1d6 Fun Crimes

 I love character creation in Graverobbers. It can take less than a minute, it’s thematically relevant and you can die. That being said what’s out right now is still the Bare Bones, and I’ve had all sorts of ideas rattling around for how to flesh them out, add more (optional) steps to chargen.

The issue is the same one that always occurs when adding rules, especially to minimalist stuff, which is whether the added steps of mechanical complexity justify their effects. I’m a harsh judge of this stuff, and none of my previous concepts panned out. I wanted something like MoSh’s d100 patches or trinkets, elegant and dense with flavour, but more specific. Also something tuned as much towards straight up gameability as character - like Bastionland’s failed careers (check last post for a great video on these)

Anyway, long story long, this week I cracked it. The way the Pocket Guide is shaping up so far there’ll be a little space, so right now the plan is to fill it with d66 Minor Offences. These are extra crimes to accuse your characters of during creation. Nothing as involved or career-criminal as the main Crimes, but still actual things from London’s irl history.

They’re mainly about selling, stealing, swindling or causing some kind of public nuisance. Each comes with one item, and I’m already having way too much fun rolling up little weirdos and seeing how these juxtapose with the other facets on the sheet. And just seeing them all in a list gives me the clearest image I’ve had of this city of criminals. Can’t wait to share.

While I tinker with these and get them to play testing, there are exactly 6 in the list that my word processor is putting that squiggly red line underneath that says they’re not real words. They are, just obsolete - so I thought I’d do a little dive on each one and its real history!

Cogger. Just an old word for a dice cheat, cog meaning “trick” but generally around games of dice. Nothing that fun around this one but it’s a nice word, and the item you get with it (pair of dice, 4d) makes it self-explanatory. As I’ve said before, any time i use a weird old word or esoteric reference it should be clear from context or eminently googleable

Maltooler. So as it turns out Victorian London had a lot of specific words for pickpockets and petty thieves, dependent on what one was stealing and how. An old version of this list had more of them but I whittled it down to the best ones. A Maltooler used specialist tools to pickpocket as opposed to doing it by hand, things like little knives to cut purses or even tiny mechanical grabber claws. my version starts with a magnet which is fun

Overmourner. The only one that’s not a word - overmourn is, and means what you think. But did you know it’s illegal in England to linger at a grave after a funeral? I could find records from as recently as 2015 of someone getting the rozzers called on them and incurring a fine for lingering too long at a loved one’s graveside. This fucking country man

Pudding-snammer. One of the highly specific thief terms. These were people who grabbed stuff off you as you were exiting, say, a bakery. I enjoy that these say as much or as little as you want about a character - remembering that these are alleged crimes. Maybe you bought that apple turnover fair and square, who’s to say.

Tregetour. Someone who does tricks and magic, often a juggler which is the usage I’m going for here. A lot of these petty crimes are victimless, just people going about their day or trying to earn a living, but the idea is that players get more of an insight into the anti-canon and what exactly the House considers worthy of legal retribution.

Whipjack. And finally… a couple on the list are terms for specific varieties of scam artist. A whipjack is someone who pretended to be a sailor, out of luck and stranded due to a shipwreck or some such. Like this one guy who for years used to push his motorbike up and down a street near me, stop cars and ask for petrol money. Wonder where he is now. Probably not far, he’s got no petrol.

The final list will have 30 more of these, and you’ll find it in the Pocket Guide to Smocklehythe or some supplementary material thereof. Get it now while it’s cheap!