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Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > New DM Handbook  > New DM Handbook: Adventuring Guild Agencies

New DM Handbook: Adventuring Guild Agencies

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New DM Handbook: The Rival Party

New DM Handbook

Earlier this week, the Nerdarchist Primes did a video on good practices for using adventuring guilds. It made me think of something I’m putting together for my world: Adventuring Guild Agencies. I know it sounds really weird, but I would best describe it as a cross between an adventuring guild and a talent agency. It’s a place more than an adventuring guild hall. More importantly, adventuring guild agencies can provide the GM and the players with significantly more tools in their game.

Pelé

Pelé

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to run their game. While I’m providing the framework of how I’m going to be doing things, it’s probably going to need to be tweaked for everyone, if it works for them at all. Part of why this works for me is because of how I’m building my world.  I like the idea of adventurers being relatively common. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of sports teams and players. Enough that an industry can be built around it, but probably about 1% of the population can actually make it professionally (and far fewer can have a successful career at it).

In my case, adventuring guild agencies make sense. Of course, the job of my players is to stand out. It’s not enough to slay a dragon to achieve fame. They have to have a record of slaying dragons to be considered top tier. When they get to level 20, that’s when they’re taking on ancient dragons, and that’s when they’re at the Michael Jordan, Pelé, or Muhammad Ali levels of legendary status.

What Adventuring Guild Agencies Do

What do they do? As I said, I would mostly consider it a cross between an adventuring guild hall and a talent agency. They’re going to take their 10%, but they’re going to prepare quests and adventures for the party, which the characters can choose from, getting characters the most for their contracts, as well as promoting them to the right clients. The adventuring guild agency will also have a pool of open contract work, in case the adventurers don’t like any of the options available to them at the time.

Adventuring Guild HallAdventuring guild agencies operate a series of guild halls and stores, which would provide the party a place to stay, a place to drink, and a place to buy and sell wares. The higher the party’s status (basically level), the nicer the places they have access to, and the nicer the stuff they can get. Adventuring guild agencies are still out to make money, so players won’t get the best deals for things unless they’re making the agency a lot of money, but the doors will always be open for agency members, and they’ll offer convenience nonetheless. If players would rather shop around, they still can, and will likely get better deals, but adventuring guild agencies provide players with the freedom to just unload their wares, restock on what they need, and be on their way out the door to the next adventure without any hassle.
Finally, adventuring guild agencies provide transportation opportunities. Because they’re a network of guild halls, they would be able to have a network of permanent transportation circles (or whatever equivalent exists for your RPG), as well as a stable of mounts, and a fleet of whatever vehicles that would make sense for each setting. How each GM chooses to handle transportation is up to them, largely D&Dbecause I don’t even have an answer for how I want to do things, much less recommend to others how they should do things. I would say that a good measuring stick is how few resources you want your party to have, or if you want them to make sacrifices in their spell slots. If you want them to constantly be poor, then charge for everything. If you just want them to go about without being bogged down, then just give them free access to whatever, and charge them if anything they rent is killed or destroyed. Or, find a middle ground. Mix and match what fits for your world.

An Alternative Use

Tavern D&DNot everyone has time in their lives to be available every week to play Dungeons & Dragons. Some can only play once a month, or are on schedules that make them available on less than predictable days. Perhaps Wizard of the Coast’s Adventure League doesn’t work for you, either as a GM or as a player, but you don’t have a party of your own yet. Maybe you want the option of playing different characters, or the GM Hot Seat works best for everyone’s schedule and/or creative needs. Or, your party would rather forgo the whole role-playing thing and just have random quests where you get to kill and take stuff. Adventuring guild agencies are a great way to fill those needs in a context that makes sense and doesn’t break the world, and take away from its immersion.

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Joshua Brickley

Despite looking so young, I'm in my mid-30s (36, to be exact). Up until I was 21, I focused a lot of my attention on stage acting, mostly local and school theater. At some point, I felt a need to change my life's direction, so I joined the Air Force. After 10 years, where I was an Intelligence Analyst and Mission Coordinator, I was medically retired. I went back to school and got my Bachelor's in English, focusing mostly on literary theory and rhetorical criticism, at the University of the Incarnate Word. In this next chapter of my life, I'm turning my attention towards tabletop RPGs.

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