Latest "Thieves' World" Addition - Traitor (an edited version)

Life is like a box of chocolates. Yadda yadda. So is eBay, as you never know wxactly what you are going to get.

With Traitor for Thieves' Word, what I got was the player handouts and pregens removed from the middle of the booklet and some editing done to the pregens. If nothing else, it's nice to see the adventure got some good use back in the day, whenever that day was ;)

More and more tempted to run something using Thieves World as the setting. Time. Time, or lack there of, is my enemy.

Ah well. Do have some other thoughts bouncing around my head too...

More Thoughts on a Thieves' World Campaign...

The Thieves' World Boxed set has grabbed me by the proverbial balls. I'm thinking it might make for a very nice sandbox yet episodic campaign.

Here's my thoughts:

Crypts & Things for the base ruleset

Scarlet Heroes for the skills / traits. Basically 2d8 plus stat bonus plus trait bonus if applicable. Average task requires an 11 or better. I'd have to write up a list of applicable traits but that's fine.

D30 Sandbox Companion for filling in any holes.

I'd have to get the Thieves' World Player's Guide into my players hands. It's out there on the interwebs for them to find.

I'd ask them for their goals and plans and work the hooks and schemes around that. Flexible plot points for the players to choose and react to or not. Less dungeon, more intrigue.

No expectations that it would follow the series of books, but notable characters may be seen.

Damn. I don't have time for another campaign, but the idea is just so damn cool...

Games From the Basement - Thieves' World Boxed Set

I really enjoyed the first couple of Thieves' World books. Later ones seemed to be much less enjoyable, but the first three or four were simply aces and I could see myself running a campaign in the city and the surrounding area.

I never did.

I wasn't able to make it work in my head in D&D terms, and at that point in my gaming history we had already played some RuneQuest and moved on, or back, to AD&D as our fantasy ruleset of choice.

Damn but I can see this playing out in my head right now as a S&W sandbox. Lots of adventures, few dungeons, lots of intrigue, few magic items but the ones found will have history and power and overall lots of fun.

The encounter charts are inspirational and the mapping is damn near magical. The city is presented in a systemless manner but the personalities are stated out for nearly every damn system that was on the market back in 1981. Which systems?

AD&D, Adventures in Fantasy, Chivalry & Sorcery, DragonQuest, D&D, The Fantasy Trip, RuneQuest, Traveller (yes, Traveller) and even Tunnels & Trolls. The names working on the conversions is nearly a who's who of the early days of RPGs: Dave Arneson, Eric Goldberg, Steve Marsh, Marc Miller, Steve Perrin, Lawrence Schick, Greg Stafford, Ken St. Andre and others.

Ye gods but I really want to run this now. Damn me cleaning out the stack of games to make room for a real closet to be built...

Games From the Basement - Thieves' World

Alright, Thieves' World technically isn't it's own game.  It's closer to being a "Universal Supplement" as it claims support for 9 RPGs.  Imagine that!

It is based off of Robert Asprin's Thieves' World Anthology series.  The first few books were the best... I think i tapped out around number 5 or 6.  It was a nice experiment allowing multiple authors to share stories in the same setting.

What games did it have stats for?

AD&D, D&D, Tunnels &Trolls, Chivalry & Sorcery, DragonQuest, The Fantasy Trip, RuneQuest, Adventures in Fantasy (I don't know this one) and even Traveller.  Yes, Chaosium got permission from TSR and the like to use their stats.  It really was a different time in gaming.

Ken St Andre writes the T&T section , Marc Miller the Traveller section, Eric Goldberg the DragonQuest section, Dave Arneson the Adventures in Fantasy section (now I need to find a copy of the game) and a few other names that bring back memories of that time in gaming (Steve Marsh, Lawrence Schick, Steve Perrin, Greg Stafford, Eric Goldberg).

The city is mapped awesomely.  Really.  Did I mention the maps? ;)

If I recall correctly, Midekmia Press also worked on Cities or some such supplement.  Random tables galore.  You could probably run a session solely off the tables if the GM was willing and able to work with the results.  Yes, this was a city sandbox.

We used this off and on, but for the most part, it is very Thieves' World specific, and my players for the most part hadn't read the books.  It's still an awesome source of charts for any city adventure, so long as you scrape of any parts that are Thieves' world specific.