D&D General Not enjoying the urban adventure I'm running

[B1okHead]

The city guards are not interested in truth or justice. They don't care if you're harmed or if you didn't start it. To the guards the PCs are just another group of armed troublemakers. They're interested in keeping the peace and stopping unrest. They're not your friends. They're not on your side. They're loyal to who pays them, to each other, and to their own families.

And those are the Lawful Good ones.

This is the approach I take as well. The city watch is not the equivalent of a modern police force.

 

[Coroc]

I was worried about this before it started and it's actually worse than I feared. My worry was that, with an entire town of NPCs to pester, the PCs would be constantly talking to anyone and everyone making planning for an upcoming session quite hard. The worse part is that they (reasonably) keep expecting the powers that be to sort out their problems. In the most recent session, one of the party got taken prisoner by the local gang and after discussing possible options amongst themselves they went with going to the city guard to help them recover their comrade. Absolutely reasonable and, of course, no self-respecting city guard person is going to ignore a cry for help (and it doesn't help that one of the PCs was a member of the city watch, so has contacts). But they're doing it a lot and it's a bit frustrating.

Now I certainly didn't help myself by having them going up against a gang that is much more powerful than them (they're level 3) but instead of trying the softly, softly, sneaky, sneaky approach they went running to the guard for backup (again entirely reasonably to choose that option, but it turns them into bystanders). Amusing anecdote, they tried this a couple of sessions ago when they discovered the identity of a villain (and left a mess in the process) and then while they were off rounding up the constabulary, the villain returned discovered that their lair had been ransacked and made their escape, and is now plotting their revenge... I thought that might have learned them...)

So (and I realize I'm opening myself up to a lot of criticism here) what, if anything, can I do about this? And is this the norm for urban adventures where NPC aid is around pretty much every corner?

You ran into a common trap: Of course it is logic that in a city that is well organized the law will act against monsters and gangs and such and PCs expect that. The general solution for that is to use a city setting in which the law is corrupt and incompetent.

But here is another way:
1. Do not overstat your city watch: Maybe the captain is a fighter level 7 or so, but your average city watch should not have more than 1 or 2 HD.

2. Do not equip them with magic weapons because of kewl. Do not put them into full plate rank and file because the city is rich because of its merchants.

3. Have them wear padded armor instead, give them Halberds (doorguards , Nightwwatch) and spears and cudgels (clubs) and light crossbows (low rate of fire) for the rest.

4. Do not give them easy access to magic, they are the city watch and not an adventuring party.
after all it is a city watch not a military battalion.

5. So now you made your city watch quite flimsy, which is helping you in the following principle:
The players (if they are in good standing with the city!) may call the city watch if there is trouble and of course they come - Just to die like flies!!

Let me give you an example on how this works out:
My Greyhawk campaign started out in Greyhawk city. The players had the task to free some NPC from the basement of a wizards tower. The only access was through a trapdoor on the topside of the tower so climbing was involved. The obstacle was the Stonegolem moving around in the upper level of said tower.
The players were level 3 or so, had no magic items yet, so noticing the golem they decided to call the city watch, the captain arrived, the players told him about the situation, the captain (even a level 5 fighter) climbed into the room with the golem, and "smack, crunch, splash" was made into a heap of pulp by the golem. (There was a different solution involving the command word for the golem, or to make several checks to sneak by / evade the golem to reach the lower tower level).
I did not dice this out, but went narrative for the captains death, but even if I had rolled for everything the captain would have gone down.
My players did get the hint since thy are smart. They could get the captain raised but they did not rely on the city watch anymore from this encounter onwards.

 

[Todd Roybark]

I myself love urban adventures. The best player investment comes with a sense of place by the players. Being in the same locale helps a lot with this.

That said, turning to allies for help is a logical choice. If you don’t want the city watch to be that ally, (despite a PC being an ex-member of the Watch), try providing them with other potential allies.

Also ‘allies’ can be uncomfortable bedfellows. The TV show Deadwood, has some great example of this.

Historical police forces were noticeably corrupt, and frankly did little investigating.
The Watch could easily expect bribes, favors, and future earnings.

Let the Watch help the party, and then turn around and expect a large gratuity to be paid to the Watch. Have corrupt Watch members, have interests that directly conflict with the party’s goals.
Criminal Organizations often had a community in which they offered some actual benefits to that community.

If the Watch could care less about the welfare of ‘dirty pecks’...aka Halflings. A criminal Halfling group might have some actual support from an oppressed halfling community, for example.

Maybe the group the players are in conflict with are more Robin Hoods hen just plan ‘Hoods’ aka hodlums.....the players just do not know it yet.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would wrap the adventure up as quickly as possible - perhaps with a TPK - and start an adventure of a type you do like. It sounds to me like your players aren't to keen to play it as designed ether, so they probably won't object.

One observation, this ties into the "Tropes that are totally wrong" thread. In a standard D&D pseudo-medieval setting there should be no cops. Even the "city watch" trope is an anachronism. The local lord and his henchmen would be responsible for dealing out what justice there is, and that would come down to the wealth and status of the complainant. Indeed the local governance is probably more like an organised crime gang itself, handing out protection in exchange for gold.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is the approach I take as well. The city watch is not the equivalent of a modern police force.

That’s funny, @Bacon Bits description sounded exactly like a modern police force to me.

 

[Coroc]

That’s funny, @Bacon Bits description sounded exactly like a modern police force to me.

Well not quite, where I live the patrols are always at least two cops (except in unusual circumstances)
The reasons for this are manifold, as simple as four eyes see more than two, one can concentrate on observing / stopping the traffic/ radio operation while the other steers the vehicle.
But there is more to that: Despite the fact that one police witness outweighs two civilian witnesses two police witnesses are hard to top if anything goes to court.
The other thing is: you are never alone, if you break the rules on duty there is always someone who could possibly rat on you later on. So much on loyalty amongst the troops, it does exist but it is not a must.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is a whole fiction genre of historical detective stories. And I think one of the reasons for the genre's popularity is the detective protagonist is basically on their own.

Policing as we know it today came in towards the end of the 19th century.

 

[S'mon]

I would wrap the adventure up as quickly as possible - perhaps with a TPK - and start an adventure of a type you do like. It sounds to me like your players aren't to keen to play it as designed ether, so they probably won't object.

One observation, this ties into the "Tropes that are totally wrong" thread. In a standard D&D pseudo-medieval setting there should be no cops. Even the "city watch" trope is an anachronism. The local lord and his henchmen would be responsible for dealing out what justice there is, and that would come down to the wealth and status of the complainant. Indeed the local governance is probably more like an organised crime gang itself, handing out protection in exchange for gold.

Well, free cities typically had small highly trained and well equipped City Guard - but they existed to defend the city, not do investigative 'policing'. Crime was typically dealt with through very different methods than anything we're used to - Hue & Cry, later on Thief Takers (like bounty hunters, but they could grab anyone and take them to court for a supposed crime), and going to court to claim restitution vs the people who killed your brother etc, more akin to modern arbitration systems as an alternative to feuding.

Anyway the idea you can just go to the city guard and they'll immediately send a SWAT team to deal with your enemies is unlikely verging on silly.

 

[S'mon]

You ran into a common trap: Of course it is logic that in a city that is well organized the law will act against monsters and gangs and such and PCs expect that. The general solution for that is to use a city setting in which the law is corrupt and incompetent.

But here is another way:
1. Do not overstat your city watch: Maybe the captain is a fighter level 7 or so, but your average city watch should not have more than 1 or 2 HD.

2. Do not equip them with magic weapons because of kewl. Do not put them into full plate rank and file because the city is rich because of its merchants.

3. Have them wear padded armor instead, give them Halberds (doorguards , Nightwwatch) and spears and cudgels (clubs) and light crossbows (low rate of fire) for the rest.

4. Do not give them easy access to magic, they are the city watch and not an adventuring party.
after all it is a city watch not a military battalion.

5. So now you made your city watch quite flimsy, which is helping you in the following principle:
The players (if they are in good standing with the city!) may call the city watch if there is trouble and of course they come - Just to die like flies!!

Let me give you an example on how this works out:
My Greyhawk campaign started out in Greyhawk city. The players had the task to free some NPC from the basement of a wizards tower. The only access was through a trapdoor on the topside of the tower so climbing was involved. The obstacle was the Stonegolem moving around in the upper level of said tower.
The players were level 3 or so, had no magic items yet, so noticing the golem they decided to call the city watch, the captain arrived, the players told him about the situation, the captain (even a level 5 fighter) climbed into the room with the golem, and "smack, crunch, splash" was made into a heap of pulp by the golem. (There was a different solution involving the command word for the golem, or to make several checks to sneak by / evade the golem to reach the lower tower level).
I did not dice this out, but went narrative for the captains death, but even if I had rolled for everything the captain would have gone down.
My players did get the hint since thy are smart. They could get the captain raised but they did not rely on the city watch anymore from this encounter onwards.

This is the Gygaxian approach if you look at 1e AD&D city guard & city watch stats. It's not historical outside of maybe some very poor towns, who rarely maintained a standing force anyway. A free city would have a small city guard defending the gates and a few critical buildings that was extremely tough and well equipped. But they would be there to keep the peace, which would mean suppressing anything resembling a D&D adventurer group. Often you couldn't carry weapons or wear armour within city walls without special dispensation.

 

[Coroc]

This is the Gygaxian approach if you look at 1e AD&D city guard & city watch stats. It's not historical outside of maybe some very poor towns, who rarely maintained a standing force anyway. A free city would have a small city guard defending the gates and a few critical buildings that was extremely tough and well equipped. But they would be there to keep the peace, which would mean suppressing anything resembling a D&D adventurer group. Often you couldn't carry weapons or wear armour within city walls without special dispensation.

Yes for Greyhawk it is 1 silver per entry or a one time fee of 100s, for each martial weapon you intend to carry in the streets.

Also casting is limited, setting off a fireball in the streets, even to defend yourself, can get you in very big trouble.

The blue box also suggest hilarious fees raised by town inspectors like for:
Walking on the left side of some street or publically eating a watermelon on Tuesdays.

The military force is rather oversized with class levels and good equipment and all the stuff I do not recommend to use for standard patrols, and I think partially that this is historically, to depict that Greyhawk as a neutral city can defend itself if need be, even if attacked by larger armies or dangerous monsters.
I guess back then, they played kind of anything goes sometimes, so a Player could be successful in raising an army and march against the city.