I've had this idea floating around for a while; a solo game where the PC is a thief in an urban fantasy setting similar to that of the Thief 2012 reboot and Dishonored game series. A game about the acquisition of wealth through means other than typical adventuring - thievery, of course, but also other criminal enterprises.

I'm not entirely married to the Pathfinder system, but I'm not fond of Blades in the Dark, which seems to be the most common answer for these kinds of games, and Dusk City Outlaws is much too light (and team focused!) for my tastes this time round.

How do you feel about D&D 5e for the system?

Sounds interesting. I'd see the thieves being a sort of cross between Robin Hood, the Saint, and the Gray Mouser. Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor, and your thief could easily be one of the poor... at least to start with. The Saint steals from the ungodly and from people who have too much wealth and 'don't deserve it'. Not sure about the Gray Mouser, as it's been way too long since I read anything of him, but I don't recall him being a cutthroat-type of thief. With maybe a bit of It Takes a Thief tv show--"Al, we're not asking you to spy! We're asking you to steal!"

Perhaps using something along the lines of GUMSHOE might work. The premise of that game isn't about finding clues, but of interpreting them. The thieves could do the same thing.

I think the trick would be to decide whether the thieves are freelance or part of a guild. If freelance, then they'd have to worry about the guilds as well as the Authorities.

The other problem would be WHERE to set it. If you pick something from an existing campaign, such as Golarion or Realms or Greyhawk, some won't be familiar with it, and no doubt the GM would tweak it differently anyway.

I've generally avoided 5e. It's just not for me.

As for GUMSHOE, I generally like the concept of the system, but it abstracts wealth, and that would put a serious damper on a game about acquiring it.

As to the concept of the thief, I'm not particularly worried about playing the "good guy", so out of those archetypes, I'd be closest to the Grey Mouser. I'm thinking more of a "rob from the rich and give to the me" approach than a hero of the people, though as things progress, a mafia-style sense of public responsibility might be interesting.

In both settings I mentioned, there aren't monolithic thieves guilds, but rather an assortment of street gangs and other criminal enterprises. Dodging and dealing with such groups would be fun, with the possibility of rivalry and temporary alliance. Setting up a proper organized crime syndicate might be a good option for the shift to high-level play.

I'm fine setting the game in a homebrew city, assuming that it reflects the core concepts - a city with a pseudo-Victorian level of technology (or more, in the case of Dishonored), a high population, and a significant wealth disparity. Eberron's Sharn and Frog God Games' The Blight are the only published setting options I can think of that fit well, but I'm sure there are others, should a GM be so inclined.

Not familiar with Dishonored or The Blight, and it's been years since I looked at Sharn.

I've always had a hard time with playing 'the bad guys'. Part of it gets down to where you draw the line. Do you steal candy from babies? Do you rob blind beggars? Do you swindle the poor (and make them poorer)?

One of the concepts we'd come up with years and years ago was the Reaver 'class'. His idea of picking pockets was to simply knock you out and take what was in your pockets.

The Saint's attitude was that he was 'liberating' boodle from the ungodly (the bad guys that didn't deserve the boodle), and most of the time only kept a 10% 'finder's fee'.

As an avid fan of criminal-focused games such as the Mafia and Grand Theft Auto series (in addition to the aforementioned Thief series), I've never had much of a problem in that area.

That said, in this case I'm leaning more towards the ethics of the lead character from Thief, who only kills when necessary, preferring a blackjack to the noggin to a knife in the ribs. He's no saint, but he's a thief, not a serial killer. The Thief narrative doesn't have anything to say on stealing from the poor and unfortunate, but it's unlikely that such people would have anything valuable enough to steal in the first place.

Alignment-wise, I was thinking true neutral with a leaning towards chaos, due to the character's flagrant disregard for the law, but with enough of an orderly mind to possibly make the transition from burglar to mob boss later on in the game.

Still trying to come up with a city... I have a homegrown city called Uruk that fits the bill, but also looking into Tharabad. I'm sure I have more cities somewhere but have no idea where they've gone.

I'm also toying with characters starting out at 2nd level with at least one class having to be Rogue... or else gestalt with one half being Rogue.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing much interest here.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 7):

It's going to depend on what the game focus really is and what you're thinking of doing with it.  In the stories of Robin Hood, for example, not all the characters are thieves.  You could easily turn it into a group of dungeon divers, who clear dungeons for money (and keep the loot).  Another way to spin it (and this would take a lot of work) would be as either hired revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaires, though that would take a lot of work on the DM side.

@Starmaster: If you're referring to interest from other players, I am requesting a solo game, so it's unlikely many other players are going to chime in.

I would be heavily interested in something like this. Different group to keep things solo?

Urban setting is a must have. The bigger the city the better. Never having to leave yhe city would be amazing.

Im not at all intetested in 5e.

Im not trying to play an unlikely hero, or a morally misunderstood type of character. Nope. Im interested in the bad apple that steals things because its what they do. "I don't know the reason why I do what I do. My parents didn't abuse me. I didn't have problems with a priest. I don't care about why poor people are poor and rich people are rich. Im just a bad person. I steal things because I like stealing things. Thats all." I lean heavily on Neutral or Chaotic Evil.