Social Background

After you have chosen a setting for your character, you should decide his social background. At the start this need only be done in a general way: select a poor (or unknown), middle, wealthy or noble class background. This background will have important effects on what resources are available to the character. Also be sure to consider how it relates to the thief's motivation (below).

Poor/unknown: Most thieves are from a poor background. Most people would just as well make an honest living, if they can. For some in the lower classes, however, there is simply no such opportunity, and so crime becomes a means of survival. The vast majority of such criminals spend their lives as petty thieves, picking pockets, mugging people foolish enough to walk the streets at night alone, perhaps even planning and executing a burglary. These poverty-born thieves form the backbone of most thieves' guilds. The guild regulates their activities as well as it can, and uses it as a pool, from which are drawn the most talented and promising. Because skill and cunning are the ultimate determining factors, many a famous thief—whether in esteem or power among guild comrades, or outside of the underworld—rose from the most humble beginnings.

An "unknown" background usually fits in with the poorer classes. This means the character was an orphan, and does not know his ancestry; his parents may have been criminals, middle-class artisans, or even wealthy merchants or nobles. Dickens' Oliver Twist is a classic example of a thief of unknown ancestry. For all practical purposes, the character is one of the poor people, like everyone with whom he grew up. However, a hook in the campaign may be the search for, or accidental discovery of, a character's ancestry.

Player characters from a poor background may, at the DM's option, have a smaller amount of starting money than they would otherwise (perhaps 2d4 x 10 gp). If a player character is part of a guild, however, he has probably been accepted as someone who shows promise, and the guild may provide standard equipment and money for its apprentice—the equivalent of the usual 2d6 x 10 gp.

Middle: A few thieves may hail from the middle classes, perhaps from families of artisans and petty merchants. Such characters are less likely to be stealing for survival, though desperate financial straits may bring people to seek illegal solutions, which could tie into a whole net of crime.

Imagine, for instance, a locksmith who needs money to support his ailing mother. The landlord threatens eviction, and so forth; in desperation, the locksmith turns to the thieves' guild for a quick, easy, high-interest loan. As the family gets more and more entangled by their debts, the guild decides to accept as partial payment the locksmith's daughter (and apprentice), to become an apprentice thief.

But greed is a more typical motivation. Many swindlers come from the middle class; they decided that there are better profits to be made through dishonesty than hard work.

Thieves of middle-class origin usually have standard initial funds.

Wealthy/Noble: Still fewer thieves are from affluent families. This is partly because people with ample funds have little motivation to pick pockets; but even more, it is because thievery is very much socially unacceptable at this level. There are exceptions, of course. Wealthy privateers, raiding the trade lanes of rival nations for glory and plunder, may enjoy a high and respected profile for a time. And wealthy families of crime lords are a different matter entirely.

In any case, a thief from a wealthy family is expected to distinguish himself in some way or other—flamboyance, daring, audacity, charm—even if he hides his identity during his roguish endeavors. Otherwise, what is the point of risking life and reputation?

This question might be asked of any character, of course. And so we turn to the topic of motivations.

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