Adventurer's Guild?

[petespahn]

I presented an Adventurer's Guild in the Guidebook to the City of Dolmvay, complete with maps of the compound and notes on its politics, accommodations, services, and how it elevates famous adventurers to celebrity status with the general public. These ideas were taken almost entirely from my home campaign and I have used the various elements over the years.

I'm wondering how many other people buy into the concept of an Adventurer's Guild. I've found it adds a lot to game play and gives me ready hooks for a lot of adventures. However, there is no real (semi)historical counterpart so you're pretty much defining the tone of your game as medieval fantasy. Any thoughts?

[gentleman john]

Guilds were a major force in medieval cities. There were guilds for every trade, and it was impossible to carry out a trade in some cities unless you were a member of a guild. So, why not have an adventurers' guild? In the Dolmvay setting you have made it sensible by effectively making them licensed treasure hunters, with anyone who isn't a member of the guild but who tries to sell ancient treasures being suspected of robbery.

In other campaigns nobody looks askance at a thieves' guild, a mages' guild or a beggars' guild, so why not have an adventurers' guild?

[Dyson Logos]

I have them in some cities - particularly those that are used as staging areas for exploration and recovery teams. So there's an adventurer's guild in my version of Coruvon in the "Challenge of the Frog Idol" adventure because that city is used as a staging area for adventures into two different areas. However most cities don't have that organized of an adventurer presence - many see adventurers as a destabilizing presence and don't want such a thing in town. The merchant guilds like bringing in money, but they aren't fans of someone rolling into town with the entire annual income of the guild in their pockets.

[GreyKatana]

Never used them much but I'm slowly warming up to the idea.
As I'm slowly changing my mind on running sword & sorcery humano-centric games towards a more traditional medium/high fantasy setting, I'm finding the inclusion of an adventurer's guild in the big cities (ala Dolmvay) a useful addition.

[Agrippa]

I've been mulling over the idea of not so much an adventurer's guild as an adventurer's school or academy. It's hard to quite to say what the school is like other than to give a list of teachers, by class and their inspiration. I don't have any names for them yet though.

Headmaster/Superintendent:

Martial Arts Instructor (melee weapons-based)-beginner level:

Martial Arts Instructor (melee weapons-based)-advanced level:

Martial Arts Instructor (unarmed)-beginner level:

Martial Arts Instructor (unarmed)-advanced level:

Martial Arts Instructor (fire arms-based)-beginner level:

Martial Arts Instructor (fire arms-based)-advanced level:

Occult Lore/Ritual Magic:

Potionry/Alchemy:

Sorcery (spells fueled by the caster's personal energy and power drawn from other sources):

Formulaic Magic:

Archeology:

Stealth:

Artifice:

As a usful note, the differences between ritualism, sorcery and formulaic magic come mostly in casting time. Rituals typically take several minutes, if not hours, while spells (sorcery and formulae) are cast more quickly and have more immediate effects. Also rituals benefit from multiple casters and in some cases may be performed by laymen, anyone can dabble in ritualism. Spells require some sort of fundemental training or affinity to use even the most basic of them.

It's for a more modern setting than most.

[petespahn]

Dolmvay and Amherth in general is easy for me because the AG is integrated into the culture, with licensed adventurers actually achieving a celebrity status. A guild certainly makes things easier on my end as an LL. I can throw out two or three job offers when the party is looking for work and they'll usually bite on one of them which means I can do some of the prep work beforehand. The presence of an AG also makes writing published adventures a lot easier because it provides at least one "hook" for the LL. On the other hand, I'm also a big fan of adventures that begin in media res, with something happening to the PCs or in their presence while they are out minding their own business.

I don't see a lot of talk about an Adventurer's Guild these days so I wasn't sure if they had passed out of favor from the 80s. With the Dolmvay Adventurer's Guild I tried to show how the guild provides services, training facilities, events, etc. The underground arena and dungeon level Tim drew up is something I've used for awhile but never really put down on paper (I tend to be very hand-wavey when it comes to dungeons).