My group met for it's weekly game this weekend, and one of the player's wanted to take the assassin prc. Now normally, I would have hand-waved the special prerequisite, but he kept going on about killing someone to fulfill that requirement. He (and everyone else in the group) took that to mean that he could kill just anyone and declare himself an assassin. I argued that he needed to do it for some sort of profit, whether it was for coin or to gain the attention of an assassin guild.
Now this question is directed more towards the Pathfinder creators (since my group will take their word over any others), but all opinions are welcome. Who here is right according to the RAW and the RAI (if different)?
I've always considered it to be like an initiation ritual: "If you wish to join us as an assassin, you must kill for us. You must slay <insert target name here> before morning. Return when you are done, and bring his head as proof." sort of thing.
/throws 2 copper on the table.
"...I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die..." As stated by Mr Cash. You could certainly hand wave it as the prereq states just killing someone. But you could have a great hook here if that is something you want to run with. Have the player's PC kill a small time rival thug, or some political cog, and present a trophy to the assassin's guild. The kill could be directed by the guild or it could be PC soliciting the guild.
I'm fully on the side of, you need to be tasked with the killing... either directly set on the task by the Assassins or kill someone that is a known enemy of the Assassins...
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RAW is the forum here, not RAI. So with that in mind, the wording says
"The character must kill someone for no other reason than to become an assassin."
It's as simple as your game wants to make it really. If in your game you say to yourself, the criteria has been met, it's met.
And that's all you need. Having the GM agree is usually a good thing too, but as for making the requirements, they are very loose.