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alt title(s): Thief The Dark Project 
"What the hell is a taffer anyway ?" is a three-game series of first-person sneak-em-ups starring an anti-hero named Garrett as he goes about stealing stuff in an unnamed fantasy/ steampunk city. Each game consists of a series of missions that begin with little or no connection to each other but eventually become part of an over-arching plot-line concerning Garrett saving the world from a great evil.
The series is especially notable for the relatively free exploration allowed within the boundaries of each scenario and the many ways the player can approach the given objectives. Self Imposed Challenges, such as completing objectives in as short time as possible or completely avoiding detection, are popular among the more devoted fans. The games are loved for the convincing and engrossing atmosphere they create by taking usually Victorian Steam Punk and giving it a dash of medieval flavour, making for a truly unique and interesting setting. The Thief series has a strong following and many elaborate fan-made scenarios have been created, some even surpassing the quality of the original ones.
The installments in the series so far :
- Thief : The Dark Project (1998), given an Updated Rerelease in 1999 under the title Thief : Gold, adding 3 new missions and lots of bugfixes and additional goodies
- Thief II : The Metal Age (2000)
- Thief : Deadly Shadows (2004)
Eidos Montréal confirmed in May the development of Thief 4 THI4F, the next installment in the massively popular stealth action series.
The series also has it's own Wiki.
These games provide examples of:
- Abandoned Hospital / Bedlam House : The Thief: Deadly Shadows level "The Cradle".
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: the Downwind Thieves' Guild is headquartered in the sewers beneath the casino under the Overlord's Fancy.
- Advancing Wall Of Doom: A Keeper outpost in the first game has one as a booby trap.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: The elder civilizations aren't going to need those shiny things anymore, are they?
- All In A Row: A few groups of police and guards act this way in the second game, e.g. Cavador's bodyguards follow Cavador.
- All Myths Are True: Well, the ones that the Keepers have on record, anyway.
- Those aren't myths, those are prophecies.
- Alternative Character Interpretation : Does Garrett keep helping others and saving the world because he's a Knight In Sour Armour, or is he just a pragmatic egoist?
- Ancient Tomb: "Down in the Bonehoard" and "The Lost City".
- Anti Hero: Garrett claims to be simply looking out for himself, but it is always up to him to save the day. Granted, revenge also has something to do with it. He's quite the classic type 3, with slight shades of 2 and 4.
- Atlantis: Two visits to a long-lost underground city that used to be inhabited by Precursors.
- Artifact Of Doom: The Eye.
- Artificial Brilliance : The series is well known and highly respected for the impressive AI of it's NPCs.
- Awesome Yet Practical : Sneaking past various threats undected and non-lethally dispatching enemies with a single blow to the head from your trusty blackjack.
- Back Stab : Mooks tend to react negatively to corpses they find, though. It should be pointed out that this game series does not encourage backstabbing, sometimes to the point of initiating a Nonstandard Game Over for killing of any kind, unlike pretty much any other Stealth Based Game. Usually that's only if you're playing on the highest difficulty setting — although there are some levels where you auto-fail the mission if you're detected even once, or leave behind any trace of your having been there. And dead bodies count as traces.
- Badass Normal : Garrett
- Badass Bookworm / Minored In Asskicking : The Keepers certainly qualify...
- Bag Of Spilling: In the first two games, Garrett loses whatever consumable resources he has when finishing a level, and any gold he fails to spend when starting one.
- Beast Man : Quite literally - the animal-descended fantasy humanoids in the game's universe are referred to as "beastmen". Most of them are in allegiance with the Pagans and often even live amongst them and serve in the Trickster's army.
- Better Than It Sounds Video Games
- Bizarrchitecture. Constantine's mansion in the first game. Some examples:
- In the Gold version, the Brobdignag section. (There is a Lilliputian section as well.)
- Large sections of the upper floors are rotated so that, e.g. the ceiling looks like a floor and vice versa, including having upside-down or sideways furniture.
- In the greenhouses, search the ceilings until you find the section that is actually water; you can climb up through it into a tub of water in the room above.
- Bittersweet Ending : These seem to be the standard. But then again, Garrett apparently earns his happy ending at the end of the third installment... sort of...
- Book Ends: The beginning of the first game and the end of Deadly Shadows.
- Bookcase Passage: Lots of these.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: In the first game, Garrett is left injured and trapped just before the mission "Escape". The villain in question had reason to leave him alive though, something about his "sacrifice is not yet complete". Also, the villain in question had Garrett tied up, and Garret was rescued from the approach of monsters only by the fortuitous appearance of two Keepers.
- "Fortuitous"? They're Keepers. They prophesied Garrett would require their aid (and say as much.)
- Canis Latinicus : The Hammers have their "ye olde" style of speech, the Pagans talk in a childish pidgin and the Keepers (during the events of the third game) revel in some sort of Faux Latin while reading the ancient scrolls and textbooks from their library.
- The Caper: Some levels (or groups of levels) are definitely full-fledged capers. Others are simple "pick the lock and loot what you find inside" missions.
- The Chosen One. All of the prophecies revolve around Garrett, and at the end of Deadly Shadows, he's literally the Chosen One as he has the only remaining glyph in the world tattooed to his hand.
- City Of Adventure : Hoo boy. Lots of interesting and varied areas to visit, including the region surrounding the city. The third game even had a sandbox game feel to it - you could walk around a few select streets in the core quarters of the City, loot various establishments and bypassers, or sell your loot and purchase new equipment in hidden thievery shops.
- City With No Name : The aptly named "The City". Possibly justified, since it's maybe the largest and most advanced urban area in the world of the series.
- Clingy Macguffin : Once again, The Eye (especially after it reappears in the third game). Are you seeing a pattern here?
- Complete Monster: The Hag, the Big Bad of the third game, and the only major villain without an Alternate Character Interpretation that could make her more sympathetic. There's really no way to make a skin-stealing serial killer that kills people for immortality and whose victims included a little girl sympathetic. Before she became a shapeshifting half-human, half-monster, she was an ordinary Keeper acolyte, who had an unpleasant propensity for greed. Was a member of a small scientific expedition to find some ancient magical artifacts of great power. Similar to Gollum from LOTR, she couldn't resist the lure of the ancient gems, went mad, and killed her colleagues. Centuries passed and she kept spying on the Keepers in their very own compound, searching for clues about the few remaining artifacts, that would grant her unspeakable powers and the opportunity to rule all. In the meantime, occasional sightings of her by the townsfolk gave rise to legends, bedtime stories and nursery rhymes about an evil Hag - abducting children on foggy nights and robbing people of their skin.
- Don't forget Father Karras, the Big Bad of the second game. He abducts homeless people and turns them into mindless automatons as his master plan is to use these automatons to slaughter the entire organic life in the City. It really says a lot about the man when his Mechanist slaves thank Garret for killing them. At least the Hag wasn't this omnicidal.
- Cool But Inefficient: The grenade-launching robots seen in the second game can be tricked into destroying themselves by firing their grenades into the wall they are pressed against. Also, they can be disabled by water arrows in the open boiler on their back.
- And this weakness is fully mentioned within the game as a real weakness of current design.
- What's more strange is that those big ugly death machines can be broken easily by Stuff Blowing Up (if you have enough), but the annoying "steel cherubs" cannot.
- Conspicuously Selective Perception: The entire game mechanic is built around NPCs failing to notice the player character if he is in shadow, while being extraordinarily sensitive to noises he makes himself and oblivious to noises made by machines set in motion by the protagonist.
- Justified in that the protagonist has quasi-mystical ninja powers. Remember that the intro of the first game has a Keeper walking down the street in broad daylight with no one but Garrett noticing he is there. Apparently part of the Keeper training is the ability to blank other peoples' minds to the awareness that you're there, but since Garrett never finished his training he can only do it if he's standing motionless in shadow.
- Garrett is supposed to be significantly better than the Keepers at stealth, regularly getting the drop on them, breezing through their secret libraries and easily spotting their supposedly stealthy agents. The first game manual describes his ability to hide in the shadows as 'preternatural'.
- Corridor Cubbyhole Run: When faced with corridors in indoor environments, Garrett has to hide from patrolling guards/monsters/zombies/etc. by dodging in and out of rooms, into alcoves, and so on.
- Crapsack World : This game series truely defines the term "noir fantasy". Though not everything in the Thiefverse is as dark and humdrum as it seems at first glance...
- Creepy Child / Emotionless Girl : Gamall, the Keeper Translator, a cca 10 year old, from the second and third game. She gets a pretty shocking Reveal during the course of the third game.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: For Looking Glass, more like Crowning Level. Just mention the Thief 2 level Life of the Party to any Thief fan and they'll grin and remember the first time they played that huge, very open ended and incredibly well designed mission that combines burglary via rooftops of noble mansions, banks, a necromancer's spire, and dingy tenements with Garrett's gatecrashing of that party. And Karras knew you were coming ALL ALONG! Let's not forgot what happens after you read the Karras' New Scripture... arguably the biggest scare of the entire series, though you weren't in any danger!
- Another CMOA would be the way Garrett defeats the Big Bad in all three games : He uses nothing more than his expert knowledge of stealth and subterfuge.
- Crowning Moment Of Funny. In Thief 2, enjoy the escalating argument between two groups of guards defending their manor lord/lady. The insults they come up with are hilarious.
Guard: Your lady, an angel? You're lucky the dockside whorekeeps aren't bashing down her door for stealing their clientele. Why just last night, I saw her out back, warming up the stable boy!
- Oil flasks and moss arrows in Deadly Shadows. While moss arrows always gagged guards in the series, the sound and action of them gagging is particularly funny in the third game. Of course, watching guards take pratfalls on the slippery oil is funny, but it's even more funny when they do it right off a dock. Thanks to their Super Drowning Skills, it's a useful tactic, too.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome. Thief : The Dark Project : The opening credits and the tender but weary score during the final cutscene... which then transforms into a Trent Reznor-style piece...
- Just about the entire Thief 2 : The Metal Age soundtrack. In particular Shipping and Receiving, which creates such a haunting atmosphere of grey and soulless industry, Eavesdropping, which conveys the surrealness and spooky secrets of the Mechanist seminar, and Trail of Blood, perhaps one of the most haunting tracks ever.
- Intro and outro music in the style of Nine Inch Nails is present in all three games, possibly to add contrast to an otherwise purely ambient and mostly silent soundtrack.
- The soundtrack of Thief : Deadly Shadows also gave us top-notch ambient music, with lots of distinct leitmotifs. Some of them would nicely fit the definition of Crowning Moment Of Moodiness and even Crowning Moment Of Scary - if tropes like that existed...
- Who are we kidding... Eric Brosius is one of the best composers of ambient game music, period. Remember any of the tracks from the System Shock series or most games made by Irrational ? Yep, you can find his distinct signature in those as well...
- Crystal Dragon Jesus : The Hammerites are esentially your typical medieval Christian church Expys, but with a few interesting and believable twists on their mythology : The belief that the Builder (the one god) led humanity out of savagery by the gift of fire and more advanced tools like the first hammer, slightly mirrors the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus. It's also the reason why Hammerite rituals and worship are centered around human work, handicrafts and industry... and a possible explanation for the whole steampunk feel of the world.
- It's pretty obvious that the Hammerites are primarily based on the conservative Catholic church of medieval times, whilst the Mechanists seem to be more or less the Protestant equivalent, Karras being a steam punk Martin Luther or John Calvin.
- Cthulhu Mythos: The "Lost City" level in the first game contains a statue that looks very like Cthulhu, and reference to a god "N'lahotep". It's strongly hinted that angering these gods is what caused the city to be buried under lava.
- Cult: The Pagan faction, which shuns advanced technology and the society of the City. They worship nature and it's incarnate deity - the legendary and powerful, but chaotic Trickster. Needlees to say, Pagans don't get along very well with Hammerites - and the feeling is mutual (despite some rare instances of Worthy Opponent between the two factions).
- Cute Ghost Girl : Lauryl from the infamously haunted Shalebridge Cradle isn't all that scary once you get to know her in Thief : Deadly Shadows. She's a subversion of sorts, since she appears as a floating blob of ghostly light most of the time (though casting a shadow of a little girl on the walls). She's pretty helpful, showing Garrett various clues about the Cradle's dark past and guiding him out of the hellhole that it is... After both of them leave the Cradle and enter the alleys of Old Quarter, the guards start fleeing in terror at the sight of Lauryl's ghostly appearance. For once, Garrett can take it easy with stealth in the City's streets. Funny stuff.
- Dark Is Not Evil : Given the setting's Gray And Gray Morality, this trope is played with in every possible way - a lot...
- Deadpan Snarker: Garrett, who is known for his cynical, sarcastic view on life among over-serious and righteous people.
- Did You Just Rob Cthulhu.
- Double Caper
- Dynamic Difficulty: Higher difficulty levels not only increase the amount of loot that must the gained but also restrict the use of deadly force.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The Dark Project. After going through some of the scariest and most intense scenes in first person game history, you finally have a moment to breathe at the end. Not all is well, though.
Garrett: Tell my friends that I don't need their secret book, or their glyph warnings, or their messengers. Tell them I'm through. Tell them it's over. Tell them Garrett is done.
- Easter Egg : The basketball court hidden in the training level of the first game. This was a common easter egg in games developed by Looking Glass Studios. For instance - it also appeared in System Shock.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The Markham's Isle complex in "Precious Cargo" (which is also an Island Base).
- Enemy Chatter: Particularly memorable: the bear pits conversation in "Lord Bafford's Manor"; and a Genre Savvy guard asking a Mechanist how the cameras know to sound the alarm when they see a thief, but not when they see a guard. (His response? The Mechanists' version of the MST 3 K Mantra, of course.)
- Enemy Mine : Garrett teams up briefly with the Hammerites and Pagans in the first and second game respectively (and has the option to do so in the third game). He does it more out of necessity than sympathy.
- The End Of The World As We Know It: The Big Bads of the series love to wipe out civilization. Go figure.
- Everything's Worse With Zombies. Zombies were chiefly removed from The Metal Age along with burricks because players preferred, you know, thievery.
- Eye Scream : In the first game. You'll know it when you see it.
- Fake Difficulty: On higher difficulty levels, Garrett arbitrarily decides to limit his kill count, and demands that he finds a specific percentage of all the treasure in any given level. No reason is given for this aside 'that makes it harder'. Some Handwave it away as Garrett being too professional, but that doesn't explain why he's perfectly fine with leaving no survivors on the lower difficulties.
- Debatable, as the majority of the player base considers Expert the only difficulty to play on and the canonical difficulty, at that. Basically, Expert is normal mode, and Normal is the mode for frothing-at-the-mouth kiddies who need combat.
- Guards are also far more aware and tougher on higher difficulties. They will become suspicious and even sound the alarm if you leave a door open that shouldn't be - at least in the first game.
- Faking The Dead : Garrett does this in the third game in order to escape Shalebridge Cradle.
- Fantasy Gun Control: The world of Thief has scientific advances such as electricity, steam engines, clockwork robots, surveillance devices and even stun grenades (flashbombs and gas grenades), but there are no gunpowder firearms to be seen (which amusingly contrasts the otherwise accurate Late Medieval-like setting). Even the City Watch and Mechanists are armed with swords, maces, bows, and crossbows at best.
- The cannons require gunpowder, and they can be seen on ships and, of course, the Children of Karras. The cannonballs also have fuses that are lit.
- And they act more like cluster grenades after landing on the ground and lying still for about a second or two.
- Fetish Retardant : Given the circumstances of the specific scene, Viktoria's brief nudity in Thief: The Dark Project is anything but sexy.
- Then again, when she and Garrett meet again in Thief 2 : The Metal Age... So Yeah...
- Film Noir / City Noir: And how !
- First Person Smartass: Garrett revels in this trope...
- Fish People: The Kurshoks from the third game. Surprisingly, they're not in allegiance with the Pagans like most of the other non-human races (apparently because of great tensions in the past)...
- Five Finger Discount: As a child, Garrett came to the attention of the Keepers when he tried to pickpocket one on the street, and "it's not easy to see a Keeper, especially one who doesn't want to be seen." In the game, there are frequent opportunities to filch bags of gold, keys, potions, and arrows from the unsuspecting, with a "pockets picked" counter on the score page after the mission.
- Fridge Logic: Electricity and electric lighting exist in this world, but homes still use torches and gas lamps, which Garrett can easily douse with water arrows. Perhaps explainable if electricity is expensive, but Garrett robs the houses of the wealthy...
- It seems like the Hammerites and Mechanists are very selective as to who gets what of their mechanical wonders.
- There's an explanation for the Mechanists. Karras's master plan is to rid the City (if not the world) of all life by using "Servants" that emit a gas that turns living matter into rust. However the reaction can only propagate itself where there is an abundance of living matter. All the trees and plants left are the property of the super wealthy so Karras gifted the Servants to the upper crust of society under the guise of good PR.
- Friendly Enemy. Garrett and Viktoria in The Metal Age.
- Game Breaker / Lord British Postulate : The last part of the third game has you sneaking past the Big Bad several times to set in place various items. She is 100% invincible... but enough oil flasks WILL make her slip, fall, and become unconscious. Oops!
- Game Mod: Several. Most notable is Shadows of the Metal Age for Thief 2, a full-length, fan-made expansion with a new main character, weapons and items, and a story of Revenge and manipulation.
- Genre Busting : Game critics had a hard time pigeon-holing the first Thief into any recognisable genre when it came out in November 1998. Along with Metal Gear Solid, Thief practically defined the stealth game genre as we know it today.
- Gentleman Snarker : First Keeper Orland and some of the other Keepers to a degree...
- Ghost Ship : The "Abysmal Gale" from Deadly Shadows, owned and commanded by the wealthy naval merchant Robert Moira. It sailed back into harbour, but the crew didn't come out or attempt any communication with the outside world. Since the ship becomes relevant to the main plot, Garrett has to sneak aboard, search for the ship's log and investigate what happened to Moira and his sailors. Cue High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
- Giant Spider. These appear occasionally in the first game.
- And more rarely and with less variety in the second one.
- Grappling Hook Pistol: The (slightly magical) rope arrows in the first and second game are essentially a medieval version of this. They can stick into any wooden or earthy materials and provide new routes to otherwise inaccessible areas. The vine arrows from the second game are a full-blown magic version of the ordinary ones and can also stick into surfaces with metal grating (Garrett obtains them after teaming up with the Pagans).
- GreenSkinnedWoodNymph: Viktoria, a Pagan and dryad. But more like In Name Only, since she's a much more sophisticated and serious character than at first glance. Her role tends to overlap with Action Girl and Femme Fatale. Had a troubled and uneasy relationship with Garrett (former enemies), but became a Defrosting Ice Queen over time. She and Garrett eventually became Fire Forged Friends, but it didn't last long, since Viki was Killed Off For Real by her own Heroic Sacrifice just before the Grand Finale of the second game. She's also quite a frequent victim of Shipping or Ship To Ship Combat by some of the fans (due to an occasional Friendship Moment and possible UST between her and the protagonist).
- Grey And Grey Morality : Everyone in the setting, including the forever-locked-in-conflict Hammerites and Pagans. Each faction and character have their moments of nobility and humanity, as well as Shoot The Dog ones... The only apparent exception to this trope would be the villains.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy:
"It was probably just the wind...".
- Also, one thing is to go after Noisemaker; another is to pretend the freaky arrow lying on the floor under a lamp is invisible.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Played straight in the first two games. Averted in Deadly Shadows, however, as there Garrett trades his longsword for a more concealable dagger.
- All Fantasy Games Are Based On D&D should probably be a trope. The first two Thief games were released in the era of Advanced D&D, in which the most effective weapon a rogue (read: thief) can use is a longsword. Garret loses his sword at the same time that rogues lose their class proficiency with them in the next edition along. There's no chance that's just a conincidence.
- Hey Its That Voice : Viktoria is SHODAN from System Shock 2 !
- Highly Visible Ninja : The Keeper Assasins from the third game were criticized for their unstealthiness while dealing with other random NP Cs. And they're supposed to rival both Garrett and any other normal Keeper in terms of stealth.
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Many players found the whispering Haunts from the first game extraordinarily creepy. The mission called "The Cradle" found in the third game is considered to be among the scariest game levels of all time. A detailed writeup can be found here.
- In the first game, "Return to the Cathedral", and the cutscene after that. Most effective at night and despite the fact that the Hammer Haunts can be harmed.
- The mechanist robots in Thief II are very intimidating to the inexperienced player. Also, the invincible but harmless Mechanist 'Cherub' that appears out of thin air and follows you around everywhere in one level making weird noises seriously scared a lot of players who weren't unhinged by the scarier elements of the first game.
- The mechanist servants, when you realize that they are free willed humans with their actions controlled by robotic implants. They often have conversations with themselves in which the human bemoans their fate or the robot tells the human off. A specific few are known to utter 'thank you' with their final breath if you kill them.
- The Haunts are cute fuzzy bunny rabbits by comparison to the "Puppets" and their environment in the Cradle.
- The "Give Mr. Garrett his... compensation..." scene from the first Thief is the scariest cutscene of the series. Brrrrrr.
- And just for shits and giggles, take a look at the ominous intro of the first game... If you dare...
- The Infiltration: the Dark Project mission "Undercover"
- Instant Awesome Just Add Mecha. The Metal Age, but Your Mileage May Vary.
- In The Hood : Garrett and most of the Keepers.
- Island Base: The Markham's Isle complex in "Precious Cargo" (which is also an Elaborate Underground Base).
- Knight Templar: The Mechanists in the second game, and the Hammerites in the first to a degree.
- A degree? The Hammerites hit this trope full force. Read some of their scriptures in Deadly Shadows, particularly the one involving a man beheaded because even though they weren't sure he committed a crime, they figured he was probably a heretic anyway.
- The writing for the Hammerites in the third game is far worse than the (extremely good) writing in the first.
- Lost Technology: The cultivators in the second game.
- Low Fantasy : Definitely...
- Light Is Not Good : Of the literal variety - brightly lit spaces and loud floors are Garrett's greatest enemies (as far as thieving goes).
- Limited Sound Effects : Averted big time. Nearly every type of surface imaginable has an expansive and context-sensitive set of sound effects. Listening to your surroundings is even part of the gameplay (you can guess the distance between you and any NPC and also the direction from which the sound is coming). Thief was probably the first game to use the concept of sound FX being more than just a background decoration to it's full degree.
- Magitech : Some of the technology in the game's universe seems to be of this variety. Sometimes, it's clearly related to the Lost Technology trope above.
- Meaningful Name: The word "Gamall" is Scandinavian (and Tolkien-talk) for "old".
- Melee A Trois: The climax of the third and final game, Thief: Deadly Shadows, is a massive melee throughout the city streets between the City Watch, Hammerites, Pagans, and the Big Bad's animated statues. The more factions that are friendly or at least neutral towards Garrett, the easier it is to make it through alive.
- The first game has the potential for this in any level where multiple types of AIs are around, e.g. "The Haunted Cathedral", "The Lost City". Zombies will attack anything alive, for example, not just the player; fire elementals will attack at least some types of living AIs; and so on.
- Names To Runaway From Really Fast : The "necrotic mutox", a.k.a. "rust gas" - a Steam Punk biochemical weapon of mass destruction created by the Mechanists. Take three guesses on what they wanted to use it for...
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero. Unsealing Sealed Evil In A Can is bad. Who knew ?
- No Arc In Archery : Mostly averted. Nearly all arrows arc. The broadhead, rope, water and moss arrows follow the laws of physics, while the elemental arrows of Air (sleeping gas) and Fire (rocket launcher stand-in) fly straight and fast.
- Of course, elemental air would probably be considered to have its own personal updraft...and hot air rises.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Karras, the Big Bad of Thief 2: The Metal Age, was planning to wipe out all life on Earth in order to create the Builder's perfect, orderly world. In contrast, the Big Bad of the first game merely wanted to wipe out human civilization (sparing the forest-dwelling Pagan tribes), while the Big Bad of the third game was a serial killer who stole people's life force (and skins) to live forever (the threat being that she was planning to share her knowledge with other Keepers, thus creating more like her).
- Order Versus Chaos: The struggle between the orderly Hammerites and chaotic Pagans are a major plot point in all 3 games.
- Orphanage Of Fear : Shalebridge Cradle used to be an insane asylum and an orphanage - but at the same time !!!
- Our Dragons Are Different : Burricks - wingless reptiles with the size of a pony and the outward appearance of a chuby theropod dinosaur - are apparently the closest thing to a dragon in the Thiefverse. Expectable in such a down-to-earth Low Fantasy setting. Burricks aren't actually ferocious (being herbivores), but they can still be dangerous. No, they don't breath fire... Instead, they burp cloud after cloud of some sort of highly concentrated fumes created in their digestive system ! The fumes are not poisonous, but you'll suffocate in them almost immediately. It's implied they have slightly explosive properties - Garrett makes a snappy remark in the second game about "infiltrating Sholesgate is like looking down a burrick's throat with a lit match". Burricks appear up-close-and-personal in several levels of the first game and in the form of hunting trophies and occasional references in the second and third game.
- Pardon My Klingon / Unusual Euphemism : Taffer, to taff, taffing taff... The most standard curseword in the series' universe. The various guards are it's most prominent users : "Taffin' cripes, I knew I smelt trouble ! Where are you, you taffer ? Aah, you're taffing me... Who's gonna clean up all this taff ?" The word "taffer" seems to be a general term for a criminal, low-life or annoying person. Other cursewords uttered by various characters are fairly standard or slightlty archaic.
- Phantom Thief / Impossible Thief : Garrett, of course. While he steals for a living, he mostly turned to it to get out from under the self-imposed (and self-righteous) restrictions of the nigh-invisible Keepers. Many of his capers are clearly done as ars gratia artis, and one in the first game is explicitly done to show a local crime lord who the real criminal mastermind is.
- One mission in the first game, likewise - Garrett thinks that the best revenge against a crimelord's assassination attempt is, instead of killing him, to sneak in and remove every valuable object from said crimelord's house. Granted, you also have the option of doing that and (depending on difficulty level) killing him.
- Also subverted in that Garrett's single most frequent recurring complaint is 'I have to do this job because the rent is due'.
- Garrett has robbed from castles, mansions, patrician houses, taverns, shops, museums, city guard stations, abandoned haunted parts of the city, ancient ruins, places defying the very laws of physics and the office of his landlord... Hell, he's even managed to snatch a few trinkets from the heart of the well-guarded and nearly impenetrable Keeper Compound... He's busted out the imprisoned fiancée of his old pal from a heavily guarded manor... He routinely stops by to rob banks and establishments clean, while en route to fullfill a more crucial mission objective...
- Of course, all of his incredible exploits heavily depend on the skill and patience of the player. There are really few things as satisfying as being able to sneak through an entire mission stealthily, grabbing all the visible and hidden loot, and not getting seen or otherwise detected by anyone.
- Plot Coupons: The first game has Garrett find the four keys to a locked cathedral.
- Powered By A Forsaken Child: In Deadly Shadows, Gamall's disguise is an orphan's stolen body.
- Precursors: the, uh, Precursors.
- Red Herring: In Deadly Shadows, Garrett is led to believe that First Keeper Orland is the traitor when the ruins of the collapsed city clocktower point to his office.
- Retro Universe / Schizo Tech : Seriously. A hodge-podge of medieval and Victorian society, architecture and tech.
- Sealed Evil In A Can: the Eye in the first game.
- Shout Out : Quite a couple of easter eggs and well-hidden pop-cultural references.
- Garrett in the first game : "Time to... raid some tombs..." (Eidos published both Thief and Tomb Raider.)
- A deadly fireball-type projectile is called Tiltowait. But you will never find out unless you try the Level Editor.
- Sinister Minister: Father Karras, the founder and leader of the Mechanist church from Thief : The Metal Age. In the last level he even has a Freudian Slip that indicates that he no longer believes in the Builder.
- Sliding Scale Of Shiny Versus Gritty : The visuals and atmosphere of the series literally bathe in grittiness - and unlike in many other games, it feels very believable, with only minor exaggerated stylisation. Ironically, the shiniest places you see belong to either the City's mostly corrupt nobility or the Mechanist Order. Not even the Hammerites and Keepers have such lavishly decorated and polished interiors in their buildings.
- Spider Drone: The second game has some.
- Stalking Mission : Unsurprising in a stealth game like this. They're actually pretty entertaining. Some examples : The "Assasins" mission in the first game, the "Track the Courier" mission in the second one and (partly) the Forbidden Library of the Keepers in the third one (after Garrett teams up with them once again).
- Stealth Based Game: Games in the series are effectively impossible to complete without either stealth or cheating. The main character simply isn't formidable enough to actually fight all the guards one at a time, let alone in groups, and in Thief 2 there was at least one mission where remaining undetected was a required victory condition. Although lone guards are remarkably easy to dispatch if you could get a clear shot at their back while they were unaware of your presence. And even then, some missions stipulate that you cannot disable any guards or civilians.
- It should be noted that circle-strafing and having lots of room to back up can help take out several guards at once. Most die after 2 or 3 overhead swings. The trick is just making sure they don't hit you.
- Stealth Hi Bye : Garrett loves these... He does this to half the people he meets in the third game of the trilogy, including the Big Bad. His mentor manages to pull the same trope over on him once, however, in a hilarious and brilliant inversion.
- Stealth Pun: In Deadly Shadows, you have to break into a clocktower operated by the Hammerites and sabotage the mechanism, causing the clock to stop. In other words, you have to Stop Hammer Time.
- Steampunk: Or maybe Steam Gothic. Styles of dress and architecture are mostly late medieval, but there are electric lights on the street, Garrett gains a mechanical eye, and gauges with no discernible purpose are everywhere. In the second game, there are even clockwork surveillance cameras and steam-powered robots. And those... servants.
- Given the quasi-medievalness of the setting and the abundance of ever-present cogs and gears, it qualifies nicely as Clock Punk too.
- Straight Arrow : The bow is one of the most useful and important pieces of equipment in the game. It's often more of a tool than a weapon, especially while using the more special, stealth-related trick arrows. If a player's good at estimating distance and arrow arcs, he can even achieve a clean One Hit Kill by shooting guards in the head or upper part of their body.
- Strange Bedfellows: The second game has Garrett team up with the survivors of the group he defeated in the first.
- Late in the first game, he teams up with the Hammerites against a common enemy, an 'eye for an eye', if you will. Fittingly enough, the level in which the event takes place is called Strange Bedfellows.
- In Deadly Shadows, Garrett can team-up with these groups despite his history in targeting both their groups and killing the high shaman guy for the pagans when he was attempting summon their god into being. Hell, it happens right after he's robbed both of them of some pretty valuable loot...
- Stupidity Is The Only Option: The entire plot of the first game is driven by this. What idiot would possibly think that unsealing the ancient Hammerite Cathedral and freeing the Eye from its confinement would be a good idea, after the Eye talks to him in his head and visibly manifests its obvious evil on several occasions? For that matter, what idiot would think that Constantine had any intention of actually paying him that ridiculously oversized a fee for delivering the Eye, when he could simply mug Garrett and take it from him? Garrett didn't even get half the money up front. Apparently his streetwise instincts and common sense completely evaporate if you wave a bag of gold under his nose... which is in character for Garrett, at least.
- It should be mentioned that it was supposed to be a really big pile of gold. And Garrett didn't make that mistake twice.
- All things said, it's also worth mentioning that the only reason Garrett made such a rash choice was because Constantine had earned his trust by hiring him to steal his own sword in a 'test' to see if Garrett was as capable as reputed. Common sense dictates that if Constantine wanted Garrett dead, he would have killed him then and there. Pity common sense has its flaws too.
- It should also be pointed out that the mission called 'The Sword' (the one just before you are hired to steal the Eye) has Garrett finding (if you play it on the highest difficulty) evidence that Constantine is both capable and willing to pay those who do jobs for him, even obscure, out of the way people. Garrett didn't have any reason not to believe he would receive his ... compensation.
- Garrett should still have stopped to think that if Constantine set up the entire 'Sword' mission as a test, then anything he found lying around during the course of that mission can potentially be disinformation. But more importantly, Garrett continued with his quests to undo the bindings around the Cathedral so he could steal the Eye even after he found out what extreme lengths the Keepers historically went to to set up those bindings. Bear in mind that Garrett knows that the Keepers won't openly interfere in anything less important than an impending apocalypse, and in the case of the Eye the Keepers of the past went well beyond 'interfering' to 'the single largest concerted effort Garrett's ever even heard of them attempting'. And yet it never even occurs to Garrett to go ask the Keepers "So, exactly what is the deal with you and sealing up the Eye, anyway?"
- Er, Garrett despises the Keepers. At the end of the first game, he states he would prefer to forget how to read heiroglyphs but the Keepers keep putting them everywhere. Plus, you might notice the Keepers might not tell him. They run their organization on prophecy and Xanatos Gambits.
- Super Drowning Skills: In the first two games Garrett can swim, but in the third one he drowns instantly upon contact with water.
- Talking To Himself: You'd never know it from just playing, but Garrett and Karras are voiced by the same guy. This happens a lot for many other characters, too.
- Tap On The Head: With a blackjack.
- Thank The Maker : The Mechanist robots reeeally love this trope : "Praise Karras.", "All should fear the word of Karras, the word of Karras...", etc. Needless to say, it can get annoying... A full list of the phrases can be seen here. This trope is slightly played with though - every robot uses a voice track recorded by Karras himself !
- The robots lose their scariness when you figure out their patterns, and adopt sort of a Narm Charm to them.
- The Alcoholic : A grumpy, naive and overall hilarious guard nicknamed Benny (a.k.a. "Dumb guard") in practically all his incarnations. Played for laughs.
- The Obi Wan / Cool Old Guy : Artemus, the Keeper Elder who brought Garrett into the order and served the role of his teacher and father-like figure. Apparently the only Keeper who can still top Garrett in stealth. Overlaps a little with Mr Exposition in nearly every cutscene or location he appears in.
- The Watcher : The entire faction of the Keepers is this trope incarnate. But even though they try their best, they're not always as neutral as they would wish to be...
- Thieves Guild: Garrett's not interested in sharing his profits. The local guild bosses are less than pleased. The one baron who tries to give him trouble? You get to rob him dry.
- Those Two Bad Guys: See Vitriolic Best Buds below. There are two guards who change employer very often, and for some reason anyone who hires them soon gets a visit from Garrett. And they still haven't learned not to talk loudly about where the keys are hidden and the secret doors are...
- Trick Arrow: Gas arrows, moss arrows, explosive fire arrows, distracting noise arrows and the ever-popular water arrows...
- Turned Against Their Masters: How Garrett beats Karras in Thief 2: The Metal Age.
- Underground Level: The Dark Project: "Escape from Cragscleft Prison", "Down in the Bonehoard", "Thieves' Guild", "The Lost City", part of "Song of the Caverns", "Strange Bedfellows", "The Maw of Chaos". The Metal Age: part of "Trail of Blood", part of "Precious Cargo", "Kidnap". Deadly Shadows: part of "Into the Pagan Sanctuary", "The Sunken Citadel".
- Unnecessarily Large Interior: The Halls of Echoing Repose, from the first game's "Down in the Bonehoard", as well as the Brobdignagian area in Constantine's Mansion in the Gold version.
- Useless Useful Stealth : Nicely averted (unsurprisingly, since proper stealth is the meat and potatoes of the whole series). Sure, you can still cut or blast your way through most enemies if needed, but it's not as fun... And also not as effective against larger groups of adversaries...
- Vitriolic Best Buds : "Dumb Guard" (a.k.a. Benny) and "Smart Guard" (a.k.a. Nick or Jored). As different as night and day, but good pals and co-workers. A lot of their conversations turn into pure Crowning Moment Of Funny.
- Wait What Whoa. The aforementioned Eye Scream scene. It completely breaks the illusion than Garrett is an unflappable hero; it's the only time in the entire series where Garrett is helpless and scared shitless.
- What Measure Is A Non Human: On Expert difficulty, killing human civilians and guards is an automatic mission failure. This doesn't apply to animals, monsters, machines, undead or humanoid beasts. One exception is the Servants, who are people who've been kidnapped, killed and turned into cyborgs/living weapons. Killing them on Expert difficulty also grants you a mission failure. A notable exception occurs in the last mission of The Metal Age.
- Weak But Skilled: Garrett, despite being far from a physical powerhouse, is able to regularly outwit and outmanuever burly guards and superhuman monsters through a combination of smarts and stealth.
- Videogame Caring Potential: Adorable drunk guards and any other innocents you can't being yourself to kill. And for some, in the first game, burricks.
- X Meets Y : Garrett himself. Part Phil Marlowe, part Arsene Lupin, a pinch of Robin Hood, some nods to Batman... and all awesome !
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The Hammerites speak like this to a hilarious degree.
- You No Take Candle: Pagans, on the other hand, have a very unique tribal-ish dialect to their speech, using "bes" for "is" and other "to be" permutations and frequently attaching -sy to the end of words.
In addition, the GameMods mentioned above contain tropes not seen or as prevalent as in the main games. These include:
- Adaptation Distillation: Or something close to it. A fair number of fan missions take creative liberties or outright ignore canon.
- Art Evolution: Many F Ms use custom resources for object, items and textures, making a fan-mission look like a completely different game!
- Creepy Child: And their toys, too.
- Guide Dang It: Fan missions tend to be harder, with trickier clues, better hidden keys and switches, almost to the point of absurdity, leading to multi-page threads on the official forums asking for assistance.
- Its Short So It Sucks: The number one complaint about any fan-mission is "I wish it were longer!" Not to say that F Ms are bad or short (many of them rival the original missions in length and complexity), but since most F Ms are single-level, the fun can only last so long.
- Kill Screen: The default number of polygons that the first two Thief games can render on screen at any given time is 1024. Any higher than that and you get a "hall of mirrors" effect, and then the game crashes. Several ambitions fan missions skirt carefully close to this number at ALL TIMES due to level of detail! Some even come with warnings saying "Don't look here or there at this point" to avoid a crash.
- Shout Out: To many other games, tv shows, movies, and even other mission authors
- They Changed It Now It Sucks: Completely averted; almost any change to the status quo is seen as a brilliant innovation, especially when pulled off right.
- Would Not Shoot A Civilian: While in the main game this only applies on "hard" or "expert", many fan missions make you auto fail if you kill an unarmed NPC by default.
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