Are adventurers usually just mercenaries or are they usually basically something else altogether?

>>96101220 (OP)
the reason why gygax called the party "adventurers" is because he needed a good generic title that would apply to all the party characters
their actual day job was up to the players, they could be soldiers, mercenaries, scruffy hobos, or whatever

>>96101220 (OP)
There's a lot of overlap, but I think the general connotations would be that mercenaries are more associated with warfare while adventurers are more associated with exploration. For everything in between, they're more or less interchangeable.

>>96101258
even in real life, you see people who dont like being called something ,even when its accurate, because of the connotations or for legal reasons

butchers prefer to be called meatworkers, despite butcher being perfectly descriptive of what they do, because they just dont like that butcher sounds so negative
and real life mercenaries call themselves contractors to get around international law, and to emphasize that they mostly serve as guards rather than actually fighting

If you're a sellsword, you need someone who's buying your sword. Right?

>>96101220 (OP)
>They'll PAY us for this?

>>96101359
I'm pretty sure goblinslayer there would do it for free.

>>96101220 (OP)
Historically, "adventurer" is just a synonym of mercenary. It comes from the roots of a 'mercantile adventure,' AKA gambling, essentially going on an expedition in search of loot or in promise of pay. Usually this involved sacking cities and towns if other goals of the journey didn't pan out. Over time the meaning was sort of white-washed away from its not-so-noble origins to mean in modern vernacular, 'anyone who goes on a journey of some kind.' But it's still ultimately just a synonym of mercenary, just one with a less ugly connotation.

>>96101220 (OP)
Worldbuilding has its own general. Stay there.

>>96101220 (OP)
Depends entirely of the game you intend to play. Might be chucklefucks in for the money, might be lads with personal motivation like revenge, might be on a quest for the state, some organization or some faith or might be just pure happenstance

>>96101220 (OP)
Mercenaries are part of a mercenary force. They're soldiers for hire. Any kind who wastes his gold on hiring 3-6 mercenaries is going to face a revolt, then he will have to hire actual mercenaries. Adventurers are trouble shooters, their killing progress is secondary to what they are hired for. Need the orc army routed? Hire a mercenary force. Need a magic item stolen from the orc warlord? Adventurers.

fuck off puckee

>>96101220 (OP)
They're usually spamming faggots from reddit who make low quality threads with their awful commissions constantly.

>>96101220 (OP)

>>96101258
>>96102607
In the real middle ages, mercenaries were 100% used for things other than just warfare, and some did operate in small groups.

>>96101220 (OP)
I always thought of it as a blanket term of sorts, in real life you could classify both the niggas who sailes to the New World, merchants who travelled to China and some Iberian Shepherd or slav in Anatolia as "adventurers" i mean "Adventure" literally comes from a word meaning "arrive" so all you have to do is be a guy who goes from your home to a largely unfamiliar place mainly for work, even an english soldier who signed up to fight in France could be an adventurer because most likely that nigga's never even left his home county, maybe not even his village.

And it makes sense too, a lot of guys want to have different backstories for their characters so you can just label all of them adventurers

>>96101220 (OP)
They're whatever you need them to be. Mercenaries, explorers, knights errant, whatever the player wants to envision as an excuse for being where they are.

https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/image/SAxT3dqvpk00RIifpLHeHA/

>>96106142
They are a crazy hobo who needs food?

>>96101220 (OP)
They're the "special contract" teams from the Guild of Ratcatchers, Vermin Eradication, Pest Control, and Allied Trades™.
When not actively engaged on a specific mission through the guild they tend to indulge in speculative expeditions so as to improve their skills and abilities, in order to be able to take on more complex and remunerative contracts when they occur

>>96108068
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/image/nekv9kXgaZS1oE8aslK-EQ/

>>96101220 (OP)
What do the rules of your favourite traditional game(?) say?

>>96111798
Don't like getting caught, huh? Go rope about it.

>>96111887
I'm not OP, frogfaggot. You and him can both rope together like the low-effort faggots you are.

>>96101220 (OP)
All mercenaries are adventures, but not all adventures are mercenaries

>>96101220 (OP)
Some are obviously mercenaries, but the word encompasses stuff like the Paladin that is in the group because he is on a holy quest, the Wizard that only cares about finding some lost knowledge, the druid that has seen a threat to the natural order etc etc

>>96112046
All you have done is become the third link in a chain of uselessness.