cities and towns, and rich places, are the ones which will attract more experienced thieves to them.
Table 17 should be used as follows. In the left-hand column is shown the number of thieves (this is the total number in town, not just in the guild). The next five columns show dice rolls which need to be made for the five highest-level thieves in town. The following column shows numbers, and levels, for the middle-echelon thieves; those above the level of apprentice, but not members of the senior ranks. All remaining thieves will be first-level apprentices.
The seniors should be taken as the top echelon of the guild. The highest level rolled will be the guildmaster (if there is one), or the most powerful guild-affiliated thief. The other seniors can be used to make up a ruling council (if there is one), or used for key positions such as accountant, quartermaster, deputy guildmaster, subguild-master (for one quarter of town), or others. The number of seniors can be slightly increased (at the lowest experience level) for really sizeable guilds. Freelancers will come equally from the middle-echelon and apprentice levels. If the DM wants any middle—to high-level freelancers, these should be scripted as individualized NPCs and not the result of any dice roll! It is important to separate out guildmembers and freelancers at this stage in the thief listing the DM makes.
Experience Levels: A Note[]
The levels from Table 17 will be low to medium, except for guildmasters of major guilds. This is designed to be suitable for campaigns which are not top-heavy with over-powered, high-level characters. If you have PCs running around at 15th level, or even higher, and you want a thieves' guild as a source of enemies, you will need to up the levels somewhat. You could always consider resting these PCs and playing at more reasonable levels, of course.
| No. of Thieves |
Seniors | Middle Echelon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | C | D | E | ||
| 1-5* | 1d3 | 1d2 | 1d2 | — | — | n/a |
| 6-10 | d4+1 | d4 | d4 | — | — | 2xd2 |
| 11-15 | d4+2 | d3+1 | d3+1 | d2+1 | d2+1 | 3xd2 |
| 16-20 | d4+3 | d3+2 | d3+2 | d3+2 | d2+2 | 2x(d2+1),5xd2 |
| 21-25 | d6+3 | d4+2 | d4+2 | d4+1 | d2+2 | 5xd3, 5xd2 |
| 26-30 | d8+3 | d6+3 | d4+3 | d4+2 | d4+1 | 4x(d3+1), 4xd3, 6xd2 |
| 31-40 | d6+5 | d6+4 | d4+4 | d6+2 | d4+2 | 4x(d4+1), 5x(d3+1), 8xd2 |
| 41-50 | d6+6 | d6+4 | d6+4 | d4+4 | d6+2 | 6x(d4+1), 8x(d3+1), 12xd2 |
| 51-75 | d6+8 | d6+6 | d6+5 | d6+4 | d6+3 | 8x(d4+1), 12x(d3+1), 15xd2 |
| 76-100 | d8+8 | d6+7 | d6+5 | d6+4 | d6+3 | 15x(d4 +1), 20xd4, 30xd3 |
| 101+ | d10+8 | d6+8 | d6+6 | d6+5 | d6+4 | 10% are d6+1, 10% are d4+1, 25% are d4, 25% are d3 |
Multi-classed Thieves[]
Multi-classed thieves
Table 17 will do for determining single-classed thieves, but dwarves and elves in particular may be likely to be multi-classed. To determine this, the DM needs to know how many thieves are nonhuman.
Rolling on Table 18 will determine the race of each thief in the guild. One roll is made for each thief (freelancers can be determined at this stage too). This table is a generic one, and assumes a definite human dominance (which most campaign locations will have). However, this is obviously unsuitable for determining, say, the composition of the thieves' guild of the core community of an elven heartland, where virtually all the thieves will be elves or half-elves. In such cases, the DM can bypass Table 18 and just decide race on a per-capita basis. For example, if 70% of the inhabitants are elves, then for each thief a roll of 1-7 on d10 will indicate that he is an elf. Modifiers can also be used; for example, if elves dominate dwarves in a mixed society, a dice roll modifier of -5 could be applied to the dice roll on Table 18.
| d100 Roll |
Thief Race |
|---|---|
| 01-06 | Elf |
| 07-14 | Half-elf |
| 15-44 | Human |
| 45-50 | Gnome |
| 51-58 | Halfling |
| 59-62 | Human, dual-class |
| 63-93 | Human |
| 94-99 | Dwarf |
| 00 | Special (natural 00 only)* |
Table 19 contains sub-tables which can be used to determine whether the thief is multi-classed (nonhuman) or if the thief is dual-classed (human).
Given the race and possible multi-class nature of each thief, the final step is to adjust the levels from Table 17 for multi-and dual-class thieves.
For multi-classed nonhuman thieves, reduce the thief level by 1d2 from the original dice roll from Table 17 if the character has two classes, and by 1d2+1 levels if the character is a triple-classed fighter/mage/thief. No reductions can take an NPC below 1st level, of course. The character will have the same level in his other classes, if this is possible (in some cases it may not be; e.g., a multi-class character cannot usually be a 2nd-level thief/2nd-level mage. Check the XPs needed for progress in each class!).
With dual-class human characters, experience gained in the "old" class will be 1d4 levels lower than that gained as a thief (but never below 2nd level). The thief level rolled from Table 17 is not adjusted in this case.
This all looks fairly horrendous. In fact, it is fairly simple, albeit a little time-consuming (but if you want a complete picture of a guild, it does take time). The example of the Thieves' Guild of Mallain (later in this chapter) shows that rolling up thieves is a fairly simple business, despite all these tables!
| Dwarves | |
|---|---|
| d20 Roll |
Character Classes |
| 1-8 | Fighter/thief |
| 9-20 | Thief only |
| Elves | |
| d20 Roll |
Character Classes |
| 1-6 | Mage/thief |
| 7-8 | Fighter/thief |
| 9-10 | Fighter/mage/thief |
| 11-20 | Thief only |
| Half-elves | |
| d20 Roll |
Character Classes |
| 1-4 | Mage/thief |
| 5-7 | Fighter/thief |
| 8-10 | Fighter/mage/thief |
| 11-20 | Thief only |
| Gnomes | |
| d20 Roll |
Character Classes |
| 1-4 | Fighter/thief |
| 5-8 | Illusionist/thief |
| 9-20 | Thief only |
| Halflings | |
| d20 Roll |
Character Classes |
| 1-5 | Fighter/thief |
| 6-20 | Thief only |
| Humans | |
| d20 Roll |
Character Classes |
| 1-12 | Fighter |
| 13 | Ranger |
| 14-15 | Mage |
| 16 | Specialist wizard |
| 17-18 | Cleric |
| 19-20 | Bard |
For humans, some classes are not included as options for previous experience. It is inconceivable that a fallen paladin could demean himself to thievery, likewise that an ex-druid could so totally alter his entire framework of thought. If the DM wants such an exotic possibility, there would have to be a truly extraordinary reason for it.
Non-Thief Guildmembers[]
The guild may well have very close affiliations with a small number of NPCs—especially tough fighters—who may be honorary "guildmembers." These men may guard the guildhouse, go on planned jobs as look-outs and muscle, provide the muscle to enforce protection rackets, act as bodyguards, and the like. However, they will not usually be full members of the guild. The DM should design such NPCs as the need arises.
Fleshing out Guildmembers[]
You now have a bare-bones list of guildmembers and other thieves in the town. How far you go beyond this point depends on how much extra information you need for the campaign.
Alignment[]
This is worth determining for all thieves in the guild, because it will have a powerful effect on the way the guild operates, on guild intrigues, and so on. The alignment of the guildmaster and the top senior thieves should always be selected by the DM to fit the needs of the campaign. The rulership style dice rolls should be strongly suggestive of certain options in any event. A fairly strong, cruel, and fairly despotic guildmaster looks like a good candidate for neutral evil, whereas a fairly strong, just, and populist member of a ruling council would be closer to chaotic good.
For other thieves (juniors and members of the middle echelons) a dice roll on Table 20 can be used to determine alignment. This table is biased away from lawfulness and towards neutrality, which is probably an accurate reflection of most thieves. However, if the DM wants more goody-goody types or lawfuls then these options can be fudged into the table in place of (or via) the "Dominant social alignment" entry.
| d20 Roll |
Thief Alignment |
|---|---|
| 1 | Neutral Good |
| 2-3 | Chaotic Good |
| 4 | Lawful Neutral |
| 5-10 | Neutral |
| 11-12 | Dominant social alignment |
| 13-14 | Chaotic Neutral |
| 15-16 | Lawful Evil |
| 17-19 | Neutral Evil |
| 20 | Chaotic Evil |
Modifiers to dice roll:
- +2 if social alignment is evil
- -2 if social alignment is good (But a natural roll of "20" still means Chaotic Evil)
Note: For "dominant social alignment," if the DM is uncertain, take neutral. If dominant social alignment is lawful good, take neutral good (1-4 on 1d6) or lawful neutral (5-6 on d6) instead.
Prime Requisite[]
All thieves will have Dexterity of at least 9. You can roll NPC thief Dexterity on 8+1d10, adding +1 for characters of 4th or higher level and +2 for characters of 8th or higher level. Elves and halflings gain +1 to Dexterity scores. It is strongly recommended that no scores above 18 be allowed, and certainly absurd scores like 20+ should be reduced to 18. Other ability scores are discussed below. Dexterity scores should be recorded for all thieves, since it affects AC and their skills.
Senior Thieves[]
Such thieves—including the guildmaster!—should be designed with a little more detail. The following points can e kept in mind when adding some detail to their basic profiles:
Physical Factors: Simple details like age, height, weight, and appearance can be determined. Senior thieves can be taken to be 25+1d20 years if a random determination is needed. Sex can be determined randomly also.
Exceptional Ability Scores: Thieves of high or medium level should have fair abilities to have survived so long. Allow a flat 1-in-4 chance for each non-Dex ability to be rolled on 2d4+10 and record exceptional (15+) scores.
Magic Items: Senior thieves will certainly have magic items suitable for thieves. Different campaigns vary hugely in the amount of magic knocking around. A good guide is to sneak a look at thief PCs (and NPCs) in campaigns you think are well-run, and/or the blueprint profiles given later, and take hints from these about the nature and number of magic items possessed. When in doubt, always be stingy. Magic can be added to a magic-weak campaign; it's hard to retrieve it when too much is floating about.
Guild Position: Non-guildmasters will still likely be important and occupy key positions (especially if council members). A shrewd guildmaster, for example, will keep the second-rankers happy with important things to do. Quartermaster, deputy guildmaster, chief of blackmail, chief of espionage, liaison officer (with other guilds), and many other options can be written in here.
Other Stuff: Personal idiosyncrasies are always a nice, characterizing touch. Cover identities are also important; what face does the thief present to the public? Does he have a trade, is he a merchant, is he perhaps the Constable of the Watch or a trusted tax official?
The most important case, obviously, is the guildmaster himself (or the ruling council). Such an NPC must be individually designed by the DM to suit the campaign. The blueprint profiles which follow the guild design section give a couple of examples of fully fleshed-out mid-to-high-level guildmasters, and these can be used by the DM as they are or as an indication of how to go about designing a guildmaster NPC.
Junior Thieves[]
These will not need the kind of detailing the seniors will, unless the DM is determined to have complete details of everything! Race, class, prime requisite, and level will be sufficient to begin with, especially for mere 1st- or 2nd-level apprentice types. The addition of names should round off these basic details.
A Final Record[]
Now that the initial die rolls for numbers and levels of thieves have been rounded off (and modified) by race, and dual/multi-class options, the basic details for the guild thieves can be determined—summaries of guild seniors, minor magic items for juniors, the odd exceptional ability score, hit points if the DM has rolled these up, and the like.
Cash and Carry[]
Having populated the guild, the final step is to take care of a few practical details.
Guild Dues[]
Guildmembers have to pay fees to belong to the guild, and they may also have to pay cuts of their take on jobs which are "licensed by" the guild. The DM should fix these levels to suit his campaign. For guild dues, a sum equal to about one month's living expenses for the thief PC is reasonable. This sum will increase with the gaining of experience levels, which is reasonable. Guildmembers get cheaper training, and training is longer and more expensive at higher levels, so higher dues reflect this. Fixing a cut needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. If the guild has tipped off the thief with a lot of information important to pulling a robbery, it could well ask for a quarter or even a third or more of the take, for example.
The dues and other payments due should be recorded by the DM, together with a brief note on what the PC thief gets in the way of special benefits for his dues.
Normal Resources[]
A roll on Table 21 can be used to determine the availability of standard, non-magical equipment items. This reflects how well the Guild is equipped with illegal items, or equipment which is of dubious legality (and which may be illegal in highly lawful societies). Add +1 to the dice roll for every 10 thieves in the guild to a maximum of +4 for a guild with 40 or more thieves.
| d20 Roll |
Equipment Availability |
|---|---|
| 1-5 | Poor |
| 6-10 | Fair |
| 11-17 | Average |
| 18-20 | Good |
A roll indicating Poor means that illegal items (as shown in Table 31) cost 50-80% (40+{d4x10}) more than usual, and are at least 50% likely not to be available at any given time. Items which are noted in Table 31 as being rare will be almost impossible to obtain. A thief wanting an illegal item which is "out of stock" can only try again after a gap of 2 weeks to see if fresh supplies have been obtained. If the availability of resources is Fair, the item costs 10-40% more than usual and there is a 30% chance that it is unavailable, but the thief can make a weekly check.
A roll indicating Average allows items to be had for the usual price, with only a 15% chance that an item is unavailable (a check for fresh deliveries being made weekly). If the roll shows Good availability, prices are 10% below normal, and items are only 5% likely to be unavailable at any time (check for fresh deliveries weekly).
These rules, especially on availability, can be readily tweaked by the DM as desired. If the DM wishes to deny the thief some equipment item, then it simply isn't there, for example. Conversely, the DM may wish to rule that there are always lockpicks available, since these are so essential for very basic thief skills (picking locks, and maybe finding and removing certain types of traps).
Special Resources[]
No table is given for randomly determining these special resources, because they require careful attention and thought on the part of the DM. From the list below, the DM should select a small number (or none, for a small guild) which will suit the campaign. This list is only a partial one, and the DM can add similar special resources:
Tame Mage: The guild has a helpful mage on tap, who casts spells to help thieves (but doesn't take risks). If the guild has a mage/thief or two, this mage is of higher level, and may train these mage/thieves.
Tame Cleric: A rarer instance, but possible if the cleric is very chaotic, a renegade, etc. In some specific mythoi this might not be a rare case at all (for example, clerics of Mask in Faerun).
Expert Fence: The guild works regularly with, or has, a fence with truly exceptional knowledge, information networks, and/or the ability to ship hot goods out of the country fast.
Government Snitch: The guild's man in City Hall. Very helpful in telling the Guild about the shipment of government goods, the Mint, secrets of political NPCs for blackmail, and lots more.
Merchant Snitch: The guild's man in the warehouses, docks, etc. Not a nightwatchman, but someone much more important—a harbormaster, Commander of the Night Watch, etc. Can supply the guild with watch hours, incoming and stored cargo lists, and much more.
A Friend at Court: A person with the ear of the King/Queen/Baron/Royal Physician/Courtesan/Bimbo Princess. Subtly different from a government snitch, and more suited to a swashbuckling rogue campaign or guild.
Friends in other Guild(s): The guild has very cordial relations with the thieves' guild in a major city, even the capital, for reasons of blood relation, old friendships and co-adventuring, etc.
These special resources clearly open up all kinds of adventure possibilities. Getting a message to the important NPC is a standard option, obtaining a reward for them is another (e.g., the tame mage wants that nice wand of lightning his enemy has and could the guild steal it for him?), rescuing them from imprisonment is a third. Subtler possibilities could include finding out who has found out about the guild's Government Snitch and is blackmailing him for a fortune, and the like.
Major Activities[]
Here, the DM should determine and make a record of the secondary activities which are important to the guild. These include (but aren't limited to) protection rackets, smuggling, kidnapping, slavery, forgery, clipping, "entertainments," and similar fun and games reviewed earlier. The DM should determine which activities the guild is strongly involved with to suit the social alignment, the campaign, and the nature of the guild rulers. For example, a strong-cruel-despotic neutral evil guildmaster is a lot more likely to get the guild involved with slavery and kidnapping than a just, populist good-aligned guildmaster. Some DMs may also wish to exclude certain activities such as slavery or kidnapping because players of good-aligned thieves might not want their characters part of such activities. However, it is up to the PCs to do something about such evil goings-on if they cannot accept them—a spur to their creativity and scheming.
The Guildhouse[]
This is going to be of major importance to almost all thieves' guilds, and there are four important points relating to it:
Location and Cover: Where is the guildhouse, and what does it look like upfront? The DM must choose a location and cover suitable to the town or city, and the nature of the guild. It could be a fortified large building among warehouses or down by the docks, an underground cellar complex below the private home of a senior thief, entered via the sewers, or the basements and cellars of a tavern in a shady part of town. A small guild may only meet in the back room of a shady tavern, of course, but any significant guild needs somewhere fairly secret and strong.
Contents: What's in the guildhouse? Is equipment kept hidden there or does the quartermaster carry it with him (unlikely unless he has a bag of holding)? Are there hidey-holes? How many exits are there (there will usually be several)?
Guards: Who protects the guildhouse? Can reinforcements be summoned quickly? If there is a building which is a front for the place (e.g., a tavern above the cellars of the guildhouse below), can extra help (hefty fighters) be had quickly?
Traps and Protections: The guildhouse will almost certainly have magical and mechanical traps—the entrance may be a very strong door, with a couple of locks (and only guildmembers have keys). Down a passage, a secret door may be placed to allow entrance—following the passage leads into very unpleasant traps. Magical traps may have been paid for, or placed by mage/thieves. Mechanical traps will be of many kinds, but will often use disabling/paralyzing attacks just in case a novice makes a mistake and takes the wrong turn somewhere!
Bearing all these points in mind, the DM should design the guildhouse, drawing floorplans and maps.