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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9359112" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm fairly familiar with LotR and Appendices. Perhaps our standards for what counts as being told is different?Prince Imrahil comes to Minas Tirth. So does Forlong. How, as members of the ruling class/caste, do they interact? Does Imrahil get to act only if a council on which Forlong sits advises him to do so? Must Forlong present Imrahil with a gift when they meet, or vice versa, or neither?These things are not revealed.But at the end of the Hobbit, an auction is taking place. Under whose authority? What is the relevant law of buying and selling?In the story, The Shire actually exists in some sort of liminal legal state - it has all the trappings of a sophisticated system of private law (including buying and selling, a very robust class hierarchy, sharecroppers and gardeners, etc) but also at key points the author tells us that there is little law. Except clearly Pippin and Merry assert some sort of entitlement to rule and to dispense justice during the Scouring of the Shire, and this seems clearly related to their membership of noble houses of Tuckborough and Buckland. There is a system of government here, that we might compare to some version of English manorial government, but details are left unspecified, and invoked only when needed by the unfolding events of the plot.It's not clear to me, either, that Rohan is feudal. Is Erkenbrand an enfoeffed noble under Theoden's suzerainty? He is clearly a mighty warrior and captain, but his position in the government of Rohan is ambiguous as best I recall.Yes, The Shire had no bureaucracy. But it may still have had JPs. For instance, Bilbo left Bag End to Frodo. How was the transfer effected? Do Shirriffs play a role in witnessing or certifying documents? These are all questions that are implicit in the story - not surprisingly, given that The Shire is an ideal picture of not-quite-modern rural England - but that the story leaves unanswered.Some decades ago now I studied Roman Law for two semesters in part to better understand the legal system I was imagining for Rel Astra in the Great Kingdom, which was the home of the PCs in my then RM game. I don't regret the study - understanding a bit about Roman Law and civilian legal reasoning more generally has helped me in my subsequent career - but the information never really became useful in play.I think specifying that wizards are, typically, high status or low status I think can be helpful. Specifying that the ruler must be a wizard - ie the place is a Magocracy - I think is fun and colourful. But trying to turn that into a general account of the government of a place (for instance, that every governing official must be a mage) I personally think is hopeless, and is going to produce results that are implausible, unrealistic and constricting of the fiction.I think focusing on particular NPCs, on some colourful social facts (customs, status, etc), and then extrapolating from that as play demands, is more effective and produces more realistic fiction.</blockquote>

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