Adventurers in the campaign world

[shilsen]

Adventuring parties are Elizabethan drama troupes.

That's actually the approach I used in my last campaign. It began in Greyhawk in Keoland, which is a very well-established and successful kingdom. I figured it made sense that the kingdom would have a system to both benefit from the advantages of having adventuring parties around and to minimize the damage they cause. So what I came up with was a patronage system, based on that used by Elizabethan acting troupes. In short, all parties must be sponsored by a noble or a high-ranking member of a local church. Non-sponsored adventurers are regarded as vagabonds and dangerous (and potentially, if not actually, criminals).

 

[rbingham2000]

Let's see.

Adventurers would mainly start out with helping people in the town they live in, heading out to other towns when the townsfolk's relatives in those towns need help. Sooner or later, word of the party's exploits will reach one of the local nobles, who will probably want them under his or her service.

The noble will send them off on more adventures farther away in exchange for pay and protection against other nobles that they might piss off on these adventures. Then as the party's exploits become further known, they will no doubt come to the attention of the ruler or the ruling council.

If the ruler chooses to take the adventurers on, it's a fair bet that he or she will want them to carry out the interests of their homeland in other lands.

And of course, should the adventurers manage to piss off their would-be patrons, then they need to get the hell out of the county/duchy/kingdom with guardsmen at their heels and go try their luck elsewhere.