Ideal material rewards for professional adventurers

[System Ufera]

Hello again. During my preparations for the next campaign to playtest my system, I've decided to test a new, much slower-paced type of plot (at least for the first part of the campaign) where the party is actually going to live the lives of professional adventurers in the setting, taking contracts and earning money. As such, I need an idea of how to reward my party with loot and gold bounties.

A few details about the setting: The nation of Milandria is a Republican Monarchy, led by King Augstruss Milandred, son of the late first kind and founder of Milandria, King Joles Milandred. The functional role of the Milandrian government regarding the domestic economy is to both regulate and stimulate the economy. To be clear, "stimulating" in this case does not mean "bailing out," but rather providing wealth, capital and other resources to small businesses. This is because the average middle-class citizen does not earn nearly enough money to start a business on his or her own; while living expenses on average are quite low, and so most people are financially okay,=, goods and tools required to run a business are significantly more expensive. One such business type is the Adventuring Party. Which brings me to my problem...

Because most of the private wealth of Milandria is concentrated in business (as opposed to personal wealth), most people who don't have the backing of a business wouldn't be able to provide more than an average of 5 gold as payment for the very occasional services of an adventuring party, whereas the expenses of an adventuring party, especially one wishing to expand its capabilities with more or better equipment, would cost far more than that. While the government-funded Adventurer's guild would give money, either in loans or in donations, to an upstart adventuring party, they don't pay for everything. As such, my question is this:

How can I provide my players' characters with payment appropriate for the standard adventuring party while still maintaining realism in terms of what people can pay them?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

How can I provide my players' characters with payment appropriate for the standard adventuring party while still maintaining realism in terms of what people can pay them?

Have the Adventurer's Guild sell/loan them used adventuring equipment on the cheap. And give them their clothes free! (And maybe a pack and some torches and rope.) The most expensive thing most adventurers need are armor and weapons, so when other groups upgrade, their old stuff goes back into the guild 'kitty'.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How can I provide my players' characters with payment appropriate for the standard adventuring party while still maintaining realism in terms of what people can pay them?

1) Credit at the establishment of this who hired them: that can mean a concrete amount of a credit line, promissory notes, deep discounts or even "your money is no good here"

2) payment in "favors"

3) barter

 

[Loonook]

How can I provide my players' characters with payment appropriate for the standard adventuring party while still maintaining realism in terms of what people can pay them?

Guild Adventurers working for peasantry?

No no no. We're Shadows & Runners now. Breaking into Guild outposts, dispelling traps, fighting guards, stealing things. You get paid in scrip from your bosses, and protect your interests.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[System Ufera]

Have the Adventurer's Guild sell/loan them used adventuring equipment on the cheap. And give them their clothes free! (And maybe a pack and some torches and rope.) The most expensive thing most adventurers need are armor and weapons, so when other groups upgrade, their old stuff goes back into the guild 'kitty'.

That's a pretty good idea to start with, and it actually does fit quite well with some of the background flavor of the setting: in Milandria, many people prefer the reverence of mortal heroes over worshiping deities, and one of the reasons people would become adventurers is to become heroes themselves. As such, many upstarts would probably jump with joy at the chance to get (or at least borrow) a low-cost hand-me-down from a local hero (national heroes' old equipment would probably become relics, and would probably end up in the hands of a museum or private collector).

I was thinking of having a list of benefits to being a licensed adventurer; perhaps this could be one of them...

1) Credit at the establishment of this who hired them: that can mean a concrete amount of a credit line, promissory notes, deep discounts or even "your money is no good here"

2) payment in "favors"

3) barter

That's also a good idea in the case of some of the less wealthy clients... perhaps a client could offer indentured servitude as a reward? As for bartering, it would most likely have to be a commodity in bulk; not everyone has a valuable family heirloom to trade for catching a thief or killing wild carnivores posing a threat to a farm.

Guild Adventurers working for peasantry?

No no no. We're Shadows & Runners now. Breaking into Guild outposts, dispelling traps, fighting guards, stealing things. You get paid in scrip from your bosses, and protect your interests.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

Um... what?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

If you haven't already, look into 1E's henchmen and hireling rules for potential indentured servants.