Guilds
Guilds is a sourcebook in AEG's "one-word topic" line of generic supplements for d20 System fantasy games. The book provides rules for creating craftsmen (and other) guilds (and their component characters) in fantasy games. The book is written by Shawn Carman, Richard Farrese, Andrew Getting, Gareth Hanrahan, Sean Holland, Andrew Hudson, Jeff Ibach, Jim Sharkey, and Douglass Sun.
A First Look
Guilds is a 128-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $24.95. This would have been expensive for this size and format at one time, but is becoming more the norm.
The cover of the book is decorated by a somewhat smudgy painting of a woman wielding two swords leaping through the air. The illustration is by "beet".
The interior art is black-and-white and features the talents of Lisa Hunt, Amandine Labarre, Matt Morrow, Alex Sheikman, and Jeff Wright. The artwork are mostly simple ink drawings, and are adequate if not memorable.
A Deeper Look
This is, as the name suggests, a book on guilds. Though fantasy games derive a great deal of use out of organizations of various sorts, at it's most basic level, a book on guilds seems somewhat mundane.
The introductory section of the books suggests that some "staunch players" will "call the GM" if guilds aren't realistically represented in the game. While in some cases this might be true, whether this serves this need well or whether this need is authentic remains to be seen.
The content of the book is divided into five chapters and an appendix..
The first chapter, Guild Basics, is primarily exposition with a few DCs for guild related tasks (such as maintaining noble sponsorship) thrown in. The exposition provides basic explanations and analysis of guilds in a fantasy game, including definitions, evolution, and their interaction with other societal units such as the government and nobility. This chapter also defines several guild types which will be functional throughout the book: class guilds, craft guilds, interest guilds, and profession guilds.
The second chapter, entitled Benefits of a Guild, is where mechanics begin to take on a stronger role. As a starter, the book suggests contacts are a possible benefit of guild membership, and to that end, provides a simple system for tracking a character's contacts. To its credit, the system is a nice mixture of mechanical and gm fiat methods, which is a nice break from systems that fail to recognize the role of one of the other. Guild membership (and rank) is only one of the methods through which one can gain contacts.
The chapter also has a section on training. The effects of training differ by the rank that the character has within the guild: apprenticeship, journeyman, master, and grand master. The designation of these categories is according to the character's level (with some provisions for prestige classes granting earlier access to a rank.) These rules suggest that until a character is 7th level, they are apprentices, which seems out-of-whack with typical perceptions of what a character's power represents, as well as with the demographics presented in the DMG (which suggests that the pinnacle of achievement for many classes is a small community might be 7th level.)
At any rate, the training rules offer a character XP in a core class or the expert class . (Are commoners not the sort that would ever be in guilds? This I differ with. Experts are supposed to be more educated sorts; many basic craftsmen are commoners.) At any rate, at apprentice levels, the training rules offer about as much XP in a month of training as the DMG suggests for an hour of play if not using CRs, i.e., 75 xp per level.
Whether or not this is appropriate is a matter left to the DM; as there are supposed to be ~13.33 encounters or hours of play per level, this mean in just over a year, a character will gain a level. So in seven years, a character will be 7th level. Again, this does not fit the NPC demographics too well.
After 7th level, whereupon the PC enters journeyman status. You would think that they might slow the rate of advancement down so it would reflect the smaller proportion of higher level characters. In fact, the system does the opposite and increases the rate of xp acquisition after 7th level.
After a small section of rules pertaining to economics of guilds and equipment, the chapter dives into the more typical sorts of materials for these sorts of books: character options. This includes new skill uses, new feats, a new clerical domain (guild, naturally), and a small selection of spells dealing with guilds and organizations, such as guild mark and secret conlclave.
The third chapter is entitled Guild Operation/Creation. It resembles the first chapter in that, again, it is primarily exposition with a few DCs for common tasks thrown in to handle specific challenges. The chapter covers the specifics of becoming part of, running, or leading a guild.
The fourth chapter introduces a number of sample guilds for use in the campaign, including samples of each of the four types mentioned previously. Each guild has a basic outline of the important facts about the guilds (type, motivations, influence, size, etc.), an extended background, a map of a guildhall or other important building, oaths, NPCs, and mechanics (such as spells and feats) for use within the guild. This is by far the most worthwhile section of the book, a convenient selection of (ofttimes creative) guilds that you can use in any campaigns, and the extra guild associated mechanics add a nice touch to the guilds.
The fifth chapter is entitled DMing Guilds, and primarily provides rules and advice for handling characters who are running guilds. This includes details such as methods for handling economies, random resolution of challenges that might confront a guild, and specific guidelines for handling how major events (such as wars) affect the guild. Also, all the prestige classes of the book got stuffed into this chapter. Some of these are generic like guildmaster, though others like arcane order mage seem as if they properly belong tucked in the associated guild in the previous chapter but the editor decided to lump all the prestige classes together.
The appendix is much in the same vein as chapter 4 in that it contains primarily information you can drop directly into the campaign in the form of some briefly detailed sample NPC contacts. There is also a table of adventure ideas for guilds similar to the 100 adventure ideas presented in the DMG (or for that matter, the 100 mercenary adventure ideas presented in Mercenaries.)
Conclusions
The best part of this book is by far the sample guilds presented in chapter 4. The selection of simple, straightforward, yet nicely detailed guilds could be a boon to many campaigns. The guild specific rules material helps to cement the concept in the game.
However, as stated, I am not too impressed with the guild specific rules which stand at odds with the demographics of the game, and the exposition seems not entirely helpful or enticing (not unlike AEG's War.)
Overall Grade: C
-Alan D. Kohler
