The Esoteric Thief

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:19 pm

Regular thieves steal shit. Anything that isn't nailed down, and a few things that might be. Gold, jewels, documents, lives, your child's virginity, your wife's heart, your ancestor's bones, whatever. If it can be physically taken, the thief can take it. That is their purpose in life, that is what their skills are bent to.

It's a very adaptable concept. The idea of hackers as "electronic thieves" is a simple and intuitive leap, and has had a literary and real-world tradition stretch back to when "computers" were human beings whose job in life was to add shit - wire tapping and wire fraud are the oldest anti-hacking laws on the book (unless you want to get something really old school, like forgery).

But many roleplaying games are set in a fantasy world, and in fantasy thieves does not face the same limitations - instead of gold and jewels, fantasy thieves can steal intangibles. Life, souls, dreams, ideas, magic, whatever you have. D&D played with this concept a little, with spellthieves (and psi-thieves), the Thief of Life prestige class, the Ur-Priest (in fluff only, mechanically they were just really bitchy clerics), etc. Earthdawn had Thief as one of their Disciplines, and those at the highest circle were rumored to steal life from Death itself. Elric was mistaken for (and teamed up with, and banged) a dreamthief in The Fortress of the Pearl. So the idea has been recognized, and has some literary cachet.

But what do y'all think of esoteric thieves - are they something you would like to see in a game, or at all emphasized? Do you think they should be distinct from "normal" thieves, or a specialization of them? Is there a particular incarnation of the esoteric thief you did or did not like?

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:24 pm

Sounds like a good idea for high-level or epic thieves.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:27 pm

Disgaea's Thieves can steal things like your "soul", your "heart", or even your "first kiss".

Game mechanically it worked out to moving attribute points around. Stealing a lot of kisses made your stats grow faster as you leveled, allowing for a ludicrous amount of busywork and level grinding to get even more ridiculous stats. Kind of like everything else in that game.

-Username17

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:34 pm

Check out Graceful Wicked Masks. It's the Exalted book for playing fair folk, and they spend a lot of time trying to steal parts of eachother.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:36 pm

Meh.

I was particularly unimpressed by that Elric book, for instance.

Hieronymous Rex · Post by **Hieronymous Rex** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 3:38 pm

Time

Also, Carmen Sandiego is an Esoteric Thief. Seriously, stealing the glint from the Hope Diamond?

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 3:47 pm

Dopplegangers. Identity theft taken to an extreme.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:39 pm

Steal the sun, steal the secrets of the gods, steal divine/arcane/Steve power, steal your heart, your mind, your soul, your ideas, your will to live.

Being able to project objects by "stealing" the original design blueprint of said object from the world would be a really cool esoteric thief idea.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:45 pm

The concept is a lot older than you think and has a rich mythological pedigree.

Prometheus stole fire from the gods.
Adam and Eve stole knowledge of good and evil.

From those two myths alone it becomes pretty easy to write a cosmology where the role of mankind is to be hackers of the natural order, uncovering exploits in natural law in order to oppose and eventually topple unjust and duplicitous divinities.

K · Post by K » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:58 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:
From those two myths alone it becomes pretty easy to write a cosmology where the role of mankind is to be hackers of the natural order, uncovering exploits in natural law in order to oppose and eventually topple unjust and duplicitous divinities.

Wasn't that the backstory to one of the Planescape Factions?

Anyway, I wrote the Thief of Souls in the Tome of Necromancy well before WotC wrote the Thief of Life, so I think my position on esoteric thieves is clear.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 4:46 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote: Adam and Eve stole knowledge of good and evil.

Weren't they convinced to do so by a yuan-ti diplomancer?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:01 pm

One of the funniest parts about the Adam and Eve story is not obvious at the first reading. "So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her ..." So wait a minute; this serpent was dissing God and insulting Adam's woman while he stood stupid and silent? And for what? To find out OMG WE'RE NAKED!

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:16 pm

I've always dug the idea of stealing weird things (and I truly laughed out loud when I found out that in Disgaea, you can steal a tank's pilot).

Hell, one reason I picked Bleach back up was there's a villain who writes himself into your past in whatever way he wishes. He really does steal your past and your memories (and got major Effective Villain points for hitting all of Ichigo's friends and family with it before Ichigo even knew he was there).

So, yeah. Bring on the thieves of memory, of light, of pasts and futures and knowledge. Bring on the thieves of magic and vision. Hell, let's have Thief from 8-bit, who stole his class upgrade from himself.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 9:12 pm

tzor wrote:One of the funniest parts about the Adam and Eve story is not obvious at the first reading. "So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her ..." So wait a minute; this serpent was dissing God and insulting Adam's woman while he stood stupid and silent? And for what? To find out OMG WE'RE NAKED!

I remember it as Eve bringing the apple to Adam. What I find hilarious about it is that it's an analogy for discovering sex.