I need your help with Adventurers' Guild - Please give your opinion

[Jon_Dahl]

In the game that I'm DMing I'm trying to set up an Adventurers' Guild. I want this guild to attract all kinds of adventurers. Therefore I ask the following:

What services, opportunities etc. should the Adventurer's Guild provide so that your character would join it? The campaign, level, setting etc. are not relevant*, but this type of guild should fit into the setting thematically. The only important factor is that your character would consider himself/herself/itself a full-time or part-time adventurer.

Hopefully with your answers I can make the guild appealing for any type of adventurer of any level. I want to cover all angles. No matter what sort of character the players create, this guild has potential.

*The game has fair amount of plane hopping, so anything goes.

[John Longarrow]

To borrow from a friend of mine, "League of Boot and Trail". Mostly run by bards and local branches in just about every tavern/inn around.

Biggest thing is passing along job postings/legends and tales/General Information. Players won't need a lot of "Support" so much as a really good place to find what they are looking for. Toss in that they can get a good meal, decent drinks, and good entertainment and your set.

[13_CBS]

What services, opportunities etc. should the Adventurer's Guild provide so that your character would join it?

1) The opportunity for someone trained in a particular set of skills (killing dangerous stuff) to work with other such people of high quality. Adventuring is dangerous work, and some random shifty-looking fellow in the local pub might not be enough--for REAL professionals, you work with the Guild.

2) Depending on the structure of the guild, resources. Maybe that ~level 5 adventuring team wants to do some work in the Outer Planes, but since everyone on the team is from the Prime Material and since everyone's at a fairly low level, they normally can't cost-effectively travel the planes so easily...but perhaps the Guild offers such services, in exchange for a cut of their adventuring loot.

3) More opportunities for adventure. A given party can gather info on only so many potential adventures at a time. If they're part of a large Guild, however...perhaps the Guild spends a lot of its time and resources keeping diviners on the lookout for potential contracts, or otherwise just gathers requests by quest-givers into a centralized location for easy and convenient pick-up by adventurers.

4) Safety in numbers. Did the PCs just piss off Ankorahk, Lord of Bones? Perhaps the BBEG will be at least a little more discreet about his terrible vengeance if the PCs are part of a large Guild, and one of their drinking buddies is the level 20 Optimus, God-Wizard Supreme.

[Emperor Tippy]

In some ways look at the video game Fable and its Guild of Hero's.

Let's see.
1) A network of Teleportation Circles that can only be used by Guild members and are spread between cities and geographic areas, to provide an easy and cheap means for Hero's to reach the locations needed to carry out their adventures.

2) A Permanent Telepathic Bond between every member and a number of guild coordinators (so that there isn't a single point of failure for the whole network) so that members can be easily informed of jobs and gain relevant information from both the guild archives and guild members themselves. Also useful for quickly reporting little things like clients lying to the guild/in the contract or refusing to pay up.

3) An escrow service. Someone who wants to hirer an adventurer hire's the guild and pays the guild up front which then pays out to whatever adventurer completes the job.

4) Absolute neutrality except (maybe) in regards to things that threaten to end the world/plane/multiverse. Individual adventures can be good or evil and might even be on opposite sides of a quest but the guild its self will not take sides. The only exception being an attack on the guild its self.

5) Keeping the members secrets, even from other members.

6) Item processing services. Buying, selling, trading, and otherwise moving goods of all kinds for a modest fee. Where an adventure can just say "I want this" and the guild can have the item in their hands with no hassle. Possibly at better percentages than the open market.

7) Spellcasting services available with relative ease. Including items like a Healing trap that hits whomever is on it with a Heal spell every 6 seconds (and regeneration traps to regain limbs and break enchantment traps, etc.). Possibly including easy access to Resurrection (a Wish trap that hits you with a Craft Contingent: True Resurrection and a Craft Contingent: Wish to, upon death port you back to the guild hall and then bring you back to life).

[Douglas]

In order to interest a broad range of adventurers in large numbers, a guild like this would essentially need to be NPCs Incorporated®. Pretty much, any reason an adventurer would commonly have to seek out an NPC, the guild should provide someone or something to match it.

Some examples I can think of:
1) Networking with other adventurers - need a new group member, a temp to fill a specific need, or just someone to swap stories with? Just visit the guild, and we'll set you up.
2) Networking with clients, aka quest givers. This could range from an impersonal public job board to in depth research and consideration of which parties fit which jobs best with client-adventurer interviews.
3) Magic item transactions, both sale and purchase, off the shelf and custom crafted.
4) Healing, from Cure Light Wounds all the way through Restoration, Regeneration, and up to True Resurrection. Some parties can handle this on their own, but some can't, and sometimes it's the party healer that needs the Raise Dead.
5) Transportation, particularly teleportation and planar travel for parties too low level or lacking in the right casters to do it themselves.
6) For a potential deluxe service, emergency rescue when an adventure goes horribly wrong.