Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8273297" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 55: Sep/Oct 1990part 5/5The Living City: One of the many modern amenities Raven's Bluff lacks is any sort of social security net. If you find yourself homeless or extensively in debt without any family or friends to bail you out, the closest thing to mercy you can hope for is a stint at a victorian era style workhouse. (which is still several centuries more modern a concept than their technology in some other areas) Unsurprisingly, overseeing this job attracts the kind of Lawful Evil douchebags who enjoy wielding power over others, and will do their best to ensure that once you fall into the system, it's very hard to get out. The work is menial stuff that would pay poorly even if you were an independent contractor, if you want anything better than gruel to eat, you can pay for it at inflated prices at the company store, and even the most minor infraction will result in fines being added onto your debt. About the only mercy is that their ursurers haven't really got the hang of compound interest, (after all, D&D worlds are mostly inflation free, looking at equipment prices over time and edition changes) which would make large debts grow faster than you could ever hope to pay them anyway. But even so, it's not a pleasant place. If the PC's wind up there, it's because they seriously screwed up, or were scammed/framed, and they probably won't want to stick around and pay off their debts the long way. Fortunately, this job also doesn't attract the most competent of people, and if you have a few levels, it won't be too hard to sneak out or beat up the overseer and escape even without all your equipment. This won't be the end of the story though, as he has a magical item that helps him track escapees, and if you escaped violently you can expect the city guard to be on the hunt for you as well. Might be a good idea to skip town if things go that far. Good thing the Realms is a big place with plenty of other detailed locations to head too. There's definitely plenty of scope for adventures involving this, but your players may not be happy about getting involved with them. Still, unless they're ambitious enough to do the truly epic and heroic quest of getting workhouses abolished and instituting a more progressive system of unemployment benefits and pensions in their place, (or even an UBI, which seems more possible there than here with powerful enough persistent conjuration effects) it's not as if the system will be going anywhere. If you're going to stick to easy targets like orc hordes and dragons, don't be surprised if the world continues to have problems when you get home. Wolff & Byrd's secretary finds vampires and werewolves considerably better-mannered and easier to deal with than the demands of regular human Karens. Now there's something that hasn't changed over the decades. Another step forward in terms of the degree of focus on Raven's Bluff and the Forgotten Realms in general. Even more than Dragon or Dungeon, it looks like from here on out, there'll be more Realmsian material than everything else put together, between the regular columns and the interactive tournament stuff. Another thing that eventually, the rest of the D&D universe will catch up with as all the other settings fall away, and only the biggest remains. I guess they really are ahead of the curve after all. Let's see if they maintain that over the whole decade, and how many less successful experiments that didn't catch on they'll try along the way.</blockquote>

Verification