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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8670232" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Being a bunch of consummate nerds, it's no surprise that the tabletop RPG community has come up with multiple categorizations for the types of products we consume. I don't mean genre labels, such as sci-fi, westerns, urban fantasy, etc., nor purely physical descriptions such as boxed sets, hardbacks, softcovers, and other such terms. Those were all either self-evident or imported from other media (e.g. films).</p><p></p><p>Rather, what I'm referring to here are things like "campaign settings" or "supplements." The sort of thing which tells us in one or two words what type of content we can expect to find, whether it's a bestiary or an adventure or a book full of various tools for GMs. Even that last one can be broken down further, as supplements can be described as "character galleries" or (to bring in my own parlance), "generators," which are books of tables, often with terms and descriptions for the various roll-able entries, to help create content on the fly.</p><p></p><p>Of course, that's usually where these terms begin to break down, since it's quite possible to have books that blend the various content types, defying easy description.</p><p></p><p>Which is where <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17365/Den-of-Thieves-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Den of Thieves</em></a>, the first of what I'm calling the "Strongholds" limited series of sourcebooks, comes in.</p><p></p><p>Before going any further, I feel the urge to point out how this series feels incomplete. I mean, we have a thief book, a wizard book, and a cleric book...and none for fighters? I can see other classes being eschewed, since this was the edition where they were all grouped into four meta-class groupings (well, five if you count psionicists), but somehow there was never any "Fortress of Fighters"-style grouping. While I've never heard anything to suggest that there was supposed to be a fourth supplement that fell through the cracks during the TSR buyout, it wouldn't surprise me, since this seems like too big of an oversight to be missed otherwise.</p><p></p><p>Turning our attention back to this particular product, I have to once again ring the "I didn't remember this at all" bell, which isn't something I do idly. I honestly thought that this was written by Bruce Cordell, and that it connected to his "Neverness" world the way the next two books did. Nope! This supplement, which is written by Wes Nicholson (with whom I'm otherwise unfamiliar), has no connections to any other TSR product that I'm aware of, easter egg or otherwise.</p><p></p><p>Instead, what we have is a book that seems almost like an adjunct to AD&D 2E's <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/page-2#post-8169089" target="_blank">classic supplement</a> of larcenous characters, <em>PHBR2 The Complete Thief's Handbook</em>...sort of. While the page count isn't quite divided evenly between them, this book is divided between three major sections: overviewing a thieves' guild, showcasing a sample guild, and presenting several sample adventures. It's that first one that makes me think that this is an extension of the leatherette book on thieves, since this is more focused on guilds than individuals.</p><p></p><p>By the by, I want to mention that if anyone goes looking for this on the secondary market (as opposed to buying the print-on-demand copy from DriveThruRPG), be aware that the cover is removable (i.e. isn't stapled to the pages) and it's supposed to come with a poster map of the sample guild.</p><p></p><p>So with all of that preamble out of the way, what's there to be said about this book? Well, I can tell you that at the time I purchased it, I pretty well glanced over it quickly and then moved on. Looking back on it now, however, I find myself reacting much more favorably toward what's here.</p><p></p><p>For one thing, the overview of how a thieves' guild operates is not only expansive and insightful, but is presented in a way that's easy to follow and interesting while still being snappy in how succinct it is. That might sound effusive, but the single- or double-page overviews of the various criminal activities that a guild will regularly engage in (burglary, counterfeiting/forgery, extortion, pickpocketing, etc.) are all examples of how to present information in an engaging manner. Each one briefly summarizes the type of crime, talks about the guild's stance toward that particular area of activity, and has a helpful table for things like how much time is needed or how much money can be earned via a job. (Amusingly enough, "dancing girls" was an entry here; for the life of me, I can't remember if my younger self knew that was a euphemism for "prostitution").</p><p></p><p>That's not all that it has to say with regard to general information about a guild, however. There's also numerous interesting pieces of information here, such as the general rule that a guild will need to be in a city of at least twenty thousand people in order to have a sustainable series of business operations, or that a guild will go out of its way to avoid antagonizing the political rulers since they (the guild) will virtually always be destroyed if the local rulers decide to wipe them out (and so it's no surprise that the sample guild includes multiple hidden basements and an escape venue).</p><p></p><p>The second section of the book is where it interested me most, however, since while guild hierarchy is presented in the first section, it's in the second where we start to meet our cast of ne'er-do-wells in the sample guild. From the guildmaster down to the various heads of certain criminal activities to guild associates (e.g. a local wizard), and the staff members of the higher-ranking members, these characters (each of whom has an abbreviated stat block) struck me as much more interesting than I remember them being, particularly with how down-to-earth they are.</p><p></p><p>What I mean by that is that no one here is possessed by a demon or secretly an undead creature; rather, the intrigue here is entirely political, with the guildmaster secretly grooming his daughter to take over even as another young up-and-comer gathers allies to stake his claim when the guildmaster retires. A mid-level operator is upset that she's been passed over for promotion due to repeatedly engaging in unnecessary violence, and isn't willing to stand for it much longer. A popular young thief is actually a plant from the city watch who's playing a very dangerous game. It's all so low-fantasy.</p><p></p><p>And really, if there's any sort of complaint to be made about the book, it's exactly how low-fantasy it is. Maybe I've been playing too much D&D 3.X/Pathfinder 1E, but the assumptions that went into a lot of what was here make it clear that this isn't a wild-and-woolly world of magic and monsters, but rather is very grounded in the classic quasi-medieval take on fantasy role-playing. For instance, the book flat-out says that demihumans are rarely members of a thieves' guild, because demihumans naturally stand out in cities (i.e. cities are assumed to be humanocentric). Likewise, you won't find spellcasters in most thieves guilds, as wizards are too interested in their research and experiments to care much for larceny (which they aren't very good at anyway), and even if you have a cleric of the god of thieves, they'll want to set up a house of worship, which will invariably be the first place the local authorities suspect when a big heist is pulled.</p><p></p><p>Heck, the book even assumes that dual-classed human thieves won't make it very far in guilds due to being pulled in two directions by their different classes. A wizard/thief who somehow becomes guildmaster, the book tells us, would see a lot of guild funds going toward various magical projects, upsetting the junior members with how their guild dues weren't being used in the collective interest. Magical characters, instead, are likely to be contacts who do work for the guild on a freelance basis.</p><p></p><p>That's equally true for the adventures, which assume that the PCs are guildmembers who need to troubleshoot various circumstances that come up for the guild. Personally, I find it a bit awkward to assume that the PCs are mostly one particular class, and while that doesn't necessarily <em>have</em> to be the case, the book is clearly leaning in that direction. While I don't have <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17309/HHQ3-Thiefs-Challenge-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>HHQ3 Thief's Challenge</em></a> or <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17317/HHQ7-Thiefs-Challenge-II-Beacon-Point-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>HHQ7 Thief's Challenge II: Beacon Point</em></a>, and I'm leery of one-on-one adventures in general (at least in the context of AD&D 2E, what with how unforgiving the system can be for singular adventurers), I find myself wonder if that's the better way to go about making an adventure that's all about thieves.</p><p></p><p>But on greater consideration, I think that might be missing the point somewhat. Back during <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/page-9#post-8228110" target="_blank">my overview</a> of <em>DMGR2 The Castle Guide</em>, I complained about how that book didn't make it clear how to transition a campaign to domain-level play, nor make a case for why such a campaign was worthwhile. In the case of <em>Den of Thieves</em>, I think it wanted to do exactly that.</p><p></p><p>Or at least, I wish it had. But the fact of the matter is that this book is, quite simply, far more focused with providing tools for DMs than it is for name-level thief PCs. While it's entirely possible to use this as a template for how a guild works, and the adventures that can be crafted around one, it doesn't speak to broader issues of how to make this work with a diverse party, it doesn't specify XP awards (if any) for crimes carried out by the PC's guild but not the PC themselves, and it doesn't talk about what high-level thieves can do (even the sample guildmaster is only 12th level). Heck, it doesn't even seem to remember that thieves of 10th level and above can use scrolls!</p><p></p><p>Overall, this is a very good sourcebook for if you want a focus on thieves in an urban locale. That's already fairly niche (though even if you have your PCs regularly adventuring in dungeons and the wilderness, this is still worthwhile if they have a home base city that they regularly return to), so I suppose I can't hold it against this book that it wasn't a domain-level guide for thief PCs, though I still wish it had been.</p><p></p><p>Even so, it's well-done for what it is, and so I look at it more fondly now than I did in my youth.</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8670232, member: 8461"] Being a bunch of consummate nerds, it's no surprise that the tabletop RPG community has come up with multiple categorizations for the types of products we consume. I don't mean genre labels, such as sci-fi, westerns, urban fantasy, etc., nor purely physical descriptions such as boxed sets, hardbacks, softcovers, and other such terms. Those were all either self-evident or imported from other media (e.g. films). Rather, what I'm referring to here are things like "campaign settings" or "supplements." The sort of thing which tells us in one or two words what type of content we can expect to find, whether it's a bestiary or an adventure or a book full of various tools for GMs. Even that last one can be broken down further, as supplements can be described as "character galleries" or (to bring in my own parlance), "generators," which are books of tables, often with terms and descriptions for the various roll-able entries, to help create content on the fly. Of course, that's usually where these terms begin to break down, since it's quite possible to have books that blend the various content types, defying easy description. Which is where [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17365/Den-of-Thieves-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Den of Thieves[/I][/URL], the first of what I'm calling the "Strongholds" limited series of sourcebooks, comes in. Before going any further, I feel the urge to point out how this series feels incomplete. I mean, we have a thief book, a wizard book, and a cleric book...and none for fighters? I can see other classes being eschewed, since this was the edition where they were all grouped into four meta-class groupings (well, five if you count psionicists), but somehow there was never any "Fortress of Fighters"-style grouping. While I've never heard anything to suggest that there was supposed to be a fourth supplement that fell through the cracks during the TSR buyout, it wouldn't surprise me, since this seems like too big of an oversight to be missed otherwise. Turning our attention back to this particular product, I have to once again ring the "I didn't remember this at all" bell, which isn't something I do idly. I honestly thought that this was written by Bruce Cordell, and that it connected to his "Neverness" world the way the next two books did. Nope! This supplement, which is written by Wes Nicholson (with whom I'm otherwise unfamiliar), has no connections to any other TSR product that I'm aware of, easter egg or otherwise. Instead, what we have is a book that seems almost like an adjunct to AD&D 2E's [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/page-2#post-8169089']classic supplement[/URL] of larcenous characters, [I]PHBR2 The Complete Thief's Handbook[/I]...sort of. While the page count isn't quite divided evenly between them, this book is divided between three major sections: overviewing a thieves' guild, showcasing a sample guild, and presenting several sample adventures. It's that first one that makes me think that this is an extension of the leatherette book on thieves, since this is more focused on guilds than individuals. By the by, I want to mention that if anyone goes looking for this on the secondary market (as opposed to buying the print-on-demand copy from DriveThruRPG), be aware that the cover is removable (i.e. isn't stapled to the pages) and it's supposed to come with a poster map of the sample guild. So with all of that preamble out of the way, what's there to be said about this book? Well, I can tell you that at the time I purchased it, I pretty well glanced over it quickly and then moved on. Looking back on it now, however, I find myself reacting much more favorably toward what's here. For one thing, the overview of how a thieves' guild operates is not only expansive and insightful, but is presented in a way that's easy to follow and interesting while still being snappy in how succinct it is. That might sound effusive, but the single- or double-page overviews of the various criminal activities that a guild will regularly engage in (burglary, counterfeiting/forgery, extortion, pickpocketing, etc.) are all examples of how to present information in an engaging manner. Each one briefly summarizes the type of crime, talks about the guild's stance toward that particular area of activity, and has a helpful table for things like how much time is needed or how much money can be earned via a job. (Amusingly enough, "dancing girls" was an entry here; for the life of me, I can't remember if my younger self knew that was a euphemism for "prostitution"). That's not all that it has to say with regard to general information about a guild, however. There's also numerous interesting pieces of information here, such as the general rule that a guild will need to be in a city of at least twenty thousand people in order to have a sustainable series of business operations, or that a guild will go out of its way to avoid antagonizing the political rulers since they (the guild) will virtually always be destroyed if the local rulers decide to wipe them out (and so it's no surprise that the sample guild includes multiple hidden basements and an escape venue). The second section of the book is where it interested me most, however, since while guild hierarchy is presented in the first section, it's in the second where we start to meet our cast of ne'er-do-wells in the sample guild. From the guildmaster down to the various heads of certain criminal activities to guild associates (e.g. a local wizard), and the staff members of the higher-ranking members, these characters (each of whom has an abbreviated stat block) struck me as much more interesting than I remember them being, particularly with how down-to-earth they are. What I mean by that is that no one here is possessed by a demon or secretly an undead creature; rather, the intrigue here is entirely political, with the guildmaster secretly grooming his daughter to take over even as another young up-and-comer gathers allies to stake his claim when the guildmaster retires. A mid-level operator is upset that she's been passed over for promotion due to repeatedly engaging in unnecessary violence, and isn't willing to stand for it much longer. A popular young thief is actually a plant from the city watch who's playing a very dangerous game. It's all so low-fantasy. And really, if there's any sort of complaint to be made about the book, it's exactly how low-fantasy it is. Maybe I've been playing too much D&D 3.X/Pathfinder 1E, but the assumptions that went into a lot of what was here make it clear that this isn't a wild-and-woolly world of magic and monsters, but rather is very grounded in the classic quasi-medieval take on fantasy role-playing. For instance, the book flat-out says that demihumans are rarely members of a thieves' guild, because demihumans naturally stand out in cities (i.e. cities are assumed to be humanocentric). Likewise, you won't find spellcasters in most thieves guilds, as wizards are too interested in their research and experiments to care much for larceny (which they aren't very good at anyway), and even if you have a cleric of the god of thieves, they'll want to set up a house of worship, which will invariably be the first place the local authorities suspect when a big heist is pulled. Heck, the book even assumes that dual-classed human thieves won't make it very far in guilds due to being pulled in two directions by their different classes. A wizard/thief who somehow becomes guildmaster, the book tells us, would see a lot of guild funds going toward various magical projects, upsetting the junior members with how their guild dues weren't being used in the collective interest. Magical characters, instead, are likely to be contacts who do work for the guild on a freelance basis. That's equally true for the adventures, which assume that the PCs are guildmembers who need to troubleshoot various circumstances that come up for the guild. Personally, I find it a bit awkward to assume that the PCs are mostly one particular class, and while that doesn't necessarily [I]have[/I] to be the case, the book is clearly leaning in that direction. While I don't have [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17309/HHQ3-Thiefs-Challenge-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]HHQ3 Thief's Challenge[/I][/URL] or [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17317/HHQ7-Thiefs-Challenge-II-Beacon-Point-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]HHQ7 Thief's Challenge II: Beacon Point[/I][/URL], and I'm leery of one-on-one adventures in general (at least in the context of AD&D 2E, what with how unforgiving the system can be for singular adventurers), I find myself wonder if that's the better way to go about making an adventure that's all about thieves. But on greater consideration, I think that might be missing the point somewhat. Back during [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/page-9#post-8228110']my overview[/URL] of [I]DMGR2 The Castle Guide[/I], I complained about how that book didn't make it clear how to transition a campaign to domain-level play, nor make a case for why such a campaign was worthwhile. In the case of [I]Den of Thieves[/I], I think it wanted to do exactly that. Or at least, I wish it had. But the fact of the matter is that this book is, quite simply, far more focused with providing tools for DMs than it is for name-level thief PCs. While it's entirely possible to use this as a template for how a guild works, and the adventures that can be crafted around one, it doesn't speak to broader issues of how to make this work with a diverse party, it doesn't specify XP awards (if any) for crimes carried out by the PC's guild but not the PC themselves, and it doesn't talk about what high-level thieves can do (even the sample guildmaster is only 12th level). Heck, it doesn't even seem to remember that thieves of 10th level and above can use scrolls! Overall, this is a very good sourcebook for if you want a focus on thieves in an urban locale. That's already fairly niche (though even if you have your PCs regularly adventuring in dungeons and the wilderness, this is still worthwhile if they have a home base city that they regularly return to), so I suppose I can't hold it against this book that it wasn't a domain-level guide for thief PCs, though I still wish it had been. Even so, it's well-done for what it is, and so I look at it more fondly now than I did in my youth. [I]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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