Why does Veeky Forums hate Adventure Guilds?

Cause /tg does not know how market economy works while big part of it aims for realism.
Aiming for realism while not knowing how world works leads to you hating ideas that are sensible but are outside of things you consider normal.

Also cause many portrayals of adventure guilds in fiction is retarded, or so I was told.

It's not that I hate adventurer guilds in particular, it's that I hate the whole concept of adventurer as a profession.

>baseless assumption
>pretending that Veeky Forums is an hivemind

A thread died for this.

Unions in any form or shape, real or imaginary, are always blight upon the society that undermines basic principles of free market.

>hate the whole concept of adventurer as a profession.

>group of people that are willing to risk life in exchange form money
>mercenary
>but most mercenaries operate in companies that act as coherent units on battlefield and rarely accept individual scale contracts
>how about we call individuals that do that adventurers?
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

adventurer is just a name for people that risk life for money and are not soldier/state officer/member of mercenary band, or other people that work in small teams or individually

Free association is a part of the free market

The problem with "adventurer" is that it's too generic of a name to be viable.

Have thieves, assassins, traders, spies, mercenaries, treasure hunters, whatever else. There's countless possibilities. Nobody is a fucking "adventurer."

Because it begs the question of
>If they are so powerful, they can handle liches and dragons, how come they don't just take over?
>The mandate comes from who has the bigger stick, after all (see William the Conqueror), and nobody has bigger stick than high level adventurers, nevermind a whole GUILD of them
>And if the king does have a bigger stick, in the form of armies or knights, why do adventurer guilds exist at all?

And if you ignore that, there are other questions
>Why do they do what they do? How and why did the guild form in the first place? Do they hunt monsters? Okay, fine, what's the definition of a monster?
>Who pays them? Presumably, the villagers can rack up enough money to reward some orc killers, but who pays for much bigger contracts, like lich killing or vampire slaying? Only a really rich person can pay enough money for that.
>Do they complete quests for kings, then? What if a quest gets political, like a lot of them do? What if one king asks the Guild to work against another king? Is the Guild apolitical? Are there many guilds in different kingdoms? Are there factions within a guild? What if the king is a vampire, and therefore a monster?
>What's the hierarchy? If the guildmaster gives you an order, do you have to obey it? If the guildmaster has an opinion on how your contract should be fulfilled, or whom and on whose side you should fight, do you have any say in it?
>Why join the guild in the first place? What benefits and downsides it introduces? What if somebody doesn't WANT to join the Guild? Do you have to pay the adventurer tax if you're not a part of the guild? Does the guild take a cut of your income? What if there's undeclared income? What is the Guild's tax policy?

Now, if you center your campaign around those issues and problems, it could potentially result in a very interesting adventure. However, most of the time the adventurers' guild is used as a lazy cop-out, and NONE of those issues are ever adressed.
It's stupid.

What kind of services and obligation would an adventurer guild provides anyways?
I always assumed they were nothing more than mutual insurance.

Thank god Monster Hunter helped me solve all these problems.

>second bailout

Well yeah but MH's world is completely illogical and exists only because of the rule of cool.

Conversely, if you want your fantasy to be a bit more grounded than MH, none of those problems are really solved.

Witcher.

Also, MH's world is extremely logical, it's just not based on your stupidly autistic senses of what Should and Shouldn't be.

You want a simple logical answer? fine, The Adventurers' guild effectively replaces "The tavern" for the party meetups.

If you cannot understand WHY a guild for such things would be set up, I don't think you understand Guilds period.

Oh no, I can understand perfectly why an adventurer guild would exist in a high fantasy world where adventurers are a thing.

I just find the whole concept stupid and don't include it in any of my settings, and I don't enjoy settings that have it.

They belong in Weeb Videogames.

So basically you're "No fun allowed everything needs to stay away from High Fantasy as much as possible" faggot where the most interesting parts of your game are fucking up.

...

No, see, fun is allowed and encouraged, but your shit is just not fun.

How funny.

Seems to prove me right

>Stop having badwrong fun.

>Stop having badwrong fun.
But that's exactly what you're saying here. Your lack of self-awareness is amazing.

Oh not at all, Low Fantasy realism is perfectly valid and fun.

I'm saying you're one of those faggots who exclusively thinks that type of game is some kind of Pinnacle of roleplaying and anything else is "Beneath" that.

It's the content of the game, not the "Type" of game.

A game I'd run with Adventurer guilds would be better than your game without them because I'm not a near sighted Mongoloid.

>I'm saying you're one of those faggots who...
>because I'm not a near sighted Mongoloid.
Yes you are. You're probably a terrible GM, too.

Well, I don't call a concept stupid simply because I cannot use it effectively.

Sounds like you're the bad DM.

That's because you can't use anything effectively.

Holy shit, this arrogance. I agree with another user, you sound like a terrible DM.

I like them.

Because its unrealistic and somewhat nonsensical. Adventuring isnt something you plan to do, thats half the adventure. Codifying something otherwise spontaneous is always the lamest thing possible.

This.

I honestly prefer "mercenaries with a cash flow problem all meet in a drinking establishment" over Adventure Guilds.

But then again it flusters my jimbobs when "Adventurer" is treated as a genuine profession.

Honestly this. I only ever see actual "Adventurer Guilds" or analogous organizations in JRPGs or the shitty anime replicating JRPGs.

The thing is, adventurers should be mobile and pragmatic to an extent that having a guild for them makes no sense. Thats like having a drifter's guild, or a congress of insane hobos. If your society supports enough of those people that there are a critical mass of them that are likeminded then clearly your society is fucked.

An alternative that actually makes sense are lodges to a god of travel, or as in the setting I play in, hostels for beggar priests of the god of charity.

>everything needs to stay away from High Fantasy as much as possible
I mean, yeah. If you want fucking SAO or some shit go turn on your TV.

Like said above, it literally sounds like you people don't understand what mercenaries and Guilds are.

You can have a guild for fucking anything.

This. The only real argument against and the only one that's needed.

Are you literally so stupid, you can't tell the difference between mercenaries who can sometimes take castles, and adventurers who sometimes kill gods?

>You can have a guild for fucking anything
You technically could, yeah, but that's not what happens in practice.

I mean, I could have a Guild of Public Masturbators if I wanted to, but why?

You know what you can't have a guild for?

Highly individualistic lonesome wandering killers for hire that swear no loyalty to anything, don't share a common profession or belief structure and don't need to pay protection money to anybody.

"Adventurers" would gain nothing out of forming a Guild.

For starters, mercenaries dont form guilds, they form companies that are highly regimented. Second, the majority of military companies historically have been owned by a wealthy, interested party. Neither strict order nor being owned are things that go well with adventuring, so your argument falls flat on its face instantly because you have no idea how anything works.

>You can have a guild for fucking anything.

I mean sure, but an actual guild existing exclusively for Player Characters is so goddamn lazy. It's literally just a personified version of the Bounty Board. Plus the implications of an entire organization made up of dozens of people with PC levels is problematic for the setting.

Now I wouldn't mind an "Adventurers Guild" which is just an enthusiasts club for weekend warrior types who see themselves as proper heroes. Sort of the like the Fantasy version of those Sov-Cit militia groups.

But a club where there's actual power levels and some shit and you have to strive to reach S-Ranked Adventurer? Nah that's fucking dumb and belongs in garbage anime.

Aside from the weeb argument, I personally think they're very hard to intertwine with an actual kingdom. Why would a king, baron or minor lord have dozens or hundreds of mercenaries roam their land, their property without any means of control? What if they start pillaging or robbing the peasants? It's a thing of "better safe than sorry" and just outright forbid them, so the village elders stay in control if they're in need for help. Plus very successful adventure guilds might try to take control over some authorities by pressing additional money for i.e. monster hunts.

just my 2 cents

>problematic

Opinion discarded.

>the implications of an entire organization made up of dozens of people with PC levels is problematic for the setting.

Oh wait, your opinion is genuinely retarded as well.
You're making the setting, you dummy.

Oh, so you're a /pol/ faggot as well. This keeps getting better and better.

Lone wolf Adventure guild. For any adventurers who wish to go solo on adventurer or killers for hire that swear no loyalty to anything, don't share a common profession or belief structure and don't need to pay protection money to anybody.

If your issue with something is that there isn't an actual problem, but that it could be vaguely "problematic", you don't actually have an issue.

You clearly dont understand that "problematic" is a real term with a real meaning. Balance of power is important in building a setting, and having a guild of high powered individual actors makes that insanely difficult to pull of well.

Chances are you just have a tolerance for shit settings like Golarion that feature tons of Adventurer Guilds, and where player characters can feasibly become actual gods.

Privateers joined the Lloyd's or similar systems, tho.

>Opinion discarded
>Oh no he used the evil buzzword that means he's wrong even though he used it completely correctly

>You're making the setting, you dummy.
Yeah, and I'm smart enough with my world building to know there's no reason an organization made of, by, and for "Adventurers" completely breaks any kind of immersion for the millions of reasons listed in this thread.

Why have adventurer's form guilds with membership cards and staff working the desk when you can just stick a "kil gooblins 4 gold coinz" sign on the board in the center of town and let them figure it out.

>makes that insanely difficult to pull of well.

You need to exaggerate to try to make your point, and that's why your opinion is worthless.
It's not really hard at all, because high powered worlds have high powered checks. Also, most adventurer guilds have rank and file made up of people little better than mercenaries. It's not like the Justice league or some shit.

Basically, it's only a problem if you try to make it one, hence why it's "problematic" and not actually a genuine problem.

>"Adventurers" would gain nothing out of forming a Guild.
On the contrary they would benefit A LOT.

If you are competent fighter, magic user or thief you are good at fighting magic or thievery.
>inb4 thief knows worth of things they steal
yet they still use fences

So you are not that good at bartering, service worth assessment, networking, contract law, finding buyers for loot and other business related things.
So at dangerous job you could get a fraction of it's market worth.

On the other hand you may pay middle man 10% of your pay for him to negotiate on your behalf.
In the end you get twice as much money and them deduct 10% fee.
Everyone is happy.

From customer point of view it is also beneficial.
He can't hire "X Company" as they sell in groups of 100 men strong company that is useless in 5 man wide corridor and don't have special skills.
So he need to go from wizard guild to fighters guild to thief guild and don't know competence of hired guys and how much pay is fair, so he may hire not good enough that will fail or hire too good guys at too much cost.

While local adventurer guild knows this shit, knows where to find needed persons, makes sure that task is completed by just enough competent persons, and that you don't overspend.

Other "guild services" is just market competition for adventurers and clients to use THIS guild services.

Division of work is cornerstone of strong society, so "adventurers" should delegate administrative and commerce task to specialized non-combatants.
It is like saying that logistic branch of military is useless cause troops can live of the land.

In any setting poor enough to have a guild of invididuals which can offer pay thats competitive to standing armies, then dollars to doughnuts adventurers CAN become members of the Justice League. Its true enough in D&D. At this point though I can tell you're just trolling. Good on ya. Shit where you eat.

Not an argument

>It's not like the Justice league or some shit.
That's exactly what an "Adventurer's Guild" is you dolt. Adventurer refers to Player Characters who are almost by definition superheroes.

Fuck, even the Justice League makes more sense because they exist out of a common sense of altruism and don't extort money out of the people they protect.

> it's only a problem if you try to make it one
No, it's a problem if you ignore its glaringly obvious implications and insist on keeping your boring, lazy, and obnoxiously convenient plot device.

Fable

Fable is this weird, hazy nonsense fantasy though. It works in that context.

Because chad's and Stacy's and other normies are joining the adventurers guild.

TLDR
Adventurers guild is "Shared services center" for people that fit broad definition of adventurer in a setting.

I have no idea what point you just tried to make aside from "mercenary guilds don't make sense, wait I meant adventurer guilds, oh wait I'm a complete idiot."

Mercenary guilds and companies are the model for adventuring guilds, and if you are making arguments that try to deny the plausibility of things that actually existed, you would be the one trolling if you weren't just genuinely an idiot.

>Adventurer refers to Player Characters who are almost by definition superheroes.

Not at all. Some are little better than common soldiers.

>No, it's a problem if you ignore its glaringly obvious implications and insist on keeping your boring, lazy, and obnoxiously convenient plot device.

Once again, you need to exaggerate to try and make your flimsy, limp-wristed point.

>mercenary guild
>actually existing
Man this is a new low even for Veeky Forums

Comparing mercenary companies and the nebulous, completely fictional concept of adventurer guilds makes no sense.

Mercenaries are professional soldiers who team up and hire out their services to the highest bidder. A king or baron or nobleman can use them to wage his political wars and supplement his own army. Or a company can hire them and bypass the red tape of petitioning for legitimate government protection. Mercenary companies have a fantasy counterpart: the Fighters Guild.

An Adventurer's Guild a group of people from walks of life ranging from holy sworn knights to barbarian warriors to shifty thieves to fucking death priests who band together for no real reason other than convenience in doing what an actual mercenary company should exist for. They're a narrative crutch for characters who lack any kind of agency or personal narration. Asking if there's a local Adventurer's Guild is the exact same thing as "I approach the Bounty Board" or "I ask the Innkeeper if anyone has some jobs to do". It's boring. It's convenient. It causes problems for the setting because this means there is an unchecked, un-regulated, unified force of dangerously powerful and self-important ragamuffins with no loyalties or concerns for anything but getting paid to solve problems they should all be seeking out on their own in the first place.

I hate superheroes.

What do you think a company essentially is?

>They are the worst part of nip corporate autism made manifest.
They kill all sense of wonder, individuality and freedom, they make what would otherwise be a personal experience of exploration, altruism and struggle into a fucking corporate job.
>They are vidya
They serve no purpose but to be a quest, vendor and trainer hub as well as an excuse for role-based party optimization. It takes away the roleplay aspect and makes it into a fucking MMO grindfest.
>They curb adventure
If you have one, the game becomes nothing more than running off from the city on schematized quests refluffed again and again and going back. No exploration, no world interaction, no personal investment

>But user, this is all meta, it would make sense in the setting, it helps the people
Fuck no.
>Guilds are monopol cartels
Their purpose is to maximize their own profits, often at a huge tradeoff in accessibility and affordability. They were the number one barrier to industrialization. They purposely limited the supply to gouge prices and choked all artisans they couldn't control.
Now, what exactly are adventurers? Heroes, with an individual quest to see the world and make it a better place. Now, if you install a literal altruism mafia that forcibly monetizes and monopolizes it? Oh, your village is raided by goblins? Better cough up 10k gold, adventurers don't work for free. Oh, you don't have that much? Tough shit. Wait user, killing the goblins is not an official quest on the board, choose one from there. Oh, you want to go anyway? Intruding on the guild's turf with private action? Better disappear before we make you disappear.
>Feudal society would never allow it
Mercenary bands were mobile organizations wherever. But a stationary guild, made for the express purpose of internal military action on the lords' own lands in the region? Full of extremely competent fighters and casters, with dubious at best obedience to the monarch and the regional lord? Even proposing it would get you hanged.

Why is it unchecked and unregulated? Why do you think every adventurer belongs to the guild and there are none in the government's employ? Why are you struggling to find reasons it wouldn't work, and ignoring all the reasons it would?

Why are you only doing half the required amount of thinking?

>. It causes problems for the setting because this means there is an unchecked, un-regulated, unified force of dangerously powerful and self-important ragamuffins with no loyalties or concerns for anything but getting paid to solve problems they should all be seeking out on their own in the first place.
You know that you don't have to be adventurer for full time.
Depending on supply and demand you probably are not.

Most people in adventurer guild also have other job, they are just registered as seeking side employment and source of extra income.

For example magician is mostly professor at state magic university, fighter is noble knight sworn to some lord and burglar was contracted via thieves guild.

>Why is it unchecked and unregulated?
If the government can regulate an entire private army of Player Characters then there's really no need for that private army to exist in the first place.

It sounds like you're applying an extremely broad definition of "Adventurer Guilds" to mean any organization to which the PCs belong. That's entirely different than a quest and vendor hub existing solely for the convenience of people who fit the meta-concept of an Adventurer. Which is what everyone in this thread but apparently you agrees is an Adventurer's Guild.

Besides, why would I even bother trying to put effort into coming up with half-baked fake reasons for it to exist if the concept itself is so lazy and convenient? Might as well just say the players are members of the Royal monster-killing office. That at least is compelling and leaves room for narratives other than achieving Adventurer, 5th Rank and being allowed to take dragonslayer contracts.

A private army. Not a guild of individuals who act individually.

So, what implications does this have for one that actually exists?
>They are a conspirational power grab
They are a perfect excuse to completely nullify any military action by the population. What, you want to want to kill the werewolf? No, that's the guild's job, put down those pitchforks or be burned for rebellion. He who controls the guild, decides what lives and dies inside the nation.
Peasants organizing to defend themselves from the undead? They are an evi? cult trying to overthrow the king, kill them. Black robed dues in the cemetery doing rites? Mysteriously, there we post no quest to kill or investigate.
>But user, if not for the organized and prepared adventurers who will defeat Lord BBEG SkullBad?
WE. Retard. The guild IS Lord BBEG. If zpthey were able and willing to defeat him they would have done so. Instead, they are going around killing anyone daring to attack the undead army without their permission. Strangely, you never see them fighting the skeletons themselves.Oh, overthrow them? At this point, not even the king can, they are far more and stronger than the retinuers and the levies have no weapons nor experience. Enjoy your 10000 years of darkness, once installed the satans' guild can't be removed

TL;DR: Adventurer guilds are evil, and should be fought against at every option

Honestly the most compelling use of an adventurer guild I've ever seen. Definitely moreso than "b-but they're necessary and offer a product people want!".

>theres an [IDEA] in a game
>we must run it out to the logical conclusion as it would happen in our word, otherwise its stupid and lame
>this MUST happen

I will never understand the kind of person who takes escapsim as a hobby, but insists it must be "realistic" in order to be "right".

So, you think that handwaving all those issues away makes for a good storytelling?

You have a stupidly, and I reiterate stupidly, narrow definition of what an adventurer's guild is, likely because your only exposure to the concept was you playing some MMO.

A guild of adventurers. That's what an adventuring guild is.

It can be government regulated, and often is. It's rarely a Justice League and more typically a meeting place for low-level adventurers (because high level ones have less of a need for a guild). It's a place to hire people with strange talents and get requests for those kid of talents, and it being convenient is why it would exist to begin with in a world with people with strange talents and a lot of requests for those talents.

What you're basically doing is saying "My stupid idea is stupid, so your ideas are stupid as well."

You're half right. You really are an idiot and your ideas are terrible. But, for fuck's sake, don't try to force people to match your idiotic views when you can't even manage to get something as simple as an adventurer's guild to feel sensible.

>Justifying lazy video game shit with "but it's fantasy!"

I mean you do you but you sound like a really boring GM.

What would be the purpose of that adventuring guild you speak of ?

Oh, so your idea of guilds is much more intelligent. Go ahead and answer all of those questions, then.

>likely because your only exposure to the concept was you playing some MMO.
Because that's literally the only place you see shit like Adventurer Guilds
>it being convenient is why it would exist
Convenience is narrative poison. Doubly so if it's deliberate convenience.

Population Control.

>unrealistic
Dragons. Magic. The wealth of kingdoms hidden in tombs.
>nonsensical
Ancient creatures trying to take over the world.

Welp, there goes all of fantasy, game over, go home!

>Dude, it's magic, therefore all logic and consistency go out of the window

It goes against Western fantasy tropes. It is a foreign Japanese thing. At most, you could make comparations with American Superhero leagues, another unwelcomed influence.

>Literally an argument
>"Not an argument"

Can we not have another 400 post goblin slayer shitstorm?

Kings should ban adventurer guilds. It's a nest of bullies, murderhobos, and future Darth Vaders.

The fact that you think good story-telling necessitates that level of verisimilitude is what confuses me.

Why do you think all of that stuff needs to be accounted for in order for a good story to be told?

There are absolutely some points to be made, such as
>why wouldnt such a group assume control
>why do they do this in the first place
>whats the hierarchy
Everything else is strictly superfluous information that doesn't actually effect the capacity to present a narrative, and all three of those questions can easily be answered as long as you don't insist that every world which exists obeys the same socio-economic ideology as the one you live in or cleave to your personal interpretation of what makes sense.

I never said anything about fantasy. You're projecting an argument I wasn't even making.

Ah !! Yes !! The famous "Let's go kill goblins !!" ploy !!
It is among the best trick to get rid of misfit youngsters, right after the "Pokemon Hunt" and the "Chosen One's Destiny".

All boils down to a simple plan :
Make them believe that they are special in a good way and that them and them alone can somehow reach greatness by going alone in the wild lands filled with monsters.

Oh sure, once in a while, some of them do come back, all smug, their pockets filled with money and a few scalps at their belts.
You just have to send them to another quest, one so dangerous that it was too obvious of a trap for when they were weaker... but now, they are true heroes, are they not ?

Now, now, I know... the current King is one of these lucky survivors who went through SEVERAL of those quests and came back victorious.
Let's give credit where credit is due : some of those misfits do have potential. But for every hidden gem that eventually shine, there are hundreds of rotten apples in need of being discarded.

So thank you for you patronage of the "Adventuring Guild", fellow noblemen.
You are doing a great service to the realm !!

What about their tax policy

Counterpoint: adventurers not being relatively common in the world means that all of the spells and equipment the party is buying and looting exists just for them. As in, it could only ever possibly be useful for those four exact ragtag misfits, and maybe like 3 other people on the entire planet, and thus ther e no excuse for there being so much of it around.

Gosh, such luck that the shop keeper in this relatively unimportant city would happen to have a rod of ropes that fires a grappling hook on command and JUST SO HAPPENS to get the only customer in a thousand years who could ever have a conceivable use for it.

The default DnD setting absolutely requires the existence of several high-level wizards kicking around to explain the existence of level appropriate magic items and the spell list as it is available to caster as they level up. Otherwise, you would get to level 12 and turn to the player and say 'thats it, you're going to have trouble learning spells now because only a few people ever get this far and the ones that do didn't leave the best notes. No more spells unless you put the work into making up your own by trial and error'

>Why do you think all of that stuff needs to be accounted for in order for a good story to be told?

Because while little children might love a good story and not usually ask too many questions about the how and why of the socioeconomics and politics of the setting, your players might just ask those questions or at least act in a way that would made those questions relevant.

Now, as a DM, you CAN ignore most of them.
But it might bite you back.

>Why do you think all of that stuff needs to be accounted for in order for a good story to be told
Because there are only two reasons to use adventuring guilds in your story. Only two.

>To explore those issues
>Because you are too lazy to come up with any other source of quests for your players