Because of the difficulty level of the campaign, players are going to be bringing in new PCs from time to time, and its doubtful that there will be many (if any) original PCs by the time we finish the AP.
And so......I'm thinking about suggesting that the players form an adventuring company of sorts, just to maintain a bit of consistency, and a connection to the accomplishments of the PCs that have been put to rest.
I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on what type of bureacracy might be involved; what kind of fees, licenses, bribes etc. would be necessary to establish an official company?
If any of you have groups that have done anything similar, I'd love to hear about how you handled it. I think something like this could provide a great deal of RP just in setting it up, so I don't want to rush through it too hastily.
I'm not sure how far back they archive this messageboard anymore, but back in winter '04, I was looking at this same problem. Our solution was a chartered adventuring company, an idea which I probably picked up from the FR campaign setting. The PCs had to stand before a city board that represented nobles, merchants, and churches in Cauldron. Mine was campaign-specific, but a good board might include Embril Aloustinai, Jenya, Ankhin Taskerhill, Zachary Aslaxin I, Orbius Vhalantru, Terseon Skellerang, and Lord Mayor Narvalant. Start each off with his own attitude. The mix should probably be 2 friendly, 2 unfriendly, and 3 indifferent. Let the PCs make their case for why they ought to be a chartered company and award circumstance bonuses or penalties based on the points they make. Some issues might affect different members differently (for example, anything that pleases the Church of St Cuthburt will likely annoy the temple of Wee Jas). Make a diplomacy check. An unfriendly NPC votes against chartering the PC's; a friendly NPC votes in favor; an indifferent NPC votes with the majority or abstains.
Once the PCs have the charter, it will provide a vehicle for contracts (such as in chapters 2,3, and 4) and, in our campaign, it accorded the bearers special privileges, specifically the right to carry magic arms and armor and to cast 2nd-level spells or higher in public without fear of arrest. Administering the business of an adventuring company was almost as much fun for my party as crawling through dungeons, and really helped the setting come alive, since they got to interact with prominent NPCs so early in the campaign. I'll see if I can't find my original files for the campaign (I moved a year ago and haven't played since, so I may have file-13'd them) if you have an e-mail I can send them to.
Chairborne, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I'll dig up the old thread.....did you run your game online? I'd love to check out some of your gamelogs to see how you handled things. Otherwise, thanks for the response. Acquiring a charter is a great first step - and will make for an interesting session.
I'll see if I can't find my original files for the campaign (I moved a year ago and haven't played since, so I may have file-13'd them) if you have an e-mail I can send them to.
Actually, I'd love to see any files you want to throw my way Chairborne. You can email them to macabrevity(at)gmail(dot)com if they turn up. No worries if they don't.
I'll let you know how the whole chartering episode plays out for us. It should be another 2 or 3 sessions before they have any free time in the city to start pursuing any plans, assuming they will want to.
Sorry, none of my original SCAP files survived the transition to a new PC last December :( However, once they get the Archives link working again, I'll go back and dig up the old thread. In it, Chef's Slaad had directed me to a good 3rd-party website with alternate diplomacy rules. CS, if you're still on these boards, maybe you could post it again under this thread?
I loved your solution, Chairborne Ranger. I have a different one, which I think has its pros and cons.
In my campaign setting, there is an organization simply known as Adventurer’s Academy. There are a few examples of such organizations, such as the academy mercenary force SeeD has founded in Final Fantasy VIII, as well as the ones found in Phantasy Star games.
The main inspiration for the Adventurer’s Academy comes from the idea of wizard schools found in D&D. Thieves have their guilds and clerics have their churches, but why should wizards be the only class that benefit from formal academic training? The simple answer would be, of course, that by nature wizards are studious and organized individuals, learning to master arcane energies and needing to do research in huge, ancient libraries. They also need quiet places to meditate and to dedicate themselves to magical item creation.
On certain campaigns, fighters may have received some military training, which provides them gives them extensive weapon and armor proficiencies, fighting techniques and at basic knowledge of battle tactics.
This idea works well in a setting where adventurers are not a bunch of rare freaks. Adventuring parties would be common enterprises where a group of likeminded individuals work for a common goal, be it fortune, fame, vengeance, or whatever. If adventuring parties are common in your world, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to think that at some point a group of them would reunite to create some way to share their knowledge, as well as trade items and recruit new members.
In my own homebrew campaign, the Academy’s mission is “to foster and encourage adventuring throughout the world”. The Adventurer’s Academy has extensive training facilities and various training schools (such as schools of combat, schools of magic, school of stealth, school of wilderness survival, school of dungeoneering, school of healing, etc.)
Cauldron could conceivably be able to support such an academy. Considering its size, it probably would not have more than 100 members. I would say 40 to 60 members would be about right for a city like Cauldron.
In my campaigns, the academy is an international organization, but if globalization is not something you want to mess with, there could be any number of independent academies in your world’s major cities with no relationship to one another.
I can post the details on how the Adventurer’s Academy is implemented in my games here or on a new thread, if anyone is interested in them.
As far as the pros and cons I mentioned about this approach, here’s what I think.
Pros: It can provide some interesting roleplaying opportunities. The academy may feature some adventuring rivals, such as the stormblades, which can enrich the game. Characters may also interact with important NPCs, such as Meerthan, who may become mentors to one or more of the PCs.
I also think an academy is better suited to provide players with fresh characters to replace the ones lost. At least it would make a lot more sense story-wise to recruit someone they have met before at the academy than simply telling your players: “you meet a tough looking half-orc at the local tavern”…
Cons: It can take more work to develop than an adventuring company. The company requires obtaining a charter and “administering the business”, but it only involves a few characters. An academy requires that you designate a building or group of buildings as the premises, design the academy structure (who manages the organization?) and may involve dozens of characters, many of which you would have to create yourself. Obviously you don’t need to flesh out every single member, but at the very least you would have to come up with names and personalities for the members the party interacts with most frequently.
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In most of my campaigns, we have something similar to the "Adventuring Academy", but it's the "Adventurers' Guild."
Unlike the Thieves' Guilds in most towns, the Adventurers' Guild doesn't have a problem with non-members working in the town. Members have certain benefits: the Guild has free lodging available to members, it's a training hall, it has a store that sells "adventuring" equipment at a slight discount (5%, I think), and it's a "hiring hall" -- a place where one could find a group to run with. Membership is pretty much open, and costs about 250 GP per year. It's not a global organization, but most major cities have one and extend, as a professional courtesy, a 25 GP "affiliate" membership to anyone who can show membership to any Adventurers' Guild. My players usually end up maintaining full membership at one guild and take the affiliate membership for every town they have to spend more than a couple of days in.
You do have to come up with names for teachers and administrators, but your players don't have to worry about running a chartered Company (which my players, at least, don't enjoy very much.)
I believe that just because every D&D game features a group of adventurers, it doesn't meant that adventurers are common.
In my game, I informed the players when they checked for other adventurers in town (to get their support on some issue, I forgot) that although the town has a history of adventuring groups, the only active groups at this time are the PCs and the Stormblades. Of course, this doesn't count the secretive Striders. This fits the premise of the campaign that Vhalatru has been removing adventurers from town.
Your ideas about an academy are pretty similar to mine in most respects, Stunty. Although I have much lesser membership fees, which increase as characters gain levels, to allow low level characters to join.
You bring up a crucial point which hadn't been mentioned, Frank. Indeed, a high-profile adventuring organization certainly wouldn't sit well with Vhalantru and the Cagewrights.
In our SCAP campaign, the academy had flourished in the last century and a half. However, since the Cagewrights arrived 31 years ago, the organization has experienced a slow, but steady, decline. Vhalantru's arrival 15 years ago has only accelerated this decline. Members have been mysteriously dissapearing.
It just doesn't make much sense to me to have Vhalantru actively culling adventurers from the area while at the same time constantly creating new PCs to replace those who die. Where had they been all this time?
The thing to keep in mind is that Vhalantru's goal is to discourage adventuring parties, which is not the same as discouraging adventurers. At the beggining of the Path he does not view many as real threats, something that starts to change quite considerably in Chapter 7.