Hi all, Matt here. This is mainly a DM-focused post, but you are all welcome to read it as it concerns all of you to some degree. A question arose among the DMs about whether it would be better for the Guild to exist in a place that was entirely made up by the DMs or in a place that had well-defined lore based on published campaigns, and a couple of the other DM's and I came to a consensus. The goal of course is for this game to be as free as possible so that as many people as possible can play as many games as they want in whatever sort of setting the DM is most comfortable with. Perhaps a DM really wants to have an adventure in somewhere with really well-defined geography, history, etc. that she pulled out of a WOTC publication. Maybe a DM wants to have a mission in a place that he just came up with in the shower a couple nights back and frantically scribbled a couple of maps together for. Our ruling is that as long as there are people who want to play that mission, they should be allowed to, and the DMs should be allowed to tell their story within the confines of this guild story. While we realize this outlook comes somewhat at the cost of continuity, we think that it's still beneficial to our players and DM's. If you really want to think about it continuity-wise, here's the basic concept: The Guild exists in numerous places in the world, and there are several guild halls, both in places that are talked about in official D&D literature and in places that only the DMs and the people who live there know about. Some of the guild halls are built on portals that may allow transport from one guild hall to another without necessarily having to travel across continents or to different dimensions to get there. Additionally, the Guild may be hired out by countries or people where there is no guild hall and they do have to physically travel there. Furthermore, the Guild, as a whole, is not bound by any specific area's laws or customs except for those that pertain to the actions of the Guild in that area, and news travels slowly so Guild exploits in one land may very well not be heard of in another. That's the basic idea. We do missions. The missions may or may not be related to past missions or future missions and may take place anywhere your imagination can take you, with characters limited only by the rules of the game and their own creativity in re-fluffing. I think that's reasonable. Any commentary or questions are welcome, as always.
