The politics of Guilds in a Depression campaign

[STARP_Social_Officer]

I'm putting together my next world for my next homebrew. The world is an update of my old campaign, a "next generation" if you like, set one hundred years after the conclusion of the last one. In that campaign, the world was just starting to enter its own version of the Industrial Revolution, with a culture similar to that of the Georgian period.
The 'theme' for the new campaign world is the Depression. Basically, what's happened is that steam took off and flourished, and the world became industrialised. Before anybody knew it, the modern world was here. Of course, it took longer than a century on our planet to reach the 1930s, but hey, this ain't our world.
Where all this is leading is into a political scenario. I've already established that the home city is a democracy (as are other places), which had just started to happen at the end of the last campaign. But I'm still thinking about what the politics of this new world would be like? If a society went quickly from quasi-Rennaissance, through the Industrial Revolution and out the other side very fast, how would politics develop?
So my idea is that politics has developed along different lines than the Left/Right divide in our world (or the West, anyway). Instead, politics became about the Guilds. At the end of the last campaign, there were a few Guilds which held monopolies over major services and industries. Now, the number of Guilds have skyrocketed, but the idea that Guilds control trade is one that refuses to die. So, instead of, say, Socialism and Capitalism, what you have is pro-Guild and anti-Guild. The pro-Guild party supports the idea that the Guilds should control prices, services, wages etc. The anti-Guild party believes that Guilds stifle growth because they're only interested in themselves.
Guilds have evolved into a combination of trade unions and megacorporations. They are immensely rich and immensely powerful, but their place in the world is slowly starting to conflict with the end of the class system, where money rather than birth becomes the new status symbol.
So, pro-Guild politicians support the rights of the Guilds to do whatever they like, and see government as something to tackle law and order, foreign affairs, defence etc. while the Guilds get on with running the economy. The anti-Guild politicians support policies to strengthen the power of government against Guild power, to restrict the political and economic clout of the Guilds. The pro-Guildists say the anti-Guildists will put people out of work and cause economic chaos, while the anti-Guildists say the pro-Guildists are undemocratic and rip off workers by letting the Guilds line their pockets.
What do people think? Does it make sense? What other developments could I throw in to make the situation more interesting? My campaigns tend to be quite political, so this is a major element of the world I'm building. Any thoughts?

 

[Tonguez]

I really like this as it places a defiante split between the 'educated' guildsman and the great illiterate masses who serve as feild labourers.

besides the control and supply of goods and services Guilds need to be involved in other areas too such as running Guild schools, welfare programmes for Guild orphans and widows, insurance and fire protection services and depending on your set up perhaps even having religious functions (on behalf of their patron diety) Guilds may even have some policing powers within their own limited sphere (how orderly or corrupt this works is another source of tension). This pretty much means Government = Military and Foreign Affairs

The guilds power means that cities in particular are guildbased-oligarchies, the government rubber stamps what the guilds want and urban non-guilders are little more than beggars.

In the Cities, the Guild Provost is effectively mayor, the position was traditionally appointed by the Monarch (ie Government) but since the rise of guild power the encumbent is essentially someone nominated by the Guilds and rubber stamped . Anti-Guildist criticise this and want to open the position up to general ballot.

Guilds being a largely urban phenomena you also get a good urban-rural split which could be a source of tension. Where does the agricultural sector sit? Is it also Guild run or does that sector represent the last vestiges of the Manorial system? (ie the Bosses family and the feild labourers)
What do the Druids and Rangers think?

How do racial collectives fit into this scheme? Is the Stonecutters (Mining, Masonry, Bricklaying) Guild made up exclusively of Dwarfs? Are there Goblin ghettoes?
What about Churches? Who controls magic? What happens when the Halflings start writing the Socialist Manifesto?

NB
This was translated from French by Babelfish re the Provost-Merchant of Paris

The provost of the merchants managed the corn measurers, the criers, the gauges and the taverniers. One became provost of the merchants by way of stronghold by special gift of the king; the provost of the merchants charged the fees to pay for the delivery and the checking of measurements. Under Ancien Régime, the function approaches that of a mayor. The Provost of the merchants of Paris is the chief of the Parisian municipality.

 

[Phlebas]

I've just finished 'devices & desires' by KJ parker which describes an industrialised, guild run republic next to 2 quasi-medieval duchies. a lot of interesting ideas i was going to steal for my homebrew. Might be worth a read?

Rather than just pro-guild & anti-guild you would also have reformers / traditionalists within the guilds, and absolutists / anarchists within the anti-guild movement. That would open the doors to collabaration between various factions and make it clear that there is no purely 'good' or 'bad' side to the argument.

looking at the governments, rather than another power block playing the pro and anti factions against each other to remain in power, you could just bite the bullet and say that the guilds are effectively the government and so the pro's would stand for stabilty / good governance, the anti's are virtually rebebls standing for freedom / independence / national / racial identity and all the baggage that goes with that. You might have some figure head royalty or populist mayors to provide some indendence from the guild....

 

[Phlebas]

..........
besides the control and supply of goods and services Guilds need to be involved in other areas too such as running Guild schools, welfare programmes for Guild orphans and widows, insurance and fire protection services and depending on your set up perhaps even having religious functions (on behalf of their patron diety) Guilds may even have some policing powers within their own limited sphere (how orderly or corrupt this works is another source of tension). ...............

Thats an important point - unless you want the guilds to be the faceless enemy you need to show the other side of their work and make politics suitably shades of gray rather than black/white.

Of course, if welfare is restricted to guild members only then that might be another source of tension for a population of guildless unemployed...

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh this is such a great idea.

How do outsiders become Guildsmen? Can they? Presumably there will be classes within the guild as well: Apprentices; Journymen; Masters. And how about common labourers, who may be 'in the guild' but will never be able to rise within the Guild, always being labourers. How easily do the classes interact? Can common labourers strike? Do they see themselves as a cut above non-guilders, despite a similar economic level?

Oh there's a Emile Zola novel that would be good reading here. Just can't remember the name. About a mid-19th century coal mining strike/dispute/shut out in France.

And how do guilds interact with one another? Can there be guilds that are rivals for a particular market? Say a Miners guild and a Stonemasons guild? I notice you're an Aussie : familiar with the phrase: Demarcation Dispute? Only add a gov't with little real power and see how long it is before the threats turn into gang fights, riots and assassination.

Really I don't see Guilds being that different from old time corporations. Big, rich, influential. They will step on the smaller folk in the need to get the next big score.

Main things to think about:
INteraction between the Guilds and:

The government. And are there parties within the Governemnt that are being influenced by different (and rival) guilds? Lobbying can take on interesting traits in a fantasy world. Would the Guilds have pushed fo rmore real power by insisting on Constituional Monarchy and a parliment? Obviously only guild members could vote.

The common (non-guild) people. A pool of cheap labour to be dipped into as needed and discarded when not? Just ignored? Do the labourers have Choice in the Work place?

Other Guilds: rivalries and alliances between different guilds.

cheers with that, Good luck sounds to be very interesting campaign.

 

[Tonguez]

Oh this is such a great idea.
How do outsiders become Guildsmen? Can they? Presumably there will be classes within the guild as well: Apprentices; Journymen; Masters. And how about common labourers, who may be 'in the guild' but will never be able to rise within the Guild, always being labourers. How easily do the classes interact? Can common labourers strike? Do they see themselves as a cut above non-guilders, despite a similar economic level?

I've been thinking on this and would imagine Guilds being run in two levels at the top is the 'Council of Masters' who represent the 'Business Owners' and the second group a 'Council of Journeymen' who represent the 'Guild Workers' (essentially middle management). Below the Journeymen is the vast majority of Free Guildsmen (Labourers) made up of families who have worked in the trade for generations and who strive to have one of their children taken on as apprentices. Of course Guildsmen are allowed to strike but then troublemakers run the risk of not being 'taken on' by employers and having their children locked out of apprenticeships

Nonetheless the Guildsmen receive the Guild rights of education and welfare and so do consider themselves 'better' than the Guildless. Also I'd suppose that most of the Guildless were rural 'Feild Labourers' who have sort the freedom of urban life during the former boomtime when there was an increased demand for cheap labour and are now stuck without jobs or guild franchise.
The Free Guildsmen look down on these feild peasants and definately don't want them competing for work, indeed the best these Feild Labourers might expect is to be taken in by one of the (Guild run) Poor Houses and taught a basic trade. The only way non-guilders get into a Guild is by endorsement by a Journeymen and employment by a Master and thus are essentially nobodies.

You could even have Guildsmen forming their own 'ghettoes/communities' and forcing out any non-guildmen who try to establish themselves. If you want to do a Gangs of New York type set up you could even have running disputes between the Millhouse Boys, the Down street Tanners and the Riverside Steelmen all made up of the children of the respective Guilds.

So how do PCs fit into this set up? Is there an Adventurers Guild? Could PCs be drawn from different Guilds and what politics would this generate? What about Non-Guild PCs? How would the Millhouse Boys respond to a PC who came from a Tanners background? and does a Guild background give a free Profession Skill?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

For the gangs and ghettoes: absolutely. And you've got some good names there too. One question: why would it be limited to children only? Plenty of poor, uneducated, desperate, angry adults join gangs. Or stay in them.

As for an adventurers' guild: I'd say it doesn't fit. An adventurer's life is one of freedom to go where you would and do what you will. The complete antithesis of the total control that the normal guilds seek to have. Not to mention adventuer's don't produce anything. Bar brawls are not a product.

It'd be more likely for there to be a wizard's guild. In fact a wizard's guild could fit very well. They have exactly the sort of structure an ordinary guild has plus a unique product to sell.

Another question that occurs to me is: how do guilds deal with non-guild people trying to move into their traditional areas of interest? Not well obviously. But will they seek a legal recourse first or will they simply send in the thugs?

You wrote:
"How would the Millhouse Boys respond to a PC who came from a Tanners background?"

Same way they'd react to anyone who came from a tanner's background: "You stink of piss, tanners-boy!" (and they would, tanning uses a lot of ammonia gathered from urine.) Unless the PC has a glowing "PC" sign above their head why should they be treated differently to anyone else?

As to free profession skills from joining a guild: Why not? The guilds give training after all. A few free skill ranks culd be a good mechancial reason to join the guild. ALthough I'd say there's already plenty of reasons for wanting Guild membership.

Once again: a great idea. I hope you post more regarding it. And if you want to bounce more ideas feel free, I'm enjoying the brainstorming.

 

[STARP_Social_Officer]

I'm enjoying the way this is going. There's some great ideas there. I've even come up with the names of the two political parties in the PCs' home city. The anti-Guild party are called the Delbenists, named after a character in the old campaign who always tried to resist Guild influence and lost his position when the Guilds ganged up on him. It's a perfect way to link the new campaign to the old one and to describe the beliefs of the party.
For the pro-Guild party, I think the best name is the Journey Party. They're called that because a) they claim to be about 'the journey into the future' and b) more importantly, they're based on the voting power of the Guilds and represent the Guild Journeymen.
I'm really proud of that one. I think it sounds just right.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh I like that. Good names both. And I if I was a player I'd be proud to have a faction named after one of my characters. I'd have to play my next character as a member of the Journey Party just so I could curse my old character's name. But I admit I'm weird, even by gamer standards.

A suggestion for some inspiration: look up some info on the Guelfs and the Ghibellines.
These were the 2 main political parties (not in a modern sense of course) in Italy during the Middle Ages. At different times different cities would be ruled by one party or the other. And god help anyone who'd been a leader of the other party when the revolution came. Dante (of Inferno fame) got exiled from Florence (IIRC) when the opposition party came into power there. Can't remember which party Dante belonged to but you can be pretty damn sure that all the worst folks in the Inferno were members of the opposition one. Which makes me think a Bard propogandist could be an interesting hook/recurring character. Or Player role.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

There are two other factors that might have a profound effect on political development - magic and adventurers. These may or may not be tied into the Guild heirarchy; wizards guilds are a fantasy staple, of course, and an adventurers guild is also a possibility - and a great way to get PC's to interact with the Guild structure by potentially making them part of it (though you may not want to give them that "advantage").

As for membership - I'd say that the Guilds should have entrance exams/tests that would theoretically allow anyone in. However, children would get grandfathered in, and the amount of outside blood getting in may well drop, causing resentment among the masses. The theory of anyone being able to get in mitigates some opposition - the Guild can say that any qualified person can reap the benefits of their skill - but the reality is murkier. The Guilds will need to aloow some new blood in, since they need to keep the quality of their work up to a certain standard or lose face/power.

Some Guilds will be more or less likely to allow new outside entrants; typically the more egalitarian ones will be more favored by the PC's (due to the players more modern outlooks). I'd use that to flip the script on them; maybe one of the more open guilds has a indoctrination ceremony that implants some sort of Guild control symbiont, or causes them to be possessed by an extraplanar being, etc.