the Concept of Adventurers Guild

[2021]

A place to throw your problems on to jobless people who want money

 

[mysterious_cube]

I'm sure we all know what an adventurers guild is. the place where you register and doing a quest designated by the guild. be it a subjugation request or collecting materials.

but what I wanted to discuss here, is how to make an adventurers guild that systematically make sense.

you do know that lots of WN depict adventurers guild with rank system from F to S rank, and they could register as long as they paid with a few days living expenses.
and then your adventurers guild card are issued at the very same day with no problem. then you can start taking jobs as long as it accordance to your ranks.

but the way i see it, those system are not making sense at all.

you can register as adventurer in less than a day just like that? without a strict filtering like that, lots of shady person would register to the guild for surreptitious reasoning.
and giving rank to an adventurer doesn't make sense as well, the higher the reward of the quest, then that means the more urgent it is. there's no reason to restrict your employee to doing a job that would benefit you, as long as they could do the job. that's it. and it's not like being in a higher rank would increasing any monthly salary anyway. because they're practically a freelancer to begin with.

so how do you think is a logical system of an adventurers guild? starting from the top of the organization who fund the whole thing, how they decide the management, how to determine the quest, where's the rewards coming from, logistic stuff, etc.

The part where you can register in less than a day makes perfect sense, provided you don't get any special rights from membership, or if they have some sort of magic to verify you aren't shady

And ranks make sense. Even a for-profit organisation has an incentive not to kill off useful long-term employees. And if they are a more benevolent/honourable type of organisation they would obviously try to help their members

 

[AliceShiki]

I'd say that an Adventurer's Guild is essentially a Mercenaries' Group... But well, I get that there are some fundamental differences, so let's get to them.

1) Ranks. This would be evaluated based not on contribution to the guild, but on some form of test that would assert your expertise (or fame, if you have any). The rank system would essentially be a quick way of checking if you aren't simply throwing your life away at a task, as the guild would rather not have its workers die a meaningless death, since new people willing to risk their lives for money are hard to come by.

2) Epic-level tasks: You could simply... Not put them to the guild? The guild should be killing goblins, not dragons. A dragon should be something that a whole country's army would mobilize against, not some random mercenaries.

3) Reward-Rank relationship: You don't need to have high rank tasks pay more. You can simply have tasks have monetary rewards according to how much the client is willing to pay. Someone might be willing to pay 500$ to recover a necklace lost in the sewers, while someone else might be willing to pay 50$ to kill 10 goblins... And both of those tasks can be at the same rank.
... Obviously, highly dangerous tasks will most likely have higher rewards, but that can't be helped... In any case, if someone had high urgency for their task, they'd probably contact the government institutions and ask them to send the army for the sake of the national safety, so... No need to ask adventurers for it.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

2) Epic-level tasks: You could simply... Not put them to the guild? The guild should be killing goblins, not dragons. A dragon should be something that a whole country's army would mobilize against, not some random mercenaries.

This was always my problem with adventure guilds. (And I guess by extension high fantasy in general, but that's a different topic) If there is a small group of people who act independent from the government and are strong enough to kill powerful enemies, what is stopping them from using their super strength and magical powers to stage a coup?

 

[AliceShiki]

This was always my problem with adventure guilds. (And I guess by extension high fantasy in general, but that's a different topic) If there is a small group of people who act independent from the government and are strong enough to kill powerful enemies, what is stopping them from using their super strength and magical powers to stage a coup?

Ah, yeah, when high fantasy goes wild and characters start becoming strong enough to save the world by themselves... Well, things tend to get wacky when it gets that far.

I don't think High Fantasy necessarily has to have OP characters though. It's fine to have reasonable power-levels at high fantasy~

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Ah, yeah, when high fantasy goes wild and characters start becoming strong enough to save the world by themselves... Well, things tend to get wacky when it gets that far.

I don't think High Fantasy necessarily has to have OP characters though. It's fine to have reasonable power-levels at high fantasy~

That's true. It's just a personal belief of mine that in any world where spellcasters are common to uncommon a magic-wielding elite ruling class would inevitably develop. Even if magic just encompassed noncombat spells like purifying food and water or divining what the next week's weather will be it would still give that group a huge advantage over their contemporaries. Advantages that could help spell casters gain more resources and wealth, and thus governmental power.

 

[AliceShiki]

That's true. It's just a personal belief of mine that in any world where spellcasters are common to uncommon a magic-wielding elite ruling class would inevitably develop. Even if magic just encompassed noncombat spells like purifying food and water or divining what the next week's weather will be it would still give that group a huge advantage over their contemporaries. Advantages that could help spell casters gain more resources and wealth, and thus governmental power.

Ah, fair point... Though isn't it a somewhat common trope that only nobility is able to use magic, and that commoners using magic is super rare and whatnot?

In that case, the ruling class are already the ones holding the monopoly of spellcasting, I'd say~

Or on a different kind of high fantasy trope, you can have stuff like LotR, where spellcasters are close to non-existent (or at the very least, super-duper rare).

So well, I still don't think those are problems with High Fantasy as a whole, though I do agree with you that it is a problem that appears in a fair number in high-fantasy stories~

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Ah, fair point... Though isn't it a somewhat common trope that only nobility is able to use magic, and that commoners using magic is super rare and whatnot?

In that case, the ruling class are already the ones holding the monopoly of spellcasting, I'd say~

Or on a different kind of high fantasy trope, you can have stuff like LotR, where spellcasters are close to non-existent (or at the very least, super-duper rare).

So well, I still don't think those are problems with High Fantasy as a whole, though I do agree with you that it is a problem that appears in a fair number in high-fantasy stories~

I looked up the definitions. I was using high and low fantasy incorrectly. Didn’t mean what I thought it did.

 

[Temple]

If there is a small group of people who act independent from the government and are strong enough to kill powerful enemies, what is stopping them from using their super strength and magical powers to stage a coup?

If an OP Hero took out the king, then there would be no king with his beautiful princess daughters to think OP Hero is OP asf. Anyway, on a serious note, wish-fulfillment wise, it's a better fantasy to have kings and powerful rules think you're awesome, compared to being the king yourself, because then the praise of others don't have much weight since they'd be beneath you just praising you because you're the king. Not really logical story-wise, but that's not the point of stories that use this adventurer guild tropes.

Going for a realistic approach on tropes that are used for wish fulfillment purposes (and that includes Adventurer's Guild with their ranking system that activates serotonin) wouldn't be that popular imo. Take Grimgar; it didn't really do well trying out being more realistic in a genre that is a wish fulfillment vehicle.

Okay, I got really off tangent there.

 

[AliceShiki]

I looked up the definitions. I was using high and low fantasy incorrectly. Didn’t mean what I thought it did.

Oh! Now that explains a lot! xD

Tbf, there are a lot of vague writing-related definitions that feel kinda pointless out there... Like how I still don't get why anybody would care about trying to define if a given work of fiction has a hard or soft magic system~

So well, I'd say it's perfectly normal to not know all terms or to get them mixed up~

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Going for a realistic approach on tropes that are used for wish fulfillment purposes (and that includes Adventurer's Guild with their ranking system that activates serotonin) wouldn't be that popular imo. Take Grimgar; it didn't really do well trying out being more realistic in a genre that is a wish fulfillment vehicle.

That’s also true. I’m someone who writes on SH, but I don’t read much stuff here (mostly the works of other forum users out of curiosity) definitely not the target audience of the wish fulfillment type of works, and those stories shouldn’t be catered towards me. That was just my take on it.

 

[Deleted member 19066]

If i have to make it make sense i would write them like i would a worker's union, discount in insurance, shop discounts, and other benefits. Mutual protection against exploition. Rules of conduct. And maybe piggyback in a jobs board/ information network ( but that means the guild get a finders fee), but generally I'd leave "quest rewards" out of guilds.

 

[SakeVision]

If an OP Hero took out the king, then there would be no king with his beautiful princess daughters to think OP Hero is OP asf. Anyway, on a serious note, wish-fulfillment wise, it's a better fantasy to have kings and powerful rules think you're awesome, compared to being the king yourself, because then the praise of others don't have much weight since they'd be beneath you just praising you because you're the king. Not really logical story-wise, but that's not the point of stories that use this adventurer guild tropes.

Going for a realistic approach on tropes that are used for wish fulfillment purposes (and that includes Adventurer's Guild with their ranking system that activates serotonin) wouldn't be that popular imo. Take Grimgar; it didn't really do well trying out being more realistic in a genre that is a wish fulfillment vehicle.

Okay, I got really off tangent there.

grimgar didn't do well because it is trash, and by all means it was a wish fulfilment story that lost its realism after less than one volume

 

[Temple]

grimgar didn't do well because it is trash, and by all means it was a wish fulfilment story that lost its realism after less than one volume

Is that the LN? I'm only familiar with the anime. It got some fan service, but I don't think it had wish fulfillment because they were just getting shat on in the anime. Back then I was still in my wish fulfillment phase, so I auto disliked Grimgar because no one was OP, no cheat powers, everyone sucks. I actually don't know how it was with the LN. For sure though it won't get any more seasons because the anime was released when litrpg wish fulfillment crowd (including me) was on the rise and Grimgar just wasn't on the menu. If it lost its realism in the LN, then it might be because it was trying to appeal to the market?

 

[SakeVision]

Is that the LN? I'm only familiar with the anime. It got some fan service, but I don't think it had wish fulfillment because they were just getting shat on in the anime. Back then I was still in my wish fulfillment phase, so I auto disliked Grimgar because no one was OP, no cheat powers, everyone sucks. I actually don't know how it was with the LN. For sure though it won't get any more seasons because the anime was released when litrpg wish fulfillment crowd (including me) was on the rise and Grimgar just wasn't on the menu. If it lost its realism in the LN, then it might be because it was trying to appeal to the market?

anime was awful too. the mc got deus ex machina power up at the end!

Also the "consequences" that the anime was marketed went on only as far as hesitating to kill some goblins in the beginning and killing token gary stu. After that, it devolved into generic isekai, but less flashy.

There is and there will be no worldbuilding btw. After suffering in this world, they will be send to next, and to next, just to start from the beginning and suffer more. No major member of the cast will die even several vols later, though I am not up to date with recent events.

If you want isekai where the protag isn't op and it's done right, watch 1999 anime "Ima, soko ni iru boku". Which is one of my favorite anime btw.