Fantasy laws, papers and permits

[Viktyr Gehrig]

In my games, I try to balance the way traveling adventurers would be treated by a medieval society with the fact that the traveling adventurers could kill everyone in town before breakfast and everyone knows it. Players don't need to know local laws because, unless they're causing serious trouble, the locals aren't stupid and/or insane enough to attempt to enforce them; if they're a real problem, the local lord will appeal to the crown or to the church to handle them.

That's not to say that local politics and the law don't affect them. The tax collectors will attempt to soak them at every opportunity, the nobles will try to involve them in their schemes, and the inquisitors will suspect them of all manner of suspicious activity. But when it comes to actual enforcement, the PCs will get far more "polite requests" than orders, and the consequences of not heeding these polite requests will be mostly social in nature.

Of course, all this goes out the window when dealing with authorities who can command real power, but these are few and far between in my games.

 

[MarkB]

The Eberron Campaign Setting included some reasonable coverage of this, including identity documents, travel permits, letters of marque, and the equivalents of bank drafts.

It helps that the setting has a respected dragonmarked trading house, House Sivis, whose members specialise in magical methods of authorising and distributing documents.

As I recall, the original Eberron Campaign Setting book and a couple of supplements covered the subject, but I'm not sure whether the 4e books do so.

 

[Hand of Evil]

some of mine:
Guild papers - Adventures and Wizards:

• Adventure's papers allows characters to be seen as a merchant; where goods and treasure are taxed and legalized by the guild. If these papers are not availabile charachers can be taxed VERY heavly at city gates. Just how many sword does it take to make an arms dealer?
• Wizard's papers just procliams the wizard and then falls under the guild's law on magic. Non-guild wizards can be refused entry to a city or imprisioned for using magic.

• Tax Forms - show taxes are paid.
• Rights of Nobility - this was created as a money maker, merchants and adventures can buy a title in a city state.
• Passports - starting to use this more and more. This allows characters to pass through "other lands" such as dwarf and elf. Failure to have can mean capture or death.

• Land ownship - just a deed to land. If you want a villian, just have one that goes after deeds!
• Will - who gets your stuff or have you made arrangements to come back. Do your friends and love ones know?

 

[Hand of Evil]

Also...

• Warrents and poster of rewards: lets just call this a free pass to kill.
• Mandates: right of power, this can give a church member or character the power to overide some laws and take control of local law enforcement. In some cases, it may be the only power to stop a mandate is the signer or royality. You see this used by Witch Hunters or Plague Doctors but sometimes Rangers may have the power to stop a raiding party.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I have a hard time with the idea of permits and papers in a medieval fantasy setting, because it implies a level of government bureaucracy and effectiveness that just doesn't ring true for that sort of world. Maybe in an Eberron-style ultra-high-fantasy setting, but not in anything grittier.

That doesn't mean there can't be general rules that govern that sort of thing, though. Here are a couple cribbed from the real medieval world:

• If you're a foreigner, and you're not on a major road or in a town, you're wrong. You are guilty until proven innocent of being a spy or agent on what must be hostile business, and subject to punishment accordingly (often including summary execution).
• If you don't live in a town, you are only allowed in for 24 hours unless you have a sponsor who lives there. (A bit hard to enforce in big cities, but in most towns a strange face will eventually draw the notice of the authorities--especially if there are only a handful of inns, none of which are going to keep an unsponsored guest for more than one night.)
• Exceptions to these rules would require some sort of letter from an authority figure, but this would be an ad-hoc document, not a "passport" or other institutionally processed set of papers.

So: Papers? We don't need no stinking papers! A society in which travel is uncommon and always purposeful, and in which strangers are (in most places) viewed with suspicion, is regulatory enough.