What are good books to help me write a competent guild master? I am thinking of reading "The Prince" and "Art of War".

doravg

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So, apart from these obvious suggestions, can you guys recommend something else? I want the guild master to come off as more competent than the last one, who, well, is no longer a guild master but is still an adventurer at the guild. The former one pulled everyone from active duty, and they nearly starved. But, he did get the guild to number three in the Mcfantasy land, named Fluia. So, any suggestions? How high should the bar be?
 

Kitsura

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Don't bother reading the Prince if you want to learn politics, it's inaccessible for a layman and you will have to rely on secondary sources anyway. Also, it's highly contextual and not worth reading.

Source: Trust me I have a degree and had to read it, for SEVERAL courses.

If you want to write someone who is competent politically. For something accessible I would recommend you read more modern texts on politics. Especially since you haven't outlined how exactly the guild master is competent. Nobody likes a superhuman that can solve every problem, think about giving the character a bit more nuance.

Political science education is generally split up into three sections domestic politics, international relations, political theory, and comparative politics each has its own uses and purpose but rarely do people ever do all three.

From what I can tell you are trying to learn political theory and that is good! but I would recommend reading Plato's Republic, and Aristotle's Politics if you insist on learning political theory. Both are the basis for western understanding of government and far better for learning the philosophical underpinnings of our governments than the Prince.

if you want to go even further, then reading John Locke or Thomas hobbes are also placed to start.

Regardless, political theory is both dull and incredibly dense also has a lot of old time language that many would find difficult to read (I would know, I took two courses on it and hated both of them!). I would recommend fleshing out your character before getting carried away with research.

speaking of the prince, I wrote a fan fic for it and turn it in as my final project and got an A-(LOL), it should be floating on my profile somewhere.
 
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longer

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Considering Machiavelli's political and military career, I'd take that man's advice with more than just a pinch of salt.
 

Ai-chan

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Lloyd

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Pinheads and Patriots by Bill O'Reilley
 

Paul_Tromba

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The five rings by Miyamoto Musashi
 

T.K._Paradox

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A Song of Ice and Fire.
Considering Machiavelli's political and military career, I'd take that man's advice with more than just a pinch of salt.
Creates Machiavellism, goes basically nowhere with his political career.
 

Ruyi

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i'm interested in your personal definition of "competent." like, do you want to write amazing stratagems/xanatos gambits that will blow readers' minds or do you just want to flesh out a character who looks and acts competently as a guild leader? because while the former will require some research and time to master effectively, the latter can be done much easier with the usual writing tricks: observing behaviors of competent leaders and translating them into your prose.

sometimes you just need to give the impression of "competence" and give just enough clues for the readers to fill in the blanks; our imaginations are quite good for making things grander than they are.
 

TheEldritchGod

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GENDO POSE.

Seriously. An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. It is far easier to give a hint of tyrant and allow the reader to IMAGINE the rest of the tyranny, then to provide actual tyranny. The same deal for hyper-competence.
 
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