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

[Mishihari Lord]

This makes me think of feudalism. D&D characters of mid level and above are basically superheroes. Even a large group of common men at arms don't have much chance of stopping them, and losing men in a medium sized regular town hurts. They aren't really replaceable - losing them leaves essential jobs unfilled and families that need to be provided for. In this situation I expect the person in charge would be a levelled NPC that has either seized power or been appointed by the king because he has the power to control the region, much like a feudal knight. Such leaders would have a reputation, and the PCs should know they're playing with fire if they cause trouble in such an NPC's town. The leader would come after them personally with as many mooks as he feels he needs. And I don't think he'd be interested in taking prisoners. Far better to set an example so the next people through won't want to start something.

 

[tuxgeo]

It depends on the situation. Some towns will require peace wires on weapons brought in by strangers; other towns will invite well-spoken armed persons into town with open arms, and ask them to stay around and defend the town from monsters.

The 4E "Points of Light" setting was somewhat like the Wild West: any people there who went from town to town without being armed, or accompanied by armed guards, would be taking their lives in their hands. For that reason, the guards at the city gates would expect random strangers to show up with weapons; any who bore no weapons could easily be up to skullduggery.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I hadn't given much thought to this, but do think that the most sensible approach is like the one shown in Western/Samurai movies: have the people react extremely careful, ushering children in, closing the windows, and so on. Then someone official or brave confronts the newcomers to check the situation out.

This actually lends some sense to the permits issued by the Cormyrean administration in the Forgotten Realms. If I recall correctly each adventuring party there has to be registered. The mayor or headman would ask the party for their license and perhaps take note of it. Each party not shoing their license or not owning one would be considered armed and dangerous.

Following from this thought the government might entertain a mobile troupe to engage unlicensed and/or dangereous parties. Add some carrier pigeons to each village and this troupe will follow and engage the miscreants.

Or replace the official troupe with some organization of good adventurers, the Classed Characters Society, which takes care of the deviants.

Neither of this approaches will stop some parties to wreak havoc on unsuspecting communities, but if your adventurers come to such a scene, the next adventure writes itself.

 

[pemerton]

This is an area where I like to take inspiration from Westerns (or samurai movies, if you prefer ).

When somebody who is dangerous, and famous for being dangerous, comes to town, some of the locals will hide, some will try to ingratiate themselves, and maybe a reckless individual or two will try to test themselves against the legend. And the local authorities might fall into any of these categories.

Just adding to this - in the real world, there were social practices adapted to the presence of wandering, dangerous people. Westerns and samurai movies draw on those real practices in presenting their fictionalised versions.

There is also inspiration to be had from how Conan is treated in the REH stories, or how Aragorn, Gandalf and others are treated in LotR.

I think the default attitude that is both plausible, and easy to work with from a GMing point of view, is healthy respect combined with underlying suspicion. Players can lose the respect (but perhaps have it replaced by fear) by having their PCs confirm the suspicions! (Or vice versa.)

 

[pemerton]

The 4E "Points of Light" setting was somewhat like the Wild West: any people there who went from town to town without being armed, or accompanied by armed guards, would be taking their lives in their hands.

For "the Wild West" we could substitute a wide range of human societies. (Including most of pre-19th century Europe.)

For instance, Hobbes in the Leviathan, in defending his characterisation of the state of nature as a war of all against all, points to (i) our tendency to lock our houses when we leave them, and (ii) our tendency to arm ourselves when travelling. For a contemporary Australian audience, at least, (i) still resonates - at least for town and city dwellers, most of us still lock our houses when we go out - but (ii) is somewhat jarring. (Australia, especially urban Australia, is a largely gun-free society other than some criminals and police.)

 

[delericho]

They'd probably be treated the same way Batman was in the most recent film trilogy - officially, they're vigilantes to be stopped; unofficially they're generally useful to have around, and anyway the local authorities can't really stop them anyway.

Either that, or they'd be treated like rock stars.

 

[Derren]

Once a town or city has a wall it will control everyone who goes in (and taxes). Most likely, more heavily armed persons will not get into the town. Instead they have to camp outside (if they have luck there is an inn there, too). If they want to go inside the town they not only have to present a reason of why, they also have to leave their weapons and armor behind.

 

[N'raac]

I'd say it depends on the town, which depends a lot on the setting. If heavily armed travelers attract little or no attention (positive or negative), then they cannot be all that uncommon. That means it's pretty routine to see similarly armed and armored people in the town (any of whom could be as, or more, powerful). If the PC's are unusual, then the town will react in some way, with all those suggested being reasonable possibilities.

One option not mentioned - maybe some kid is attracted to the romance of the stories he has heard, and latches on to one of the PC's. Or a star-struck ten quickly develops a crush on a PC. Now they have some neophyte who wants to leave with them, or perhaps sneaks off after them.

The PC's matter as well - are they weird and scary, or normal looking? Did they all dump CHA, or do they have some charm, tact and diplomacy and make an effort to be friendly and reassure anyone who's nervous? Are they reasonable and respectful, or do they charge belligerently about like they own the place? All of these should impact the reaction of the locals.

 

[Halivar]

Adventure hook: "WANTED -- Adventurers to rid our town of adventurers we hired to get rid of some other adventurers. No bounty, but you can keep their stuff."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think this is a bit of self-answering question - if it's D&D, then yes, it's going to allow D&D-style adventurers to walk around, as a default. That's going to be the norm. They might get the evil eye from the town guard or the like, but they're not going to, as the norm, be turned away or the like.

If you want to do something else, you're kind of moving away from default D&D to a more specific setting of your own, which is fair enough, but the "D&D" assumption is certainly that you can.

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.

You might not "want" them there, but you don't "want" the King's Tax Collector, or a rowdy band of mercenaries who work for the merchant's guild, or a powerful NPC wizard there, either, but what are you going to do, start shiz with them? Why would you do that? It's perversity itself. These people are, as you've said, more powerful than you. On top of that, most of them are pretty much wildly rich, and will blow serious chunks of change on stuff without even blinking, which could massively benefit your town.

So you have to do what people always do - attempt to have some sort of passive control over them, rather than active control, by directing them positively, because as you've noted, if the town behaves in a hostile way, it's likely to end up in a very bad state, whereas if the adventurers like it, it's likely to end up being able to make $$$ off them.

They'd probably be treated the same way Batman was in the most recent film trilogy - officially, they're vigilantes to be stopped; unofficially they're generally useful to have around, and anyway the local authorities can't really stop them anyway.

Either that, or they'd be treated like rock stars.

Treating rich-ass, superhumanly powerful adventurers as "vigilantes to be stopped" seems like cruising for a bruising to me, so I doubt that'd even be the official line. 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.