D&D General How common are adventurers?

[Kaodi]

"Adventurer" is just kind of a meta designation from the get go. They could be irregulars, or militia. Heck, there are plenty of games where the PCs are explicitly endorsed by legal authorities as members of broader organizations.

There are related questions we can ask too: are Witchers "adventurers" ? Was Steve Irwin an "adventurer" ? (Hell, was Steve Irwin a Witcher?)

 

[Tonguez]

As the survey proves most of the people think they are more or less rare, but there are others.

Having them crawling around in every corner is as unpractical as having them being one of their kinds.
To many of them make certain economic impacts, them being ultra rare derives the DM of these tools:
"You encounter the remains of a previous party"
or
"The rival party was faster than you the treasure chest has already been emptied"
etc.

I’ve used both of those before,
One involved a famous dungeon which was originally built as a crypt built to trap a Vampire Lord.
when the PCs arrived the found that the sealed door had been smashed and when they went further they discovered the roof collapsed and covered by a black soot which was the remnants of an explosion caused by earlier raiders who were now ash zombies

 

[Bitbrain]

At my table, the PCs might as well be the only adventurers in the universe.

They’ll be fighting monsters in a dungeon and complain about “whoever gave us this mission should have hired exterminators first. Make our job a lot easier.”
Then the guy with ADHD will look at the others like they’ve lost their mind and say “Did you not listen to the DM?! We are the exterminators!”

 

[Michael Silverbane]

In the campaigns that I typically run, troubleshooters (what people in-world call professional adventurers / questers / problem-solvers) are somewhere between "not unheard of" and "you do what now?" They are a pretty normal part of the world, and are necessary because otherwise the world would be overrun by monsters, cultists, and evil wizards.

 

[Coroc]

I’d say that of my Eberron campaign. Well, no, I wouldn’t, because I don’t buy that definition.

But by that definition, absolutely. There are adventurers in the world, and newspapers talk about their exploits, but the party is made up of an Sharn based Inquisitive who can barely manage his own life, a Blood of Vol Paladin from a noble family who has religious and patriotic goals that she is pursuing and who only cares about glory when she’s jousting and has no need of more money, a wizard seeking information on the murderer of his mentor, a firbolg married couple (Bards) who are somewhat seeking fame as performers but who are much mores motivated by other stuff that’s complicated, and recently a Bugbear failed merchant who is basically there because the Inquisitive is his friend.

None of them are going out into the world just to find fame and fortune at great personal risk.

And that’s the most adventuresome party in my group, by your definition.

My buddy’s homebrew game we are all trying to stop a conspiracy between a necromantic cult and a diabolical criminal organization.

So, again, the numbers are very different depending on the definition.

So they pretty much all are like the hobbit who notices there is no second breakfast and therefore would prefer to go home instead of doing adventure

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

One more for the "You do what now?" option.
By the definition set out in this thread, adventurers are extremely rare (and often fictional) in my games.
- That option was the rarest I could pick without saying that they flat-out don't exist or implying that my PCs would count as adventurers.

 

[Reynard]

"Adventurer" is just kind of a meta designation from the get go. They could be irregulars, or militia. Heck, there are plenty of games where the PCs are explicitly endorsed by legal authorities as members of broader organizations.

There are related questions we can ask too: are Witchers "adventurers" ? Was Steve Irwin an "adventurer" ? (Hell, was Steve Irwin a Witcher?)

I don't know if Steve Irwin was a WItcher, but he was certainly an adventurer. He went out into the world to explore and discover and gain himself some fame and fortune. My definition of "adventurer" doesn't mean you can't have additional goals, noble or otherwise, just that your primary driving motivation to go into the wilderness/dungeon/whatever is based on a personal desire for fortune, glory, excitement and/or experiences. So a given Witcher might be an adventurer by that definition (and being a Witcher affords them those opportunities) while another may be is better termed a "crusader" in that their primary motivation is duty as an example. This doesn't mean that crusader doesn't go on adventures, it means their vocation is to crusade against monsters.

A good illustration might be the difference between The Challengers of the Unknown as adventurers, versus The Blackhawks, as agents of the military. Both teams have adventures, but the driving force behind those adventures are notably different. Of course, within those teams, individual characters have their own motivations, but now we are slicing it a little thin for the purposes of this discussion.

 

[Beleriphon]

Every world is different, but in general I run games with “adventurers” being not unheard of, but not quite common.

But also, what is an adventurer?

Real world or D&D?

Because real world: Bear Gryllis, Ranulph Fiennes, at one point or another Theodore Roosevelt.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Adventurers are as common as I need them to be.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So they pretty much all are like the hobbit who notices there is no second breakfast and therefore would prefer to go home instead of doing adventure

Um...no? What are you even responding to with that?