How do you feel about adventurer guilds?

[Drakeburn]

Basically a type of business where you have clients pay you to rescue the princess, slay the dragon, foil the evil wizard's plot, etc. Like The Companions in Skyrim, the main characters in the first Crystal Story game, the two main characters in the Magiswords cartoon series, Acqusitions Incorporated, and the list goes on and on.

I've thought about running a game for my sister and her friends where they are in their own adventuring guild, and are approached to do all kinds of quests.

So, what are your thoughts and opinions in the idea of an "adventurers for hire" type of guild?

[Vitruviansquid]

The idea of having a centralized location where you could go to find "adventurers" is not itself a bad thing.

Clients need to be able to find adventurers, and know that the adventurers they find are qualified for the job.

Adventurers need things like protection, a way to build their reputation, probably things like insurance.

However, I also think the word "guild" is overused to describe almost any professional organization in a medievalish setting. I would simply not call it a guild unless it did other guildlike things.

[Cazero]

However, I also think the word "guild" is overused to describe almost any professional organization in a medievalish setting. I would simply not call it a guild unless it did other guildlike things.

I just realised that I have no darn clue what those "other guildlike things" may be, and that make me sad.

[Berenger]

I just realised that I have no darn clue what those "other guildlike things" may be, and that make me sad.

Why don't you read Wiki for basic information and come back when you have specific questions?

[Millstone85]

For an "adventurer guild" to exist, you must first have a setting where adventuring parties are a thing.

Yes good sirs, and ma'am, there be a dungeon near our town, and we often see yer type. A few return, most don't, but the place ain't fully explored.

It is kind of silly, but not necessarily in a bad way.

[Cazero]

Why don't you read Wiki for basic information and come back when you have specific questions?

Because goading random strangers on the internet into educating me (for free!) is funnier.
Also I'm lazy.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Because goading random strangers on the internet into educating me (for free!) is funnier.
Also I'm lazy.

Very, very roughly; it's a cross between a trade union and a mafia that is -usually- sanctioned by the government in control of its area of operation. Unlike trade unions, however, their primary concern is not so much fair treatment for its members by the law (though there can be -some- work in that area) so much as working to advance the guild's interests against competitors and to control the market that its members operate within its area of operation.

@OP

Other than calling it an "adventurer's guild" being a bit on the nose, it's a fine idea. More euphamistically, you could call it something like an explorers' guild, a finders' guild, a fixers' guild (as in; fixing problems), or something like that.

[Honest Tiefling]

Not terribly fond of them. The terms "Adventurers" and the like seems very meta to me, and usually just means anyone with class levels, which gets really distracting. If you are going to do this, have the term MEAN something other than that. Doesn't help that 'adventurer' seems to also be another term for 'grave robber' so why anyone would make a guild of them is beyond me.

I much prefer things like a mercenary band or a league of explorers, because it feels like it has a meaning in the world more often. Not to say you can't make a setting where 'adventuring' is a thing, just...Be aware that for many people, it might be a hard sell due to associations.

Personally, I feel that varied mercenary groups gets the job done just fine, much like the Companions of Skyrim. You could even get a lot of mileage out of competition between the groups.

[Drakeburn]

Personally, I agree that "adventurers guild" is a bit of an iffy way to describe it. Though what the PCs are going to refer to their "company" as is up to them.

The idea of the PCs having their own mercenary business has several advantages, such as explaining the absences of party members ("I think he's busy with another job") and having new players joining in the game ("We just hired a new employee today").

Also, this premise works really well for a "Dungeon of the Week" type of game.

[Clistenes]

Not terribly fond of them. The terms "Adventurers" and the like seems very meta to me, and usually just means anyone with class levels, which gets really distracting. If you are going to do this, have the term MEAN something other than that. Doesn't help that 'adventurer' seems to also be another term for 'grave robber' so why anyone would make a guild of them is beyond me.

I much prefer things like a mercenary band or a league of explorers, because it feels like it has a meaning in the world more often. Not to say you can't make a setting where 'adventuring' is a thing, just...Be aware that for many people, it might be a hard sell due to associations.

Personally, I feel that varied mercenary groups gets the job done just fine, much like the Companions of Skyrim. You could even get a lot of mileage out of competition between the groups.

This. I think your typical adventuring party should be the exception, not the rule. The PCs are special, a rarity.

Also, stuff like dungeon exploring and dragons slaying should be rare enough as to not merit the creation of a profession dedicated to it. If you have people making a regular job out of exploring dungeons and rescuing princesses, you are close to entering parody territory.

I mean, look at the LOTR. Even Gandalf hesitated before entering Moria. Balin's group was slaughtered down there. There is no guy badass enough to make a profession out of cleaning places like Moria, and if said guy existed, he could probably make a better use of his skills building an empire.

Or look at Smaug. Thorin didn't just hire a professional dragon slayer to get rid of him, because being a professional dragon killer would be like being a professinal suicide. Hell, nobody dared try to off Smaug and take his stuff for almost two centuries, despite Smaug literally lying on top of a mountain of gold... And when Bard DID kill Smaug, they made him king.

[Drakeburn]

This. I think your typical adventuring party should be the exception, not the rule. The PCs are special, a rarity.

Also, stuff like dungeon exploring and dragons slaying should be rare enough as to not merit the creation of a profession dedicated to it. If you have people making a regular job out of exploring dungeons and rescuing princesses, you are close to entering parody territory.

I mean, look at the LOTR. Even Gandalf hesitated before entering Moria. Balin's group was slaughtered down there. There is no guy badass enough to make a profession out of cleaning places like Moria, and if said guy existed, he could probably make a better use of his skills building an empire.

Or look at Smaug. Thorin didn't just hire a professional dragon slayer to get rid of him, because being a professional dragon killer would be like being a professinal suicide. Hell, nobody dared try to off Smaug and take his stuff for almost two centuries, despite Smaug literally lying on top of a mountain of gold... And when Bard DID kill Smaug, they made him king.

The funny thing here is that we're talking about role playing games here!

How many times do Player Characters get asked to go on some quest in exchange for payment in gold?
So it wouldn't be too bizarre if the Player Characters capitalized on the idea.

But it certainly beats beginning a game with "you're all in a tavern."

[Honest Tiefling]

The funny thing here is that we're talking about role playing games here!

LOTR might as well be the grandfather of DnD...Which certainly inspired other games. So LOTR isn't a bad example, given the roots of the game.

How many times do Player Characters get asked to go on some quest in exchange for payment in gold?
So it wouldn't be too bizarre if the Player Characters capitalized on the idea.

Essentially...Yes. Yes, it would be super weird if people kept referring to a group of highly trained bards, spies, guards, priests, mages and worshipers of nature as adventurers, but not OTHER bards, spies, guards, priests, mages and worshipers of nature. Define for us what an 'adventurer' is in your world.

And how many dragons or other high level threats are in your world where going down to the guild to get the infestation sorted out like they are some sort of glorified rat catchers? Oh darn, Varnifexxil the Red has settled into the old ruins again, second time this year. Get some adventurers to shoo him out, now!

[Slipperychicken]

I dislike adventurer-guilds because they encourage lazy writing and cheapen adventure. Adventure is supposed to be unusual and exciting, taking people out of their comfort zones and into worlds of uncertainty and danger. It's not a 9-5 job that happens to involve steel outfits and cave-dwelling monsters. Adventuring guilds are also quite ridiculous in concept, and often require the entire setting to bend over backwards just to support the basic premises that would allow such an institution to exist.

If you want an organization to prompt the PCs into embarking on an adventure, then my advice is to use one that makes sense to exist outside the context of adventure. Those could include all kinds of things, from the court of a powerful leader, a village council, the leaders of a warband, the usual religious figures, a specialized mercenary group, someone's family, and so on. There are many options that can add to interesting stories while building a coherent world instead of detracting from it.

[Shoreward]

I think it depends on both the tone of the work and the way such a guild is presented. I tend to be leery of the word "guild" on principle, despite having what are ostensibly guilds in my own comic's setting, because it brings to mind images of things like Albion's Heroes' Guild in Fable.

In any case, a genuine Adventurer's Guild implies a few things about a world; "Adventuring" as a profession, and a high enough frequency of incidents to require a sophisticated level of organisation. This might just be me, but that second one implies more about the world than the first. Mercenaries and freelance knights or ronin existed in the real world at various times - usually following a war - but a dedicated guild to house adventurers implies a world on par with Borderlands' Pandora, or worse, Australia. It's a nightmare realm in which anyone trying to be a farmer will be menaced by at least four roaming monsters, three warbands, and a dragon by the time they hit adulthood.

Anything less than constant unstoppable threat and you'd have a whole syndicate of bored, trained, armed, and dangerous humanoids itching to use their cool new abilities on something vaguely peasant-shaped. Not to mention that there would hardly be any reason for low-level threats or un-looted dungeons to exist anymore besides high-level members allowing them to.

This is why tone matters. A world which is barely able to function without adventurers on constant watch is either a parody, a deathworld, or both. Any less-threatened setting in which there are many high-level adventurers around refusing to deal with the local goblins is either a parody, filled with jerks, or both. If one of those is what you're going for, then by all means! Just be aware of what you're doing so you can do it well.

Bottom Line: An Adventurer's Guild is a lot like the Justice League. It works best in a world where there are both a lot of superheroes and a lot of supervillains/world-ending threats. A world like that is necessarily under near-constant high-level threat, which is what enables low-level supers to keep doing their thing while the higher-level folks are distracted with K'Qortha the Invincible Demon of Outer Mars' fifth attempt to turn the world into a snowglobe.

Edit: An aside: Having a single Adventuring Guild as opposed to a widespread one in the manner of a trade guild is less silly, since that would be more about one character's attempt to start one up than about syndicated monster slaying.

[Pauly]

I agree about the use of the term 'guild' being kind of lazy.

Real world based examples.
Bounties - offered for eliminating pest animals by local councils.
Bounty hunters/bondsmen. Tracking down criminals or debtors sanctioned by the central state. Usually capture and retrieve, but in old days they had the 'dead or alive' wanted posters.
Insurance investigators/private investigators. Paid by private companies or individuals. Usually involves information gathering.
Murde Inc. - organized crime paying bounties for the elimination of criminals (usually) or law abiding citizrns who are interfering with criminal activity.

So you see that there isn't a single central "adventurers guild" one stop shop. However there are multiple avenues open to create a centralized agency, or guild if you like, that co-ordinates adventure for hire plot lines for a specific type of activity. The place where you get the 'find my missing daughter' quest will be a different place than the 'kill those pesky trolls in the west pass' quest.

Edit. To the OP. What this suggests is that instead of The customers coming to them, they are a band of contractors trying to find jobs. Think more Cowboy Bebop and less Sam Spade.

Also, you could also think of adding a Roman style legal system. The prosecution of crimes, and defending of them, in the courts was done by private citizens. Which opens up not just adventure for hire, but political intrigue opportunities.

[Martin Greywolf]

1) Historical guilds

If you want to call your group a guild and there's no law from stopping you (usually not), and no other people to stop you (eh, 50:50 chance), then you're a guild. Middle ages tend to be cute like that. The guilds we know about (rich enough to keep written records, important enough to have the records kept and/or be mentioned in other sources) tended to be big organizations, usually monopolizing a trade in at least a major city.

Not all of the were called guilds - as an example: the organization responsible for mining most of Europe's copper during late medieval period was called Der neusohler Kupferhandel - The new copper trade, though you'll often find it referred to as Thurzo-Fugger mining company, after the two noble families controlling it.

Long story short, there was utter chaos and everything was on case by case basis, any sweeping statements will be incorrect, etc etc. Welcome to the middle ages.

2) Adventurers and guilds

Well, why not. They will probably not be called that, though, since your clients don't want you to go on an adventure, they want specific services. What you have at this point is a mercenary company that hires out small groups of specialists.

What they will be called depends on the setting - if we have wilderness, then we can have Explorers' or Rangers' guild, when running a city full of intrigue and politics, you get law firm that is also a cover for... more proactive activities, etc etc.

Playing Adventurers' guild straight pretty much requires either a comedy-based world or some heavy-duty lampshades.

[Pugwampy]

So, what are your thoughts and opinions in the idea of an "adventurers for hire" type of guild?

It kinda takes the fun out of looking for jobs or sitting on the road corner with a placard saying "will kill Dire weasels and drop pants for food" . Assuming you have a nice easy going DM , not joining a guild gives you a good amount of freedom to do as you like and go where you please .

If you gonna join an adventurers guild , sure you get , protection bed and breakfast and job opportunities but probably have to pay rent . Taverns do exactly the same thing .

If this is about not thinking too hard and being directed to your next task , I would think joining an army is more fun . You get to rank up and stuff.

Then there is the rival adventure parties who steal your jobs and clean out your dungeons . Theoretically an established guild means all those virgin dungeons nearby are looted already.

Then there is the probably being forced to wear some sort of guild symbol on your clothing . you join a group you wear their mark

[Stan]

An adventurer's guild or something similar is a fine idea. Unless your setting is supposed to be historical, don't worry about historical precedent. Besides, not all games are about detailing the macroeconomic details of a fictional world. Sometimes, you just want enough setting to set up the next adventure.

It's been a while, but I think Rat Queens has official adventurers and some higher organization. Or, there might a Dangerous Jobs Agency - people make requests and people willing to take big risks for high pay go there to find work. The agency takes a cut, makes sure taxes are paid, the requester has rights to treasures, etc.

One use for this setup is to present the stem of multiple adventures to the group and let them decide what kind of adventure they want next. It probably works best is an advanced points of light setting, where there are areas doing well and people who have money and/or claims to merit hiring someone, and there are dangerous areas. You could be near a frontier, a century after an apocalyptic event where old treasures are getting reclaimed, or have monsters coming into civilized areas and making a mess.

[Grim Portent]

Depends on how much they resemble a less formal mercenary company really, the closer the resemblence the better.

I see adventurer's guilds as basically an assemblage of people who do odd jobs involving violence and have a loose but established heirarchy, primarily invoked during wars. A thousand or so soldiers of various kinds who live and operate in and around a large city, usually in a contested region or merchant city. Outside genuine military action they'd still get small jobs because they're a known source of people who know how to murder other people.

During war time the whole guild would go fight for the highest bidder, or the highest bidder they thought wouldn't get them massacred, and get paid a share of the guild's commission and whatever they can loot from the battlefields and any conquered towns. Political allegiance would be minimal, as would moral qualms about which side to pick, you don't join a guild to help people, you do it to get paid.

During peace time jobs would be a first to complete gets the money affair, or would be handed out to specific members. Usually they would be simple things like hunting down outlaws or guarding things, the odd paid murder and a little light banditry of their own. Stuff you don't send hundreds of men to do, but that people will still pay for and can't necessarily rely on their own thugs to do.

The guild would probably occasionally ship off a big chunk of it's members to fight in wars further afield, but in such a case getting them to come back rather than just join/start a mercenary company out there would be difficult.

Retirement would be common after just a few well paid fights. If you manage to loot enough jewlery or take a noble prisoner to ransom you'd pay off your fees and settle down to live like a minor merchant prince, not taking up the sword again unless you got very bored or needed more money badly.



If it's less like the above and more like 50 or so armed men operating out of some lavish manor inexplicably found in a town in the middle of nowhere that is content to hunt giant rats and goblins for farmers who can somehow pay them enough gold to sustain a fighting force and their gear, then it really taxes my suspension of disbelief.

[LibraryOgre]

One might exist as essentially a Mercenaries' Guild, given the more friendly name of Adventurer's Guild.

The Guild might serve as a clearinghouse for various jobs, but could also offer a degree of assurance for their employees and employers... a bond against unnecessary damage, ensuring a proper contract, and vetting the experience of any adventurers hired, as well as the reliability of employers.

Such an operation would be a great front for an organization of spies or assassins, as well. Sure, they hire out bullyboys to beat up goblins, but those bullyboys filter information back to the guild, and, if you know the right passwords, you can hire someone to go kill the count next door.

[SilverLeaf167]

My current campaign is centered around an "adventurer's guild" (or a knightly order acting like one, anyway), but I've made it explicitly clear that such organizations are quite rare and have a well-documented tendency to turn into regular mercenaries, become corrupt or otherwise dissolve from the inside, assuming some outside power doesn't get tired of them first. It's a very new group and the founder is quite an idealist, but not even all members share the same optimism. They're more focused on helping people on a "pay what you can" basis, though... at least officially.

[jayem]

This. I think your typical adventuring party should be the exception, not the rule. The PCs are special, a rarity.

Also, stuff like dungeon exploring and dragons slaying should be rare enough as to not merit the creation of a profession dedicated to it. If you have people making a regular job out of exploring dungeons and rescuing princesses, you are close to entering parody territory.

Or look at Smaug. Thorin didn't just hire a professional dragon slayer to get rid of him, because being a professional dragon killer would be like being a professinal suicide. Hell, nobody dared try to off Smaug and take his stuff for almost two centuries, despite Smaug literally lying on top of a mountain of gold... And when Bard DID kill Smaug, they made him king.

He did (try to) hire a professional Burgler, though.

The groups of like minded individuals meet in coffee shop for business matchmaking (e.g. merchants and insurance) is definitely historical (there's even a parable about it, in the case of farmer and farmhands). And for that matter in risky jobs too (particularly early factory girls)
So I think there's scope for a family of organizations that normally deals with the levels below, matching people to something they'd be 95% likely to survive, for a half decent wage. And that then would be a natural group to go to when you are looking for people willing to take a lifetimes risk for a lifetimes reward. Either with them working together or competing.

[sktarq]

Most of the time I think they are rather silly. Because of need to constantly provide adventuring jobs on a scale to support enough of them to need to organize them into a guild.

But it is more a matter of presentation. It can be done well.

If the use of force is highly regulated and the adventurer guild is basically a system for those without legal authority to carry arms to get stuff done that needs it. To an extent this could also be used by governments if their actions involving their own troops are limited by law or tradition.

If it is basically treated as a small mercenary unit agency. This would still basically have to be a largely lawless or at war area to provide a basis for work but is certainly possible. War could just be against the various goblin clans in an area-none big enough to get the army out due to other external threats perhaps.

Colonialism. If region A is doing a lot of exploring and seting up new systems in region B and the government of region A is not trying to control everything. That would provide a basis for demand to set up such a guild. That said it would probably not last forever. Eventually maps get drawn up. Local governments stand up and guard the roads. Some work may continue with regularly discovered ruins for a good long time in some place with an Egyptian like length of history but that would be more self funding than a for hire system.

So yeah, the big issue is creating a setting where there is enough work to support a guild of that nature and yet can support an agrarian economy.

[CharonsHelper]

In part it depends how vicious the world is in general. If it's like The Witcher, I could totally see there being enough jobs for PCs. Mostly kill quests rather than dealing with entire dungeons - but still jobs.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

For an "adventurer guild" to exist, you must first have a setting where adventuring parties are a thing.

And there's sufficient numbers of adventurers to justify it.

Some of the services could be things like medical care, appropriate funeral rites (maybe even to the point where another party comes out to try and recover your mortal remains), cheaper equipment, training contacts and so on, plus it's also somewhere central that local merchants can go to hire people to do things like protect caravans, without the risks of hiring random people from the local tavern (you break the contract or do a little off the books pillaging, the guild comes after you). Jobs allowed would depend on the person in charge, but outright assassinations would almost certainly not be allowed.

For locations, IMO, the offices would be in the main towns and cities - a village tavern might have an arrangement with them to host a notice board, and maybe provide guild rate rooms to parties on guild-sanctioned missions, but it wouldn't be an office per se.

[LibraryOgre]

I keep coming back to Morrowind and the Fighter's Guild.

The fighters guild offers a variety of services... rooms for guild members, job hiring, smiths, trainers, merchants, all of whom work with guild members. What kind of jobs do they do? Well, you might get hired out to clear rats out of a storehouse. Or to clear bandits out of a mine. Collect a debt. Or go kill some undead that have taken residence in a family tomb. Even simple delivery missions into hostile areas.

Outside of Morrowind, a Mercenaries' Guild might be the place to get caravan guards. Or random layabouts to guard your cattle at night. It might be the refuge of mages who are willing to work for their money, unlike the snooty Wizards Guild.

[Joe the Rat]

One might exist as essentially a Mercenaries' Guild, given the more friendly name of Adventurer's Guild.

The Guild might serve as a clearinghouse for various jobs, but could also offer a degree of assurance for their employees and employers... a bond against unnecessary damage, ensuring a proper contract, and vetting the experience of any adventurers hired, as well as the reliability of employers.

Such an operation would be a great front for an organization of spies or assassins, as well. Sure, they hire out bullyboys to beat up goblins, but those bullyboys filter information back to the guild, and, if you know the right passwords, you can hire someone to go kill the count next door.

This is essentially what I ended up doing for my home game. The setting is defined as barons bickering over semi-tamed lands rife with the ruins of a couple of civilizations. Mercenaries are a common sight in the region, what with the on-and-off wars and the value of veteran soldiers, who may on occasion decide they want to be King of the Sandbox. It also helps justify all the henchmen hanging out in various dungeons - working for lair bosses, or engaging in a spot of banditry between jobs. The idea soldiers of fortune that deal with issues other than fighting wars - is new to the region.

Here though it is more like companies than guilds - there isn't a pre-existing regional network, but a local clearinghouse for jobs.

[BWR]

I'm fine with them in theory. In practice, depends on the setting and where in the setting you are.
I wouldn't think it appropriate for something like Dragonlance or in the middle of big, settled areas, but I can see it working in places with a lot of wilderness, ruins of ancient civilizations and in the aftermath of terrible wars.

Some settings work well with the idea. Mystara not only has places with adventuring guilds, adventuring is a taxable profession in some countries and the Kingdom of Ierendi takes the romantic ideals of adventuring to the extreme. It's a cross between a polynesian paradise and adventure town. The king and queen are chosen yearly in a tournament. There are adventuring guilds, there are taverns with mini-dungeons and adventuring-related tests of skill and might, there are adventuring safaris and adventuring tourism is Big Business.
In fact, the PCs of my campaign, all 18-19th level, have decided to take a break from running countries, being diplomatic with hostile neighbors, saving cities from the center of the sun and time traveling gods who have it in for them. They are going to Ierendi, gonna switch up jobs and run a simple adventure like they did in the old days. The sorceress is going to be the fighter, the paladin will be the arcanist and the cleric will be the thief.

[Bucky]

I'd imagine the guild would start off unofficial and unorganized but gradually evolve into an institution.

It starts with an inn-and-tavern where a few parties of professional merchant-guards, thieves and undead-hunters get together when they're in town. At some of the meetings an "odd job" comes up and they trade leads or form temporary parties. Over time, the tavern gains a reputation as a place to go with such "odd jobs" that may involve combat.

Then the inn starts encouraging the practice. The innkeeper starts forwarding quests to various groups. The barmaids keep track of which adventurers have what skills and who's in town; a couple of them act as a recruiter for existing parties (for a fee), another eventually quits her day job to be a mediator and bookkeeper, and several more act as go-betweens for negotiations. A 'neutral ground' policy develops where rival parties can't fight because the other adventurers will intervene.

Eventually the inn business becomes secondary. Rooms are only occupied by adventurers and have been upgraded with features like lead divination screens, booze is free to basically anyone with 6+ levels in a PC class and the complex has been expanded to include a professional services wing staffed by several retired casters and artificers, and again to include a second-hand loot market.

When the innkeeper retires, he sells the place for a fortune to a consortium of his clients. The only change they need to make is to replace the "Fiddle and Hourglass Tavern" sign with one that reads "Hourglass Tavern Adventurers' Guild".

[GungHo]

In part it depends how vicious the world is in general. If it's like The Witcher, I could totally see there being enough jobs for PCs. Mostly kill quests rather than dealing with entire dungeons - but still jobs.

It's essentially what the Witchers are. There are some 4th wall-rubbing conceits, like the postings which, beyond a few exceptions which are there for comic relief, are all relevant to Geralt.

I also like this in the 4th wall shattering conceit of Quest for Glory where there are a number of cities with guilds, Hero schools, and the like.

If you want to "play it straight", the guilds existed to protect their trades both from the government and from unrestricted competition. What would make adventurers want to do that? What reason would they have to combine?