Now that the dust has settled, Veeky Forums, how do you justify your adventurer's guilds not using guns?

>adventurers guilds
Are trash, and exist solely as a crutch for GMs who can't create an interesting world. I've let 2 other members of my group GM and both of them have created some kind of adventurers guild type of thing. At least one of them who is really creative did it well with nice NPCs and the like, but it still felt incredibly contrived. Adventurers should be rare. There should not be 2000 of them in every town. It's just not sustainable. It's an elite occupation. 1 in 10,000 people is an adventurer. So to have an adventurer's guild you would need a city of thousands and thousands.

They're in Australia.

I have it so that adventurers are fairly uncommon, but they have a ridiculous mortality rate.

Magical gunpowder is what the economy of setting runs on. It's used for lamps and explosives and engines and everything else. The day it runs out, everyone is fucked.

Ironically, your lack of imagination is the fault here. An Adventurer's guild makes perfect sense for your standard fantasy setting. Also, your lack of intelligence is hilarious with statements such as
>Adventurers should be rare.
>1 in 10,000 people is an adventurer.
I mean come on. Is this self-parody?
>So to have an adventurer's guild you would need a city of thousands and thousands.
Thousands of people in a city? How unheard of. I mean surely, there were no ancient or medieval city with THOUSANDS of people. Oh my god!

>Thousands of people in a city?
Sorry, I meant TENS of thousands. Yes, you might have ONE metropolis with that many people. In which case there will be other towns and villages around it. And if one square mile of farmland can support about 180 people you will need at least 5000 square miles of farmland just for your city let alone the villages that surround it. That's for a city of 100k which would have TEN adventurers in it.

>An Adventurer's guild makes perfect sense for your standard fantasy setting.
No, it really doesn't. If an adventurer's guild exists and has existed for a while then chances are that another party has cleared out almost all of the nearby ruins and more. If just one in ten groups of adventurers "make it" that means that an entire campaign's worth of ruins have already been completely cleared out. How many fucking ruins do you have? Look up the fucking california gold rush except instead of there being gold all over the place it's a very finite fucking number of ruins to be explored!!

WOW
TENS
OF
THOUSANDS

>Yes, you might have ONE metropolis with that many people.
Wow. Learn demographics, you fucking retard. You have no right to comment on anything.

lol

Yes because adventuring companies are not just mercs who deal with monsters, undead, and other terrible things.

Yes there can only be so many lost ruins kicking around but there a fuck ton of things to kill and loot they have.

MULTI-BAIT DRIFTING?!

yeah I have an adventurers guild, this is my first proper campaign, but mechanically it allows me run an adventure that's more episodic and also allows me to rotate the roster around as people can or can't make sessions.

Story wise I threw them all in jail after a bar fight because vagabonds are despised and can't do much work for money without getting a seal of approval, because adventurers go in to dark unexplored caves and waken ancient evils and junk.

OP is a paid shill.

why does this one specific image keep getting posted over and over again

It looks super cool. That guy lacks elaborate codpiece but otherwise it looks great.

Provide me with more fantasy-style character art with plate armor and guns and I'll gladly post others. It's a sadly small niche. I also just had it offhand from a similar thread the other day and need to organize my folder so I find the others

Real medieval combat is way more interesting than fantasyshit

fair enough, just weirds me out seeing it so often

Because it's the same dude every time.

>the dust has been settled

The fact that guns are less effective than even cantrips

...

Speaking of which, anyone got the manga pic showing how some lady knight was rallying humanity against the demon army of orcs and stuff. Then in the next few frames, it talks about the demon army bringing their newest weapons to bear and you see a bunch of orcs shelling her position with artillery.

They do, sometimes.

But an animated construct in the shape of a gun that throws projectiles faster and harders is usually a better option.

I think there's a generational gap, here. There's a fundamentally different mindset between the past and the present in terms of how people think.

The past attitude was that some people were naturally extraordinary and sometimes rose up to save people in times of need or change things. They'd beat up the bad people and then retire to something mundane like kingship. This is more or less the basic hero archetype. It was a special person or small group of extraordinary people in an unchanging, mundane, boring world. People who made these stories were probably inspired by old heroic myth - Beowulf, Conan, Hercules, King Arthur, etc. They're naturally monstrously powerful people who are often divinely gifted or born with that power.

Adventurer's guilds are a sign of a changing culture. They flat out wouldn't really fit with the old heroic cycle well. In those you're unique and stand peerless. Adventurers Guilds are basically college level military academies and exist because people realized, "hey, if you just train people we can have lots of heroes!" In order to systemically fix issues you need organizations, not individuals, taking care of things. They need to be well trained, supported, and decently equipped. Most Millennials have gone to college, a lot have been in military academies, many learned about heroes from World of Warcraft, where everyone is a hero. It just makes sense to put two and two together and logically train up batches of heroes. Then there's the influence of Manga, which has long shown various secret training academies for special skills in their media.

A lot of it just depends. Fantasy is supposed to be historical, and I think it is. The first archetype simply fits a different mindset - one in the "divine right of kings" type of lone hero state. The other is more democratic and training based, like, "anyone can do this shit if you know how", which fits with the modern mindset.

Neither is wrong.

That's not even remotely true.
>Beowulf
was a soldier and traveled with his troops to go help out a king
>Conan
wasn't even a hero, but a thief and wanderer who would often work for clients of some sort.
>Hercules
was working for King Eurystheus after being assigned by the Oracle of Delphi
>King Arthur
literally ran an organization/civilization/military

There's a lot to be said here, but you're a dick for flatly looking down on and insulting your friends like that. Even on an anonymous internet mahjong fanclub.

I think you missed the point. The extraordinary people in their stories are them, their families, and the people that work for them. Beowulf was famous because he was able to rip off a monster's arm and basically solo a dragon, not because he led people. He wasn't aware of anyone else like him. He wasn't besties with Sigmund and didn't train at an arm ripping school.

Conan is a different archetype, but a hero archetype nonetheless. That he worked for clients didn't matter. What matters is that he didn't go to barbarian school. His life was barbarian school, making him a uniquely exceptional individual.

Hercules is a demigod. His power is literally divine. Nobody can have that without being born with it.

King Arthur was divinely chosen to lead. His Knights were similarly divinely chosen and strong. That's how you get OP bullshit like the Green Knight. Their power isn't trained, or earned, although they have that. Their power is divinely bestowed and lost. Lancelot couldn't lose until he cucked his bro, and then he sucked at everything.

In the other type of mindset you have an academy, or school, or church with open trials, etc. Anyone can come in and learn and their power comes from education and training. There, the heroes are the smartest and best educated and hardest training people. While they might use magic or holy magic or fight with a sword, their powers are secondary to their knowledge and experience. They're a very different kind of hero because anyone could be one.

Yeah, that sounds good. Someone post that.

>He wasn't aware of anyone else like him
He was just a strong and brave guy.
>didn't train at an arm ripping school.
No, he just trained with the rest of the soldiers.

>What matters is that he didn't go to barbarian school.
You keep bringing up this school shit, but that has nothing to do with adventurer's guilds. Conan trained with all of the other tribesmen in his homeland.

>Hercules is a demigod
Yeah him and every other Greek mythology character

>In the other type of mindset you have an academy, or school, or church with open trials, etc. Anyone can come in and learn and their power comes from education and training.
Like what? Name example.
>There, the heroes are the smartest and best educated and hardest training people. While they might use magic or holy magic or fight with a sword, their powers are secondary to their knowledge and experience.
That's not even true. The standouts are almost always special people with extraordinary innate abilities or unique backgrounds that made them who they are.

Having an organization that hires and pays people to take care of jobs like slaying monsters has nothing to do with your argument about special adventurers vs regular adventurers.

Not the guy you were replying to, but the very existence of such an organization would make adventurers less special and more regular.

You could say that about high magic campaigns though, it comes down to preference

>but the very existence of such an organization would make adventurers less special and more regular.
But it would not make heroes less special and more regular, unless your hero has mundane origins/abilities.

None of them are looked on as heroic for their role in any organization, they're heroic because they are, as individuals, supremely capable manifestations of different concepts of virtue (which I'd argue is the element that can't be reliably taught beyond mere understanding: I don't think you can mass produce heroes, since they're the people who do much more than you can ask of them). Their capability is all tied to either some deific factor, or to individual ability born from unique circumstances. They're heroes as unique individuals, not because they're a certain rank in some training program.

>just a strong a brave guy
There's nobody else among those soldiers who could go wrestle with a sea monster and come out on top: the rest barely had a chance, which is to say they had none at all, since fate was undoubtedly at play.

>but they trained with all the others!
They still were better than them in the end: that's innate ability.

If the organization changes nothing and all the people in it are special before they get involved, why get involved? What do they do besides put the task of adventuring or heroism in a format that's reminiscent of a school or business? Why even want that?

If you like destiny in your campaign then whatever, some people don't

I'm reminded of anime like One Punch Man and My Hero Academia, in which there are literal hero organisations, it doesn't make heroes any less special or well respected because theres still the best of the best, not everyone can be a top class hero

>None of them are looked on as heroic for their role in any organization
Beowulf was the hero of Geats.

>they're heroic because they are, as individuals, supremely capable manifestations of different concepts of virtue
No, they're heroes because they're strong.

>I don't think you can mass produce heroes
That still has NOTHING to do with adventurer guilds.

>If the organization changes nothing and all the people in it are special before they get involved, why get involved?
Adventurer guilds literally just exist to take job requests and find someone to take on the request. They are just financial middlemen.

Bro, you argument has never once made any fucking sense. You're not talking about adventurer's guilds.

>He was just a strong and brave guy.
A peerlessly strong guy in the realm of superhumans.

>No, he just trained with the rest of the soldiers.
Exactly. He wasn't training with his peers. He's peerless.

>You keep bringing up this school shit, but that has nothing to do with adventurer's guilds. Conan trained with all of the other tribesmen in his homeland.
Yes. That's a power granted by birth, more or less. Trained with your people, learned the ways of your people. It's not the same as training with an array of people with different talents to become a hero. Adventurer's Guilds are basically schools and resources for heroes. Places to train and regulate them. It's not the same as just learning the ways of your people in a harsh environment and being extraordinary. It's a place that exists specifically to create, train, regulate, and aid heroes.

>Yeah him and every other Greek mythology character
Yes, that's the point. Zeus didn't have to learn how to be Zeus. He was born Zeus. Hero organizations of whatever name basically teach you to be extraordinary.

>Like what? Name example.
cotd.

>That's not even true. The standouts are almost always special people with extraordinary innate abilities or unique backgrounds that made them who they are.

>Having an organization that hires and pays people to take care of jobs like slaying monsters has nothing to do with your argument about special adventurers vs regular adventurers.

It has everything to do with it. Yes, you can have standouts even in heroes guilds, that's not the point. There's a difference in how people acquire and use powers in the fiction of different eras. The old archetype has you born with it or learning it through hard won personal experience. These organizations create and train heroes through education, making extraordinary power something that belongs to the smartest and best trained and most determined. Things people can control and improve.

>too dumb to link to the right post
>ignores entire parts of a post just to keep pushing the same bullshit

Hi, retard.
>Yes, you can have standouts even in heroes guilds, that's not the point. There's a difference in how people acquire and use powers in the fiction of different eras. The old archetype has you born with it or learning it through hard won personal experience. These organizations create and train heroes through education, making extraordinary power something that belongs to the smartest and best trained and most determined. Things people can control and improve.
That's not what an adventurer's guild is, dumbass.

Whoops, meant to reply the other one.

Anyway...

>Like what? Name example.

He mentioned them first, but it's extremely common in basically all eastern media. It's actually true of everyone Batman has ever trained. I'd say it's also true of Pre-Empire Jedi. There's a lot of examples.

A lot of historical figures like the great philosophers of ancient Greece or Renaissance figures are better western historical archetypes for this kind of hero. Or take Julius Caesar - not exactly considered a hero now, but he was all but worshiped as one while I was growing up so you can bring up him. He trained his skills - he was extraordinary, but nobody was claiming he was just born a demigod. Cincinattus, etc - they're trained and heroic and extraordinary but not divine. They're made, not born.

>Adventurer guilds literally just exist to take job requests and find someone to take on the request. They are just financial middlemen.

Not him but that's just wrong. It's a guild. They're essentially medieval trade organizations and had great political and economic power. They could control who could join, set standards for training and standardize tools across professions. If you're using it as a glorified job board that way you're wasting them.

>I don't have an argument so I jump to insults.
Educate yourself for your own sake. You need it.

That perception is solely a matter of which one tends to be most popular in media at the time both such types have been used throughout history and literature. There have been heroes aplenty who used firearms. Ignoring them is more akin to attempts at historical revisionism than aesthetic choice. Take for example Joan of Arc, who, as a result of being common born, had the liberty of freely associating with the artillery operators and was thus able to utilize them better, as well as being the first army to utilize rocket artillery. Not a scientific source, sure, but he provides some citations and was first on Google.
scottmanning.com/content/joan-of-arc-cannons/

An user in a previous thread suggested to read Farmer Giles of Ham and I agree that it's a fun read. He's just a normal old farmer in a fantasy world.
ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__farmer_giles_of_ham__en.htm

Are you suggesting that anyone successful is only so as a result of innate ability? What about all them hoodlums who ain't gotten no chance and dindu nuffin but bein' hel' back by da system? Are you suggesting they are less successful as a result of being inferior?

>Not him but that's just wrong. It's a guild. They're essentially medieval trade organizations and had great political and economic power. They could control who could join, set standards for training and standardize tools across professions. If you're using it as a glorified job board that way you're wasting them.

>talk about thing
>when it's pointed that your arguments have nothing to do with the actual thing, you say that thing should be like you say and not what it actually is in 99% of cases
You're such a colossal moron.

>beowulf was the hero of the geats
They're heroes TO them, but their heroic element is not from them. The geats didn't make Beowulf, their training only made one like him because he was a fluke (from an in universe perspective, while out of universe you're right).

>heroes because they're strong
Grendal was strong. He was damn near unkillable. He was not a hero. He was opposed to the virtues of the men in the story and did horrible things.

I'm talking more about the kind of thing mentions more than your middlemen. One Punch Man is an example of a uniquely capable hero who is a manifestation of a particular concept of virtue, who actually struggles to gain notoriety in the type of organization of heroes I'm talking about, since he's heroic in a way they can't measure and grade, or package and sell. This in a world that also has the best hero, a mundane guy with a spirit of pure justice who struggles knowing he won't get anywhere, and plenty who are gifted or unique who don't struggle so much to get where they are because they can be measured and graded, and easily sold to the public as a hero. In it heroism and all the bureaucracy around those organizations don't really line up well.

Man, just have private interests pick out the heroes if it's important or hang a job board in your taverns. Your version of the concept has no purpose: it's not noteworthy enough to warrant a conversation. It should have been clear that's not what the first user was talking about.

I'm agreeing with the other user's suggestion that in classical heroic tales innate ability, fate, or divine favor, etc, used to be a huge factor, and stating that I think it's a good way to go about things in tabletop games. I think talent and effort are both things that exist, but effort has little to do with heroic stories: nobody cares how Beowulf trained, only that he was great.

Thanks for the story recommendation!

Also yeah - anyone who likes Pirates swashbuckling on the high seas or cowboys knows you can have extraordinary adventures with guns around. The main issue is flavor and balance. If they're too powerful nobody uses swords and armor.

If it doesn't have to be pre gunpowder medieval Europe fantasy is more free to explore it, but then you can lose track of what fantasy is.

I feel like Berserk captures the right mix of melee and gunpowder to keep fantasy stories intact while still having firearms around as something rare and powerful.

As an American I sort of wish there were a fantasy medieval tech America where everyone is crazy about a mix of melee and gunpowder weapons though. There's no America like or even Greek or Roman like democracy in fantasy settings and guns would make the most sense for a lot of our heroes to use while still leaving room for the extremely American Knights we never got to have.

youtube.com/watch?v=IkDDBL7jNew

Imagine those guys with cannon support. It'd still fit in a fantasy setting! Also guns were common in fiction in Asia before they were in Europe - Ghengis Khan had cannons, for instance.

Honestly I feel like as long as Fantasy HAS to be pre-gunpowder medieval Europe nobody will be using guns. But change too much and it won't feel like fantasy. It'll become Renaissance era. Different era, different stories, different expectations. But maybe it's about time to explore the edge between the two and expand the standard fantasy world a tad.

>They're heroes TO them, but their heroic element is not from them
lmao is this dumbass serious
>he's a hero but he's not a REAL hero
This guy writes walls of text and it's all retarded, holy shit

If there's only one in ten-thousand people that become an adventurer, how do you justify managing to get enough people in one place for a party to form?

2000 in every town is stupid, but a couple dozen in major towns and six or so in smaller towns isn't, especially if they're a fairly migrant population that takes on other odd jobs when not adventuring - working as guards or mercenaries, laborers, making use of other talents they might posses, shit like that. It's not as if when you're an adventurer you're a murderhobo 24/7.

Not him, adding to this.

The Roman Empire as a whole had between 50 million inhabitants. The ancient Persian empire had 49 Million. China had 60 Million. They didn't reach their heights at the same time but any large and powerful nation really should have an organization tasked with dealing with monsters in a world where they exist.

Even if they're one in ten thousand there would have been 5000 heroes in the Roman Empire at any one point in time, for instance. That's a small army! History is ripe with elite specialized armies and outstanding individuals. Adventurer's organizations in a world with magic and monsters would be as essential as having an army or farmers. Civilizations without them would just get devoured or get torn into anarchy. You need specialists to deal with unique situations. If they're roaming around doing as they please they'll mess up your nation and turn it into a place of competing warlords. An organization to keep them in line and fighting threats in an organized way just makes sense.

Glad to see nobody on tg knows how economics works

One depends on a Marxism- ridden institution.
The other depends on self reliance.
Guess which one I like more?
Adventuring guilds are the gayest shit imaginable and are used by lazy SMs and snowflake players who can't figure out any other way to bring the party togeher, get have the nerve to turn their nose up at the tavern trope because "it's too cliche."

That helm design always seemed really weird to me, the eyeslits are so far from your eyes and so small that you would barely be able to see anything, and the slope under the eyeslit means that any thrust delivered to that section of the helm would guide the blade straight into your face. Other designs with eyeslits so large and so far away like the pig-face bascinet for an example use raised eyeslits for this very reason, but I've never seen an example of this helm that does.

It's like a horribly inefficient sallet.

The local lords are wary enough of letting these lunatics form guilds, you really think they'll let them stockpile firearms and gunpowder?

Then why don't you make a game with some proud noble natural heroes fighting against a corrupt adventurer's guild?

They're grifting people while the players actually kill the monsters. They're taking taxes and doing nothing with them! Their heroes are soft and weak! You can't even tell what they are because they're constantly throwing girdles of gender, alignment, and race change on each other! Their paladins are fucking succubi and proud of it! Oh noes, what deviants!

Take a campaign a step from there. After being a thorn in their side you fight the corrupt guild directly. Lone naturally produced heroic cowboy types against the government and rich assholes. Classic western story.

And one step from there - now you're in charge. You run the guild. It could do a lot of good in the hands of someone competent. You've got a small army of slightly soft but well trained people with power. What do you do?

Dismissing the whole concept is lazy. You're missing out on a fun opponent to pit your characters against even if you don't want to use it for your heroes.

Think of it like a baseball helmet with an eyeguard.

>>adventurers guilds
>Are trash
Nah, just, as you said, contrived. So are a lot of rpg elements.
A GM gets an allowance of suspended disbelief.
Too much contrivance does make it trash though.

>Adventurer's guild makes perfect sense for your standard fantasy setting.
Only in the very rare occasion where the need for the guild's existence is sufficiently explained. Many simply handwave it.
It still makes more sense than a legal thieves guild though.

>There's a fundamentally different mindset between the past and the present in terms of how people think.
And that's clearly what you wanted to discuss, despite it having nothing to do with whether adventurer guilds can be made internally consistent within a fantasy rpg setting.
Kudos for missing the point so eloquently.

>how do you justify your adventurer's guilds not using guns?
1. Adventurer Guilds don't exist.
2. If they did, large scale use of guns is prohibitively expensive due to the warding needed to protect the gunpowder from magically exploding.

>And that's clearly what you wanted to discuss, despite it having nothing to do with whether adventurer guilds can be made internally consistent within a fantasy rpg setting.
>Kudos for missing the point so eloquently.

It has everything to do with whether or not you can have one. It's about a difference in perspective between how players interpret the definition of fantasy. That isn't missing the point. It's the same argument from a player-and-setting focused perspective. There's more than one type of player and more than one type of fantasy setting. Adventurer's guilds fit in some and would exist in a realistic setting. They do not fit in settings like Conan the Barbarian where all the civilizations are evil assholes and there are monsters running about. Those stories are about carving out success from chaos through natural talent and hard won experience. But not every setting is in a land of anarchy and petty warlords and sorcerer kings. In civilized settings adventurer's guilds would exist because it just makes sense to get your skilled people working together to solve big problems. They may or may not be corrupt, but their existence makes perfect sense.

The problem is that you're closed minded and don't want to imagine any kind of fantasy other than the one in your head.

Is there anything more fedora-tipper then trying to tie shit that isn't at all related to culture or "generational gaps"?

Adventure's guilds are concepts that existed in the 90s. Meanwhile the current "marxist" generation was raised on stories like Harry Potter and Eragon, which you may think are bad but still feature the hero archetype and "chosen one", not at all based on training exceptional individuals.

Seriously, fuck off, go back to

>Is there anything more fedora-tipper
You.

Man, I love Wagenburgs. I'm toying with an idea of using a wagenburg against a dragon.

>everything i dont like is /pol/
>go away you meanies!
I seriously dont see whats /pol/ about it besides one mention of marxism. Marxism does in fact equate all the people as equal on paper, though its never that way in reality because some people manage to be more equal than others (such as the local political officer, the local garrison commander etc).
Frankly marxism is quite the lawful evil system

Alchemy and enchantments gives armor a huge advantage in the technological arms race between guns and armor.

Armor is practically titanium in my setting

He's taking mutually contradictory positions. Yelling /pol/ arguments on one hand, while denigrating /pol/ on the other. In other words, just trolling. But it's still far more interesting to find real points of debate based on trolling bullshit on Veeky Forums. I remember the olden days of 2007-8 when we made it an artform.

And for the record:

Marxism is Neutral Evil.
Capitalism is Chaotic Evil.
Fascism is Lawful Evil.

Late to the party, but didn't half the Greek heroes end up adventuring together for the Golden Fleece?

I also kind of feel like you're missing the idea of those myths being set in an older, more heroic time - they were almost always told centuries after the fact (or more correctly, set centuries before they were told). There's a huge distinction between that and something fantastical happening in the now.

>In civilized settings adventurer's guilds would exist because it just makes sense to get your skilled people working together to solve big problems.
But why a "guild"?
Why "adventurers"?
Why is the military or guard not handling these issues?
Who is funding and establishing these guilds?
Why are the problems and needs necessitating the existence of the guild being allowed to continue?
It's entirely possible to address these questions and explain their existence in a way that is internally consistent.
But the notion does not immediately present itself as "making perfect sense".

"Skilled people working together to solve big problems" does not necessarily mean "adventurers guild".

The real problem is that you're closed minded and don't want to imagine any kind of setting concerns other than the one in your head: "how players interpret the definition of fantasy"

Hmm. Yeah in retrospect you're right. I think there's another hero category that all the Greek Heroes, the various Superheroes of modern stories and so on sit in. "The group of random extraordinary dudes."

That said, Greek myth lines up extremely closely with modern superheroes. It'd be hard to argue that they didn't train and learn, but a lot were naturally extraordinary or blessed. Not all were gods or demigods, not all were blessed. Some were smart, some well trained, some divine, all stood as heroes. They don't fit my division well. Point in your favor.

We're... Still doing this?

We will always do this

I'm actually totally happy to reply to this post. This'll be fun!

>But why a "guild"?
Guilds are trade associations. Killing monsters on trade routes, guarding caravans and defending cities produces money. At first this would be handled by random groups of skilled people who work together out of convenience, like a rogue, a warrior, a wizard and a priest from a military scouting background, a military background, an apprenticeship and church respectively. Guilds would essentially be organizations made to keep things organized. Don't want it to be a guild, come up with another name and style of organization for your trade association.

>Why "adventurers"?

Because it's politer than, "Mercenary Specialists".

Why is the military or guard not handling these issues?

Because soldiers are people that specialize in fighting other people. A wall of pikemen is useful against other men but is useless against a dragon and stupid against a beholder. Your horsemen cannot charge a water-dwelling aboleth. Special issues need specialists to solve them.

>Who is funding and establishing these guilds?
The original groups that handled monsters. They pay into the guilds and the guilds organize and standardize things. Your actual training might happen in a church, on the battlefield, or they may have a centralized system for teaching a lot of things. Depends on the setting.

Why are the problems and needs necessitating the existence of the guild being allowed to continue?
These groups would exist when a lot of monsters are around and need killing or a nation has reached a level where they need lots of explorers and adventurer archaeologists. They'd most likely pay for themselves by protecting trade routes and killing monsters with bounties on them.

Id say
Capitalism is CG
Facism is LN
>why, are you autistic?
Captialism does provide a lot of innovation, and the poor in the western world of capitalism have it a shitload better than the poor in less developed nations
Facism is LN because of the fact that LN assumes that everyone goes with the flow for the betterment of the greater good.... good in this sense being your nation (as was the case with italian facism)

cotd.
>It's entirely possible to address these questions and explain their existence in a way that is internally consistent. But the notion does not immediately present itself as "making perfect sense".

Okay, I can accept that.

>"Skilled people working together to solve big problems" does not necessarily mean "adventurers guild".
Correct, but it's the logical place for things to go over time. Say you've got your naturally skilled warrior, priest, rogue and wizard and upon retiring they teach others to do the same stuff. People will want to control that knowledge so it doesn't get into the wrong hands. Those students from different schools will need to get along. Regulating things isn't a necessary step, but a sensible one once there are enough adventurers about. There will never be an adventurer's guild when heroes are rare.

>The real problem is that you're closed minded and don't want to imagine any kind of setting concerns other than the one in your head: "how players interpret the definition of fantasy"

I'm having a blast imagining it!

Capitalism is CG because it produces abundance for all that work for it and rewards skill and talent!
Marxism is NG because from each according to his skill goes out good to all others according to their need. Never be found wanting!
Fascism is LG because they are the divinely appointed protectors of tradition and stability against evil subversives and dangerous thinkers. Itty Bitty Living Space.

But user, the evil lady knights are the real thieves.

I just have it as a catch all term for anyone who leads an "adventurous" life. Explorers, mercenaries, pilgrims and merchants who willingly go into dangerous areas, even settlers/colonists who make the effort to make a living in hostile and exotic frontiers, all of these are people who are termed adventurers by the common folk.

This is what makes Veeky Forums worth it.

Make the world have an absurdly high population due to magic.
Like, people are born with different magic affinities, but most are born with something that helps a lot in agriculture, so there's a fuckton of surplus food and, therefore, a huge population.
Now make monster populations grow absurdly high as well, since they have more to prey on
That can mean either man eating monsters or thieving goblins, necromancers have more bodies and skeletons to raise etc etc
but with most of the population being farmers, the kingdom's armies simply can't keep them all safe and alive
And with most people knowing how fucking dangerous joining the army is, due to all the fucking monsters, very few sane people join in
The food being so plentiful means that people usually don't need to resort to thievery to feed themselves, so there just aren't enough thieves to make a consistent penal batallion sort of army. And since forests are deathzones due to all the monsters, thieves wouldn't even be able to hide from law enforcement.
The solution? Let cities and individuals hire specialists to deal with their problems.
Said specialists, due to the dangerous, but exciting nature of their craft, call themselves "adventurers". They aren't fools, however, and need to know they're not being ripped off. Their jobs also leave them little time to deal with paperwork, so they form guilds and hire accountants and other paper pushers to deal with all the legal/ monetary issues, while they deal with cleaving, incinerating and shanking dragons, goblins, orcs and the like.
Adventuring is still a career choice only for the foolhardy, even more so than the army, since there is no real structure, but its also much more rewarding. If you survive your first mission, that is.
So, people who would otherwise be thiefs or criminals just join a guild or the army, depending on how good they are at killing stuff.
cont.

Since the kingdom is so massive and most people are farmers, any thief caught red handed by the authorities wouldn't even be given a trial, since that would be a waste of precious resources.
Instead, they're summarily executed.
That, coupled with the wilderness being completely overrun by monsters means that the regular lowlife can either get a job digging carrots and potatoes, join the guard and get killed fighting against the weekly orc invasion or just try and make it as adventurer.
Who knows, maybe he'll get lucky and manage to stop the necromancer that's been assailing one of the cities with waves upon waves of undead.
He'll probably die in his first assigment, as do 90% of first timers. Since they're only paid when returning from a sucessful mission, all the guild needs to do is send more meat to the grinder.
Eventually one will get it right. Of course, since the only people brave or insane enough to actually seek the enemies of civiliation are those without anything to lose, the guild doesn't make it a habit of telling people just how many adventures they lose or how disposable they really are.
Nor do they tell anyone that those that do survive are usually batshit crazy, most having no problem with kicking the new guy to the giant spiders if it means he makes it back in one piece. Or just kicking him to the spiders after the "quest" is done, since that means he won't have to share the rewards.
Basically, warhammer, but with adventurer guilds

I agree with your response except for the question: "Why is the military or guard not handling these issues?
>Because soldiers are people that specialize in fighting other people. A wall of pikemen is useful against other men but is useless against a dragon and stupid against a beholder. Your horsemen cannot charge a water-dwelling aboleth. Special issues need specialists to solve them.

That is why regular military soldiers or average guardsmen are not handling it.
It does not explain why the military or the guard are not the ones in charge of killing monsters on trade routes, guarding caravans, and defending cities.

Going to the local guard to see if there's any mercenary work is a simpler and more elegant solution than constructing an elaborate guild network just to include or pay homage to concepts created decades ago for other systems and settings.

Unless doing that is the whole point, in which case, where my flumphs at?

>It does not explain why the military or the guard are not the ones in charge of killing monsters on trade routes, guarding caravans, and defending cities.

By default there would be no caravan guards and all trade would be "at your own risk". This would hold true to trade for the official government of a city but not for private traders. Guilds would hire private individuals via-job board when needed if demand is low but any group of mercenaries offering standardized levels of skill from lots of people would have an advantage. If there is sufficient demand for specialized combatants then the best organized groups have an advantage and can corner that entire labor market, effectively maintaining a monopoly.

Armies also tended to be fairly specialized to roles in combat against other humans. It makes more sense for the government of an area to maintain its own adventurer's force as a sub-branch of their military or to hire out than to just send normal soldiers to take care of some problems. They're expensive to call out, expensive to maintain, and so-on. Ex-soldiers would probably commonly end up as mercenary adventurers once their wars are over. In a system where they are an official branch of the government they'd be like Roman Auxiliaries. They're irregulars brought on only when needed.

>Going to the local guard to see if there's any mercenary work is a simpler and more elegant solution than constructing an elaborate guild network just to include or pay homage to concepts created decades ago for other systems and settings.

It's easier but you miss out on story-opportunities like rivalries organizations of friendly peers to the characters can provide. It also simplifies things for the DM in the sense that it makes more sense to have a place to rest between adventures, get knowledge and equipment, etc. Yes, the players can still win their own keep, seek out distant sages and find secret legendary blacksmiths. It provides story opportunity and focus.

Oh, and now that I think about it you could replace traditional armies entirely with adventurers arranged into fire teams consisting of balanced parties fighting as squads in more modern types of armies while still remaining true to the fantasy style. That would provide a lot of opportunity to fight other adventurers and that'd probably be fun.

>adventurer's guild.
lmao ok nerd

Also croswbow/longbow + early cannon and pike/calvery warfare is the cooler fantasy setting.

Nothing is too OP, people can be flashy, tatics are elaborate.
Guns are essentially distilled autism in a fantasy setting, way more than any archmage.

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW

For all this talk of "adventurers' guilds" I never found proof that it would be common now with players.

Not really for Arthur's. They were literally his knights, as in "every dude in the realm who was a trained knight". Ok, you had some edge to have to come to the round table and earn status as some OP son of a bitch, but still, not really chosen by God.

In greek myth many heroes were pretty much defined by their mentor. You know you had some badass before your eyes when he was trained by Chiron.
Now in some sense this is counterpoin to the bizzarre "everyday heroes" point you're making, but still, schooling was literally epic shit for them.

I think the whole "sacred and divinely chosen" thing was an important aspect for most of them. Arthur was chosen directly to lead, Lancelot was blessed with victory, Gawain from pagan mythic origins, etc. I don't think all of them were necessarily holy types but it's an important aspect overall. They were the primary archetype for Paladins, after all.

Pic related applies to the monsters so overusage of guns will lead to bullet immune strains dominating the dungeons. Pretty much like antibiotic-resistant bacterias in our world.

>I'll drop you like a fucking elk!

It's not an adventurer's guild, it's a monastic chapter house system.

>GO BE CATHOLICS SOMEWHERE ELSE

>how do you justify your adventurer's guilds not using guns
Too expensive
Alto individuals may obtain them with a great degree of difficulty

Burning Pepper, as it's called, has it's recipe vary carefully controled by the Evening Kingdoms. They produce almost all the world's supply and their endless caravans to their friends and paying customers keep their wars and defences fueled.
In order to keep this monopoly, they resort to some rather horrific measures, up to and including the complete destruction of towns thought to harbour spies.

This situation is serving them well for now. But sooner or later something will break.

Tl;dr, adventurers have to pay through the nose to get guns and gunpowder because how it's made is secret.

>Ride of the Valkyries intensifies.jpg

Humanity will simply adapt and become immune to their pathetic little claws while making even bigger guns.

They use wands instead.