One of the most important things you must do to have a sucessfull thief is to pick his type. Is he an Assassin, Thug, Black Marketeer (fence), Adventurer, Gambler, Bounty Hunter or Pickpocket? You can be any type of thief you can imagine so pick a type you like, and roleplay that type.

Let's say you've decided to become a Pick Pocket type, Of course you will want to get ALL the thief skills that would help this fellow, such as Legerdemain, Evasion, Quicksearch, Protection from Quicksearch. The list goes on, just pick the ones you thikn would come in handy when your lifting crowns off unsuspecting victims.

If you have decided to be an Assassin, (and believe me, many people at GOA have chosen this) you may want to start buying skills that help you eliminate your target, Set Traps, Stealthkill Contact poison etc.

The Assassin type and any other thief that uses physical force to accomplish his goals works well in GOA, but if you want to be something like, say, a Swindler, you will have a harder challenge as Swindlers are highly roleplay oriented.

I had a Swindler once who wasnt to bad in GOA. He had the exterior look of a gambler (flashy) and I roleplayed him as a card player. His name was Diamonds and he carried two foam dice that doubled as throwing weapons. So, anyways, I used him to swindle quite a few people at GOA and not just because I know how to actually cheat at cards, It was because I came up with swindles. One really good one made Diamonds a TON of money.

I had started with the Disguise ability and used it to pull off my hoaxs. I got a cool medallion from a used store, made of pewter and it looked really old. I took it to the game disguised as an Orc and made a story up about it, saying I wanted to sell it and that I was taking bids on the item, I ran around the park that day getting bids as high as what is now the equivalent of about 400 crowns, sold it to the high bidder, told him to meet me in town secretly as I was afraid I would be jumped for the item (a small lie on my part). He gave me the money (what a sucker) and I never showed up in town. Later he came up to me and asked for the item and I told him in game he had mistaken my identity, (At this point I had taken off the disguise.) and he argued and I just told him out of game he was swindled, I look nothing like an orc and he had bought it from an orc, end of story.

If you put your mind to it, you can pretty much play ANY type of thief that you want, save, a burgler (which will be available sometime soon I hope).

Put thought into your thief, you will like them more and they will roleplay better with others, get a strong idea in your head about what your little backstabber can do and how he acts and dont forget, Thieves are one of THE best roleplaying classes available.