THIEVES' GUILD BOX SET: IT'S MORE FUN TO PLAY THE BAD GUYS!

Gamelords was a small RPG publisher of the '80s mostly noted for its Traveller line of approved sourcebooks and the Thieves' Guild line, a series of rules and scenarios to let players play the role of thieves, assassins, pickpocketers and never do wells in a fantasy (meaning A/D&D) setting. Gamelords was active from 1980 to 1984, at least according to Designers & Dragons, when the publisher suspended its activities waiting for a better time. Better times never came so Gamelords folded and all its stock was bought by Tadashi Ehara's Different Worlds Publications in 1986 and sold at very reasonable prices (legend has DWP got almost 380 boxes of products - a lot of ovestock for a small publisher!). 

The Thieves' Guild boxed set was an attempt to make Gamelords' products more professional and attractive to both gamers and retailers, considering that 1983 and 1984 were the years of the Big Shakedown when a lot of companies, unable to thrive or simply survive in a more competitive marketplace, closed their doors. More, Thieves' Guild box set was the first release of the new The Fantasy System RPG to be completed with Naked Sword and Paths of Sorcery box sets (never actually released). The project was to have a single rulebook, Basic Character Creation, in all the boxed sets along a specific rulebook for Thieves, Fighters and Wizards (no Clerics). The idea seems quite similar to Chaosium's Basic Role Playing (albeit the company did not use a single rulebook) and predates some years the GURPS approach which was the very same. Of course the Basic Character Creation booklet was also available separately: it's a 32 pages long, black and white book with good artwork, somewhat rough graphics (it does not seem having been typeset). In it we find rules for races (besides the usual suspects we have Centaurs, Pixies, Kobolds, two different types of Orcs, Goblins, Avanthari - bird men - and Krindoreans - the 'spawn' of Humans and Hill Giants), character creation (there are ten different characteristics), skills, training, 'inborn' powers (a character may be a werecreature!) and an equipment list. The system is quite detailed, but not cumbersome. Amazingly, there is no character sheet printed in the rulebook but it was printed in a separate sheet. 

The Thieves' Guild rulebook is the second volume in the box set: it's a 40 pages, black and white book still not typeset which has the same features of Basic Character Creation. Of course it's focused on Thieves and it contains specific skills for Thieves and Rogues, movement, combat (here in summarized form - the book refers to Naked Sword for complete combat rules) including specific rules for Rogues (including backstabbing and poisoning), a brief section about Thief Wizards (really too short to be useful), rules about other worthy actvities such as fencing stolen goods, getting ransoms for prisoners, trials if Thieves get caught (with a wonderful "Lawyer Effectiveness Ratings" table!), experience and the nature of a Thieves Guild (too short, just three pages, but very interesting and well written). Here too the rules are very detailed - for example, Thieves' Guild has tables about the quality of locks to be picked and another one about Tailing - but very useful for a Thieves campaign. Alas, despite what is written on the cover, there are no scenarios in the book but...

...there is a separate 32 pages booklet that completes nicely the five chapters of the Thieves' Guild book. What is the reason for not printing it in the Thieves' Guild book proper we can not understand. The first part, called "Chapter 6: Bandit Scenarios and Highwaymen Adventures" let gamers practice the Thievish and Roguish skills they have just learned on the open road with a nice series of vict... encounters (some of them quite dangerous, but profitable!); "Chapter 7 - Cat Burglary Scenarios and Second Story Adventures",) sends PCs to burglarize a famous jewelry shop in Haven (the 'home city' of Gamelords and featured in The Free City of Haven), Hellgor's; Chapter 8, "Armed Robbery Scenarios and Pursuit Adventures", is all about... armed robberies - this time, assaulting the couriers of a noted jewels merchant (not the same one burglarized in Chaper 7, let him breathe to be robbed again in the future!).

Still separated there is a four page folio with maps to be used with the heists detailed in the scenarios booklet. Again, we can not understand why this was printed separately from that book. Anyway, the maps are well done. The Thieves' Guild is completed by a character sheet, alas missing from our copy so we can't say anything about it.