Feels to me like just regular organized crime- imposes rules and fees on territory and whoever defies those rules is punished

People say Thieves' Guilds are registered guilds? I thought they use the name ironically to mock merchant guilds.

I just never made a distinction between a Thieves Guild and a Mafia/Cartel. To me, they're basically the same thing.

I honestly think a Thieves guild would become a security consultancy firm, paid to test guards and spread awareness of pickpocket techniques.

I like the Marienburg thieves' guild. There is no thieves' guild. It is a joke name for the loose mafia commissione-style gathering of gang leaders who meet up to settle matters. There is no thief guild membership, budget, charter, enforcement power etc. "Thieves' guild" authority ends the moment one gang leader starts a fight with another one, and they frequently do. Its authority begins when the other gang leaders pressure the conflicting ones into settlements. The gangs are balanced by how none of them hold complete sway individually, and the need to hide their conflicts from city authorities. The gangs hold properties, members, territory and all that and will enforce protection rackets.

I've always assumed that most "thieves guilds" are just standard mafia-style organizations that we just call "the thieves guild" out of inertia.

Man Grungeon master got me thinking of a wizard thieves guild leader playing both sides of the magical arms race. Developing defenses that they sell to the rich and then selling information on their weaknesses or the spells to counter them to his guild associates

Imagining an institutionalized thieves guild filled with IRS agents and repo guys

I think a thieves guild works best if they don't only operate on stealing items, but also collecting information and acquiring illegal goods. Any wise king will want some spies. Especially ones who can track down dangerous items and spirit them out of any strongholds or dungeons they find themselves in

A mafia like orgranization which extorted "protection" money from thieves might call themselves The Thieves Guild when shaking down thieves, who then come to refer to organization by that name. Thieves, being a group who can't turn to law enforcement for protection, could be more vulnerable to extortion than honest merchants.

In the last game I ran with a 'Thieves' Guild, they were officially known as the Locksmiths. But I left what thievery they did kind of ambiguous - they actually did mostly provide security solutions. They also traded in intelligence. Everyone pays off the Locksmiths for their security and for information on others' security. The setting had an annual contest between different kind of Mage Guilds and paying off locksmiths for information about the other guilds' activities during it is just part of the game.

I've thought about this a lot, how to make it a viable organization in my setting. I have a noble with ties to the adventuring scene of the kingdom who I'm going to have accidentally create a Thieves Guild. Magical items are dangerous, so recovering magical items before they fall into the wrong hands is important. My noble will buy them off of a specific fence so they're the most profitable person to unload magical items to, essentially taking them out of circulation. They will also allow a tavern to operate rent and tax free on their lands, as long as the recovered items aren't stolen from a recognised source (the noble house, shops within the noble's district, or the royal family). Murder and injury will not be tolerated to procure items. Any violation by ANY criminal will cause punishment in the form of taxation (or destruction if it's bad enough) of the tavern. This fence and tavern then is incentivized to self regulate all thievery in the lands, and spread a network of sub-fences to gather more magical items. Essentially, my solution is to employ them, punish really bad behaviour and reward relative cooperation.

All it takes is a few rogues forming an organization to plan heists to form a thieves guild.

The privateer system was similar to thieves' guilds. Organized groups of robbers with strict hierarchies of authority and rank. On the job training. Policing of non-members attempting to compete and members that violate the rules. Recognition from official power structures. It was obviously decentralized, but other than that, it checks all the boxes.

The Ankh Morepork thieves guild is the greatest iteration of the concept!

Early triads would be nice. You have a sort of neighbourhood association formed out of mutual aid that might or might not get into other activities. The triad is a place to go for a loan or insider tips or a job. Roman street gangs who acted as the law in their neighbourhood is fun. We used those on the Moon. You probably pay off your local street gang if you're a pleb. The state has its own secret police and the aristocrats have their house guards but they only serve their employer. You are left to street gangs.

To be honest, I've always played thieves' guilds as mafia outfits.

Another thought spawned by my personal study of biker gangs: post-war groups of the spies, scouts, saboteurs, and the like. Some of them have enough loot scraped together to fund an endeavor. Or even that the leadership of the region decides they have these people that they can no longer employ directly but that they do not want to just "unleash" on their own country. So they basically give a tacit nod to them keeping a theives guild, so long as they make sure to keep certain targets off the list. Almost land-based privateers, really.

It's funny that you bring up Robin Hood as one of the models of a proper guildmaster, in War of the Burning Sky, there was a thieves' guild that was very powerfully connected to the community. So much so that some of the membership voluntarily aided the public during the war. Rantle was famous for saving a noblewoman from an attack, when he'd intended first to rob her.

You can deal with with the skill-set problem by having multiple thieves’ guilds with multiple specialties. In my world’s Keerem City, there are four different thieves’ guilds. The Cloaked Guild handles beggary, pickpocketing, smuggling, and prostitution; the Order of the Red Dagger runs assassination, armed robbery, and extortion rackets; the Burglars’ Guild does breaking and entering, safecracking, embezzlement and street theft; and the Honorable Brotherhood of Coiners controls coin-clipping, forgery, counterfeiting, and fraud. I consider the question of “thieves’ guilds” versus “organized crime gangs” to be mostly a distinction without a difference. Real mafiosi do pay dues, do have hierarchies, and do train their members. The only real difference is that guilds may have formal recognition in law, and in some cases mafia gangs can approximate that too by bribing or blackmailing politicians and law enforcement. But in the real world, mafiosi have little ability to protect members against imprisonment; indeed, a prison term and the appropriate cell tattoos are often considered a sort of rite of passage among them. On the other hand, in medieval-type settings, imprisonment would not be a major punishment for theft; ain’t nobody got the time and money to keep petty criminals housed and fed. The typical punishments for medieval thieves were corporal: whipping, branding, mutilation, banishment, a term of forced labor, or in extreme cases, death.

Great work in dismantling and assembling the concept. Perhaps a guild could begin (and continue as) an organization like we see in _Leverage_, going after the worst offenders, at least initially?

In my world the theives guild doesn't earn income primarily by stealing, but rather hiring out their services to people wishing to recover items, gathering information, security consulting, a protection racket, and even detective work to catch non guild theives. They do do a bit of common theivery, but bribes are more effective if you don't already annoy those in power.

The religious avenue is an approach that fulfills all the criteria as well. One of my favorite characters was a Cleric/Rogue of Mask in the Forgotten Realms 3e. The "church" of Mask provides all the structure, training, motivation and trust needed, Mask (or his Champion) makes the perfect Guildmaster, being a god and all.

When considering longevity and viability in consistently being able to have some level of strength as an organization, give members reason to want in, and work as a cohesive system, a pure thieving guild doesn't work too well. You'd really want it to be partially in thieving as a method of gaining more resources, but just be a general crime group. They'd need some kind of central base with reasonable defenses and probably somewhat of a hidden location to prevent angry people from just overwhelming and destroying them. They'd also need some level of corruption granting influence over guards, jails, the ruling class, or all of the above. Finally, you'd never be able to totally have them depend on stealing stuff. They'd need things like protection rackets, fences which would likely be members posing as normal merchants, and to be effective in a typical fantasy world you'd need some combination of magic, physical defenses, and reason for the general populace to be at least somewhat afraid of messing with your crime group. They have to be threatening enough not to be wiped out or they'd dwindle in strength. Some members would absolutely have to include at least minor magical talent, and a good number would need to be straight-up thug types to guard other members and make any sort of shakedown system functional. Ideally, you'd also have some level of actual benefit the organization gives the people it 'taxes' paired with a penalty for not paying them. If they included prevention of another problem, such as reducing certain monster threats like guards would or cracking down on pest control in the form of a giant rat population or something similar, it gives at least some level of reasoning behind other people being more reluctant to hunt them down. This is where the common pattern of subterranean bases likely connected to city sewers makes sense. It's unpleasant surroundings would discourage invading them, it gives access to a place some nasty creatures they might be helping protect from live, hides them at least to an extent, and gives a place they can meet where nobody is ever likely to disturb them. In essence, it's partially a thieves' guild in that they steal as part of their work, but they'd function mainly as a darker and more feared version of city government, making them effectively just an unofficial branch of it that doesn't work so closely with the actual rulers. A general organized crime ring fits most worlds far better than a dedicated, purist thieving guild. This idea is even better if they include a way for regular people to contact them and hire them to bully other people into doing things, giving further use that somewhat wealthy and/or desperate people would take advantage of.

To me it's less "Should Thieves' Guilds Exists?" and more that having just one overarching organization controlling crime in your area removes that innate story potential of having conflicting gangs and other kinds of organized criminal groups to play around with.

A thieves guild as we imagine it in fantasy literally historically existed in Georgian era London. And it was also in control of essentially the city watch.

You forgot how useful it is when a Thieves Guild is supported or even created by a God. In which case the thieves are united by a common worship and doctrine, which can also give them divine blessings or powers.

The concept of a thieves' guild predates Leiber by several centuries. Cervantes describes one in the story “Rinconete and Cortadillo,” complete with mandatory membership, ranks, tests of mastery, a guild-sponsored chapel where members can give alms, and the specific use of the word "guild." I don't know whether Gygax or Leiber was aware of the story.

Yes they should. Criminal gangs exist. Sometimes these gangs, in order to not end up in a destructive gang war set up rules for how to interact with each other. I would consider such a cooperation to be a thieves guild.

Idea: War-time thieves guild. The guild is legal, and endorsed by the city's leader, on the agreement that they do not steal from residents. Only from visitors or from enemy cities when they visit or ahead of a raiding party. The last bit could be done as a measure to steal important items or intel before the chaos of war unfolds.

As ever, a stimulating examination of the topic. I agree about a strong sense of community and some connection with officialdom being essential: in most of my campaigns, thieve guilds were strongly tied to, or even part of a given city or realm's spy network. When you have shape-shifting, mind-bending creatures like vampires and yuan-ti around, the authorities definitely need eyes and ears on the street...

The thief/assassin guild in the anime "Banished From The Hero's Party, I Decided To Live A Quiet Life In The Countryside" is a really interesting example, I think. In that setting, people receive blessings when they turn a certain age, and those blessings come with a specific role (usually a profession), which in turns gives them the necessary skills to perform that role, to the point a person with the role outperforms anyone who lacks it in that specific area, and most importantly, people have a strong, sometimes personality-warping compulsion to follow that role. One thing that is explored in that show is what happens when you don't wish to follow into that role, or what happens to people who get bad roles, such as a thief blessing or an assassin blessing. In that world, the thief and assassin guilds exist to help support people who receive those kinds of blessings. Because you have the compulsion to be an assassin even if you don't want to be, these guilds help to try to establish a form of order and regulation on these professions, to give these people a voice and legitimacy, and to try to direct what would ordinarily be a curse into a force for good.

This is the first video I have seen of yours. It's very helpful. Have a good day. I have subbed and will be looking at your other stuff.

This was really well thought out and has inspired some questions for a future thieves' guild that I'm planning. Thank you!

A "thieves guild" could start off as some ralying point in wich, if you speak to the correct person, you could sell any stolen goods securely, and then scale from that. It could give you the tools you'd need for the trade and access to information in exchange for money, and maybe use some kind of magic pact to ensure confidentiality. I can visualize how it could work. They benefit from reselling (far away) the goods they buy from the guild members. And the members benefit from having where to sell the stolen goods, make their plans or buy equipment, fake ids or entire new identities. Could probably have contacts in the city guard that allows them to move things in and out, and someone in higher ranks that allows it to be kept that way.

I really enjoyed this video. I think your discussion was extremely well thought out and thorough. I'm curling in the middle of running a campaign that involves guilds not necessarily thieves guilds, But even into that you've given me some great inspiration so thank you very much😊

Discworld does the ankh-morpork Thieves guild pretty well, you have an alloted day in the year that you will be robbed in exchange for a small fee to the guild, and the guild keeps away all thieves that arent bound by that rule, so aslong as you pay you dont have to worry about being robbed if your not scheduled for it today.

The thieves “guild” in Oblivion was the best example, it’s not really an organization, it is centered around various fences that work together and the whole thing is held together by a single man with a cult of personality. However, a royal spy ring could certainly exist.

i have "the fisher orphans". they are orphans trained in using fishing rods and invisible mage hands to steal purses anywhere in the city. it's essentially a food co-op for the orphans the guards turn a blind eye as the fishers are just trying to avoid having to move "There" and sometimes even sell cryptic hints about "Their" movements. Denizens of "There" don't destroy the orphans because the fisher kid's predictable motivation allows "Them" to manipulate the fishers to some degree. Also, in "Their" culture if a fisher kid catches you telling useful information, "It" has already forsaken your group. Because "It" does not need toys weak or foolish enough to get caught unintentionally.

"Thieves guilds have never existed in any historical context in our world" Well, it seems they did a really good job, no?

Sorry for the wall of text. Realistically you are right. But you missed a point about Jonathan Wilde in relation to the Thief in Fantasy RPG's. One of the reasons Wilde's organisation functioned at all was that if you are not poor, most of your stuff you is unique. A rulebook might list a statue worth some gold, but it is a unique object. Even a purse can be unique, not to mention rings and other items. That's why Wilde was able to 'return' the stolen goods to their original owners and why they paid the 'fee'., They wanted their stuff back. Sometimes it wasn't even about the monetary worth of the stolen goods. Often things were marked by the craftsman who created them, making them even more easily identifiable. If you steal those, you have about 3 options. 1, melt it down and somehow sell it to a goldsmith or make coins out of it. 2, sell it back to the original owner. And 3, smuggle it to another city were it can be sold. And that's object made of precious materials. Even jewels are mostly unique and essentially worthless to a thief. If you have nothing to do either, your thief is limited to steal coins and cheap stuff only. You wouldn't even have need to raise your skills beyond a certain point because it's neither necessary nor does it pay off. You can't even make a career of stealing trade goods as it sooner or later will pay attention to the one you sell those goods to. Wanna bet how quickly he is going to sell you out saying he thought you were a regular merchant? If he has a good reputation and/or good standing in his guild who do you think the authorities will side with even if they know that he knew he was buying stolen goods? I don't remember the movie, but it was about pirates that started to work with a government (I think a US city or state). One of them went rogue and they stopped him, but too late for a ship he had already plundered and sunk with killing crew and passengers. The 'good' pirates got in trouble later because one of their women wore a gown that was unique to the region and known to have belonged to a passenger of the ship. Or remember the Three Musketeers? How the Duke of Buckingham had to spend a lot of money to have the two stolen diamond studs replaced in record time? But what is a Thieves' Guild? Take a forgotten and not monster infested dungeon or a small cave a little outside of town. Criminals could start meeting there until it becomes necessary for someone to organize the place a little. Even if it's just someone that buys alcohol in the nearby city and sells it here. Some might be there to lie low for a while, trade news of interest for them. Others might have a small business there selling stuff people need. A blacksmith or his trade partner could make the rounds through the villages near the city and stop at this hideout to sell the tools that make up a lock pick set or the small knives needed for a literal cutpurse. Now you can stolen goods being bought by a travelling merchant and sold in another city. Is that a thieves' guild in the classic sense? No, but in many ways it functions like one. And it differs from a meeting place in the city that even if the authorities want to raid it, the rogues there would see them coming miles away and scatter. They might even catch a few thieves, but then what? Keep guards stationed there? Pay people to demolish the hideout so it's unusable? Another hideout might quickly be found. By the way, even adventurers that free stolen goods from bandits, a dragon or other monsters would have to return them to the original owners and hope they get a reward for it unless they want to be seen as possible thieves themselves. Unless the unique items have gone missing a long time ago. So realistically returning stolen goods doesn't really pay. Which makes the adventurers thieves no matter their character class. So, are thieves' guilds realistic? No. Are they necessary for a pre-industrial RPG? Yes. Unless of course you want your Rogue or Thief be simply another type of fighter. Which begs the question why you have a thief to begin with. How you make the thieves' guilds more realistic in your game depends on the world.

Something I think you kinda skirted around but didn't quite get around mentioning is Pirates/Bucaneers. If there is a very highly valuable resource that has to be extracted in a distant place and you have opposing factions interested in keeping the other factions from getting that resource, but they also don't want to just straightforwardly employ their own military/army for diplomatic reasons, they could employ thieves to sabotage their enemies and obtain the resource. This would also solve the issues of legality and having a steady income.

I think it works fine but it requires a vastly different use. it would require a few things 1 - It only in a large city 2 - It has at least 3 members connected in their wants and desires to reliably maintain the direction of the organisation. think of it like a mafia family. 3 - And the most important it has connections with people of authority a thief guild is essentially just Organised crime, it wouldnt really be a guild officially, but it would establish a front guild. In small villages it makes no sense to have a thief guild. in larger cities it would, as it creates a mix between, if you're a thief in this city you pay the fee to the Organisation if you wanna work in the town, the organization would then provide benefits, you pay your dues and do well by the ones in charge and get arrested? maybe we can help you out, or you know most important, Pay the fee or we break your legs jimmy. Guilds would also form initially due to the common understanding people have of safety in numbers. smart thieves would recognize that being a criminal has risks and if they join a group they can have a better chance of actually keeping their freedom and surviving. I also think many guilds would actually begin as a gang, a person of influence hires a group of thieves to do a heist for him, the group do well together and realise they can make better money and have less risk working together and slow more people are brought in. the gang would eventually need to also enter business themselves, and move from petty crime to White Collar crime like money laundering and loan sharking and stuff like that. In the long run though, people use thieves guilds so much as it's more simple to work with in a game rather than a complex web of organized crime where all criminals pay fees to a Kingpin to be allowed to work in the town. This is also speculation but I think wed have very little historical idea of thieves guilds or Assassin guilds for the matter, as they were not official guilds and if they were destroyed the state would opt to destroy all information about it rather than archive it.

It could be a law firm, colloquially known as the thieves' guild since that's their primary clientele. Even have former criminals as informants, consultants and under the table spies for hire facilitator for the government. Similarly a law firm serving solo mercenaries could be the assassins' guild.

Another great and thoughtful video. It's good to see a breakdown of how these guilds would fall apart in most settings.

I always assumed that a Thieves "Guild" was established by the local government in order to keep tabs on illegal activities and ensure nobody does anything too brazen or destructive.

This was such an interesting viewpoint. I’m rethinking some things about my upcoming campaign now. Thanks for the insight!

Interesting topic as always. I would love to see a similar video on how information guilds might form or grow since I feel they are another group that is overly shrouded in mystery

1) The mafia, tongs, and yakuza would fit our definition of guild (training, organization, hierarchy, and protection). In some cases, they even had a chair in local politics. Just allow that prison time is a possibility and you're golden. Heck, for that matter ninja clans offer a state-sponsored example of a thieves guild. 2) Some medieval guilds did feature a wide variety of different skills or at least those who mastered one specific skill. Blacksmiths, jewelers, clothmakers, and even writers were organizations of people who had a variety of different skills. 3) Fagan was the archetypical guild leader. For that matter, any decent godfather or yakuza would do. 4) In a fantasy realm where you need to go into dungeons and deal with traps, people with the ability to sneak around work for spying and infiltration, and where most of their skills work for military situations, "thief" is a valid occupation. Throw in that people like thieves in shows and movies, and it's only natural you'd see some sort of organization for them....

The Ancient Blade chronicles is a good example of a Thrives guild. The guild was just a front for the lords spy network.... Most members were not aware of that and joined (willingly or not) to get access to the "thieves roads" a hidden tunnel network along with the guilds ability to bribe the guards which was not possible otherwise.

The way I'm planning on running a thieves guild in my next campaign is that of the law for outlaws. Protection of the law provided to those who can't seek said protection from usual means.

Thanks for another banger video! I’ve always just made “thieves guilds” either gangs or a small group of individuals getting together for a job(s) with their loyalties, ambitions, operating scale, and influence varied. But often it just does end up resembling organized crime once it expands past a small group of people and maybe their apprentices or aids.

My favourite Theives Guild appears in the The Gods Are Bastards sereis, in which they're somewhat tolerated since they're the Cult of the Theif God, Eserion. Any society that would dare to ban them risks Eserion's wrath.

I liked the Elder Scrolls tying the guild until Nocturnal, having a patron god would be quote compatible with the prerequisites you mentioned.

Nice work on the video!

In a D&D campaign I ran, I had bunch of city states situated on a coast nearby a very agressive empire they were at war with. And in these city states, there was a large mafia (secretly funded by that empire) that openly operated called the Dockworkers' Guild. They were fun

I still remember the time I went to the thieves guild to buy illicit goods. A hoodlum attempted rob me in broad daylight, and when I fought back, all of the thieves, including the shopkeeper I was buying from, instantly I was going down. Terrible business strategy to be honest. Mysteriously, a stray fireball burned the place down later that night. (For real though, I was about to strangle my DM because if that was how the thieves guild operated, NO ONE would go there. You might get pickpocketed in such a place, but why tf would a merchant about to get your money suddenly decide “you know what? Drop all your gold instead, I’m gonna mug this you with this guy in the middle of the guild. Didn’t help that I was level 5 and just accidentally vaporized the original pickpocket with a high rolled spell)

I feel like another way to kind of make it work(whether as a thieves guild or just organized crime) is have them sell information to nobles or get tasks from nobles, like for modern examples, the cia worked with so many different organized crime groups, so it's definitely a way to keep your thieves guild from being destroyed.

I think people often overthink world building. Like they have to maintain an inscrutable level of verisimilitude. Most fantasy settings fall apart when reviewed thoroughly, but who cares? Have fun! So what if the geo politics is a thieves guild wouldn’t actually work? If that’s sobering you’re concerned about as a player, I’m not sure I’d want you at my table. That being said, I appreciate the creative thinking happening here. I just caution against getting too granular and putting so much time into something players will never interact with or witness.

You brought up some really good points to consider.

I think the united worship of a God of fortune, luck, gold and thieves makes sense as a front, donations to a church like that could be disguised as a tithe for fortune or whatnot and fortune comes in the shape of thieves and worshippers os said diety stealing from some unlucky or (stingy) competitor while the Patron finds new found wealth in their future

One kingdom could always create a legal thieves guild that exclusively robs from neighboring kingdoms and suppresses crime in their own kingdom. In a fantasy situation it could even be a non-human guild. Kobolds, goblins, abnormally intelligent rats, and all manner of monsters could subsist on the scraps of another civilization. Creatures that don't possess recognizable language could really have an edge here.

In my games, I usually have thieves' guilds rely on the classical definition. Namely, a sneak. If you need someone to perform an action undetected, you might go to the thieves guild. If that action happens to be illegal, well you're actually hiring the thief to clean your windows for 150 gp, whatever she does on the way to/from the job is not the guild's problem, nor is it yours. Other adventurers might subcontract a sneak to aid in their own jobs as well, due to some healthy noncompete agreements between these legit legal bodies

One that instantly comes to mind to me is Dimir, the spy/assasin guild that is so mysterious it does not exist. It also is one of the 10 guilds, always referred to as the 10 guilds. In addition, on any emblem depicting the balance of the guilds, their logo, somewhat between an eye and a spider, shows up.

I would consider a Thieves Guild to be a centralized point to buy or sell stolen merchandise. Making it a form of Merchant Guild, where you get paid based on the item's worth and risk of carrying it. And for financial backing, it can act as a safety net to return the belongings of its patrons, also making it a kind of Protection Guild. And so, it would act as a countermeasure to ensure that national treasures and divine artifacts don't fall into the wrong hands. :3 But on the topic of cat burglars, how would beast races fit into or be treated in such a realistic fantasy setting, and what kind of divisions could be caused because of it?

A video about "summons" and summoners/summoning and how they would affect a fantasy world would be interesting! My first video of yours was your necromancy one, i believe, you may retread some ground there but im still very interested in what youd have to say

20:25 I disagree that monsters keeping the guards busy would be the means for which a thieves guild could arise... I think it would make it harder. As you said, the modern idea of a police force was invented fairly recently. But in a town where people are actively needing to guard against monsters means a lot more able-bodied people going around and being on the lookout, likely with weapons. And depending on the nature of the monsters, possibly patrolling throughout the town just-in-case. And if fighting monsters is relatively dangerous / common, there need to be backups / multiple shifts / etc. You don't want your town falling to monsters just because one guard was out sick and upset the delicate balance between monsters and guards. With that many people, you naturally get a psuedo police force if only just from the guards that are walking back to their homes from the ends of their shifts, hanging out in the tavern, etc.

I love ALL the grungeon master videos

I use my Thieves guild as the the cities local intelligence/spy network, finding themselves with theft and contracts and made official because they have so much dirt on all the other organizations

Honestly, odds are the Thieves' Guild isn't a Thieves' Guild, but an Intelligence Agency like the CIA. That answers a lot of questions. 1) What's keeping the authorities from coming after them? Because they secretly work for the authorities. 2) What are the thieves stealing to make this profession and membership worth it? Anything that the authorities might find valuable. 3) What's keeping people loyal to this group? Loyalty to the state. 4) Why would there be a need for high quality thieves? To get into highly secured areas that contain highly valuable things the state wants to get their hands on. 5) Why do people join this group? Loyalty to the state and wanting to serve the state. 6) Why did they form into a group? To allow the state to do covert things.

I leaned deeply into a Discworld type city in my world. On arrival people are offered In-sewer-ants at Copper (1c/p) Silver(1s/p) or Gold (100g/p) level. As displayed on their Passcloak (bought at the gift store in various colors) And let’s just say they will have to interact with the Thieves guild as well as the PoPo and Nee-naw guilds if they don’t pay the dues.

I love ALL of The Grungeon Master videos!

Haven’t finished the video but I got the idea of an area in a large city that surrounds a temple to Mask (the god of spies and thieves). In the area stealing is still illegal but it is highly encouraged and is punished differently than the rest of the city. The punishment for stealing is having all your items taken and given to the temple or person that accused you. The only things that are forbidden to steal are what is necessary for life (food, homes, etc). Meaning thievery in this place isn’t done out of necessity or greed, it’s done in piety and honing of the craft. Also, monthly, the temple could take all the items donated to it and give them to the surrounding citizens, starting the cycle over again.

You had some urban legends from medieval times, and some thiefs on trial told that they were members of thiefs guild but when guards checked they found nothing.

In my setting, thieves, smugglers, spies, assassins, and the like are all part of the same massive organisation. There are separate regional guilds around the world, but they all operate under the auspices of a single "shadow king" who is a seemingly omnipresent, godlike, faceless entity. They have a code of conduct and rules of operations so as not to draw undue attention from the various kingdoms and empires they operate within. One of the highest members of the organisation, a former legendary spy and assassin (and retired PC), is now basically an overworked beurocrat constantly burried in paperwork. She is always mildly irritated from stress when the party comes to her for help or advice even though they are working on contract from her most of the time.

21:20 I swear I thought you were going to say kobold, until I realised DOESNT let ego get in the way

my fave thieves guild in media, have always been the Mockers from Midkemia series. an underground (literally) crime organization, that has members in key positions of influence in the city they operate. rulers and other important figures with the right connections have been able hire them for various purposes like espionage , and iirc they once stopped an assassination attempt on a beloved princess. operations like these kept them from being looked at by overzealous law types, that and they keep their members from going overboard, and other freelance criminals out. Another neat aspect, is their leaders identities have always been hidden from everyone(reader included typically) besides a few very trustworthy lieutenants, only being known by cool titles like The Upright man or The Sagacious Man

Acknowledges organized crime is a thing, describes organized crime, declares organized crime doesn't exist

When taken out of the urban context, it kind of makes more sense. You go from bandits at one end to pillaging armies like those of Alexander on the other.

A couple other comments have mentioned this but could you consider adjusting the volume mixing a bit louder or standing a bit closer to the microphone so you're more audible. I like to have longform tabletop videos like this on in the background when I do stuff but I can hardly hear your voice at all unless I turn my speakers up. Much less if I have as little as a fan running.

I mean, there was a Republic of Pirates for about 12 years in the early 1700s. It was arguably the first non-indigenous, non-monarchic government in the new world.

within the setting of the project i'm working on, there are a few thieves guilds however they do a lot more then just theft, this includes smuggling and selling of contraband

History Squad has an excellent video on executions, that tells the story of Wilde and Shepard pretty well. Also, a Thieves' Guild would be just a gang unless they have the support of local leadership. I sometimes have a corrupt official or lord using the Guild to keep crime relatively low, while sending him a cut.

Calling it a "thieves" guild os usually a misnomer to downplay the broad scope of performance of which the guilds usually encompass. In most interperetations that i see, the guild is typically the central intermediary for most organized crimes from infiltration or espionage to murder or kidnapping. The "thieves" part is typically because it is the "softest" of their services and thus safer to market for business. Many stories i've seen have them operate in a similar style as to how the "Adventurers" guilds operate. You'd have someone come in for a commission(likely at much higher expense than the adventurers guild) at which point the guild members would be able to organize into their own groups independently to take on each request. Dues would just be a cut of each completed request.

I have put thought into it for a setting. My current ideas I think is the guild as a face of another group that would benefit from believing there is a guild of thieves. There could be even thieves taking part, but most don't understand that they are even scapegoats. So my current idea is a cover for changelings. As a culture they already need some level of acting as a network across the societies they act in. The non-Changeling members can act as shields, while the Changeling members have easily appliable skills. The guild even has counterfeiting as an otherwise standard practice. Also controlling cases where people might happen to break into places that might reveal their identities. Biggest threat then being Doppelgangers who as non-humanoids have different motives, stronger shapeshifting, and mind reading that could infiltrate even them.

My satyr bard wear a very similar coat to the one in the thumbnail. Down to being shirtless underneath and working with the thieves guild... i felt very called out by this

There is also no requirement that the thieves guild be based in the same location that they operate in. The only difference between privateers and pirates is which side of the border you're on. Like, medieval kingdoms didn't have uniform power structures you're in. Maybe a barony taxes and safeguards a "thieves guild" so long as they don't operate within the territory

Great video. "Thieves' guilds have never existed in any historical context in our world." immediately makes me want to say "That we know of."

I think house Dimir in mtg is a great example of a thieves guild. They mainly steal info but were also believed to not exist for many years in the lore of ravnica even though there founder was a part of the signing of the original guild pact and were only revealed because of his schemes to take over the city. I could be wrong about this though it's been a while since i read the original ravnica set's lore

When you tell people you put a down payment on a GMC, and they think you're talking about a car.

why would the guild need to be hierarchical? It could work more like pirate democracy where the captain (or guild master) presents as a ruthless dictator externally, but actually has no authority and everything is decided with direct democracy. It could also have started as a form of mutual aid and self-defence for people (especially orphans) in the slums, whose only option is theft, to protect themselves. The thieves guild could also have a role in authenticating goods on the black market. Alternatively, they could an indigenous peoples trying to recover cultural artefacts taken from them during colonisation by any means necessary. This could work for a quest based thieves guild run more like an adventurers guild. The guild's aims may even expand to include returning the artefacts of all colonised peoples. For a third possibility, the thieves guild could be a cover for a revolutionary movement. the revolutionaries may take advantage of conspiratorial thinking to pose as a thieves guild which is already assumed to exist. after all, a bunch of thieves may be annoying, but they're not trying to overthrow the state. The strategy may work even better if the thieves guild presumed to have always existed.

Isn't a "thieve's guild" basically just an organised crime syndicate or a mafia?

I like the way one of the members of Critical Role put it once. I think it was Talisan, who said "an organization like this is allowed to exist because it helps to maintain a city and serve as a backup in case the government falls"

My Thieves guild involves a fantasy setting where guilds are organizations that unlock greater magic in people for a price. For most guilds it involves signing a contract to obey certain strict rules for the rest of your life and depending on the guild; taking on certain duties (the yellow guild regulates the collection of magical creatures and plants sort of like magic forest rangers). The purple i.e thieves guild places no requirements on the members to meet any pre-existing requirements before joining. Contrast with the white/healers guild which requires a spotless civil record and high academic achievement. The Purple guild does not require its members to sign any sort of binding rules of conduct contract and places no restrictions on what magic members have awoken in them. Instead Purple guild members have to take out a huge loan from the purple guild and must meet their yearly payments or be thrown in the purple guild mines. If purple guild members get caught stealing they’re also thrown in the mines. The system rewards those who bring in money and punishes those who can’t. Funnily enough the people who join purple guild thinking they can steal all the money they need to pay their loan, usually get caught and it’s generally those who take up a skilled trade who end up paying off their loans. The government and powerful houses of nobility have to s of money. And basically use the purple guild as a way to create spies and assassins with ‘illegal’ magic skills.

I am looking forward to hearing what you got to say, but a minute and a half in and I'm thinking the mafia is essentially a guild...and gangs work under/for them. Also don't expect to be going into their territory and doing whatever you want without repercussions.

I think the Mafia shows one important tool for loyalty: family ties. An underclass of outsiders has incentive to form their own power structures.

Basically for a Thieves Guild to be a Thieves Guild it would need to act somewhat like a Public Defence Attorney. I could work with that in world building.

There is something rather close to a thieves guild that might exist: a central fixer or group of fixers that build contacts with many thieves of various types, then make thieves take apprentices to teach them the trade in exchange for watching their back (honor among thieves, or you disappear).

It's not actually the case that they've "never existed", the most famous example is probably the "Court of Miracles" in Paris, I think too many people take the "guild" part far too literally. I think there's significant nuance, especially within the messy realm of organised crime. In Warhammer Fantasy, there are the usual gangs and organised crime (mafias/syndicates etc) organisations, but there's also the Cult of Ranald which is far more akin to your usual fantasy thieves' guild...

Thieves guilds have existed practically continuously throughout human history, they just mainly assassinated people. But if you wanted something stolen, they had the skills to do that, I'm sure you could find some historical examples of that happening. Also gangs, those are also essentially thieves guilds, as long as they provide training.