Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Below is a reprint of the very rough and ready rules I posted in our Rules Cyclopedia D&D game. Placed here for posterity and possible expansion someday. Thieves Guild:  A loose guide to running a new thieves guild.  House rules for the Aleria game the basic functions of the guild: 1. Rumors: The guild will gather rumors about what's going on around Aleria, some true some false  2. Research: Rumors can be researched to get more information and to determine their viability  3. Intimidation: Strength in numbers, sometimes people will give you money just to leave them alone… this is extortion, it’s also business. The more intimidating the less likely another guild is to challenge our territory.  4 . Finding Jobs: Thieves find marks and targets all the time. Picking good jobs is the hard part, that’s why you need a guild master.   Executing Jobs. The Gm will assign jobs a difficulty (1 to 10).  The thieves doing a job will be taken into account. The difficulty is subtracted f

 There is a thing I do in my RPG campaigns. I give players arcs.  Sure, I also try to give each character a bit of spotlight each game. I like to keep everyone involved and occupied. I think I manage it game to game with varying degrees of success. But that's not exactly what I'm talking about. I like to try and give each character something going on in the larger world that either directly touches them or which they will want to be involved in. Further I will often pursue one player's arc from quite a while. If player interest drifts, I'll switch focus but generally I'll ride an arc until it concludes. Much of this is unspoken. It just kind of happens.  It helps I have a small, long time player group. If was running at a local brick and mortar shop with 8 people who changed all the time, I would have a hard time maintaining arcs that are specific to each character. The last set of adventures were very clearly the "Master's arc."  He was a druid, reest