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I'm an old time roleplayer who became a soldier who became a veteran who became a developer who became a dba who became a manager who never gave up his dream of a better world. Even if I have to create it myself.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

When Guilds beat Governments

In my continuing coverage of the news, as it applies to fantasy gaming...

PCMag recently posted an article about Patent Peace. Basically, a bunch of technology giants are gathering in Geneva to talk about what effectively amounts to a peace treaty governing the enforcement of international patent laws.

So - a Geneva Convention for Companies?

I'm violating the trademark of the Trademark Office.  BAM!®

This is a great setting seed for a fantasy campaign.  Imagine a bunch of guilds getting together to agree upon which laws they'll actually enforce or obey - and imagine the governments involved are so weak they can't do anything to trump these powerful guilds.

Here's a few things the guilds might decide upon.
  • The Tanners' Guild will no longer follow those pesky rules on how far from the nice part of town their smelly workshops have to be.
  • The Assassins' Guild establishes that murder is now ok, as long as the contract is valid.
  • The Thieves' Guild is tired of picking locks - master keys must be provided by any locksmith changing a lock.
  • The Clockmakers' Guild expressly forbids the use of sundials in any park or square.
  • The Merchants' Guild will no longer charge sales tax.  Well - they will no longer pay sales tax, anyways.
  • Members of the Adventurers' Guild can no longer be arrested for any crime committed outside, under, or over a city.

What else might the Convention of Guilds decide upon?

8 comments:

  1. 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.' -- Adam Smith

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  2. Guilds...the guilds will protest and demand higher pay and more benefit for their particular special interest group without increasing their productivity making many of the business owners wary of hiring new employees or even cutting back on those they have hired as the cost of each employee would increase to more than it surrently is, though they are not making any more profit due the the shoddy economy....Umm...wait...I don't see guilds on my talking points bulletin...They are the same as unions, right?

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    Replies
    1. Thankfully, most fantasy campaigns have no concept of unions, so we can still let the villains have all the awesome setting details like child labor, no minimum wage, 20-hour workdays, physical punishment, arbitrary terminations, and whatever else those evil minds can dream up!

      Delete
    2. I like this idea, But I think 25 hour work days and you pay me for the privilege of working is more appropriate.

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    3. I would be fine with a 20 hour work day so long as I am compensated accordingly. Bone has convinced me this would be prudent.

      I disagree with child labor. Children are not as productive as teens. So, it would be more productive to train them during childhood to provide skilled labor as teens.

      Funny thing: I ran a campaign once using this as background for the party memebrs. The party memebrs escaped as teens and therefore had some skills. Of course, they decided to take over the business (by force) and crack down on how the business was run to ensure no other teens could escape as they did. Then, they retired and lived off the coffers...until I decided that wasn't the end and zapped them all to Ravenloft...muhahaha

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