Working Stiffs or: How Much Should Professional Adventurer's Realistically Make?

[Jinumon]

Didn’t expect this thread to get so many responses.

Originally posted by aesir23
You know... I've never run or played a game where the motivation for adventuring was money or personal gain. I know they exist and I have nothing against them. I think an "adventurers for hire" or "professional occult investigations for a reasonable fee" campaign would be fun. I've just never encountered one. Usually, the stakes are about something more.
…
I'd like to think that a hero will be appropriately rewarded, but in fiction and games, usually the hero risks his life for reasons other than money.
How much would I charge to save the world? Well, if it has to be, I guess I'll do it for free. But I'd appreciate whatever I can get.

Originally posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2
Who would pay a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits when you have regulated, obedient soldiers/peacekeepers who do it mostly out of loyalty, plus a soldier's salary?

I’m personally a big fan of the “adventurer’s guild” trope. While character driven stories and arcs are always going to mark the highlights of a campaign, I find a framing device that codifies the ordinary “goings-on” of the party is helpful. Plus, I’m a Finance/Econ major and just love adding internal systems to help me stay consistent.

I also like to consider the implications of “adventure-heavy” settings. If rampaging goblins, fire-breathing dragons, nefarious necromancers, and trap-laden ruins exist in enough plentitude to attract or necessitate the repeated talents of exceptional individuals, I feel like professional adventuring would be something of a more attractive, if no more reliable, vocation, not totally unlike miners chasing a gold rush. You can always choose to hire the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits on the cheap, likely agreeing to a discounted payment only after the task is complete to your satisfaction, but the vetting of a solid reputation or a well-respected guild could make that much more valuable. Hiring amateurs to slay a dragon isn’t a particularly sound strategy if you want the problem taken care of and not exacerbated.

Originally posted by Varyon
Realistic adventurers in a DF-like setting are likely to take one of two routes. The first are going to take a pirate-like approach, going on an adventure then spending their payday to live it up (feasting, drinking, gambling, whoring, etc) until they're basically broke, then go out for another score to do it all over again. The second are going to immediately reinvest whatever they get as a reward into becoming better adventurers in some way (better gear, enchantments, potions, etc). Most will probably take a hybrid approach (turning some of their loot into upgrades, then blowing the rest on various flavors of entertainment).

I wholeheartedly agree, thanks for identifying it as a “pirate lifestyle” for me :D Depending on how heavily experience is weighted against willingness to accept the risk of the lifestyle (whether their income increases by an order of magnitude every 4, 5, or 6 levels in TOG), newbie adventurers could earn as little G$300-G$600 (about 6 gp) for a contract and still earn the same amount over their career (with final jobs paying out as much as G$17,000,000-G$35,000,000). The figures I used in my OP (G$8,000-$17,000 for newbies) represented the opposite end of the spectrum, paying higher at lower levels and lower and higher levels. Depending on the barriers to entry in the “industry” based on the setting (any farmer’s son can pick up a hatchet and start hunting goblins vs. the common folk can do nothing but cower in fear of even the least harmful “monsters”) it could be, and likely is, somewhere in between.

Originally posted by Fred Brackin
You know Gurps actually has a standard price for Gold. It's right there in a box on p.515 ($20,000 for historically realistic campaigns). It's about 20% low based on today's price as reported by Google but it's not a bad figure as an average over time.

I am aware, but I think it’s pretty clear that while gold may be valued at ~$20,000 here on Earth, the prevalence of precious metals in most worlds in which TOG takes place is considerably higher, devaluing it as a basis of currency. Personally, I think GURPS’ standard, the loaf of bread, is a much-preferred alternative, hence why I used it as the basis for my calculations.

Originally posted by Polydamas
If you are the kind of person who relies on salary, you are not an adventurer at all. One of the defining features of an adventure is high risk, high reward. Or as soldiers say, the only thing sillier than dying for a standard of living is dying for someone else's.

When I imagine a “professional adventurer,” whether a freelancer or member of a guild, I imagine something in between hired mercenary and tomb raider. It isn’t so much salary as it is expected value of a given contract or job, given ordinary or standardized parameters. The value of an adventurer’s time varies with how long it takes them to complete the task, their own skill level and reputation, their amount of expenses, etc. I’m just looking to establish a solid baseline.

Originally posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2
Wouldn't pirates in the Age of Sail be a better model for adventurer economics?

Has anyone done a solid adventure-related workup for Age of Sail pirate wealth? I’m aware of David Pulver’s Medieval Sea Trade, but nothing else close.

Jinumon

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

I’m personally a big fan of the “adventurer’s guild” trope.

Same here, and my suggestions were with this very strongly in mind. Naturally, to have an Adventurer's Guild that isn't just a bunch of wealthy men recounting (largely fictional) stories of various adventures, you need to have places for them to delve, monsters for them to destroy, and so forth. Human nature being what it is, for something like this to be sustainable you'll likely need something humans can't reliably interfere with creating the monsters (and possibly the locations for delving, although monsters moving into previously-abandoned keeps and the like can work).

If you do go with an Adventurer's Guild, I would strongly recommend some sort of internal ranking system. GURPS Social Engineering (and the Pulling Rank supplement) may be of use for a serious approach, but with DF sensibilities this can simply be something roughly in the background. Quests would be likely to have ranks associated with them, and you would likely be unable to attempt quests too far above your rank (a decent system I saw in one manga was that a solo adventurer could only do quests up to his/her rank, while a party could do quests up to one rank higher than their own). In this case, the level of the quest would both indicate roughly how powerful of characters were expected to be needed and the level of reward associated with it. How many ranks there are is up to you, but I'd suggest the newbie rank be associated with Bargain Henchmen ([62]-pointers), with the typical [250] DF template being on the low end of the mid-rankers. Using Goblin Slayer's rank system (Porcelain, Obsidian, Steel, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum), I'd eyeball the [250] DF templates as being somewhere around Steel or Sapphire (within the world of Goblin Slayer, they'd probably be Bronze or Silver, but that's largely because it's a fairly low-powered setting).

Originally Posted by Jinumon

Depending on the barriers to entry in the “industry” based on the setting (any farmer’s son can pick up a hatchet and start hunting goblins vs. the common folk can do nothing but cower in fear of even the least harmful “monsters”) it could be, and likely is, somewhere in between.

A hybrid approach can also work - anyone can become an adventurer, and indeed may be able to handle the low-ranking jobs, but only the exceptional tend to survive anywhere near long-term. Some people may start out fairly unexceptional but rapidly gain in skill, such that they can rub shoulders with the greats by the end of their career.

Originally Posted by Jinumon

Personally, I think GURPS’ standard, the loaf of bread, is a much-preferred alternative, hence why I used it as the basis for my calculations.

GURPS' typical price differences between top-of-the-line adventuring gear and loaves of bread isn't quite as stark as the same in TOG, so this may not work quite as well as you're hoping. A level 5 adventurer in TOG has 450,000 loaves of bread worth of gear; a comparable [250] DF character has only 1,000 loaves of bread worth of gear (he could have up to 20,000 loaves of bread worth for [30], but DF1 notes anyone richer than that wouldn't be delving dungeons in the first place; that's certainly not entirely true, but should put things into some perspective).

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

Has anyone done a solid adventure-related workup for Age of Sail pirate wealth? I’m aware of David Pulver’s Medieval Sea Trade, but nothing else close.

Search "pirate economics" on Google Scholar. My recollection of the research is that historical piracy didn't pay very differently than being a regular sailor, but the working conditions were better (even considering that you would be hanged if captured).

Some research I did on real-world hired assassins suggests that most are paid astonishingly low rates for the risks they run -- a few thousand dollars per hit. Either this supports Anthony's "bad at math" hypothesis, or there is a selection effect where the data we have is from the unsuccessful (i.e., caught and convicted), bottom end of the field.

You could also look at the bounties offered for dangerous fugitives, the prices that criminal kingpins (e.g., Pablo Escobar) put on the heads of their enemies, or the going rate for ransom from professional kidnappings.

[Jinumon]

Originally Posted by thrash

Either this supports Anthony's "bad at math" hypothesis, or there is a selection effect where the data we have is from the unsuccessful (i.e., caught and convicted), bottom end of the field.

I forgot to respond to the "bad at math" point. I think it's similar to the Ragged Misfits vs. Bonded Guildsmen thing. Individual freelancers, largely devoid of support (and likely bad at math) will charge significantly lower than organized professionals (who likely have some accountants on staff). This is likely somewhat mitigated by administrative overhead and the guild's cut, but rules-abiding vetted individuals still probably make more than reputationless freelancers.

Jinumon

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

I am aware, but I think it’s pretty clear that while gold may be valued at ~$20,000 here on Earth, the prevalence of precious metals in most worlds in which TOG takes place is considerably higher, devaluing it as a basis of currency. Personally, I think GURPS’ standard, the loaf of bread, is a much-preferred alternative, hence why I used it as the basis for my calculations.

My point was that the original (and probably current) chroniclers for TOG didn't care about accuracy of any quotes they gave for the price of bread and probably picked a number at random.

They probably weren't interested in historical accuracy for prices of longswords and plate armor but at least they cared about internal dynamics.

Choose the price they should have cared about of they were interested in historical accuracy (even if they didn't) if you want to but I think it's going to GIGO your numbers.

Even granting the Gurps standard of a loaf of bread equals $1 demands very careful definition and selection of that "standard loaf". It's not for sale in my local grocery store.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

I forgot to respond to the "bad at math" point. I think it's similar to the Ragged Misfits vs. Bonded Guildsmen thing.

Well, not really. What the people who aren't bad at math do in the guilds is get other people to go out and take risks for inadequate pay.

In general, you can figure that a guild that hires out mercenaries has the normal expenses of any business that provides temp workers (wages, training, administration, advertising, etc), plus it probably has to provide death or disability benefits, and the amount it charges will include both wages and the chance that it has to pay out death or disability. Sketchy units are probably cheating on death/disability and will go out of business if they have unexpectedly high losses, and less sketchy units probably still underpay.

A reasonably GURPS-consistent answer would be to find the unit type the adventurers are equivalent to (in Mass Combat) and just pay for that, though in the case of mercenaries you might want to add hazard pay equal to (raise cost) * (expected losses).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Well, not really. What the people who aren't bad at math do in the guilds is get other people to go out and take risks for inadequate pay.

In general, you can figure that a guild that hires out mercenaries has the normal expenses of any business that provides temp workers (wages, training, administration, advertising, etc), plus it probably has to provide death or disability benefits, and the amount it charges will include both wages and the chance that it has to pay out death or disability. Sketchy units are probably cheating on death/disability and will go out of business if they have unexpectedly high losses, and less sketchy units probably still underpay.

A reasonably GURPS-consistent answer would be to find the unit type the adventurers are equivalent to (in Mass Combat) and just pay for that, though in the case of mercenaries you might want to add hazard pay equal to (raise cost) * (expected losses).

The traditional "Adventurer's Guild" of Fantasy stories tends to be more of a clearing house for adventurers and quest givers. They take a cut of whatever rewards are given (and may indeed dictate the rewards, by reviewing the request and deciding what it's worth), and connect verified adventurers (who may have a rather lax vetting process, at least for the lower ranks) with quest-givers, doing what they can to make certain nobody gets cheated. They certainly don't pay out for death/disability/whatever - it's up to the adventurer to avoid getting killed. They'd likely fine any quest-giver who purposefully undersold the danger of his quest, however, and may share the proceeds with the group that got stuck with the bad quest (or their next of kin).

Now, such an organization may well be unable to survive, particularly if someone manages to create one that follows your lofty (for a typical setting) ideals. Of course, an organization that has to pay out for death (and thus will also spend more making certain quests are scaled appropriately for their adventurers) is likely to have to charge quest-givers more while paying their adventurers less. Many prospective quest-givers (particularly those with very little to spend to protect their villages or whatever) will be inclined to go where it's cheaper, while many prospective adventurers (who tend rather strongly toward overconfidence) will favor going there as well, as they get more money for quests (although the quests won't be as carefully vetted).

Originally Posted by Varyon

That implies a rather low equivalency, only $0.11 per gp; call it $1 per sp.

It occurs to me that I did things rather backwards here - an equivalency of $0.11 per gold piece means roughly $1 per platinum piece, not per silver piece. I believe $1 per sp does seem to work markedly better, however, particularly considering that while [250] DF characters are roughly equivalent to 5th level TOG adventurers in terms of raw capabilities, they tend to have much worse gear (starting play with a magic item in DF is unlikely without some combination of Wealth and Signature Gear, while 5th level TOG adventurers are expected to have several magic items each). With their 9,000 gp ($90,000), 5th level TOG adventurers are on the low end of Filthy Rich. If you go with $1 per pp, GURPS enchantments are much pricier compared to TOG enchantments. For example, Accuracy 3 + Puissance 3 is $200,000, or 2,000,000 gp. A TOG weapon with +10 worth of enchantments is only worth 200,000 gp. Accuracy 1 + Puissance 1 is $10,000, or 100,000 gp - that's enough for a TOG weapon with +7 worth of enchantments, with another 1,000 gp leftover.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The traditional "Adventurer's Guild" of Fantasy stories tends to be more of a clearing house for adventurers and quest givers.

Any thread with 'realistic' in its title isn't talking about genre conventions. Realistically, for an adventurer hiring hall, their business model relies on convincing adventurers that they're going to make their fortune, and de-emphasizing the risks -- an adventurer hall that gets a reputation for dead adventurers goes out of business.

Fortunately, there are a lot of young and stupid people out there. Gangs and organized crime are actually a decent economic model here -- a lot of people who get involved wind up dead, in prison, or crippled by drug addiction, but the successful ones can have visible bling that attracts other people into the business. It also helps to have a large body of young men with limited economic prospects (6 month's wages for a 1% chance of death isn't actually an unreasonable economic decision -- but if you don't have a job or much potential for one, it isn't very much money).

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Anthony

plus it probably has to provide death or disability benefits, and the amount it charges will include both wages and the chance that it has to pay out death or disability.

This seems pretty anachronistic to me. Insurance in general wasn't popular until the 1700s.

It might be sufficient for a guild to offer to hold on to a portion of your pay to be sent home in the event of your death and/or to ask for donations for your kin from other guild members.

In fact, come to think of it, I wouldn't structure an adventurer's guild as a business at all. Rather, think of it as a trade union:

Members pay dues that go to--rent and maintenance of the guild-halls, guild business expenses, and pay for people doing administrative and other tasks on behalf of the guild. A portion of these dues plus additional donations go to a fund that pays out in cases of death and disability. If other services are offered (healers at guild halls, for example), then dues will be higher.

Dues could take the form of a percentage of your pay or a regular, renewable membership fee.

Leadership and admin would be elected from among members, creating quite a bit in the nature of "guild politics."

Naturally, people who want to hire adventurers could ask at the local guild hall (perhaps there are guild rules giving right of refusal on quests in order of seniority...). And, just as naturally, the guild would use it's collective bargaining power to try to set fair wages for quest. Which means you'd also have an incentive for the guild to try to maintain a monopoly on adventuring. Scabs and non-union workers would potentially bring wages down for everyone.

Okay, so I'm starting to feel this is also a little anachronistic--but fun and full of potential adventuring seeds. (Do you need to have a completed quest under your belt to "earn" guild membership therefore command guild level wages (e.g. SAG)? Would the PCs be willing to help intimidate some scabs, or even a local wizard who has been using non-guild adventurers to secure his spell components? What do you do if the local guild representative is corrupt and seems to be taking bribes in exchange for the best quests?)

I don't have much knowledge of how historical trade-guilds functioned, but it would be interesting to do some research on it.

[bocephus]

I took some liberties to trim down your post for reply purposes....

Originally Posted by Jinumon

Didn’t expect this thread to get so many responses.


I’m personally a big fan of the “adventurer’s guild” trope. While character driven stories and arcs are always going to mark the highlights of a campaign, I find a framing device that codifies the ordinary “goings-on” of the party is helpful. Plus, I’m a Finance/Econ major and just love adding internal systems to help me stay consistent.

I also like to consider the implications of “adventure-heavy” settings. Hiring amateurs to slay a dragon isn’t a particularly sound strategy if you want the problem taken care of and not exacerbated.



I wholeheartedly agree, thanks for identifying it as a “pirate lifestyle” for me :D Depending on how heavily experience is weighted against willingness to accept the risk of the lifestyle (whether their income increases by an order of magnitude every 4, 5, or 6 levels in TOG), newbie adventurers could earn as little G$300-G$600 (about 6 gp) for a contract and still earn the same amount over their career (with final jobs paying out as much as G$17,000,000-G$35,000,000). The figures I used in my OP (G$8,000-$17,000 for newbies) represented the opposite end of the spectrum, paying higher at lower levels and lower and higher levels. Depending on the barriers to entry in the “industry” based on the setting (any farmer’s son can pick up a hatchet and start hunting goblins vs. the common folk can do nothing but cower in fear of even the least harmful “monsters”) it could be, and likely is, somewhere in between.
Jinumon

In my opinion.
I think your going about this slightly wrong, definitely the most complicated way, if your just trying to decide how much to pay "Adventurers".

Decide where you want them to fit on the scale of "Economic Status", and then assign job/pay according to that price. Keeping them in that area and bleeding a little off for the Guild.

Depending on your TL I would have less Guild ranks the lower the TL. Ranks dont have to be Guild Levels. IE the first rank might be Guild Status0-3, second might be 4-5, and the last 5+ this is relative to the others in the Guild not economic status (or smaller variations within the same payband).

TL0-3 I would think there would be a few people in charge, and a boss. (Pirate ship)
TL3-5 Maybe a council instead of a single boss, but I would still say only 2-3 maybe 4 other ranks. (Hospital or a Trucking company)
TL6+ Now you can start getting bureaucratic. You can break things down how ever you want and pretty easily justify it based on the size and power the guild holds Locally, Regionally, Nationally. (Union, Mafia etc)

Regardless of all your organization your lowest rank will be either Economic Status -1 or 0. If its any higher everyone will be trying to get in and your going to have to think of a reason why they cant and you have to have enough work to pay them all. Any higher than that will be difficult to see why the "King" would employ this expensive guild rather than create his own strike force and cut out the middle man costs.

If you want to have a level of newbie adventurers and a rank of professionals, I don't think there would be more than 2 Economic status between them, this is both reflective of their general status in society and the pay difference to employ people that have a proven track record and more skill/equipment. Might also reflect the general risk associated, or not.

Once you break it into status you can easily see what your pay range is.

TL3-4 (classic D&D) Village wants to hire a group to take care of their goblin problem. Guild Status0-2 gets you Economic Status0 basically G$1000 a month, times 4 people, divided by the time expected to contain the problem (1week) divide by 4. So that's a base cost of G$1000 to hire them for a week plus your guild overhead (I'll say 20%) plus some kind of direct pay bonus like G$5 per left goblin ear and you get to keep all loot except live livestock (returned to the village). End price is G$1200 plus maybe G$100 for ears and what ever loot the Gobs have. This job might have some Status(-1) mixed in on probation, the extra money they don't get goes to the guild. The guild could take a chance and farm this out to a group of Probies that are just starting out but seem to have a lot of potential. Guild charges the same and just pockets 50% of the job, or maybe just an extra 25% and uses the other 25% as "bonus" to help equip the Probies.

Further up the chain:
Kingdom City has a Dragon problem and the King wants to have it gone. You need an experienced team with some real firepower. This is one of few elite groups well known, respected problem solvers and a little scary when they are in their cups they are sort of the Celebrities. Economic Status2 earns G$5000 a month times 6 people (Dragons are a hassle), divided by time (2 weeks) half a month, Guild overhead at this point might be the same number (20%) to outsiders but in fact the group is getting a percentage (Guild Status3-4) to incentivize them. There is going to be a horde but the Kingdom is hiring them to return that so they only get to keep 10% of cash and what ever items they can sneak off with as the bonus. That's G$18,000 to hire them for two weeks. This would included high risk pay IMO this is their job, but you have more room to negotiate here. This group is high enough in the guild that they can turn it down for the wrong price.

Your few "Non-Adventuring" administrators/trainers etc... they may well be lower economic status (Status1 G$2000 monthly) reflecting the safety of the job and a little less pay. They are however higher Guild Status2-4 these might be retired adventurers as well, they have rights to negotiate low end contracts, deal with the lower ranks of the Guild and maybe dabble a bit in lower level/local politics for the Guild.

Your "Council" is probably 3-5-7 people made up of nobles/old money and ex-adventurers that have become such celebrities that their name alone opens doors (not to mention they are individually powerful). They may or may not all reside in the same area, but they have ways of staying in contact to make decisions about the Guild. These are Economic Status3-4 (G$20,000-G$100,000 monthly) and Guild Status5+. They deal mostly with politics, expansion and keeping the guild on the good side of the local governments. They are what all the starting adventurers seek to become if they work hard and live to retire in the Guild.

By setting your baseline as "status levels" you can easily scale your price lists relative to your standard of living, regardless of TL. Your Guild Status doesn't have to be the same as your Economic status. You're a 'Feast and famine' Conan type that spends money till they don't have it and then goes back to make more. You're an 'Indie Jones' type that is dependable but principled and has an independent agenda and maybe a side job. You're a 'Farm boy done good' type, and save all your pennies and send them home your always running on the lower end of gear. You're an 'adrenaline junkie' that invests every penny in the next best gear to get to the next biggest job. on and on.... All members of the guild, all basically the same level in the Guild but for different reasons.