Fear Of Nations In Your Campaigns

Cameroon · Nov 9, 2002

When faced with the prospect of a race attacking another race do GM's take into account the fear factor which will affect industry, commerce and social control.

Squire James · Nov 9, 2002

Some do. Others don't really bother with such things because it slows the game down (or they don't know enough about the effects to account for them).

I was thinking the subject would be about how nations can actually instill fear in adventurers without excessive powergaming. After all, if the 10th level fighter guards have +2 Mithril Breastplates, some dinky little party's gonna figure out how to steal one!

jgbrowning · Nov 9, 2002

Squire James said:
Some do. Others don't really bother with such things because it slows the game down (or they don't know enough about the effects to account for them).

I was thinking the subject would be about how nations can actually instill fear in adventurers without excessive powergaming. After all, if the 10th level fighter guards have +2 Mithril Breastplates, some dinky little party's gonna figure out how to steal one!

and they gonna be awful sorry when they're magically found

joe b.

s/LaSH · Nov 9, 2002

I hadn't really thought about it, as my campaign is historical (albeit with elves and spells), so I have a fairly good handle on what should be happening. But when I do pause to consider, there is an important non-historical conflict happening, and yes, it does affect the common people. After all, in a medieval mileau, most people are rurally-based (80-90%); a hostile force will attack farms and pillage peasants, and as a result the scattered, ill-defended peasants will get very scared, probably head to a safer place like a city, and thus screw the local economy out of food. It's a fairly easy conclusion that war = bad for just about everyone.

Umbran · Nov 9, 2002

s/LaSH said:
...and as a result the scattered, ill-defended peasants will get very scared, probably head to a safer place like a city, and thus screw the local economy out of food. It's a fairly easy conclusion that war = bad for just about everyone.

Not as bad as you might think.

For one thing, the peasants are not too likley to simply flee. The typical pattern would be for them to do their planting in the spring, go be part of the army if there's a war going on in the summer, and come back to their homes and harvest in the fall. There's not all that much they could do for their crops in summer anyway, so the farmers can largely leave the fields to themselves, if need be.

Let's also remember that this isn't the modern world with supermarkets. In a medieval economy, you don't have food shipped from all over the world (or even all over a large nation) coming in year round. Food is grown pretty much locally, and you get new food stores only once a year around harvest time. What happens in one place may not much change the food supply more than a few days travel away. If the crops are threatened, it may not matter where the peasants go - the city is hosed when the harvest fails anyway.

If the peasants leave the fields for the cities, they might eat the city out of house and home, or they might not. It isn't like these guys have money for food. They grew their own food, and generally wouldn't be prepared to purchase food in the city anyway. They'd likely bring as much of their own stores if they could.

Jürgen Hubert · Nov 9, 2002

Squire James said:
I was thinking the subject would be about how nations can actually instill fear in adventurers without excessive powergaming. After all, if the 10th level fighter guards have +2 Mithril Breastplates, some dinky little party's gonna figure out how to steal one!

I see it like this: Typical medium to high-level PCs can kill your average city guard without too many problems.

But when too many guards turn up missing or dead, the rulers will call for some specialists - the fantasy equivalent of SWAT teams, or even special forces like the SAS. These guys will be equipped as well as money permits it - but you will only ever see them if you are already in deep trouble. So trying to steal from them would be the least of your worries...

Normal city guards aren't supposed to be able to stop adventurers. Instead, they fulfill a similar function to the canaries of miners - when they croak, you'd better do something fast!