Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 39 - Worldbuilding - Real World Organization Parallels for your Fantasy or Sci-Fi World

Episode Date: September 20, 2020

In this episode, Jeremy fights through a sinus infection to talk about how you can use real world organizations as a framework for groups and guilds that could exist in your world.  He also mispronounces a lot of words and generally sounds rough.  I apologize for that.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to the Taking 20 podcast, episode 39, Worldbuilding. We're going to be focusing on real-world organization parallels for your fantasy and sci-fi world. This week's sponsor, efficiency consultants called Doolittle and Daily. They help you work less every day. To start out, I want to recommend another podcast and blog. I discovered 3 Wise DMs. The purpose of their podcast is very similar to this one. It's advice for DMs and GMs with occasional advice for players. They have a different format though. It's three different DMs with three different perspectives talking for an hour to an hour and a half on

various topics that will help you DM your game. They thoroughly cover the topics. They are engaging. They're very informative. I love listening to them. I'm a regular subscriber now. Please give them a listen. I'm sure they'd love to have you. They can be found at www.3wisedms.com. That's www, the number three, wisedms.com. This was a harder episode to write than I really expected. And fair warning, this is going to be another one of those world building episodes where I ask a lot of questions more than I provide answers. Because when it comes to world building, I can't give you the answers for your game world. You need to determine the correct answers for your

nation, city, sections of a city, and so forth. Now groups of people, organizations, and guilds add reality to your world. Even in a world with magic or high technology, there's a need for some of these organizations. You may be in a sci-fi campaign and it's a post-scarcity economy where necessary goods are freely available. There may not be any merchants at all. If so, then there's no point in having a merchant's guild. There could be automated manufacturing, magical creation, and so forth, so why form a trade union when you can get anything that you need from a Star Trek like replicator? However, if your society has any similarity to Earth's present or history,

groups of people may still congregate based on similar interests or for common benefit. So let's talk about broad types of organizations where men, orcs, halflings, dragonborn, and yosoki can meet for mutual benefit. I want to start the obvious thing, guilds. Guilds historically have provided administrative services, a guild hall, so a common meeting place, health services to members, celebrations, and sometimes even funerals for members and support for family they leave behind. While the most common types of guilds, some of the earliest guilds that were formed were called merchant guilds. These were groups that controlled trade for a particular item.

Ivory, leather, mahogany, dragon scales, mithril, slaves, whatever. They buy and or sell and or controlled distribution of this item or a whole class of items. A lot of times merchant guilds will form because merchants are banding together for protection. They can consolidate their trade routes. They can work together to buy mercenaries to help protect their caravans. The members pay dues to get benefits provided by the guilds. Interesting note, as I started researching this episode, I discovered that medieval guilds many times required approval of the crown. Sometimes guilds and their approval were even included as part of a town charter or town bylaws.

Some guilds would provide charity to the community and they would use money from dues to provide for the less fortunate. Another type of guild besides merchant guilds are craft guilds, which are slightly different. These are groups of skilled artisans, not groups of people selling a common item. These artisans could be master workers in craft industries like farmers and farriers, fletchers, weavers, haberdashers, dyers, bakers, stonemasons, armorers, blacksmiths, any other type of worker you can think of. Nearly any significant industry in the town, it likely makes sense for their skilled artisans to regularly meet and make sure they work together, to get better prices for their goods, and to set fair wages for their members.

Some guilds were based on materials their members worked with rather than what they produced, like there was a brass guild, or wood guild, leather, iron, bone, amber, obsidian, and so forth. Guilds were often managed by one or more people known as guildmasters. They would represent the guild to outside organizations. They would adjudicate conflict within the guild and help set the guild's strategic direction. So let's bring this into your world. What are some guilds that you could drop in? Well, the most obvious one to me is the Adventurers Guild. This place could serve as a quest hub. They may have healing services available and facilitate equipment purchases.

Maybe the services that are there are readily available, but more expensive. For example, think about when you go to places like theme parks. There are food services there that are very, very convenient, but you're paying $11 for a hot dog. You can use this in your campaign to give the PCs a choice. Hey, do they want the quick available services or do they want to go hunting through town to try to find a reputable person that maybe operates outside the guild? So the PCs have a choice, quick or cheap, but the cheap one operating outside the guild may be operating even illegally. Another guild that you could drop into your world would be like a wizard's guild for fantasy or technology researchers in sci-fi. Places where intellectuals who practice a certain art can meet

to compare notes, consolidate knowledge, come together to purchase expensive reagents, spell components, and technologies. Most commonly, I've seen this take the form of a university, but it doesn't have to. Are all wizards allowed to join this wizard's guild, or is it just a specific school or type of magic? The Transmutation Guild, the Cryomagic Guild, which only researches cold magic, for example. Is it even tied to an area, location, and maybe even an ancestry or race like only halfling sorcerers are allowed? Another type of wizard's guild you could drop in would be a necromancer's guild. They may know the best places to find bodies to bring back.

They may know which graveyards aren't well defended. Or maybe even they establish, for lack of a better term, territories for each necromancer. for lack of a better term, territories for each necromancer. Anyone or anything that dies within that territory, the necromancer of that territory has right of first refusal of their body. So let's leave guilds and talk about another type of organization, like social support organizations. Think of things like food banks for the poor.

In sci-fi, maybe these are food processors that are freely made available. It creates tasteless, nasty gruel, but it's food. Maybe it depends on volunteers and donations from other volunteers so that the food can be produced for the poor so that no one goes hungry and no one starves. It could be clerics casting create food and water. Maybe it's run by the church as a proselytizing tool to try to bring more members into the church. Or maybe it's run by the state as a proselytizing tool to try to bring more members into the church. Or maybe it's run by the state as a PR and social welfare group. Or it could be just a group of volunteers who want to do the right thing. Another type of social support organization you can consider is like the Habitats for Humanity,

who build houses and build homes, provide higher quality housing for people who need it. They provide it cheaply or maybe even freely. If homelessness runs rampant, maybe this is a volunteerism opportunity for your players and maybe that group would need the players to go secure resources for them. If your world or universe has any sort of addictive drugs, then chances are there's going to be an alcohol or drug treatment program available. It could be run by the state, it could be run by the church, or it could be run by a volunteer organization. If your universe does have addictive drugs, are these drugs illegal? Are these drugs only available in secret back alleys because they're illegal? Are these drugs offered by the state?

The state sanctions their purchase and use. Or heck, does the state force people to use these drugs because they're mandatory? Regardless of how these people get these addictive drugs, there will be a group that hopefully helps treat the addiction. Think Al-Anon, 12-step programs, and so forth. A medical treatment organization. If medical treatment is not universally available, there may be organizations who bring higher quality medical care to remote areas of the world where it's just not available. Similar to Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and so forth. Think a group of traveling clerics or medics who help treat diseases, plagues, curses, and wounds in areas where clerics and healing is rare. Thinking a little more obscurely,

what about a performer organization that organizes bards, minstrels, prostitutes, any sort of service organization? These performer organizations could give individuals dedicated locations for their work for a night, a week, a month. It reduces unexpected and unwanted competition for performance areas, whether that's taverns, common areas, restaurants, street corners, inns. Another performer organization may connect talented artists with rich people who want to contribute to their works. Another type of organization we can talk about would be government organizations.

Any sizable government is going to need to divide up to organize everything. You may have one group within the government that sets tax rates. Another group that manages the defense of the city or nation, another group that provides internal protection of citizens. You may have another group that adjudicates social and financial disputes, another group that regulates trade and currency used within the kingdom. So something to think about in your world. What governmental organizations are necessary to keep the wheels of civilization grinding on? So let's talk about religious organizations.

These would be groups that would be similar to churches, whether they have a standing temple or not. Their primary purpose is to bring groups of individuals into the organization so they can follow the one true blank. Whatever blank happens to be. God, demon, technology. Now here's the thing. Chances are, a lot of organizations may be hybrids of these groups. Imagine, for example, a wizard's guild that also provides mercenary mages for battles or even wars. A religious organization that also provides housing because that's what

their deity commands them to do. But regardless of what kind of organization it is and what kind of organization you're thinking about making, each organization needs to have a certain structure defined around it. Decisions have to be made by you as you're designing each organization. Questions like, how easy is it to become a member of the organization? If it's a volunteer organization, generally it's easy as they usually need volunteers. If it's a young or new or early version of a guild, it's likely easier to become a member because they're looking to expand their ranks. All you need to do is show a modicum of leatherworking skill and voila, welcome to the leather guild. Older and well

established guilds may be harder to get into. They likely provide more benefits to their members, but they're going to require things like an entry fee. The skill standard to get in may be unnaturally high. I mean, these guilds provide advantages to people who are members of that guild, and it's just natural for those with privilege to try to keep those without those privileges out. So another thing to think about each organization is how transparent is it? How easily visible are the motives of that organization? Within the organization, do all the members know the true goals of the organization? Or are they just taking advantage of the services and they don't know and don't really worry about it? If the organization is entirely benevolent, that's one thing. But think about this, a very

secretive organization that is a cover for a cult or a secret cabal or a fringe group for religious and social purposes. Maybe they're covering up for an intelligent undead that's the power behind the throne of the organization. Also could be a cover for a crime syndicate. Barring expressly evil groups, the vast majority of members may not know of the evil being done by the organization. Whether the organization is good or evil, something you have to ask is how transparent is the organization to those outside of the organization? Does it appear to be benevolent to those outside the organization while concealing their true motives? How public is their agenda, whether that agenda is the real one or a false one that they put forth?

Or is it the opposite? The organization appears to be selfish and greedy, but they secretly take very good care of its members and society at large. So let's get down to brass tacks. How do you actually design an organization to drop into your world? So there's some steps you can take. Number one, pick the group's purpose. Why does it exist and what does it do? Two, pick the relative size of the organization. Does it include all the blacksmiths in town or in an entire nation or maybe even a continent? Or is it just a fringe group of them? Three, pick a general organization alignment. Now you know if you've listened to my alignment episode and my belief on alignment. I think better role-playing would be to play them not just mindlessly following an alignment, but play the entire organization like an individual.

Give the organization motives and purpose, desires, concerns, interactions, and history. Four, pick an organizational structure. Is it largely democratic? Is it one person at the head of it or a small group of leaders like a board of directors? And from there, start fleshing out additional details. Things like what's the public agenda of the organization? What's the private agenda of the organization? What does it really want to accomplish if it's different than the public agenda? Is this a new group or one that's well established with rich connections throughout important people of society? What are some notable events from the organization's

history? How was it formed? Was it a trade guild formed because rival merchant groups were hiring mercenaries to kill the other group and this group stopped that war? Or is this a social group of individuals who realize that there are people in the town who are starving to death and they need food? In the organization's history, have there been major power transitions and what's the effect of those transitions on the organization today? Have secrets leaked out of the organization and how has that changed the way the organization's operating? Are members of the guild losing faith in its mission? Are they gaining faith and becoming stronger? Is society more or less accepting of the existence of this guild since these secrets leaked out? What public proclamations have been made by the organization?

Have they announced that they stand by the king or the empress or the head honcho? Are they secretly working against the leader? How is that group viewed by society at large? How is it viewed by other groups? And how is it viewed by people close to the PCs? Everything we've talked about up until now leads to these three questions that you can ask about any organization you want to drop into your world. And these are the three most important questions to ask when you're designing an organization. One, how can the organization

interact with the PCs? Two, how will the organization view the PCs? Three, what can the organization do for the PCs? The same as if you're designing NPCs. How do NPCs interact with the PCs? How does the NPC view the PCs? And what can the NPC do for or to the PCs? Treat organizations like big, complex NPCs, and that will give it a sense of reality. It'll make it grounded within your world. It'll give it a little bit of verisimilitude. But going back to those three questions, how does the organization interact with the PCs? How did the organization view the PCs?

And what can the organization do for or to the PCs will tell you how to drop that organization in your campaign. Will the drug treatment organization take a negative view on the PCs selling their latest treasure haul in town because it contains a large amount of addictive vampire dust? Maybe secretly the organization supplies the town with hemp. They don't like the PCs cutting into their trade, so they might send assassins after the PCs because of it. Putting organizations in your world makes the world feel lived in. Makes it feel like there are other people besides the PCs.

That time moves even when the PCs aren't there. Use organizations as power players. Use organizations as groups that can be tremendous allies for the PCs and maybe very strong enemies that can drive your adventure forward and make the PCs feel like the world is lived in. Thank you so much for tuning in to episode 39. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor, Doolittle and Daily, the efficiency consultants. Doolittle, and get your rest daily. My name is Jeremy Shelley,

and I hope that your next game is your best game.