Thievery Ability Page Creation

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

I've acquired @Agnaa 's permission to create this thread.

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Recently, I’ve noticed that there’s a distinct lack of an ability that focuses purely on stealing. While we have pages like Stealth Mastery, there isn’t a dedicated page for the act of theft itself.

It's an undeniable fact that the act of stealing is a widely recognized skill across a multitude of media. Characters from DC, Marvel, One Piece, Lupin III, Pokémon, and many other franchises have portrayed it in iconic ways. Swapping with a fake? Stealing. Pickpocketing? Also stealing. Heists? Organized stealing with steps. I'm sure the trend here is obvious. There are also plenty of well-known users of this ability in fiction as well, if that wasn’t already ingrained in everyone's collective unconscious.

Given this, I believe it’s fairly reasonable to say that Thievery deserves its own Powers & Abilities page to properly define and index it on this site. Therefore, I propose that it emphasizes stealing, disarming traps, and picking locks, rather than overlapping with Stealth Mastery. That's also to say that this ability would cover both mundane and unconventional methods of thievery, such as via Magic or similar.

Here is a link to a drafted ability page here.

I’d love to hear feedback on this from staff. Feedback and tweaks are to be expected as always.

Agree:

Disagree: Agnaa

Neutral: Antvasima

 

[Agnaa]

I indeed gave permission for her to create this thread.

However, I disagree with the addition of this ability. While thievery is a recognised skill I don't think it involves distinct abilities of combat-relevance that justify such a separation. The combat-relevance of thievery is entirely in other abilities which happen to be used for thievery (i.e. having Stealth Mastery, being able to teleport items, having Dimensional Storage).

I do not think we need, or should have, pages for every single skill in fiction. And since this one doesn't seem to have anything distinguishing it from the pack of skills like cooking, dancing, proficiency at sports and the like, I think we should not create a page for it.

 

[Antvasima]

Agnaa makes sense to me here.

 

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

snip

To be fair, the general idea behind making this page was for the sake of accurate indexing. I don't fundamentally see whether or not an ability is combat-applicable as a relevant factor to take into account; even less as equivalent to a general pack of skills like cooking or dancing, of all things.

There's confusion when you have a character with feats of stealing or pick-pocketing - be it through manual skill or power- and it being indexed as Stealth Mastery or Telekinesis (if the user is, say, a magic user with no TK feats). The problem with Stealth Mastery is that the page focuses heavily on the art of remaining unseen - I also do not view Stealth Mastery and Thievery as mutually exclusive in principle.

I think the distinction is necessary, if not crucial to prevent inaccurate P&A designations.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I am back to being neutral in that case.

 

[Agnaa]

To be fair, the general idea behind making this page was for the sake of accurate indexing. I don't fundamentally see whether or not an ability is combat-applicable as a relevant factor to take into account; even less as equivalent to a general pack of skills like cooking or dancing, of all things.

I don't think we're interested in indexing literally everything that one could care to index in fiction. Many things are merely relegated to categories (like thieves already is). I think we should constrain the scope of what we seek to index, for now.

There's confusion when you have a character with feats of stealing or pick-pocketing - be it through manual skill or power- and it being indexed as Stealth Mastery or Telekinesis (if the user is, say, a magic user with no TK feats). The problem with Stealth Mastery is that the page focuses heavily on the art of remaining unseen - I also do not view Stealth Mastery and Thievery as mutually exclusive in principle.

I think the distinction is necessary, if not crucial to prevent inaccurate P&A designations.

I don't know what sorts of cases such a confusion could arise in.

If a character steals an object and they need to be stealthy to do so, that's Stealth Mastery.

If a character steals an object and they don't need to be stealthy to do so, that's just grabbing something.

If there's something, other than the need to be stealthy, preventing them from stealing an object, then they may or may not get an ability depending on what that hurdle is. Guessing that a keypad's combination is "1234" isn't an ability, it's just the safe-owner being a fool. Teleporting an object out of a target's hands is, well, Teleportation. If they manage to do it through sheer speed, that could be calculated and given as a reaction speed rating. Etc. etc.

 

[Flashlight237]

Thievery is an application of stealth mastery, so it would best be included in stealth mastery's page. That's my take.

 

[Antvasima]

Thievery is an application of stealth mastery, so it would best be included in stealth mastery's page. That's my take.

That seems like a good idea. I support making an addition to our stealth mastery page.

 

[Flashlight237]

That seems like a good idea. I support making an addition to our stealth mastery page.

Well crap. I just saw that it's the next-to-last thing listed on the "Possible Uses" section. My bad..!

 

[Antvasima]

No problem, and if Stealth Mastery already has this ability listed, this discussion thread seems redundant.

 

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

I don't think we're interested in indexing literally everything that one could care to index in fiction. Many things are merely relegated to categories (like thieves already is). I think we should constrain the scope of what we seek to index, for now.

I understand the concern about scope, but the goal here isn't to index everything, but to ensure we have clear distinctions where they matter. Just because something might fall into a category doesn’t mean it should be grouped too broadly. Thievery is a very distinct set of skills, and not everything about it fits neatly under categories like Stealth Mastery or those other use-cases you mentioned.

I don't know what sorts of cases such a confusion could arise in.

If a character steals an object and they need to be stealthy to do so, that's Stealth Mastery.

If a character steals an object and they don't need to be stealthy to do so, that's just grabbing something.

If there's something, other than the need to be stealthy, preventing them from stealing an object, then they may or may not get an ability depending on what that hurdle is. Guessing that a keypad's combination is "1234" isn't an ability, it's just the safe-owner being a fool. Teleporting an object out of a target's hands is, well, Teleportation. If they manage to do it through sheer speed, that could be calculated and given as a reaction speed rating. Etc. etc.

I feel that these are oversimplifications that deviate from my main points here.

Thievery involves a variety of skills and abilities - such as speed, sleight of hand - that don’t neatly fall under the categories of Stealth Mastery or Teleportation. Dumping everything into Stealth Mastery or Teleportation isn’t the greatest solution, especially when those categories already have well-established definitions that don't inherently encompass stealing something on their own. Making those abilities broader than they already are by adding "someone can steal with this ability" across different P&A pages would be counter-intuitive, when just having a P&A for Thievery solves this.

The goal, in this case, is to allow for characters who do not have Stealth Mastery to possess an ability that is simply "Thievery," distinct from Stealth. I also believe that the precedent of a character having feats of stealing, but not possessing Stealth Mastery, as undeserving of an ability that sets a terrible precedent. This would imply that "if a character is shown to be really good at stealing (feat 1, 2, 3, 4), and doesn't have Stealth Mastery. That's just grabbing something." And your suggested inverse would be: "This character is really good at stealing and is stealthy when doing it. This is clearly just Stealth Mastery."

Thievery is an application of stealth mastery, so it would best be included in stealth mastery's page. That's my take.

I'm understandably apprehensive about this, but it doesn't appear like I have much say.

I'm neutral and want to see what others have to say first.

 

[Agnaa]

I feel that these are oversimplifications that deviate from my main points here.

Thievery involves a variety of skills and abilities - such as speed, sleight of hand - that don’t neatly fall under the categories of Stealth Mastery or Teleportation. Dumping everything into Stealth Mastery or Teleportation isn’t the greatest solution, especially when those categories already have well-established definitions that don't inherently encompass stealing something on their own. Making those abilities broader than they already are by adding "someone can steal with this ability" across different P&A pages would be counter-intuitive, when just having a P&A for Thievery solves this.

The goal, in this case, is to allow for characters who do not have Stealth Mastery to possess an ability that is simply "Thievery," distinct from Stealth. I also believe that the precedent of a character having feats of stealing, but not possessing Stealth Mastery, as undeserving of an ability that sets a terrible precedent. This would imply that "if a character is shown to be really good at stealing (feat 1, 2, 3, 4), and doesn't have Stealth Mastery. That's just grabbing something." And your suggested inverse would be: "This character is really good at stealing and is stealthy when doing it. This is clearly just Stealth Mastery."

I think the best angle is the sleight of hand one, since that truly isn't encompassed by other pages.

I'd be fine with making a page like "Deceptive Movements" which includes both feints and sleight of hand. Ways of deceiving people's senses that aren't literal illusions.

 

[Flashlight237]

I think the best angle is the sleight of hand one, since that truly isn't encompassed by other pages.

I'd be fine with making a page like "Deceptive Movements" which includes both feints and sleight of hand. Ways of deceiving people's senses that aren't literal illusions.

Yeah, I think I can back up the idea of feinting having a page.

 

[Antvasima]

I am neutral to a page for deceptive movements. It may be too minor or redundant.