D&D 5E How many adventurers are in your world?

[TheCosmicKid]

Is adventuring a fairly common profession? Are there adventurer's guilds and taverns, bulletin boards posted with adventuring jobs, laws and conventions governing adventurers' conduct?

Or are the PCs unique? Is their lifestyle precedented at most by heroic myths and legends? Does the rest of society not quite know what to do with these heavily armed wanderers?

Or is the truth somewhere in the middle?

 

[Talmek]

In my world, adventurers are rare but not unheard of. There are no formal organizations supporting adventurers (guilds & taverns) but they are able to find work relatively easily. Regarding laws and conventions, the adventurers in my world must abide by the same government that the average citizen does. However, as potential agents of the kingdom they are given a bit of freedom with the understanding that their job is to protect the populace rather than to use their latitude for their own gain.

I've never considered running a game where the PCs were completely unique and people kind of watched in awe of their activities, although at first thought it sounds like it would be fun to try.

 

[WitchyD]

None in my games, and not even the PCs: they should be more than hobo-murderers. They should be citizens, militia-men, members of shadowy organizations, merchants, clergy, and more. An identity as an adventurer is silly: "I'm an adventurer because I adventure!"

 

[Minigiant]

For every Great House, Royal Family, Major Church or Cult, and Powerful Guild...
...there's is an adventurer party they support, an equal amount of adventurers waiting to replace them when they die, change sides, or retire, and about a quarter that many retired but could get back into the game.

Basically every powerful group needs some guys they can send off to do stuff for them that an army would be impractical or too blatant to send off doing. Some parties and adventurers may be freelancers the ratio is about

1 Patron to 4 Adventurers

 

[iserith]

In my games, there tends to be two adventuring groups at any given time - the PCs and a rival group that they love to hate. That is a fun dynamic, creating a sense of competition and always trying to one-up the other. If the PCs don't take an adventure hook, the rival group does or they try to underbid the PCs for quest rewards which leads to interesting social interaction challenges as the players try to have their characters justify why they should be paid more for the same job.

As well, references to adventurers of old are sometimes made when fleshing out the history of an adventuring location, magic items, or the like. Otherwise, I wouldn't say that adventures are either particularly rare or prolific.

 

[empireofchaos]

Here are a few good resources on the availability of various professions (including magical ones), and the population it takes to support them:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/A_Magical_Medieval_City_Guide_(DnD_Other)/Generating

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

A good rule of thumb is that 90% of the population are going to be regular (0-level people). Most of the rest are going to be very low-level martial types (city watch, soldiers), and possibly some hedge-priests here and there.

As for active "adventurers", they should be few and far between, but: in some situations, armed people without a defined place in society are going to be more common. These include societies that are currently overpopulated (in certain cases, underpopulated, such as after a major plague), in conflict (war, civil war, in the grips of a new religious movement), experiencing unprecedented levels of economic (upward or downward) mobility, and similar unsettled situations. Although 5e does well to root PCs in the social matrix, campaigns that work along traditional lines (there is a strange world for adventurers to explore) would do well to incorporate one or more of these features.

 

[Sunseeker]

Somewhere in the middle. Adventurers, people longing to get away from the routine of life are not uncommon, bumping in to another group of people seeking treasure and fame between levels 1-5 are not uncommon. I mean, what are mercenaries but adventurers for hire? Pirates but CE adventurers of the sea? After that are those that have been truly successful in adventuring, and by the time you've reached level 10, there are few who adventure with more skill than the players.

When I start games, it often starts with multiple adventuring parties. The King wants something from an ancient tomb and will hire all the cannon fodd...I mean adventurers he can!

 

[ccs]

Well, there's 4-7 who're PCs at any given time, about another dozen that I have detailed, and then however many I need for story purposes.
So 20ish + ?

 

[Shiroiken]

In my Greyhawk, adventurers are less than 1% of the population, but this is partly due to the high turnover rate (i.e. death). Adventurers are uncommon, but most folk have either seen or heard of them (usually before they're never seen again). They're generally distrusted, mostly due to unconfirmed legends of adventures slaying entire villages for their "massive" hidden wealth.

There are no guilds exactly, but there are several groups of experienced adventurers (Mordenkainen's Obsidian Citadel, the Circle of Eight, and Robliar's Green Dragons). PCs are unlikely to join such groups, but may encounter some of them, possibly gaining temporary employment. It's the goal of many successful adventurers to form their own group, where they can influence events in the world from a stronghold.

Laws are applied universally, so there are few laws aimed at adventurers. Many nations have a sellsword tax, which is aimed mostly at mercenaries. There are "recovery" taxes that are aimed at adventurers, usually at 20%, designed to help the nation recover some of it's lost revenue due to the monsters/bandits/cultists/etc. Unless the adventurers are actually citizens of a location, they are MUCH less likely to be believed over the word of a citizen, so they often have to be careful about whom they deal with and how.

 

[Mirtek]

Many and the most famous companies are the rockstars of the world, and every farm lad or lass dreams runing away to become one at least once.

In border regions entire towns spring up to supply adventuring (like the gold rush towns).

However adventuring bands can become quite a burden when bored. Towns who in the summer hailed them as heroes pray that they move on in autumn before they become locked in during winter in these towns and cause quite a lot of mischief in their boredom.

Also when on low fortunes the lines between adventuring company and band of bandits begin to blurr.

Then there are the noble sons and daughters playing at being adventurers, aka showing up with a large entourage doing the actual work while they sit in the comfortable tents and sip expensive wines