Adventurers: Embracing the Cliche

I started working on mini20 again this weekend. I also went to my local gaming store to browse around for a bit, as I've been feeling a bit dry when it comes to good story ideas. I looked through the bargain bins of old 3.0 and 3.5 OGL adventures and the like, but didn't find anything very exciting. For most of them, I thought: "Hmm... same old, same old--adventures come to town, find trouble, and so need to clear out a dungeon."

But I realized later that I'm being snobbish: adventurers clearing out dungeons for wealth and glory is the very essence of D&D! I've realized the same thing when reading pulp stories by the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft: yeah, this stuff may not seem particularly original today (especially after it's been rehashed and imitated in fiction and film for decades), but the stories are still damn exciting! And a sort of lite, fast, almost beer-and-pretzels dungeon-crawling campaign is exactly what mini20 is supposed to be good for. That's what's so great about using genre and cliche: you know what you're getting into, you know what the background assumptions are, and you can just jump straight into the action.

During this morning's shower, I considered this further and realized that the concept of the "adventurer" is key. Indeed, the adventurer concept is at least as important to the fantasy roleplay genre as magic and exotic beasts.

What I mean by the adventurer concept is that the fantasy world has areas of darkness and danger. These could be great tracts of wildness or simply the creepy-crawliness of the city sewers. These places are dangerous because of the foul beasts that dwell there, but are frequently well-stocked with gold and treasure accumulated by said beasts. The common citizen fears these dark places, but is willing to hire independent contractors to deal with them when the irregular need arises. Thus, in the fantasy setting, there is actually a well-established career of "adventurer". That is, the citizen of a fantasy setting should think "I need to hire an adventurer for this" as readily as they might consider hiring a plumber or a blacksmith. Sure, adventurers might not be thick on the ground--particularly since the fresh, eager, inexperienced novices are the most likely to be picked off--but their rag-tag bands are easily recognized in the fantasy world when they do show up. In such settings, there's nothing strange at all about a local striding up to such a band in the inn, tossing a pouch of gold coins on their table, and offering to hire them for an odd job.

Thus, the adventurer is an independent problem-solver for hire: mercenary, detective, explorer, spelunker, and exterminator all in one. Starting out, of course, they serve as simple caravan guards, mercenaries, and message-carriers. Some may fall from the path, becoming little more than highwaymen, brigands, freebooters, and grave-robbers (and thus giving other adventurers a bit of a bad name, though also employment to deal with their fallen colleagues). But those that do make it, and that strive for noble altruistic ideals as much as for buried wealth, become heroes, revered throughout the land: part war-hero and part rockstar.