The Small-Time Crook

The small-time crook is a person who relies on illegal activities to make a living, but doesn’t have the abilities, resources, or imagination to pull off a big score. Some small-time crooks specialize in a particular brand of illicit activity—for example, drug dealing or stealing cars—but most will take any opportunity to make a quick…

Read More

Money & Stuff

In D&D, all characters start the game with a randomly determined number of gold pieces with which to buy equipment. Once the campaign gets started, they keep track of every piece of treasure or equipment they find, buy, sell, or give away, which can lead to very complex accounting and resource tracking once characters reach…

Read More

The Hacker

Although the term has gone through several changes in meaning over the years, today most people use the term “hacker” to describe a person who breaks into computer systems for fun and profit. While some hackers practice their electronic breaking and entering for legitimate profit (for example, working as computer security consultants) or as a…

Read More

The Fixer

Editor’s Note: Starting with this week’s exciting episode, new Archetypes of the Week will go up on Thursday instead of Wednesday. The fixer is a person who solves problems, often using methods that are not entirely legal. While most fixers deal in material goods (especially illegal or hard to get ones) to some extent, the…

Read More

The Zombie

Zombies are the reanimated (often decomposing) corpses of deceased humans. Although many zombies retain the ability to speak, they otherwise exhibit few signs of higher intelligence. The zombie’s only motivation in unlife is to satisfy its desire to feed on human flesh (brains in particular), though zombies do exhibit rudimentary self-preservation instincts and can use…

Read More

The Magician

The magician is, as the name suggests, a character skilled in the use of magic. The type of magic the character is able to use and the specific tradition that he or she follows depends on the genre and setting. The flash-bang style of magic found in most role-playing games, for example, has no precedent…

Read More