Thick as Thieves [Guilds in D&D]

Thieves' Guilds in Tabletop RPGs are a wealth of story ideas. They can start small. Steal this thing, go protect this shop from that other guild, or uncover who killed Bob the Baker. And then, they can go big. They are wererats or the guilds are working for an evil cult that's spreading through the underground. Why not both? Wererats working for an evil cult of a beast god. Go another step up and you get to large plots that involve the tumbling of a whole city government and a rise of a demonic army; that beast god is actually a Demon lord usurping the religions of the city.
There are lots of different underworld organizations to draw inspiration from. My personal favorites are the Yakuza and the Mafia. They're featured in fiction so often that when I riff on them, and my organizations behave in a similar manner it feels "real" to the players.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza
If you need inspiration for an initiation ritual for your guild, they got you there as well: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiat...)
00:00 Intro
02:15 Toughs, Gangs, Mafia
03:37 Street Toughs
05:38 Gangs
09:08 Mafia
14:47 Where's the Fantasy

[@CaptCook999]

In all the time that I played D&D, not a single DM wanted to deal with the thieves guild. They didn't mind if I just said "Hey, I'm going to try to contact the thieves guild in this town". What they didn't want was to run a session with that as the focus. So I usually ended up just talking with them about what I wanted to do after the session.

[@DMwaDJ]

I've done that and I've done 1on1 sessions with Rogues so they could do the metal gear solid stuff when the rest of the table was more kick-in-the-door style of play. I gave my thieves guilds more weight because a player asked for it as part of their backstory & campaign arc. Not sure it's for every table, but maybe some table. Hopefully it gives some DM somewhere a place to start. =)

[@CaptCook999]

@@DMwaDJ I loved playing thieves. It was my favorite class to play. And it really frustrated me that none of my DM's were willing to help me with regards to the thieves guild. About the only real interaction was when I would try to find rumors and information about something we were involved with.