Can Veeky Forums provide a concrete, world building reason for why adventuring guilds should not exist?
I don’t see how they are any different than mercenary companies, mage schools, etc?
Besides, they have a clear tradition in fantasy fiction of all stripes. From Witcher guilds to Skyrim Companions to Harry Potter.
I don't have adventuring guilds because mercenary companies already exist.
They are similar enough. As long as you don’t hate the idea of adventurers banding together to support one another, protect their interests and ensure their compatriots don’t go around like murder hobos.
because the King was recently threatened by their growing power and influence and thus initiated a purge, this unfortunately radicalized the survivors who have recently begun a series of revenge killings and public humiliations which ironically has forced the King to put out the call for "freelance professionals" to assist royalist agents in eliminating the survivor cells
It could be a setting where there are few enough people capable of adventuring to organize into a guild. If you did something less in line with more modern fantasy settings and treated "adventurers" more like classical mythological heroes where the most organized they get is the crew of the Argo, and there are usually only a couple of people in any given city that can pull adventuring off then it wouldn't make much sense to have a guild office in the city to manage those two people.
Got any more Adventure guild titties? Also i would imagine people dislike them as they are maybe view them as unrealistic in how they are moslty shown as places where you simply go get a job then get paid by the employer through your guild. Especially as non of them seem to have any regulations. Although I'm pretty sure fairytail guilds actually do have those, but people just say fuck off or ill nuke you in that world. might be wrong in that view on why, but this is the opinion i remember the most.
> Can Veeky Forums provide a concrete, world building reason for why adventuring guilds should not exist?
People gather and form guilds because they have collective interests somehow - trade, hunting, academic learning, and so on. But if people don't really consider themselves 'adventurers' or share common interest with other adventurers, they won't group up.
The campaign I'm running has no such guilds for that reason. Adventuring isn't a profession so much as a chain of events that people get caught up in. There isn't enough "generic adventuring work" around to justify a large group of such people gathering up, when a more specialized lot of bounty hunters or mercenaries would do.
>I don’t see how they are any different than mercenary companies, mage schools, etc?
Usually when I see them pitched, they're monolithic, static, and devoted to "adventurers" as a singular, steady profession like baker or town guard. All of this tends to go against the ratcatcher vagrant vibe I tend to like in adventurers, and turn it into a ritualized process like an MMO dungeon queue. A baker goes to the baker's guild each morning, gets his order of bread, and bakes some bread in the oven. An adventurer goes into the adventurer's guild each morning, gets his order of stabbing things, and goes to adventure in the dungeon. If that suits your tastes, great, but for me it's glossing over what an adventure(r) is.
>we had this thread last week
but also
is correct, 'adventurer' is a nonsense term in (my opinion) believable settings. Witcher guilds, Skyrim Companions, and Harry Potter aren't for training 'adventurer's, they are for training special people with special skills.
It's because the correct collective noun for "adventuring party" is "razed village"
>special people with special skills
Soooooooo, adventurers?
“Special” is too broad. It’s like how there’s no single “Things people wear” guild.
>not naming your mercenary company the Adventurer's Guild
plebian
I'm pretty sure Fairy Tail is an accurate representation of a normal PC group.
This. Plus, it's more interesting to have the Necromancer Cabal, the Church of Fallen Leaves, the Wayfarer Knights, the Circle of Knives, etc. etc, struggling with each other and playing politics. Even if the goals reasonably intersect and they all have different interests, you have some good overlap for plot shenanigans.
Too many reasonable people. Also, no one storms out raging at least once an episode.
Well, if there's an Adventurer's Guild, then that would naturally lead to an Adventurer's Union, and they'd want shit like health insurance, hazard pay, etc, and would work together to drive prices up and risks down. That's no good for the rich folk who need to commission adventures, so there's an incentive for them to try to play adventurers off each other a bit.
...That's actually kind of a neat campaign hook, actually, especially for something corporate dystopian like Shadowrun.
There's a lot of potential in that idea if you commit to it, with heroism as a 9-to-5. Obviously that'd be a very strange setting, but a potentially interesting one.
Most "adventurer's guilds" I've seen are in video games and video game influenced things as a low-level quest dispensary until the plot starts, though. The best reason I can think of to use them in a tabletop campaign is if you have a lot of players who can't consistently commit to showing up and you're running one-shots with whoever's free that week, because getting assigned to missions by HR is a built-in excuse to cover for Greg having to work late or whatever.
The Once and Future King had Arthur put together the Round Table as a way to channel the might of the knights in order to make right, because otherwise these strong dudes who fight for fun and crave excitement and adventure were being assholes all up and down Gramercy.
>The best reason I can think of to use them in a tabletop campaign is if you have a lot of players who can't consistently commit to showing up and you're running one-shots with whoever's free that week,
Funny thing, the origins of the "Adventurer's Guild" concept are in old open table games where players would come and go all the time.
Players invented them because you need one for stuff like selling off magic items you don't want (this was before ye magic item shoppe, and it was pretty much only players who could afford or would want some weird item), and helping new characters get started (handy when your old one dies) and providing one stop to grab all the gear and hirelings you'd want for a trip through the wilds, without having to spend time negotiating and hiring them. The guild would handle all that shit for you, saving everyone time and trouble.
"Adventurer" isn't a real job.
No but it is a profession.
Bump
Too many girls. Happy’s player is a girl, as is Gray’s.
I don't have an adventuring guild in my world, but the country we're currently playing in is a theocracy. The church puts out requests for specific jobs to be filled.
>map this area
>clear these ruins
>locate any valuable material
>mark this area safe for logging
>clear out that nest of knife ears
>patrol this stretch of road
>escort from [start] to [destination]
so on and so forth.
Anyone is free to pick up these jobs, though it's usually the scions of minor nobility that take them up, since peasants are much too busy working, and the military is busily engaged on other fronts.
FPBP
a guild is just a union with more power you fuckin dolt.
>Too many reasonable people
>Fairy Tail
"Unreasonable" is literally the word used by the other Guilds in that universe to characterize the Fairy Tail Guild
Adventuring as a business.
People are in need of brave souls with martial/arcane/divine ability but your average beatstick or spellslinger doesn't have the know how or want to find their own work.
They go to an adventuring guild, pick up a job and the guild gets a cut for finding the work.
Rinse repeat.
This sums up a lot of my problems with Adventuring Guilds.
I would also add:
>Adventuring guilds are too large, too powerful, or too common.
In the real world, you don't have exorcist guilds, or private investigator guilds, bounty hunter guilds, wildlife control guilds, or coast guard guilds.
If "adventuring" tasks are rare, then you might see wandering professionals, or a small agency in the biggest cities.
If "adventuring" tasks are common, then you probably want an army instead of a guild.
>Adventuring guilds are too generalized
The same organization does archaeology, espionage, assassination, odd jobs, escorts, couriers, wildlife management, mystery solving, diplomacy, smuggling, blockade running, extortion, heists, debt collecting, repossession, bounty hunting, research, etc. And somehow they're always the best people for the job, and they never piss off local governments?
"Adventuring guild" is just an even campier version of "thieves guild" or "assassin's guild", which are already very campy ideas.
If you want to railroad your PCs into an interesting and dangerous organization, just use a military corps, mercenary company, crime syndicate, terrorist group, or rebel insurgency. They can do pretty much all the same quests.
user on the katana thread was right, you really are rotating your bait.
>Nah man my setting is original, we dont have 'adventuring guilds'
>"You arrive at the mercenary company!"
They're fine if your setting is like Forgotten Realms.
The problem is your setting being like Forgotten Realms.
I didn’t play or read the Witcher, and never touched the Elder scroll series. I have read Harry Potter however. I’ll try and explain my dislike of the adventuring guilds as clear as possible.
>Adventurer is a catch all nebulous term for a person doing something, as opposed to carpenter or mason.
>Likewise, carpenter and masonry guilds existed so they can better train and control the trade. How does one control “adventuring”?
>I’m an adventurer because of extraodinary life circumstances (orphan, chosen one, avenger etc) this gets devalued if there’s a damn guild full of em.
>Mercenary companies fulfill the role better, as they take players straight to the action as well as offer room for intrigue and politicking.
>Mage schools are similar, but different from Guilds. It’s a place of education, dedicated to solely study. A guild as mentioned is a business and enterprise.