What sort of combination of circumstances (in a fantasy setting...

What sort of combination of circumstances (in a fantasy setting, obviously) could make it feasible for "adventurers' guilds" to exist?

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Any sort of Mercenary union

"Adventure" being a catchall term for any sort of dangerous mercenary work.

An autist posting the same thread again
(in a fantasy setting)

But that's very rarely the case. There's almost no overlap between "mercenary work" and what adventurers do in the majority of D&D settings i.e. mostly dungeon delve for treasure and kill some monsters along the way.

Then the "guild" part is a misnomer used for convenience and it's really an adventurer's association. This is still not very implausible, since clubs and societies and associations and brotherhoods and similar things have always been around, and there's no reason they wouldn't be around in a fantasy setting.

>This shitposting again

We have this thread every fucking day.

I'd like to see it work a little different. It would be cool to see the adventures guild as almost a militia recruitment centre, and once you're in and half trained you're sent to one of any number of problems around. You're more of a cannon fodder, and if they're lucky five of you will bring down a troll or something before they have to send five more. Not so much a gathering hall of special snowflakes than a place where they go "Got a stick? Good! Get over to ____ immediately and give them a hand pushing merfolk back into the river"

Then it's not an adventurer's guild, it's a militia, funny guy.

We also have morons like you giving threads like these (you)'s every fucking day.

Could there be a link? No, perish the thought, better just keep replying and making OP look like a fool, even though nothing that happens ITT matters once it 404's and OP is free to make another thread.

Then again, it's none of my business.

>Monster populations exploded to the point where they were encroaching upon human settlements >Kingdoms had to hastily gather mercenaries to go in and clear monster settlements before it's too late
>Realize that having random mercs defending your kingdom's safety wasn't ideal, so they set up training centers for peasants, knights, and outliers who display impressive skill with magic.
>Each kingdom now has a dedicated training center for their serfs to join.
>Eventually, gets referred colloquially as an "adventurer's guild" since it's the place where people go to be trained to fight monsters in faraway lands.
Or something to that effect.

Don't call them Adventurer's Guilds. I don't think you even understand what a guild is or how they work.

You can't. In any circumstance where there's so much "adventure" to go around that an entire class of people exist to be exclusively adventurers as their primary source of income, those same circumstances would require the government of the area to step in with its military to solve the problem.

There is no reason to assume that adventurers would have a monopoly on the sort of power that they wield, either. That is to say, if Joe Schmoe the Farmer can pick up a sword, fight through some dungeon, and end up becoming a 10th level Paladin, why couldn't a member of the military? Similarly, why wouldn't the military/government employ people like high-level clerics or wizards? Hell, why wouldn't it be MADE UP of high-level adventurers?

That's the main problem: adventurers end up being very powerful individuals, an an "adventurers' guild" concentrates all that power into a single location. Even if adventurers only gradually become more common over time - the world started out basically like ours but opportunities for adventure and thus adventurers just became increasingly common - they're still sooner or later going to have more power than the King and his entire army, at which point they're going to start asking themselves "so....why don't we run this place? We're the ones doing all the work in keeping it save from liches and dragons and demons. What does the King actually do that we couldn't do ourselves? What loyalty do we have to him?"

Even if the adventurers are basically loyal to the kingdom, all it will take is one bad king, a Prince John analogue, for them to decide that they probably have to step in for the good of the kingdom and run the place themselves, or at least remove the current king and personally appoint his successor, probably from among their own ranks.

Why would the kingdom invest all this time and money into training people and then NOT make them a part of its hierarchy in some way? Either members of a standing army, landed nobility, having a seat in the House of Adventurers (an analogue to the House of Lords/House of Commons), or something?

You're talking about a nation training a part of its populace to have more power than its standing army, but then not incentivizing them to be loyal to the kingdom in some way beyond basic patriotism.

That's literally insane.

>Why would the kingdom invest all this time and money into training people and then NOT make them a part of its hierarchy in some way? Either members of a standing army, landed nobility, having a seat in the House of Adventurers (an analogue to the House of Lords/House of Commons), or something?
Because the kingdom treats adventurers as exterminators and only the cream of the crop or those with royal roots are acknowledged by the rulers. It's the same reason why most soldiers aren't acknowledged by the POTUS unless they do something especially impressive while on duty.

Also, standing armies would be the guys guarding the borders to make sure that monsters and rival soldiers don't infiltrate the kingdom or to help restore order should the serfs revolt for one reason or another.

You also say that as if some royals won't hire some exceptional adventurers to be a part of their personal guard for exceptional pay as well.

>You can't.
Y'mean
>I can't.

>It's the same reason why most soldiers aren't acknowledged by the POTUS unless they do something especially impressive while on duty

Most soldiers don't have the personal ability to blow up towns or mow down entire divisions single-handedly, either. Soldiers in the modern world also receive direct pay from the government and generous benefits like a free ride through college; while soldiers in earlier eras could usually count on at least a pension, provided they weren't serfs pressed into service; or else would be part of noble families themselves, knights and stuff, and so already part of the government. A significant part of modern soldier training involves specifically indoctrinating them to be loyal to the nation for which they serve precisely to prevent overthrow, as well.

Soldiers are a bad example, dude, because my ENTIRE POINT is that an adventurer's guild wouldn't exist independent of the military. You're not talking about an adventurer's guild at this point, you're talking about a specialized division of the army - although I can't think of why it'd be so specialized when the skills they pick up fighting monsters are going to be largely just as applicable against people too. Anyone who can mow down legions of skeletons is going to be able to do likewise to a peasant levy; and why waste time and money on a trebuchet when you can just get some 13 year old girl to cast Explosion?

The entire world's society and culture changes shape to orbit around what adventurers do, because they're the ones with all the power.

Dude, the user above me just tried to justify adventurers' guilds and instead justified my point: that they wouldn't exist separate from the military, they'd be an integral part of it.

By all means try and refute my points.

That they call an adventurer's guild so they can get more saps to do their odd jobs.

>Most soldiers don't have the personal ability to blow up towns or mow down entire divisions single-handedly, either.
That would depend on whether they are given a rank and position that grants them access to heavy artillery.
>Soldiers in the modern world also receive direct pay from the government and generous benefits like a free ride through college; while soldiers in earlier eras could usually count on at least a pension,
Who is to say the adventurer's league doesn't grant similar benefits? I mean, it's not like mages would be the only ones who could use a library to further their education or anything.
>although I can't think of why it'd be so specialized when the skills they pick up fighting monsters are going to be largely just as applicable against people too.
Because monsters are literally an entirely different beast entirely and the techniques used to kill bandits or goblins will not work nearly as well against Minotaur, Basilisks, or even Dragons.

A massive rush towards unknown lands. The kingdom grants you a license/charter/letter and you go explore it in their name. They get taxes from it, but take care of legal matters, burials etc etc. No one pays much attention to your past or the barbarians you slaughter along the way.

>That would depend on whether they are given a rank and position that grants them access to heavy artillery.

No, because they still lack the personal ability to pull it off, they depend upon a team of like five or six guys; they also can't bring this artillery to bear anywhere they want: if General Ripper woke up one day and ordered his crew to start shelling London or Boston, he wouldn't be obeyed.

>Who is to say the adventurer's league doesn't grant similar benefits?

Where are they getting the money to do this? The government? Then they're not a guild, they're a division of the army and should be treated as such.

>and the techniques used to kill bandits or goblins will not work nearly as well against Minotaur, Basilisks, or even Dragons.

Except that no RPG system is so granular as to represent that, not even systems known for autistic attention to detail like Hackmaster or FATAL.

Any player character who can personally bring down a dragon BY NECESSITY also has the skill needed to fight and kill ordinary soldiers by the dozens.

This also requires that adventurers are exclusively called upon to deal with singular threats at a time. Adventurers find a tomb and break it open and goblins come pouring out; do they run to the hill and get the military in your world? Of course they don't. They stand, fight, and mow down the goblins by the dozens, and then go and deal with their minotaur boss.

No, I'm sorry. You're not making any sense at all.

>Dude, the user above me just tried to justify adventurers' guilds and instead justified my point: that they wouldn't exist separate from the military, they'd be an integral part of it.
All I'm seeing is you nitpicking someone else's idea to hell and back without offering any decent ideas of your own, making you the worst type of poster ITT aside from the board police.
>By all means try and refute my points.
Okay fine, let's look at one point here.
>Anyone who can mow down legions of skeletons is going to be able to do likewise to a peasant levy
Would you send your soldiers to deal with a domestic disturbance or petty theft?
>why waste time and money on a trebuchet when you can just get some 13 year old girl to cast Explosion?
Because it's much easier to repair damage done by a trebuchet as opposed to damage caused by an explosion? I mean, why destroy such a defensible location?

>Except that no RPG system is so granular as to represent that, not even systems known for autistic attention to detail like Hackmaster or FATAL.
What...... like, Rangers able to kill certain species and only certain species well?

Adventurers are a race of amoral sociopaths born from an unfertilized dragon egg, most often in clutches of four. When born, they are small and sluglike, hunting down nearby sapient races to assimilate and take over. Adventurers are unpredictable, going from town to town, either saving it or slaughtering the inhabitants. "Adventurers' Guilds" are simply ways for kingdoms to keep the beasts distracted, hopefully egging them on into riskier and more deadly journeys in order to kill them before they procreate and create more Adventurers

>No, because they still lack the personal ability to pull it off
It only takes one man to pull the trigger user. I mean, if you wanna be technical.
>they depend upon a team of like five or six guys
So does the mage.
>Where are they getting the money to do this? The government?
I did say here that the kingdoms were the ones who first set up the training centers.
>Then they're not a guild, they're a division of the army and should be treated as such.
Why?
>Any player character who can personally bring down a dragon BY NECESSITY also has the skill needed to fight and kill ordinary soldiers by the dozens.
The thing is, even that's correct, their abilities are better served clearing out monster dens so that those creatures don't expand too close to civilization. The army can defend the borders while the adventurers deal with the threats outside of it.

No, because rangers aren't able to kill only certain species well, they just do it better than other species. A ranger in, say, 5e, isn't exactly useless when fighting goblins or giants even if his favored enemy is dragons.

The previous user was floating the idea that adventurers will not be as effective against goblins or bandits, that those would be left to the military, while adventurers focus on minotaurs, dragons, basilisks, and so on. But there's no RPG system like that. An adventurer capable of fighting a minotaur is also going to be able to take on more than his weight in goblins or bandits.

>without offering any decent ideas of your own

I did offer decent ideas of my own: The adventurers would become part of the military and governance. Frankly the idea of a House of Adventurers (as a complementary body to a House of Lords/House of Commons) sounds intriguing to me.

>Would you send your soldiers to deal with a domestic disturbance or petty theft?

If I'm fighting another nation, I'm going to put my best soldiers on the field. If one of those soldiers is a 13 year old girl who can wipe out an entire army with a few magic words, you can bet your ass she's going to be there.

>I mean, why destroy such a defensible location?

Because it's not defensible if a 13 year old girl can take it out with a few magic words.

A circumstance that somehow regulates adventurers, thus making them boring. Adventuring is what you do, it is never the PC's profession.

A circumstance that somehow makes everyone in the universe want regulation of exceptional individuals, thus making them boring. And Japanese.

>It only takes one man to pull the trigger user.

Most artillery these days have ranges that are out of the line of sight of the people using the artillery. You need a forward observer to pinpoint your target. You also need someone to load the shells, which usually takes two or three guys - these shells are heavy. To say nothing of the maintenance or movement of the artillery piece.

>So does the mage

No, they don't. One high-level mage can, with no one's help, blow up a town in just a few seconds, requiring only line of sight to the town. General Ripper can't do likewise. No one on Earth can do likewise.

>Why?

Because why would they not be? What does the government gain by investing time and money in training civilians to be able to take on entire divisions at a time and then letting them run loose and do their own thing?

The real world has mercenaries, sure, but man for man no mercenary group in the real world is the equal of its military counterpart. Get me 100 Academi mercenaries with Academi's full funding behind them, and 100 US Marines with the US Military's full funding behind them, and I know where the smart money is, and you do too.

>their abilities are better served clearing out monster dens so that those creatures don't expand too close to civilization

So, the borders. You're talking about the borders of a kingdom. That the kingdom might entirely surround the monster den is irrelevant, it's still a region that is not under the kingdom's control.

Your premise also has a more fundamental problem: what happens when the kingdom next door starts sending these one-13-year-old-girl-armies to their borders in order to start taking over your land?

Yeah, that fortress that you spent half the kingdom's economy on doesn't look so good when it's a pile of rubble and your army which explicitly didn't have adventurers in it never even got a chance to fight back, does it?

>I'm going to put my best soldiers on the field. If one of those soldiers is a 13 year old girl who can wipe out an entire army with a few magic words, you can bet your ass she's going to be there.
Even though a) she can only afford to use it a certain amount of times per day, b) is still only as durable as most other children her age, c) can potentially be kidnapped and used by rival military forces, d) would escalate the war and e) would take otherwise valuable personnel away from monster hunting just to make sure that a rival country don't blow up the nation's capital.

Think about it like this, adventurer's are walking nukes, and MAD keeps countries from using unless it's against a monstrous force that cannot be killed conventionally.
>Because it's not defensible if a 13 year old girl can take it out with a few magic words.
You could blow up the Pentagon the same as any other gov't building but that doesn't mean it's not one of the most defensible buildings in the US.

>One high-level mage can, with no one's help, blow up a town in just a few seconds, requiring only line of sight to the town.
He's still not reaching that point without a party to carry his ass though.
>What does the government gain by investing time and money in training civilians to be able to take on entire divisions at a time and then letting them run loose and do their own thing?
Because it frees them up from the bureaucracy and allows them to get to where they need to go faster.
>what happens when the kingdom next door starts sending these one-13-year-old-girl-armies to their borders in order to start taking over your land?
Mutually Assured Destruction; either from the destruction that the adventurers would leave in their wake, from the monster dens breeding out of control without adventurers there to cull their ranks, or a combination of both.

>monster hunting

So there's just a perpetual monster threat with no end in sight? Your brilliant solution to the Adventurers As A Social Class is to have monsters constantly spawning without end all over the place?

That's retarded, since it would likewise lead to a society that is completely alien in construct and still doesn't change the fact that adventures would find themselves in a position of such social importance that it makes the most sense for them to BE the government.

>unless it's against a monstrous force that cannot be killed conventionally.

But the thing is that you're making adventurers exist in such numbers that they ARE conventional. You're basically going full 3.5 D&D where statistically speaking, if you follow the town and city generation guidelines, people with PC class levels make up about 10% of the total population. As a point of comparison, the total United State active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel combined only make up about 0.7% of the US population.

>and MAD keeps countries from using

Except that not all adventurers are quite that powerful, but all of them are still a cut above a normal soldier. Even if it's something as simple as having someone capable of healing wounds in every squadron, that's going to drastically affect the way wars are fought, and it would be frankly stupid to not make use of them.

Maybe he saved it and you're being a retard. Ever think of that?

>You can't. In any circumstance where there's so much "adventure" to go around that an entire class of people exist to be exclusively adventurers as their primary source of income, those same circumstances would require the government of the area to step in with its military to solve the problem.
The closest you get is a Wild West type scenario, where there are so many monsters and so much untamed wilderness that the most expedient option for the government is to throw a paycheck at anybody with a weapon and a will. EVENTUALLY the government will come in with the regular army and stabilize things, of course, but in the intervening years or decades before that happens, there may well be plenty of adventure to go around.

Taking that as an inspiration, the best model for an Adventurer's Guild is probably something like the Pinkertons.

>Because it frees them up from the bureaucracy and allows them to get to where they need to go faster.

It also means that the government has people who can take on entire army divisions at a time with no supervision and no guarantee that they will be working for the best interests of the kingdom at all times as opposed to, say, deciding that they'd rather do something else with the phenomenal cosmic power they have or will eventually have.

>Mutually Assured Destruction

How is the government enforcing this if they're letting their adventurers run around and do their own thing without supervision, completely independent of the kingdom?

What's stopping the neighboring kingdom from just buying up their loyalty, or arranging for the adventurers to be elsewhere during the invasion so that destruction can't be mutually assured?

Sure, maybe, but there should be a definite sense that this is a temporary situation. The government is building fortresses and constantly extending its reach.

You also, again, have to deal with the problem that the Pinkertons were never in a position to seriously challenge the US Army for control of vast tracts of land, whereas adventurers frequently are.

>Soldiers are a bad example, dude, because my ENTIRE POINT is that an adventurer's guild wouldn't exist independent of the military. You're not talking about an adventurer's guild at this point, you're talking about a specialized division of the army - although I can't think of why it'd be so specialized when the skills they pick up fighting monsters are going to be largely just as applicable against people too. Anyone who can mow down legions of skeletons is going to be able to do likewise to a peasant levy; and why waste time and money on a trebuchet when you can just get some 13 year old girl to cast Explosion?
To follow on this point, I've actually found making the party members of an elite (or maybe not-so-elite) military unit works often a lot better than the traditional D&D "adventurers" model. They still have plenty of excuses to go and fight baddies, they still loot the spoils of war (sometimes), but when you need some outside pressure to keep them on track, just send down Orders or have a ranking officer show up. I mean, sure... they could desert and become mercs or outlaws, but then they've got a price on their heads and all that free mil-grade resupply stops coming.

Well, maybe those are upcoming themes in the setting. There's absolutely no reason why the status quo has to be projected as stagnant for the next infinity years when the game itself goes hour-to-hour, day-to-day. Magic Pinkertons that could eventually become serious geo-political contenders is a perfectly good concept.

>So there's just a perpetual monster threat with no end in sight? Your brilliant solution to the Adventurers As A Social Class is to have monsters constantly spawning without end all over the place?
>That's retarded
How so? We still have rats, ants, wasps, flies, and other vermin roaming around so why is it suddenly uncalled for to say that monsters follow the same principle?
>Except that not all adventurers are quite that powerful, but all of them are still a cut above a normal soldier.
That doesn't mean that adventurers should be used to deal with issues that can be handled by normal soldiers though.
>Even if it's something as simple as having someone capable of healing wounds in every squadron
Why not use healing potions?

>Sure, maybe, but there should be a definite sense that this is a temporary situation.
I see that as a positive. I'd much rather have my campaign set in a dynamic world vs a static one. We've grown well past Keep On The Borderlands and CRPG's on the super nintendo - nothing says the PC's and the Big Bad need to be the only active powers in the universe, with everyone else just standing around waiting to be approached.

>You also, again, have to deal with the problem that the Pinkertons were never in a position to seriously challenge the US Army for control of vast tracts of land, whereas adventurers frequently are.
In certain styles of campaigns, yeah, but for the same reason as the above comment, I don't love that. I always like having some powers in the campaign that cannot be brute-forced. Sure, the PC's can slap around some random unit of army grunts - they are seasoned badass veterans, after all. But if they do that, it will just make the government send their own badasses in response.

>How is the government enforcing this if they're letting their adventurers run around and do their own thing without supervision, completely independent of the kingdom?
Once the conflict reaches the point where the AL needs to be involved, they would need to develop oversight and become members of the standing army.
>What's stopping the neighboring kingdom from just buying up their loyalty, or arranging for the adventurers to be elsewhere during the invasion so that destruction can't be mutually assured?
The fact that if they do that, every country allied with the one that they're attacking will be forced to step in and all conflicts from that moment forward would be forced to include adventurers in their strategies just so they have a means to keep up?

Not to mention the monster dens that would still be expanding over time that would fuck everyone's shit up once they become too big to deal.

Oh yes, watching one autist REEEEEing and nitpicking every other idea counts as "saving" the thread. I wish I was as naive as you, but guess we'll be back next week when OP makes the same thread with the same replies all over again.

>Why not use healing potions?

False dichotomy: you can have both, and the adventurer cleric can also do things like cast Bless or Remove Fear. Or Cause Fear, for that matter.

>How so? We still have rats, ants, wasps, flies, and other vermin roaming around so why is it suddenly uncalled for to say that monsters follow the same principle?

Most vermin don't make a habit out of eating people on a regular basis and are at this point just pests, and all of the large man-eater animals (bears, lions, etc) actually make a habit of avoiding humans in general. That's not remotely similar to an ankheg bursting out of the ground eating villagers or a goblin horde surging from the Underdark to loot and kill everything in their way.

You still haven't answered my question as to whether or not adventurers in your setup deal with goblins or not, by the way. If a dragon has goblin minions, does it then become a join exercise between the military and the adventurers?

>it will just make the government send their own badasses in response.

But that's my point, isn't it? The government HAS these badasses in its direct employ. So why would a huge market for adventurers exist? Even in the Wild West, most problems were handled by government employees - the army or the rangers or the police. Pinkerton involvement was both rare and specialized, while also not usually notably better than what the local or federal government could have achieved.

To say nothing of what the Pinkertons were eventually used for; namely, union-busting.

There would definitely be transitions, but it wouldn't have to be so dramatic. Europe's history has a solid couple centuries in the middle there where mercenary armies outnumbered regular troops by a significant margin, especially in what's now germany and italy. Some city-states relied almost entirely on mercenary armies for defense. Mercs transitioning in to regular armies, entire merc armies changing sides, and the whole scene descending in to chaos are all things that happened at various points.

Clearing out monsters in their nests would almost definitely be something mercenaries get hired for in a setting full of monsters and dungeons.

>But that's my point, isn't it? The government HAS these badasses in its direct employ. So why would a huge market for adventurers exist? Even in the Wild West, most problems were handled by government employees - the army or the rangers or the police. Pinkerton involvement was both rare and specialized, while also not usually notably better than what the local or federal government could have achieved.
There's a broad spectrum there. To keep the PC's on (relatively) good behavior, the gov wouldn't need more than one elite unit to deal with troublemakers. Hell, maybe just a single uber-badass sheriff would do the trick. If you're talking about a large frontier, there's potentially employment for thousands of so-called Adventurers dealing with various problems. This is exactly how most colonial activities have happened historically - the government has a presence, yes, but most of the boots on the ground are freelance hunters, trappers, adventurers, mercs, and other rough types. A few murderhobos would fit right in.

>To say nothing of what the Pinkertons were eventually used for; namely, union-busting.
A once-prosperous adventure guild looking for work and getting offered something morally dubious like this actually seems like a pretty good hook. Which side are you on?

>especially in what's now germany and italy
>italy

You don't want to use the Italian mercenaries as your example. Just trust me, you don't.

>Clearing out monsters in their nests would almost definitely be something mercenaries get hired for in a setting full of monsters and dungeons.
Sure, I could easily see taking the Witcher model and just make it more mundane. Instead of small brotherhood of superheroes, make it a larger organization of well-trained mortal monster killers. In a world full of monsters, there is going to be demand.

>but most of the boots on the ground are freelance hunters, trappers, adventurers, mercs, and other rough types. A few murderhobos would fit right in.

But they were just that: freelance, not part of an organized adventurer's guild that was providing money, employment, and a monopoly on their services. At most you'd have a trading post where they could sell their furs or pick up supplies, but they didn't pay any kind of tithe to those posts, and those posts certainly didn't provide training.

>You don't want to use the Italian mercenaries as your example. Just trust me, you don't.
Are you kidding? Getting merc work and getting caught between warring city states, maybe a few of them run by Popes or bankers or lunatics or what-have-you, everybody betraying everybody... it's perfect. Good campaigns thrive on conflict, and this is rich ground for making the PC's a lot of powerful enemies.

The way I see it, adventurers are basically treasure hunters, so just have there be a large number of collapsed ancient civilizations with ruins full of dangerous monsters and treasure everywhere, and guilds would inevitably form to organize groups of professionals to makeexcursions into these labyrinthine dungeons to brave the dangers and try and collect some of that loot.

Except that Italian mercenaries basically refused to kill each other. Fights between city-states that employed them were for all intents and purposes decided by games of rock-paper-scissors. And the second an actual army showed up (the French), the mercenaries scattered and diverted in droves.

The Italian mercenaries aren't a good analogue to adventurers because the typical mercenary company is WORSE than its military equivalent, rather than better, which is what at least one retarded user in this thread is proposing (that is, that someone who can handle fighting a dragon is somehow no better than anyone else when it comes to fighting a person)

Wouldyou genuinely prefer the same shitty generals we also have every day over genuine creativity and brainstorming? If you lack the imagination to participate, traditional gaming probably isn't the hobby for you.

>But they were just that: freelance, not part of an organized adventurer's guild that was providing money, employment, and a monopoly on their services. At most you'd have a trading post where they could sell their furs or pick up supplies, but they didn't pay any kind of tithe to those posts, and those posts certainly didn't provide training.
All you need for an organization to exist is for their to be some benefit to being in it. The PC's don't have to be employees in a company - just create a relationship where the benefit of joining exceeds the cost. Fur trading companies made infinitely larger profits than individual trappers and traders. Adventuring clubs allowed explorers to share valuable maps and intel. Mercenary companies allowed individual soldiers to make more and take on less risk. Knightly Orders gave sir whatshisname some buddies to hang out with while on crusade far from his homeland.

And also those ruins and fallen civilizations have to have not already been picked clean, which is incredibly rare.

The entire reason why we gush over Tutankhamen isn't because he was some great or noteworthy Pharaoh, it's because his tomb is basically the only one that wasn't picked clean by treasure-seekers centuries ago.

Oh, sure, but this is fantasy. We get to cherry pick all the cool bits from history and leave the crappy ones on the table. That's part of the fun.

>And also those ruins and fallen civilizations have to have not already been picked clean, which is incredibly rare.
It's incredibly rare when the current population is much larger than the ancient one. In that case, there are more treasure hunters than treasure. Simple supply-and-demand.

A lot of fantasy settings do the opposite - you have some world-spanning ancient civ, that maybe outnumbered the current population hundreds to one. There are far more ruins than there are people available to explore them. So in this case there are plenty of traps and monsters and treasure to go around.

>And also those ruins and fallen civilizations have to have not already been picked clean, which is incredibly rare.
you forget that unlike in real life, ruins and fallen civilizations in fantasy are gonna be full of horrible monsters and still-working traps.

You also ignore the basic assumptions of most D&D style settings with adventures: civilization itself is mostly fucked with only a few safe zones, while the wilderness itself is super dangerous

You people are taking the term "guild" too seriously m8s. It doesn't mean that they are the literal employers of the adventurers.
An adventurers guild would just be an organization that gathers info and quests in a single place, and distributes them to members for a small part of the fee.

None, ever, that's ridiculous.
A tight-knit group of 'adventurers' without an official formalized guild-esque order, on the other hand, is possible. But an 'adventurers guild' is silly.

/thread

>None, ever, that's ridiculous.

That was 4e's schtick, which is why they fucked over the Realms and brought back Dark Sun. But it wasn't the case in 3e or earlier, nor was it the case in 5e anymore.

In most D&D settings, civilization is doing just fine or is even expanding - in the Realms, for example, you had Amn and Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep and others exploring the New World in Maztica, while in the North you had the rise of the Silver Marches, the foundation of the Kingdom of Many Arrows, and so on. And the same was basically true in other D&D settings, too - Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Birthright, Mystara, and so on. Sure, there's places where Here Be Dragons, but often said Dragons just want to be left alone. There might be some goblins, but they're no more common than highwaymen. Perfectly safe trade routes exist and most merchant caravans are never threatened even if they have only basic mercenary guards.

Dark Sun was the only major official exception, which explains why 4e brought it back after realizing that they dun goofed with dropping several literal continents onto Faerûn and that there was no way to turn Eberron into a PoL setting without fucking over everything that made everyone like it (wish they'd realized that with the Realms).

>In most D&D settings
I'm guessing the other user was thinking less about "most settings" and more about "classic D&D", which is basically the Dying Earth model. That is very much an example of and . There are a ton of ruins and wilderness, a civilization that's barely getting by, no safe routes to anything, and just generally a world that's doing its best to kill you all the time.

Well, if he meant that, he should have specified it so that I could laugh at him for being stuck in such a 70s mindset. To be frank I'm not even sure that his presumption would carry over to most homebrew settings - my setting, for example, actually advances the general tech available by 300 years from a High Middle Ages/Renaissance feel to a more Age of Sail/Reformation feel, with attendant social change as well as presumed changes in approaches to magic.

>Well, if he meant that, he should have specified it so that I could laugh at him for being stuck in such a 70s mindset.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that approach though. A post-apoc fantasy / declining civ type setting offers plenty of adventure fuel. It's just a very different tone from what you are going for.

It comes down to how strict your definition of "guild" is.

Most people use it very... colloquially.

>b-b-but the generals!
Back to /qst/ crybaby.

>A tight-knit group of 'adventurers' without an official formalized guild-esque order
Which would be colloquially referred to as an "adventurers guild".

It's a name. A word.

This is the most sensible explanation

This mostly

just change the name and you're past the first big hurdle

The Companions, Fairy Tail, Whatever just give it a name

Mercenaries doing shit for money is a tale as old as time

Why? Guild evokes an 'aura' of order, hierarchy, strict regimentality and legal bindings. A group of adventurers, who are typically freedom-loving and wild, would not want to brand themselves as such. A group of adventurers would be more like a gang, or network, or warband or something.
This is why Thieves Guilds are also ridiculous. And fighters guilds too, which should just be called Mercenary orders.

Thieves' Guilds are usually fine because they're functionally just your typical Mafia or other crime organization, and the phrase "guild" is clearly meant to be a sarcastic appeal to legitimacy. It's just an extension of "take him to the cleaners" meaning kill a guy.

Simple.

>people decide to start becoming "adventurers"
>kill monsters, sure! Great
>these fuckers are getting cocky and way out of hand
>king gets an idea
>make a guild!
>this way, we can keep track of them, and their pays and jobs are reliable
>also allows acquisition of illegal magic items and such, and keeping tabs on troublemakers
>illegalize all non-guild adventuring

And that's a plausible reason that actually makes sense

>And that's a plausible reason that actually makes sense
No. That's like sped level logic.

Eh, then they should just be called the ___ Mafia or ___ Gang. I guess it's partly an Aesthetic choice, the idea of a Thieves/Fighters/Mages/Adventurers Guild to be really contrived and unfitting. It feels too Meta, too much like it's been shoved into the world for the utility of the players. Which is fine, if you're playing a particularly 'gamey' type of game.

>King is tired to send good healthy expensive soldiers to die fighting bullshit demons or doing other low priority-high danger job
>Opens up a place to hire mercenaries for small pay + whatever they get in their mission
>Saves money and keeps the kingdom safe, while getting rid of potentially dangerous people in the process
>Call it "Adventurer's Guild" because people would be more at ease being around Adventurers than Mercenaries.

>so....why don't we run this place? We're the ones doing all the work in keeping it save from liches and dragons and demons. What does the King actually do that we couldn't do ourselves? What loyalty do we have to him?"
Cause:
Hero Warrior is bored "protector of the realm" that only whishes that some upstart adventurer dared to challenge the king so he may cut him down.
Hero Rouge have put too much effort into crafting his crime empire to risk any upstart fucker disturbing delicate balance.
Hero Wizard is "royal archmage" that means he gets big research stipend and can hone his craft without disturbance. Raise of new king could put last decades of research into the trash, and he will not allow it.
Hero Cleric works in name of his god that anointed present king it is unwise to offend your divine patron when you are his high cleric.

And why above bastards did not unsure the power earlier before they were tied into status quo of the kingdom?
Cause then there were older hero faggots that enforced status quo for similar reasons.

It is not about killing the king.
King is part of large societal status quo. If you threaten it you threaten all members of society and they will goy far and beyond to eradicate you, and most powerful people are part of this society even if they only want to be left alone.
What could some upstart adventurer offer to most important people in the land so they betray their oath and risk delicate structure they maintained entire life?

>king gets an idea
>make a guild!

That's not how guilds were made, and a king isn't going to make an organization that he doesn't have direct control over. He's more likely to make a new knightly order and induct adventurers in as knights, with attendant oaths of loyalty to the throne.

Do you really not notice how you just described the fact that the adventurers are the ones who are the actual power behind the throne, and the king is serving merely at their pleasure for the sake of convenience? And only for so long as he keeps them happy?

>Instead of small brotherhood of superheroes, make it a larger organization of well-trained mortal monster killers

You could easily make it also have a 'brotherhood of superheroes' head it up at the top. Like as a larger organisation it'll take work on clearing out the kobolds from an abandoned local mine up to destroying a dragon that's severely impacting trade across the entire region. Perhaps membership is how you get these lucrative contracts to fight nation disrupting beasts, with the upper ranks of the guild being given contracts directly the by the rulers of said nations.

Do you realize that you just described the social contract?
Society allows itself to be ruled as long as it pleases it.
When government loses it's support it gets toppled in revolution.

Society adheres to rule cause it would cause it would present to much effort to remove current government in comparison to potential gain.
Adventurers as part of society are no exceptions.

And any "hero" worth their shit, woudn't want to deal with chore of ruling a kingdom. Legal proceedings, taxes, budget, wearing uncomfortable hat, being polite to foreign ambassadors and when shit hits the fan(it always does) everybody blames you, ruling is hard work.
Forget that shit legendary wizards wants to wizard, warriors to warrior, rouges to rouge, and clerics to serve their gods. And if they don't want to do it then they have no drive to make them legends.

Except we're not talking about a social revolution, we're talking about the king having to keep a limited number of people happy or else he gets overthrown and replaced. That's not the social contract. That's the Mamluks or the Roman Army.

>And any "hero" worth their shit, woudn't want to deal with chore of ruling a kingdom.

Yeah, but they often end up there anyway. Unless you're shit-talking Conan, in which case, bitch you best stop shit-talking Conan.

The king is likely to be powerful enough to stop most adventurers from getting ideas.

Either that or have enforcers who are loyal enough to the throne to defend him if anyone decides to stage a coup.

Every time this thread pops up there is the same guy asking the same stupid question...

>"Why would a king allow a powerful group of people to exist that isn't his army...yadda yadda. Then they aren't apart of a guild anymore they are the army...


1.Guilds had Charters which had to be legally sanctioned by the state, and because of the legal sanction, allowed them special rights and privileges in their craft.
Essentially the early form of copywriting, SO... If the adventurer's guilds were to also have a monopoly on the local equipment trade, suddenly they have a product that allows them some form of profit outside of just killing.


2. To answer why they wouldn't necessarily be apart of the army, is like asking why the navy isn't apart of the army. Because they do different things, and need different means of organization, logistics and training.

The navy defends costal waters, attacks foreign threats by see, and maintains aquatic superiority.

The army does the same but land based. And if we were to say, the army in said setting is also a form of gendarmery (military/state police), then their duties are to keep peace and enforce law within the borders, as well as execution of orders on foreign soil.

So what do the adventurers do?
None of that. They aren't trained in any of it. They are trained in exploration, survivalism, combat against non-human and human threats, and small squad based missions.
They literally have a different job that has different requirements, thus are in a different sphere of influence.

3. Privitization does a few things. The first is keeps responsibility and liability in the hands of someone else. If the adventurers are doing shady shit in the name of the crown, the crown takes responsibility.

If adventurers are given liability, but partial sanctioning and assistance by the crown, then they have more freedom, but still some legal grounds to be taxed on their income, which in itself is state control.

>>Continuing

>Cont
The second thing that privatization does is give some feeling of free agency, without completely becoming anarchic. See >>privateers. Legally sanctioned pirates.
Brought money back to the crown, might have embezzled a little, but 70% of a 70% cut is still better than 0.

4.You assume that the state in a fantasy setting is run by incompetents, and that you, a random dude, is somehow smarter than someone who could very well be the head of state in a magocracy.

There is this, I suppose, classic TTRPG meme of the king just being a normal dude, and by all means a regular medieval aristocrat in a setting full of god-wizards.

How does he manage affairs? How does he defend his right to rule?


From a logical standpoint, even if adventurers were [and lets for example use D&D for this], level 20 badasses.

You think for a second that the king, his guard, his officers, and his noncommissioned officers aren't high level?
If they aren't, the problem isn't the idea of adventurer's guilds. The problem is that your setting is logically inconsistent.

In a game like such, the king should be JRPG final boss strong. His class should be King, his template should be Noble, and he should have just a retarded chassis, with resources out the asshole.

The issue is that he is one man, not that he is a weak man. Not at all. Aristocrats should literally be the best in a setting with functioning and scientific magic.


They have nothing better to do than get good.
So the argument that adventurers, who are trained in 4 man squads only, being able to go against a whole army that should be trained VERY well, is simplistic thinking at best.

There should be no reason anyone past sergeant shouldn't be like level 10. Train all day, have spell casters acting as officers, summoned monsters being used as mock battle opponents.


Hell, the more interesting question outside of " Adventurers guilds, how duz dat work?"
Is how does one organize a state in a fantasy universe.

>There's almost no overlap between "mercenary work" and what adventurers do in the majority of D&D settings
?
Where'd you get this idea?
Adventurers just do shit. They don't give a shit about titles. There's no difference.
Anyone can be an adventurer. A mercenary can be an adventurer. You can be a knight and be an adventurer. You can be a dungeon delver and be called an explorer while remaining an adventurer. Merchants, tailors, sailors, scholars can all be adventurers. It's a lifestyle, not a job.
It's only a job in settings that make it one. And even then, an adventurer is always represented as an individual largely left to their own devices. Any more than that and the term "mercenary" ends up consuming more of their identity than the word "adventurer". Adventuring is just something these people do, and they'd do it in whatever facet of life they ended up in.

In defense of guilds, I think it's a great idea to make an organized system to distribute quests both big and small and rank them based on difficulty while officiating rewards to entirely independent fellows in a society where adventuring is a common style of life.

Monster Hunters: where mages have left a large number of griffins, basilisks, cockatrice, hydra etc. You need a group that hunts them for money... like the Witcher but without the magical genetic engineering.

Never did finish reading this, does he stop being a cunt or is all just down hill?

Also yes, people who make kings just a normal Joe Schmo are asking for trouble if anyone digs too deep. The king should be terrifying and if he decides to fight you done fucked up.

are we talking about jrpg/mmo style guilds? As in
An organizaition that aggregates contracts, jobs and quests in a single place in exchange for a small fee?
Cause thats all they do. You go the the guild just to grab jobs, there's no hierarchy, no specific command chain, and most of the staff ain't even trained.
That sort of organization could happen in any setting with wildernesses filled with monsters.

or do you mean an actual, real life style guild?

>Updates never

Last we saw, Nex WAS justified in a lot of the stuff he was doing, and kind of puts that persona up because everyone around him kind of needs it.

In a way his tyrannical attitude is for the benefit of his people, because in one way or another, they just don't see the WHY of what he is doing, but only the what.

Also, Nnurta is his son, and iffurit is a massive lying cunt.


God, I wish more than anything, they would finish and animate it, but I know it's impossible.

critical-hits.com/blog/2015/08/10/murder-hobos-and-empire/

What to do with the young, the restless, and the adventurous? What should a great Empire of 5000 years do with its Murder Hobos? Send them Murder Hoboing!

Murder Hobos assist in the Empire’s inherent extreme conservatism by destroying anything old and threatening, or new and threatening, or current and threatening.

The Empire needs its Murder Hobos.

The previous Empire’s ancient ruins are sitting there, ruining, and waiting for plunder. Those ruins could hold libraries from the previous civilization with forgotten nuggets of knowledge. Those books might suggest… science. And, in the Emperor’s eyes, that knowledge is worse than worthless. It’s an active threat.

What better way to destroy precious, ancient sites than telling groups of Murder Hobos the nearby ruins are full of monsters and treasure? Provide them money and gear. Incentivize them with government Questgivers. Murder Hobos will clean out any active, temporized threats hiding in those caves, carry away the weaponized priceless relics and burn the rest down. They saved the nearby town and the Empire, and no one knows a calculus primer went up in flames.

And, then, should the Ork Hordes on the steppes or other “outsiders” start acting up because, hey, they’d like some in to the Empire’s wealth and trade, Murder Hobos get parachuted in to the so-called remote provinces. Why burn precious professional standing army capital busy protecting the internal trade routes when expendable Murder Hobos can buzzsaw their way through the Empire’s worst “threats.” To the frontier where it’s wild and there is treasure, the Empire says. Take out the evil tribes. You will be greatly rewarded for your service in the name of Stability and Peace!

If some internal threat arises – a wizard decides to invent new spells, a dragon trainer decides to breed a new “dangerous” dragon, a bureaucrat consolidates power – send in the Murder Hobos. These guys are clear and present threats to the Empire’s stability. Destroy them before they publish a paper and tell anyone about their findings! Of course, they’re evil. Anything new and different is evil. And when attacked, they defend themselves. See? Evil.

Murder Hobos never lay their hands on new weaponry. Should a great threat appear on the horizon, they quest for the ancient weapon of great power (destroying ancient sites, above). The ancients – whose burial sites need a good trashing – are the only ones powerful enough and smart enough to stop great external or internal threats. Only the most ancient and storied weapon is the right one. If it’s powerful, it’s ancient. If it’s a threat, it’s new.

This is how the Empire likes it.

I thought the premise is that the Hero Warrior, Hero Rogue, etc., ARE those people? In any case you're not fixing the problem, you're just moving it to a different set of people. Either way the real power of the land rests in the Royal Guard, who defed the King but can also unseat him at their leisure. But how did the Royal Guard get this kind of power? You don't gain levels in D&D, or most RPGs for that matter, by sitting around in a tower reading books or attacking practice dummies. These Royal Guards must have adventured at some point, which means that, once again, the real power of the land rests in the hands of adventurers, and society is radically different in construction.

How, sir? Again, you don't gain levels for sitting around on your ass. I can totally by it if the King is a former adventurer himself a la Conan, but that's going to practically be a requirement in this world of adventure.

Saved

Forgot pic

The way I see it, an "adventurer's guild" is a low level establishment, something that serves local needs. A simple starting point for people at the start of their sellsword careers, consolidating and handing out tasks beginners can carry out.
Any member of theirs that gets powerful and/or famous is scouted by institutions that hold real power - military, noble houses, mercenary companies, other guilds etc. That's why the title of "veteran adventurer" is an insult as it implies someone who has worked for a long time without making any name for himself.

Because the Kingdom's Wilderness and outer reaches are filled with monsterous mega-fauna and various institutions need them under control and samples to study.

The King is Unwilling to lead his modest army to slaughter and a full scale job could cause the ecosystem to run rampant.

Better send in the murderhobos.

Lots of “adventurers” having a need to band together to protect their profession. More or less it depends on why “adventurers” do what they do, and why an association is necessary to coordinate relationships.

I’d say the “guild” would function more like a cartel or mafia, where certain activities are regulated by a central power structure to keep people from stepping on each other’s toes/territory as well as provide a united front should someone take offense to their activities.

Murderhobos are basically either operating within the law, or outside of it. If within, they’re basically an extension of law enforcement. If without, they’re a criminal gang.

A big part of it is division of labor. Unless you’re running nothing but what are basically shadowruns, even your basic adventurer is going to be relatively up the totem pole compared to say the laborers who are tasked with hauling all the treasure back, but below the level where someone decides who gets to crawl what dungeon.