Is there any reason why rogues are associated with nothin' personnel coming behind someone and agility...

>Also has an photographic memory for booty (I'm serious).
tdf, he's not the only one

>not stealing the most precious treasure of all, a life

Would you? That seems unnecessarily arbitrary unless all rogues are supposed to be dashing fops

>Conan used stealth and real life barbarians used ambush all the time they didn't go ''muh honorabru duels''.
Tribal warfare had rules and proper behaviors. Killing each other wasn't even really the goal half the time. Sometimes confrontation ended by just being bigger and louder than the other guy.
This is assuming they weren't trying to exterminate the enemy tribe for being red haired and thus inhuman or some shit.

You could call him a thug, a mugger, a brigand,
a crook, but I think the word rogue often has some implications of tact or guile.

it really doesn't

This is literally why D&D 3e devolved into "endless sub-classes bogaloo." You want a high chr rogue? Call him a brawler or something. Shit, I play a crossbow "shoot first, rob the corpse second" rogue all the time. You're only limited by your imagination OP.

Rogues and "good" roguish archetypes stem from Robin Hood and Inigo Montoya and the thief from Princess Bride, who weren't so much strongmen as they was cunning, quick, and charming. Muggers and the whathaveyou you're thinking of aren't rogues. Those are bandits, or at the very least, the muscle for a gang. Those aren't tied to "rogues," they could be fighters or barbarians. Even then, getting away with it and evading capture does require charisma, or at least the streetwisdom to not fuck yourself over, and the most common interpretation of high charisma is being a handsome, dashing, roguish individual.

Because rogue =/= criminal. Rogues are stealthy characters that rely on dexterity and smarts. You can (and should) attach any sort of character that fits those traits.

I've played at least a half-dozen rogues and only one of them was into crime at all. Most were spies, acrobats, guerrilla soldiers.. that sort of thing.

>Because rogue =/= criminal.
retarded

>Who created those stiff tropes?

People like you, who don't realize there's a difference between class and character. The local organized crime family shouldn't be all rogues, they should be rogues, fighters, barbarians, nobles, casters, etc. Conan didn't fit any particular class, and wasn't a berserker.

Classes are mechanics. You pick the mechanics that most closely fit what you want to play. You want to play a brute-force "rogue?" Fighter with criminal background.

D&D Rogues evolved from the Thief, someone who can go in and out without being detected.

Of course you would. Str based rogues are a thing.

Underrated

rogue is a shit name for the class but no one has a better one. the core of the class are thieves in the cat burglar mold and similar archetypes, such as assassins and spies. it should be called sneaker or something but that sounds dumb.

Knave.

Rogues are half-ninjas. Or at the very least Bilbo. Sneaky mottherfuckers that go undetected and shit. For brawls, there are thugs, but the real money is what they want.

Conan isn't a barbarian, really (probably a fighter/rogue/ranger, if anything). Rage was just "sup guys we need to make berserkers but the name is too complicated" Look at DW barbarian, game might or not be to your tastes but THAT is a barbarian a là Conan.

The people I know who look up the things they write for are the Japanese.

Any quality thief knows an item's only worth what you can sell it for.

You. I can think of many rogue type characters who are not criminals.

It's called assassination.

Did you know rogue has a specific fucking definition and it's just not worth it to subvert?

lmgtfy.com/?q=Rogue

Bilbo was in no way a rogue.

Well get the fuck off it and go home, phoneposter.

>Sneaks
>Steals

So, you don't want to play a thief, you want to play an assassin?

He was the main inspiration for this archetype in all DnD.and pretty much the reason why halflings' favored class was rogue.

Actually, he was the very definition of a rogue.
>have dwarvwes and elves for friends
>has a wizard as a friend
>fascinated by other cultures
>owns maps to places outside his home town
>goes on an ADVENTURE
>fights things with a sword
>KILLS things with a sword
>steals, sneaks, plays a game of cunning with a weird monster
>returns home alive with treasure

He is everything a hobbit should never be: in short, a rogue.

They probably owe more to the idea of highwaymen than Princess Bride specifically.

I'd say knave is a bit weaker, though I quite like it.

'Rogue' calla to mind certain associations of charisma, wit, and willingness to defy conventions; I think the term works better for a wider variety of characters.

Conceptually Han Solo, for example, could be called a rogue. So could Indiana Jones, Robin Hood, Zorro, Tuco, Blondie/The Man With No Name, even the MC from A Bard's Tale. You don't want a class name to unduly limit character types.

>You don't want a class name to unduly limit character types.
You say that when we have class names like "Fighter," "Wizard," "Paladin" and "Cleric."

A class name should explain what the class actually does, otherwise it'll just confuse people.

You know it's funny you mention that, I'm currently running a dwarven gangster in Burning Wheel and although I gave him some sneaky beaky shit he is more or less a brass knuckles dentist.

I've also run a barbarian/ranger in Pathfinder who was from like a Germanic-esque tribe who believed an unambushed enemy was a wasted enemy.