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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9358505" data-attributes="member: 6915329">These are good points... for novels. When you write a novel, you control exactly how much into detail you need to go. The story of LotR isn't a story about the government or criminal justice system of Middle Earth, and so there wasn't a need for JRRT to go into detail about it. If the hobbits get into trouble, they can just make a daring escape. Conversely, Discworld novels do go into governmental politics and criminal justice at times, and so Pratchett did need to go into detail about it.But RPGs aren't novels. The DM doesn't (or shouldn't) control the PCs. You have no idea if the PCs are suddenly going to decide that they want to speak to the ruler of the town. At most, you can assume that the PCs are going to do stuff that puts them afoul of the law. You obviously don't need to go into great detail about the government or law of an area unless the actual adventure is about those things, but it is a good idea to thing of something like "the town is ruled by a mayor who tries to be fair to everyone" or "the city is ruled by a Court of Lords who are often influenced by wealthy lobbyists." You don't even need to name the mayor or lords until you need them. You could even make this into a table, to make it easier to generate on the fly.</blockquote>