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

[MichaelSomething]

This is how a small town deals with adventurers...

 

[Mirtek]

They might get the evil eye from the town guard

Ah, they are just jealous. You know, they used to be adventurers too, but then they took an arrow to the knee

 

[The Black Ranger]

I would say it all depends on the group and the campaign.

In my games, you aren't the most powerful people around. There are circles of mages, religious orders, powerful thieves guilds, fighter's guilds etc... If you were to stroll into a city like Waterdeep, you could be watched depending on your status and/or party make up.

 

[Celebrim]

On the counter-measures front, a typical small town that is serving as the urban hub for a 8-12 villages and hamlets has the following resources to defend itself.

a) A garrison of the guard: Usually 10-20 mounted soldiers, together a number of pages, messengers, and grooms. They are generally 1st-2nd level fighters, and are in service to whomever is the local liege - often the sovereign but depending on how feudal a particular nation is possible a local feudal lord. They'll be lead by a 'Captain' who is a capable fighter of 3rd-5th level. The closer the town is to the border, the more capable such garrisons tend to be. There primary job is to deal with small external threats like individual highwaymen, and relate up the chain of command any potentially larger threat. Somewhere in a 1-2 days march is usually a small castle with a larger garrison of 100 or so troops, with a commander who can call together all the distributed forces if needed. By switching horses or riders at every smaller garrison, a messenger can generally send a message 60-70 miles in a day and further in emergencies (pony express style).
Each garrison has a small supply of emergency items for dealing with unusual problems - for example, lycanthropes. This will generally include silver arrows, magical arrows, specialized poisons, and thrown weapons of various sorts (grenades, if you like).
b) A town watch: Generally 8-12 individuals who operate as thief catchers and in modern parlance 'police'. They are generally 2nd-3rd level hunters (they get more work than the guard), with a smattering of rogue levels (takes one to catch one). They generally have a number of well trained dogs or similar pets. They are led by a Reeve who is generally both a tough guy and a fairly shrewd politician. In general, they tend to be a rather sneaky ruthless bunch of individuals, and in addition to the usual skills are fairly adept at using nets, lassos, mancatchers and the like. They are pretty adept at ambush, subduing things, cutting out tongues, gouging out eyes, and generally rendering things helpless. 'Due process' means ensuring a potential spellcaster can't do bad things to you before the judge arrives to give you permission to execute him, or feeding everyone the same poisoned feast and ensuring you have enough antidote or clerics on hand to cure the innocent. Most of them take the opinion that hard ruthless individuals are necessary for good men to sleep in their beds at night. Some of them are serious about that. Others just use it as an excuse to be mean, sadistic, and extract bribes or engaged in legalized banditry.
c) An ecclesiastical counsel: Generally 4-8 clerics of 3rd-5th level, commanding a collectively a force of 10-20 Templars with various capabilities but often 1st-2nd level fanatics, and assisted by a variety of initiates, novices, and non-combatant laity. Note that, as is fitting in a society where the gods play such a huge and active role, in an average town this might well be the most capable single battle force. More importantly, the local temple can generally send a message to a parent temple in the big city were in essence awaits an NPC party specialized in dealing with problems like undead, werewolves, witches and warlocks, or whatever uncanny problems might plague a town. Or in other words, they can call 'Paladins' down on you.
d) Local Hedge Wizards: Generally 2-4 wizards of 3rd-5th level who are residents of the town. They aren't necessarily directly useful in battle, but will generally make themselves useful in whatever capacity they can if the town is under threat. Most are fairly capable craftsman, experts at potion making, and know a fairly wide range of utility spells.
e) Improvised Line of Battle: This depends on the town, but generally each town has some additional resource of some sort that in an emergency can be called on. In a port town, this might be those hill giant laborers who work as stevedoers in exchange for full bellies. In a forest town, this might be calling down out of the hills the lumberjack crews with their mastadons. In an ancient town, this might be calling on the towns own 'small gods' - the various fey and spirits who normally live invisible lives along side the town. It might mean that the towns ancestors have sworn some potent oath witnessed by the gods to protect the town in the event of utmost disaster, and suddenly a force of supernatural beings appears from the lands of the dead. It might mean that the city has pact or convenient with an outsider, and there is a sphinx, or genii, or archon that shows up whenever the town is in mortal danger - perhaps animating that big statue in the town square where gifts are offered every year. In a town along a major caravan route, it might mean that the PC's probably aren't the only sellswords in need of work. In a town with a less savory past, this might mean opening that sealed crypt of your long dead great-great-great grandfather and dripping some blood into his skull, or sacrificing one of the town's children on that particular altar in that grove no one normally goes into.
f) The Militia: Worse come to worse, you can call in every franklin, yeoman, esquire, and knight within 10 miles and make a small army.

Bigger cities will have comparably bigger resources to draw on.

Generally speaking, I've never had a problem with 'murderhobos' and never had to resort to 20th level town guards and Eliminster. The assumption of my setting is that since there are generally functional and stable societies somewhere in the setting, they've long ago figured out how to deal creatively with murderhobos of every sort, including the PCs. The general answer is, "We don't stand and fight on their terms."

Now of course, this isn't the default approach. Lots of people can get killed and property destroyed if you have to go all in versus some high level characters. And in general, a village of 80 people really couldn't do anything immediately about high level characters pushing them around. But generally speaking, no one likes getting pushed around either, and towns prefer to go to war before discovering just how dystopian life can get under the reign of some amoral terror. Or conversely, if the powers that be are immoral or amoral terrors, they prefer to act before they are replaced. And remember, no matter how ruthless the PC's are, these are towns that have to live with and deal with threats that are potentially far more ruthless - that is they see the inhabitants only as a food. There are monsters out there. Most of the time towns have to deal with such threats without having a uniquely powerful band of heroes around.

If the PC's really get to be so powerful that societies can't protect themselves from the PC's, well, someone makes the rational decision to just let the PC's lead until a better arrangement can be found. These probably will only happen though after the PC's have made a few examples and sufficient demonstrations either of ruthlessness or real leadership ability. The PC's defeat of higher level NPCs, usually with some aid and assistance from the local town can be considered an example of what would happen if town went after the PC's.

 

[GSHamster]

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."

And what happens if the adventurers refuse to pay the tax?

Just because a law or tax exists, doesn't mean it will be obeyed or paid. Laws must be enforced. The problem is that adventurers are often more powerful than the law. At that point, they are effectively beyond the law.

Of course, if you have a world where the law regularly has high-level people capable of putting the beatdown on adventurers, that's different. But then you have other problems where every town has multiple high-levels running around.

 

[Haffrung]

So mostly the PC's in my game are either considered to be mercenaries or else actually are mercenaries. This both simplifies and complicates travel.

That's the approach I take. How mercenaries are treated depends on the locale. If they're in a community firmly under the control of a powerful lord, they better have a seal or letter from someone explaining their fealty. Or they have to surrender their arms at the gate. If they're in a community with less authority, they're treated like well-off bandits who may or may not be looking for a fight.

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.

True. However, the roots of D&D were much more historical than the game (and the pop culture) that we have today. Early players were much more like to be historical wargamers, and have some knowledge, if not a passion, for medieval history. So while modern D&D settings have little foundation in history, older supplements, and individual home-brew campaigns, still do.

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."

The AD&D DMG has a lengthy section on taxes, customs, fees, and other ways to separate PCs from their wealth. It's one of those elements that changed the feel of later editions when it was dropped. I always used taxes in my D&D campaigns. Entering a city gate jingling with gold? Better hand a portion over. Same with crossing any kind of manned bridge, port, gate, etc.

Communities too poor to have a wall are probably too poor to have any permanent standing militia. In those cases, yeah, it's Yojimbo-world.

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.!

Given the dearth of interest in history, historical fiction, and historical wargaming among the under-40 crowd, I suspect it's a generational thing. Fantasy has largely taken the place of historical knights and sagas in the popular imagination. And precious little fantasy these days gives more than a passing nod to the gritty reality of medieval society. George RR Martin is the big exception, but part of his popularity comes from the fact a gritty medieval world is actually a refreshing change from most other mainstream fantasy over the last 20 years.

Judging by the most popular D&D settings and supplements out there, few players have any interest in the game world being anything more than superficially medieval - basically, no steam-powered or later technology. Socially, most published fantasy worlds are a cross between late 19th century American homesteaders and early 21st century suburban Seattle.

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.

If armed PCs are sneaking or flying over walls, at that point I would expect them to treated the same way a foray of hobgoblins, gargoyles, or ghouls is treated.

 

[Andor]

"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....

Depends where you are talking about. China certainly had formal travelling papers, and god help you if you were a peasant without them if you caught the attention of the powerful. While it's true that photo ID requires photography, recall also that forgeing hand writing and signatures is not a simple task when your 'mark' has an experienced eye and knows the writing of the person you're trying to forge. The governing classes, even in a place as massive as China, tend to be fairly small and to know each other. In fact the Chinese beauracracy would rotate officers throughout the empire, both to ensure they knew each other and to prevent them from building local power bases. Plus modes of speaking and writing vary by social class, and it's very hard to fake your way up or down. Frex in "The Hidden fortress" when the princess traveling in disguise had to pretend to be mute, as there was no way she could fake speaking like a peasant.

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 think it depends on where the table is located. Here in the states a lot of people seem to have a very hard time indeed grasping the concept of showing respect and deference when speaking to others. See the "Mouthing off to the BBEG" thread.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It depends on where they are.


Adventurers will generally go where the action is. That means they'll rarely be in fully peaceful lands. Travelers normally go armed because of wild animals (not to mention bandits), those lacking combat capability generally follow those that have it (and within reason those who can fight are expected to help those who can't.) It's expected that travelers will retain their arms & armor in town. The fact that adventurers are far better equipped than the average traveler will cause some to worry but they won't be kept out.

In sufficiently civilized lands the average person is not allowed to bear weapons--but by the time adventurers are of a level where there might be stuff that draws them into such areas they'll normally have official permission. Unknown adventurers in such areas can present themselves to the local authorities and get permission--expensive as they'll have to pay for the local caster who does things like check that they're not evil. Truly high level adventurers will normally find their reputation precedes them.

Most cities require casters of all types to register and they are subject to being pressed into short term service in the face of disaster. Many tax casters--typically one spell level per caster level per week. This takes the form of non-hazardous casting of something that benefits the city. Components are supplied.


While adventurers are not common neither are the unheard of. Most places will recognize adventurers for what they are and understand the difference between them and bandits. They'll generally get the sort of reception rich tourists would get. (The cartoon above got it right.) Expect some locals with problems they can't solve to plead for help even though they have nothing to offer in payment.

Clerics are expected to avoid preaching unless the place already recognizes the cleric's faith.


Many realms like to keep some tabs on adventurers. Teleporting into an area is generally unacceptable if you do not already have permission from the local authority. Newcomers (generally even if they're accompanying somebody known) are expected to follow the road and stop at any checkpoints along the way, although it's permissible to fly above that road rather than walk upon it.

 

[Celebrim]

"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.

Heraldry is an example of a medieval means of positive identification. It's regulation has to be understood in that context, and its elaborateness functions as a barrier against forgery. An equal barrier against forgery is the rigor with which you had to protect your identity.

But 'positive identification' exists as a ritual even before objects were used as the most trustworthy marker of identification. Good example would be the means by which Beowulf identifies himself when challenged, or the ways in which Odysseus and others are identified in the Odyssey. That is, "If you want to be welcomed, I better have heard of you, or at least we need to share a contact, and you and I have to share common knowledge about that person. This establishes you are at least potentially a friend." Tolkien, being a scholar of the relevant literature, returns to this repeatedly in questions of establishing identity in Lord of the Rings. Aragorn is caught in Rohan without a passport. How do we establish he isn't an enemy? Frodo is caught in Gondor without a passport. How is his identify to be established?

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.

Trade in the middle ages was not understood in that 'fair trade' free market context. Guilds were an example of reaction against free and unregulated trade, and they would provide the means of identifying who was legally allowed to trade in the city in various commodities by validating their members. There were considerable barriers to trade even between two cities, and often particular families had paid the rulers of the two cities to have legal monopolies on that trade. So, in that case, identification would come down to 'not who we are used to seeing'. As trade begins to open up, you start to see the emergence of external forms of identification.

Forgery was of course widespread. In fact, I'm fairly sure that my ancestor entered America on forged identification. There actual country of origin was Ireland. The two brothers seem to have successfully passed themselves off as Scots, with commiserate higher social status and better marriage opportunities, to the extent that we (their ancestors) believed they were Scots for the last 200 years or so. There own children didn't know their real history.

You are probably right about Henry V, since it's the right time frame, but by the 16th century even beggars carried passports proving that they had the license to beg. Identity papers go back to the 12th century, but they weren't in wide use before then. Since my default D&D culture is a blend of early modern/medieval, 'papers' of some sort don't feel anachronistic to me. Generally, in my game, if you leave town you are expected to carry proof that you are a citizen of a particular town, your passport as you were, and you are expected to have proof that you came through the gates if you are walking around in the town. This goes double if by your accent and appearance you wouldn't appear to be a local. If your claiming to be from somewhere, your papers will probably not be believed unless you look and sound it and you'll be questioned about the city you claim to be from. If you are claiming to be a someone, you are expected to have the heraldry and panoply of being that someone, and at the least have a letter of introduction. So for example, if you are a minor functionary of some religion, you are expected to have a letter from the priest stating who you are and what you are about. If you are claiming to be a major functionary of some religion, you better look like one.

 

[Lalato]

Note to self... Move to Columbus. Play D&D with Celebrim.