Fantasy laws, papers and permits

[Janx]

I'm curious, what anybody has assembled for a set of Fantasy Laws, or papers or permits that PCs might have to carry.

Travel papers, adventuring company permits, etc. Perhaps as props given to the players.

Related to that, is any set of laws created for a fantasy government (hence requiring papers or permits).

For one campaign (a military themed naval campaign), I took the US's Uniform Code of Military Justice, chopped out the very obvious modern chunks, replaced all terms for government, president, congress, etc with my kingdom had. The result was a pretty big legal document that defined a justice system.

Has anybody done anything similar, perhaps adapting Hammurabi's Law Code?

What I got out of my effort, was the ability to tell my players, if somebody steps out of line, they can be tried. And here's the process for it, and the laws that could be applied to them. It never came up, but was a pretty hefty piece of game fluff that nobody read, but could feel the verisimilitude oozing out of the fact that it existed. Note, I only spent an hour or two working on an electronic copy to skim it, chop it, and search and replace in it. Then it was posted as part of the campaign web-site.

For a military society, the UCMJ was a perfect source to hijack.

What have other folks done?

 

[sjmiller]

I have not done up anything like this, but I will offer to make said props if anyone wants a set. It will give me a chance to exercise my paper prop making skills and document design skills.

I like making props, but I rarely think of doing them for my group.

 

[mwnrnc]

For my campaign, in which arcane magic is inherently dangerous and tightly controlled, an Arcane Order sanctions all arcane magic users and issues them licenses to cast magic. Practicing magic without a license is strictly punished. Having a license requires certain obligations (tithing earnings, turning in unlicensed casters, etc.) but also confers certain benefits (access to Order resources, immunity to many ordinary laws, etc). Higher level casters enforce the mandates of the Order.

Otherwise, I go use a quasi-medieval law. The church uses 'trials of faith' to determine guilt or innocence in crimes against the church and are pretty much a law unto themselves. Secular law is the province of the local lord, who is generally harsh and brutal. The lord sits in judgment of any criminals. Since I go for kind of a "dark ages" feel, there isn't much written down.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I have a series of laws for each fantasy kingdom, country or principality simply because it makes it a cohesive and believable world. Besides, when a party rolls into a town and sees 5 people hanging from cages outside of the city walls, the first question they ask is, "What did they do?"

Response "Oh, them? Them's a group of adventurers what destroyed the inn in a fight. Bit of tumble for the poor old Tom the owner, but Captain Terwilliger put them to rights."

It's amazing how quickly they learn the local laws after that....

 

[Tonguez]

I did a China-lite setting called the Yuan Empire and used the Yasa of Genghis Khan as the basis of its laws.

I also tend to treat adventure partys as mercenaries who need to hold letters of marque from the national authorities. In my Circus Maximus campaign the 3 PCs were the Day-men who travelled ahead of the main troupe to organise permits before the circus arrived.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

The original group I was part of went through a phase of writing up Adventurer Guild contracts and making wills. Petered out after a while and I rarely saw that sort of thing again.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I have written down some basic legal matters for campaigns a few times, but nothing extensive.

Exactly what forms of laws are used will be heavily dependent on the society and its religion. In Medieval Europe, many laws were rooted in religion.

As for papers and permits, it would also depend. In some milieus, a traveling priest might be carrying papers regarding religious matters, a scribe might be carrying papers regarding his business, a merchant might carry some bills of sale or copies of contracts, but "permits" would be rare and would probably be called warrants which would be issued by the local king. If you are interrogated as to your identity or purpose, your word is generally accepted and if you are caught lying it would tend to go badly. Con-men did not receive warm welcome in most Medieval societies.

In a more cosmopolitan fantasy milieu, they might have the printing press, and licensing and paperwork might be rampant. Anyone with capabilities that might be viewed as a threat could, hypothetically speaking, be required to carry a license. Not having a license might mean an expectation to refrain from using the capabilities, while in other cases not having an appropriate license might be viewed as a crime.

Whether magic-users of any stripe are viewed as more dangerous than top-level master swordsmen (equipped with magical weaponry and defenses) in an RPG where some thought has been given to game balance is a matter open to question. If magic is viewed as dangerous and mages need to have licenses, wouldn't every non-mage also need one just because of how deadly they were? What about everyone who carries magic items having to get licenses for them because the items are also dangerous? I think that while from the viewpoint of the local government, this might be realistic, from a standpoint of annoying players to no end it would be a certainty.

1) Player: "What do you mean I have to register my Potion of Invisibility?" GM: "It's the law." Player: "I drink it" GM: "That's destruction of evidence!" Things would go downhill from there.

2) Mage Player: "What do you mean I have to get a license to practice magic?" GM: "Magic is viewed by ordinary people as dangerous and mysterious, mages can take over people's minds, take their shapes, kill them with a word, it frightens them to the point where they want some control." Mage Player: "What about Jack the Samurai over there? He's so munchkin he can cut a dozen people to ribbons in moments" GM: "That's different" It wouldn't go over very well in my opinion.

 

[kitsune9]

This is a good topic. I usually introduce simple laws to the players here and there as quirks of the local system and then have the players figure out ways to go about their business without getting in the eyes of the local authorities. It's fun, but I haven't introduced any heavy codes of law to the players.

 

[Mark CMG]

Atlas Games Crime & Punishment is a useful book on the matter -

Atlas Games: Charting New Realms of Imagination

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Punishment-Penumbra-Keith-Baker/dp/1589780396/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302405520&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: Crime and Punishment (Penumbra D20) (9781589780392): Keith Baker: Books[/ame]

 

[Jon_Dahl]

In my Greyhawk campaign I have to be extremely lenient with the law, because once my players saved a city guard captain from captivity in the mountains but since they didn't like his face, they stole his mithral chainshirt.

Later on they were walking in the city centre of Istivin (about 17,000 people) and the captain came with a squad of 20 men and asked the shirt back.

Players said "no".

So they fought and NPC's defeated the players. Captain gave them a warning and left with the shirt.

So summa summarum: I have to choose between occasional TPK or having decent laws. Go figure?

But there are certain kind of laws that I make sure that my players understand, TPK or not: The laws about magic.
Law #1: Necromancy and spells with "Evil" descriptor are forbidden.
Law #2: If you are an epic level high priest or an overking of the world, please read Law #1 and understand it fully.

I think those laws require no explanation. If one of my players question it, I just reply "how could you ever imagine that necromancy would be allowed? Let's just move on" and we move on. You know, occasional brawl with the city guard ending with a nice handshake is no gamebreaker, but Speak with Dead and stuff like that *is*, if your game is about intrique and detective work.