![tumblr_inline_nl8ebh88Dv1t3wsc5_500[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/6TNXRem.jpg "tumblr_inline_nl8ebh88Dv1t3wsc5_500[1].jpg")
>Adventurer does not exist as a title, "adventurers" are just swords for hire doing the dirty business nobody else wants to do
>Adventurers are acknowledged as a vocation, but they are mostly seen as foolhardy fortune seekers willing to risk their lives for the thrill of treasure hunting
>Adventurer is a genuine profession, adventurers are organized in guilds that broker between the adventurers and prospective clients, possibly with support from the established ruler
Which do you prefer?
I'm good with A or B.
>>45556567
Halfway between first and second, where "Adventurers" is a word that most people say while rolling their eyes
Second. Possibly with a bit of first mixed in: it's not uncommon for professional adventurers to sideline as mercenaries in lean times.
>>45556567
i've never really thought about it like that i guess. the campaign i'm running is somewhere in between second and third I guess. I haven't addressed the place of "adventurers" within the larger world, just that there are plenty of them around.
>>45556567
>Adventurer is the singular. Mercenaries is the plural form.
Commonplace adventuring trivializes the whole thing. At the same time, i hate the idea of adventurers only partaking in adventure to be paid. Such mercenary work should be left to abstraction.
Adventurers should feel lIke they are on a special adventure with their own goal in mind. In my setting I wanted to emphasize that becoming strong enough to battle monsters and demons is very difficult. There ARE many people who pick up a sword or spellbook, who kill a few wolves and then run into the nearest cursed castle, but the vast majority of them die upon their first encounter with the forces of evil. Basically, the adventurers in my setting are superheroes and supervillains.
Sort of a mix of A and B. Adventurers are mainly folks who can't get a real job, have a death wish or are generally outcasts from society, lots of mental illness. Anyone above level 3 though is incredibly rare, most folks avoid getting caught up with adventurers because of the high mortality rate.
Adventurers are mainly hedge knights and peasants who after some personal tragedy, poverty, etc. decide to risk their lives going into underground places and killing monsters for treasure.
>>45556567
A, becuase B feels too videogamey.
I've done both A and C, and which one I prefer depends on the mood of the campaign.
>>45556567
B is my favourite.
I really hate the "adventurer as acknowledged profession" thing. It just seems like utter nonsense to me.
It's metagaming, basically: you're PLAYING a band of adventurers, but if you're roleplaying, probably none of them THINK of themselves as "adventurers." A wizard doesn't think of himself as an "adventurer," he thinks of himself as a goddam wizard who's going into a cave with some mercs because there might be spell scrolls in there--he's on a research trip. A cleric isn't an "adventurer," she's a priest. Even a rogue who makes her living looting old ruins probably doesn't think of herself as an "adventurer"; she's a treasure hunter.
Basically, setting out as an organized group to have adventures is what the players are doing. The characters have their own professions and motivations.
>>45556567
Adventurer is a laconic catchall term for people who travel around a lot in the course of making a living and is generally only applied to people involved in rougher trades.
>>45556567
A most of the time, B for when we go full Final Fantasy.
If its light-hearted enough exchange 'adventurers' for 'explorers.'
3. What highborne person of sound mind would give an important task to unaccredited adventurers? It's like having thieves that don't hand out recipes.
>>45557034
I don't think it's too outlandish for a PC in game to consider himself an adventurer, especially if they do go on adventures on the regular.
It's probably more likely that it's something NPCs are going to call the PCs instead of a self chosen title since many NPCs aren't going to be privy to your party's backstories.
>>45556567
I was thinking of B for Death Frost Doom which I am preparing. probably a bit darker than that, there are adventurers but they never live long.
They tend to have debts or other particular situations, it could also be like some kind of extreme sport with high death rates.
>>45557034
I think of "adventurer" more as an explorer who loots ruins, builds armies to try to build petty kingdoms and whatnot.
The term "adventurer" is absolutely a real world thing back in the day but it more referred to explorers, conquistadors and early archaeologists/treasure hunters than folks who go into dungeons.
In my setting if someone says "we're trying to organize an adventure" they're usually referring to hiring a mercenary band, exploring past the frontier and trying to make a tinpot dictatorship beyond the reach of government.
>>45556567
>Adventurer does not exist as a title
Players are the CHOSEN ONES, nobody else in the world goes on anything that could be considered an adventure so title doesn't exist.
>Adventurers are acknowldeged as a vocation
Players are the only "good" adventurers, mercenaries also exist but "Station for 24 months at the fort in the Northern Pass" is a boring adventure.
>Adventurer is a genuine profession
Someone figured out that brokege firms are a thing and since the dungeons and the people who went into them weren't going away, decided to profit from the situation.
>>45556567
C, in a setting with sufficiently unexplored wilderness/wastes that gov'ts and nobles actually spend time hiring people to "adventure".
>>45556567
It varies; mostly 1 & 2; occasionally they get the local equivalent of a letter of marque and operate officially against some major enemy.
I like all three. Personally, I see the three options on a continuum based on the civilization's advancement and how much people can specialize in certain work.
>>45557274
>dwarf character is in the back due to his move speed
![Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Fort_Laramie_-_Walters_37194049[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kQY7SZR.jpg "Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Fort_Laramie_-_Walters_37194049[1].jpg")
>>45557034
>I really hate the "adventurer as acknowledged profession" thing. It just seems like utter nonsense to me.
There could be a way to justify it though. If the setting is a colonial frontier much like that of colonial North America or perhaps Russia before the East was fully settled, you could have "adventurers" or "explorers" or what have you organized in guilds for the purpose of exploring the land and making profit as they go.
>>45556869
>Commonplace adventuring trivializes the whole thing. At the same time, i hate the idea of adventurers only partaking in adventure to be paid. Such mercenary work should be left to abstraction.
Someone who does a task without being paid is by definition not a mercenary, also if the task doesn't require armed conflict it's also not a mercenary.
>>45556567
>>45556567
Honestly I like all three in each their own kind. I don't think they're necessarily mutually exclusive remember mercenaries were considered an "outsider class" much like actors and other such vulgar folk - outside the traditional laws and rights of landed or free men, but also given their own freedoms by the right of that very same extralegality. Ex, the flamboyance of Italian Mercenaries who were not affected by Italian sumptuary laws, and could thus dress and spend as flamboyantly as they liked. Furthermore, as derided and looked down on as they were, they were so useful and ubiquitous one could not necessarily cross them or discard them outright.
To my mind adventurers are mercenaries and freemen of exceptional or unique skills. Sure you can hire a band of slovenly sellswords, but adventurers aren't going to panic and run at the first sight of magic, and know how to deal with ancient curses and traps in ruins
It is then furthermore only natural such men and women would organize themselves in nto guileds, and leverage the value of their services into legal recognition. It is also logical that rulers and leaders would want to be able to exercise control over the numbers and activities of such jumped up birgands via liscencing and taxing. Moreover, you can't bloody well have adventurers just dumping hundreds of gold coins into the common market,.devaluing currency everywhere. There would likely be laws regulating where and how much money they could spend.
>>45557330
The question is why they don't go in larger groups?
>>45556567
Adventurer is the common term for employees of mercenary guilds doing varied fields of work from mainly monster hunting, prospecting/gathering, escort, scouting etc.
Let's not forget that In Real Life there were adventurers. During the colonial era, rich European aristocrats with more money than ideas to spend it on. They travelled the continents or arranged expeditions, and decidedly had zero knowledge of history or archeological practises. While not a profession of course, they very much called themselves adventurers.
>>45556567
The kingdom has banned private mercenary companies/armies to prevent local nobles and officials from rebelling.
In their place an state owned employment office popularly called ''Adventurers guild'' has been founded in each city of a certain size dividing jobs and missions ranging from manual labor, escort, prospecting/gathering, scouting and combating monsters that threaten the safety of civilians.
The ''Adventurers'' guild is a popular means of education for commoners who can't afford other forms of formal education, providing basic combat/magic training, ways to enter an apprenticeship etc.
>>45557413
The guys who explored much of the interior of Australia was a two-man team. It's cheaper and easier to organise a small expedition.
If you bring a large party out into the wilderness, it's going to make it harder to live off the land and require much larger upfront costs to fund it, which for obvious reasons no-one wants to do, when the investment is likely never going to be paid back.
>not having PCs who are working together purely because their goals all happen to coincide, bring varied and complementary sets of skills and viewpoints, and all break up and go their seperate ways at the end of the story
No literary fantasy hero has ever referred to themselves as an "adventurer". They've all just been people with some kind of internal goal, whose struggles sometimes took them into caves and dungeons, and sometimes involved battling monsters.
About the only classic fantasy character who really resembles a stereotypical D&D-style adventurer, is Conan the Barbarian. But even then his stories acknowledged that Conan is an exceptional individual and a weird outlier to the norm of his world.
>>45557940
This or something like Samurai Champloo which is similar, I like this way.
Having a group of three guys go fight the demon lord sounds stupid when you could send an army, I would rather have the adventure be about the PCs.
>>45557779
>The guys who explored much of the interior of Australia
What? Who?
>>45556567
All of above with majority being drawn from 2.
So ideally, adventurers are seen as fickle hireblades that have their own guilds and whatnot, but they mostly consist of dungeon dwellers, treasure hunters and monster slayers that either work for themselves or on a contract.
>>45556567
Neither. Nobody calls anybody an "adventurer" because it's a silly thing that did not exist in real life. There are just people, traveling across the world to do things. Maybe they're Mercs on their way to sack a village and loot the corpses. Or maybe it's a pilgrim on his way to the Holy Land. But adventurers as a job or idea do not really exist, and they sure as fuck aren't some nonsense like a guild (how the hell does that even work?).
>>45558058
Iirc, their names were Burkes and Willes (last names) and one or both of them ended up dying.
>>45558027
No, you've got it backwards. You don't send three guys to fight a demon lord. The three guys decide to fight the demon lord on their own, for personal reasons, and end up teaming up and working together along the way.
>>45558193
Well shit, I just googled it and apparently there were 19 men. Though I was right that both of them died (as well as a few others) and only the one guy completed the journey succesfully,
>>45557304
His party are real dicks then.
In my last campaign I used a mixture of two and three. "Adventurer" is a term for mercenaries and thrill seekers with divine ancestry (which is the explanation for PC classes in my setting).
Sometimes they're independent and spend their times looking for ruins to plunder or simply doing as they desire. The nobility (who unsurprisingly have a high percentage of divine blooded individuals) don't like these sorts because they tend to cause a lot of chaos.
Sometimes adventurers band together to form a guild to be a bit more respectable. They end up doing a lot of mercenary work for the nobles who can afford to hire them. Sometimes they do the dungeon delving too, but on behalf of noble patrons.
With a few exceptions for the real legends, adventurers are spoken about with exasperation. They are extremely powerful individuals that definitely get results, but their tendency to succeed against all odds can either save a kingdom or doom it.
>>45556567
I usually have it vary from area to area in my games as a facet of their society and politics.
Places which have more stable and established governments which can and do take care of most of the life threatening problems will often view adventures close to option B, since there's often no "need" for them. Places with more organized crime or unexplored frontiers might consider adventurers to be more like option A. Relatively safe areas with much more lax governments which don't often personally handle problems of goblin slaying and whatnot will probably be more inclined to option C.
>>45556587
Yep, this.
>>45556567
Definitely the first one. It's really the only vaguely plausible one.
Adventuring parties are armed bands of wandering mercenaries, robbers, and killers-for-hire, more often than not complete strangers in most of the places they find themselves in, and more often than not (after a looting expedition) they're covered in dirt and blood and haven't bathed in weeks. They can make a pretty penny as mercenaries, thieves, and hired killers, and they can gain prestige in the service of some powerful lord -- violence is a skill that's always been, and always will be, in demand -- but they certainly can't expect to be liked. They're generally seen as dirty, violent, dangerous (and usually foreign) folks to be avoided, yet at the same time they're also often viewed with an air of romance.
>>45558928
In other words, if you're trying to stop the Dread Overlord from destroying all reality because you like living in reality you're an Adventurer.
If you're trying to stop the Dread Overlord from destroying all reality because someone paid you 1000 golds to do it, you're a mercenary.
The term "adventurer" was actually a widely-used slur in the 19th century.
Basically someone who sought profit at the expense of many.
>>45556567
A is really boring.
B is okay.
C deconstructs the genre in a fun way.
>>45556587
Someone who insists on being called an "adventurer" is a lot like a garbage collector insisting he's a "sanitation technician," or a janitor calling himself a "custodian."
>>45558112
Not true. It is said that the Pharaoh hired a company of adventurers from the Levant on his way to Kadesh, if I recall correctly.
>>45556567
A or B, though C is fine for more light-hearted stuff like Ryutama or West Marches style hex crawls.
>>45557413
Hirelings. Most parties in D&D/swords & sorcery game I've played were around 8-20.
>3-6 player characters
>player with high charisma usually has multiple hirelings
>other PCs might bring along a few
>PCs sometimes get leveled sidekicks depending on the system
>party gradually accumulates helpful contacts that can be brought on to help with various tasks
>guides are pretty useful in general
If you manage it properly there's barely any extra paperwork, and in any game where a giant monster isn't run as just a lump that does X damage per turn having more people allows you to actually use specialized tactics that would be required to kill something fucking huge and supernatural.
>>45559339
>C deconstructs the genre in a fun way.
How can something be a deconstruction when it has largely been made a boring cliche of the genre?
>>45556567
First, no debate. But a bit of the second option is always ok too. Some people is just adventurous by nature, and even if adventurer isn't a profession or a vocation, professions and vocations can be adventurous.
The third is just a bit silly and will only work if you go full pulp or in a comedy. In fact it can actually work pretty well in a light-hearthed semi-comedical game.
I call them explorers in my setting. Adventurers are sportsmen that are adventuresome. Like hiking and mountain climbing. Well geared travelers versus light geared thrill seekers.
>>45560355
Ah Ryuutama, the most light hearted and cute Ttrpg i'll never be able to play.
A. B and c don't make sense. "Adventuring" is not a job, it's not a career. That is not what the word means. That being said, there are careers that are adventuresome. There are people who have jobs that mean they go on adventures but their job title is not "adventurer."
Indiana Jones is an adventurer, but that's not his job. He's an archaeologist. A guild of adventurers is stupid, but a guild of explorers or mercenaries is fine.
Of course, if it's a parody then it's fine. but outside of straight up comedy treating "heroic adventurer" as a job title is ridiculous and it also really cheapens the concept of being the heroes.
>>45560584
Grim and dark murderhobos is a boring cliche.
>>45560936
>"heroic adventurer" as a job title is ridiculous and it also really cheapens the concept of being the heroes.
Good? I fucking despise the whole Chosen of Prophesy Heroes where only the players are allowed to know how to use a sword or cast a spell and they're the only ones who can save farmer bob's favorite pig from the nasty kobolds from Kobold's Cave.
>>45557747
>While not a profession of course
That's what we're talking about. Yes, the word adventurer exists, and gets used, and people aspire to it, but it's not a job. it's not like flipping burgers. "Professional adventurer" is something someone gets called as a joke.
>>45558194
That's pretty much how I DM too, specially in the first adventure (or adventures). I try to make it in a way that the characters can develop bonds for each other, since this helps to justify a future adventure with some or all of them together again.
>>45560236
Sauce?
>>45561008
Much like "professional engineer". "Engineer" covers hundreds of possible jobs so it's not really possible to be a "professional engineer". They're someone who does a lot of chemistry or someone who designs a lot of bridges or someone who looks at maps and decides where a mine should go. But the whole idea that a large variety of professions can be grouped into one order or guild is just a meme.
>>45560995
That's a nice strawman you have there. A pity it has nothing to do with what I actually said.
"Heroic adventurer" being a job title doesn't mean you don't have any chosen ones. It means you have one on every street corner. And they all have their own prophecy. That they got from the officially licensed government approved seer.
You see, what I'm talking about, and what you think I'm talking about, are not actually the same thing.
>>45561237
No, the point is that it's not a description of their job. It's a description of what they do, which means that it is their profession. I understand why this might have confused you. Even in your own example, Indiana Jones is not an archaeologist because he's never actually practiced archaeology: see "The Adventures of Indiana Jones".
They are literally characters who go on adventures. It's what defines them.
Adventurers are Adventurers.
But if I had to choose, it would be the first one.
>>45557257
they don't "hire people to adventure."
They have either explorers that are pulling personal favors in nobility to be granted a crew, or they're a military company.
You will never, ever, see bands of 4-6 specialists roaming the country on "quests."
"Lewis and Clark" is probably the closest to adventurers we've had in the real world, and they had a crew of 33 people and a longship.
All three.
You have the organised professionals, the over eager amateurs and the true mercenaries.
>>45561796
>You will never, ever, see bands of 4-6 specialists roaming the country on "quests."
All you can think of is Lewis and Clark?
Xuanzang from the 7th century, you know the "Journey West" guy?
Otto Rahn, his adventures (and memories) were the inspiration for Indiana Jones.
Hester Stanhope, she and 3 friends fought bandits, explored ruins, spied on Napoleon, engaged in piracy, and eventually turned diplomat then prisoner because she tried to become declare herself queen.
>>45562098
Stanhope especially, because she was quite literally classified, by herself an others of the period, as an adventurer.
>>45557247
Anon, adventurers were people who conquered other lands in the name of a title claimant in the hopes of nabbing a noble title and some good land.
William the Conqueror was an adventurer.
If a party has a fighter with the leadership feat, how many cohorts are needed for the party be considered a military expedition instead of an adventuring party?
>>45562297
Depends on the setting
>adventurer refers to people who do the PC thing mainly out of wanderlust and usually some deal of idealism
The word exists because there's pretty big differences between dealing with a sellsword and dealing with a wandering exploration guy dude
I'm fine with all three interpretations, depending on the setting and feel of the game world.
>>45556567
All PC classes are really sub-classes (or even prestige classes) of "Adventurer"
>>45556567
In my setting it's mostly A, with the exception of the frontier human colony where adventuring is acknowledged and well funded because it keep spooky monsters at bay
>>45557413
Because you play shitty WotC D&D and not superior TSR AD&D where parties comprise of a few players and a dozen hirelings.
>>45561179
I'm not sure if I'm missing the joke or not, but you do know that professional engineer is a real life thing, right? You even have to be a licensed professional engineer to design a bridge. www.nspe.org
>>45556567
Like NEET, only actively out and about.
The only people who call themselves adventurers are those who are on a "soul searching" trip or refuse to get employed and commonly participate in get rich quick schemes.
bandits and mercenaries call themselves "adventurers" only when the Law starts breathing down their backs.
PCs are sometimes less adventurers, more "X NPC's bitches".
>>45556567
Is not an adventurer defined by what he does, and not who he is? Is this not how all professions work?
>Contrarywise
If it is not a profession, then an adventurer is defined by the character and not his actions? Hence a couch-potato with the right mind-set is an adventurer while an experienced dungeon explorer with the wrong mindset is not?
A profession makes the most sense to me.
![3157508c62d4503bd993c9670868df70[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oBaGBVR.jpg "3157508c62d4503bd993c9670868df70[1].jpg")
>>45556567
I'm actually good with all three.
A. Would basically be the untrustworthy un-unionized scabs who just sort of roll into town and provide shady or even illegal services to those people trying to get jobs done "under the counter" or trying to avoid the costs and red tape bullshit of a guild association. If you're lucky they're just "off the grid" veterans or rustic folk, but sometimes you just get straight up fucking Criminals.
B. Would be genuine, well-meaning, private or self-starting people who could turn into either A or C when they get a little more experience under their belt. This group is OVERWHELMINGLY populated by low-income, young adults who would most likely be trying to just make some extra money while they worked odd labor jobs and so forth. Literal weekend warriors who lack much education and high-grade equipment- probably just picked up a cheap sword or hand-me-down equipment and started doing it in their spare time. Nothing CRAZy, but they can handle a dire rat or 1-2 Creeps/Goblins.
C. Would be the completely 100% professional adventurers: Guild ID, accepting and completing issued quests at the guild hall and paying their dues, taxes, etc.. on treasure and so forth. They might not make the "most" money, but they have the most reliable source of income and the most access to education and further job training. They're consistent and reliable and people depend on them for those odd jobs.
>>45565585
>A
Berserk/grimdark manga
>B
Your basic kiddie anime fantasy show
>C
All those fucking mmo animes
it's all crap.
>>45557304
You put the dwarf in front and cast spells over his head.
>>45565660
so what do you just hate everything then?
>>45556567
A mix of A and C, actually.
Adventurers are effectively mercenaries that occasionally do odd jobs. One day they might be guarding royalty, the next they're washing a store front. Merchants will have them load goods and then protect them from bandits. Farmers will have them chase brigands off and then help bring in the harvest. They do what needs to be done and good ones never complain. Most learn to enjoy the variety of the job.
The very title Adventurer isn't regulated very much. Most adventurers will call themselves mercenaries when asked just to avoid confusion. Anybody can call themselves an adventurer and get away with it.
The Adventurer's guild is another issue. It's much more of a support system for adventurers than a means of controlling and regulating them. Most guild employees aren't adventurers themselves. The guild generally takes small fees for posting jobs and a commission on direct requests. They also provide room and board and have connections with arms and medicine manufacturers.
Since my setting progresses over time, I should point out that the Adventurer Tradition was essentially unchanged for the better part of a thousand years.
>>45556567
A and C being in active, often violent, competition with each other
The sanctioned Bracer Guild and mercenary Jaeger Corps in the Kiseki series are a good example
>>45556567
Partially A.
In the setting I'm running, Adventurer is a catch-all term for anyone who travels a lot for some form of personal gain. Even travelling merchants get branded as such.
>>45556567
A & C.
It's a general term used for sell-swords but there are sell-sword guilds who many are a member of. These guilds formally call their members Adventurers rather then Mercenaries for PR reasons.
>>45557330
I like this idea.
Campaigns would revolve around exploring and charting out basic but crucial landmarks and necessities.
Something like "the frontier camp here has grown to the point where the stream can't sustain it, we need to relocate to another water source but we don't know where a suitable one is yet", and then the adventurers go and do their thing but the most suitable lake or river is already populated by a clan of monsters, and then depending on the flavor your campaign has concerning "evil" creatures the adventurers just slaughter the lot of them, find some way to force them out, or negotiate terms.
"adventurer" is best as a euphemistic but somewhat derogatory term for "homeless, unemployed, and willing to do dirty, unpleasant, or dangerous odd jobs for money"
E.g.
"What do you do?" "Oh, I'm adventuring right now mostly."
"Let's go somewhere else, that's an adventurer tavern."
"Gods, the adventurer problem in this town is out of control."
>>45556567
The last one.
>>45571276
That goes against the definition along with both our real world past and present usage so it says more about the person who uses it that way than about adventurers.
>"Gods, the black problem in this town is out of control."
![Damn+the+youths_e0fec9_4997625[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qhzYtql.jpg "Damn+the+youths_e0fec9_4997625[1].jpg")
>>45573888
I think you mean
>"[Non-denominational, unoffensive exclamation of frustration], the youth problem in this town is out of control"
Especially because "youth" is used in the same euphemistic way as "adventurer" in that other guy's post.
>>45573929
Pretty much. He sounds like he was mugged and the local town crier said there were adventurers in town preparing to go fight the monsters in the cave to the north, and since only foreigners could possibly do anything wrong in /his/ neighborhood that's cemented the idea that every criminal is an "adventurer" in his mind.
Adventurer: People I don't like who go into the unknown.
Explorer: People I like who go into the unknown.
Actually, are adventurers ever really homeless? I can't remember the last time I saw one who didn't have a home somewhere. It's like saying tourists are homeless because they don't own a house within line of sight of their current location.
>>45574034
Considering so many PCs are orphans, a lot of them tend to be sort of homeless. On top of that, from what I hear on the chans it's rather rare for a character or group to buy a house, stronghold or whatever within the game world.
A shame really, because having a house or castle or whatever is really comfy. It's nice to have a place to come back to.
>>45574049
The orphans thing is more of an exception than a rule, you're thinking of "That GM" threads where everyone is an orphan because it prevents the "lol I killed your parents, u mad" thing.
In my years of playing I've never seen a character who didn't have some kind of place to call home. Even if it's just the thieves guild, wizard's tower, fortress barracks, church rectory they belong to. And secondly, there's nothing stopping an adventurer from just selling a +1 dagger and buying themselves a cottage in whatever location they're currently in. Beyond "That DM" burning it down because it's funny.
>>45556567
If I'm running OSR-style D&D? Definitely B. The world is dark and perilous, filled with ruins of shattered empires and the fortresses of savage warlords and evil necromancers. Dungeons contain vast riches, and some people are willing to risk their lives and souls to bring them back into the light. They are the toughest of the tough and the smartest of the smart. And they still have a terrifyingly high mortality rate because there's a GOOD REASON no one has emptied those dungeons before. Still, sometimes they hit the jackpot, and those stories are heard in all the taverns of the realm.
Basically, "adventurers" are Storybook Pirates on land. Less of the historical cutthroat outlaw pirates, and more of the treasure-hunting x-marks-the-spot swashbuckler pirates.
If I'm running more "modern" D&D? Mostly A, because I prefer to have my PCs be either legit mercenaries, or all members of some established society, group or organization as a plot hook.
>>45574167
>And secondly, there's nothing stopping an adventurer from just selling a +1 dagger and buying themselves a cottage in whatever location they're currently in. Beyond "That DM" burning it down because it's funny.
The thing stopping many players is that you're trading an object with an objective value within the game system for some abstraction with zero value within the game system. Having a house won't make you any better at killing stuff while a +1 dagger will.
This is where we separate the roleplayers from the rollplayers.
>>45556567
An adventurer is a broad term referring to anyone who tends toward a transient lifestyle and is willing to lend their skills towards a goal. They also have a general reputation for being foolhardy as well as hoarders. Adventurer's tend to take jobs that a formal military isn't suited for.
lastly in my setting's there is a hero's spark. This is the "catch all" reason Player characters are so much different from the general populace of the world. Character's with a hero's spark learn things in days or weeks what would take other's years, physically (biologically) they surpass other's of their kind, they have incredible luck and they tend to have a sense of wanderlust.
>>45556567
"adventurer" is someone who goes on an adventure, which means it's a little odd for it to be either B., as it acknowledges a specific view of a very broad concept that could take many forms, or C., which just sounds like a silly video game mechanic or a very odd way to organize a mercenary company.
A makes the most sense, but someone could easily brand others "adventurers" if the title seems appropriate, or dub their mercenary company "adventurers" if they're trying to be flowery about it.
Adventurers are invariably the richest beings on the planet. The equivalent of multi-billionaires and if anyone is going to have their whims catered to it'd be them. With that much money flowing around brokerage firms who want a percentage in exchange facilitating the exchange of literal king's ransoms will exist.
An adventurer's guild that kept even just 10% of each reward for slaying the dragon or nameless elder beast or stopped the blight would be more profitable than any merchant guild. Also think of the services that adventurers would find useful like not needing to go to inns and find dark hooded strangers in corners, or being able to sell or buy copies of peer reviewed maps, or guarantied curse free magical items and potions which are certified to work as labeled.
>>45556567
I love the last one so much, I'm making a whole setting about adventurers in a modern fantasy world that organized themselves in a huge union years ago. It's all about high fantasy combat and silly bureaucracy.
>It's a find and cite the demi-lich adventure.
>It's a search and seize quest at a hobgoblin keep.
>>45556567
A+B, but the current ruler is trying to establish something legalized like C would be.
For the god of heroes' cult, C already exists as the basis for the establishment of frontier temples.
>>45557388
I wholeheartedly agree with you anon.
And if adventurer is what they call them, adventurers is what they are - no matter if they deny it or consider themselves another thing.
>>45560584
>>45560951
Ladies please, the novelty of the core concept is irrelevant because there is nothing new in heaven or earth.
It's about the execution.
I like the idea of the party being sent cease and desist letters from the adventurers guild for non-union adventuring
>>45556567
Something as close to DnD style "adventurers" as you can get in a setting without dragons did actually exist for a stretch of medieval history. They were called routiers.
Everyone fucking hated them.
>>45556567
I like all three if the setting's tone accounts for them.
>>45556567
I like the third
it feels very adventurous
>>45556567
Somewhere between A and B. A is sort of the default that such people fall into when getting into these sorts of trades, and B is when an opportunity for something greater comes about. Explorers and the like might automatically fall into B since those opportunities are right there.
I can't see C being all that realistic. Society wouldn't tolerate such a combination of risk and reward just floating nearby to either kill them or provide wealth. It's fine in a less serious game where you just want an excuse to clear a dungeon or the like though. Etrian Odyssey was fun.
>>45573888
Yeah that's the idea.
