Adventurers' guild - Useful or lazy?

[Beleriphon]

In London, the carpenters and joiners had separate guilds, depending on whether you did your woodcraft with nails or adhesive. The tailors, clothmakers, and haberdashers were separate guilds. There were two candle-making guilds, based on whether they use wax or tallow.

For a variety of economic reasons, as well as historic reason, certain groups of people wanted their own guilds because they didn't like "those guys" they could have otherwise, and probably should have, joined. The candle markers for example have two guilds because they were competing against each other on price, burn time, and a bunch of stuff that they thought were better about their products. It also happens to end up that the guilds in question also happen to have been formed at different times. The Worshipful ?Company of Mercers was formed in 1394, while the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers was formed in 1809 (rather granted the current title, they kind of existed since 1629, and the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars became a Livery Company in 2014.

At this point, and historically as well, any profession could seek to be a guild, then a company without livery, and finally a livery company. At one point that meant they had control of a particular trade as determined by their charter, and now it is mostly a status symbol for a profession.

General merchants and spice merchants have separate guilds (the first two, in fact). So do cooks and bakers.

This one makes sense since baking and cooking while related are two different skill sets, that actually require different training to be an expert. Still, it could just as easily be a Guild of Food Preparation Professionals. If we're going to get silly we can do the Bread Guild, the Cake Guild (the Cupcakers want their own guild, since really they are different), the Meat Roasters Guild, the Meat Fryers Guild, and les we forget the Carrot Cubing Guild arguing with the Carrot Slicing Guild.

In seriousness though spice merchants and general merchants kind of makes sense since the importing of spices was expensive, and it ensured that minimum standards were upheld which one would want when some dingus could come in and sell something as whatever spice to the masses as have it be half ground chalk.

On the D&Dism of the "adventuring guild" there are two settings that have them in all but name. Eberron's Morgrave University should probably remain its archaeology department the Henry Jones Jr. Archaeological Digging and Extraction of Precious Artifacts Department. It is a good place to find and hire people that would be useful in clear a lost tomb of its residents and taking the stuff.

The Forgotten Realms is the other setting since the Flaming Fist Mercenary Company is basically an adventures guild formed by old adventurers. They generally do mercenary contract stuff, like act as Baldur's Gate's de facto police force, but they also take on untrained/minimally trained people and teach them how to fight. Which in some cases does involve going out and stabbing orcs while in a small group. Cormyr has adventuring company licenses, and they more or less have a bunch of offices that act as recruiting stations for contracts. Bad adventurers get the license revoked, good ones get to keep theirs, sounds like a guild system to me at its core.

[oxybe]

I'd say it's just as useful as any other organization, and can be considered lazy if not handled right (the same as any other organization).

It gives the PCs an organization they can fall back on for information, resources or help. It turns adventurers into something more then just hobos who occasionally do good, and gives their lifestyle a modicum of legitimacy akin to mercenary work. Where Mercenaries act akin to an army for hire, Adventurers are more like a catch-all group of freelancers with a more badass title.

Kinda like how "Hero of Thuumhaven" is better for PR then "the heavily armed homeless man who meandered into town during the Time of Bad Things and killed the tyrannical warlord Vorpal Von Hackenslash and stripped him naked then unceremoniously dumped his corpse in a ditch before getting plastered on cheap ale and passing out before even making it to the stables", even though both are technically true.

As such my Adventurers Guilds tend to only have a smaller potion be potential "heroics", people who go out and save princesses, kill dragons and whatnot (ei: PCs and other PC-types). The local orphans who pick herbs by the woods, the fisherman who protects the village from the goblin's winter raids on his off-season, the local hunter who wants to sell off the occasional owlbear pelt and needs a middleman, a scholar who's well read on a subject might offer himself as a resource or ask for subjects/components for his experiments, or just people without permanent employ looking for temporary work doing odd jobs like rebuilding a collapsed wall or help protect a logging camp while they're moving to a new location.

In short: freelancers with eclectic skills that traditional guilds may not have use for, or they want to be part of.

Depending on the locale, "Adventurers" allow for problems to be solved with a bit less red tape beforehand then if you had asked the guard, or serve as seperate branch of defense for the town in times of trouble: the guard's regimented and coordinated defenses protect the town itself as they setup for a proper assault, while the adventurers use their guerilla tactics to push back or stall until the larger guard corps arrives.

It can also serve as a sort of political group too: if the Adventurers, the Guards and the local Mercs are corrupt or no good, but still have some power in the area that can cause potential plot hooks as the three groups sometimes overlap in their requests and butt heads trying to one-up the other.

[Lorsa]

In the campaign I am currently running, I decided there were Adventurers' guilds. Plural. Three of them in the area where the PCs roam to be precise. All of them are slightly different and I left it up to the players which, if any, they wanted to join.

I don't find it to be lazy, and for this particular campaign it is very useful, as it will make it easy for the PCs to find quests.

[Solaris]

In the campaign I am currently running, I decided there were Adventurers' guilds. Plural. Three of them in the area where the PCs roam to be precise. All of them are slightly different and I left it up to the players which, if any, they wanted to join.

I don't find it to be lazy, and for this particular campaign it is very useful, as it will make it easy for the PCs to find quests.

I like the idea of multiple guilds more than I like the idea of a single guild in an area. For adventurers, it makes perfect sense.

[elanfanboy]

Just call it Mercenaries guild, no one can call themselves "adventurer" as an occupation and expect to be taken seriously.

“I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.”

[LibraryOgre]

In Icewind Dale 2, you are frequently referred to as mercenaries, and have the option of testily correcting them that you are "adventurers"

[Tanarii]

This is making me wonder where & when the terms "adventurers" first entered the lexicon. Was it in the first oD&D book, or did it come later?

[RazorChain]

This doesn't make sense. Historically feudal power rested on military might, and that belongs to adventurers. (Not entirely, a soldier is still a soldier, but mid-level and up adventurers are equivalent to tanks or strike aircraft, expensive but lethal and mobile (and if the others guys have some and you don't,go guerrilla or go home.)) I would expect a feudal style system to regularly co-opt adventurers into the ranks of nobility. (Why do you think Kings grants knighthoods?) And as for the children of nobility, I know it's a cliche, but I seriously doubt the pampered noble who can't swing a sword or cast a spell would last long before getting killed by dopplegangers/vampires/adventurers.

I suspect the successful model is probably more along the lines of:

1. Have lots of kids. (And adopt promising ones.)
2. Give them every opportunity to learn a class.
3. Kick them around a lot.
4. Send them out into the world, with appropriate gear.
5. Vet the ones who come back, and appoint one your heir.

Non feudal systems are possible of course, but they will need a way to harness the power of high-level PC classes characters to keep the high level PC classed characters in line.



I've always assumed a "Thieves guild" just represented organized crime like the Mafia/Cartels/Yakuza/etc.

This is very much gaming logic. In RL we know that education and training counts but in D&D world what counts is overcoming obstacles and in earlier editions: Gold.

At some point, somebody is bound to figure out how you get better or advance in levels. Therefore we have the royal obstacle course, only for those loyal to the state. You need a documentation from the authorities to partake in a quest, most likely the quest will be sold to the highest bidder who can expect to recoup their expenses with loot. So the social elite will buy up all the best quest to maintain their power and the status quo. If poor Count Johnny dies his family will just resurrect him. Adventures trying to climb the social ladder will been seen as some upstart yuppies by the old blood.

[Lorsa]

I like the idea of multiple guilds more than I like the idea of a single guild in an area. For adventurers, it makes perfect sense.

I'm glad you like that idea.

[King of Nowhere]

This also assumes they are common. If a level 9 character is 1-2 in a million, there may not be any in the same kingdom except for the PCs.

Depends on your figures, of course.

I use roughly one in a million above level 15, one in ten thousand above level 10, one in one hundred above level 5. And that means that while high level people are extremely rare, there are still several hundreds of them around, with thousands of people who are still pretty high. Most of them, however, will not be adventuring, for a plethora of reasons. Most wizards, for example, have no interest for that kind of life and prefer the comfortable life of selling spells.
Anyway, it takes only a limited amount of high level murderhobos to wreak havoc in large areas, so "guilds", or whatever they would be called, are in large part an attempt to rein them in.

This theory opperates under the assumption that all high level adventurers are cooperative. I would call that assumption flawed at best.

I posit that as adventurers gain in power, that they are less likely to cooperate with one another. In fact, their higher ambitions are likely to drive them to separate paths. They may reassemble to defeat a mutual threat, but they just as easily may not.

But that leads pretty well to a cooperative scenario: high level parties are not cooperative, and so they will often be at odds with each other. but because of the whole "enemy of my enemy" business, such parties are also strongly encouraged to seek allies.
Say it starts with a cult of vecna seeking to drain the life of all the inhabitants of a city to gain power. A paladin of heironeous sets out to stop them, but he needs allies, so he gathers a party. The cult of vecna, knowing a party of high level good guys is after them, hires a few high level freelancers to help in the fight, promising a share of the power. The party of good guys, knowing the odds are now against them, goes to talk with a group of followers of pelor. Both groups want to stop the ritual, so they agree on a teamup. But then a group of followers of hextor decides that, after the group of goodies is done with the vecna cult, they may as well choose to focus on other common enemies. And so, even if they are not friendly with vecna, they join up simply for mutual defence...
and eventually the world's high level adventurers are split in power blocks.
In such a scenario, it's difficult to say if high level adventurers are hired by nations to help against other nations, or if high level adventurers coopt a nation's resources to fight other high level adventurers who are similarly backed. Does it really matter? Does it even make a difference?

This mechanism was heavily at work in my campaign world. I made plenty clear several times that the guys in despotonia (fiefdom of hextor) are not best buddies with elbonia (evil dictatorship) or with the church of vecna. In fact, when the pcs managed to attack despotonia and brought their nation into it, the various "allies" of despotonia were all too happy to weasel out of their self-defence agreements based on technicalities, because they had no interest in fighting a costly war over some guys they didn't care that much about. similarly, other good aligned nations didn't back their "ally" because they had no interest. But when the pcs managed to call in some favors and bring a greater coalition against despotonia, then elbonia and the church of vecna immediately sided with their ally; and this only in the interest of self-preservation, because if they let despotonia fall they may easily become the next ones. Especially since the lead pc has all but implied that he wanted to do exactly that.

And I think it makes a lot of sense on how powerful people would react. All along history, whenever there were multiple fighting factions, they tended to group in two clashing coalitions.

[Yerok LliGcam]

As the title asks, what would people characterize an adventurers' guild in a given fantasy setting? Is it a useful, logical organization to arise in a world where people commonly run around handling big monster and rampaging orcs problems, or is it a cliché that would be better replaced by smaller, more focused mercenary groups?

one thing i've tried is i'll have random chances (roll tables) where people come up and ask to become followers, or squires etc. and in that way the party gets followers, which are SO MUCH FUN! to play with cuz you give your players control of their followers, you can have larger battles, etc. but when your party starts to gain fame/infamy they are known! walking through a town or village the _____ might have a farm boy come up and say "please take me on as your apprentice!" and pledge themselves to service.

then you can start hinting at things cuz now you have an army of NPC's that the players control, that you voice and give behavior. so you can be afraid and run away from encounters you think your party won't live through, or you can suggest alternatives THROUGH the NPC but the important thing i think.

is never, ever, EVER take full control of the NPC. always let your player control them. but voice opinions etc. I had someone learn the hard way that their follower was a traitor, they're more careful now.

in another game i ran i had a guy come knock on their hideout and say "Is this your guild!?" and they started one on their own.

i find NPC's a great way to facilitate your players forming their own headquarters.

then you can threaten it and they can stash all their loot etc. in it and all that jazz. makes plot hooks really easy.

who lit our hall on fire? who stole from our treasury?

i'll have vengeance on those bandits who murdered my horses groom! he was a good kid!


the possibilities are endless.

[Andor13]

This is very much gaming logic. In RL we know that education and training counts but in D&D world what counts is overcoming obstacles and in earlier editions: Gold.

At some point, somebody is bound to figure out how you get better or advance in levels. Therefore we have the royal obstacle course, only for those loyal to the state. You need a documentation from the authorities to partake in a quest, most likely the quest will be sold to the highest bidder who can expect to recoup their expenses with loot. So the social elite will buy up all the best quest to maintain their power and the status quo. If poor Count Johnny dies his family will just resurrect him. Adventures trying to climb the social ladder will been seen as some upstart yuppies by the old blood.

This is heavily dependent on world building by the GM. RAW the nobility should be mostly aristocrats, which is a pretty crap class.

Training does count for something in D&D, it's what (usually) give you your base class. And if you use the optional training to level up rules, it's how you level as well (once you have the experience.)

Ways to cheese the XP system have been around forever. (Classic from the old days: Skeleton in a box, pull the lever and drop an anvil on the skeleton, killing it and earning XP. Reset the lever and reanimate the skeleton. Repeat until level up. Then do it again...)

Usually GMs rule that these don't work, because otherwise the game is a bunch of guys in a room pulling levers and yelling "Ding!" occasionally.

What you need to do is either figure out what you want the world to look like, and then set up your house rules for earning XP/leveling to justify them, or figure out what rules you want and then figure out what kind of society would arise from that. What most people actually do is follow the RAW and then make whatever world they want and just ignore that it doesn't make sense.

For example, what counts as an obstacle for XP purposes, and what counts as overcoming it? Is a social encounter an obstacle? Is humiliating your rival a victory? Why aren't mean girls coming out of high school with 15 levels? Is killing something of more HD always worth XP? Do nobles spend their days down at the stockyard killing cattle? Can you level up by fighting prisoners with knives in the arena? Does this tip the advantage towards evil in the cosmic battle?

There is always some level of abstraction (well, usually unless you're hardcore into rules as physics, and this can lead to weird consequences) between the RAW and the in world interpretations of what happens. How the in world people understand XP/leveling up to exist is one of the more consequential aspects of world building, as well of one of the more ignored ones. (Why don't level 15 wizards adventure? How did they get to be level 15? Don't they want to learn Wish?) The only thing off the top of my head that should have a greater impact on settings, which is routinely ignored is magic item components. (Where do they come from? How is the trade regulated?)

[Beleriphon]

There is always some level of abstraction (well, usually unless you're hardcore into rules as physics, and this can lead to weird consequences) between the RAW and the in world interpretations of what happens. How the in world people understand XP/leveling up to exist is one of the more consequential aspects of world building, as well of one of the more ignored ones. (Why don't level 15 wizards adventure? How did they get to be level 15? Don't they want to learn Wish?) The only thing off the top of my head that should have a greater impact on settings, which is routinely ignored is magic item components. (Where do they come from? How is the trade regulated?)

On wizards, they did adventure but have largely chosen not to any more. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but then nothing about D&Disms really does in any realistic way. Its all an abstraction to explain why the PCs need levels and what not. Third Edition I think did a disservice, one that I happened to like at the time but have reevaluated over the years, when they built monsters and NPCs just like PC characters. I like the way games like Avernum (an old school PC game) handle powerful wizards. Your adventuring party meets several, X is great, and they basically all tell you they could teach your characters their incredible arcane power, if they have a few decades to learn. Adventuring magic, and crazy grey-beard wizard magic aren't always the same thing.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I just want to say that on reading the title, my immediate thought was "useful because lazy". Nothing wrong with spending your development time on things other than motivating the PCs. And it works for the Witcher!

[PhoenixPhyre]

There is always some level of abstraction (well, usually unless you're hardcore into rules as physics, and this can lead to weird consequences) between the RAW and the in world interpretations of what happens. How the in world people understand XP/leveling up to exist is one of the more consequential aspects of world building, as well of one of the more ignored ones. (Why don't level 15 wizards adventure? How did they get to be level 15? Don't they want to learn Wish?) The only thing off the top of my head that should have a greater impact on settings, which is routinely ignored is magic item components. (Where do they come from? How is the trade regulated?)

I get around this in a few ways:

a) most people can't gain significant power for intrinsic reasons. Only a small fraction can reach level 1 equivalent, and the odds go down from there (roughly in tiers: level 1-4 are easier, 5-10 are difficult and represent the cap for all but a tiny fraction, 11-16 are legendary, and 17+ are not even that--they're unknown).
b) the Adventurer's Guild has the explicit mission (set by some of the few who could reach level 10-ish, some former adventurers) to find those with the potential for growth and cull the wicked/channel their energies.
c) most people who are powerful are either already at their cap or aren't similar to PCs in their design. That cleric who can resurrect someone (a 5th level spell)? Only has access to that and a few healing spells, and that with the explicit OK of her goddess, who only grants it under certain constraints. That wizard who can planeshift? He's a transportation specialist who only knows spells with a very narrow theme. Because specialists get that way by specializing. They don't know about all the other spells--that's a game-level fiction. There is one person in the setting who has the explicit ability to cast spells from any list. If it's 6th level or lower, she can cast it. But she prefers to walk around and play tourist, because she's spent the last thousand years as part of the central control "computer" for a facility devoted to horrific experiments. So she's not exactly going to share her knowledge of the arcane arts. Etc.

Heck, the political representative of the Mages Academy to a particular powerful government is about level 3 (equivalent). He's just really good at schmoozing and has powerful shadowy allies. Personal power ain't everything.

[Beleriphon]

Heck, the political representative of the Mages Academy to a particular powerful government is about level 3 (equivalent). He's just really good at schmoozing and has powerful shadowy allies. Personal power ain't everything.

Kind of like how the Factol (read big boss) of one of the Planescape factions was a 0-level petitioner? He was a dead guy, with no levels.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Kind of like how the Factol (read big boss) of one of the Planescape factions was a 0-level petitioner? He was a dead guy, with no levels.

Yeah. Heck, one of the nominal rulers (in absentia) is a third-level bard. Due to a boon from a dying god he's ageless, but he never ended up that powerful. Has dirt on everybody, since he's been around since the nation's beginning. He's also friends with an adult dragon, so she provides the firepower (pun included). As a note, he's used as the de facto father when a woman doesn't want to name the father of the child. There are a lot of Bardsyn's running around.

So let's count my important NPCs (all levels are power-level equivalent, they're not built like PCs). Ones in bold have any significant combat potential:
* level 3 bard
* level 3 wizard
* level 7 bard (the immortal one's grand daughter)
* level 12-ish wizard (the 2nd-ranking mage and only that powerful because he hung out with adventurers for a while)
* level 14-ish wizard (the arch mage)
* Commoner (1 HD)
* 4xNoble (3 HD, CR 1/8)
* Level 14-ish fighter (with divine assistance)
* level 5-ish cleric
* Knight (CR 3)
* Level 11-ish cleric (healing spells only, no armor or weapons)
* level 14-ish cleric
* level 6-ish cleric (divination spells only)
* level 6-ish paladin
* level 6-ish paladin/shadow monk hybrid

Those are mixed between two nations. That arch mage? He's ancient, getting a bit senile, and really only interested in pretty young women. Still can cast a mean shielding spell (he's an abjuration specialist), but not really much else. Most of the rest are more focused on political power and getting others to do their dirty work. And just about all of them are at their cap.

[Andor13]

Those are mixed between two nations. That arch mage? He's ancient, getting a bit senile, and really only interested in pretty young women. Still can cast a mean shielding spell (he's an abjuration specialist), but not really much else. Most of the rest are more focused on political power and getting others to do their dirty work. And just about all of them are at their cap.

See, that's the result of sitting down and thinking about it. And it's great! Mind you it also, as you no doubt are well aware, limits things in some ways. You can't ever really have a high level party in your world, both because there is no way to stop them from kicking over any apple cart they please, and because there isn't much they can face to get to high level that should not have already taken over. Well, you could run it as an extraplanar campaign, where they go off to some more high level friendly world and then come back at 16-18th level and realize what a backwater their home is.

[PhoenixPhyre]

See, that's the result of sitting down and thinking about it. And it's great! Mind you it also, as you no doubt are well aware, limits things in some ways. You can't ever really have a high level party in your world, both because there is no way to stop them from kicking over any apple cart they please, and because there isn't much they can face to get to high level that should not have already taken over. Well, you could run it as an extraplanar campaign, where they go off to some more high level friendly world and then come back at 16-18th level and realize what a backwater their home is.

Bounded accuracy goes a long way to fixing that, as I play 5e. Even a level 20 caster can be nuked by enough lower level people. They'll take losses, but not catastrophic ones.

There are high level threats out there, anyway. They're just not near those nations (or at least aren't in the centers). Demon Princes, elementals gone rogue, dragons, etc.

I ran a 1-20 campaign (with the part from level 10 on being non-canonical). Levels 10-14 ish were spent breaking a stalemate between entrenched parties; levels 15-17 were spent racing to an artifact that can change the world and 18+ were spent kicking a tentacled Demon Prince right in the sensitive areas. At the end, one PC retired beyond the universe into the Far Realms (a happy ending for him), one became a politician/drug lord, one started a monastery, and the fourth a druid grove.

That was in an alternate timeline--in the canon one they retired at level 10. They're still quite powerful movers and shakers, but they've got goals that work within the system (to protect the organization they created, the current incarnation of the Adventurer's Guild), not against the system.

[JeenLeen]

Like others here, I think it can work with certain settings.

I ran one in game that tried to be realistic while not taking itself super-seriously. That is, I tried to have a setting where it made sense, but also wanted a fairly care-free game. The political framework was that there were 3-4 nations on a fairly isolated continent. Due to the history involving a united war against a necromancer, there were essentially three "Adventurer's Guilds"/mercenary companies that were tolerated by all nations. I think I called them mercs, but they were all effectively adventurer guilds. But each was flavored rather differently.

1) a group on the border of the Blight (necromantic wasteland), dedicated to holding back the foul spawn from within. These was basically the first Guild, formed from the armies that defeated a great necromancer centuries ago. To supplement their funds, they started providing services fighting other monsters or hunting criminals for the local governments. I think their name was some play on Pelor, like the Shining Flame or some such. Since so many of the standing militias had died during the war, the Shining Flame sorta became the status quo for rare threats that the small, surviving personal guards couldn't handle.

2) a group of warrior-mages from an island nation. They are that nation's military, but the nation has relatively few resources to trade, and got a strong army during the necromancer wars (that didn't want to stay in foreign lands guarding a Blight), so they eventually formed their own branch. When it was more warlike, they raided neighboring nations, but that led to a war they lost pretty badly, and the military reformed into a mercenary company akin to the Shining Flame. Over 50% of its military is usually on the mainland doing jobs.

3) a split-off from the other groups + adventurers who wanted more freedom. Not wanting to be stuck guarding the Blight, or being held loyal to that island-nation, these are openly adventurers-for-hire, willing to take most jobs if the pay is good. It's known they're more likely to take illegal ones, if discretion is used, but their most common gigs are protecting trade caravans from goblins and other monsters. Like the other Guilds, they (at least openly) operate within the common laws of the nations.

It gave me, as someone DMing who didn't have a lot of time to work on a story, a lazy way to have the PCs as allies. There were plenty of rivalries between and within guilds, but they generally kept it non-lethal to avoid repercussions. (The higher-ups of all Guilds get ticked if you kill your rival in another Guild. At least if you get caught.)
Most generally operate on the Guild get paid a fee from the employer, and the adventurers get a cut of that plus any salvage (aka, loot.) The Guild also provides free access to low-level healing, a free (if not great) room & board, and access to stuff like libraries and merchants who sell rare items, at least for members with good-standing.

I think they can also work if they're taken more 'gritty'. And you can vary how idealistic to corrupt they are. For example, in my game one of the leaders of the Shining Flame was actually trying to resurrect the necromancer (for reasons I forget).

[Hawkstar]

I don't get the "Adventurer's Guild doesn't make sense' complaint. But then again, when I think of "Adventurer's Guild", I think of the ones from Quest for Glory 1&2. An Adventurer's Guild would generally start as a tavern founded by a wealthy wanderer, and supply the services of a tavern*, inn**, and notice board for local troubles. As the Adventurer's Guild expands to connect with other guildhouses, it also establishes news, insurance, and a trade network for all those obscenely valuable magical items Adventurers buy and sell.

* Most taverns wouldn't actually be welcoming to adventurers - they're for the local regulars, not outsiders. The Adventurer's Guild tavern has a more interesting clientel, but most people prefer boring familiarity.
** Likewise, standard inns are built to accommodate merchants and travelers (Or a mercenary band that generally makes special accommodations, though the owners don't always willingly agree to them), not heavily-armed explorers with objects of esoteric power and value.

Can I just say, I love the idea of Adventurer's Insurance? With coverage ranging from the healing of minor scrapes and bruises to full on resurrection and gear retrieval.

When I heard "Adventurers Insurance", it sounds more like information you'd hand innkeepers after you burn down their business. While the ethics of allowing people to break the law and not have to pay for their transgressions seems sketchy, power usually overwhelms ethics anyway, and Adventurers are usually very powerful people. But I guess both services are valuable. Adventurer Health Insurance, and Adventurer Liability Insurance.

Also - look over in the 5e thread "Would this be Evil?". Adventurers generally end up on the wrong side of 'the people' because they're outsiders, and are often on critical, time-sensitive missions. An Adventurer's Guild serves as a liason - Complaints for excessively violent actions can be lodged against the guild, which would financially compensate victims as necessary (And threaten action against Adventurers who abuse the Insurance), and the Adventurer's Guild is FAR better at policing its wayward members than a bunch of peasants with pitchforks or hopelessly outclassed town watchmen.

[LibraryOgre]

I don't get the "Adventurer's Guild doesn't make sense' complaint. But then again, when I think of "Adventurer's Guild", I think of the ones from Quest for Glory 1&2.

Not 4 & 5? Man, I wish someone would remake those games with a semi-modern system.

I think it's been mentioned, but a guild might have another function, too... protection from other power brokers. Did Lord Fulminous promise 1000gp to whoever rid him of the ogre? Is he now trying to say it was for 1000gp in coupon savings? The Guild has muscle and lawyers to shake him for the cash. Did the Merchants of Bludhaven promise three fine mares, but now are offering geldings? Then the Guild will bring a reckoning.

[Nifft]

I still don't see paladins and rogues in the same guild.

Of course you don't see them. They're in disguise whenever the Paladorks are scheduled to appear.

In Icewind Dale 2, you are frequently referred to as mercenaries, and have the option of testily correcting them that you are "adventurers"

There's also that group of mercs in the starting area who get shirty when you refer to them as mercenaries.

Honestly those guys were a better example of a genuine table-top RP group than most -- they've got...

Spoiler: Icewind Dale 2 spoilers

Show

- Three drunkards who talk down to everyone not in their party (i.e. "no you are the NPCs").
- They all engage in grave-robbing and their Cleric uses speak with dead to find hidden loot.
- Their Wizard had a secret traitorous backstory which would have eventually resulted in PvP.

They generally stop doing interesting things once they get to the town where the PCs are doing things, but their backstory is a lot more creative & interesting than anything about the PCs. I wonder if they were based off a real party from a table-top game.

[Wardog]

I don't think an "Adventurer's Guild" is necessarily unreaslistic or gamey. It could easily be the fantasy equivilent of somthing like The Explorer's Club.


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Oh, and on the subject of encountering other players adventurers in Bioware games, there is of course Bondari and co from BG2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nztCeGyR3Fc