D&D General How much trouble are the Slave catchers in for taking A 4 year old Crown Prince whose mother was A Escaped Slave?, which legally makes him a slave

[Charlaquin]

Then the character, who I can't make out if they are supposed to be the child or the guard, or completely uninvolved in the situation, should kill the slavers.
This isn't complicated. Slavers should die.

So who is the PC in this backstory the crown prince? An ex slave catcher?

I’m guessing the prince is the PC, but your guess is as good as mine. Frankly, I think @JMISBEST just has vivid dreams that inspire them creatively, but no other outlet to talk about their story ideas. I would bet that how (or even if) this will be incorporated into an actual game of D&D is less important to them than just exploring the concept.

 

[JMISBEST]

I've just thought of a problem with my own story idea, Your thoughts?

The 7 Slave Snatchers/Thieves, clearly all have a slightly higher then normal INT, which would mean A INT of either 12 or 13, so why didn't they realize theirs something wrong with this?

I mean the birthmark proves that his mothers a escaped slave, which makes him a slave, but they know nothing about his father

Saying that though they should have realized that his father must be A Noble whose title must be at least Very Senior Earl, after all who else would assign 12 or more, their isn't more but they don't know that, Fighters of they guess at least 7th level to guards a 4 year old

So why didn't they just approach the kid and his guards, explain the situation with the kid and his mum, in which case the guards would quickly get access to A Cleric they trust that will cast Detect Lie to show their telling the truth, then help sort it out and they'd each get a large reward without unknowingly kidnapping a future king

 

[FrozenNorth]

Well, birthmarks don't have to work like they do in our world. Maybe they are distinct and reliable genetic markers, and in the same way that aristocracies carefully track family trees and marriage ties, this society has a developed a "registry" of birthmarks.

Sure, but at some point, you are just adding an enormous amount of extraneous detail just to justify the initial concept.

Before that point, a DM needs to step back snd ask: “if my core concept requires so many additional assumptions and context to be workable, maybe the problem is the core concept?”

That question should be immediately followed by “how am I going to transmit this large quantity of information to my players in a way that their eyes don’t glaze over after 30 seconds?”.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Being A Future King the odds are he's got reading abilities that are very advanced for his age and its likely that he enjoys reading the kind of childrens stories that most children his age enjoy having people read to them

2 very good examples of books that I used to enjoy people reading to me at that age were The Topsy and Tim Books and The Puddle Lane Books

We could certainly help you by pointing out the zones of the story where we cringe because NPCs would have to behave in a very... difficult to believe way for the backstory to be convincing, but it would really help if you told us who the PCs are and what they are expected to acheive in the campaign, really.

I don't think the point was that the Clown Prince is litterate or not, but rather how a 4 years old, even a smart one, can convince the adults staffed with protecting him (and I guess, ready to protect him at the cost of their own life) to take him to a place where he is less safe (outside his father's palace, capital city, and even country) without telling the King, and why those bodyguard would devise such an awful plot as to enter the neighbouring country under a false identity and once there, mostly go run errand for him instead of... doing their duty to PROTECT him. If there is a violent mugging in front of them, bodyguard will take the prince elsewhere asap, not suddenly try to replace the local law enforcing authorities. Tough for the mugged, certainly, but their life depends on them protecting the prince, so it should be the top, if only, priority.

So why didn't they just approach the kid and his guards, explain the situation with the kid and his mum, in which case the guards would quickly get access to A Cleric they trust that will cast Detect Lie to show their telling the truth, then help sort it out and they'd each get a large reward without unknowingly kidnapping a future king

This is a problem, but it's less problematic than explaining why the kid is there in the first place... I think the number of real life kids that managed to convince their kindergarten teacher to take them to another country to visit under a false identity without telling their parents is extremely close to zero.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What is the most important point of this story?

The Crown Prince of Westlandia is kidnapped at a young age?
The child has a birthmark that distinguishes a bloodline?
The child has a family history of escaped slavery?

How does the most important point relate to the potential character, if this is important to a character's history?

Truth! A good DM should be creative, but a good DM should never lose sight of the fact that the PCs are the main characters, not the ex-slave Crown Prince with a prophetic birthmark.

The moment you are spending considerable time on the backstory of a single NPC, you are losing sight on what should be the focus of the campaign.

To be honest though, this is often an error that you find in published adventures as well.

 

[bedir than]

2 very good examples of books that I used to enjoy people reading to me at that age were The Topsy and Tim Books and The Puddle Lane Books

Neither of these two books would teach a 4-year-old how to talk his mostly incompetent guard how to allow him to go on a journey that likely results in his capture or death

 

[JMISBEST]

Neither of these two books would teach a 4-year-old how to talk his mostly incompetent guard how to allow him to go on a journey that likely results in his capture or death

I know they won't, I was merely giving examples of the kind of books I liked people reading to me when I was his age

 

[Ancalagon]

I've just thought of a problem with my own story idea, Your thoughts?

The 7 Slave Snatchers/Thieves, clearly all have a slightly higher then normal INT, which would mean A INT of either 12 or 13, so why didn't they realize theirs something wrong with this?

I mean the birthmark proves that his mothers a escaped slave, which makes him a slave, but they know nothing about his father

Saying that though they should have realized that his father must be A Noble whose title must be at least Very Senior Earl, after all who else would assign 12 or more, their isn't more but they don't know that, Fighters of they guess at least 7th level to guards a 4 year old

So why didn't they just approach the kid and his guards, explain the situation with the kid and his mum, in which case the guards would quickly get access to A Cleric they trust that will cast Detect Lie to show their telling the truth, then help sort it out and they'd each get a large reward without unknowingly kidnapping a future king

I am glad that you are realizing that the story is very implausible.

Even if the slavers didn't ask themselves why does this kid have so many guards, it still is clearly a very hard target to go after. If they were trying to kidnap a prince for ransom, sure, maybe it is worth the risk. But just a boy to sell into slavery? Why bother? Too risky.

 

[Beleriphon]

So how much trouble are the Slave catchers in for taking A 4 year old Crown Prince whose mother was A Escaped Slave?, which legally makes him a slave

The slave part is largely irrelevant, would it really matter if there was a country were slavery was legal on Earth and some numb-nuts decide to kidnap the POTUS' kid because one parent was a slave where they came from? I'm fairly certain that if the home country didn't immediately find and return the kid things would involve a rather substantial SOCOM response.

The best question is how much trouble are they in for kidnapping the Good King's only child? What would Louis XIV have done if somebody had kidnapped the Dauphin? I fully expect that there a very tense diplomatic message sent saying give me my son back or we go to war. But knowing Louis' general temperament I'm not entirely sure he'd have started with the message and instead jumped right into a war.

In context of D&D: Louis XIV sends Aramis, Athos, Porthos, and D'Artangan on a rescue mission.

 

[Ancalagon]

The slave part is largely irrelevant, would it really matter if there was a country were slavery was legal on Earth and some numb-nuts decide to kidnap the POTUS' kid because one parent was a slave where they came from? I'm fairly certain that if the home country didn't immediately find and return the kid things would involve a rather substantial SOCOM response.

The best question is how much trouble are they in for kidnapping the Good King's only child? What would Louis XIV have done if somebody had kidnapped the Dauphin? I fully expect that there a very tense diplomatic message sent saying give me my son back or we go to war. But knowing Louis' general temperament I'm not entirely sure he'd have started with the message and instead jumped right into a war.

In context of D&D: Louis XIV sends Aramis, Athos, Porthos, and D'Artangan on a rescue mission.

See "the prince was kidnaped because of a screw up, go save him, be discrete" is a great premise for an adventure.

All the convoluted slavery/birthmark/etc is unnecessary.