Adventurers and the state

Adventurers pose a considerable risk to the rulers of the lands they perform their heroics in.
Should fantasy adventurers fall under the purview of governments? Logic dictates that no ruler would like exceptionally powerful beings running amok with no accountability, but it runs contrary to the fantasy of being an adventurer in itself. How would you logically solve this?

Schizophrenic Conspiracy Theorist Shirt $21.68

Homeless People Are Sexy Shirt $21.68

Schizophrenic Conspiracy Theorist Shirt $21.68

  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >How would you logically solve this?
    Anarchist setting

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    medieval mercenary companies are basically ''adventurers'' fighting things for pay, except it's like 500 normal guys instead of 5 absurdly powerful ones. the decentralised feudal lords dont have the military strength to crush them without taking unacceptble losses, so they more or less just pay them to maintain good standing, and also pay them to fight other people if necessary. whether the mercenaries/adventurers normally follow the laws of the land varies, but if they become too much of a nuisance to ignore they're essentially bandits at this point, and feudal lords will send their armies or other mercenaries to put them down

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Any state threatened by adventurers is too weak to survive anyway.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Also any adventurers that threaten the state are almost necessarily beyond the state's ability to control.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Or the local lords can get off their fat asses and pull off a Teddy Roosevelt and become adventures themselves and recruit an army of other adventures to go on campaign a la Rough Riders.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Should fantasy adventurers fall under the purview of governments?

    Even peasants "should" not fall under the purview of governments, they just aren't powerful enough to resist taxation and the imposition of foreign laws.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Adventurers pose a considerable risk to the rulers of the lands they perform their heroics in.
    Why? Explain your statement or frick off.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Adventurers, especially the caster variety are walking time bombs that can cause havoc in the region regardless of their noble intent. A druid becomes mad because one village accidentally razed a grove for new fields to till.
      A cleric propagating different faith than your own to the masses.
      Or even the barbarian passing through can become a nuisance once the dragon is slain.
      Yet most perdiforously- the shining knight can rouse more favour from the peasantry and gain misguided sense of purpose recognizing the land he is in as his own and not belonging to the ruler whose family has ruled the place for generations.
      I could go on and on, but I shall surmise with a simpler question:
      If you were a ruler, would you let a strange wizard run around your lands without keeping an eye on him?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Checked trips.

        Also, depends on the setting. How common are adventurer parties? How common are people on a similar power level? Do i myself have a level 8 court wizard? Is the head cleric of my fiefdom some lowly frick, or a level 6 cleric? Is my huntmaster a level 2 frickface, or a dangerous mid tier ranger? If im a low powered bumblefrick, a travelling cleric might be an issue, if the chooses to cause trouble. If my mid tier house preacher is going to tell him to get fricked and is equally (or, most likely, even more) beloved by the smallfolk, thats a different story.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Yes, here it starts to wary and depends on the setting. I was looking for more reasonable ways for kings and emperors to gain the service of adventurers without having to rely on "international adventurer's guild' cliche that dominate nu-fantasy.
          As anons

          medieval mercenary companies are basically ''adventurers'' fighting things for pay, except it's like 500 normal guys instead of 5 absurdly powerful ones. the decentralised feudal lords dont have the military strength to crush them without taking unacceptble losses, so they more or less just pay them to maintain good standing, and also pay them to fight other people if necessary. whether the mercenaries/adventurers normally follow the laws of the land varies, but if they become too much of a nuisance to ignore they're essentially bandits at this point, and feudal lords will send their armies or other mercenaries to put them down

          ;

          In my campaign local kingdoms give benefits and perks to named adventuring groups in good standing. In exchange for a small fee they get rights to things like claiming structures they've cleaned out, holding coats of arms, privileged legal positions and even minting their own currency or issuing promissory notes.
          Generally this has worked out as the characters liked the status.

          provided reasonable examples, I was leaning on the side that adventurers are carefully cultivated specialists that get a glorious privileges from the kingdom and eventually become nobles in their own rights with small fiefs and what not.
          Eventually it would turn them into cops, but I'm getting ahead of myself
          One reason how the adventurer's could remain independent is for them to belong to external orders/specialist guilds that have authority or respect that supersedes the secular orders etc.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Making them affiliated to some external entity's is usually the way to go for your regular DnD or Pathfinder game. More often then not, people arent just regular people, but an agent of the lords alliance, a cleric of the church of Abadar, an apprentice pathfinder, a wizard of the harpers or what not. Sure, you usually have some party members without any organizational affiliation, but then they are employed by someone. (Some city mayor, some noble, some interest group). So them going rogue randomly in a random fief would mean their employees and/ or organizations backing them will receive some serious complaints from state organizations. And even if the party itself is part of a state-supported organization, that still holds true, because it reflects back to them if the party fricks around where they arent supposed to..

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >them going rogue randomly in a random fief would mean their employees and/ or organizations backing them will receive some serious complaints from state organizations
              I had a hearty chuckle at the “wizard from the Harpers causes trouble in a region” notion anon.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Adventurers, especially the caster variety are walking time bombs that can cause havoc in the region regardless of their noble intent

        this doesnt sound like a problem of adventurers as a profession, but notably powerful indiviguals in general. this should simply be under that same modus operendi of dealing with any person with sufficient power behind them.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Individuals like that did exist and yeah they pretty much wrecked everything (I vaguely recall a Muslim king so wealthy his pilgrimage fricked up the economy of half of Africa just by virtue of him and his entourage travelling through the area to get to mecca)

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In my campaign local kingdoms give benefits and perks to named adventuring groups in good standing. In exchange for a small fee they get rights to things like claiming structures they've cleaned out, holding coats of arms, privileged legal positions and even minting their own currency or issuing promissory notes.
    Generally this has worked out as the characters liked the status.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The title of "adventurer" is/should be a romanticization more than anything. Player characters' whole deal should be the metaphorical scalpel to an army's hammer. When they start out, they're ignored because they're just common mercenaries. When they rise to prominence, they're trusted because they've helped the ruler out. It's not that complex, you don't need to be a sage to figure this out.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >local lordposter

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I rebuke thy slander, you ruffian! I was asking because I plan on making adventurers into minor local lords

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    "Adventurer" is a euphemism for mercenary. Assuming the fantasy setting is even a little bit similar to the IRL Middle Ages, local lords will probably need mercenary forces because they don't have the money to pay standing armies. So just like back then, they're a "threat," yes, but also their only option. Look into the condottieri for some context.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >How would you logically solve this?
    By not allowing people like you at my table.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The wonder of Ganker is that I will never have to encounter you outside of this chance instance.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Not really. The King was an adventurer back in the day, that's how he became King. Old King needed his daughter rescuing from pirates, she married the adventurer, old king retires and Adventurer becomes king. Old King got his job by right of conquest from older king who got it during a title dispute and resulting duel from his brother. If you want to be king then you either have to take the crown or somehow persuade the king to give it to you or get him to name you his heir and wait for natural causes or retirment.

    Half the standing army, small as it is, were once adventurers of one sort or another.

    The "man", if such he can still be called, who works as the castle blacksmith was once known as Abthordorox the Deathless.

    When the adventures are over, after the Dark Towers are cast down it's sometimes time to get a real job be you fearsome and vital or fearless undead.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Adventurers are not a risk to the lands because the Aristocracy/Nobility is fricking smart enough to keep throwing money and power at them to solve every single threat existent in the region, from minor to grave. By constantly jostling keys, dangling carrots and making sure that they are aptly rewarded (money which inevitably flows back into your system by the way), they can lock these incredibly powerful and almost always psychotic trained folk into making sure everything on a logistical side works well, that your lands are profitable and that inevitably, two outcomes happen.

    The adventurers thin out their numbers, due to challenge, difficulty, inner party lack of cohesion, lethality of their lifestyles or idiocy. The other outcome is that inevitably they get tired and sick of being constantly on the frontlines taking arrows and usually "settle down" while extremely rich and they spend their cash settling down on some kind of noble house (which you can persuade into strengthening your influence), a profitable venture like a magical shop or even an Inn/Tavern (which you can tax) or training the next generation of extremely useful, lethal idiots which you can convince to do shit for you with frankly not that great pay.

    Adventurers solve and cause problems. If you as the ruling class cannot handle fricking Mercenaries and their whims, you deserve to be ousted from your cushioned seats and to have that goblinoid sorceror frick your wife as you are inept and incompetent to the point of baffling scholars. Give them a faction to join, money to make, ideals to aspire to, lands to get after a worthy (extremely lethal) campaign, promise them trinkets like cloaks and robes, writs of passage, titles of meaningless power within your ranks but of undeniable potency and pride.

    If you cannot manipulate masses of powerful men and women who can kill you easily into following your damnable orders, you are worse than even the lowliest of army generals. Pathetic.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/y9woas/examining_the_verisimilitude_of_the_nat_1nat_20/
    >some 5000 English longbowmen (also about 1000 men-at-arms)

    >a succession of coup-de-graces with their two-handed pollaxes. The Thanatotic Titan is no more, and the day is saved!

    >Conclusion:
    >Due to some peculiarities in the rules, a creature feared by even the gods could probably be defeated by an army of English peasants with non-masterwork weapons from real-world history.

    Such arrogance.

    Do you respect the local lord and his men-at-arms now?

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >realismgays are this moronic

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      its bait, midwit kun. we'll have the same thread reworded within a week

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If adventurers are a common thing in the region, the governments are too weak and divided for them to fall under anyone’s purview. If governments are strong, they would already be working for the state instead of becoming adventurers.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In my group, we actually run a protection racket against the kingdom; they pay us a sizable tax, as well as keeping their soldiers from going within 10 miles of our keep, in exchange for not inciting rebellions. Our hoard is closer to that of the average adult dragon, and we each have our own vaults in our keep.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >How would you logically solve this?
    The rulers command cadres of level 17 guards who can be sent to deal with any outlaw adventurers

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Is your local rules an ancient gold dragon who runs an entire kingdom on eugenics and collecting the brightest, smartest and most capable people on the planet, supplying them with the best gear crafted by state of the art smiths and funded from his massive dragon hoard? Because thats how you get CR 17 city guards. If you are some nobody lord, you dont even dream of playing in that league.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        CR 17 is way way way way waaaaaaaaaay pushing it even for that.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      AIEEEEEEEEEE PLEASE FORGIVE ME GUARD-SAMA

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    While I dislike the idea of an "adventurer's guild" realistically there would have to be some state sanctioned organization the party belongs to individually or as a group otherwise freelance murder hobos sounds an awful lot like bandits and brigands. It also depends on how much control and centralization is present in the setting.

    In settings that have a more developed and centralized civilization there might be some guilds like a magic guild or a merc company that makes them legit or they might work for a particular organization like a Church or noble house if you don't want to make an adventurer's guild

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Former adventurers are the government.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Former adventurers are jurisprudence.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Local leadership is centralised & cumbersome, it would essentially be more costly than it’s worth to lay down the law on adventurers unless they’re specifically causing trouble. It’s not like you can blast these guy’s faces all over CNN or even get any news on their whereabouts that isn’t at least a week out of date. Taxation in medieval times was a huge ballache even though you could rely on people staying in the same fricking place & not having superpowers.

    Local Lord btfo.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    My current campaign is set in the lawless remnants of a fallen kingdom, there is no central authority or government to rule over it, each town is just doing its own thing to get by, some better than others.

    Most adventurers are simply in it because there's relics and treasures of the fallen kingdom to claim

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Please, city guards are consistently high level that even one of them can beat frickton of people, they will stare at you really hard if you do anything breaking the norm, accidentally touch them and you're dead!
    They will chase you anywhere, they will not stop, they will not relent, not sleep, not eat, they will not stop at anything until they kill you!
    And then they level up too and take your equipment!

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I play in points of light kind of setting, kingdoms barely stand, stuff like empires happens every millenium or so and because some demi-gods can make it happen. The majority of people live withing a city state or a tribe, normally nomad unless they are strong enough to survive the different monsters and spirits or under one being powerful enough to do so.
    Adventuring or sorts is actually encouraged, specially making new city states/tribes in old places than used to be under Human control, but they aren't right now, wich is kind of common, few cities last half a century without a calamity breaking it.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In ACKS, the amount of land income you have, as well as mercantile venture is an alternative source of XP gain. Therefore, all nobles and the hyper-wealthy are all high level.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It seems rather crunchy, how's it?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The biggest source of crunch is determining existing trade routes and coming up with your own race/class combo. From a "sit down and run perspective," almost no time at all.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Logic dictates that no ruler would blahblahblah
    >anon thinks rules are logical
    >anon things statecraft is logical
    >anon doesn't run a game in a borderlands and interstitial area to get around their own ill founded autism and bootlicking so deeply ingrained it permeates their ability to play fantastical games

  27. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Logic dictates
    No. Stop right there.
    That's a centralized and deeply modern logic, not representative of the actual dynamic of archaic government.
    Regional nobles, overly powerful religious institutions, the traders, the city dwelling specialists and their guilds, going fully into fantasy we have wizard circles, druidic orders, and the magical race groups in their own areas. All of these groups are powerful in their own right, and help to ultimately form the regional power structure.
    A ruler CAN'T monopolize all of these groups and their functions, and needs to delegate and play politics with them. At best a ruler can come directly from one of these groups and therefor have an extended base loyalty. Unless they make themselves disposable while having more ideal relatives for the crown.

    "Adventurers" are an extension of this, being small mobile groups by compare to the more settled groups, outside of trade entities whose usefulness is entirely dependent upon their mobility and capacity to provide goods. Most likely Adventurers are extensions of these individual estates. Professional warriors for temples, unlanded noble retinues, trade guards, magical dispatches, etc, etc.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Not so deeply, seeing as modern ruling isn't particularly any different from your example.
      To monopolize things ruler needs to possess appropriate capabilities, playing politics is very much a constant annoyance, just because one is in position with more power doesn't make one exempt from need to make intelligent plays.
      Even absolute monarchs still need to do that.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >just because one is in position with more power doesn't make one exempt from need to make intelligent plays.
        Doesn't mean they're going to make those plays either.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Naturally.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            So shut the frick up about it logically requiring it.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              How about no.
              Position carries stipulations, whether or not one fulfills them is not relevant to their existence.
              That's how it always in this field. It's just that one can choose to not do things, and price shall be payed one way or another for that, if such incompetence begets it.

  28. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    a local lord thread by any other name is still shit

  29. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Well any powerful adventurer won't be threatened by your guard. What you can do is marry your daughters off to the strongest adventurers, then you can use adventurers to beat up other adventurers

  30. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The Kings themselves are bad ass heroes who murdered their way to the top and will murder those who challenge their position directly, and create circumstances that lead to the deaths of those who threaten them indirectly.

    A high level party WILL inevitably come into conflict with the rulers of any nation they inhabit. The cost of strength is ceaseless conflict.

  31. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I am the Duke's nephew. I am the State. Frick off or I will summon my banners.
    My best friend is a Prince if the Summer Archipelago, & he has the Emperor's Leave of Travel & Armament, so insult him again with such demeaning words if you dare.
    The priestess of course can do as she pleases, only Pelor himself can give her an order, or bar her passage.
    As for my Man at Arms? He is under my protection & grace

  32. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    For the most part, "adventurers" are a boon. They clear out all sorts of pests for a nominal fee (sometimes even for free if the peasants weep enough) and then move on to the next county in search of their next "quest". Saves you the trouble of traipsing the troops around the woods in search of whatever vermin the peasants are moaning about. And if they don't move on and start making trouble, then you declare them outlaws and the next band of "adventurers" will gladly collect the bounty.

  33. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Hate on it all you want, but you can see examples of how to do it

    Campaign 1:
    >go over the line in regards with brutality
    >your trusted archmage ally is very disappointed, you dont want to loose her support
    >gloat that you work for the king and are heroes of the capital, use that to gain personal benefit
    >the king summons you in and gives your a stern lecture, threatening to remove your status
    >party members aligned to a city state, a renowned druidic order and the clergy of a god
    >once they gained renown, stepping out of line might cost them the favor of their respective organization

    Campaign 2:
    >wizard is on very shaky footing with powerful government organization, too big of a frick up might get them on their ass
    >become heroes of a continental power, make influential allies, work for international organization of a god
    >frick around too much and you will anger those people, because it puts them in a bad light

    >campaign 3
    >again, characters are tied to organizations like druidic order
    >supported by a noble benefactor
    >frick around where you should not and you risk loosing your support.

    There, if they can do it, so can you

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The GM in each of those cases is never going to give them legitimate consequences. In the second case, the party were scum mercenaries and occasional members of fantasy Antifa who did nothing but cause chaos, disorder, and leave disaster in their wake wherever they went. Meanwhile, their best friend was an evil warmongering scumbag who gaslit them into “friendship” at which point they even let him entirely off the hook for getting thousands and thousands of people killed.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Well their gm aint your gm, so thats a non issue.

  34. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >The adventurers, sick of abuse from obnoxious rulers, went and formed a guild

  35. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Adventures don't need to be walking cosmic gods even with magic being a thing. If they're not upsetting the balance of power by existing than they'll likely either coast under the radar or be seen in a way not too dissimilar to mercenaries or wandering tradesmen. Weird vagabond grave robbing murder hobos who solve problems for money or plunder ruins for treasure. This implies that adventuring is enough of a profession to be considered legit.

    If they're personally powerful enough to be noticed then you'd see officials taking an interest. The more powerful the higher the authority.

    Of course having some random schmucks protect your people instead you undermines one of the purposes of nobles and kings so free agent adventures would likely exist in a place where authority is distant or non existent. Alternatively the king could patronize adventurers as roaming agents who solve the problems of the realm on his behalf.

    Also you could split the difference. Maybe adventurers are often used for discreet work that couldn't otherwise be done in the open or with official approval so they exist as a sort of half criminal half official tool noble houses use to troubleshoot issues with enough distance for plausible deniability.

  36. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    none of this shit matters and if I was at a table where it became a part of the game I'd likely just drop out
    or, if the GM is actually good, find a way to take matters into my own hands and actually upset the balance

  37. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Just copy the system Cormyr uses
    All non military personnel wielding a weapon must document it with an official and get paperwork for it. They must also keep the weapon corded outside of hostile areas.
    All Wizards within the lands of Cormyr are kept tabs on by a group of government wizards that are a separate but equal part of the states military apparatus.
    All adventuring parties must list down their exact roster with an official in one of the major cities before being able to legally accept any mercenary work or "adventure" as they say.
    Once the proper paperwork has been done the party is then given a charter representing all those involved at the time of its creation and is expected to pay yearly fees to upkeep the charter.
    If their is a shift in the party then they must return to an official and have their charter updated, if one not on the charter then they legally cannot do anything.
    And if said charter is broken or the party refuses to pay their fees without dissolving the charter then they are flagged as criminals and must face repercussions.
    All of this is backed by a loyal civilian population, standing army, and an official governmental body for wizards that attaches itself to the military for joint operations or can act independently for the crown.

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *