Would a typical D&D town allow adventurers to walk around?

[Lalato]

[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], I agree. Context is very important. And I also agree with your earlier post that we can't expect a D&D society to be any better at countermeasures than we are.

However, it's interesting to explore the possible outcomes. One area will react differently than another based on the same contextual inputs.

Anyway, I find it all fascinating.

 

[Halivar]

It depends on whether we're talking about medieval or renaissance societies. In a renaissance-era town, all men of age are in the militia, excepting very few, and each provided his own weapons. A traveling band entering town with weapons is simply not a big deal.

In medieval times, all men were technically required to serve in the militia, but no one could actually afford weapons, so towns would pool their resources and outfit one or two people to serve in their stead. So people walking around with weapons are a very big deal, indeed. Such people are probably nobility of wherever they're from, and accorded respect by anyone in the serf class. (from Medival Warfare: A History of the Art of War by Delbruck & Renfroe, a most excellent, if voluminous, resource for historical and fantasy world building)

 

[delericho]

No, modern Western society does. Not "society" historically.

None of this applies well to medieval/renaissance societies...

Despite some of its trappings, D&D has virtually nothing to do with history. Partly, this is due to the presence of magic. Mostly, though, it's because D&D is played almost exclusively by modern Western players.

For the rest of it: yes, you're probably right.

 

[Celebrim]

The problem with demands that people present themselves to elders or the like is that adventurers are likely to be vastly more powerful than the town elders or the like. Immediately attempting to push the adventurers around and force them to conform to your demands, means you're sowing the seeds of hostility.

On the contrary, a more likely scenario is that the elders will politely request the presence of the adventurers, feed them, quite likely give them somewhere to sleep, and so on, in order to set a positive tone from the start, and to help control and direct them into behaving. Trying to bully them or force them to conform is just going to be counter-productive. Unless they're maniacs, you want to start with the "honored guests" approach.

There is a lot of truth to that, but I think you are confusing 'adventurers' with high social station. This recognition that we have 'Important People' is based not on the status of the PC's as 'adventurers' but on their social role as priests, mercenary captains, knights, wizards of some renown or at least the comrades and retainers of same. Now, my current PC's are steadily climbing up the social ladder (in large part, as they get used and sometimes abused by people of even higher social stature). But that's not necessarily the case with every group, and most of all if you don't carry those markers of social status and conform to your expected social role don't expect to be treated as an honored guest. You present yourself as a travelling wizard to the Corporal of the watch at the gate, and sign a register and state your business and generally act like you aren't here on nefarious purposes, then the city will play its part and treat you like an honored guest even though you may be making them really uncomfortable. But if you don't play along and conform to expectations, then you get treated in blunt terms like you are a monster. You'll be killed if they think they can get away with it, or politely asked when your business will be finished (hint, hint), or if neither of that seems to be working, they'll call for reinforcements. In the case of wizards, this probably means a band of NPC clerics, inquisitors, and a small force of Templar witch hunters show up in 1-2 days and try to capture or kill you in your sleep.

Treating rich-ass, superhumanly powerful adventurers as "vigilantes to be stopped" seems like cruising for a bruising to me...

Agreed. That is certainly not the default position the town takes with anyone of unknown rank. Most NPCs treat heavily armed individuals with great deference on the assumption that when you don't know someone's rank, it's best to guess on the high side than risk not showing enough respect. When the PC's stop in an inn, the ostler and the host and the servants usually engage in very exaggerated subservience to the PCs and did so from a quite early point (when it wasn't actually necessary). But early on there was also some pretty tense negotiation between a mayor and the PC's where the mayor was trying to smooth things over without having a war break out in his streets with PC party after the PC's got a little too big headed and a little too free with the law. The PCs backed down, and the mayor breathed a sigh of relief. If the PC's didn't have a positive reputation in the town prior to that (they'd basically just saved the town), and if the PC's hadn't backed down, it would have gotten really nasty in a hurry.

Historically, whenever someone gets rich and powerful enough, they start getting titles thrown at them in an attempt to buy them off and integrate them into the power-structures of various factions. I think it's very likely that any adventurers who survive for long and are open with their cash are going to have people desperately trying to co-op them, bribe them, and so on, rather than pretending that they're "vigilantes". As for rock stars, yes, that is more likely - even all their deeds are done far from civilization, their gold coins and magic items will quickly make it clear that they're not just making this up.

Yes, pretty much. When one of the PC's was knighted, it wasn't in the mind of the NPC doing it for the PC's benefit. He was doing it to extract an oath of loyalty from the character. The PC hasn't yet realized the extent that creates a conflict of loyalty, though at may be now dawning on the player that he's just sworn loyalty to the man who is his own families worst enemy. In the long run it will probably force the PC to become either an oathbreaker or a traitor to his blood. Fortunately, he's probably about to head off into the wilderness for a few months were such problems aren't that relevant.

 

[Halivar]

Despite some of its trappings, D&D has virtually nothing to do with history. Partly, this is due to the presence of magic. Mostly, though, it's because D&D is played almost exclusively by modern Western players.

It doesn't necessarily have to be this way. I like the trappings of historicity because then most of the "world building" is done for me. I justify it in the face of magic by simply saying that magic, like any other power in medieval times, is aggregated and concentrated by the powerful elite, just as military and economic power was in real life. I daresay that the power structures and societies of medieval D&D land should not be too terribly alien to a real life medieval person, at all.

 

[Celebrim]

My original response in the other thread was concerning guards for merchants. In the real world, where there were bandits and thieves between towns, but no monsters, caravan guards and bodygaurds for merchants were pretty regular things around the world. If that same merchant has to deal with orcs and such, I don't see how you you can expect them to travel without protection. And asking them to walk around any sizable town (with its expected burden of thieves and muggers) without a bodyguard is going to make them think twice about doing business within your town - and can the elders really afford to have that happen? Rich and important people in our world have armed bodyguards. Why not in the fantasy world?

All entirely reasonable, but my one word response to the direction you are going is: taxes.

Most D&D world's have fantastically fewer taxes than the real world. The fact that the merchant must pay for a license to travel the road armed or to enter a city with his guard, addresses two fundamental goals of civil society - how do we extract money from people (particularly rich people), and who are you any way? That is, "Are you rich and can we trust you to behave yourself reasonably well?" The short answer is, "A typical D&D town (at least in my world) allows adventurers to walk around if they a) pay a small fee, b) positively identify themselves, and c) obey the normal social conventions of the town."

 

[delericho]

It doesn't necessarily have to be this way.

Sure, I understand that. But for the vast majority of tables, it is that way.

I like the trappings of historicity because then most of the "world building" is done for me. I justify it in the face of magic by simply saying that magic, like any other power in medieval times, is aggregated and concentrated by the powerful elite, just as military and economic power was in real life.

Yep, all of which is fine.

But the presence of magic is actually the smaller of the two stumbling blocks. The bigger issue is that the people coming to the table have a collective understanding of how things work that comes from having lived their lives in a relatively free country, with such modern notions as equality, and due process, and the like. It is possible to put all that aside to do a simulation of a medieval or renaissance , but it's not easy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Despite some of its trappings, D&D has virtually nothing to do with history. Partly, this is due to the presence of magic. Mostly, though, it's because D&D is played almost exclusively by modern Western players.

Definitely agreed, but I think even most of said players realize this world they were in doesn't run the way modern Western society does. It may not run the way medieval/renaissance society does, either, but the smaller and far less even role of the rule of law is one place where they line up a bit more.

Underneath it all, humans are humans, and appeasing people more powerful than you is generally easier and, in the short term at least, far smarter, than confronting them or otherwise trying to "put them in their place".

Of course one should mention the good old "Be nice to the adventurers whilst one guy rides off to tell the local lord and see if he wants to send anyone to 'deal' with them or not"!

I don't actually agree re: "most tables" being unable to wipe the modernity from their eyes. My experience is the contrary. "Most" tables I've played at largely can. Obviously some is intentionally retained (less racism, sexism, societal creepiness in general, etc.), but my experience is that 8/10 D&D players loved history at school, regularly read history books, and/or the better class of fantasy/historical novels, and have a much firmer grasp on "the past was different" than the average reasonably intelligent person.

The exceptions I have seen were all people whose eyes glaze over when history is mentioned, and kids who just don't know much history. I've seen such tables, esp. when I was younger, and if D&D was super-super-mainstream like WoW, I'd totally buy "most", but it isn't, and my experience is that "most" tables are fairly okay at this. YMMV etc.!

 

[delericho]

I don't actually agree re: "most tables" being unable to wipe the modernity from their eyes. My experience is the contrary. "Most" tables I've played at largely can. Obviously some is intentionally retained (less racism, sexism, societal creepiness in general, etc.), but my experience is that 8/10 D&D players loved history at school, regularly read history books, and/or the better class of fantasy/historical novels, and have a much firmer grasp on "the past was different" than the average reasonably intelligent person.

I'm sure they get that the past was different, but I doubt they grok just how different it really was. It's like a foreign country - except that where someone could go an live in another country, immerse themselves in the culture, and perhaps come to understand it, that option really isn't possible with the past.

 

[Umbran]

Most D&D world's have fantastically fewer taxes than the real world. The fact that the merchant must pay for a license to travel the road armed or to enter a city with his guard, addresses two fundamental goals of civil society - how do we extract money from people (particularly rich people), and who are you any way? That is, "Are you rich and can we trust you to behave yourself reasonably well?" The short answer is, "A typical D&D town (at least in my world) allows adventurers to walk around if they a) pay a small fee, b) positively identify themselves, and c) obey the normal social conventions of the town."

"Positively identify"? Sure, if you want to speak directly to a local lord, a letter of introduction may be required from some other personage of note. And governmental types who wanted their people to travel might give letters of safe passage, to tell others that getting in the way might have consequences. Henry V seems to have invented the thing we consider a "passport" to identify his important people when they were in foreign lands. But these are less about "are you who you say you are?" and more about "are you important enough to worry about?"

But identity documents for the masses - what we think of these days as "positive ID" - didn't really become common until around WWI, if I recall correctly. Before that time, you don't really have the information infrastructure to support such. And photo IDs, kind of obviously, require photography....

So, yes, if you need a reason to support a forgery plotline, by all means introduce the idea of positive ID. But I don't think this matters for merchants - it doesn't matter if they are who they say they are, except insofar as they say they are somebody with stuff to sell or a desire to buy. You can call yourself by whatever name you want to use, so long as you have the goods or the cash to dump into my local economy.

Pay a fee? Sure - that may work if your town has a wall, and we are talking about merchants. For PCs, we have to set aside how frequently murder hobos can climb things really well, sneak past wall guards, and, you know... fly and stuff. Obey normal social conventions - of course.