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SteveLightblade
2022-03-22, 06:17 PM
Let me start with a story.

You are baron/ess [Your Name] of Genericfantasyshire. While you believe in your family's glorious lineage, you also know that House [Your Name] is in power in your fief for solely two reasons: to enforce the laws of the king, and to provide tribute in military service, but most importantly in this situation, taxes, to your liege. For the past few years, Genericfantasyshire has been relatively stable. Your knights have been able to keep the law, you are in good relations with the surrounding nobles as well as your liege, the changing of tax resources have allowed you to keep your position as well as live comfortably, and you are far enough from the king's wars that you and your forces have not been called upon. However, all of that changed in the last few weeks.

It feels like almost every day that messengers comes to you and reports of villages being sacked by what are reported to be goblins. You've never seen a goblin before, and doubt their existence, but that doesn't really matter. Villages are being stolen from and burned, people are dying, and the count is demanding tribute soon that you may not be able to supply. While you don't know the exact location of the threat, the reports of attacks leave a simple pattern that allow a small area to investigate. Not only do you have your own knights, as well as a potential militia of vengeful villages, but can call on your neighbors for help as well and reasonably convince them to help you.

But your most trusted advisor has a different idea.

Some strangers wandered into your capital last night. If they aren't armed to the teeth, they are carrying spellcasting equipment. They went into the market to buy combat equipment before going to the alehouse where they are now.

Instead of calling on your military resources, why not outsource it to these rowdy and dangerous looking strangers you have no reason to trust, and give them authority to kill things in your land?

Draconi Redfir
2022-03-22, 06:31 PM
Some possibilities:

- Hiring them as mercenaries could be cheaper then paying a small army
- If multiple villages are / have been attacked, you could hire them to bolster your forces. They investigate one village, while your military forces investigate others.
- Alternatively, you could hire them to investigate the village(s) that have already been sacked, while using your more trusted military forces to reinforce the villages that have not yet been sacked but might still be targeted. This way even if they do turn on you and loot the village, there will be less to be lost in both property and lives.
- If some rowdy and dangerous strangers die to goblins or other monsters, then no big deal. Your military forces are the husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters of your people. If any of them die, your people might loose faith in you as a leader.
- Strangers trained in combat are probably more effective then farmers who picked up a pitchfork.
- If you don't trust them, you can always send them to do a more dangerous task that you wouldn't want your own military to undertake. Such as delving deep into a monster-infested cave. Sending 3-4 of your soldiers to keep an eye on them from a distance is less risky and less costly then sending 10 soldiers into the cave.
- Historically, mercenaries have been very loyal to whoever paid them. Everyone has their price and all.

Anonymouswizard
2022-03-22, 06:49 PM
The way standard D&D players act is likely not the way most mercenaries act in-setting. That is to say that unless the PCs are in town you're probably dealing with a small band of maybe 10 mercenaries who only gear up when expecting combat.

Moving along from my complaints about D&D players.

Generally your knights and militia are of more use to you administrating or producing respectively. Adventurers don't have any other jobs, which means hiring them is likely less costly than disturbing the smooth running of your land.

It also likely means faster results. You don't have to go through all the hassle of getting the Knights or militia in order to start fighting back.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-03-22, 06:55 PM
Generally your knights and militia are of more use to you administrating or producing respectively. Adventurers don't have any other jobs, which means hiring them is likely less costly than disturbing the smooth running of your land.

It also likely means faster results. You don't have to go through all the hassle of getting the Knights or militia in order to start fighting back.

This.

Less paperwork, less expense, fewer people pulled off the land. And if it's a deathtrap, adventurers are expendable in the way your own vassals aren't. And way faster. You can have boots on the ground in the time it takes the party to get there, instead of a season or more later (especially if you have to call in other allies).

Plus, adventurers specialize in handling the sorts of things that can be dealt with by a special-forces group. Because that's what they really are, in D&D terms. Especially at the levels where you're going to actually hire them off the street and aren't already famous. And if they fail, you still have your other forces.

Get in, investigate, murder some people (who may or may not deserve it, but were in the way anyway, which is cause enough), get out. That's an adventurer's stock in trade. Knights or militia, not so much.

Lord Raziere
2022-03-22, 07:17 PM
in short, your knights and soldiers are for when an actual war is going to happen, and your peasants are for tilling the fields. hire the adventurers and you make sure you don't waste your loyal forces that can guard you against the lord scheming against you next door.

Saintheart
2022-03-22, 08:13 PM
Because it's a win/win.

If the adventurers succeed, you eliminate a potentially dangerous threat to your people for a lot less money and lives than it would've cost you to send the town guard.

If the adventurers TPK, you eliminate a potentially dangerous threat to your people for a lot less money and lives than it would've cost you to send the town guard.

Mechalich
2022-03-22, 08:25 PM
In general, if the nobles of a generic feudal holding are responsible and have well-equipped forces of their own capable of meeting their military obligations to their superiors and those forces are not currently on campaign, then adventurers are indeed superfluous. Also, the forces of the state should be easily capable of overwhelming bandits/foreign tribes from the marginal wilderness beyond the borders and crushing them thoroughly in a punitive campaign through superior numbers, equipment, and training. Strong, stable, states that are currently at peace do not need adventurers (though of course there's nothing to stop the PCs from serving as official state special forces).

However, the calculation changes if the state is weak - and therefore unable to properly support its required military forces - unstable - and therefore cannot dispatch troops because they may rise in rebellion - or at war - and therefore all its troops are far away and unavailable. It's also possible that the current threat, whatever it is, is sufficiently dangerous that it seriously damaged the local military and therefore outside assistance is required (though this works better for higher level adventurers). Additionally, it could be that the state's forces got crushed on campaign last year and there aren't enough soldiers available. This is particularly useful in terms of giving the authorities the money to pay adventurers along with the need to hire them.

Saintheart
2022-03-22, 08:28 PM
In general, if the nobles of a generic feudal holding are responsible and have well-equipped forces of their own capable of meeting their military obligations to their superiors and those forces are not currently on campaign, then adventurers are indeed superfluous. Also, the forces of the state should be easily capable of overwhelming bandits/foreign tribes from the marginal wilderness beyond the borders and crushing them thoroughly in a punitive campaign through superior numbers, equipment, and training. Strong, stable, states that are currently at peace do not need adventurers (though of course there's nothing to stop the PCs from serving as official state special forces).

However, the calculation changes if the state is weak - and therefore unable to properly support its required military forces - unstable - and therefore cannot dispatch troops because they may rise in rebellion - or at war - and therefore all its troops are far away and unavailable. It's also possible that the current threat, whatever it is, is sufficiently dangerous that it seriously damaged the local military and therefore outside assistance is required (though this works better for higher level adventurers). Additionally, it could be that the state's forces got crushed on campaign last year and there aren't enough soldiers available. This is particularly useful in terms of giving the authorities the money to pay adventurers along with the need to hire them.

Or it's just poor timing for the local state. Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility off the land and there'll be famine next year. Indeed the time taken for the archetypical feudal overlord to call on his vassals' resources might mean it's more convenient or necessary to send in adventurers now.

Mechalich
2022-03-22, 08:32 PM
Or it's just poor timing for the local state. Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility off the land and there'll be famine next year. Indeed the time taken for the archetypical feudal overlord to call on his vassals' resources might mean it's more convenient or necessary to send in adventurers now.

If the resources of a party of 5-10 adventurers are capable of representing the output of a peasant army of hundreds, that's a world-building problem right there, because it means that in this fantasy world armies are irrelevant. A group of adventurers is intended to represent the equivalent of a party of elite warriors, whether that be knights, ninja, or whatever other resource represents the equivalent of special forces at the tech level, not an army.

Pauly
2022-03-22, 11:24 PM
In rough order of importance, although circumstances may push things up or down the list.

1) They are expendable.

2) It’s a non-critical mission. If they screw up you can send your big boys to clean uo after them.

3) they are cheap. You’re not paying them a wage, not paying for their equipment, you have no obligation to support any widows or orphans, and most of their remuneration will be loot taken from the bad guys.

4) They’re ready right now. You don’t need to reassign duties or leave yourself shorthanded.

5) it takes them off your streets where they can cause trouble with the town guard and other locals. They are a hammer looking for a nail, so give them a nail that’s over there.

6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

Squire Doodad
2022-03-23, 12:38 AM
If the resources of a party of 5-10 adventurers are capable of representing the output of a peasant army of hundreds, that's a world-building problem right there, because it means that in this fantasy world armies are irrelevant. A group of adventurers is intended to represent the equivalent of a party of elite warriors, whether that be knights, ninja, or whatever other resource represents the equivalent of special forces at the tech level, not an army.

I mean, it's DnD. Maybe not 600 peasants, but while a mid-level Fighter alone is a force on the battlefield, a mage with plenty of fireballs gets crowd control (something that no medieval peasant without class levels can offer) and together a team of 4 can do a full dungeon over a week or so. How many peasants do you need to fight off 20 goblins and 5 orcs? How easily can an adventuring party handle this across 3 encounters?

I would certainly say that hiring, hm, three parties of adventurers can be worth not having to send out scores of peasants to match their might.



6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

This works even better when you're hiring people to start a war and pin it on someone else, and then the assertion that you hired them is just another part of the evil scheme to start a war by the real masterminds.

Anonymouswizard
2022-03-23, 01:00 AM
If the resources of a party of 5-10 adventurers are capable of representing the output of a peasant army of hundreds, that's a world-building problem right there, because it means that in this fantasy world armies are irrelevant. A group of adventurers is intended to represent the equivalent of a party of elite warriors, whether that be knights, ninja, or whatever other resource represents the equivalent of special forces at the tech level, not an army.

In Berserk Guts is roughly equivalent to a couple of hundred peasants during the Golden Age arc, taking out 100 properly trained and equipped soldiers. He doesn't invalidate armies because armies are significantly bigger than that, at even that point Guts is top tier (there's what, maybe a dozen as strong as him in two countries). After the Eclipse he's even stronger, but no longer doing the kind of work that impacts on armies.

But seriously, if we're talking Goblin Warcamp we're looking at what, a couple of dozen warriors? Ten well equipped Knights or a few dozen shoddily equipped peasants could manage that. If we're talking Goblin settlement then any party that could take it on is likely outside of most noble's price rangesm


6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

You know, it never occurred to me before that PCs generally don't insist on a written contract.

I'm definitely using that as an excuse for a quest giver to rip them off next game I run. It should lead to a fun prison break scenario once they murder them.

Saintheart
2022-03-23, 02:47 AM
Let's bear in mind that, according to the OP, the threat is said to look like goblins, but that you, lord of the state, have never seen a goblin before and even doubt they exist. For that you presumably have the reports of a frightened pack of villagers. And whatever the number, it's enough to "sack" and "burn" villages (plural), it's not just raiding the odd outlying homestead, it's taking on whole hamlets or settlements. It's also apparent a concentration of what, several dozen people (some of whom might be armed themselves) can't fight them off, because said villages (plural) are getting burned. It "seems every other day" that a village is being sacked, so the force is highly mobile. Its area of raiding can be identified but they strike without warning, so it's a force that's good at guerrilla warfare. You apparently don't have any spellcasters, and the force of mobile hobos that's just walked into town does. Presumably as a setting-savvy person, you know magic's a much better force multiplier than packs of peasants, and peasants killed means less of a workforce to bring in the foundations of your revenue base. There is, after all, that risk; you're raising a militia from a bunch of farmers, it's not exactly the Spartiates you're drawing the force from, casualty odds are probable if the "goblins" are strong enough to burn villages and kill people.

Sure you could send your knights out, or raise a militia, but that means said knights aren't keeping your peace, and the militia aren't ploughing fields and supplying grain for the mills you own or charge royalties on. What's more economical, risking your workforce to take weeks off chasing something that might not even exist (and which you might have to pay to keep out there in the field), or paying a small sum of money to the murderhobos and promising them they can keep all the WBL plunder they'll find out there among these monsters?

Satinavian
2022-03-23, 03:51 AM
The most important reason would be "They are ready to go now", when assembling your army would take time.

Another reason could be that your personal force is not very suited for the task. Maybe you have a lack of scouts, maybe the enemy hides in difficult terrain or something else.

Or your troops ar busy/dead. Maybe you have another war or you recently lost one. Maybe the "goblins" attack now precicely because you are weakened and can't repell them on your own.

I disagree with all those "They are cheap" answers. Adventurer pay tends to be quite high in most settings as it has to be relevant in sight of treasure and magic items. Adventurers are certainly not cheap. But then again, they are basically mercenaries and mercenaries are not cheap either. Both make it up by you not having to pay them when you don't need them.


Generally what you would want to do if such attacks occured is both mobilizing your army and sending a scout force at the same time so when you are ready to go, you have proper intelligence for the real battle. It would be not too farfetched for some of the scouts to be well armed experienced travellers from some tavern, if you don't have enough on your own.




On the whole I don't go out of my way to to make RPG adventurer class tropes a thing in my games. It would be more likely on such a scenario for the PCs to be part of the nobles forces or allies in the first place, so by sending them, the noble is dispatching their own forces.

Knights and other proper forces a noble has cost money all the time (or need land) to sustain them. It is an investment that you really should use when you have the need instead of paying even more money for mercenaries.

Anonymouswizard
2022-03-23, 04:31 AM
Adventures are likely cheap compared to the costs associated with raising an army. But honestly in the presented example you're likely using the adventurers mostly for reconnaissance: they're to find a goblin camp, go full murderhobo, and then drag back the map/handy rock/whatever has the location of the other maps on it.

If they're raiding homesteads outside the city it's probably one or two camps, just enough for a bunch of heavily armed lunatics to deal with. In that case it's probably just easier to use whatever mercenaries are to hand than to deal with the paperwork involved in activating the Knights or militia. If you have recurring goblin problems and they're good at dealing with it you might as well pay them to hang around and deal with goblin threats quickly.

If we continue along these lines we end up with some kind of centralised government service or mercenary company spending a lot of time making sure the country has the right density of 'adventurers' in the right place. Which honestly, is one of the more popular models after 'wandering randos' and which some settings explicitly use (such as Blue Rose, which I'm currently reading).

Eldan
2022-03-23, 05:20 AM
Part of that can also be solved by backstory.

I've played more than one campaign where the player group were "trusted agents of the king" or "local noble and his three advisors", or "temple soldiers", things like that. Your party doesn't have to be hobos with no local connections.

If we're playing the typical campaign of "four random dudes who met in a tavern and go adventuring together", I set it in a location where such makes sense. A border outpost in the steppes. A pirate haven. A new colony on a dangerous continent.

If they are in a more settled region, I try to think of a reason why it's adventurers instead of professional soldiers (if the players aren't professional soldiers.) They could be hired for an assassination, or a scouting mission, or a false flag operation, or smuggling. Something you don't want to have your name stamped on officially. Shadowrunning, to borrow a term from another game.

Or to sum up, I try to avoid the situation laid out in the OP.

DigoDragon
2022-03-23, 06:33 AM
6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

I do love a good fantasy "Shadowrun".

Adventurers are really useful when you need something done that falls outside the normal jurisdiction of your own knights. If they get captured, you can deny any involvement. If they succeed, you have a useful group for performing shadow operations. :3

Eldan
2022-03-23, 06:39 AM
Or it's just something your knights don't want to do.

"Otyughs? In the sewers. In the middle of summer, when we haven't had rain to flush the sewers for three weeks. I am sorry, my liege, but I need to, uh, polish my maille. Thursday? No, I need to take my valets to the tailor on Thursday. You should hire those heavily armed vagrants who showed up at the port yesterday instead."

StragaSevera
2022-03-23, 06:50 AM
Or it's just something your knights don't want to do.

Yes, by the way. If we are talking about medieval times, there are vassal contracts with obligations about what this noble knight will do and what he will not do. Paying a full-time soldier squad is expensive, that's why medieval lords preferred to outsource - give some land and some serfs to a guy, and getting resources from those lands and those serfs is his problem.
Each time you use your vassals in not-so-profitable expedition, or an expedition that has problems with being dishonorable or politically dangerous, you risk their trust. That's why, in history, most kingdoms gradually switched from vassal armies to hired armies (mercenaries), and then to standing, full-time armies.

Pauly
2022-03-23, 06:50 AM
I disagree with all those "They are cheap" answers. Adventurer pay tends to be quite high in most settings as it has to be relevant in sight of treasure and magic items. Adventurers are certainly not cheap. But then again, they are basically mercenaries and mercenaries are not cheap either. Both make it up by you not having to pay them when you don't need them.
.

Cheap is a relative term. Given a standard fantasy setting where the lord has a standing guard that functions as a combined modern military and police force they have to:
- pay a per diem salary
- pay for training
- provide food and lodging
- buy arms, armor, equipment and consumables
- is liable for the upkeep of any widows and orphans

Adventurers are hired on a piece rate to do a job.

In a more historically based setting with citizen soldiers/trained militias where the lord’s fighters are providing for their skills and equipment from their own pockets then ‘cheap’ won’t apply.

elros
2022-03-23, 07:07 AM
in short, your knights and soldiers are for when an actual war is going to happen, and your peasants are for tilling the fields. hire the adventurers and you make sure you don't waste your loyal forces that can guard you against the lord scheming against you next door.
I agree. Feudal lords typically did not have large standing military forces, and called on other people (e.g. peasants, posse, brute squad (https://princessbride.fandom.com/wiki/Brute_Squad)), etc) when more force was needed.
I also used guilds and other patrons to sponsor adventures, since it would more sense for an organization like that to outsource those activities to adventures.

awa
2022-03-23, 07:15 AM
note dealing with goblins often involves some degree of night fighting or spelunking. While it is plausible for a handful of murder hobos to catch them off guard a typical gang of goblins will detect and flee a peasant army long before it can bring those numbers to bear, armies are neither fast or quite. Getting the goblins to run just moves the problem some where else, a small group of raiders is much more mobile than your army.

The pcs with their implied experience at dark caves full of traps are simply the correct tool for the job.

KorvinStarmast
2022-03-23, 08:20 AM
- Alternatively, you could hire them to investigate the village(s) that have already been sacked, while using your more trusted military forces to reinforce the villages that have not yet been sacked but might still be targeted. This way even if they do turn on you and loot the village, there will be less to be lost in both property and lives.
- If some rowdy and dangerous strangers die to goblins or other monsters, then no big deal. Your military forces are the husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters of your people. If any of them die, your people might loose faith in you as a leader.
- Strangers trained in combat are probably more effective then farmers who picked up a pitchfork.
- Historically, mercenaries have been very loyal to whoever paid them. Everyone has their price and all.
These are good approaches.

Generally your knights and militia are of more use to you administrating or producing respectively. Adventurers don't have any other jobs, which means hiring them is likely less costly than disturbing the smooth running of your land.

It also likely means faster results. You don't have to go through all the hassle of getting the Knights or militia in order to start fighting back. Just finished a biography of Edward I (Longshanks) and that was a key issue for him, year after year, in raising troops to deal with Wales, France, and Scotland.

Less paperwork, less expense, fewer people pulled off the land. And if it's a deathtrap, adventurers are expendable in the way your own vassals aren't. And way faster. You can have boots on the ground in the time it takes the party to get there, instead of a season or more later (especially if you have to call in other allies). This too.

Plus, adventurers specialize in handling the sorts of things that can be dealt with by a special-forces group. Because that's what they really are, in D&D terms. Especially at the levels where you're going to actually hire them off the street and aren't already famous. And if they fail, you still have your other forces.

Get in, investigate, murder some people (who may or may not deserve it, but were in the way anyway, which is cause enough), get out. That's an adventurer's stock in trade. Knights or militia, not so much. Although sometimes the adventurers make friends with whomever they encounter, or adopt one of them. :smallbiggrin: Their loyalty is a moving target.

in short, your knights and soldiers are for when an actual war is going to happen, and your peasants are for tilling the fields. hire the adventurers and you make sure you don't waste your loyal forces that can guard you against the lord scheming against you next door. +1.

Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility off the land and there'll be famine next year. Indeed the time taken for the archetypical feudal overlord to call on his vassals' resources might mean it's more convenient or necessary to send in adventurers now. +1.

Let's bear in mind that, according to the OP, the threat is said to look like goblins, but that you, lord of the state, have never seen a goblin before and even doubt they exist.
Sure you could send your knights out, or raise a militia, but that means said knights aren't keeping your peace, and the militia aren't ploughing fields and supplying grain for the mills you own or charge royalties on. What's more economical, risking your workforce to take weeks off chasing something that might not even exist (and which you might have to pay to keep out there in the field), or paying a small sum of money to the murderhobos and promising them they can keep all the WBL plunder they'll find out there among these monsters? The murderhobos adventurers are a form of armed reconnaissance. And expendable.

Sapphire Guard
2022-03-23, 09:32 AM
Easy enough. The local forces can beat raiders in a fight. The raiders know that too, that's why they're raiders and not holding land. If the militia or knights come, they will likely run or hide until the local forces go away (you can't sustain a large force in the field for long, and you can't put a garrison in every homestead.)

If they do end up fighting, the militia or knights will likely win... but winning sides still take casualties. If your peasant militia loses six or seven people to death or even long term injury, those people can't work the land.

If you lose a knight, then she takes a long time to replace (or an expensive resurrection. A good warhorse and full plate are expensive to replace, and training takes a long time.

If the adventurers die or get hurt, you don't have to care.

MoiMagnus
2022-03-23, 10:11 AM
Med Fan universes are universes in which some rare individual can become one-men-armies with enough determination/skill/talent/luck/fate, the main NPCs are probably aware of it.

And that can be factored in the "why hire adventurers?".

Maybe the nobles in this universe like nobles in JRPGs where they're either heroes or retired heroes, and have ideological or emotional attachment to giving to a new generation of adventurer an occasion to shine and rise to the top.
Maybe it's a question of survival of kingdom to make sure that the adventurers are invested in protecting the kingdom, as (1) there are some problems only them can solve and (2) you have to keep them busy or they might start to cause some problems.
Maybe it's part of a process to eventually recruit them. They'll eventually retire from their life of adventure and they might be able to be very competent recruits. Or danger to the society, in which case the earlier you notice it the easier it is to exile them.
Maybe the society is dependent on having adventurers helping the kingdom on a regular basis, and simply do not have the means to deal with monsters & co without calling for them. [Can be combine with "the troups are busy at war"]

Easy e
2022-03-23, 11:42 AM
For the best reason of all! They are expendable and deniable.

Luccan
2022-03-23, 12:28 PM
+1 to the points about expendability and speed as a factor, not to mention keeping the armed and dangerous folks away from all the stuff you don't want broken or stolen. In terms of cost, each individual is likely making more than if you sent your army, but it should cost you less in the long run. Especially if you're paying the standard adventuring rate of "you get paid when you come back successful", so if they fail it's free (and maybe they still provide some value softening up the enemy force) and otherwise you're probably paying them less than half what you'd spend on arming and keeping on its feet a full militia and several knights+retinue.


Idk why the lord doesn't believe in goblins in this example, they're not exactly uncommon in most fantasy settings that have them. Mostly seems like that's in there as a reason not to hire mercenaries, as if just being human raiders would somehow make that ridiculous.

Slipjig
2022-03-23, 06:33 PM
If it's a bunch of random strangers in town (as opposed to well-known local badasses) the OP has a fair point. The Baron probably won't send his seneschal down to the local pub to hire random dangerous looking people. It's a lot more plausible that he'll post a general bounty (and even then that's probably only if his knights can't handle it or are needed elsewhere).

It's a lot more likely that the person willing to hire a bunch of complete strangers will be people who don't have troops of their own: village headman, crime bosses, or wizards/priests who don't want to get their hands dirty.

Regarding the "adventurers are cheap/well-compensated" discussion up-thread, both can be true: adventurers are gig workers, you hire them when you need them, and have no obligation to them once the job is done. When adventurers are performing level-appropriate work, they make good money (assuming they survive). However, once the job is done, they either have to move on looking for a new gig, or else take low-paying work while they wait for the next time somebody in the area needs hired muscle.

Dimers
2022-03-23, 08:59 PM
I came here to say "expendable" and "get the dangerous people out of your town", but I'll emphasize the combination of "expendable" and "cheap". That is to say, if you don't give them payment up front, it's entirely reasonable to believe that the adventurers won't have a chance to collect. (Including if you have them jailed or killed when they come back reporting success. Not that THAT ever comes up in Shadowrun games.) They might blunt the enemy forces and then conveniently die, costing you and your troops nothing, while at the same time keeping the adventurers from causing trouble in your barony.

Even supposing the adventurers succeed and you end up paying them as agreed, you're only out the cash (no contract), and you've earned accolades as a leader who deals with problems swiftly and well.

Tanarii
2022-03-24, 12:36 AM
There's always a motive:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2015/02/16/the-murder-hobo-investment-bubble/

Of course it might not be all that easy:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2016/09/06/the-dead-weight-loss-of-plunder/

And of course, sometimes it's something more serious like a dragon:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2015/09/21/dragons-and-the-free-rider-problem/

Saintheart
2022-03-24, 01:10 AM
There's always a motive:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2015/02/16/the-murder-hobo-investment-bubble/


So the OP's most trusted adviser to the lord of the state is not in fact an adviser, he's an Evil Chancellor (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilChancellor).

After all, per the OP, the lord of the state is a clueless moron who doesn't even know what a goblin looks like, and indeed isn't even sure they exist. But the trusted adviser certainly does, because he's got a financial interest in seeing the goblins rooted out ... something that might well come to light if the lord's knights and/or militia go poking around up there. So the trusted adviser suggests the hiring of adventurers ... and doesn't even pay the price of having to hire them himself to do his dirty work. Indeed the trusted adviser might have even paid the goblins to start raiding villages for a smaller sum than it cost to hire the adventurers (compare average treasure value of CR 1 goblin band versus average hiring rate for level 5 or 6 adventurers or whatever) and left the lord of the state to hire the adventurers, clearing the way for the trusted adviser's strip-mining dwarven confederates.

Jophiel
2022-03-24, 07:28 AM
If it's a first level adventure, it's probably more like the mayor wants to hire you because getting the lord to send a force would take time and isn't certain. Need to send someone out on a journey to the lord's keep, get an audience, wait for him to make decision, wait for him to muster the troops and send them back, etc. If you can hire on some mercenaries rather than wait for all that or risk the militia made of locals, it's better to just send the adventurers to kill 10-15 goblins with a short rest somewhere in the middle.

If it's actually the scenario presented in the OP where you have enough goblins to be pillaging and burning entire towns across the realm rather than hassling local outlying farms and caravans, you're probably dealing with a situation above that of your government-issued Studded Leather & Short Sword town guard and you could either be sending a bunch of your men, sending your better trained men and risking them or sending a group of paid individuals who are powerful enough to take on the threat but represent less of a loss if they die than your 3-4th level knights and field commanders. At the very least, send them after the goblins directly while your men spread across the remaining settlements for defense.

King of Nowhere
2022-03-24, 08:03 AM
an army generally has more firepower than a group of adventurers (generally, but it depends on the setting and the assumptions). but adventurers have unparalleled mobility and versatility. they can teleport around, use a lot of magic to overcome virtually any obstacle. an army is good at taking and controlling land. they are separate tools, used for separate needs.

and any state with resources would try to secure adventurers in their fighting force. they are useful, and it's better than leaving them around to cause problems.

jjordan
2022-03-24, 10:21 AM
Don't forget that the ruler of the land might need access to a band of adventurers at some point. In a fantasy world a prudent ruler has to keep in mind the fact that there might be dragons, sorcerers, and assorted creatures that need slaying and extra-planar invasions to be stopped and quests to lift curses to undertake. A ruler that doesn't have at least a few professional adventurers to call on can hardly expect to remain a ruler for very long. I used this excuse to justify all sorts of leniency shown to murder-hobos.

Mutazoia
2022-03-24, 10:42 AM
Echoing expendable and cheap.

Raising, training, and equipping a standing army is expensive and time-consuming, especially if you don't have a large population to draw from in the first place.

Adventurers come pre-equipped and for the most part, pre-trained. Just point them at the problem and wait for results. If they die, you don't have to pay and you can bet that they've at least whittled down the numbers on those pesky goblins a bit before kicking the bucket.

It's a bit like using Favor or Door Dash to go get fast food for you. Sure, it might cost you a bit more than it would if you went and got it yourself, but is it really once you factor in the time it takes to get in your car, experience traffic to your burger joint of choice, wait in line at the drive-thru, wait while the idiot in front of you says "I'll have a....ummmmmm....." a few dozen times before making up his got-damned mind (like seriously you KNEW you were going to Mickey D's couldn't you decide what you wanted on the way there?) paid for the food, experienced traffic on the way home (including that idiot who apparently has never heard of "right turn on red"), and returned safely home (only to realize that you ate half of your fries during the drive) before you can enjoy your food versus picking up your phone, ordering food and doing any number of far more enjoyable things with your free time while someone does all of the above in your stead. And you get to keep all of your fries. If the driver never delivers your food, you're not really out anything (just contact customer service for a refund).

Telonius
2022-03-24, 10:43 AM
Knights are the regular army. They're big, take a while to set up, are expensive to equip and pay, and require a lot of logistics to sustain. Adventurers are the special forces. They're small units, highly mobile, mostly self-supporting, and can change tactics (or even strategies) extremely quickly. You wouldn't send the adventurers against an actual invasion force (except as a discrete mission to support the regular army). Same way you wouldn't send a regular army against bandits; that tends to result in catastrophes, or needing to explain to a very upset Emperor what happened to his legions. Sometimes adventurers are the right tool for the job.

Jay R
2022-03-24, 01:12 PM
Because as soon as your most powerful military unit marches out to remote villages, it's a perfect time for your rival to attack or raid. You have guards to guard your lands, not to take trips.

————————–

A group of high-level combatants who have no loyalty to you, and who make their living by killing others and taking their stuff, are staying in your capital right now. Is this really the best time to send your troops away?

————————–

NPC: “I want you to go to the black swamps of Telgar to investigate why people are disappearing there.”
PC: “Don’t you have a squad of extremely powerful ninjas rumored to be the best in the world at that sort of spying?”
NPC: “Yes. I’m sending you in to investigate what happened to them.”

—————————–

In a Flashing Blades campaign, I had Richelieu invent a series of missions that took the party all over Europe because, while their success rate was excellent, the collateral damage was too high (chateaus set on fire to erase clues, riots begun to distract the authorities, etc.). Richelieu finally concluded that he wanted that level of chaos and destruction to take place elsewhere than France.

————————–

The characters are hired by a Great White Wizard to sneak into the Black Mage’s castle to steal the Ruby of Power in his throne that is the source of his power. After they go through the traps, monsters and other dangers outside, they have to make their way through the guards and castle traps, finally arriving at the treasure vault, to find the Great White Wizard calmly sitting and holding the ruby.
PC: “If you were coming here, why did you hire us?”
GWW: “To take all the risks, of course. Once the Black Mage’s full attention was bent on killing you, I had no trouble slipping in.”
PC: “Why didn’t you at least tell us?”
GWW: “Because the Black Mage can read lower-level minds. Why do you think you wound up facing every minion he had?”

Tanarii
2022-03-24, 01:35 PM
Ultimately, adventurers are special forces teams. They'd be considered for use any time using conventional forces are going to be an issue.

Vahnavoi
2022-03-24, 02:06 PM
You don't hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. It's a catch-all term for people who go on adventures... and quite often that's the only thing those people have in common. Less charitably, it's a term for people who enjoy and go out of their way for dangerous and exciting experiences.

What you're talking of is hiring of mercenaries. And in the sample situation, hiring mercenaries is a bad idea & the feudal lord in question should find themselves a better advisor. If you are feudal lords with loyal underlings, you send THEM on the "adventure", or rather, military operation. That's why you have them.

The chief reason for a feudal lord to hire mercenaries is because they DON'T have loyal underlings willing to do their damn job, AKA military service. This could happen, for example, because they have substituted monetary payments for said service - so the feudal lord can pay someone else to that job.

There are other reasons, like false flag operations others have mentioned, but they don't apply to the sample scenario.

Mechalich
2022-03-24, 04:34 PM
You don't hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. It's a catch-all term for people who go on adventures... and quite often that's the only thing those people have in common. Less charitably, it's a term for people who enjoy and go out of their way for dangerous and exciting experiences.

Right, and it's also an extension of D&D's pretensions towards generic-ness. The average quasi-medieval fantasy world presents local government with all the standard problems of medieval (or early modern) existence, plus some additional thorny ones on top. It's entirely possible that, depending on the nature of said problems, there will exist specialists for handling them. The Witcher universe is a fine example: it has a monster problem and it developed a specialized group of monster hunters to handle it (the Witcher world is rather crapsack, so this didn't turn out so well, but the theory is sound).

Specialized highly mobile units that handle specific fantasy problems whether for hire or not makes a lot of sense, but they won't be generic, they'll be attuned to whatever the major widespread problems are. Only in a true kitchen sink scenario, where every village and dale has a different problem, do you get generic 'adventurer' problem solvers.

Tanarii
2022-03-24, 04:35 PM
IMX the difference between adventurers and mercenaries is hair thin. The primary difference being they'll often take a "contract" from an Old Man Quest Giver based purely on expected loot received. Or even just find their own jobs based on expected loot.

KorvinStarmast
2022-03-24, 04:42 PM
IMX the difference between adventurers and mercenaries is hair thin. The primary difference being they'll often take a "contract" from an Old Man Quest Giver based purely on expected loot received. Or even just find their own jobs based on expected loot. Or, one of them has a map, or a rumor, or a lead on "a place deep in the dark woods where a crumbled tower stands, under which is a treasure of {some value expected} guarded by a deadly {something(s)}. The bones of previous claimants litter the ground around the tower..."

I still do those now and again. :smallsmile:

Satinavian
2022-03-24, 05:02 PM
Ultimately, adventurers are special forces teams. They'd be considered for use any time using conventional forces are going to be an issue.

Let us not forget that the OP never mentioned D&D. For all we know this is a question for WHFRPG 2ed. We shouldn't make too many assumptions based on specific systems, especcially when it comes to power of adventurers vs militia/knights.



As for paying the adventurers with their loot, that only works if there is reason to suspect treasure. And if there was, that would also be another reason to send the knights instead of letting foreigners take it.

Anonymouswizard
2022-03-24, 05:19 PM
Let us not forget that the OP never mentioned D&D. For all we know this is a question for WHFRPG 2ed. We shouldn't make too many assumptions based on specific systems, especcially when it comes to power of adventurers vs militia/knights.

In WFRP it's less 'a group of five each armed to the teeth or with spellcasting foci' and more 'five people, none fully armoured, looking as unspellcastery as possible with a sword, a club, a crossbow and a small but vicious dog' :smalltongue:

It might not have been system or setting specific, but there were setting implications.

icefractal
2022-03-24, 05:42 PM
In this kind of arrangement, adventurers are just another type of mercenaries, so the question would be why hire mercenaries?

One big reason could be that you don't often need them. If your kingdom is seldom threatened, then it could make more sense to hire mercenaries when needed than pay to maintain a standing army all the time, especially if you have friendly neighbors. You'd still have a personal guard, but you don't want to throw them into an unknown situation like this and end up defenseless.

Now as for whether you'd hire a particular group that just entered town, that comes down to rep - do they have one? Even if "adventurer" is a recognized social class, a low-level party doesn't necessarily look different than a mid-level one. And as with levels in general, I'd assume that in most worlds there are many more low-level parties than high-level ones. So just being an "adventurer looking" group doesn't mean you can handle a significant threat. If "adventurer" is not a recognized thing in the setting, all the more so.

That said, hiring them and sending them on their way can be done in parallel to sending out messages or building up your own forces, so if the cost isn't too high (and you're probably only paying half up front) then you might as well just do so for the chance of an easy success.

TeChameleon
2022-03-24, 09:49 PM
There's also the fact that any halfway-savvy lord... or even one with basic pattern recognition... will rapidly come to realize that these adventurer types are all-but-universally under a fearsome and unpredictable curse known as 'the plot'. And you do not want to get any of that on you. Better to find some sort of problem to get the adventurers out of town as quickly as possible, and hopefully lead to the usual chaos, destruction, and death typical of the plot happening to someone else, somewhere else.

Lord Raziere
2022-03-24, 09:51 PM
There's also the fact that any halfway-savvy lord... or even one with basic pattern recognition... will rapidly come to realize that these adventurer types are all-but-universally under a fearsome and unpredictable curse known as 'the plot'. And you do not want to get any of that on you. Better to find some sort of problem to get the adventurers out of town as quickly as possible, and hopefully lead to the usual chaos, destruction, and death typical of the plot happening to someone else, somewhere else.

eh, thats getting into meta-territory.

the more likely explanation is that adventurers are simply trouble. they tend to cause chaos just because they can, because they are bored. don't let them get bored.

Vahnavoi
2022-03-25, 12:30 AM
In my games, I often cut the middle man out, so to speak. That is: the characters are part of the army, navy etc. military organization, or in a more feudal system, either are vassals to a lord or lords themselves. Instead of the characters being hired, they are frequently looking to hire specialist helpers themselves. And rather than "quests" being given by outsiders, most adventures are self-motivated exploration.

a_flemish_guy
2022-03-26, 07:17 PM
adventuring also requires certain skillsets that your regular troops won't have

your men at arms that can form a shieldwall of 200 aren't going to do that in the goblin hole, let alone your knights who can ride in a wedge formation
your court wizzard is probably more proficient at divination and enchantment then evocation and the local bishop uses his wisdom score to settle disputes and keep the peace rather then casting spells, even the local criminal guild mostly settles for threatening shopkeepers into paying protection money and smuggling illicit goods

none of them have any idea why you'd need a 10 foot pole and if they needed rope they'd just get it when they need it and what use do any of them have for a wand of cloudkill?

TeChameleon
2022-03-26, 07:42 PM
eh, thats getting into meta-territory.

the more likely explanation is that adventurers are simply trouble. they tend to cause chaos just because they can, because they are bored. don't let them get bored.

Heh. More-or-less what I was trying to say, just in a less meta fashion. Chaos and destruction tends to follow TTRPG adventurers like flies around a dung cart- looking at it from the outside, we know it's the plot; from the inside, it must seem like they're under a horrific curse, sometimes.

Beleriphon
2022-03-27, 01:15 PM
In WFRP it's less 'a group of five each armed to the teeth or with spellcasting foci' and more 'five people, none fully armoured, looking as unspellcastery as possible with a sword, a club, a crossbow and a small but vicious dog' :smalltongue:

And if they're really, really lucky one them might be a dwarf.

My favourite setting is Avernum for this stuff. The first game the group is thrown into an underground exile realm named Avernum. Your ultimate goal is to escape. A bunch of stuff happens in between. Second game the group are soldiers employed by the army, after the Evil Empire from the first game invade. They get tasked with doing aventurey stuff because they're the first humans the new alien weirdos spot and demand they come visit. Avernum 3 has the group being employed by Unspecified Operations to go scout at the behest of the crown.

SarahCornel
2022-03-28, 07:03 AM
What about Green Arrow?

Chauncymancer
2022-03-29, 02:36 PM
Knights and other proper forces a noble has cost money all the time (or need land) to sustain them. It is an investment that you really should use when you have the need instead of paying even more money for mercenaries.



If they are in a more settled region, I try to think of a reason why it's adventurers instead of professional soldiers (if the players aren't professional soldiers.) They could be hired for an assassination, or a scouting mission, or a false flag operation, or smuggling. Something you don't want to have your name stamped on officially. Shadowrunning, to borrow a term from another game.




What you're talking of is hiring of mercenaries. And in the sample situation, hiring mercenaries is a bad idea & the feudal lord in question should find themselves a better advisor. If you are feudal lords with loyal underlings, you send THEM on the "adventure", or rather, military operation. That's why you have them.

The chief reason for a feudal lord to hire mercenaries is because they DON'T have loyal underlings willing to do their damn job, AKA military service.

If we're actually using say, medieval England or France as our inspiration for this fantasy world, then there's actually a deeper misunderstanding we can address that clears up the issue of why to hire adventurers.

From a modern understanding we have a tendency to mistake the relationship town guards, men at arms, and knights have with their lords as an employee relationship, but it's actually closest in modern terms to jury duty.

"Knight" is not a job. There are five small business owners in your duchy (three commercial farms, one winery, and a realtor) who, as a condition of the license by which they operate their business, are required to respond to summons for "Knight Duty" and if they've already served more than nine weeks in the last two years, they're allowed to respond to the summons with "No."

"Town guard" is not a job. There are three local trade unions (book binders, wheel makers, and blacksmiths) who, as a condition of the license that allow them to organize, are required to maintain a program where employees who volunteer to be police officers after their work shifts for two weeks are paid time and a half.

The percentage of actual, full time, not expected to be working in some vital industry four days a week, soldiers in your generic medieval kingdom who are not mercenaries already is asymptotic to 0.

So you have two choices. You can write a letter to one of your local private citizens summoning him to Knight Duty. He's allowed to take a full week to respond, and then another full week to actually arrive. You can do that to him only maybe three times a year, so this had better be one of the top five most dangerous things to happen this year or next year.
Or you can splash around some silverware and get a mercenary company in the goblin camp tonight.

KorvinStarmast
2022-03-29, 04:04 PM
If we're actually using say, medieval England or France as our inspiration for this fantasy world, then there's actually a deeper misunderstanding we can address that clears up the issue of why to hire adventurers.

From a modern understanding we have a tendency to mistake the relationship town guards, men at arms, and knights have with their lords as an employee relationship, but it's actually closest in modern terms to jury duty.

"Knight" is not a job. There are five small business owners in your duchy (three commercial farms, one winery, and a realtor) who, as a condition of the license by which they operate their business, are required to respond to summons for "Knight Duty" and if they've already served more than nine weeks in the last two years, they're allowed to respond to the summons with "No."

"Town guard" is not a job. There are three local trade unions (book binders, wheel makers, and blacksmiths) who, as a condition of the license that allow them to organize, are required to maintain a program where employees who volunteer to be police officers after their work shifts for two weeks are paid time and a half.

The percentage of actual, full time, not expected to be working in some vital industry four days a week, soldiers in your generic medieval kingdom who are not mercenaries already is asymptotic to 0.

So you have two choices. You can write a letter to one of your local private citizens summoning him to Knight Duty. He's allowed to take a full week to respond, and then another full week to actually arrive. You can do that to him only maybe three times a year, so this had better be one of the top five most dangerous things to happen this year or next year.
Or you can splash around some silverware and get a mercenary company in the goblin camp tonight. Having just finished a short bio of Alfred the Great (the Fyrd being summoned was a non trivial undertaking) and Edward I (Longshanks) recently, you've hit the nail on the head. Oh, and with the Mercenaries, if you keep them hanging around long enough and not get that mission done, they'll be very expensive to keep on,
and (getting a little into Renaissance Italy at this point)

if they don't get paid they will no longer be in your hire, so they'll likely go and serve someone who will pay them - and who might be your foe! :smalleek:

Which takes me to a guiding principle as a DM for the "I need adventurers" set up for adventures when it's an outside agent:

1. Time factor: "I need it done, and I need it done in this many days/weeks/months because I can't do it myself because {X} bigger problem." (If the adventurers discover something I need to know also, so much the better).
2. Payment terms, and success definition, agreed in advance. If the adventurers do it and are not satisfied with their fee, the NPC may be in for consequences. (And not just violence: PCs are pretty inventive in ways that they embarrass NPCs whom they take a dislike to. See the Skywrite spell, for starters).
3. Once mission is complete, make sure they know that "Lord and Lady Hamaneggs over the mountain have advised us that they need help with the dreaded Scrapple Gang!"
This achieves two things: an adventure hook, and these lethal, dangerous PCs are now somewhere else. :smallwink:
If there's a bard in the party, it's better that they seduce someone else's daughter / niece / cousin / son / mistress / spouse, not the Quest Giver's! :smallbiggrin:
(Wait, should that really be in blue text?)

Satinavian
2022-03-30, 01:59 AM
"Knight" is not a job. There are five small business owners in your duchy (three commercial farms, one winery, and a realtor) who, as a condition of the license by which they operate their business, are required to respond to summons for "Knight Duty" and if they've already served more than nine weeks in the last two years, they're allowed to respond to the summons with "No."
I know. But that doesn't change anything. You are still effectively paying those knights by providing them land to sustain them and having this limited access to their martial service is what you get in return.

Now, the problem was "golins" raiding your villages. Which means the enemies are very close and actually threaten your subjects and holdings. That is exactly the situation where you should use your knights and levies instead of mercenaries because
a) they don't need to move far and can repel the raiders on a limited time budget
b) they are more motivated.

That your knights and their armed retainers are not full time fighters and don't owe you uninterrupted long term service is a problem, when you want to go to foreign lands or plan to do long campaigns. Not when you are defending your own villages (some of which should belong to knights holdings anyway).

Mechalich
2022-03-30, 02:32 AM
That your knights and their armed retainers are not full time fighters and don't owe you uninterrupted long term service is a problem, when you want to go to foreign lands or plan to do long campaigns. Not when you are defending your own villages (some of which should belong to knights holdings anyway).

Indeed. If the powers that be in a region need to hire outside mercenaries to defend their home region that almost always a sign that something has already gone horribly wrong. There should be a system in place for home defense. The precise nature of that system will vary in time and place, but it should exist.

Now, in the medieval context, and some others as well there tends to be 'unclaimed' land that's surprisingly close to civilization where there are no local defenders. This often includes extensive marshes (ex. The Outlaws of the Marsh), deep forests (ex. Sherwood Forest), or inhospitable hills (ex. Highlanders). These areas, though they may be within the borders of a state, even a strong state, effectively exist outside state control and local defensive forces may consider it beyond their mandate to deal with anything within those zones. This often creates a situation where some threat to the local government can raid from a place of relative safety because the local defensive forces refuse to go into such areas in pursuit. This is often a particular problem when some important trade route passes through/near one of these outlaw-sheltering areas.

So in this situation if the local authorities want to 'root out' the problem rather than simply mitigate the damage through a defensive posture, that's when you call on adventurers.

Tanarii
2022-03-30, 03:12 PM
Clearly the lord needs to be a retired high level adventurer themselves. They might choose to farm out contracts to up and coming adventurers for smaller threats while they deal with bigger ones plus running their domain of course.

Mike_G
2022-03-30, 05:19 PM
I know. But that doesn't change anything. You are still effectively paying those knights by providing them land to sustain them and having this limited access to their martial service is what you get in return.

Now, the problem was "golins" raiding your villages. Which means the enemies are very close and actually threaten your subjects and holdings. That is exactly the situation where you should use your knights and levies instead of mercenaries because
a) they don't need to move far and can repel the raiders on a limited time budget
b) they are more motivated.

That your knights and their armed retainers are not full time fighters and don't owe you uninterrupted long term service is a problem, when you want to go to foreign lands or plan to do long campaigns. Not when you are defending your own villages (some of which should belong to knights holdings anyway).

The knights and levies are better suited to defending the villages from attack, while you send the adventurers to seek out and destroy the source of the attacks. The whole "do recon, infiltrate the goblin lair and wipe them out" is a Special Ops" kind of thing.

Sending your forces out searching for the raiders pulls troops away from the villages and leaves them more vulnerable, and they are probably more trained for open battle rather than doing recon type stuff anyway, and you don't want to lose too many of your forces, because, first of all, those are your people, and second, you need them to do their day jobs once this is over.

Adventurers going out goblin hunting don't deplete your defenses, since they aren't a standard part of your forces, they specialize in search and destroy tactics rather than village defense, and they are expendable in ways your own people aren't.

Satinavian
2022-03-31, 01:50 AM
The knights and levies are better suited to defending the villages from attack, while you send the adventurers to seek out and destroy the source of the attacks. The whole "do recon, infiltrate the goblin lair and wipe them out" is a Special Ops" kind of thing. There is a reason hunting is such an important pasttime for feudal nobles, knights and men at arms. It is training for war. Additionally it is your people who know the lay of the land.
There is literally nothing that makes foreign adventurers any better at recon than your troops. If you have an army that can't do recon, you have issues. Of course system dependend again but most adventurers are not exactly wilderness specialist. And adventurer parties don't have the numbers to send several scouting parties out.

Now, if at the end is some underground goblin dungeon, sure maybe adventurers are better at infiltrating that, it is kinda supposed to be their speciality. But maybe it is a goblin war camp instead, which is far more likely considering the goblins are a very new and recent threat. Goblins are not even underground dwelling at all in most settings i know.

As for the costs again, adventurers don't tend to be particularly cheap. And the goblins likely won't have any treasure considering that what they stole from the villages is probably foodstuff and animals. And the adventuers will know that.

Pauly
2022-03-31, 04:58 AM
Indeed. If the powers that be in a region need to hire outside mercenaries to defend their home region that almost always a sign that something has already gone horribly wrong. There should be a system in place for home defense. The precise nature of that system will vary in time and place, but it should exist.

Now, in the medieval context, and some others as well there tends to be 'unclaimed' land that's surprisingly close to civilization where there are no local defenders. This often includes extensive marshes (ex. The Outlaws of the Marsh), deep forests (ex. Sherwood Forest), or inhospitable hills (ex. Highlanders). These areas, though they may be within the borders of a state, even a strong state, effectively exist outside state control and local defensive forces may consider it beyond their mandate to deal with anything within those zones. This often creates a situation where some threat to the local government can raid from a place of relative safety because the local defensive forces refuse to go into such areas in pursuit. This is often a particular problem when some important trade route passes through/near one of these outlaw-sheltering areas.

So in this situation if the local authorities want to 'root out' the problem rather than simply mitigate the damage through a defensive posture, that's when you call on adventurers.

Not just the “bits we nominally control but don’t have the resources to manage” borders between countries were a significant problem for policing.

“The Steel Bonnets” by George MacDonal Fraser is a history about the border regions between Scotland and England. Since the Scots could only enforce their laws in Scotland and vice versa, border jumping after committing rustling, assault, murder and other types of mayhem to avoid prosecution was the norm.

hamishspence
2022-03-31, 05:12 AM
Not just the “bits we nominally control but don’t have the resources to manage” borders between countries were a significant problem for policing.


"Nominally control it but don't have the resources to manage it adequately" is a fair description of the area close to the border, in this context. Not just on the other side, but on their own side.

DigoDragon
2022-03-31, 05:53 AM
Clearly the lord needs to be a retired high level adventurer themselves. They might choose to farm out contracts to up and coming adventurers for smaller threats while they deal with bigger ones plus running their domain of course.

One time I had the lord be the big bad of the campaign, and being a genre savvy sort, hired the PCs to go on a long errand far away to the corners of the kingdom and away from him so that he's not bothered when he dissolves the council and installs loyalists to the ranks of general in the kingdom army.

Pauly
2022-03-31, 06:17 AM
"Nominally control it but don't have the resources to manage it adequately" is a fair description of the area close to the border, in this context. Not just on the other side, but on their own side.

The anglo-scottish border, the example I’m most familiar with, was an absolute viper’s nest.
- The king can’t station too many troops near the border, because that’s a threat of war.
- Because of all the border hopping clans/extended families had territories that extended to both sides of the border.
- The local clans were more loyal to themselves than to their nominal lords.
- Due to the sensitivity of the borders the military forces were under the control of the king’s appointees, not the local lords.
- The local lords were not disposed to help out beyond the limits of their lands since they were liable to suffer attacks at any time.

Mechalich
2022-03-31, 04:02 PM
Any 'frontier' region, which includes unstable border regions, is a good spot for adventurers, because such areas represent a position of inherent state weakness - they're at the edge of the zone where the state is able to exert control, whether over a rival state, stateless entities, or just raw wilderness (this last one is rather rare, especially in a fantasy world, where someone can live almost anywhere, even in blasted waterless deserts or giant ice sheets).

The point I was making about 'unclaimed' territories is that there may be regions that are effectively frontiers, in terms of the ability of the state to exert power over them, that are well within the borders of the state. Historically mountain ranges have served this role and there are a very large number of ethnic groups that are derived from people who sheltered in high mountain valleys out of reach of the control of the lowland empire that surrounded them (this pattern is very visible if you compare ethnolinguistic and topographic maps side by side).

In many ways this boundary is going to be logistical. The local authorities in a region should have access to forces more powerful than that of a small party of adventurers - if they don't that's a world-building problem, note that in D&D this problem is omnipresent and its one of the major reasons why D&D settings break - but they may not be able to deploy those forces effectively in problem areas due to lack of roads, insufficient potable water, or other constraints - abundant magic to get around these problems for army-sized units is another world-building problem D&D settings possess.

Tvtyrant
2022-03-31, 04:12 PM
I think it works a lot like Elephants. Elephants could be domesticated, but the cost to raise an elephant is so high its cheaper to just grab them as young adults and use them. If you raise an elite soldier you have to feed and home their families, pay them in the off season, and they contribute nothing monetary except during combat.

Hence why mercenaries are so popular. Their families can die for all you care, you can hire them as veterans without having to train youths, pay for trainers, or pay their pensions. Yes they endanger your realm and will work for your enemies, but as long as everyone is doing it they are just so much cheaper then house troops.

sithlordnergal
2022-03-31, 05:04 PM
Its gonna depend on the party level, but for low level stuff its because of two big reasons:

1) They're inexpensive

2) They're a perfect scouting group

You're not sending that party of four with the expectation that they'll solve all your problems. That's just a side bonus. You're sending that team of 4 to scout and get information. If they manage to kill all those so called goblins, great, now you don't need to do anything. If they come back, they'll probably tell you how large of a force you can expect to deal with, giving you an accurate estimation of how many soldiers you need. And if they never return, you can assume that whatever they're fighting is pretty strong, and you can plan accordingly.

As for the inexpensive bit, consider how much it costs to arm and pay even a single guard. Assuming you're paying for the gear and paying them a Modest Lifestyle, you're investing 73 gold per year, per guard. And that's not counting the money and time spent to train a Commoner up to become a Guard. If you send 4 guards out to find out what's going on, and all 4 die, you've just lost 292 gold, and now have to spent the money to retrain 4 more.

Compare that to paying low level adventurers. Usually they'd get paid about 100 gold, maybe a bit more if the tale they tell you is particularly harrowing and dangerous. Not only that, but the money is paid after they complete their task, not before. You basically paid these adventurers less than what you'd have to ante up if you sent two guards in their place, and you only have to pay them when they successfully complete their task. There's no loss for you as a ruler by hiring them. If they succeed, they're cheaper than your guards, if they fail then you gained valuable information and don't have to pay a single copper.

--

On the other hand, if they're a high level party, then they're probably dealing with something that your regular army can't deal with. It could be something like an Ancient Red Dragon that can burn through your army and can escape pretty easily, or a powerful demon that is immune to your army's weapons, or some powerful undead that just kills things by standing within 30ft of them.

Jophiel
2022-04-01, 07:06 AM
As for the costs again, adventurers don't tend to be particularly cheap. And the goblins likely won't have any treasure considering that what they stole from the villages is probably foodstuff and animals. And the adventuers will know that.
At the lower end of the experience scale, you can often hire an adventuring party to go out into the unknown for less than the cost of replacing the weapons and armor on your men, should they die ("50 Gold?! Oh, boy!"). The higher up the experience scale you go, the less likely you have similarly experienced men at the ready. Plus, at that point, your reward is more frosting on the adventure loot cake.

Satinavian
2022-04-01, 09:52 AM
At the lower end of the experience scale, you can often hire an adventuring party to go out into the unknown for less than the cost of replacing the weapons and armor on your men, should they die ("50 Gold?! Oh, boy!"). The higher up the experience scale you go, the less likely you have similarly experienced men at the ready. Plus, at that point, your reward is more frosting on the adventure loot cake.
First : You don't use a strategy where you expect to lose several of your men.
Second : In Feudalism your men pay for their own gear, same as adventurers.

Generally, look at which historcial nations did use lots of mercenaries and which neighbours/contemporaries didn't. Which one were the wealthy ones ?
Feudal armies are cheap, mercenaries are far more expensive. Yes, it is generally better not to lose your men and your subjects don't like losses either. But in the end, you have to pay a premium for that.


If in your settings adventurers are so cheap, why don't people even have costly regular troops instead of using the far more efficient adventurers for everything ?

Anonymouswizard
2022-04-01, 10:00 AM
Just dug out my copy of All For One: Regime Diabolique, and honestly I'm not convinced that the solution is 'make the PCs elite soldiers'. When the country isn't at war the zpCs can either cause trouble in the city or be dispatched to the countryside to help deal with things like this. Of course most of the time they're in the region they're doing boring grunt work. But we skip that, and go to 'the local lord has come to you because of reported goblin attacks and yes this is your job so you'd better do it or face reprimands'.

Of course All For One is set in the 1600s, where I believe societal changes had made standing armies more viable. But honestly I believe few D&D settings are strictly feudal anyway...

Jophiel
2022-04-01, 01:24 PM
If in your settings adventurers are so cheap, why don't people even have costly regular troops instead of using the far more efficient adventurers for everything ?
Because adventurers are typically pretty rare on a per capita basis since most people don't have a great excuse to leave their farm, family, job, whatever and go out risking mortality by poking owlbears with sharp sticks. You need someone whose family was mysteriously murdered and is on a quest for vengeance but also is willing to take time out to poke owlbears with sticks for fifty bucks. This is the fantasy RPG way.

Besides, having a number of troops has its own separate benefits (which is part of why you don't necessarily want them traipsing around looking for goblins) and, while hiring a group of adventurer/mercenaries might be a good short term investment, that doesn't mean you want to rely on it exclusively. Specialists are often better handled on an as-needed basis than to incur the expense of keeping them in constant service. While 50-100gp for a dangerous day's work is a deal versus risking your "real" men, that doesn't translate to paying 36,500gp a year for a 4-man party to loiter around waiting for goblins to show up.

Pauly
2022-04-01, 03:32 PM
Just dug out my copy of All For One: Regime Diabolique, and honestly I'm not convinced that the solution is 'make the PCs elite soldiers'. When the country isn't at war the zpCs can either cause trouble in the city or be dispatched to the countryside to help deal with things like this. Of course most of the time they're in the region they're doing boring grunt work. But we skip that, and go to 'the local lord has come to you because of reported goblin attacks and yes this is your job so you'd better do it or face reprimands'.

Of course All For One is set in the 1600s, where I believe societal changes had made standing armies more viable. But honestly I believe few D&D settings are strictly feudal anyway...

Well in the 1600s through 1800s officers were sat on half pay, or even unpaid furloughs between campaigns. I am assuming PCs will be drawn from the officer pool, not regular soldiers, who were confined to barracks and guard duty and thus unavailable to go adventuring when not in war. The difference in social status will also prevent the local lord contacting a group of under employed soldiers. Underemployed officers on the other hand are eminently suitable for being sought out to deal with a problem.

So in a situation where the PCs are military officers not on active duty the local lord coming to you to deal with goblins is more along the lines of social obligation, relieve the boredom, or earn a few coins. It would not be an expected part of a PC’s military duty.

Fiery Diamond
2022-04-01, 08:11 PM
While history is a great place to get inspiration for settings, it's also worth noting that the typical RPG world (whether in game or in literature) has vast, vast departures from even the most basic of historical assumptions. This is part of why there can be so many different, equally valid, answers to the question "why hire adventurers?" Depending on what assumptions you make about the setting, the logical trains can be quite different while still holding up to scrutiny.

Take the idea that your medievalish world's kingdoms are actually using Feudalism, for example. That's simply not the case in a lot of settings... in fact, if we include "not actually feudalism because the author/GM doesn't know enough about how feudalism works" (which is super common), it's probably more common to not have true feudalism than to have it!

Or the concept of adventurers. If we wanted to keep things as close to historical assumptions as possible, "adventurers" probably are mercenaries. Someone in thread mentioned that adventurer isn't a profession/social class. That's not always true across all settings. In some, "itinerant problem solver using magic and fighting skills" is an actual profession, if usually a fairly rare one. Or look at Japanese Isekai stories and their tendency to have "Adventurers' Guilds." While that one's not particularly common in D&D, to my knowledge, there's nothing stopping someone from making a game that uses that assumption.

As for my take, my answer is "it depends." For the specific scenario laid out in the initial post, I'm going to go with "probably cheaper in the long run and definitely more expendable, and also it's a bad idea to let loose cannons get bored in your territory."

Vahnavoi
2022-04-02, 01:29 AM
Just because other authors were lazy about setting building and what words mean, does not mean you ought to. The only real reason "adventurer" is a profession-slash-social-class in any setting is because once upon a time a gamebook used it as catch-all term for player characters and some people extrapolated a "profession for doing what player characters do in that game do" from it. You might as well have "hero" or "player character" as a profession - and yes, there probably is a Japanese light novel or a nifty webcomic where that is exactly the case, but those tend towards being works of parody, purposefully leaning on the fourth wall and recycling tropes and cliches in the most blatant manner.

Meanwhile, the sample scenario is given clearly in context of feudalism and can be answered in terms of feudalism. If you want a general reply for settings that don't have feudalism, the real correct answer is: "You do not hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. You hire the player characters to do jobs based on their actual profession, based on services required." And once you are thinking in terms of actual professions, the answers tend to border on self-evident. Why would you hire a bodyguard? A border guard? A covert operative? An assassin? State-backed explorer? Ranger? So on and so forth. Even in a fantasy game, your character typically has an actual profession as part of their class, background or skillset, above and beyond being an "adventurer".

Tanarii
2022-04-02, 09:11 AM
If in your settings adventurers are so cheap, why don't people even have costly regular troops instead of using the far more efficient adventurers for everything ?1) They do. This seems to be the assumed case in most published settings and even core rules books too. Adventurers are used for many things and there is always work for them.

2) An D&D typical starting adventurers kit is about 100gp. A spear, leather, and a shield is maybe 25gp. Let's say a starting adventurer costs 25gp for a mission (100gp reward for the party). A basic guard makes a couple of gp per month, twice that for hazard pay.

If a mission is important enough and going to be resolved with a single investment, you can either shell out for equipment and stand up four guards and send them. Or you can send in some well equipped (at their own cost), better trained, and with more natural talent adventurers.

If a mission would have to be broken into multiple parts or take a long time, and has little chance of plunder ... that's what guards and line warriors are willing to work for, and adventurers turn up their noses at. Barracks duty and wars. Both magnitudes safer but lower return.

So from an employers perspective, it's 100 gp per few days work to clear out goblins nest, or 100 gp + 4gp/month to fight a goblin army in an extended campaign in the field. The latter wouldn't be affordable with adventurers, but the former has a higher chance of success using adventurers instead of "army", so it's worth it for the single mission at the exact same cost.

Mechalich
2022-04-02, 11:20 AM
Just because other authors were lazy about setting building and what words mean, does not mean you ought to. The only real reason "adventurer" is a profession-slash-social-class in any setting is because once upon a time a gamebook used it as catch-all term for player characters and some people extrapolated a "profession for doing what player characters do in that game do" from it. You might as well have "hero" or "player character" as a profession - and yes, there probably is a Japanese light novel or a nifty webcomic where that is exactly the case, but those tend towards being works of parody, purposefully leaning on the fourth wall and recycling tropes and cliches in the most blatant manner.

Traditionally 'adventurer' is synonymous with 'soldier of fortune' and most commonly describes soldiers and/or mercenaries who are unable to secure regular employment. Significantly, the reason for this was often demilitarization, as some state was unable or unwilling to pay all its soldiers and forced them to try and find work to provide for themselves. For example, many of the famous heroes of the Three Kingdoms Era of Chinese history found their start as soldiers against the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but were then left tramping about China because the collapsing Han Dynasty could not find the means to employ them all. Likewise the Western genre, which shares many commonalities with D&D settings especially in its use of frontiers, included a great many American Civil War veterans.

From this perspective it is notable that many adventurers are actually quite eager to give up adventuring and be hired as regular soldiers or long-term mercenaries and will readily glom on to new authority sources should they arise.

Tanarii
2022-04-02, 11:33 AM
Both a soldier of fortune and a seeker of dangerous experiences for money fit the original roots of the RPG scene pretty well.

Hero definitely has different connotations. You might hire adventurers, but you appeal to the conscience of a hero. And hope you get them on the cheap as a result. :smallamused:

Bohandas
2022-04-02, 11:42 AM
In a world of clerics and psions the citizenry may demand for the leader who offers them thoughts and prayers in times of disaster to put his money where his mouth is

Fiery Diamond
2022-04-02, 07:48 PM
Just because other authors were lazy about setting building and what words mean, does not mean you ought to. The only real reason "adventurer" is a profession-slash-social-class in any setting is because once upon a time a gamebook used it as catch-all term for player characters and some people extrapolated a "profession for doing what player characters do in that game do" from it. You might as well have "hero" or "player character" as a profession - and yes, there probably is a Japanese light novel or a nifty webcomic where that is exactly the case, but those tend towards being works of parody, purposefully leaning on the fourth wall and recycling tropes and cliches in the most blatant manner.

Meanwhile, the sample scenario is given clearly in context of feudalism and can be answered in terms of feudalism. If you want a general reply for settings that don't have feudalism, the real correct answer is: "You do not hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. You hire the player characters to do jobs based on their actual profession, based on services required." And once you are thinking in terms of actual professions, the answers tend to border on self-evident. Why would you hire a bodyguard? A border guard? A covert operative? An assassin? State-backed explorer? Ranger? So on and so forth. Even in a fantasy game, your character typically has an actual profession as part of their class, background or skillset, above and beyond being an "adventurer".

Hostile much?

Is there a significant difference between "Feudalism, but inaccurate because they didn't do the research" and "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes?" What about "Feudalism, but inaccurate..." and "Actually feudalism?" Which of those pairings do you think are equivalent, if either? Personally, I think the first pairing is much more equivalent than the second, and respond to anything in the "Feudalism but inaccurate" the same way I would "Not feudalism" rather than going "um, actually, in feudalism such and such would be the case" when presented "Feudalism but inaccurate."

And I definitely don't think "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes" should be lumped in with "Actually feudalism" under any circumstances. "Correcting" or "filling in the blanks" of the former with assumptions based on the latter is... well, it can be well received, but it's a baseless thing to do and can just as often be annoying as helpful.

Personally, I find it intensely irritating when someone says "history good, tropes bad," which is exactly what you seem to be saying. History as inspiration is fine. History as some sort of standard of good quality to compare things too... not so much. As I mentioned in the "music that's cool to dislike" thread, I am anti-artistic-criticism. You can judge technical competency, whether it achieves what it set out to do, or whether you liked it, but any other criticism (except, perhaps, moral criticism) of art is elitist, arrogant, and just generally unpleasant. If pop literature offends you, you quite frankly need to get over yourself. Building a setting based on tropes rather than in-depth realistic examination of every point is not a bad thing, so just writing it off as "lazy writing" that should be dismissed and never emulated is snobbish.

Mechalich
2022-04-02, 10:49 PM
Is there a significant difference between "Feudalism, but inaccurate because they didn't do the research" and "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes?" What about "Feudalism, but inaccurate..." and "Actually feudalism?" Which of those pairings do you think are equivalent, if either? Personally, I think the first pairing is much more equivalent than the second, and respond to anything in the "Feudalism but inaccurate" the same way I would "Not feudalism" rather than going "um, actually, in feudalism such and such would be the case" when presented "Feudalism but inaccurate."

And I definitely don't think "Not feudalism, but superficially resembles it because tropes" should be lumped in with "Actually feudalism" under any circumstances. "Correcting" or "filling in the blanks" of the former with assumptions based on the latter is... well, it can be well received, but it's a baseless thing to do and can just as often be annoying as helpful.

Personally, I find it intensely irritating when someone says "history good, tropes bad," which is exactly what you seem to be saying. History as inspiration is fine. History as some sort of standard of good quality to compare things too... not so much. As I mentioned in the "music that's cool to dislike" thread, I am anti-artistic-criticism. You can judge technical competency, whether it achieves what it set out to do, or whether you liked it, but any other criticism (except, perhaps, moral criticism) of art is elitist, arrogant, and just generally unpleasant. If pop literature offends you, you quite frankly need to get over yourself. Building a setting based on tropes rather than in-depth realistic examination of every point is not a bad thing, so just writing it off as "lazy writing" that should be dismissed and never emulated is snobbish.

It all depends on the objective, as is the case with basically all world-building questions. The fundamental question in world-building is the relationship between the setting and the story. The setting needs to facilitate the story being told. This means that the setting should operate in such a fashion that it is capable of producing the plots the story utilizes, exploring the themes the story carries, and operates at an appropriate level of verisimilitude. Now it is often assumed, implicitly, that only reasonably logical plots, serious themes, and high levels of verisimilitude are worth talking about with regard to world-building and this is very much not true. Many stories are humorously ridiculous, blatantly satirical, and ludicrously contradictory, including some great literary classics.

That said, the very nature of the question: 'Why hire adventurers?' carries implications. It implies that economics, at least, matters, which imposes a floor on verisimilitude. It also posits that adventurers, as a recognizable thing, exist in the fictional society. And, because it's a question, it also implies that there would be circumstances were one would not wish to hire adventures for at least economic reasons. Also, because the term 'adventurer' in TTRPGs is highly associated with D&D, and there are implicit constraints on the type of worlds D&D tries to present (which are not actually what you get if you extrapolate from the mechanics, but that's a different issue), most people responding are working within that context.

Compare to a Japanese or Korean isekai-style world where the answer to 'why hire adventurers?' is: because the world is functionally a game and operates according to MMORPG style mechanics. That's a fine answer, if your story works within a world that is functionally a game, but it's very much a problem if the world isn't built that way.

Tanarii
2022-04-02, 11:14 PM
The fundamental question in world-building is the relationship between the setting and the story. The setting needs to facilitate the story being told.
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that world-building has anything to do with "story" before. That's a new one in the quest to try and ram "story" down the throat of roleplaying games.

World-building is all about setting, a place for things to happen. If adventures are going to be based on a planned "story" instead of giving players interesting situations and events they can have an opportunity to interact with as they see fit, so be it. But I can't see how "story" has to do with a role playing games world-building itself.

Mechalich
2022-04-02, 11:26 PM
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that world-building has anything to do with "story" before. That's a new one in the quest to try and ram "story" down the throat of roleplaying games.

World-building is all about setting, a place for things to happen. If adventures are going to be based on a planned "story" instead of giving players interesting situations and events they can have an opportunity to interact with as they see fit, so be it. But I can't see how "story" has to do with a role playing games world-building itself.

You are interpreting 'story' in an unreasonably narrow way. In a tabletop RPG, everything that happens in-universe is the story, and yes the setting absolutely needs to be suited to those events.

Fiery Diamond
2022-04-03, 01:42 AM
It all depends on the objective, as is the case with basically all world-building questions. The fundamental question in world-building is the relationship between the setting and the story. The setting needs to facilitate the story being told. This means that the setting should operate in such a fashion that it is capable of producing the plots the story utilizes, exploring the themes the story carries, and operates at an appropriate level of verisimilitude. Now it is often assumed, implicitly, that only reasonably logical plots, serious themes, and high levels of verisimilitude are worth talking about with regard to world-building and this is very much not true. Many stories are humorously ridiculous, blatantly satirical, and ludicrously contradictory, including some great literary classics.

Very well put. It bothers me (to an unreasonable degree, probably) when people assume certain values (of verisimilitude, historical realism, seriousness, logical consistency, etc.) are more important than "does the setting have appropriate levels of these things for what kind of story it's trying to tell," blatantly claiming that if it doesn't meet their preferred level in whatever category that it's bad/lazy/whatever, regardless of whether it's actually trying to meet that level or not.

Satinavian
2022-04-03, 04:45 AM
As most of the settings i know or use are not even made with any particular stories in mind, i disagree.

Versimilitude and logical consistency are of value for their own sake. And if they are missing from the world it will hurt any stories people will later set there unless they simply don't use the offending elements.


Sure people can say "it is not actually a mistake, but a deliberate decision. I just don't care about this stuff". But that can be said about any other design desicion as well and does not make the result more appealing or useful for people who want to put stories in.

Jophiel
2022-04-03, 09:58 AM
Versimilitude and logical consistency are of value for their own sake.
For varying degrees of "value". Tables I've played at value game play and adventure over worrying about the intricacies of historical feudalism. Verisimilitude at the game table really means enough plausibility to keep a fantasy adventure story moving.

NPC: Our farms are being raided by creatures in the night. The bodies show signs of weapons, not the attacks of beasts, but the few survivors insist these were no human bandits.
PC-A: Why not send your own men?
NPC: Most of my men are assigned to protecting the remaining farms. I have sent word to the High Keep but it could be a week or longer before they respond. Your arrival presents an opportunity to end these attacks at the source before more villagers are killed.
PC-A: Well, we can not risk ourselves for no reward but I'm sure we can find a suitable agreement to help you and your people.
PC-B: Well, so, actually, in a REAL feudal system, the decision to conscript men wou---
PC-A: Can we roll d20s at monsters now?


And if they are missing from the world it will hurt any stories people will later set there unless they simply don't use the offending elements.
Ain't no one using my game worlds but me.

Obviously, your table's mileage may vary. If your players feel the game experience is hurt by not adhering strictly to a historical system, then have at it. This hasn't been my experience in my time playing but there's millions of tables I haven't played at.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-03, 11:02 AM
Obviously, your table's mileage may vary. If your players feel the game experience is hurt by not adhering strictly to a historical system, then have at it. This hasn't been my experience in my time playing but there's millions of tables I haven't played at.

Personally, I find my verisimilitude more hurt by slavishly obeying the historical progression of culture, technology, warfighting, and politics in a fantasy world. The "arc of history" and those forms are path dependent, and a world with wizards and magic and magical beasts and absolutely non-human creatures (and with a bunch of other differences) darn well better have significant differences in their paths. And as long as there's a meaningful progression that takes into account the local conditions (so an area plagued by monsters and an area that's been without monsters or threats for centuries should look different, as should a maritime kingdom and a landlocked desert kingdom), there's a huge range of possibilities. Tightly demanding a match to earth history, to me, is a sign that you're not taking the fantastic nature of the world seriously.

For technology and combat techniques, having a very different set of physical laws (are there even atoms? Molecules? How does metallurgy work with magic? These are all questions to be answered) and very different threat profiles (when your enemies can literally arise from dead bodies and ignore wounds or natively fly or swallow people whole, that's quite a bit different from your "normal" beasts or armies of people basically identical to your troops other than equipment and training) mean that there must be differences to maintain internal consistency. But the dials are pretty tunable, so almost any form will work, if explained and justified.

Tanarii
2022-04-03, 11:03 AM
You are interpreting 'story' in an unreasonably narrow way. In a tabletop RPG, everything that happens in-universe is the story, and yes the setting absolutely needs to be suited to those events.
No.

You may choose to interpret your games that way, but I assure you when I and my players are playing a tabletop RPG, nothing that happens in universe has to do with "story". At all.

At most, the players tell a story after the fact, when they recount the in-universe events to someone else at a later time.

So, clearly what we've got here is that world-building doesn't actually have to have anything to do with "story", and you've just convinced yourself it does because of your personal decision that your tabletop RPG experience must include "story", so in your case world-building also includes "story". But that doesn't make it general for everyone or tabletop RPGs.


Versimilitude and logical consistency are of value for their own sake.
I'd say Suspension of Disbelief is what is important. Some players are able to do so with a low amount of real-world verisimilitude and logical consistency, while others require it in certain things and not others.

Fiery Diamond
2022-04-03, 01:17 PM
No.

You may choose to interpret your games that way, but I assure you when I and my players are playing a tabletop RPG, nothing that happens in universe has to do with "story". At all.

At most, the players tell a story after the fact, when they recount the in-universe events to someone else at a later time.

So, clearly what we've got here is that world-building doesn't actually have to have anything to do with "story", and you've just convinced yourself it does because of your personal decision that your tabletop RPG experience must include "story", so in your case world-building also includes "story". But that doesn't make it general for everyone or tabletop RPGs.

This is an eternal debate on these forums, where people refuse to agree that different people have different definitions of "story" and each side insists that the other is wrong and obstinate. Your side insists "story" refers to a telling, with a plot (which may be derived post-hoc or predetermined) and things like rising action and climax and whatnot. The other side uses a much looser definition, where "story" is simply "fictional sequence of events with thematic elements," and doesn't need to have a structured plot of any kind or adhere to any other structure other than, "After A, then B" where events simply flow organically. And unless you're doing world-building for it's own sake, rather than as a place for a certain kind of game to take place in (which admittedly, is absolutely a thing), then yes worldbuilding is subservient to that second definition of story. Regardless of whether you acknowledge that the word "story" is the appropriate term to use, that is a true statement regarding the concept people are using "story" to refer to.



I'd say Suspension of Disbelief is what is important. Some players are able to do so with a low amount of real-world verisimilitude and logical consistency, while others require it in certain things and not others.

One hundred percent agreed.

Tanarii
2022-04-03, 01:59 PM
The other side uses a much looser definition, where "story" is simply "fictional sequence of events with thematic elements," and doesn't need to have a structured plot of any kind or adhere to any other structure other than, "After A, then B" where events simply flow organically.
This is wrong and I'm going to be obstinate about it. :smallamused:

This is a definition of events happening. It's no more a story than living life is.

For it to be a story, there either needs to be a intentional narrative thread tying it together, or it needs to be an accounting of events after the fact.

If your world-building requires narrative threads to be woven in to the world so they will be part of the events that can happen during play, more power to you. If it describes places, people and situations that players can use their agency to make decisions on how to interact with and face the consequences of, that's my kind of world building.

The first is usually called "meta-plot", and there are plenty of examples of it in both TTRPGs, CRPGs, and MMOs. But there are also lots of examples of world building in TTRPGs without it.

But if your definition of "story" is a series of events we're playing through in-universe, but it's game events instead of real events therefore "story" ... well, your definition is so broad as to be useless.

Satinavian
2022-04-03, 02:43 PM
I'd say Suspension of Disbelief is what is important. Some players are able to do so with a low amount of real-world verisimilitude and logical consistency, while others require it in certain things and not others.Oh, i didn't say "real world". It can totally be purely fictional as long as it is consistent and believable.

Of course, importing real word societies is a shortcut because we already know that it works and how. One has to do less design work. But if one does import real world societies, they better not be ridiculous carricatures. Those have only a place in a comedy game.

Fiery Diamond
2022-04-03, 03:29 PM
This is wrong and I'm going to be obstinate about it. :smallamused:

This is a definition of events happening. It's no more a story than living life is.

For it to be a story, there either needs to be a intentional narrative thread tying it together, or it needs to be an accounting of events after the fact.

If your world-building requires narrative threads to be woven in to the world so they will be part of the events that can happen during play, more power to you. If it describes places, people and situations that players can use their agency to make decisions on how to interact with and face the consequences of, that's my kind of world building.

The first is usually called "meta-plot", and there are plenty of examples of it in both TTRPGs, CRPGs, and MMOs. But there are also lots of examples of world building in TTRPGs without it.

But if your definition of "story" is a series of events we're playing through in-universe, but it's game events instead of real events therefore "story" ... well, your definition is so broad as to be useless.

No, it's not so broad as to be useless. It's a perfectly valid thing to want to have a word to describe. You disagree over the use of the word "story" as that word, but do not dismiss the concept as a useful one. Do you have a substitute word? If you don't, you're simply going to have to live with people using "story," which they have been for years. I'm largely a descriptivist when it comes to language, rather than a prescriptivist, and if enough people consistently use a word to mean something over a long enough period of time, it becomes a valid meaning of the word, regardless of whether official dictionaries list it. If you want to call it a "slang" meaning of the word, fine, but you need to acknowledge that other people do use it that way, whether you like it or not, and meet their arguments based on their meaning rather than arguing against things they aren't actually saying just because you're using a different definition than they are.

From my perspective, there isn't a categorical difference between a series of game events being played out and an author making up a series of events as he's going along without any regard for plot structure or preplanning. Treating one as "not a story" because it's not being told, just occurring, and the other as "yes a story" because it's getting transcribed from the author's head is, in my opinion, a useless distinction. The only real difference is that one is collectively controlled and the other comes from only one person... oh, and that you use dice in the game, if it's not freeform. That's it. Whether it's being "told" or not is of no consequence to the distinctions I consider to actually matter.

But sure, if you have substitute word we can use to avoid confusion, suggest away.

Tanarii
2022-04-03, 04:04 PM
No, it's not so broad as to be useless. It's a perfectly valid thing to want to have a word to describe. You disagree over the use of the word "story" as that word, but do not dismiss the concept as a useful one. Do you have a substitute word? If you don't, you're simply going to have to live with people using "story," which they have been for years.
It's functionally useless because it means "playing a roleplaying game".
Just call it "playing a roleplaying game"
Don't try to broaden the word "story", which has an existing meaning, to include "playing a roleplaying game". Which is something it most definitely does not mean by definition, as well as being circular.

Underlying narrative threads tying together events in a preordained way, or narrative mechanics ... those are not useless. In that case, you're playing a story. And there are other ways to play a story, instead of playing a character. I don't do any of those, and they are likewise not integral to playing a roleplaying game, but it's fine for those who want to.


Oh, i didn't say "real world". It can totally be purely fictional as long as it is consistent and believable.

Of course, importing real word societies is a shortcut because we already know that it works and how. One has to do less design work. But if one does import real world societies, they better not be ridiculous carricatures. Those have only a place in a comedy game.When you say verisimilitude, you're implying (appearing) to be real. Yes, fictional. But that's what the word means.

It's slightly different from believability, arriving at which usually implies some suspension of disbelief.

And consistency impacts both of those to some degree, it seems to me.

Fiery Diamond
2022-04-03, 05:23 PM
It's functionally useless because it means "playing a roleplaying game".
Just call it "playing a roleplaying game"
Don't try to broaden the word "story", which has an existing meaning, to include "playing a roleplaying game". Which is something it most definitely does not mean by definition, as well as being circular.

Underlying narrative threads tying together events in a preordained way, or narrative mechanics ... those are not useless. In that case, you're playing a story. And there are other ways to play a story, instead of playing a character. I don't do any of those, and they are likewise not integral to playing a roleplaying game, but it's fine for those who want to.

Except "playing a roleplaying game" is the act of engaging in those fictional events, not the fictional events themselves. It's a verb. We're talking about the noun. Also, it's a concept that encapsulates more than just a group of people sitting around a table playing make-believe. It is the "meat of the make-believe" itself that we're talking about, not the act of playing make-believe, and it applies to more than just roleplaying games, but any form that fictional events with thematic elements may take. It's a concrete concept and it needs a single word to describe it. Many, many people have used the word "story" for years - including outside the roleplaying game community. You may not like it, and you're free to suggest an alternative, but please stop being so dismissive about it.

Also, what distinctions you find important are not necessarily the distinctions that others find important, so having a way to easily identify what those distinctions are (rather than out of hand dismissing the ones you don't care about) would be a great idea, so I wholeheartedly support any attempt to come up with a substitute word. For example, as I said, I don't care whether somebody is telling events afterward or the events are unfolding - to me, that's irrelevant. What isn't irrelevant is whether those events are preplanned or not, which is why terms like "organic story" or "emergent story" get used to describe non-preplanned sequences of fictional events. I'm not trying to say there isn't any difference between the two definitions of story and that we should conflate them. I'm trying to say that the one you're dismissing is a useful concept and one that needs to have a word for it.

Tanarii
2022-04-03, 06:27 PM
You may not like it, and you're free to suggest an alternative, but please stop being so dismissive about it.
I'm not dismissive, I'm pushing back against people who are telling me that I'm doing something when I play a roleplaying game that I know I am not doing. I'm not playing a story, I'm not telling a story, I'm not engaged in collaborative storytelling. And I'm not creating a story, although like any set of events one may be told about them after the fact.

Claiming that my world-building or playing a tabletop roleplaying has anything to do with story or storytelling is not correct, unless the term is expanded so much as to be meaningless. And as such, I'm going to push back on it.

aglondier
2022-04-04, 04:59 AM
You don't hire adventurers because "adventurer" is not a profession. It's a catch-all term for people who go on adventures... and quite often that's the only thing those people have in common. Less charitably, it's a term for people who enjoy and go out of their way for dangerous and exciting experiences.

What you're talking of is hiring of mercenaries. And in the sample situation, hiring mercenaries is a bad idea & the feudal lord in question should find themselves a better advisor. If you are feudal lords with loyal underlings, you send THEM on the "adventure", or rather, military operation. That's why you have them.

The chief reason for a feudal lord to hire mercenaries is because they DON'T have loyal underlings willing to do their damn job, AKA military service. This could happen, for example, because they have substituted monetary payments for said service - so the feudal lord can pay someone else to that job.

There are other reasons, like false flag operations others have mentioned, but they don't apply to the sample scenario.


If we're actually using say, medieval England or France as our inspiration for this fantasy world, then there's actually a deeper misunderstanding we can address that clears up the issue of why to hire adventurers.

From a modern understanding we have a tendency to mistake the relationship town guards, men at arms, and knights have with their lords as an employee relationship, but it's actually closest in modern terms to jury duty.

"Knight" is not a job. There are five small business owners in your duchy (three commercial farms, one winery, and a realtor) who, as a condition of the license by which they operate their business, are required to respond to summons for "Knight Duty" and if they've already served more than nine weeks in the last two years, they're allowed to respond to the summons with "No."

"Town guard" is not a job. There are three local trade unions (book binders, wheel makers, and blacksmiths) who, as a condition of the license that allow them to organize, are required to maintain a program where employees who volunteer to be police officers after their work shifts for two weeks are paid time and a half.

The percentage of actual, full time, not expected to be working in some vital industry four days a week, soldiers in your generic medieval kingdom who are not mercenaries already is asymptotic to 0.

So you have two choices. You can write a letter to one of your local private citizens summoning him to Knight Duty. He's allowed to take a full week to respond, and then another full week to actually arrive. You can do that to him only maybe three times a year, so this had better be one of the top five most dangerous things to happen this year or next year.
Or you can splash around some silverware and get a mercenary company in the goblin camp tonight.

I think the term we are looking for is Scutage. When the vassal is called to service but cannot or will not fight, they can pay a cash fine to their lord, so he can pay someone to take their place. Even today it happens in nations that have compulsory national service.
The players are the kind of people who make their living by being the people who are paid to take the place of the unwilling knights.

So, our example Lord has an alleged Goblin problem. He calls on his knights, who are busy or unwilling to fight myths and legends, and instead pay scutage. Lord then uses funds to pay adventurous mercenary types to investigate and resolve the situation. Pretty straightforward.

Zombimode
2022-04-04, 05:22 AM
I'm not dismissive, I'm pushing back against people who are telling me that I'm doing something when I play a roleplaying game that I know I am not doing. I'm not playing a story, I'm not telling a story, I'm not engaged in collaborative storytelling. And I'm not creating a story, although like any set of events one may be told about them after the fact.

Claiming that my world-building or playing a tabletop roleplaying has anything to do with story or storytelling is not correct, unless the term is expanded so much as to be meaningless. And as such, I'm going to push back on it.

I'm very confused. FieryDiamond has detailed the implications of world building in respect to an aspect of the actitvity of playing a roleplaying game. This aspect was given the name "story".
If you replace the name "story" with some random but unique string that has no inherent meaning and soley exist as an identifier to the meaning that FieryDiamond has described, would you then disagree about the implications that world building might have on this aspect?

If no, what exactly are you pushing back against?

If yes, could you describe how exactly you are disagreeing?

Lord Vukodlak
2022-04-04, 06:12 AM
Here's a point that's not addressed, its not always the noble doing the hiring. A town might take up a collection to pool money to hire adventures. "The Seven Samurai" because the local lord doesn't give a **** to solve the problem. A collection of merchants might do the same because they aren't allowed to have more then a handful of guards.

Tanarii
2022-04-04, 09:16 AM
If no, what exactly are you pushing back against?If yes, could you describe how exactly you are disagreeing?The idea that when I am sitting around a table with folks making decisions for what our characters do, and another player is resolving the actions and describing outcomes and consequences, has anything to do with the already pre-existing word "story" merely because there is communication involved and it's not real events.

The idea that world-building to create a setting & people & current situations for those players to exist in and interact with and make decisions within and experience outcomes and consequences within, has anything to do with the already pre-existing word "story" merely because there is communication involved and it's not real events.

What we are doing when we play a roleplaying game is called "roleplaying characters" by "making decisions" in the "fictional environment" and experiencing "outcomes and consequences". Which is pretty much the definitions of roleplaying and player agency. Neither of which have to do with any kind of story, and both of which are actively harmed by most kinds kinds of actual story. Except for recounting the events after the fact, telling a story about them after they've happened.

So no, nothing me or my tables do has anything to do with story while we're playing or world-building, thank you very much. Any more than I am "living the story of my life."

Jay R
2022-04-04, 12:57 PM
The real reason to hire adventurers is because we are telling the story of the adventurers.

If 999 nobles use their own guards to solve problems, and only one noble hires adventurers, then the only one we'll hear about in the game is the one who hires adventurers. That doesn't make it the only way to handle things, or the most common way, or the best way. It just makes it the only way that we experience.

Most problems in the fantasy world are not solved by adventurers, just as most problems in New York City aren't solved by the Avengers. But when we're watching an Avengers movie, it will be about the one problem that gets solved by the Avengers.

Mike_G
2022-04-04, 01:20 PM
OH MY GOD.

Because if you don't there's no game.

That's the reason. But now we've entered the Internet zone of 'Let's Argue About How We Argue."

The OP asked a question,and plenty of people gave answers that could very well work as a justification for why somebody might hire adventurers.

Then we got pedantry about what feudalism is, counterarguments as to whether that should even have any bearing on a fantasy game, and now we're fighting about how broadly we can define "story."

NPCs hire adventurers so we can play adventurers. That's the answer. Lots of people gave justifications. Pick one. Or don't Just tell the PCs 'You see the Lord's forces heading out of the village. When you ask why, they tell you they're off to hunt goblins because he can;t think of a reason to hire adventurers." Then the game can be about how they decide to loot the town now that the guards are all out hunting goblins.

icefractal
2022-04-04, 01:25 PM
So no, nothing me or my tables do has anything to do with story while we're playing or world-building, thank you very much. Any more than I am "living the story of my life."I mean, some people would say that you're "living the story of your life" - that's a meaning that I've seen used.

Consider someone relating a series of events which happened to them, and ending:
"... and then we hitched a ride home on a big rig. And the boat was never found. True story!"

Is "true story" a misuse of "story" because the teller was simply relating events which happened, not changing them to fit a particular narrative? I don't think most people would agree.

Story, in common usage, means both things. And I understand you like one of the things and strongly dislike the other, but that doesn't mean they can't share a word, any more than delicious salad can't share a word with terrible salad (that kind of coleslaw which is like 75% mayo, for instance :smallyuk:)

Tanarii
2022-04-04, 01:45 PM
OH MY GOD.

Because if you don't there's no game.Hahaha very true.



I mean, some people would say that you're "living the story of your life" - that's a meaning that I've seen used.And they would be wrong. I do not live the story of my life. They're welcome to believe that is what they're doing with their life. I'm not here to tell them about their life and how they live it.


Consider someone relating a series of events which happened to them, and ending:
"... and then we hitched a ride home on a big rig. And the boat was never found. True story!"

Is "true story" a misuse of "story" because the teller was simply relating events which happened, not changing them to fit a particular narrative? I don't think most people would agree.I wouldn't agree either. Clearly telling a story about previous events. But that doesn't make the events themselves any kind of story. Same for me when I'm playing a roleplaying game. We're playing characters living in a fictional real time, making fictional real time decisions, and fictionally experiencing real time outcomes and consequences as a result. We don't make decisions based on what's the best story, we don't believe there is an underlying narrative thread or theme affecting the decisions and outcomes/consequences ... any more than I believe there is in real life.


Story, in common usage, means both things.Both what things? So far I'm only seeing two things that don't apply to my actively living through events in real life or doing the fictional same for a character experiencing role playing game events: telling an actual story, and making decisions on the best narrative outcome / using narrative mechanics to control the narrative outcome.

JNAProductions
2022-04-04, 02:30 PM
OH MY GOD.

Because if you don't there's no game.

That's the reason. But now we've entered the Internet zone of 'Let's Argue About How We Argue."

The OP asked a question,and plenty of people gave answers that could very well work as a justification for why somebody might hire adventurers.

Then we got pedantry about what feudalism is, counterarguments as to whether that should even have any bearing on a fantasy game, and now we're fighting about how broadly we can define "story."

NPCs hire adventurers so we can play adventurers. That's the answer. Lots of people gave justifications. Pick one. Or don't Just tell the PCs 'You see the Lord's forces heading out of the village. When you ask why, they tell you they're off to hunt goblins because he can;t think of a reason to hire adventurers." Then the game can be about how they decide to loot the town now that the guards are all out hunting goblins.

I like to have a consistent world, with good verisimilitude.

If you don’t value that, that’s fine-but other people do. And it can help to bounce ideas off other people, see what they think.

EndlessKng
2022-04-04, 02:48 PM
One thing to consider is that by the time the duke of wherever is looking to hire on sellswords to deal with a problem and the PCs are in that range, they probably have a reputation already. Most low-level adventures - heck, even in video games - don't start with requests from super-high-ranking NPCs, unless the PCs are in a structure that provides someone above them in that fashion (in which case, they're not anonymous sellswords but retainers, vassals, employees, or on your Suicide Squad). Level 1 adventurers (using D&D terms) start out dealing with pests and petty problems, and usually are hired by people similarly lower on the societal ladder - an innkeep, bartender, or farmer looking for some help with a problem. They can't afford to be as choosy as the Duke AND lack the support of the armies that the duke has at his beck and call. The party gets called up only after they have a reputation, and even then maybe only for certain specific tasks at first.

Related to this, many settings include guilds, either a general adventurer's guild, guilds for specific professions, personal guilds, or a combination of the lot. Look to Final Fantasy XIV and Elder Scrolls Online for examples of all three and so much more, in various degrees. Guilds provide structure and accountability to members, and channel members to various tasks in exchange for services. If the duke needs someone to look into those goblins and doesn't want to risk his own troops on a wild goose chase, he can pay a much lower (relative) fee to the hall, who put it up on the board for adventurers to take - but only those in standing can do so - or even give the task to a specific team.

Mike_G
2022-04-04, 03:17 PM
I like to have a consistent world, with good verisimilitude.

If you don’t value that, that’s fine-but other people do. And it can help to bounce ideas off other people, see what they think.

And plenty of people gave ideas and examples and said what they think, and many were plausible. Real life towns and cities and nations have hired mercenaries and special contractors to do jobs. There is no lack of verisimilitude.

In other words, people answered the original question.

Annnnnd then the "Ackshully, the feudal system..." pedantry ensued.

Ya know what, not every fantasy world has a feudal system, and not every example of a feudal system is the same, and yeah, even under a feudal system, a lord might look to hire professionals to do a job. Lots of big important state actors hired foreign warriors to supplement their own troops or keep their own people on the farm or whatever.

So asking for ideas is great. But pedantically crapping all over those ideas is...well I guess it's Peak Internet.

Chauncymancer
2022-04-10, 11:44 PM
I know. But that doesn't change anything. You are still effectively paying those knights by providing them land to sustain them and having this limited access to their martial service is what you get in return.

Now, the problem was "golins" raiding your villages. Which means the enemies are very close and actually threaten your subjects and holdings. That is exactly the situation where you should use your knights and levies instead of mercenaries because
a) they don't need to move far and can repel the raiders on a limited time budget
b) they are more motivated.

That your knights and their armed retainers are not full time fighters and don't owe you uninterrupted long term service is a problem, when you want to go to foreign lands or plan to do long campaigns. Not when you are defending your own villages (some of which should belong to knights holdings anyway).
Right, but I'm trying to explain the parallel here. You get a letter in the mail. It explains that there have been multiple violent breakins in your neighborhood. {Srubbed}

...
The threadline of narrative continuity of the events of your life is character continuity. {Scrubbed}

Vahnavoi
2022-04-11, 07:31 AM
OH MY GOD.

Because if you don't there's no game.

Humbug. There is no necessity for the player characters to be mercenaries, sorry, "adventurers" - they can just BE the lord and his vassals, going to deal with the problem. And on the flipside of that, a player character doesn't need to get hired by anyone to go on an adventure. You can throw the entire title question in the trash and you're still left with majority of possible game genres.

Lord Raziere
2022-04-11, 08:55 AM
Humbug. There is no necessity for the player characters to be mercenaries, sorry, "adventurers" - they can just BE the lord and his vassals, going to deal with the problem. And on the flipside of that, a player character doesn't need to get hired by anyone to go on an adventure. You can throw the entire title question in the trash and you're still left with majority of possible game genres.

But cuts off the genre that is most relevant to DnD: as lord they have to return to their castle to govern, when the default mode, the way most people play is by traveling around going wherever to get new adventurers. being tied to a castle and land is too much responsibility for most player characters to care for.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-11, 10:11 AM
Or, you can not play the parts you aren't interested in, and skip to when the next interesting happens. Or, they could join their king and go on a multi-year military... what's the word again? Oh right: campaign. :smalltongue:

The idea of player characters being sellswords is far less fundamental than you're implying.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-11, 10:44 AM
But cuts off the genre that is most relevant to DnD: as lord they have to return to their castle to govern, when the default mode, the way most people play is by traveling around going wherever to get new adventurers. being tied to a castle and land is too much responsibility for most player characters to care for.

And if one player is a lord and the rest are his retainers...that breaks a fundamental principle of D&D that it's a party of (narrative) equals, not a protagonist and his flunkys. When one party member can order the rest around, that's not a good D&D party.

And if they're all lords, then
a) that invalidates like 99.9999999999999% of concepts
b) they're all lords of different areas, so why the heck are they adventuring together
c) have you tried scheduling regular adults? That's already nearly impossible. Finding a time when a bunch of rulers can go adventuring together is DC: NOPE. This would be blue text, but I'm deadly serious.

-----

And the idea that we need to mimic historical patterns is, to me, intolerable. It's a fantasy world, and history is for our world. The patterns will be different. If they're not, then that's bad worldbuilding. And there's tons of wiggle room to construct patterns where D&D-typical adventurers fit really well.

Satinavian
2022-04-11, 11:50 AM
And if one player is a lord and the rest are his retainers...that breaks a fundamental principle of D&D that it's a party of (narrative) equals, not a protagonist and his flunkys. When one party member can order the rest around, that's not a good D&D party.
Stuff like that can work well. Most theme parties have a hierarchy and most players are not averse to play in one.

Of course people need to agree to that and sometimes there are issues in play, but honestly, i have not experienced more of those than in more traditional groups.

A couple of campaigns i have played recently :

- A young noble title holder in exile, her old knightly teacher, a prospective court wizard, a prospective court priest, a regular lowborn retainer with some secret and illegal powers seeking protection

- A (third son) conquistador leading an expedition seeking fame and riches, his slave bodyguard, a scholar witch i his service, an elite mercenary and a big-game-hunter/wilderness scout also on his payroll

- An heir to a big merchant empire, her sister, their mage, their guard chief

- A noble knight inheriting some remote outpost and related village, his priestly cousin and his uncle (who hates politics and therefore moved to the remote outpost) and the merchant setting up a shop there

- A princess competing with her siblings for the throne (as was the normal way to decide succession there ), her bodyguard and two political allies who later became supporters and friends.


It works. There are even games out there like SIFRP where such groups are basically standard expectation (not that any of the above were in this system).

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-11, 12:15 PM
Stuff like that can work well. Most theme parties have a hierarchy and most players are not averse to play in one.

Of course people need to agree to that and sometimes there are issues in play, but honestly, i have not experienced more of those than in more traditional groups.

A couple of campaigns i have played recently :

- A young noble title holder in exile, her old knightly teacher, a prospective court wizard, a prospective court priest, a regular lowborn retainer with some secret and illegal powers seeking protection

- A (third son) conquistador leading an expedition seeking fame and riches, his slave bodyguard, a scholar witch i his service, an elite mercenary and a big-game-hunter/wilderness scout also on his payroll

- An heir to a big merchant empire, her sister, their mage, their guard chief

- A noble knight inheriting some remote outpost and related village, his priestly cousin and his uncle (who hates politics and therefore moved to the remote outpost) and the merchant setting up a shop there

- A princess competing with her siblings for the throne (as was the normal way to decide succession there ), her bodyguard and two political allies who later became supporters and friends.


It works. There are even games out there like SIFRP where such groups are basically standard expectation (not that any of the above were in this system).

Yes, it can work. But it's a huge departure from the D&D norm. So doing it in D&D (or preaching it as the presumed default) ends up cutting out the vast majority of all the regular games out there.

It's like saying that you can play D&D without classes or races and do everything pure point buy (a bit less extreme, but still on the same end of the "major changes" spectrum). Sure, you can...but why? Why not play something that's designed that way and for which the basic social contract defaults to that style?

Tawmis
2022-04-11, 12:39 PM
Let me start with a story.
You are baron/ess [Your Name] of Genericfantasyshire. While you believe in your family's glorious lineage, you also know that House [Your Name] is in power in your fief for solely two reasons: to enforce the laws of the king, and to provide tribute in military service, but most importantly in this situation, taxes, to your liege. For the past few years, Genericfantasyshire has been relatively stable. Your knights have been able to keep the law, you are in good relations with the surrounding nobles as well as your liege, the changing of tax resources have allowed you to keep your position as well as live comfortably, and you are far enough from the king's wars that you and your forces have not been called upon. However, all of that changed in the last few weeks.
It feels like almost every day that messengers comes to you and reports of villages being sacked by what are reported to be goblins. You've never seen a goblin before, and doubt their existence, but that doesn't really matter. Villages are being stolen from and burned, people are dying, and the count is demanding tribute soon that you may not be able to supply. While you don't know the exact location of the threat, the reports of attacks leave a simple pattern that allow a small area to investigate. Not only do you have your own knights, as well as a potential militia of vengeful villages, but can call on your neighbors for help as well and reasonably convince them to help you.
But your most trusted advisor has a different idea.
Some strangers wandered into your capital last night. If they aren't armed to the teeth, they are carrying spellcasting equipment. They went into the market to buy combat equipment before going to the alehouse where they are now.
Instead of calling on your military resources, why not outsource it to these rowdy and dangerous looking strangers you have no reason to trust, and give them authority to kill things in your land?

You could also consider that - as a position of royalty - why sacrifice the sons (and daughters?) of your own kingdom's forces?
If it is a bad horde of these fictional goblins, which you know nothing of (and don't believe in them anyway) - why send people of your kingdom to face the risk?
What if the goblins slaughter them as well?
That will certainly mar your name.
Strangers? Sure. Send them - pay them if they succeed and return with evidence.
If they return successful, problem solved.
If they never return and the attacks continue, then they may have perishd.
Regardless, it was no loss to you or your kingdom.

Tanarii
2022-04-11, 12:58 PM
And if one player is a lord and the rest are his retainers...that breaks a fundamental principle of D&D that it's a party of (narrative) equals, not a protagonist and his flunkys. When one party member can order the rest around, that's not a good D&D party.
That's not a fundental principle of D&D.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-11, 02:10 PM
And if one player is a lord and the rest are his retainers...that breaks a fundamental principle of D&D that it's a party of (narrative) equals, not a protagonist and his flunkys. When one party member can order the rest around, that's not a good D&D party.

Social rank and narrative importance are not the same thing. One person being the party leader / lord / superior officer / whatever does not mean they are the protagonist and the other characters are flunkies. Go read some war novels that actually have a group focus and pay attention to rank to see how false that idea is.

Related, it's actually quite natural for small groups to have a pecking order, with a recognizable leader figure. This happens among the players at the table just as well. Paying attention to this, discussing who people want to serve as group leader and what it actually means to be a good leader can go long way to building cohesion and solving social problems within a group. A leader being able to issue orders does not prove a dysfunction within a group, whether a D&D party or something else.


And if they're all lords...

This was literally meant to happen in past versions of D&D as consequence of gaining experience and retainers. Every player character could acquire their own retinue and got class-appropriate slice of a shared domain at name level. Yes yes, it was later dropped, but not to great benefit of anyone.


then
a) that invalidates like 99.9999999999999% of concepts
b) they're all lords of different areas, so why the heck are they adventuring together
c) have you tried scheduling regular adults? That's already nearly impossible. Finding a time when a bunch of rulers can go adventuring together is DC: NOPE. This would be blue text, but I'm deadly serious.

a) and the idea that "adventurers" need to be hired for the game to happen invalidates all concepts of adventuring that aren't motivated by money
b) gee, what on Earth could oblige multiple lords to get together and work together in a world where dark forces regularly threaten all of civilization and where said lords have sworn oaths of fealty towards a common liege (and possibly, each other) so they can be called to fight said dark forces? :smalltongue:
c) Read a history book. Or even just read or watch a fantasy series that focuses on aristocrats as protagonists. You aren't appealing to anything real, you are appealing to a trope of modern adult life and then retrojecting it to past societies to justify another trope for genre fantasy. You could just nix the middleman and use the elements of fantasy to, you know, work over the scheduling problem.


And the idea that we need to mimic historical patterns is, to me, intolerable. It's a fantasy world, and history is for our world. The patterns will be different. If they're not, then that's bad worldbuilding. And there's tons of wiggle room to construct patterns where D&D-typical adventurers fit really well.

"Adventurer" as a profession and social class of its own has never been high-quality world-building. That you even have to use "wiggle room" to "construct patterns" to make it work is purely a self-created problem born of lazy use language and not paying attention to profession and social class your character would already have as result of their life outside of an adventure.

But hey, let's forget about that. Let's let our imaginations run wild and free and entertain the whole set of hypothetical societies. It doesn't take a lot to imagine a setting where 1) player characters are directly responsible with dealing with the situation instead of being social outsiders or 2) the player characters are motivated to deal with the situation for reasons other than money. So even abandoning historicity entirely, the idea that there isn't a game if adventurers aren't hired is still humbug.

Mechalich
2022-04-11, 06:39 PM
"Adventurer" as a profession and social class of its own has never been high-quality world-building. That you even have to use "wiggle room" to "construct patterns" to make it work is purely a self-created problem born of lazy use language and not paying attention to profession and social class your character would already have as result of their life outside of an adventure.


There are historical and history-adjacent circumstances where 'adventurers' are a thing, even though there was almost always a local term for the people who fell under this umbrella. Ronin, Cossack, and Cowboy, for example, can all be considered proxy terms for 'adventurer.' However these are indeed born out of specific historical conditions.

The big one is actually a surplus of soldiers. Persons with military experience become 'adventurers' because there aren't enough jobs available as paid soldiers and their military background has made them unsuited to civilian life. Adventurers consequently proliferate after wars have ended because there are huge numbers of former soldiers who are suddenly out of work, don't have any money, and cannot go home for some reason, whether that's temperament, or because their home no long exists or has been conquered by foreigners or some other circumstance. These adventurers may solidify as a class if there's some adventure-friendly frontier available where the law and the norms of social behavior are loosened that can absorb these men.

The whole 'adventurers are cheap' bit comes is dependent upon this surplus and the fact that adventurers cannot command a premium in a buyers market. Seven Samurai is a very good example of this, since the peasants are able to hire trained warriors simply by promising them steady meals, which is a product of the specific setting in which that movie occurs where the countryside is full of broke samurai. The film is also illustrative in that the line between adventurer and bandit is razor thin and may in fact be non-existent in some settings - Conan, rather famously, jumps back and forth across it on a whim.

However, one of the issues with this sort of thing is that the existence of adventurers, as a group large enough to represent a social class, tends to be temporary, lasting at most a few decades. This largely happens because the supply of surplus soldiers is usually finite and the attrition of adventurers is significant as they continually leave the profession due to finding steady work, dying (more often of disease or their vices than combat), or actually making enough money to settle down somewhere. This is a major game design issue for adventuring games because it really doesn't take very many successful adventures to make enough money to buy a plot and settle down. This is a big reason why 'adventurer-esque' characters in long-running media series are almost never allowed to succeed at anything because actually making any real money would end their need to keep adventuring (Cowboy Bebop being a classic example of this trope).

So the D&D adventurer model is actually quite limited, because it has a built in termination point where the PCs make enough money to stop playing the game, which they very plausibly hit around level 5. After that, in order to continuing finding reasons to adventure the characters need different motives. Pathfinder: Kingmaker, is actually a decent example of an adventure path that recognizes this. Gaining control of the Stolen Lands is the first arc, everything after that is the Lord and their retinue defending the newly established frontier outpost from threats.

RandomPeasant
2022-04-12, 12:17 AM
D&D also has clear reasons to have an "adventurer" career path, because it postulates that there are ruins full of monsters and traps that also contain magical treasures and secrets beyond what the mages of the present can replicate. If you go into the Mulhorandi ruins outside town and come out with an artifact that protects the crops from plague (or just a bunch of Decanters of Endless Water), that's a real improvement to local quality of life that justifies investing a certain number of people in the "go off into the wilderness to seek your fortune" career path.


And if one player is a lord and the rest are his retainers

Lord and retainers doesn't work. But Lord, High Priest, Arcane Headmaster, and Merchant Prince works. You don't have to put one player in charge of the other players to put the players in charge of other people.


that invalidates like 99.9999999999999% of concepts

I agree that "you are the head of an organization" invalidates concepts which are not the heads of organizations, but all that means is that you shouldn't balance "head of organization" and "regular adventuring" abilities out of the same power pool. If your table decides "we don't want to rule any lands, we just want to keep going into dungeons and fighting dragons", that's fine, and the game should support that. But all that means is that if the way the Fighter keeps up with the Wizard casting teleport can't be an army of tiny men. It doesn't mean you can't have rules for people getting armies of tiny men, and I would submit that as something that happens in basically all of the source material, that is something you should have rules for.

And, honestly, that's probably the right way to handle it anyway. You don't want to think of separate Lord-tier progressions for the Scout and the Ranger, and you don't want to tell the Fighter that he has to become a General rather than a Spymaster or Grand Librarian. The idea that the Fighter would justify himself by getting armies instead of high level abilities is tempting, but it's not nearly as good an idea as it seems like at a first glance.


they're all lords of different areas, so why the heck are they adventuring together

Because the guy at the next level up the feudal ladder invaded his neighbor and called them up? Because the arch-priest of Hextor declared a crusade? History doesn't have a lot of examples of groups of political leaders teaming up for ninja squad missions, because in the real world the overlap between "political leader" and "ninja squad member" is close to zero, but it has plenty of examples of disparate political leaders coming together for a particular task.


have you tried scheduling regular adults? That's already nearly impossible. Finding a time when a bunch of rulers can go adventuring together is DC: NOPE. This would be blue text, but I'm deadly serious.

Having scheduling things is good. If you have a kingdom building game that creates demands for the Wizard to do his rituals at the harvest festival or the Rogue to wait for spy reports at midwinter or whatever the hell you have something that can be natively used to explain why the BBEG has to wait for the new moon to do his unholy ritual.

Pauly
2022-04-12, 12:53 AM
D&D also has clear reasons to have an "


Because the guy at the next level up the feudal ladder invaded his neighbor and called them up? Because the arch-priest of Hextor declared a crusade? History doesn't have a lot of examples of groups of political leaders teaming up for ninja squad missions, because in the real world the overlap between "political leader" and "ninja squad member" is close to zero, but it has plenty of examples of disparate political leaders coming together for a particular task.
.

But the Fantasy literature genre is full of over titled ninja squads
LotR: Leaving out Gandalf and the hobbits. Aragon - king; Legolas - Prince; Gimli - member of the Dwarven Royal family and first cousin once removed of King Balin, so a Duke or Marquess in modern terms; Boromir Eldest son of the Steward Denethor and next in line to that title, so effectively a prince.
That’s a ninja squad of a king, 2 princes and a duke.

The Belgariad is another example of a ninja squad full of princes, imperial princesses, dukes and earls.

Since D&D and the whole Fantasy RPG industry derives from works of fiction then fully titled ninja squads are within the acceptable and believable. If you are running an Historical RPG, then I fully agree that the overlap between lords and ninjas is close to zero. But it’s very common in fantasy for the best ninjas to also be highly entitled.

Mechalich
2022-04-12, 01:29 AM
Because the guy at the next level up the feudal ladder invaded his neighbor and called them up? Because the arch-priest of Hextor declared a crusade? History doesn't have a lot of examples of groups of political leaders teaming up for ninja squad missions, because in the real world the overlap between "political leader" and "ninja squad member" is close to zero, but it has plenty of examples of disparate political leaders coming together for a particular task.


What history does have, is the occasional case of 'ninja squad members' who rose through their success to become political leaders. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, is one example, though there are definitely others.


But the Fantasy literature genre is full of over titled ninja squads

Fantasy literature is full of ninja squads with impressive titles, but not nearly so full of actively reigning characters. Aragorn and Thorin, notably, are kings without countries, and similar lost or exiled characters of impressive lineage are staples of the literature. Such status was not unknown in history, and many an ruler was indeed reduced to 'ninja-squad' status prior to rising back up to retake their crown and authority (or dying ignobly while trying), for example Alfred the Great.

Pauly
2022-04-12, 02:51 AM
Fantasy literature is full of ninja squads with impressive titles, but not nearly so full of actively reigning characters. Aragorn and Thorin, notably, are kings without countries, and similar lost or exiled characters of impressive lineage are staples of the literature. Such status was not unknown in history, and many an ruler was indeed reduced to 'ninja-squad' status prior to rising back up to retake their crown and authority (or dying ignobly while trying), for example Alfred the Great.

Also the literature is also full of the noble administrator Handwavium the third who looks after the land in the lords absence. Historically in times of stability it was quite common for the Lord to leave the estate in the hands of an administrator and the Lord going off and doing their thing. The Victorian era is a prime examp,e.

Eldan
2022-04-12, 05:36 AM
But the Fantasy literature genre is full of over titled ninja squads
LotR: Leaving out Gandalf and the hobbits. Aragon - king; Legolas - Prince; Gimli - member of the Dwarven Royal family and first cousin once removed of King Balin, so a Duke or Marquess in modern terms; Boromir Eldest son of the Steward Denethor and next in line to that title, so effectively a prince.


Don't leave out the Hobbits. Frodo is landed gentry, Sam is his batman, Peregrin is directly related to and later takes the title of, the Thaine of the Shire (who is at least master of the moot and captain of the shire armies) and Merry becomes Master of Buckland and Warden of the Westmarch, which are at least noble-ish titles.

Grim Portent
2022-04-12, 06:47 AM
Don't leave out the Hobbits. Frodo is landed gentry, Sam is his batman, Peregrin is directly related to and later takes the title of, the Thaine of the Shire (who is at least master of the moot and captain of the shire armies) and Merry becomes Master of Buckland and Warden of the Westmarch, which are at least noble-ish titles.

Frodo, Sam and Pippin are also all distantly descended from Bullroarer Took if I remember correctly, an ancient hobbit war hero.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-12, 07:45 AM
Ronin, Cossack, and Cowboy, for example, can all be considered proxy terms for 'adventurer.' However these are indeed born out of specific historical conditions. I've see a few articles comment on the similarity between the adventure in D&D and 'the wild west' genre (movies and TV shows) of the 50's and 60's. Any number of oaters involved 'finding that chest of gold' with The Good, the Bad and The Ugly being an over the top example.

The big one is actually a surplus of soldiers. And with the original game, the bulk of the PCs would often be Fighting Men.

Seven Samurai is a very good example of this {snip} - Conan, rather famously, jumps back and forth across it on a whim. Magazine / pulp serial stories are really good as a genre foundation, more than full length novels, in that the episodic nature of the adventures fits the serialized stories better. (And short stories tend to make better movies than novels - Elmore Leonard's short stories // novellas have been made into a number of good films over the years).

However, one of the issues with this sort of thing is that the existence of adventurers, as a group large enough to represent a social class, tends to be temporary, lasting at most a few decades. This is the part where the genre becomes a parody of itself. Adventurers as a social class seems to fit into Victorian and Early 20th century tropes, and they are wealthy dilettentes (really, I am an archeologist!) as often as not. (Lara Croft? Indiana Jones? Allan Quartermain?). That's a far reach from 'need to keep adventuring to get by' along the lines of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or the Thieves World stories, or the episodic trials and adventures of Cugel.

While I have played in campaigns where 'the adventurer' is an aspect of the world's social structure, it rarely works as well in the game as a world where "the A Team" (TV Show ref) is a 'for hire' group of trouble shooters. They are rare, almost unique: almost nobody in the world is an adventurer, and their reputation is that they cause as much trouble as they solve. That maintains a certain amount of tension between the adventurers and the world that I find preferable. (Phoenix's world is one of the few where I found the structure, which he has grown organically with his game world over the years, of adventurer guilds and where they fit in society to be coherent).

Also: nice observation on the termination point and Kingmaker. :smallsmile:

But the Fantasy literature genre is full of over titled ninja squads {snip} But it’s very common in fantasy for the best ninjas to also be highly entitled. Yes, back to my "rich people looking for dangerous and thrilling things to do that isn't climbing Mount Everest." Fuse that with a small spec ops team (Guns of Navarone) and you get the range of D&D adventures which are all piled on top of archeology with swords. (Digging through ruins, hunting for treasure).

Also the literature is also full of the noble administrator Handwavium the third who looks after the land in the lords absence. . The Crusades were, from one point of view, grand adventures undertaken by nobles for extended periods, while the seneschal, family, or wife looked after the estates. (Recently read a bio of Edward I which reinforced this idea), and are of course concurrent with the pseudo medieval setting of D&D as originally imagines. But D&D in its current form struggles with how to handle battles (which maybe is OK, at some point a different tool is needed for that job).

I find a party's starting point that isn't "someone hires freelancers" usually more satisfying. Something is wrong/weird as a preface, and "how did we all end up in this tavern/boat/town" leading to "who will bell the cat (displacer beast?)" arrives at a group of people who end up bonding over the course of an adventure and find that they make a good team. In the best campaigns/worlds, odd and strange things keep cropping up that they choose to investigate/hunt for/take on ...

Tanarii
2022-04-12, 09:46 AM
Don't leave out the Hobbits. Frodo is landed gentry, Sam is his batman, Peregrin is directly related to and later takes the title of, the Thaine of the Shire (who is at least master of the moot and captain of the shire armies) and Merry becomes Master of Buckland and Warden of the Westmarch, which are at least noble-ish titles.
Yeah, it's pretty funny how the common analysis is that Tolkien intended the Hobbits to be a common Everyman.

Eldan
2022-04-12, 10:03 AM
Yeah, it's pretty funny how the common analysis is that Tolkien intended the Hobbits to be a common Everyman.

Presumably common to his own class.

Mike_G
2022-04-12, 10:24 AM
Yeah, it's pretty funny how the common analysis is that Tolkien intended the Hobbits to be a common Everyman.

I think Sam clearly is. And he is the most heroic character of the Fellowship, really.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-12, 10:52 AM
I think Sam clearly is. And he is the most heroic character of the Fellowship, really.

And note that he only becomes this significant figure after the adventure is over. His success is the "success of the Everyman". If he'd been the fancy dude with the fancy title at the beginning of the adventure, his character would have been quite different.

And that's the thing. If adventurers are all landed nobles or the equivalent from the beginning, then you get a very different aesthetic than one where they might become such when the adventure is mostly over[1]. And in my eyes, that's an aesthetic that removes the best part of the game, the middle "not liable to die to a housecat, but not a world-renowned hero" part. The part before you get those fancy titles or the duties that go along with them.

And there's a reason that the whole "name level" thing got dropped--it wasn't how most people wanted to play. It basically bifurcates the game--those who want to do the strategic layer don't have the opportunity until very high levels (and so miss out on that during the first half or more); those who don't get bored at high levels. As it turned out, the latter dominated.

Any answer that removes the possibility to do 90+% of the printed modules isn't a good explanation for that system. It might be great for a different system, and might be fun to play, but it's not a good fit. Especially when there are plenty of perfectly good answers that do fit that play-style.

[1] How many games really played the name level like expected, where the name-level character is basically retired?

-------

I have adventurers in a few modes.

1. In one area, it's a formalized system that replaces most of the standing armies and acts as an international "police" force. And is enforced by international treaty. Basically no traditional feudal societies there anyway. But the scaling and diminishing returns[2] means that yes, most people only adventure for one or two main things. They find a treasure and retire. Or die. And many of the lowest-scale adventurers are little better than bandits, although the formalized system keeps the worst of that in check by requiring adventurers to register with nationally-sponsored Companies that take responsibility for their actions.

As a note, the whole formalized system also accounts for why adventuring-facing prices are so weird--it's a literal system of price controls. Merchants make a contract with the central Guild (a misnomer but a historically-contingent one) to buy and sell to adventurers at a fixed scale of prices. And the guild ensures they'll turn a profit, rebuying and reselling the stuff. The Guild makes its money mostly off of a monopoly on an instant-travel portal network. And is backed by all the big name former adventurers and their allies.

In this part of the world, nobles (such as they are) don't have more than house guards. There's only two nations (in this compact) with any kind army, and they're kinda sus from everyone else's point of view. One's a theocracy, the other is struggling to disband their military-industrial complex after 90+ years of existential warfare against an outside force. Militias exist, but they're for local point defense anyway and expect to be backed up by adventurers.

2. In a different part of the world, adventurers and adventuring isn't a social class at all. They're mercenaries, doing odd jobs. Usually hired more for the plausible deniability than any other factor. People become adventurers when they really don't have much else available. And they're mostly only even partially welcome on the frontiers. There again there aren't large "feudal" systems--that area is ruled by a collection of noble houses who (by mutual agreement/law) can only field a small number of troops each. Which are used as the personal guards and the "police" (as it were) for the major cities. The Second Families (the noble-adjacent clans and families that are most of the large landowners) have to hire mercenary groups and are strictly regulated by the First Families. Except in the colonies, where it's basically a free-for-all.

The current set of PCs there are
* A paladin of an order, acting "under-cover".
* A runaway wizard (running away from his family who was quite controlling).
* An itinerant dragon knight (of one of the Free Brothers, the knights who are not tied to a flight of dragons) and his bonded companion. He's the most really mercenary of the group, having worked as one for a few years. Mostly doing bounty-hunting work solo.
* A "lost child" looking for his(?) past and doing odd jobs to survive.
They all knew each other from school and were vectored into the current events by the master of that school who is notorious for sticking his nose into everything and meddling. And they've not been hired for any job since their first (rats in a sewer), where they were hired precisely as the fall-guys for some political bad blood. Which ended up backfiring, as usual.

[2] Each person has a certain amount of potential, a "soft cap" as it were. A point at which making the next substantial gain starts requiring exponentially more time and risk. For most of the world, that's sub-level 1. Even for those who can reach PC-equivalent status, the diminishing returns start to really bite around level 5-ish. Level 11+ is Legendary status. PCs are special in that they're some of the few with unknown potential. Wherever the campaign ends, that was (in retrospect) their personal cap. So a retired PC (as a living world, there are lots of those) doesn't get any stronger once they retire. One of the major figures running around is this bard who, by divine blessing, is ageless. But he's a level 4 bard. So he really just does a lot of running away. Has blackmail on (or is related to) just about everyone that matters, so that's where his power comes from. Not personal spell-casting or otherwise ability.

Satinavian
2022-04-13, 03:37 AM
D&D started out as a strictly postapocalyptic scenario with ruins full of treasure and old forgotten magic and monsters, outposts near them with a gold rush economy and playable treasure seekers with no further motivation.

But it branched out fast. And hardly anyone plays the above nowadays. Trying to tell people to restrict themself to a certain oldfashioned adventurer esthetic in their wordbuilding because this was the proper way to do D&D is nonsense.



As for the old versions where you get keeps and retainers and stuff, we didn't play that much AD&D2, but that was always seen as a cool thing.

Stonehead
2022-04-14, 04:38 PM
I wanna add some things I haven't seen mentioned here.

First, the big one, is that hiring a squad of adventurers to deal with a short-term problem is a lot like hiring some temps or contractors for small-medium sized projects in the modern day. In my profession at least, I can attest that hiring contractors for projects is fairly common. Even when the company has staff that would theoretically be capable of doing that work, they're just busy with other things. Maybe there are an average of 12 goblin raids per year, and so the King has enough knights to handle roughly 1 a month. What do you do when, just by chance, no goblins attack in January, but two raiding parties attack in February? You hire a temp adventurer.

I'm pretty sure most stores hire temp workers around the holidays, and only a few of them stay on into the next year. Same idea. There's a temporary surge in demand.

My favorite answer though is that the king will just post a bounty, rewarding whoever turns in the heads of the monster, instead of hiring a specific group of adventurers. The story of The Beast of Gévaudan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan) is the closest we've come to a DnD game in the real world. Basically, there was a huge wolf or bear (or maybe a monster) that was terrorizing trails in France, so the King posted a bounty to be given to whoever killed the beast. So there's real life precedent for rulers posting bounties for adventurers hunters to handle dangerous problems instead of sending the army to do it.

One advantage of posting a bounty for the King is that you can get several different groups all trying to kill your enemy, but you only need to pay the one who succeeds. One advantage of posting a bounty for the DM is that it puts a soft time-limit on each quest, as if the party spends a week drinking in the tavern, someone else will cache in the bounty. It even gives some good rp opportunities when they run into other competing bands of adventurers.

Here's a great podcast about the The Beast of Gévaudan if anyone's interested (https://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes/71). It's a pretty cool story IMO.

Satinavian
2022-04-15, 02:22 AM
I wanna add some things I haven't seen mentioned here.

First, the big one, is that hiring a squad of adventurers to deal with a short-term problem is a lot like hiring some temps or contractors for small-medium sized projects in the modern day. In my profession at least, I can attest that hiring contractors for projects is fairly common. Even when the company has staff that would theoretically be capable of doing that work, they're just busy with other things. Maybe there are an average of 12 goblin raids per year, and so the King has enough knights to handle roughly 1 a month. What do you do when, just by chance, no goblins attack in January, but two raiding parties attack in February? You hire a temp adventurer.
Yep. The easiest reason to hire adventurers is "The regugar troops are not available" for which many possible reasons exist. Adventurers are always a good second choice.




My favorite answer though is that the king will just post a bounty, rewarding whoever turns in the heads of the monster, instead of hiring a specific group of adventurers. The story of The Beast of Gévaudan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan) is the closest we've come to a DnD game in the real world. Basically, there was a huge wolf or bear (or maybe a monster) that was terrorizing trails in France, so the King posted a bounty to be given to whoever killed the beast. So there's real life precedent for rulers posting bounties for adventurers hunters to handle dangerous problems instead of sending the army to do it.
But i don't think this example fits too well.

First, that was absolutist France, not really feudal in any significant way.

Second, the army, specifically the dragoons, were indeed sent out first. Only after they failed, professional hunters were hired for the occassion.

Third, after the adventurous professional hunters failed as well, the King sent them away and appointed a courtier, the royal gun bearer and lieutenant of the hunt.

And fourth it seemed to be finally have been killed by locals in a hunt organized by a local noble.


But yes, in the real world with its lack of monster attacks and most aremd conflicts being regular wars, it is probably one of the closest fits.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-15, 08:32 AM
I'm pretty sure most stores hire temp workers around the holidays, and only a few of them stay on into the next year. Same idea. There's a temporary surge in demand. When I worked retail in the 70's, mostly they just paid more overtime. :smallyuk: But I guess bigger chains now plus up for a few weeks by rounding up college students on winter break?
My favorite answer though is that the king will just post a bounty, rewarding whoever turns in the heads of the monster, instead of hiring a specific group of adventurers. The story of The Beast of Gévaudan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan) And if not the king, the Baron, Duke, Marchioness, Lady of the Manor, Burgermeister, local rich merchant whose trade routes have been compromised, etcetara.

Stonehead
2022-04-15, 07:44 PM
But i don't think this example fits too well.

First, that was absolutist France, not really feudal in any significant way.

Second, the army, specifically the dragoons, were indeed sent out first. Only after they failed, professional hunters were hired for the occassion.

Third, after the adventurous professional hunters failed as well, the King sent them away and appointed a courtier, the royal gun bearer and lieutenant of the hunt.

And fourth it seemed to be finally have been killed by locals in a hunt organized by a local noble.


But yes, in the real world with its lack of monster attacks and most aremd conflicts being regular wars, it is probably one of the closest fits.

That's true, the closest we've come to DnD irl isn't that close, I bring it up because I think it's a cool story. Still though, posting a bounty for the head of a monster in general doesn't suffer from any of those problems. I can't remember the name, but an American town put a bounty out for a mountain lion that was supposedly attacking people and dogs. "Wild West" outlaws usually had bounties on their heads, despite law enforcement being a very significant force.

Granted, none of these examples are from medieval Europe specifically, but the factors that lead to them would still apply there. Thousand year old records haven't survived as well, so I'm not as familiar with any specific examples, but I have my doubts that bounties were never put out for criminals/monsters, despite there being a significant standing army. I'm not a historian so I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem unrealistic at all.

Mechalich
2022-04-15, 08:09 PM
That's true, the closest we've come to DnD irl isn't that close, I bring it up because I think it's a cool story. Still though, posting a bounty for the head of a monster in general doesn't suffer from any of those problems. I can't remember the name, but an American town put a bounty out for a mountain lion that was supposedly attacking people and dogs. "Wild West" outlaws usually had bounties on their heads, despite law enforcement being a very significant force.

In the American West, from roughly 1850 - 1950 there was a very good chance that wherever you happened to be, there was an active bounty on wolves and freelance individuals, such as cowboys, but also surveyors, railroad crew, and so forth, could and did make every effort to kill wolves whenever the opportunity presented both to make a quick buck and because they believed wolves were a genuine menace. Noted conservationist Aldo Leopold was among these persons, and documented his great regret regarding the policy later in life. Such bounties were much less common, and if still active mostly relics, east of the Mississippi not because the people there had any different feelings about wolves, but because all the wolves had already been exterminated decades or centuries earlier.

Since fairly similar fates were common to large predators almost everywhere they were encountered (ex. leopards (https://www.britannica.com/animal/leopard)), we can extrapolate this with regard to fantastical monsters. Essentially, if civilization has the ability to suppress 'dangerous' presences it will do so. Monster hunting will therefore be relegated to the frontier, wherever that happens to be, or will turn towards monsters capable of operating within the boundaries of civilization - ex. vampires and werewolves. Now, because fantasy monsters have a significantly higher upper limit on their capabilities than Earth-based animals it may be significantly more costly to suppress them, and therefore the boundaries of civilization are likely to be significantly more compact in a fantasy setting, since it will be much more costly to develop marginal agricultural land.

Tanarii
2022-04-15, 09:19 PM
When I worked retail in the 70's, mostly they just paid more overtime. :smallyuk: But I guess bigger chains now plus up for a few weeks by rounding up college students on winter break?Seasonal workers from TG to the new year are a retail industry standard in the US. Often the same folks year to year.


In the American West, from roughly 1850 - 1950 there was a very good chance that wherever you happened to be, there was an active bounty on wolves and freelance individuals, such as cowboys, but also surveyors, railroad crew, and so forth, could and did make every effort to kill wolves whenever the opportunity presented both to make a quick buck and because they believed wolves were a genuine menace.
Does this mean it's time for the argument about if D&D is a western or not again? :smallamused:

Eldan
2022-04-16, 12:44 AM
D&D started out as a strictly postapocalyptic scenario with ruins full of treasure and old forgotten magic and monsters, outposts near them with a gold rush economy and playable treasure seekers with no further motivation.

But it branched out fast. And hardly anyone plays the above nowadays. Trying to tell people to restrict themself to a certain oldfashioned adventurer esthetic in their wordbuilding because this was the proper way to do D&D is nonsense.



As for the old versions where you get keeps and retainers and stuff, we didn't play that much AD&D2, but that was always seen as a cool thing.

From what I remember reading, the first D&D (ish) scenario was actually infiltrating a castle during a siege, where a team of elite warriors was going in through a trapped secret entrance in the dungeons.

Composer99
2022-04-16, 09:12 AM
I'm going to step out of the in-fiction scenario presented in the OP, because I don't really see the point of engaging only in the in-fiction framing in an RPG discussion forum.

This topic comes across as the GM-side equivalent of the "how to motivate players to pick up on hooks". It's a category error, IMO, to try to resolve such questions at the "in-fiction" level, both for PCs and NPCs. (*)

For the most part, NPCs who might be inclined to hire the PCs to do stuff (even if most of the compensation is "keep the loot") should do so not because you, the GM, feel obliged to think of some valid reason why they would do so in the fiction, but because that's what you and your (I hope!) friendly acquaintances/friends are sitting down today to undertake for fun/enjoyment/satisfaction.

If you're sitting down with your players to play "The Goblin Raids of Namthros" specifically, then you as GM should be ensuring NPCs are putting the adventure before the PCs, because if not, there goes the game session for tonight.

If you're playing in more of a sandbox-style game, then goblin raids in a region will likely be something that the PCs decide to look into on their own, in which case, sure, it makes more sense if the noble NPC isn't immediately on board with retaining them to do it. Ultimately, though, since the game is still about the PCs and their adventures (**), if that's the hook the players decide to pick up on, then IMO it's on the GM to run with it.

All that is to say that as GM if I have to make sacrifices of my world-building sensibilities for the sake of gameplay, I will.

If, however, you (in the general sense, not the OP specifically) as GM would prefer to prioritise world-building/setting considerations, well and good. (Just make sure your players are onboard.) If those are your preferences, that's when it's time to turn to the in-fiction framing. If you can find an answer to your satisfaction, then the noble NPC will seek out the PCs to deal with the goblins. If not, the NPC won't (but even so might be persuaded to retain the PCs to deal with the goblins if the PCs approach them in audience and can convince the NPC via in-character discussion and maybe some good rolls). If it's the case that you wouldn't want to make sacrifices of your world-building sensibilities, then just make sure that you have adventure content for the PCs to engage in that doesn't run up against those sensibilities - or play a different game where there is less conflict in the fiction between the typical PC activity and your sensibilities on the topic.

(*) At least in a game such as D&D. I'm led to understand such questions would be far more effective in certain PbtA games, where disputes between PCs are more smoothly integrated into the gameplay. In such games if you're not sure an NPC would hire the NPCs, though, I think it's resolved more as a question of gameplay than something you as GM have to decide in advance during prep. That is, you don't have to decide up front whether a noble NPC would hire the PCs. Instead, that question will likely be answered during gameplay.

(**) Even in a game where the PCs aren't exceptional/extraordinary/special in any particular sense, they are still the "POV" characters in the setting and are the most important from the perspective of gameplay precisely because they are the ones being run by the players.

Stonehead
2022-04-22, 09:50 AM
I'm going to step out of the in-fiction scenario presented in the OP, because I don't really see the point of engaging only in the in-fiction framing in an RPG discussion forum.

This topic comes across as the GM-side equivalent of the "how to motivate players to pick up on hooks". It's a category error, IMO, to try to resolve such questions at the "in-fiction" level, both for PCs and NPCs. (*)

For the most part, NPCs who might be inclined to hire the PCs to do stuff (even if most of the compensation is "keep the loot") should do so not because you, the GM, feel obliged to think of some valid reason why they would do so in the fiction, but because that's what you and your (I hope!) friendly acquaintances/friends are sitting down today to undertake for fun/enjoyment/satisfaction.

If you're sitting down with your players to play "The Goblin Raids of Namthros" specifically, then you as GM should be ensuring NPCs are putting the adventure before the PCs, because if not, there goes the game session for tonight.

I agree that the players should generally follow plot hooks because without that, there's no game, but I'm not sure that's what the original question was about. I read it more as a way to achieve logical consistency. I can enjoy a movie or book with some plot holes or logical inconsistencies, but in general, I like stories more without them.

To that end, I think it's a pretty good use of time to try to figure out what makes sense as plot hooks. You don't need to, just like you don't need to think up compelling motivations for your villains, but it usually makes the game more interesting if you can.

Plus if the npcs act consistently reasonable, it's easier for the players to make informed decisions, with some knowledge about the expected outcomes.

Bohandas
2022-04-30, 10:41 AM
But the Fantasy literature genre is full of over titled ninja squads
LotR: Leaving out Gandalf and the hobbits. Aragon - king; Legolas - Prince; Gimli - member of the Dwarven Royal family and first cousin once removed of King Balin, so a Duke or Marquess in modern terms; Boromir Eldest son of the Steward Denethor and next in line to that title, so effectively a prince.
That’s a ninja squad of a king, 2 princes and a duke.

The Belgariad is another example of a ninja squad full of princes, imperial princesses, dukes and earls.

My mind personally went to Discworld, Star Wars, and Dune

In Discworld, look at the Ankh Morpork watch. Vimes marries into one noble family and is also the heir of another noble family that was deposed, Carrot is heavily implied to be the rightful prince of Ankh, and Angua is a mamber of an Uberwaldian noble family who she doesn't talk to because they're rich weirdos who hunt people for sport.

In Star Wars, we've got Luke and Leia who are both the children of a non-hereditary queen and of the second most powerful man in the galaxy. Leia is also seperately the adopted daughter of King Bail Organa.
And Rey is the emperor's granddaughter.

Dune, of course, revolves around Paul Atreides, whose father is a Duke, and whose mother is in the Illuminati

Sapphire Guard
2022-04-30, 03:27 PM
Historical parallels only take us so far. In this kind of gameworld, random gangs of adventurers tend to have a lot more personal combat power, and there's no such thing as goblins.

What seems to be happening here is metagaming halfway and then stopping. If the goblins are going to treat adventurers the same way they do knights, then why would they need adventurers? They wouldn't. But why would these goblins do that?

If the goblins could take the local knights in straight battle, they would be holding land, not raiding. So they obviously know they can't take the knights in battle. Ergo, they're not going to try and take the local knights in battle, they will fight if cornered, but have no interest in fighting at all just to provide there enemies free xp.

Why would they fight adventurers? The shortest answer would be that they think they can take them. That might seem unlikely, but how many overconfident beginner adventuring parties have the dice go against them and end up like Episode 1 of Goblin Slayer?

If we're going full meta, then because the DM makes it happen, of course.

Alcore
2022-04-30, 07:44 PM
I am only answering the OP here;


You have basically set up a classic medieval situation. In fact you make it possible that the goblins are not even real; certainly not real to me (the noble). So we have a bit to unpack.


Militia are, usually, untrained commoners given gambison (padded armor; which is far better protection than leather historicly) and a pike/spear. Since times are good I can probably splurge and give them wooden shields. They are used best by smashing them together into murderballs with spears pointed out. This is because they were often so bad at combat giving them room to dodge and fight actually hurts their chances against experienced fighters.

Then we have knights… which have lands of their own. Certainly capable fighters. Still not suitable for what amounts to gorilla warfare…

What about my footman? Or my huntsman (which can be conscripted easily into archer/ranger groups)? The huntsman are just what I need. Are my holdings in the plains or is it primarily wooded? Hope its not plains or I’m probably finished before I begin.


—————


Now we come to the goblins; who have been sacking these other lands also filled with knights, footman, archers, guards and possible militia…

Worse yet you describe it as though only a fraction of the people are surviving and spreading almost histerical accounts of mythical creatures.

Apparently I’m next.

Why on earth would I hire them? The King has obligations to protect ME. My course of action is to send a runner to the king while I grab every able bodied man to fortify my home; perhaps build a palisade. I would shelter as many peasants as possible but most I would send deeper into the kingdom. My advisor is nuts if four random bums (who apparently WALKED in) can do better than dozens of knights and hundreds of footman already dead by this unstoppable menace.


I pray to survive the first night so that I can know what I’m fighting.

Bohandas
2022-05-01, 02:17 AM
I pray to survive the first night

Which is going to make the wanderer who seems to have a direct line to god look even more plausible

Tanarii
2022-05-01, 02:47 AM
My advisor is nuts if four random bums (who apparently WALKED in) can do better than dozens of knights and hundreds of footman already dead by this unstoppable menace.
In a world where four random bums might be powerful enough to obliterate an army by themselves, have spent all their wealth on personal power in the form of magic items, are willing to work for a fairly small stipend and a chance at magical loot and a noble quest, and still (for some reason) haven't established themselves as rulers in their own right ... the advisor might be far more sane than a ruler who doesn't listen to said advisor.

Four low level / power bums (or in a world where adventurers aren't eventually demigod-hobos) are a different matter. They're probably worth sweeping up when you're desperately hiring mercenaries suicidal enough to go scout and find out what this world ending "goblin" menace really is all about tho.

Alcore
2022-05-01, 12:43 PM
Which is going to make the wanderer who seems to have a direct line to god look even more plausible

Depending on demographics I have, always on hand, a half dozen adepts of god who can do the same thing. Likely in a variety of gods at that. They will not have the class features but they are divine casters.



In a world where four random bums might be powerful enough to obliterate an army by themselves, have spent all their wealth on personal power in the form of magic items, are willing to work for a fairly small stipend and a chance at magical loot and a noble quest, and still (for some reason) haven't established themselves as rulers in their own right ... the advisor might be far more sane than a ruler who doesn't listen to said advisor.

Four low level / power bums (or in a world where adventurers aren't eventually demigod-hobos) are a different matter. They're probably worth sweeping up when you're desperately hiring mercenaries suicidal enough to go scout and find out what this world ending "goblin" menace really is all about tho.
Your first paragraph proved my point. If they can obliterate an army a “fairly small stipend” for them is outside my price range. People of such caliber don’t just wander anymore into random villages. So they are here for this apocalypse level event (at least in a scale of my holdings) and are waiting for the goblins to come to them. It is possible they are here on an unrelated matter so when a literal portal to hell opens I know the situation is well in hand.

Low level? My own forces are better suited and are more likely to return alive. Still, I can hire them to send word to the king; they have a better chance of getting especially if I give each a horse. Mid level? Not only can I afford it but is actually a happy medium. Still we are talking of a highly mobile force so my plans remain unchanged; hunker down. (Maybe hire the adventurers as additional footman/knights.)

Also hire a new advisor; he seems out of touch with reality.



Everyone keeps answering “why hire adventurers” A.K.A. “Why be a patron”. While I haven’t read more than the first and second page none seems to directly address the setup. I assume the OP is the DM and has built this.

Like I said; there is a bit to unpack here. I’ve definitely scratched the surface.



Each holding burned and looted likely had their own nobles. Each holding, while belonging to the king, are separate entities loosely joined by feudalism. Each noble with land that contains a village or town should have his own court. A court mage, a high priest, a chancellor*, a warden and more. Times were peaceful so levels were low but nobles are still rich and expected to serve in war; even at level 1 I should have full plate with a good warhorse.


These things are decimating villages that should have their own personal low level adventurer squads. Footman numbering a dozen and occasional knight (at least 1 knight per nearby thorp; more if they are landless and supported by the noble directly).



If he built this I feel he needs to tone down how extreme, and rapid, the threat it. This sounds like a job for level 11+ PCs; well outside the pay range for a lowly baron like me.


*who is my advisor in question. I will forgive him for being out of touch with reality. He is likely an expert of first or second level who has never left the village. Unlike me who, as an aspiring first level aristocrat, had to tour the kingdom serving as some more important noble’s paige for a few season/years per noble. Why I might of served the king once or twice as an errand boy.

Surely someone of my station would know if goblins are real, right? :smallconfused:

Tanarii
2022-05-01, 01:18 PM
Your first paragraph proved my point. If they can obliterate an army a “fairly small stipend” for them is outside my price range. People of such caliber don’t just wander anymore into random villages.
Clearly you haven't played WotC D&D. :smallamused: That's pretty much the premise, adventurers keep adventuring through level 20 for meagre quest rewards that any local baron could afford, or even no reward at all, merely for the shot at loot.

Since you've talked up this to be an apocalyptic threat, even the highest level adventurers would be interested.


Low level? My own forces are better suited and are more likely to return alive.I thought this was an unknown apocalyptic threat (disguised as "goblins") and you're cowering behind your defenses, desperately snatching up all able bodied men? Low level adventurers are uniquely suited to act as small force patrols / scouts, and poorly suited to being part of a concentrated force of arms. So it only makes sense that now they're part of "your own forces" they'd end up as one of the scout details you're (hopefully) sending out to find out what's going on.

Satinavian
2022-05-01, 01:29 PM
Each holding burned and looted likely had their own nobles. Each holding, while belonging to the king, are separate entities loosely joined by feudalism. Each noble with land that contains a village or town should have his own court. A court mage, a high priest, a chancellor*, a warden and more. Times were peaceful so levels were low but nobles are still rich and expected to serve in war; even at level 1 I should have full plate with a good warhorse.I think you are slightly exaggerating.

There are reports of raided villages. Not of raided towns nor castles or even only towers. The goblins have not even attacked anything fortyfied yet and likely choose the most remote and weakest defended targets possible. It is unlikely they have ever faced more than a single knight who also was unprepared, if any at all. Not every village has a knight let alone a court. What kind of court do you imagine can be supported by a village ? They have not yet faced what a baron let alone a count could muster. But they are about to because your subjects turned to you (per opening post a baron). That here is literally the first instance a noble with a higher rank than knight hears about it and contemplates doings something about it.

Alcore
2022-05-01, 01:37 PM
Clearly you haven't played WotC D&D. :smallamused: That's pretty much the premise, adventurers keep adventuring through level 20 for meagre quest rewards that any local baron could afford, or even no reward at all, merely for the shot at loot.

Since you've talked up this to be an apocalyptic threat, even the highest level adventurers would be interested.

Heh… at my table if your level 11 and still looking in taverns in villages in the middle of civilized lands for your quests you’re either A) ran out of narratives in towns and cities that appealed to you and are hunting for a specific hook to strike your fancy or B) something somewhere went horribly wrong and your too horribly underequipped to handle encounters at your APL*

If its B go back to your mother, you milk drinker :smallamused:


And I am not talking it up; I am using what little data is given.



*which, unless everyone made a gish, is partially my fault. Either way the party did not stop in at the noble; he’s been labeled unimportant by the party.

Alcore
2022-05-01, 01:49 PM
I think you are slightly exaggerating.

There are reports of raided villages. Not of raided towns nor castles or even only towers. The goblins have not even attacked anything fortyfied yet and likely choose the most remote and weakest defended targets possible. It is unlikely they have ever faced more than a single knight who also was unprepared, if any at all. Not every village has a knight let alone a court. What kind of court do you imagine can be supported by a village ? They have not yet faced what a baron let alone a count could muster. But they are about to because your subjects turned to you (per opening post a baron). That here is literally the first instance a noble with a higher rank than knight hears about it and contemplates doings something about it.

Who do you think runs these villages? It can’t be just me or it is WAY too much land for a baron. The opening post set the tone; which isn’t the same tone as dungeons and dragons if you read it. And while the titles are exaggerated an equivalent title and person should be is residence; it’s not like the OP said thorp or hamlet or we are dealing with a larger number of people than you are thinking.

Satinavian
2022-05-01, 02:15 PM
Who do you think runs these villages? It can’t be just me or it is WAY too much land for a baron. The opening post set the tone; which isn’t the same tone as dungeons and dragons if you read it. And while the titles are exaggerated an equivalent title and person should be is residence; it’s not like the OP said thorp or hamlet or we are dealing with a larger number of people than you are thinking.Per opening post it is a baron under a count under a king who has some knights serving him. That is as archetypical as it gets. We have nothing to assume that this is not just some bog standard barony and while that still allows quite some variety, there is unlikely to be anything that has any form of court below it.

And yes, you would likely be able to get everywhere in this typical barony in a single day. Though the worse the land for agricultulture, the bigger it might be. But with you yourself and your knights, that is all the administration needed. Or affordable.

Eldan
2022-05-03, 03:49 AM
Which is going to make the wanderer who seems to have a direct line to god look even more plausible

That's another factor I'm not sure has been mentioned much. In 3.5 spellcasters are reasonably common. If Baron von Backwater has 200 peasants and militia under him, he has a spellcaster or two. But in other editions, nevermind other systems, magic is rare. And here's a wizard and a cleric, already friends and experienced fighters. You've only heard of either in legends. Of course you beg them to help.

Thunder999
2022-05-04, 09:47 PM
The militia or similar raised as needed forces are easily discarded as an option, they're adequate for facing an army of similar composition, but not individually talented fighters and pulling them away from their usual work has consequences.

Knights are likely on par with adventurers, both being professional fighters, though while I say knights any fantasy setting probably has mages in a similar social and military role either in addition to armoured cavalry or entirely replacing them: expensive to train elite soldiers who likely have a somewhat higher social standing.
Explaining why you don't send these guys is where things like expendability, being busy, wanting to keep them close to defend you etc. turn up and if none of those extenuating circumstances apply there's actually not much reason to hire them.

Beleriphon
2022-05-06, 05:28 PM
So here's a thought about why our erstwhile baron (Baron Erstwhile?) needs to hire adventurers to protect the Erstwhilia Barony.

Baron Erstwhile has a retinue, but he needs them to protect him in case "goblins" decide to attack the town/fortified village he lives in (The Witcher 3 has a pretty good example of what might look like with Crow's Perch). He's responsible for the surrounding villages, and if they're lucky they have a knight that has feudal obligations to Baron Erstwhile. Ser Dandypants and his ilk have to be available to protect their villages if the "goblins" attack them. Which could be any time now.

Now, the question is how many knights does Baron Erstwhile have available? More than twenty and it stops being a barony and becomes and honour (at least in England), and since we don't get a mention of a caput baroniae (again England via Latin) that means there isn't a major castle in the barony. Based on a bit of quick internet research (the first top three answers Google could provide) it turns out that ten knight fees was the average, and each knight fee was associate with manor. So, well say that Baron Erstwhile has ten knights, and given that this id D&D it is evenly split between men and women for the purposes of silly naming conventions when I get to my reasoning.

Goblins aren't the brightest creatures around, but they aren't stupid, and are more than capable of watching a knight and some fighters ride off and then raid that village at night. The whole point here is that nobody knows where the goblins are going to raid next, or where they're even coming from. Since Baron Erstwhile, Ser Andy Dandypants, Ser Borel Plimpbottom, and Lady Charlotte Nugglewuggle have obligations to protect their holdings they can't just ride off into the country side trying to find something. I mean Plimpbottom is already a bit behind on tax collection, it should be fine if the harvest is good like expected, but he can't just leave the Tangledirt, Dirtwaffle, and Flimflam villagers without any protection from (maybe) goblins!

Now, lets pretend for a second that each knight has a between five and a dozen members of their own retinue. On average they have lets say seven. So, the baron calls up his knights, after sending messages to all them which probably on takes a few days, and they all show up at Ersthollow. Baron Erstwhile has seventy members of the various knights retinues, along with ten knights, and lets say ten more of his own personal retinue to send on out. He makes either a veteran of his own group, or the most capable of the knights the leader. That's a ninety strong force, which is not exactly inconsiderable, or stealthy. Where are the goblins? Can all eighty of them effectively engage the goblins in battle? What happens if even ten percent of them die or are seriously injured? What happens if the villages, which now have only villagers, to protect them are attacked?

Baron Erstwhile can call up only some of the knights, but that leaves their estates unprotected and they'll be pissy about it next time. So, who does the Baron choose? Ser Andy and Lady Charlotte don't like each other, they were both squires under Count Twaddlethumbs, so picking just one of them means you really upset the other, and then you'll really hear it since Charlotte is the Baroness' second cousin and Ser Andy is the Count's third nephew. Plus, you're pretty sure that Plimpbottom's (good chap BTW!) new squire is the King's fourth son, and the only reason he's even in Erstwhilia is because everybody thinks the place is safe and the kid is rumoured to be rather... dull.

A ragtag group of magicked up murder-hobos that have nothing else to do but cause trouble start looking pretty good when you take into account more than the just the feudal obligations of the knights. Besides, they might very well just hire the murder-hobos rather than show up themselves! As long as somebody shows up representing the knight there isn't much you can do about it.

Eladrinblade
2022-05-08, 05:04 AM
Let me start with a story.

Your whole post sounds like a good reason to hire adventurers, until the very last line which threw me. You only pay them when they do the job; what do you have to lose?

Lord Raziere
2022-05-08, 05:43 AM
Your whole post sounds like a good reason to hire adventurers, until the very last line which threw me. You only pay them when they do the job; what do you have to lose?

Yeah, they either die weakening your foe or succeed and if there isn't a written contract proving that you agreed to pay them, no one can even prove you sent them to do that and you can pretend that you just met them and they did it out the kindness of their hearts and thank them for being such good-hearted adventurers doing the celestial's work but how dare they try to get money out of doing everyone's holy duty to fight against monsters and evil, how selfish of them, isn't the stuff they looted off their corpses payment enough?

sure the adventurers will be mad. But in character you have no reason to suspect that they are army-killing super-murderhobos and a GM shouldn't be too attached to one character anyways if the PCs decide to kill the NPC for their own mistake of not covering their contractual bases. Now, "this was a verbal agreement and not really binding by the local law of uh...oh right ME." is a jerk move and probably not a NPC I'd play unless I specifically set out the tone of the game to make sure players know to make sure they get a more binding agreement from the get-go so they don't end up in that situation, but it is a thing a noble can technically do, given how most quests are picked up which is by verbal agreement after saying there is a problem they can help with randomly. Not exactly the most official manner of getting a job to do.

Satinavian
2022-05-08, 06:14 AM
Your whole post sounds like a good reason to hire adventurers, until the very last line which threw me. You only pay them when they do the job; what do you have to lose?
If you find idiots fightin your enemies without upfront pay who also agree to only get paid if they win and without knowing the enemy's strength... sure, go for it, there is little rist. But you really call your knights anyway because such idiots are certainly not too premising when it comes to solving the problem.


Yeah, they either die weakening your foe or succeed and if there isn't a written contract proving that you agreed to pay them, no one can even prove you sent them to do that and you can pretend that you just met them and they did it out the kindness of their hearts and thank them for being such good-hearted adventurers doing the celestial's work but how dare they try to get money out of doing everyone's holy duty to fight against monsters and evil, how selfish of them, isn't the stuff they looted off their corpses payment enough?

Yes, not paying mercenaries is such a brilliant idea that surely won't lead to them becoming your enemies and taking the pay via looting (and causing much more damage on the way out) while telling everyone what you did. That is why no one actually ever pays mercenaries.
And no, that is not only relevant for army destoying PCs. If the mercenaries were powerful enough to get rid of the goblins, they could nearly always cause more problems than the goblins could in the first place.


Also you should not expect mercenaries to fight "to the death" against the goblins just to weaken them or even to accept serious losses to get rid of them.

Tanarii
2022-05-08, 11:12 AM
If you find idiots fightin your enemies without upfront pay who also agree to only get paid if they win and without knowing the enemy's strength... sure, go for it, there is little rist.Also known as "adventurers".

Including, in many games, some with the power of demigods. But even if these adventurers are not those demigod level adventurers, they're still quite possibly more powerful AND cheaper than your own forces.


But you really call your knights anyway because such idiots are certainly not too premising when it comes to solving the problem.Usually adventurers are far more powerful than knights, having the power of the gods and arcane wizardry on their side, as well as levels. Which is also something local lords usually don't have access to (for reasons) in the typical oldie fantasy-medieval scenario.

Now, that doesn't have to be the case. But it does certainly seem to be weirdly common that there's this almost totally non-magical world in place, except for the the PCs, villains, and monsters.

Mike_G
2022-05-08, 11:42 AM
Also known as "adventurers".

Including, in many games, some with the power of demigods. But even if these adventurers are not those demigod level adventurers, they're still quite possibly more powerful AND cheaper than your own forces.

Usually adventurers are far more powerful than knights, having the power of the gods and arcane wizardry on their side, as well as levels. Which is also something local lords usually don't have access to (for reasons) in the typical oldie fantasy-medieval scenario.

Now, that doesn't have to be the case. But it does certainly seem to be weirdly common that there's this almost totally non-magical world in place, except for the the PCs, villains, and monsters.

That's more or less the premise of fantasy RPGs in general. Certainly of D&D, which is why I really don't see why people are arguing so hard against it.

And throughout history, plenty of people have hired mercenaries or specialists to do combat type jobs. People here have given a dozen reasonable justification for why a local lord might hire a band of professional adventurers to deal with this kind of threat.

Look to any kind of literature, fantasy, western, Samurai, and you see this. Seven Samurai is almost this exact situation. A village hires some wandering fighters to deal with bandits that are beyond their own abilities. The Magnificent Seven was a pretty straight remake as a western. Half of all westerns follow this pattern. The local vassals/militia/law/sheriff/army is not up to the threat because they are spread too thin or are corrupt or has just been ambushed/wiped out/lead away/has better things to do, so

If you really want to poke holes in one of the most basic adventure tropes, you're probably looking for something different in your gaming that most typical players.

Tanarii
2022-05-08, 01:05 PM
The real key is the cost to hire the adventurers. If they typically work on commission of loot found, with a possible "quest" reward that's not excessive after the fact, they're a good buy. If they're mercenaries that charge going rates (and given their power those rates could be much higher than standard military) and want half up front, probably not a very good deal.

In systems that reward XP for defeating enemies, and enemies often having decent loot (including magical items), adventurers have a strong underlying incentive other than cash payment from their "quest giver" to take on threats.

Satinavian
2022-05-08, 03:13 PM
The problem is the "found loot" expectation.

We are not digging through a ruin with ancient treasures or attacking a dragon with a hoard. We have goblins, or a bunch of primitive humanoids that only recently moved here(likely not with a lot of stuff) plundering villages (with most of the loot probably being foodstuff.) The loot adventuers should expect would be pretty negligible, so the quest giver has to pay.

On the other hand, if there was a lot of valuable loot to expect, that would also not be a reason to let adventurers do it. Because valuable loot is something the knight would gladly take as well.


I mean, let's take some 3.5 numbers. Let's assmue a 5 1st lv adventurers take the task and after a series of increasingly difficult encounters with goblin scouts, guards, bandits and maybe a shaman, traps and local animals they reach level 3 in 3 weeks. The total goblin loot could be sold for 30 GP, making 6 per person or something like that. Now the group would be ~12k GP and the difference between loot and WBL is usually the quest reward. And that is how much "hire adventurers" actually costs in the 3.5 economy. And that gets more and more stupid with even higher levels.

Of course if you prefer to have primitive humanoids raiding villages to actually carry riches worth more than the yearly budget of the whole barony to provide the appropriate loot, youcould do that but i really don't think that should be an assumption.
Mostly because if the baron would expect a bunch of primitive raiders to have a 12k+ stash somewhere, he certainly would try to claim it himself instead of hiring adventurers.

Sapphire Guard
2022-05-09, 09:12 AM
Wouldn't the XP be its own reward in that case?

Stonehead
2022-05-09, 10:14 AM
If you find idiots fightin your enemies without upfront pay who also agree to only get paid if they win and without knowing the enemy's strength... sure, go for it, there is little rist. But you really call your knights anyway because such idiots are certainly not too premising when it comes to solving the problem.

If the arguments in this thread are mostly about believably, a kingdom that has enough knights to handle every single goblin raid, permanently on retainer doesn't seem very believable to me. Random goblins don't coordinate their raids such that there's always a steady stream of attacks, they're completely independent events. And independent events will, by chance, clump up on certain days and then go long stretches without happening again.

If you have enough knights to handle the three goblin raids that happened this week, you need to keep paying all three groups during the next week when there's only one.

Give the adventurers a chance to wipe out goblin horde A, while the knights on retainer wipe out goblin horde B. If the adventurers fail, or take to long, then the knights can handle it.

Lord Raziere
2022-05-09, 11:23 AM
Wouldn't the XP be its own reward in that case?

Adventurer, IC: "Wots this "Ex-pee" ye talking 'bout mate? Izzit some sort of gold? or can I eat it? Or is it like when people try to pay me bard friend in exposure? cause that never ends well for anyone."

Sapphire Guard
2022-05-09, 12:05 PM
That's the point, this scenario only functions when you start the premise by metagaming and then suddenly stop.

Satinavian
2022-05-09, 12:20 PM
If the arguments in this thread are mostly about believably, a kingdom that has enough knights to handle every single goblin raid, permanently on retainer doesn't seem very believable to me. Random goblins don't coordinate their raids such that there's always a steady stream of attacks, they're completely independent events. And independent events will, by chance, clump up on certain days and then go long stretches without happening again.

If you have enough knights to handle the three goblin raids that happened this week, you need to keep paying all three groups during the next week when there's only one.

Give the adventurers a chance to wipe out goblin horde A, while the knights on retainer wipe out goblin horde B. If the adventurers fail, or take to long, then the knights can handle it.
Well, that was my inititial suggestion. Hire adventurers when your regular troops are busy/ have taken heavy losses recently. It makes a lot of sense, because goblins starting more agressive raiding when they see a weakened realm is quite plausible.


I only always argued against "adventurers are cheap" and "even if you knight/militia are available you still should send the cheaper/expendible adventurers instead". Adventurers are useful, but the more costly solution. Which is why you don't use them for everything.

The whole reason for feudalism to exist is running a country for cheap by letting your army do all the bureaucrative duties as well. Hiring mercenaries when you need the army for fighting it not money saving in this system.

Mike_G
2022-05-09, 12:38 PM
Well, that was my inititial suggestion. Hire adventurers when your regular troops are busy/ have taken heavy losses recently. It makes a lot of sense, because goblins starting more agressive raiding when they see a weakened realm is quite plausible.


I only always argued against "adventurers are cheap" and "even if you knight/militia are available you still should send the cheaper/expendible adventurers instead". Adventurers are useful, but the more costly solution. Which is why you don't use them for everything.

The whole reason for feudalism to exist is running a country for cheap by letting your army do all the bureaucrative duties as well. Hiring mercenaries when you need the army for fighting it not money saving in this system.


It's not cheaper this week, but it can be cheaper overall.

If you normally have enough troops, but now you have a temporary big problem, hiring a band of specialist to do this one job and then go away can be a lot cheaper than recruiting and training and maintaining a bigger force indefinitely. Especially if we're talking about specialists that would take longer to train but who might not be useful at day to day patrolling kind of thing.

Hiring temporary staff for a big project is pretty common practice in any field. And it's cheaper because it's temporary.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-09, 01:49 PM
Adventurer, IC: "Wots this "Ex-pee" ye talking 'bout mate? Izzit some sort of gold? or can I eat it? Or is it like when people try to pay me bard friend in exposure? cause that never ends well for anyone." Unless the bard has a side hustle as an exotic dancer. Then...profit! :smallcool:

Well, that was my inititial suggestion. Hire adventurers when your regular troops are busy/ have taken heavy losses recently. It makes a lot of sense, because goblins starting more agressive raiding when they see a weakened realm is quite plausible. ... or when the Fyrd can't be raised, or when the nobles have already done their 40 days per year required service, or when ... concur with your second sentence a lot. When the victim is vulnerable is when the raider/bandit/goblin/pirate is most likely to strike.

Adventurers are useful, but the more costly solution. Which is why you don't use them for everything.
It depends on how you reward them.
Tax free for a year...(defer the cost/spread it out)
This land to build a dwelling on with title guaranteed.
Two of the best horses from my stable.
The hand of my daughter/niece/cousin/sister in marriage (she has huge tracts of land)
And so on.
Cash need not be the reward.
Hiring mercenaries when you need the army for fighting it not money saving in this system.They are a once-in-a-great-while expense (and in some cases can be paid off with a bullet ... :smalleek:)
And they are then, absent one of those other offers being on the table, invited to leave town.

Stonehead
2022-05-09, 06:38 PM
Well, that was my inititial suggestion. Hire adventurers when your regular troops are busy/ have taken heavy losses recently. It makes a lot of sense, because goblins starting more agressive raiding when they see a weakened realm is quite plausible.


I only always argued against "adventurers are cheap" and "even if you knight/militia are available you still should send the cheaper/expendible adventurers instead". Adventurers are useful, but the more costly solution. Which is why you don't use them for everything.

The whole reason for feudalism to exist is running a country for cheap by letting your army do all the bureaucrative duties as well. Hiring mercenaries when you need the army for fighting it not money saving in this system.

Oh, that's my bad, I misunderstood, or got you mixed up with someone else, or something.


It's not cheaper this week, but it can be cheaper overall.

If you normally have enough troops, but now you have a temporary big problem, hiring a band of specialist to do this one job and then go away can be a lot cheaper than recruiting and training and maintaining a bigger force indefinitely. Especially if we're talking about specialists that would take longer to train but who might not be useful at day to day patrolling kind of thing.

Hiring temporary staff for a big project is pretty common practice in any field. And it's cheaper because it's temporary.

Cheaper overall when compared to maintaining a comparable army yes. But cheap overall I don't think so.

Maybe real life mercenaries were cheap, I don't have enough historical knowledge to say, but it's pretty much impossible to argue DnD adventurers are cheap at any level except maybe 1. The exponential curve of the amount of gold you're expected to have at each level means PCs, by default, are really bringing in big money. Especially because the books usually list average wages for other professions. The two just don't compare.

I'm going to use Pathfinder numbers, because that's what I'm most familiar with. I assume it applies to most editions of DnD as well. A 4th level character is expected to have 6000 gp, while a 5th level character is expected to have 10,500 gp. That means that in the time it takes to advance a single level, a formerly 4th level character will earn about 4500 gp. The listed wage for a "Trained hireling" which includes mercenary warriors and off duty city guards is 5 sp (0.5 gp) per day. So unless if it is taking multiple decades to advance a single level, we can conclude that adventurers are much more expensive than npc warriors.

Mechalich
2022-05-09, 07:19 PM
Unless the bard has a side hustle as an exotic dancer. Then...profit! :smallcool:
... or when the Fyrd can't be raised, or when the nobles have already done their 40 days per year required service, or when ... concur with your second sentence a lot. When the victim is vulnerable is when the raider/bandit/goblin/pirate is most likely to strike.
It depends on how you reward them.
Tax free for a year...(defer the cost/spread it out)
This land to build a dwelling on with title guaranteed.
Two of the best horses from my stable.
The hand of my daughter/niece/cousin/sister in marriage (she has huge tracts of land)
And so on.
Cash need not be the reward.They are a once-in-a-great-while expense (and in some cases can be paid off with a bullet ... :smalleek:)
And they are then, absent one of those other offers being on the table, invited to leave town.

For the most part, assets are assets. A horse, a relative, land, these are all assets that the local leadership is aware of, and spending them on adventurers means not spending them on something else.

The key exception, however, is a paper asset that cannot presently be utilized. Traditionally this has been land that under the nominal, but not actual, control of the leadership, often because some 'hostile tribe' is currently occupying it. Adventurers can therefore be paid by an act of imperialism - kill hostile locals and take their land. The local leaders then either grant the adventurers title to the land for development or they pay the adventures off but have the long-term profits from the land to utilize. Either way, the real source of the funds involved belonged to the people who were living on that land.

In general, this sort of activity tends to discomfort modern players, especially Americans, as there are extremely uncomfortable historical parallels. One of the bits of genius of D&D is converting what would otherwise be some other group of humans occupying marginal territories on the edge of state control into literal 'monstrous humanoids,' who are evil and can be safely slaughtered. This is the core gameplay loop of D&D and basically every loot-based game that has followed it: 'Kill evil, take its stuff.' Over time, of course, people have grown less comfortable with oppressing the monstrous humanoids - OOTS literally chronicles this development - and successor games have turned to ever-more-irredeemable sources of easily plundered wealth.

Tanarii
2022-05-09, 07:34 PM
Wouldn't the XP be its own reward in that case?
Yes, absolutely. That's one reason adventurers are motivated to go adventuring, not just for magical loot.

Of course, when found GP was the primary source of XP, it was mostly about trying to loot non-magical and magical loot. In many games nowadays, there's not such a direct link between the player's motivation and the adventurer's motivation. But whatever you want to call it in game, the net result is something is causing adventurers to decide to go do things where XP is the primary reward being sought.

Mechalich
2022-05-09, 07:46 PM
Yes, absolutely. That's one reason adventurers are motivated to go adventuring, not just for magical loot.

Of course, when found GP was the primary source of XP, it was mostly about trying to loot non-magical and magical loot. In many games nowadays, there's not such a direct link between the player's motivation and the adventurer's motivation. But whatever you want to call it in game, the net result is something is causing adventurers to decide to go do things where XP is the primary reward being sought.

If XP it to serve as a motivator, that means people in the game are aware of what XP is and to some degree how it works and the world will reorient accordingly. In particular, groups will seek to control and secure XP sources for themselves, and also that society will restructure on personal power gradients. Works that explore this do exist, as in the case of various LitRPG novels and comics but it tends to get weird and also awfully dark- because you've created a world in which the path to superpowers is mass slaughter.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-09, 07:59 PM
For the most part, assets are assets. A horse, a relative, land, these are all assets that the local leadership is aware of, and spending them on adventurers means not spending them on something else. Hardly. Cash is harder to come by in the feudal setting, so other means of recompense must often suffice. And, it can be a grant that may take some work to realize the value of - land being a case in point if the generally feudal model of land as wealth is being applied. If you are granted land and the rights thereunto in a feudal setting, you have just taken a step up in the world.

In general, this sort of activity tends to discomfort modern players, especially Americans,
1. I don't have those issues.
2. Please don't be so vaguely insulting by painting with such a broad brush about people whom you do not know.
3. Your last paragraph presents the CRPG loop, the video game loop, the console game loop. (Yeah, Diablo III (among others) is a great example of that mode).

Actual TTRPG's are not hard coded to that loop beyond an utter lack of imagination.
And while I am at it: perhaps the author you praise so adoringly is not a prophet, but is rather a victim of limited experience.
I'll edit in Dave Arneson's observation on that broken assumption when I dig it up. It's in my notes somewhere, brb.
EDIT: Here ya go, from one of his on line articles (http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/Archive_OLD/rpg.html)


All the types love each other and the player whose group they join. They will follow the player anywhere and happily die at the player's command.
The stories endeavor to not get in the way of the killing, or finding the ultimate evil bad guy to kill. Many plots for adult films have better stories.
Ohhh.... cool...so this is role playing?
Nah...

Lord Raziere
2022-05-09, 08:23 PM
Unless the bard has a side hustle as an exotic dancer. Then...profit! :smallcool:


"Och, Nine Hells no, them bards have it worse. One dumb or drunk bloke gets handsy and suddenly everyone in tavern is bleeding out their ears from the psychic screams of fury."

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-09, 08:25 PM
"Och, Nine Hells no, them bards have it worse. One dumb or drunk bloke gets handsy and suddenly everyone in tavern is bleeding out their ears from the psychic screams of fury." Well, most bars have a "look but don't touch" rule - one's actions tend to have consequences, even in the tavern over there. Drinking is no shield from that. :smalleek::smalleek:

Tanarii
2022-05-09, 09:30 PM
If XP it to serve as a motivator, that means people in the game are aware of what XP is and to some degree how it works and the world will reorient accordingly. In particular, groups will seek to control and secure XP sources for themselves, and also that society will restructure on personal power gradients. Works that explore this do exist, as in the case of various LitRPG novels and comics but it tends to get weird and also awfully dark- because you've created a world in which the path to superpowers is mass slaughter.
It's a motivator for the players, which means it's a motivator for the characters. How they conceptualize this motivation, if at all, is up to the players. It's not required the characters conceptualize it one way or the other or at all. Maybe it's a mystery why adventurers behave the way they do.

But since it's a motivator, it results in certain common behavior that may be observable. To whit, adventurers commonly appearing to work for next to nothing, or just for potential phat lootz.

Stonehead
2022-05-09, 11:08 PM
It's a motivator for the players, which means it's a motivator for the characters. How they conceptualize this motivation, if at all, is up to the players. It's not required the characters conceptualize it one way or the other or at all. Maybe it's a mystery why adventurers behave the way they do.

But since it's a motivator, it results in certain common behavior that may be observable. To whit, adventurers commonly appearing to work for next to nothing, or just for potential phat lootz.

Real world training/practice is a valid motivation. I'm pretty sure that's Ryu's whole thing, although I haven't actually played Street Fighter, so I'm not sure.

I don't think I would enjoy a game world where "xp" was a measurable thing, like fire or gravity, but a group of eccentrics who take ridiculously difficult tasks to improve their strength isn't that immersion-breaking to me.

Yora
2022-05-10, 06:34 AM
"Rich important people hire adventurers. Poor people who can not afford to hire adventurers do not hire adventurers."

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-10, 07:41 AM
"Rich important people hire adventurers. Poor people who can not afford to hire adventurers do not hire adventurers." You remind me of a game that started very badly some years ago. The DM set up the scenario of a group of local villagers whose flocks were being savaged by wolves, and some kidnappings. (Werewolf was the larger problem, as it turned out). Two of the players took the old "what's in it for us to help you?" line, and of course the villagers had little to no money. More of the players took their call for help as an adventure hook and suggested we help them. An argument (between players) raged across the table between "why should we risk our lives for nothing?" and "why are you being such a jerk?" positions for a while before the DM called for a break.

Sodas sipped, chips munched, cigarettes smoked (this was before the anti-smoking mania took on the nasty tone that it currently has).

When we reconvened, the cleric was asked to promise to "heal me first" the two 'what's in it for me?' PCs. So she did.
And play began.

GP for XP, and the use of treasure maps (however burned, broken or brittle) and the planting of various rumors goes a long way to avoiding that kind of start since 'loot' provides its own motivation.

Chauncymancer
2022-05-10, 10:39 AM
If XP it to serve as a motivator, that means people in the game are aware of what XP is and to some degree how it works and the world will reorient accordingly. In particular, groups will seek to control and secure XP sources for themselves, and also that society will restructure on personal power gradients. Works that explore this do exist, as in the case of various LitRPG novels and comics but it tends to get weird and also awfully dark- because you've created a world in which the path to superpowers is mass slaughter.


Real world training/practice is a valid motivation. I'm pretty sure that's Ryu's whole thing, although I haven't actually played Street Fighter, so I'm not sure.

I don't think I would enjoy a game world where "xp" was a measurable thing, like fire or gravity, but a group of eccentrics who take ridiculously difficult tasks to improve their strength isn't that immersion-breaking to me.

Based on the function of level-draining, xp consuming spells as well as the process of crafting magic items, it would appear to be the case that spell casters at least should be aware that xp is some kind of a resource that can be drawn out of other people. "When you kill a man part of his soul dwells forever in you." is not an alien belief to real world human history.

Bohandas
2022-05-10, 12:09 PM
I don't think I would enjoy a game world where "xp" was a measurable thing, like fire or gravity

Wasn't that basically the premise of Highlander?

Stonehead
2022-05-10, 02:41 PM
Based on the function of level-draining, xp consuming spells as well as the process of crafting magic items, it would appear to be the case that spell casters at least should be aware that xp is some kind of a resource that can be drawn out of other people. "When you kill a man part of his soul dwells forever in you." is not an alien belief to real world human history.

I mean, HP damage also exists, and people generally don't like viewing HP as a measurable in-universe number (at least from what I've seen). I see both xp and hp as numerical representations of in-universe concepts, namely experience and health. IRL we have some concept of experience and health, we know people get better at something the more they do it, and that eating fruit is good for your health, but getting stabbed isn't.

The jump from a concept to the measure of that concept being perceptible in universe is what I'm objecting to. It's looking at a dagger and saying "That will deal between 1 and 4 points of hp damage", or looking at a group of goblins and saying "Killing those goblins will give me enough xp to advance a level", that would kinda ruin my immersion. Also, I don't think many games give npcs xp, so for the vast majority of people in the world, xp doesn't apply.

Also, I should clarify, at this point I'm just stating preferences. There's nothing wrong with other people liking a setting idea that I don't.

Yora
2022-05-10, 04:07 PM
I struggled with the problem of how do you have heroic adventurers for hire and make it look plausible under closer examination for years. And ultimately it let me to the conclusion to not run campaigns about heroic adventurers for hire. That premise in itself does not hold up to scrutiny of you want to have your setting (loosely) reflect actual human society and behavior.

Mercenary parties work.
Treasure hunter parties work.
Smuggler parties work.
And heroic defenders who watch over an area work.

The firat three groups can find themselves in situations where they feel compelled to do heroic things, but they didn't plan to. They didn't go looking for evils to fight.
Characters who are looking for evils to fight don't go around looking for payment for their deeds.

Either PCs are looking for pay, or they are looking for wrongs to right. Trying to have the players be both at the same time doesn't work.

Mike_G
2022-05-10, 04:42 PM
I struggled with the problem of how do you have heroic adventurers for hire and make it look plausible under closer examination for years. And ultimately it let me to the conclusion to not run campaigns about heroic adventurers for hire. That premise in itself does not hold up to scrutiny of you want to have your setting (loosely) reflect actual human society and behavior.

Mercenary parties work.
Treasure hunter parties work.
Smuggler parties work.
And heroic defenders who watch over an area work.

The firat three groups can find themselves in situations where they feel compelled to do heroic things, but they didn't plan to. They didn't go looking for evils to fight.
Characters who are looking for evils to fight don't go around looking for payment for their deeds.

Either PCs are looking for pay, or they are looking for wrongs to right. Trying to have the players be both at the same time doesn't work.

I disagree.

I'm a paramedic. I picked that job so I could help people. But I need to pay my bills.

Heroes have to eat. Nothing wrong with taking on good causes but asking for reasonable payment.

Yora
2022-05-10, 04:56 PM
Of course ypu get a wage. But that's kinda the point. Someone is paying people a regular wage to be ready to do the work when their services are requored. Police and doctors don't wander the street asking around of anyone has paying work for them.

You can have heroic PCs, no issue at all with that. But those aren't wandering mercenaries looking to get rich.

Lord Raziere
2022-05-10, 05:07 PM
the only adventurers that can do hero work without payment/income are druids and rangers. wilderness survival skills and nature magic are kinda vital to that lifestyle.

rogues don't count, they steal and neither does paladins/clerics as they would need a institutionalized religion to get all their gear and holy symbols from and if your religion is producing warriors to protect people from evil its probable that donations are closer to taxes than anything else. though such a religion would probably be the ones to pay a wandering band of do-gooders and keep networks for the sake of protecting people. which really is the solution to this whole conundrum: nobles are jerks, DnD priests literally have good gods telling them what good is and probably have an adventurer fund specifically to pay you to help people out, accept jobs from those guys if you want your conscience appeased.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-10, 05:25 PM
Of course ypu get a wage. But that's kinda the point. Someone is paying people a regular wage to be ready to do the work when their services are requored. Police and doctors don't wander the street asking around of anyone has paying work for them.

You can have heroic PCs, no issue at all with that. But those aren't wandering mercenaries looking to get rich.

I disagree. My preferred style is that they started out as "wandering mercenaries looking to get rich" (or whatever) and become heroes over the course of the events of the campaign. They're heroes not because that's how they started (necessarily)--they're heroes because, when push came to shove, they decided to do the heroic acts.

And I dislike the idea that "virtue is its own reward, so if you're a hero you can't also get (or be looking for) more mundane rewards". That unnecessarily narrows the scope of heroism. Now sure, a real hero will do things even when they're not getting paid, just because it's right. But "professional hero" is not, as I see it, an oxymoron. "Good" =/= self-abnegating with an ascetic lifestyle.

In fact, I prefer stories where the good path is also (in the end) more successful (including financially and in terms of happiness) than the villain route. Where villains fail and (in part) defeat themselves, where evil does not prosper. In part because good people are there to prevent it, but also that evil is inherently self-destructive through blindness and infighting. Short-term, it's successful (if the good folks don't stop it). Long term, evil doesn't win because evil contravenes the proper order of nature. That's entirely my preference, but I don't think it's an unusual or an inherently self-contradictory one.

BRC
2022-05-10, 05:29 PM
I struggled with the problem of how do you have heroic adventurers for hire and make it look plausible under closer examination for years. And ultimately it let me to the conclusion to not run campaigns about heroic adventurers for hire. That premise in itself does not hold up to scrutiny of you want to have your setting (loosely) reflect actual human society and behavior.

Mercenary parties work.
Treasure hunter parties work.
Smuggler parties work.
And heroic defenders who watch over an area work.

The firat three groups can find themselves in situations where they feel compelled to do heroic things, but they didn't plan to. They didn't go looking for evils to fight.
Characters who are looking for evils to fight don't go around looking for payment for their deeds.

Either PCs are looking for pay, or they are looking for wrongs to right. Trying to have the players be both at the same time doesn't work.

The general solution, while not especially realistic, is to have there be a substantial amount of work that is both Heroic and Paying, such that going around doing Hero Stuff gets you paid.

If you want to be more realistic about it, you have a model where there is an organization that exists to ensure adventurers get paid for doing Heroic Stuff. Same logic as taxpayer-funded fire departments. You want people who will show up and save you from a fire, and those people need money, but you don't want to make getting saved from a fire contingent on the person whose house is on fire being able to pay, especially since fires spread, and waiting until somebody has the money on hand is a good way to let things get out of control.


So, if Goblin Attacks are a regular problem, and the local nobility wants to make sure that their serfs and townsfolk don't get attacked by Goblins, you can say they set up a fund that exists to pay Adventurers who can prove that they've dealt with some Goblins. Your wandering group of do-gooders can fight the goblins because they're wandering do-gooders, and when they do so the farmers are like "Here is the paperwork we signed validating that you have dealt with our goblin problem, turn it in at the Duke's Manor to get a reward".

It requires a bit of a sweet spot, where the local authorities care enough to pay/hire somebody to go fight on behalf of some random peasant farmers, and where this is a common enough occurrence that there is a system in place, but the local noble or whatever either doesn't care enough, or the situation isn't common enough, to justify having a standing force able to solve such problems faster/cheaper than seeing if there are any Heroic Mercenaries who happen to be in the area.

A less formal, but more sustainable system may have the "Wandering Hero" as a role in Society, with certain rules and rituals based around them. Formally recognized Wandering Heroes can show up at a noble's manor and expect to be fed and housed for a few days (The more Renowned the Hero, the longer they can mooch off a noble host), but in exchange they're expected to go deal with any problems they get pointed at. If no such problems arise, they're expected to move along, and only actually get Paid if they take care of some serious problem.

This ensures a flow of Heroes wandering the land seeking evil, who receive the support they need to travel and fight, but are still able to intervene even when there isn't much money in the work itself, since part of the Established Duties of the nobility is to, effectively, pay for the upkeep of any Adventurers who happen to be in the area. The Adventurers may be effectively working for tips (And battle-loot), since they're expected to intervene even without a promise of reward, but their basic cost-of-living is covered.

Of course, this only works so long as your Adventuring Bona-fides are up to date. Once Nobles feel comfortable slamming the door in your face without it hurting their social standing, you have to start paying for hotel rooms.

I could see it being highly ritualized, similar to Hospitality rules in a lot of cultures. An Adventurer arrives at your door, requests food and shelter for the night, and you're obligated to host them at least for a bit. Maybe the exact words they say to invoke the ritual lay out some very spartan minimums:
"Our blades and hearts are yours for but six feet of floor and a crust of bread", or something like that. You are supposed to go Do Any Rightous Violence That Needs Doing, otherwise you get branded a Coward and you lose your meal ticket. A noble who turns away Heroes in good standing loses social standing amongst their peers. Similar to how a lot of cultures treated giving elaborate gifts as a way to gain prestige, this one may have nobles or wealthy merchants raise their standing by hosting and rewarding Adventurers.

Sapphire Guard
2022-05-10, 06:17 PM
It depends on your setting, but if a D&D world frequently has problems where nests of monsters need to be cleared out of nearby caves/mountains/forests/abandoned buildings etc, there will very likely be a specialised profession to solve that problem, whether it existed historically or not. In a world where this happens, it is also not difficult to envisage groups of people being highly motivated to clear those nests for a wide variety of reasons.

Re the meta logic, if the adventurers don't know about XP, they also don't know 'I'm level 3, therefore I need to be paid this much gold', so they'll take whatever the going rate is, or else the local baron just hires someone cheaper instead.

A good chunk of the disconnect seems to be a metagaming issue. Historically, the conditions that make adventuring parties useful more seldom arise, but in gameworlds, they happen quite a bit. Judging ahistorical things by historical standards runs into problems, naturally.

Do we factor in the massive disproportionate combat power of the adventurers, or not?

Do we factor in the frequency of small groups of dangerous monster nests, or not?

And so on. How do these things affect our Baron/ess' logic?

Mechalich
2022-05-10, 06:23 PM
And I dislike the idea that "virtue is its own reward, so if you're a hero you can't also get (or be looking for) more mundane rewards". That unnecessarily narrows the scope of heroism. Now sure, a real hero will do things even when they're not getting paid, just because it's right. But "professional hero" is not, as I see it, an oxymoron. "Good" =/= self-abnegating with an ascetic lifestyle.

While forcing heroes to be ascetics is not necessary, heroism meshes poorly with the accumulation of excess wealth. Unless the world is utopian: total resources/total population = not enough for everyone to live comfortably. Therefore keeping more than you need to live comfortably means someone else does not have enough. There is a strong argument that accumulating resources beyond the needs of financial security cannot be good (again, unless there actually are sufficient resources, which in a fantasy world might be the case but this is not traditional).


In fact, I prefer stories where the good path is also (in the end) more successful (including financially and in terms of happiness) than the villain route. Where villains fail and (in part) defeat themselves, where evil does not prosper. In part because good people are there to prevent it, but also that evil is inherently self-destructive through blindness and infighting. Short-term, it's successful (if the good folks don't stop it). Long term, evil doesn't win because evil contravenes the proper order of nature. That's entirely my preference, but I don't think it's an unusual or an inherently self-contradictory one.

There is a wide zone, especially in business, between excessive ruthlessness that is self-destructive, and excessive generosity that inhibits growth. In D&D this is represented by neutrality and most business focused types end up with neutral alignments. Heroic adventurers may end up rich, but the truly wealthy will be the generational holders of power. In fact it is common in stories for heroic types who bridge the gap and acquire some position of sustained power - such as a noble title - to suddenly find themselves facing moral compromises.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-10, 06:45 PM
While forcing heroes to be ascetics is not necessary, heroism meshes poorly with the accumulation of excess wealth. Unless the world is utopian: total resources/total population = not enough for everyone to live comfortably. Therefore keeping more than you need to live comfortably means someone else does not have enough. There is a strong argument that accumulating resources beyond the needs of financial security cannot be good (again, unless there actually are sufficient resources, which in a fantasy world might be the case but this is not traditional).



There is a wide zone, especially in business, between excessive ruthlessness that is self-destructive, and excessive generosity that inhibits growth. In D&D this is represented by neutrality and most business focused types end up with neutral alignments. Heroic adventurers may end up rich, but the truly wealthy will be the generational holders of power. In fact it is common in stories for heroic types who bridge the gap and acquire some position of sustained power - such as a noble title - to suddenly find themselves facing moral compromises.

Yes, but there's a wide range of what heroic means. Heroic doesn't mean ascetic. And "excess wealth" is a very squishy concept. And moral systems disagree about whether you must give away everything above some "comfortable" level to be "good" (with just about every D&D system, to keep it away from real-world ethics disagreeing strongly). In D&D, being wealthy is not inherently morally questionable, even if not everyone is at that same level. Taking from others unethically is, but simply having wealth? No. That's not part of D&D ethics at all. Vows of Comfortable Wealth are not a requirement for goodness or heroism. You can have a pure-lawful Good Gold Dragon, in fact. Who has buckets of excess wealth just sitting there. Or a Temple of Helm with richly-appointed furnishings and beyond-comfortable priests.

Hero =/= "the most restrictive interpretation of the 3e paladin's code". There's a huge range there.

In fact, being heroic in a D&D context generally means:
1. Being willing to put yourself on the line for others' benefit. Doesn't mean you can't benefit, but you're taking the risk, rather than maneuvering someone else into taking the risk. And you're doing it out of a concern for others' welfare over your own.
2. Doing cool things and fighting evil (or even non-evil, as long as it's dangerous to others--you can be heroic for stopping or diverting a Modron March from a village, for instance)
3. Doing all of this while not trampling on other people or hurting them more than necessary[1], especially innocents.

[1] People will get hurt. D&D morality does not require non-violence (or even recommend it when facing truly evil beings). But a hero doesn't take risks with other people, especially involuntarily on their part, more than absolutely necessary and is willing to suffer extra personal risk to avoid risk to others.

Dimers
2022-05-10, 06:56 PM
I mean, HP damage also exists, and people generally don't like viewing HP as a measurable in-universe number (at least from what I've seen).

In 4e there's a rare item that lets you learn the exact HP remaining for a creature you hit. I had a lot of fun twisting the implications of that into an in-universe paradigm ... including the fact that the character could quantify her allies' max HP, if requested, but only by repeatedly smacking them. :smalltongue:

Tanarii
2022-05-10, 07:03 PM
Re the meta logic, if the adventurers don't know about XP, they also don't know 'I'm level 3, therefore I need to be paid this much gold', so they'll take whatever the going rate is, or else the local baron just hires someone cheaper instead.It doesn't really matter if the PCs know about the meta logic driving their actions, what matters is the players know. And they will make decisions accordingly, and "adventurers" in the world will behave in a certain observable way as a result. So it'll be known that e.g. adventurers will do stupendously dangerous/exciting/interesting things for little to no offered cash payment or reward. If there's possible loot to be had, all the better.


Do we factor in the massive disproportionate combat power of the adventurers, or not?Assuming they do in a given system, yes. That'd be observable and pretty well known.

Of course, if NPC adventurers don't exist or aren't very well known, because the PCs are either one of a kind or the system just doesn't result in something that vaguely resembles the D&D adventuring crew, it'd be a different matter.

Lord Raziere
2022-05-10, 07:20 PM
It doesn't really matter if the PCs know about the meta logic driving their actions, what matters is the players know. And they will make decisions accordingly, and "adventurers" in the world will behave in a certain observable way as a result. So it'll be known that e.g. adventurers will do stupendously dangerous/exciting/interesting things for little to no offered cash payment or reward. If there's possible loot to be had, all the better.


No. five specific adventurers will behave that way. those actions will not reflect or influence the actions of other adventurers. the players don't determine how the adventurer community acts as a whole, only them.

Stonehead
2022-05-10, 10:51 PM
It doesn't really matter if the PCs know about the meta logic driving their actions, what matters is the players know. And they will make decisions accordingly, and "adventurers" in the world will behave in a certain observable way as a result. So it'll be known that e.g. adventurers will do stupendously dangerous/exciting/interesting things for little to no offered cash payment or reward. If there's possible loot to be had, all the better.

Isn't making decisions as if you were a different person with different knowledge like, the definition of what "roleplaying" is? There are definitely groups that don't metagame that hard.

Bohandas
2022-05-10, 11:06 PM
The jump from a concept to the measure of that concept being perceptible in universe is what I'm objecting to. It's looking at a dagger and saying "That will deal between 1 and 4 points of hp damage", or looking at a group of goblins and saying "Killing those goblins will give me enough xp to advance a level", that would kinda ruin my immersion.

I agree for the most part, but would point out that it can theoretically be made to work even at this level of specificity.

For example, wasn't that basically the viklain's whole thing in the movie The One? Like he knew that he just had to kill one more alternate version of himself to attain godlike power

Yora
2022-05-10, 11:08 PM
It doesn't really matter if the PCs know about the meta logic driving their actions, what matters is the players know. And they will make decisions accordingly, and "adventurers" in the world will behave in a certain observable way as a result. So it'll be known that e.g. adventurers will do stupendously dangerous/exciting/interesting things for little to no offered cash payment or reward. If there's possible loot to be had, all the better.
That's how it works in practice, This is why people have been playing adventurer party RPGs for the last four decades, and these games selling very well.

Though in my opinion, that's simply ignoring the question of how the adventuring profession actually makes sense. When the question comes up, it's simply "Just play the game as it's meant to." And I would assume in most campaign, it never gets even asked by anyone. (Old Man Yelling At Clouds: Just look at fantasy anime these days!)

Most people just accept that it doesn't make sense, if they question it at all. And I wpuld guess most people who are bothered by it simply play other kinds of campaigns, with characters who are on one main quest with personal stakes, fighting for their own survival, or are just straight up mercenaries.

Tanarii
2022-05-11, 12:57 AM
Isn't making decisions as if you were a different person with different knowledge like, the definition of what "roleplaying" is? There are definitely groups that don't metagame that hard.
No, player -character separation is a myth, an attempting to force it is actively metagaming. Making decisions for the character in the fantasy environment is roleplaying, but it can't be done by ignoring player motivations unless you intentionally try to metagame to do it.

Certainly in-character motivations can be considered by a player against any other knowledge and given precedence if it conflicts, or find a compromise. For example, if your character is a mercenary who wants hard cash up front, you're likely to look for ways to get XP that also get hard cash up front first. But in the absence of that, or even when it's not a total conflict, player motivations will influence decision making for the character.


Though in my opinion, that's simply ignoring the question of how the adventuring profession actually makes sense. It probably doesn't. :smallamused:

Bohandas
2022-05-11, 02:01 AM
If XP it to serve as a motivator, that means people in the game are aware of what XP is and to some degree how it works and the world will reorient accordingly. In particular, groups will seek to control and secure XP sources for themselves, and also that society will restructure on personal power gradients. Works that explore this do exist, as in the case of various LitRPG novels and comics but it tends to get weird and also awfully dark- because you've created a world in which the path to superpowers is mass slaughter.

I had an idea for an adventure where the PCs are after a demon lord's treasure vault. After they fight their way through all the guards, the vault is empty except for a note from the demon lord informing them that the real treasure is the people they killed along the way (who incidentally provided exactly enough xp to bring the party to the next level)

Satinavian
2022-05-11, 05:24 AM
No, player -character separation is a mythWell, no.
The kind of game you describe does not match any one i have played in the last three decades.

Also most of them didn't even have something like an "adventuring profession" and those that did tried to rationalize it via worldbuilding (Shadowrunners in Shadowrun would be such an example).



Als i don't remember ever having had a game where XP were really a thing IG. And i would assume any setting that did this would instantly invent institutionalized powerlevelling and still not look like a traditional D&D experience.

Mechalich
2022-05-11, 05:50 AM
Als i don't remember ever having had a game where XP were really a thing IG. And i would assume any setting that did this would instantly invent institutionalized powerlevelling and still not look like a traditional D&D experience.

Settings of this kind are fairly common in Japanese and Korean media these days, and have penetrated the Anglophone market far enough to spawn the 'LitRPG' subgenre. Most of these stories don't do anything like world-build with the consequences of this change in mind (and often, such as in cases where the world is literally a game, have perfect justification not too) but a few take the idea forward at least a little. Competition for the right to earn XP, including things like control of dungeons, timed hunting limits, and so forth have emerged. Institutionalized power leveling (often for a price) is found in worlds of this kind that have party-sharing XP mechanisms. Similarly Wuxia cultivator stories, which embrace the sort of extreme zero-to-deity power scaling of D&D, are much more open than D&D about being fantasy superheroes and have their own special rules (ex. tiered realms) equivalent to comic book logic that allow their stories to function even as the setting backdrops, in the same way as Marvel, DC, and other comic book universes, make absolutely no sense.

Lord Raziere
2022-05-11, 06:06 AM
Settings of this kind are fairly common in Japanese and Korean media these days, and have penetrated the Anglophone market far enough to spawn the 'LitRPG' subgenre. Most of these stories don't do anything like world-build with the consequences of this change in mind (and often, such as in cases where the world is literally a game, have perfect justification not too) but a few take the idea forward at least a little. Competition for the right to earn XP, including things like control of dungeons, timed hunting limits, and so forth have emerged. Institutionalized power leveling (often for a price) is found in worlds of this kind that have party-sharing XP mechanisms.

Yeah but thats giving the Litrpg genre respect, and I personally think we should be above that. Like we shouldn't acknowledge litrpg as a thing, its bad. its taking fantasy and focusing on emphasizing the artificiality of the experience which is.....the opposite direction of what worldbuilding should be unless you want to do "postmodern glitch in the simulation/what do you do when reality itself is clearly fake" kind of stuff. like the best execution of the concept was Undertale, and Undertale's point was all about such a thing is horrible and leads to the creation of monsters who kill everyone to be strong jsut because they can. (or the opposite problem in Deltarune where because the plot is on rails, the few people who can see it being on rails and try to break away from it go insane because they can never succeed in going off rails)

Satinavian
2022-05-11, 06:43 AM
Settings of this kind are fairly common in Japanese and Korean media these days, and have penetrated the Anglophone market far enough to spawn the 'LitRPG' subgenre. Oh, i am aware.

But i have never played a real RPG campaign in such a setting. It is all just other media. I actually considered starting such a game myself, but surprisingly most systems would not work that well for it and more importantly, i would not find enough players for this. It takes a certain type of humor and mental adaptibility to play immersive in such a ridiculous setting.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-11, 07:06 AM
I had an idea for an adventure where the PCs are after a demon lord's treasure vault. After they fight their way through all the guards, the vault is empty except for a note from the demon lord informing them that the real treasure is the people they killed along the way (who incidentally provided exactly enough xp to bring the party to the next level) That's kind of cynical, isn't it? Or is the point of such an adventure to just be meta for the lulz? :smallconfused:

Similarly Wuxia cultivator stories, which embrace the sort of extreme zero-to-deity power scaling of D&D, are much more open than D&D about being fantasy superheroes and have their own special rules (ex. tiered realms) equivalent to comic book logic that allow their stories to function even as the setting backdrops, in the same way as Marvel, DC, and other comic book universes, make absolutely no sense. And yet are extremely popular as escapist fiction.

Yeah but thats giving the Litrpg genre respect, and I personally think we should be above that. Like we shouldn't acknowledge litrpg as a thing, its bad. This looks like a "badwrongfun" condemnation of a genre, but as I am not into litrpg, perhaps I am missing a deeper point. From one perspective, aren't all/most super hero stories shallow given the amount of "it doesn't make sense" factor smeared all over them?
(Isn't it kind of like Hunger Games or Tron? :smallconfused: )

Lord Raziere
2022-05-11, 07:20 AM
This looks like a "badwrongfun" condemnation of a genre, but as I am not into litrpg, perhaps I am missing a deeper point. From one perspective, aren't all/most super hero stories shallow given the amount of "it doesn't make sense" factor smeared all over them?

Yes you are missing the point, a lot. the problem isn't superhero stories being shallow.

the problem is emphasis on artificiality, numbers and making the world gamelike, instead of designing for naturalistic elements so that it makes sense as something that isn't an rpg game world. all litrpg do is focus on and emphasize the seams and screws of the house, putting magnifying glass on the floorboards are constructed rather than actually building the house well and decorating it so that its an actual nice house. its like a play focusing on backstage mechanics and explaining all the techniques of theater, or the magician doing a show where they focus on nothing but explaining their tricks, or a painting about explaining the mechanics of painting. its utterly pointless and missing the point of art and entertainment in general. badwrongfun would be a compliment compared to what its doing.

Mechalich
2022-05-11, 07:24 AM
And yet are extremely popular as escapist fiction.


This entire thread is premised on a verisimilitude-based question. If the answer to 'Why hire adventures?' is simply, 'because that's the game' or 'because of total BS reasons X, Y, and Z' that's perfectly fine. You can always discard verisimilitude, and in TTRPG gameplay the consequences for doing so are usually low, since immersion and emotional investment tend to also be low. However, in the case where that's the answer the discussion basically ends there. That's why in forum discussions on questions of this type the default assumption is that verisimilitude is important in this case.

Hjolnai
2022-05-11, 08:16 AM
I don't think this has come up yet, but in many cases the role of nobility is to lead - including in battle. More specifically, if I'm a landed knight with perhaps a dozen men-at-arms, or perhaps the baron above them, I can't send my troops to deal with a problem - I'm expected to go myself (or perhaps send my heir) to lead them. Whereas if I'm just tossing some coins to some disreputable mercenaries who are one missed meal (if that) from being bandits, I can continue overseeing my many other responsibilities. That seems like a much more attractive option than putting myself or my heir, who I probably love, to significant trouble and risk. On top of that, I probably care about the soldiers who I, personally, have trained and see every day, much more than I care about these unknowns.

A more powerful noble probably wouldn't have to go, but would still be asking a vassal - most likely a friend and often a relative - to do the same.

Tanarii
2022-05-11, 09:20 AM
Well, no.Yes.



The kind of game you describe does not match any one i have played in the last three decades.

Also most of them didn't even have something like an "adventuring profession" and those that did tried to rationalize it via worldbuilding (Shadowrunners in Shadowrun would be such an example).



Als i don't remember ever having had a game where XP were really a thing IG. And i would assume any setting that did this would instantly invent institutionalized powerlevelling and still not look like a traditional D&D experience.The kind of game I describe is pretty much the norm IMX. XP isn't really a thing in-universe. But it's an underlying player motivation, which because player-character separation is a myth and most folks don't try to metagame to actively pretend the separation is real, means it also becomes an underlying character motivation.

Edit: if you mean "adventuring profession" being an in-universe thing, agreed. That's a conceit of some specific games, and even some specific campaigns within those specific games. But for purposes of this thread's OP, and certainly for purposes of the threads title, it is something we can assume for discussion.

Personally I've primarily been thinking of FR Cormyr's officially registered adventuring companies. But shadowrunners we're pretty much my second thought, in terms of examples/basis for my comments. Difference is they explicitly work as mercenaries for hire.

GloatingSwine
2022-05-11, 10:11 AM
This looks like a "badwrongfun" condemnation of a genre, but as I am not into litrpg, perhaps I am missing a deeper point. From one perspective, aren't all/most super hero stories shallow given the amount of "it doesn't make sense" factor smeared all over them?
(Isn't it kind of like Hunger Games or Tron? :smallconfused: )

Most LitRPGs don't do anything with the game mechanical elements they introduce. They almost never tell a story that could only be told with those as part of the setting, they just spend a significant wordcount explaining gamelike mechanics which don't actually change the story in a meaningful way because the author was young and impressionable when they watched Sword Art Online.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-11, 10:15 AM
This entire thread is premised on a verisimilitude-based question. If the answer to 'Why hire adventures?' is simply, 'because that's the game' or 'because of total BS reasons X, Y, and Z' that's perfectly fine. You can always discard verisimilitude, and in TTRPG gameplay the consequences for doing so are usually low, since immersion and emotional investment tend to also be low. However, in the case where that's the answer the discussion basically ends there. That's why in forum discussions on questions of this type the default assumption is that verisimilitude is important in this case. Verisimilitude and immersion are similar in that they are not an off/on switch. There is a degree of depth to either. Why you feel that you need to explain verisimilitude to me is unclear.

Whereas if I'm just tossing some coins to some disreputable mercenaries who are one missed meal (if that) from being bandits, I can continue overseeing my many other responsibilities. That seems like a much more attractive option than putting myself or my heir, who I probably love, to significant trouble and risk. On top of that, I probably care about the soldiers who I, personally, have trained and see every day, much more than I care about these unknowns. And in some cases there may be local factors that will make it more attractive for strangers to be tasked rather than someone local who may be owed a favor or {something like scutage} for "doing this thing for my liege lord". This takes us back to "these adventurers are expendable" as a solid premise.

Most LitRPGs don't do anything with the game mechanical elements they introduce. They almost never tell a story that could only be told with those as part of the setting, they just spend a significant wordcount explaining gamelike mechanics which don't actually change the story in a meaningful way because the author was young and impressionable when they watched Sword Art Online. OK, I guess that I am glad that I gave it a miss. :smallcool:

Tanarii's point about XP being a player motivator (which is true) need not filter into the IC consideration of accepting or passing on a given mission. This is another point where milestone leveling has some advantages - XP itself no longer figures into player motivation, but rather a more setting based motivation may (and hopefully does) come into play.


badwrongfun would be a compliment compared to what its doing. heh, that made me chuckle.

GloatingSwine
2022-05-11, 10:27 AM
The wider point Tanarii is making though is that the player's motivations can never truly be 100% removed from the character's. Players can immerse themselves to a greater or lesser degree in their characters, but their own reality will always be part of what the character does. The foundational motivation for why Grug the Barbarian went on an adventure is that Jill the Student wanted to play a fantasy roleplaying game, everything else is built on top of that.

Now, to the original question of the thread there isn't a universal answer even within one setting, but if the GM has an answer for why this lord hired a band of adventurers instead of raising his own troops then they can use that in the adventure later.

Easy e
2022-05-11, 11:53 AM
Police and doctors don't wander the street asking around of anyone has paying work for them.

You can have heroic PCs, no issue at all with that. But those aren't wandering mercenaries looking to get rich.

Pretty sure in some less developed places and other time periods; that is exactly what happens. People with special skills roam around looking for people who need those skills at the moment. Wages aren't a thing everywhere and every time period.

Since D&D was supposed to take place on some "frontier" setting on the edge of civilization I can see the "wandering skill holders" premise holding up even better. There are no safety nets and no secure sources of income.

Yora
2022-05-11, 12:31 PM
Yes, firefighters showing up at a door saying "It appears your house is on fire, would you like to hire our services" did exist.

That's mercenaries. Not heroes.

Easy e
2022-05-11, 03:43 PM
Yes, firefighters showing up at a door saying "It appears your house is on fire, would you like to hire our services" did exist.

That's mercenaries. Not heroes.

Crassus was pretty famous for that!

I was thinking more of doctors, but entertainers would also fit the bill too.

Grim Portent
2022-05-11, 05:43 PM
Crassus was pretty famous for that!

I was thinking more of doctors, but entertainers would also fit the bill too.

Also tinkers and blacksmiths in some times and places, though they tended to wander through a few specific places rather than far and wide as I understand it.


My issue with the goblin raiders example presented is where are the goblins coming from? How are they in an area where they can even raid towns? Border settlements are generally fortified because cross border raiding is just part of ordinary life in a medieval context, and important roads are guarded by keeps and watchtowers and so on. If they're from inside the kingdom then why are villages in their vicinity not fortified, and why hasn't the kingdom put in the effort to wipe them out?

To me the line between them being more threatening than highwaymen and the barony deserving to fall because it hasn't rallied to stop them is very thin, to the point that if I found out that a Baron wasn't gathering his knights and men-at-arms to stop goblins from razing entire villages to the ground I'd be more concerned with getting rid of the Baron than the goblins. Hell, if the goblins are organised enough to ransack multiple villages in the time it takes the local knights to muster a force capable of stopping them I'd actually be in favour of putting the goblins in charge, they at least seem capable of military organisation.

Stonehead
2022-05-11, 09:33 PM
No, player -character separation is a myth, an attempting to force it is actively metagaming. Making decisions for the character in the fantasy environment is roleplaying, but it can't be done by ignoring player motivations unless you intentionally try to metagame to do it.

Certainly in-character motivations can be considered by a player against any other knowledge and given precedence if it conflicts, or find a compromise. For example, if your character is a mercenary who wants hard cash up front, you're likely to look for ways to get XP that also get hard cash up front first. But in the absence of that, or even when it's not a total conflict, player motivations will influence decision making for the character.

It probably doesn't. :smallamused:

I mean, after a quick google search I got

role-playing: [noun] an activity in which people do and say things while pretending to be someone else or while pretending to be in a particular situation.

Maybe that doesn't fit the experience of any of the games you've played in, I'm not going to tell you what you've experienced. But in exchange, you shouldn't tell us what we've experienced. I don't think most groups even track xp these days, at least, most of the one's I've seen haven't. It's a pretty hard argument to win telling other people they haven't done the things they have.

Once someone reaches the age where they have a theory of mind, it really isn't that hard to put themself in someone else's shoes.

RandomPeasant
2022-05-11, 10:32 PM
and have their own special rules (ex. tiered realms) equivalent to comic book logic that allow their stories to function even as the setting backdrops, in the same way as Marvel, DC, and other comic book universes, make absolutely no sense.

You mean like how D&D has special worlds that are full of hostile environments and powerful natives? The idea that it would make absolutely no sense for people to mostly ignore parts of the world that are incapable of producing anything they care about, either in terms of resources or threats, is frankly bizarre. That's exactly the way people behave historically!


My issue with the goblin raiders example presented is where are the goblins coming from? How are they in an area where they can even raid towns? Border settlements are generally fortified because cross border raiding is just part of ordinary life in a medieval context, and important roads are guarded by keeps and watchtowers and so on. If they're from inside the kingdom then why are villages in their vicinity not fortified, and why hasn't the kingdom put in the effort to wipe them out?

There's always going to be a point between "a threat is worth wiping out" and "that threat is actually wiped out", and a mechanism by which that threat gets wiped out. It's not really unreasonable for "adventurers" to fit in there, especially for things less mundane than "a tribe of goblins". If the problem is that a cult has set up shop in the woods outside town, it's pretty easy to understand why that won't necessarily correlate with existing borders. Nurgle (or Orcus or Ruin or Cthulhu or whoever goes around setting up cults in your world) doesn't have a material kingdom he sends out envoys from, he just shows up in people's dreams and tempts them with promises of power.

Grim Portent
2022-05-12, 11:32 AM
There's always going to be a point between "a threat is worth wiping out" and "that threat is actually wiped out", and a mechanism by which that threat gets wiped out. It's not really unreasonable for "adventurers" to fit in there, especially for things less mundane than "a tribe of goblins". If the problem is that a cult has set up shop in the woods outside town, it's pretty easy to understand why that won't necessarily correlate with existing borders. Nurgle (or Orcus or Ruin or Cthulhu or whoever goes around setting up cults in your world) doesn't have a material kingdom he sends out envoys from, he just shows up in people's dreams and tempts them with promises of power.

That's much more the sort of work that should be getting done by witch hunters, an inquisition or similar semi-centralised agency of government, not a bunch of random people who happen to face peril for pocket change.

The issue for me boils down to; if adventuring is common enough to be a profession as opposed to sellsword/mercenary/bounty hunter/bailiff/busybody, the land must be so riddled with problems it probably doesn't deserve to be saved even if it can be.

Theoboldi
2022-05-12, 02:16 PM
The issue for me boils down to; if adventuring is common enough to be a profession as opposed to sellsword/mercenary/bounty hunter/bailiff/busybody, the land must be so riddled with problems it probably doesn't deserve to be saved even if it can be.

But.....aren't all of those things literally professions? Rare professions for sure, yet they still exist even in a world without goblins.


Like, I'm not even sure what the argument is anymore. Just that they're too common? The lines drawn all strike me as somewhat arbitrary and too much based on a very specific experience of our own world. And heck, by what measure are they common? What setting are we talking about? Genericfantasyshire is so vaguely defined that we can only make assumptions.

Grim Portent
2022-05-12, 02:20 PM
But.....aren't all of those things literally professions? Rare professions for sure, yet they still exist even in a world without goblins.


Like, I'm not even sure what the argument is anymore. Just that they're too common? The lines drawn all strike me as somewhat arbitrary and too much based on a very specific experience of our own world.

That adventurer as a fantasy profession is too generic and overlaps with multiple jobs that should be part and parcel of any given society by one name or another. It's basically a goofy name for a collection of much more specific jobs, and those specific jobs by nature make adventurers redundant in all but the most ramshackle societies.

Theoboldi
2022-05-12, 02:26 PM
That adventurer as a fantasy profession is too generic and overlaps with multiple jobs that should be part and parcel of any given society by one name or another. It's basically a goofy name for a collection of much more specific jobs, and those specific jobs by nature make adventurers redundant in all but the most ramshackle societies.
Okay, but why? If its a collection of a bunch of more specific jobs, doesn't that just fix the issue? Usually a party of adventurers is a group of specialised individuals already that travels to explicitely find places where their skills are needed, usually in less settled parts of the world or where corruption and criminal activity are plentiful and the law is weak.

Or they're just groups of highly specialsed explorers delving into places outside of society to get rich. Seems to make sense to me in a setting that has such ruins.

BRC
2022-05-12, 02:28 PM
That adventurer as a fantasy profession is too generic and overlaps with multiple jobs that should be part and parcel of any given society by one name or another. It's basically a goofy name for a collection of much more specific jobs, and those specific jobs by nature make adventurers redundant in all but the most ramshackle societies.

Or, alternatively, "Adventurer" isn't a Job in itself, so much as a catch-all term for a bunch of different jobs with similar skillsets, and so people who drift between those jobs as employments warrent are "Adventurers".

Adventurers are Guards you hire to protect your caravan, they're Exterminators you hire to clear the ghouls out of the town crypt, they're Mercenaries you hire to fight off goblin raiders, they're Bounty Hunters, they sell all sorts of secondhand weapons and armor from enemies they kill, they sell wolf pelts and exotic treasures.

These jobs have overlapping skillsets, so why is it odd that a group of people with those skillsets might drift between these different jobs as needed?

icefractal
2022-05-12, 02:37 PM
IME, "mercenary adventurers who are recognized as such" and "campaign that covers a significant part of the level range" seldom go together.

There've been plenty of (usually shorter) games where we're hired / mercenaries, which usually don't involve changing level much - we've been everything from "disreputable vagabonds the baron offered a few coins to investigate the cursed ruin because we're disposable" to "elite agents personally sought out by a demon lord and offered unique payments to facilitate an Abyssal coup", but not in the same campaign.

Meanwhile there have been campaigns with a significant power curve over the course of play, but we weren't generally mercenaries in those, rather people who either have a genuine allegiance to a nation / organization, or who just get caught up in major events by being in the right place at the wrong time. And not people who were in-setting known as "adventurers".

So it avoids the issue that the way society relates to "skilled mercenaries, but nothing superhuman" is going to be substantially different than how they relate to "potential one-man army" types.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-12, 02:37 PM
Or, alternatively, "Adventurer" isn't a Job in itself, so much as a catch-all term for a bunch of different jobs with similar skillsets, and so people who drift between those jobs as employments warrent are "Adventurers".

Adventurers are Guards you hire to protect your caravan, they're Exterminators you hire to clear the ghouls out of the town crypt, they're Mercenaries you hire to fight off goblin raiders, they're Bounty Hunters, they sell all sorts of secondhand weapons and armor from enemies they kill, they sell wolf pelts and exotic treasures.

These jobs have overlapping skillsets, so why is it odd that a group of people with those skillsets might drift between these different jobs as needed?

Exactly this.

Grim Portent
2022-05-12, 02:51 PM
Okay, but why? If its a collection of a bunch of more specific jobs, doesn't that just fix the issue? Usually a party is a group of specialised individuals already that travels to explicitely find places where their skills are needed, usually in less settled parts of the world.

It being a collection of jobs is the issue, because all those other jobs still exist and are still being done by people, who are generally tied to locations or organisations. No one needs an 'adventurer' to hunt bandits, because that's the job of a sheriff, bailiff or bounty hunter. No one needs them to stop raiders because that's what militias, mercenaries, armies and men-at-arms are for. Cults/hostile religions get hunted down by priests, crusaders and inquisitions.

When you get out to the fringes of civilisation the people who live there don't need adventurers because they are already in a position to stop any threats, or they're dead. Or if they are somehow not dead yet while being too weak to protect themselves, they'll be dead soon enough after the adventurers move on.

Adventurer is in practice just a way of saying 'vagrant,' and we tend to handwave away the people who are actually supposed to be doing the job that we give the PCs to do, and it just results in a world made of tissue paper and blu-tac.

BRC
2022-05-12, 02:58 PM
It being a collection of jobs is the issue, because all those other jobs still exist and are still being done by people, who are generally tied to locations or organisations. No one needs an 'adventurer' to hunt bandits, because that's the job of a sheriff, bailiff or bounty hunter. No one needs them to stop raiders because that's what militias, mercenaries, armies and men-at-arms are for. Cults/hostile religions get hunted down by priests, crusaders and inquisitions.

When you get out to the fringes of civilisation the people who live there don't need adventurers because they are already in a position to stop any threats, or they're dead. Or if they are somehow not dead yet while being too weak to protect themselves, they'll be dead soon enough after the adventurers move on.

Adventurer is in practice just a way of saying 'vagrant,' and we tend to handwave away the people who are actually supposed to be doing the job that we give the PCs to do, and it just results in a world made of tissue paper and blu-tac.

I mean, as I see it, Adventurers are basically highly skilled migrant workers, who seek out places where the need for a service is more than the locals can handle.


Sheriff Bob and his deputies are responsible for dealing with local Bandits. That's fine, because most of the time the bandits are usually just a pair of thugs who decided to start holding up people on the road, and Bob can round up his deputies and his dogs and a few militiamen and overpower them pretty easily.

But this time, it's not just a few armed men looking for wine money, this time the bandits are a gang of Deserters from the King's army. There's about twelve of them, they're organized, and they're well armed.

So Bob hires some Adventurers. He doesn't normally need to deal with gangs of a dozen armed veterans, so he doesn't need a force capable of handling that regularly.


Also, Mercenaries, Bounty Hunters, ect, are just jobs an Adventurer can do. You don't need to be a full-time caravan guard to guard a caravan. Demand for violence-doing is not perfectly steady across everywhere, such that there are always some locals who can handle every problem.

Lord Raziere
2022-05-12, 03:08 PM
It being a collection of jobs is the issue, because all those other jobs still exist and are still being done by people, who are generally tied to locations or organisations. No one needs an 'adventurer' to hunt bandits, because that's the job of a sheriff, bailiff or bounty hunter. No one needs them to stop raiders because that's what militias, mercenaries, armies and men-at-arms are for. Cults/hostile religions get hunted down by priests, crusaders and inquisitions.

When you get out to the fringes of civilisation the people who live there don't need adventurers because they are already in a position to stop any threats, or they're dead. Or if they are somehow not dead yet while being too weak to protect themselves, they'll be dead soon enough after the adventurers move on.

Adventurer is in practice just a way of saying 'vagrant,' and we tend to handwave away the people who are actually supposed to be doing the job that we give the PCs to do, and it just results in a world made of tissue paper and blu-tac.

.....This is a baffling statement to make, as "bounty hunter", "mercenaries", "crusaders" "inquisitions" are synonyms for adventurer. crusaders have the perfect excuse to go ANYWHERE to fight ANYTHING as WH40k demonstrates (and crusaders won't be shy about looting stuff just because they're religious), Mercenaries have been used in this thread as an alternate term to refer to adventurer and there is nothing stopping a mercenary from just.....traveling around. bounty hunters are pursuing people for a bounty and thus might travel long ways as well. and inquisitions have been used by Dragon Age and Wh40k as people with the authority to investigate and explore whatever they want to fight things for the survival/betterment of the world.

this really just seems to be problem of inflexibly defining adventurer more than anything else.

Grim Portent
2022-05-12, 03:17 PM
I mean, as I see it, Adventurers are basically highly skilled migrant workers, who seek out places where the need for a service is more than the locals can handle.


Sheriff Bob and his deputies are responsible for dealing with local Bandits. That's fine, because most of the time the bandits are usually just a pair of thugs who decided to start holding up people on the road, and Bob can round up his deputies and his dogs and a few militiamen and overpower them pretty easily.

But this time, it's not just a few armed men looking for wine money, this time the bandits are a gang of Deserters from the King's army. There's about twelve of them, they're organized, and they're well armed.

So Bob hires some Adventurers. He doesn't normally need to deal with gangs of a dozen armed veterans, so he doesn't need a force capable of handling that regularly.


Also, Mercenaries, Bounty Hunters, ect, are just jobs an Adventurer can do. You don't need to be a full-time caravan guard to guard a caravan

Or Sheriff Bob could do what people normally did, rally a posse of locals, call on the neighbouring communities for help or bump the problem up to the local nobility or other higher level of government/law enforcement. Unless the land is wracked by plague, famine or civil war it should not take long to get a group together that can kill, capture or drive off the problem.

And mercenaries tended to be a near lifelong career, bouncing from war to war and either not working in between or becoming bandits for a while if they hadn't been paid properly. It's not the sort of thing where you fight for money only occasionally, you invest a lot of money in better equipment that allows you to charge more for your services, so time spent doing something else is time that doesn't justify your prior expenses. If adventurers are doing mercenary work they aren't adventurers, they're mercenaries. Though generally speaking mercenaries work in groups of more than four, so I'm not sure who would actually hire them.

Similarly caravan guards weren't actually a thing, travelling merchants either didn't need guards or were guarded by the local authorities in most places. It's the lord's job to maintain safe roads in their lands, it's not something to leave to private enterprise. Not to mention the general issues with letting landless and liegeless people wander around with military weapons and armour.

Theoboldi
2022-05-12, 03:19 PM
Yeah, this insistence that any group or society that can't overcome every problem on their own without hiring outside help is incompetent and will die soon anyways is pretty bizarre.

Others have made the rest of the points that I've wanted to make already, but this one I just find very strange. It's both such a common plot and a relatively regular occurance in real life that I just don't understand it as an argument. It's rarely even "hire adventurers or die" for the hirers, typically its just "hire adventurers or life is gonna suck".

Mike_G
2022-05-12, 03:20 PM
And the simple fact is that Adventurers did exist in our world at various times and places.

Maybe they went by Bounty Hunter or Explorer or they were scout an trappers and mountian men and filibusters and privateers, but they were people with Certain Set of Skills, working generally out on the fringes of "civilization" and doing jobs very much like hunting goblins.

But when you boil it down, they were people who hired out to do jobs that state actors like the army or navy or feudal levies or whatever either weren't available for or specialized to do or weren't seen as worth maintaining when they were only needed for a specific instance.

A government issuing letters of marque and reprisal to private aquatic murder hoboes to disrupt the shipping of an adversary in time of war is exactly a government (like Baron Whatshisname) hiring adventurers (but ones with a boat) to do military adjacent stuff that the regular navy was too busy or widely spread out to take care of.

So I cannot for the life of me see how any of this strains believability. History has shown us much weirder stuff.

Stonehead
2022-05-12, 03:21 PM
It being a collection of jobs is the issue, because all those other jobs still exist and are still being done by people, who are generally tied to locations or organisations. No one needs an 'adventurer' to hunt bandits, because that's the job of a sheriff, bailiff or bounty hunter. No one needs them to stop raiders because that's what militias, mercenaries, armies and men-at-arms are for. Cults/hostile religions get hunted down by priests, crusaders and inquisitions.

I don't really get the issue. Is there some problem with calling a bounty hunter "an adventurer"? Is there some problem with a sheriff being recruited by the local priests who are short on man power? People can do multiple things. Especially before the modern era where we get to be so hyper-specialized.



When you get out to the fringes of civilisation the people who live there don't need adventurers because they are already in a position to stop any threats, or they're dead. Or if they are somehow not dead yet while being too weak to protect
themselves, they'll be dead soon enough after the adventurers move on.


I don't think I've seen ever seen a civilization "in a position to stop any threats", especially on the outskirts of society. IRL, American cities in the west put bounties on wolves. It wasn't exclusively professional hunters who took those bounties. The British snake bounties in India are a super well-known example that clearly didn't go as planned, but it still illustrates that they weren't equipped to deal with a threat as mundane as snakes. The snakes weren't what led to the end of British rule in India though.

Historically, settlements into new territories didn't collapse immediately. I know some of the early attempts at settlements in America took a few years to collapse. In that time, they clearly weren't dead, and they clearly didn't have the power they needed to survive.



Adventurer is in practice just a way of saying 'vagrant,' and we tend to handwave away the people who are actually supposed to be doing the job that we give the PCs to do, and it just results in a world made of tissue paper and blu-tac.

My official job title is Software Engineer. I'm not a technical writer, but I write plenty of documentation when they're busy. I'm not a QA Engineer, but I write tests when they're busy. You could say "Software Engineer is actually a collection of other jobs like developer, technical writer, and QA." but that's not going to stop people from using the term, because it's a useful term.

Lord Raziere
2022-05-12, 03:28 PM
And mercenaries tended to be a near lifelong career, bouncing from war to war and either not working in between or becoming bandits for a while if they hadn't been paid properly. It's not the sort of thing where you fight for money only occasionally, you invest a lot of money in better equipment that allows you to charge more for your services, so time spent doing something else is time that doesn't justify your prior expenses. If adventurers are doing mercenary work they aren't adventurers, they're mercenaries. Though generally speaking mercenaries work in groups of more than four, so I'm not sure who would actually hire them.


Again you seem to overly focused on narrowly defining adventurer. adventurers can do more than mercenary work even if they can be mercenaries.

like they could do actual exploring for one: new continent gets discovered, adventurers are probably the exact kind of person you want to send to scout it out, as armies as generally expensive to transport across the sea and are generally made to defend the lands they come from. adventurers on the other hand, probably have the most experience with exploring the wilderness, fighting whatever new thing they run into, and adapting to whatever new town or civilization they find.

also a sheriff rallying the townsfolk to fight wights? or something like a flying dragon? them villagers are dead. you might have point when it comes to something like goblins, but DnD worlds are dangerous things and if its anything that has magic or requires better tactics than basically trying to mob them with normal weapons, they're doomed.

BRC
2022-05-12, 03:38 PM
Or Sheriff Bob could do what people normally did, rally a posse of locals, call on the neighbouring communities for help or bump the problem up to the local nobility or other higher level of government/law enforcement. Unless the land is wracked by plague, famine or civil war it should not take long to get a group together that can kill, capture or drive off the problem.

And mercenaries tended to be a near lifelong career, bouncing from war to war and either not working in between or becoming bandits for a while if they hadn't been paid properly. It's not the sort of thing where you fight for money only occasionally, you invest a lot of money in better equipment that allows you to charge more for your services, so time spent doing something else is time that doesn't justify your prior expenses. If adventurers are doing mercenary work they aren't adventurers, they're mercenaries. Though generally speaking mercenaries work in groups of more than four, so I'm not sure who would actually hire them.

Similarly caravan guards weren't actually a thing, travelling merchants either didn't need guards or were guarded by the local authorities in most places. It's the lord's job to maintain safe roads in their lands, it's not something to leave to private enterprise. Not to mention the general issues with letting landless and liegeless people wander around with military weapons and armour.

Oh sure, in reality. But realism is a dumb standard IMO.

Verisimilitude is where it's at.

For me "There are numerous issues that are best solved by Righteous Violence" and "There exists an industry of wandering Righteous Violence doers who can be hired to solve such problems" makes perfect sense. "Why are there Adventurers?" because these problems exist and people will pay you to take care of them. "Why has society not either collapsed due to these problems, or adapted systems to deal with them?" They did! The system is called Adventurers.

Is is the best system from a quality-of-life standpoint? Probably not. At best you've got a bunch of heavily armed and dangerous murderhobos running around looking for work, likely to turn to Banditry if they don't find anything.

Maybe there are parts of the world where these sorts of problems don't really exist, or where the local nobility and militias are strong enough to deal with these without seeking outside help. Adventurers don't go to such places. They go to the places where there is work to do and people who will pay them to do the work.


and sure, maybe Sheriff Bob will just round up a posse to swarm the deserters, a bunch of villagers will get seriously hurt or killed, but the problem will be solved.

But if there happened to be a bunch of experienced and well armed fighters in the area, wouldn't you try to reach out to them with some money before risking life and limb yourself?


The local Nobility should be taking care of these problems, but we can presuppose that they're not, and think of plenty of likely reasons why "Hire some random violent vagrants" is a better option than "Reach out to Baron Brad Von BlueBlood for help".

Grim Portent
2022-05-12, 04:01 PM
Yeah, this insistence that any group or society that can't overcome every problem on their own without hiring outside help is incompetent and will die soon anyways is pretty bizarre.

Others have made the rest of the points that I've wanted to make already, but this one I just find very strange. It's both such a common plot and a relatively regular occurance in real life that I just don't understand it as an argument. It's rarely even "hire adventurers or die" for the hirers, typically its just "hire adventurers or life is gonna suck".

The scenario posited in the op was villages being burned and people murdered, which is very much an outside intervention or die situation. It is also exactly the sort of situation where the local authorities should be able to deal with it before any itinerant mercenaries can even hear about it.


And the simple fact is that Adventurers did exist in our world at various times and places.

Maybe they went by Bounty Hunter or Explorer or they were scout an trappers and mountian men and filibusters and privateers, but they were people with Certain Set of Skills, working generally out on the fringes of "civilization" and doing jobs very much like hunting goblins.

But when you boil it down, they were people who hired out to do jobs that state actors like the army or navy or feudal levies or whatever either weren't available for or specialized to do or weren't seen as worth maintaining when they were only needed for a specific instance.

A government issuing letters of marque and reprisal to private aquatic murder hoboes to disrupt the shipping of an adversary in time of war is exactly a government (like Baron Whatshisname) hiring adventurers (but ones with a boat) to do military adjacent stuff that the regular navy was too busy or widely spread out to take care of.

So I cannot for the life of me see how any of this strains believability. History has shown us much weirder stuff.

The land based version of a privateer is a mercenary, not an adventurer, and adventurers as used in rpgs have basically nothing in common with privateers anyway. Nor do they usually have much in common with realistic bounty hunters, explorers or indeed any of the mentioned professions. As a group they tend to have such diverse skills that calling them by a collective noun doesn't even make sense.


I don't really get the issue. Is there some problem with calling a bounty hunter "an adventurer"? Is there some problem with a sheriff being recruited by the local priests who are short on man power? People can do multiple things. Especially before the modern era where we get to be so hyper-specialized.

I don't think I've seen ever seen a civilization "in a position to stop any threats", especially on the outskirts of society. IRL, American cities in the west put bounties on wolves. It wasn't exclusively professional hunters who took those bounties. The British snake bounties in India are a super well-known example that clearly didn't go as planned, but it still illustrates that they weren't equipped to deal with a threat as mundane as snakes. The snakes weren't what led to the end of British rule in India though.

Historically, settlements into new territories didn't collapse immediately. I know some of the early attempts at settlements in America took a few years to collapse. In that time, they clearly weren't dead, and they clearly didn't have the power they needed to survive.

My official job title is Software Engineer. I'm not a technical writer, but I write plenty of documentation when they're busy. I'm not a QA Engineer, but I write tests when they're busy. You could say "Software Engineer is actually a collection of other jobs like developer, technical writer, and QA." but that's not going to stop people from using the term, because it's a useful term.

I have a hard time imagining an inquisition hiring a sheriff, who already has a job with a wage, to help them. Or to be more precise, I can't imagine a sheriff (the medieval kind) keeping their position after doing so. Skipping work to do something else is fine when you're self employed or don't technically have a job, but when you're a bailiff or a knight or similar failing to perform your duties without a damn good reason is a big deal.

And while I'm not an expert on the issues Britain suffered in India, I'm pretty sure the snakes weren't actually a problem before the bounty, or at least not one that needed a bounty to try and solve it. Barring unusual circumstances like the Beast of Gevedaun or Paris in 1420, people who live in an area are usually able to deal with the animals that they live near, or they haven't have been living there for long.

As for settlements not dying immediately, I don't consider a settlement lasting ten years before dying instead of three a win, in the circumstances in which I'd find such a village I'd probably tell them to go back to a proper town and move on rather than enable their self destructive desire to strike out. In most contexts I might actually consider the settlement dying to be the win. There's very few situations I can think of where a bunch of people travelling beyond the nominal borders of their realm and building new settlements in lands already occupied is a good thing. In the OPs context of goblins, the idea is clearly that the goblins are attacking lands that have established human settlements, and which should be protected by the same infrastructure used to resist invasions or deal with rebellions or brigands, in a 'fringes of civilisation' context it basically means the villagers are encroaching on the goblins rather than the other way around, and in such a context the village is the bad guys.

Stonehead
2022-05-12, 04:56 PM
I have a hard time imagining an inquisition hiring a sheriff, who already has a job with a wage, to help them. Or to be more precise, I can't imagine a sheriff (the medieval kind) keeping their position after doing so. Skipping work to do something else is fine when you're self employed or don't technically have a job, but when you're a bailiff or a knight or similar failing to perform your duties without a damn good reason is a big deal.

And while I'm not an expert on the issues Britain suffered in India, I'm pretty sure the snakes weren't actually a problem before the bounty, or at least not one that needed a bounty to try and solve it. Barring unusual circumstances like the Beast of Gevedaun or Paris in 1420, people who live in an area are usually able to deal with the animals that they live near, or they haven't have been living there for long.

As for settlements not dying immediately, I don't consider a settlement lasting ten years before dying instead of three a win, in the circumstances in which I'd find such a village I'd probably tell them to go back to a proper town and move on rather than enable their self destructive desire to strike out. In most contexts I might actually consider the settlement dying to be the win. There's very few situations I can think of where a bunch of people travelling beyond the nominal borders of their realm and building new settlements in lands already occupied is a good thing. In the OPs context of goblins, the idea is clearly that the goblins are attacking lands that have established human settlements, and which should be protected by the same infrastructure used to resist invasions or deal with rebellions or brigands, in a 'fringes of civilisation' context it basically means the villagers are encroaching on the goblins rather than the other way around, and in such a context the village is the bad guys.

I mean, I'm not going to tell you what you find believable, but the historical precedent is there. Both for governments putting out bounties on problems they aren't equipped to solve (without the entire country collapsing), and for individuals doing whatever jobs needed doing, without settling on one trade skill. A knight who kills 10 goblins isn't "failing in his duties" just because there are 100 goblins this month. And it isn't blasphemous to temporarily hire some people to deal with the rush.

As for the goblins, I don't think your average medieval town was equipped to stop all of the bandits who harassed them. The fact that banditry was common in medieval Europe, (and consequently in DnD) kinda hints at the fact that they just didn't have the infrastructure to resist invasions or deal with brigands.

I think foxes in the American Southwest are a perfect analogy for goblins. The local governments tried really hard to drive them to extinction using whatever means necessary, because foxes kill livestock. They never succeeded though, because foxes adapted to live on the outskirts of the cities, and because they have some mechanism to reproduce more quickly if their numbers drop. This effort lasted quite a long time (around a century if I remember correctly). It mirrors how most fantasy settings treat goblins too, a pest that kills people and damages property, but is too persistent to wipe out completely.

Tanarii
2022-05-12, 06:47 PM
Once someone reaches the age where they have a theory of mind, it really isn't that hard to put themself in someone else's shoes.
Sure. But we can't also actually stop being ourselves to do it. We don't replace ourselves with the other person. We can't actually stop knowing what we know. At second best, we can't pretend we don't know something, which doesn't automatically result in the same choices as if we didn't actually know it. Who we are and what we know always influences our decisions, one way or another, even when we're pretending to be someone else.

On not using XP, totally agree if some other method is used to gain character power, that will instead have some level of influence on player decision making for their PCs.

Witty Username
2022-05-12, 11:56 PM
Instead of calling on your military resources, why not outsource it to these rowdy and dangerous looking strangers you have no reason to trust, and give them authority to kill things in your land?

Do they work for rice? and/or beer?

Bohandas
2022-05-13, 12:25 AM
I would point out that there have been various occurrences historically where governments or feudal lords have resorted to hiring not only mercenaries and bounty hunters, but also pirates (known as "privateers" in the context of working for a legitimate government), ninjas, and mob thugs. (unfortunately the forum rules prevent me from providing specifics, but if you do a bit of digging you'll find them)

Mechalich
2022-05-13, 01:07 AM
I would point out that there have been various occurrences historically where governments or feudal lords have resorted to hiring not only mercenaries and bounty hunters, but also pirates (known as "privateers" in the context of working for a legitimate government), ninjas, and mob thugs. (unfortunately the forum rules prevent me from providing specifics, but if you do a bit of digging you'll find them)

Plausible Deniability is certainly a reason not to use regular military forces. It's one of many. Ultimately it's all part of the same overarching framework. The question: why hire adventurers? includes the prefacing question: why aren't regularly military forces being used for this task? There are numerous possible answers to that question, some of which are more plausible than others depending on the specific circumstances of various cases. It is important, for world-building reasons, both that there be an answer, and that the implications of said answer be considered.

GloatingSwine
2022-05-13, 10:18 AM
Also the new lord of NextDoorShire is paranoid about you because of your relationship with his uncle who just tried to usurp him and will definitely notice if you muster troops and march towards his border.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-13, 02:42 PM
In the OPs context of goblins, the idea is clearly that the goblins are attacking lands that have established human settlements, and which should be protected by the same infrastructure used to resist invasions or deal with rebellions or brigands, in a 'fringes of civilisation' context it basically means the villagers are encroaching on the goblins rather than the other way around, and in such a context the village is the bad guys.
Nope. That village doesn't exist in a vacuum. Likely origin of it is a charter by a nearby lord who is trying to increase that amount of land under cultivation. That's how a lot of places grew: push back the edges of the wilderness and increase the amount of arable land under cultivation.

Do they work for rice? and/or beer? The Seven Samurai did (in Kurosawa's wonderful film)

Plausible Deniability is certainly a reason not to use regular military forces. It's one of many. Regular military forces in feudal/medieval period is a bit of a backward pushed anachronism: the 'regular' were available usually for about 40 days per year. It's a limited resource, not the always on regulars that we see in 20th and 21st century nation states.
Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility This is related to my point above.

Also the new lord of NextDoorShire is paranoid about you because of your relationship with his uncle who just tried to usurp him and will definitely notice if you muster troops and march towards his border. Yeah, the politics of it is another wrinkle that may call for
"... get me these temps to do this thing for me - Castellan, just how much does this Eau Noir group charge for such services, anyway? Let's make a deal that allows for some deferred compensation...summon them to my chambers as soon as you can track them down..."

Witty Username
2022-05-13, 09:55 PM
Regular military forces in feudal/medieval period is a bit of a backward pushed anachronism: the 'regular' were available usually for about 40 days per year. It's a limited resource, not the always on regulars that we see in 20th and 21st century nation states. This is related to my point above.

Adding to this, if this is a local lord like the prompt suggests, the regular forces might be as many as 20. Usually enough to loosely police ones holdings and keep your tax collectors safe. A proper warband would nessitate outside help, either from neighboring lords, mercenaries, or pesant conscripts. All assuming the local lord hasn't been called to respond to a war of some sort (send all your knights 6 to 8 months away for a few years, and get back maybe half of them).
In the mind of the lord, hiring adventurers could be a matter of buying time for their allies to muster, to their only viable option depending on their surrounding circumstances and obligations.

CapnWildefyr
2022-05-14, 08:41 AM
Adding to this, if this is a local lord like the prompt suggests, the regular forces might be as many as 20. Usually enough to loosely police ones holdings and keep your tax collectors safe. A proper warband would nessitate outside help, either from neighboring lords, mercenaries, or pesant conscripts. All assuming the local lord hasn't been called to respond to a war of some sort (send all your knights 6 to 8 months away for a few years, and get back maybe half of them).
In the mind of the lord, hiring adventurers could be a matter of buying time for their allies to muster, to their only viable option depending on their surrounding circumstances and obligations.

Adding to this, most people in feudal societies spent most of their time making food. If you have already lost some villages, and since agriculture is so manpower intensive, how many more people can you afford to lose? Whereas adventurers are a compact powerhouse. 5 or 6 people who can punch way above their apparent weight class. (Compared to non-leveled folk)

Also your ready troops are constables and your personal guard--not likely to be useful here.

Finally if the threat already took out standard troops (villages), why would sending more of the same help? Youd be better off sending 1-2 scouts, or adventurers, to find out more info before doing anything more.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-14, 08:57 AM
Finally if the threat already took out standard troops (villages), why would sending more of the same help? Youd be better off sending 1-2 scouts, or adventurers, to find out more info before doing anything more. This is an element in a lot of D&D (and D&D like) modules: you hear of Problem X and your party goes out there and discovers that what seemed to be problem X is actually problem Y, Z, or Ɵ. :smalleek: (Secret of Salt Marsh being but one case of this).

The way I ran Forge of Fury a while back for our group was that the initial reports of orcs raiding from the stone tooth was tied into a nasty little deception going on by the Succubus/Incubus near the end of the module.
She had been traveling back and forth to the local village (using the ethereal plane) and appearing as a male dwarf (mostly humans and dwarfs in the mountain village) trying to talk folks into creating half dwarf (half elf analogue) to better unify their peoples. She/he was also the (male) dwarf who planted the "there's this loot deep in the caverns" idea in the PCs heads.
The succubus had convinced the local life cleric (Priest(ess) NPC) that this was a great idea, and two acyolyte NPCs were pregnant with the first two successful "dwarf human" - kids to soon be born (except they were actually little fiends gestating in the womb of the two acolytes).
Succubus had also made a deal with the young black dragon at the deepest cavern: they had a certain detente as long as succubus lured occasional food and loot (adventurers) into the caverns. That twist informed what the party had to deal with once they came out of the caverns after taking on the duergar and such...made for an interesting epilogue after they'd figured out how to defeat the dragon

Bohandas
2022-05-14, 10:13 AM
I'm not sure if this angle has been covered yet, but whatever problem is at hand might be one that's clearly going to require magic, and you can't get magic by conscripting pesants. So if whatever specialist they usually keep on hand is occupied, or if it's a minor lord or minor government that can't afford to keep someone on retainer at all, then they're going to have to go out and hire someone.

Tanarii
2022-05-14, 11:14 AM
I'm not sure if this angle has been covered yet, but whatever problem is at hand might be one that's clearly going to require magic, and you can't get magic by conscripting pesants. So if whatever specialist they usually keep on hand is occupied, or if it's a minor lord or minor government that can't afford to keep someone on retainer at all, then they're going to have to go out and hire someone.
What if the system being used is one where magic is pretty weak, or dangerous, even very likely to be eventually fatal to the user?

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-14, 12:19 PM
What if the system being used is one where magic is pretty weak, or dangerous, even very likely to be eventually fatal to the user? Adventurers are expendable, so I am not sure the lord/earl will see that as a problem. :smallwink:

Tanarii
2022-05-14, 01:00 PM
Adventurers are expendable, so I am not sure the lord/earl will see that as a problem. :smallwink:Sure. I guess the part I'm questioning is that magic is required to solve the problem. In a system where magic is either weak or not common due to danger, that might not be the case.

Adventurers in such a system might have non-magic capabilities that make them uniquely qualified for the job.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-16, 10:46 AM
Sure. I guess the part I'm questioning is that magic is required to solve the problem. In a system where magic is either weak or not common due to danger, that might not be the case.

Adventurers in such a system might have non-magic capabilities that make them uniquely qualified for the job. My brain just went to A Song of Ice and Fire RPG from a few years back, which we never got to play because of RL dropping a turd into our gaming punch bowl ... :smallfurious: Part of the appeal of that game was it's "low magic" baseline.

Jay R
2022-05-16, 05:38 PM
When English children during World War 2 were sent to the country, most of them just played in the country. Only four of them went to Narnia through a wardrobe. That’s a very improbable result – but those are the four that the book is about.

Most hobbits did the normal hobbit-like action of staying home, growing food, eating six meals a day. Only Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin went to the Great War. But those four are the ones Tolkien wrote about.

Most Kryptonians stayed on Krypton and died when it blew up. Only one (or two) were sent to Earth to become superheroes. No matter how unlikely that result is, it’s the reason we have any stories about Kryptonians at all.

Similarly, PCs in my game are all adventurers, and they are the ones I'm designing scenarios for.

If 9,999 rulers don't hire adventurers, and one ruler does, then that's the only ruler whose actions I'm tracking carefully.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-16, 05:53 PM
When English children during World War 2 were sent to the country, most of them just played in the country. Only four of them went to Narnia through a wardrobe. That’s a very improbable result – but those are the four that the book is about.

Most hobbits did the normal hobbit-like action of staying home, growing food, eating six meals a day. Only Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin went to the Great War. But those four are the ones Tolkien wrote about.

Most Kryptonians stayed on Krypton and died when it blew up. Only one (or two) were sent to Earth to become superheroes. No matter how unlikely that result is, it’s the reason we have any stories about Kryptonians at all.

Similarly, PCs in my game are all adventurers, and they are the ones I'm designing scenarios for.

If 9,999 rulers don't hire adventurers, and one ruler does, then that's the only ruler whose actions I'm tracking carefully.

That's the same way I feel about "PCs shouldn't be special because they're PCs." No, they're not special (in universe) because (out of the universe) they're PCs. But they're PCs because they're special. If they weren't, we'd be following and looking at people who were special. Or in special, pivotal circumstances.

For me, there's buckets of "adventurers" out there. The vast majority are little more than bandits or straight-up mercenaries, hired to do mercenary types of things. In mercenary types of numbers and organizations (except there isn't much war right now in the main setting, so it's more conquistador "break ground in the unknown" type. Some specialize in monster hunting. Other groups in mediating political issues. Others in weapons research (as testers, mostly, as the developers stay in their labs where it's even more dangerous). Others focus on finding and protecting (or robbing) ancient "dungeons" (a thing which doesn't exist much in the real world, but is common in mine for various metaphysical and historical reasons). But in general, they're weak, bounded in power, and don't live long and healthy lives. The PCs are among the special group whose power growth isn't clearly bounded. They can grow explosively, while most have hit their "soft cap" by early adulthood. And PCs are catalysts, because we follow the people who are in positions where things are nicely balanced and all it takes is a small act to start a cascade.

VonKaiserstein
2022-05-16, 06:13 PM
From a cynical, ruler standpoint, you hire an adventurer because they work on commission. And they are tremendously expendable. If they kill the threat, great! Mission accomplished, cost acceptable to the kingdom, on your way.

If they don't, ah well, threat reduced, no expenses incurred, and put the wanted sign back in the window.

You are in a no lose situation.

Florida does the same thing with invasive species bounties- they'll pay you for killing pythons, or lionfish. Why? Because it removes a pest, and it's a sight cheaper than paying their professionals to remove them safely. You've got to worry about equipment and medical expenses if it's your employees getting hurt on the job- but just pay for the kills if it's a bounty. And if some fools take up the task, go into the Everglades get drunk and don't find anything? Well, they've got a lovely story, Florida pays nothing, and that's that.

Berenger
2022-05-16, 07:05 PM
Florida does the same thing with invasive species bounties- they'll pay you for killing pythons, or lionfish.

What could go wrong?

Jay R
2022-05-16, 09:03 PM
One other consideration:

What is an adventurer? It's somebody who is on an adventure.

Whether they were adventurers yesterday or not doesn't matter. Today, when they try to stop the goblin raids, or escort the princess to the capital, or kill the mad lich, then they have become adventurers.

Maybe he's just an archaeology or history professor. But when he goes on an adventure to find the Holy Grail, then he has become an adventurer.

Maybe he's a smuggler, or a hermit in a cave, or a moisture farmer. But when he goes on an adventure to blow up the death star, then he has become an adventurer.

Maybe she's just a thirteen-year-old girl. But when she travels around the universe by tesseract to save her father (and eventually her rother) from IT, then she has become an adventurer.

Maybe they are just four soldiers off duty in Paris. But when they ride off to London to get the Queen's diamonds back, then they have become adventurers.

Whoever you hire to go on the adventure, they are now adventurers.