D&D General Not enjoying the urban adventure I'm running

[tetrasodium]

I have a slightly different approach.

Adventurers are treated differently than most folk. First the characters should be gaining a reputation if they are doing anything unusual.

Second Adventurers while respected (they have a lot of power compared to most people) they are also feared (they have a lot of power compared to most people) and are thought to be a little crazy (They rush in or get involved in crap others ignore).

So a constables reaction is push it up the chain of command because adventurers get involved in stuff that will get us killed.

I prefer to play the constables mostly honest (yes! there is corruption but not blatant in most towns) and hard working, they help but consider adventuring stuff beyond them and a sure way to get killed. Doesn't matter if this is true that is how they see it. Imagine what fantasy knights go do questing, average soldier has no interest in going to fight dragons, rescue princesses from devils etc. That is for crazy folk.

while a lot of ideas presented here are good they make for a more adversarial role with the constables, authorities. No reason to go that route unless you have too. I have run long urban adventures (they work best when you have only 2-3 players, more fail states to work with) and tend toward the society/ community appreciating the adventurers overall as they Save the day. I also prefer more heroic good guy games, not goody too shoes but real heroes flaws and all.

The characters are sort of like firemen. People are glad to see them come when there is a fire, and sort of glad to see them go after cause this means they are safe and in the end they are not the ones who have to rush into the fire.

There are different ways o define "honest". Take the secret peace from the gentlemen bastards series of books or the fact that sharn's biggest mob boss type is also on the city's ruling council. The guards know where the rest of their pay comes from & the underworld knows why they pay a percentage of their gains to maintain arrangements.. Both sides know that the local police equivalent going to war with the entire underworld would be terrible. Most importantly is that as long as nobody on either side of things is crossing the line things remain peaceful. If someone on either side crosses the line however it's up to that side to enforce the unspoken rules on their own brethren to keep the peace.

The guards don't just look the other way when a criminal element gets away with criminal activity because of a power disparity... They look the other way because the particular criminal activity was within the lines of acceptable & even if it were something they could track down to punish doing so would lead to far more chaos and bloodshed.

An unusual edge case like the family of a guardsman being targeted by the criminal underworld simply would not happen and on the off chance it did someone could politely inform the right people who would then insure that the person who screwed up learned a lesson and the family was compensated with replacement or better... Sure Bob's granny knows her jewels were stolen because she even saw the burglar dash out the window with a rope still tied to her dressing room furniture after she came to investigate the noise... "but granny your eyes were probably playing tricks on you & the rope was leftover from that repair work that was going on. They put your jewelry box away in the safe & are here to finish remodeling your dressing room so lets just put this whole misunderstanding behind us."

 

[Urriak Uruk]

There are several ways to approach this problem, but I'm going to use several examples to help illustrate ways of getting your PCs less interested. (I know the below examples aren't really 100% accurate to their worlds, their just examples)

1. The Metropolis City Guard

In a city like Metropolis, heroes like the PC are expected to save the day. This has led to the city guard becoming more lazy, less alert, and more complacent. In that city, when the PCs come knocking for help, the guard mostly laughs them off. "You're the heroes that can do magic, solve it your own problems!" Or they'll just out-source crime to PCs directly, not wanting to get guardsmen killed by dangerous adversaries. Here, heroes are expected to do the dirty work.

In the OP's city, it sounds like the City Guard are more proactive than this, but one can easily see a city guard descend into this kind of behavior, especially as the PCs level up.

2. The Gotham City Guard

In Gotham City, the city guard is far more malicious than lazy. Here, crime goes unpunished, because the police are part of the criminal element; they've been bought off, their corrupt, and the few good cops are too scared to say anything. In a city like Gotham, the city guard is going to be more proactive against the PCs than against actual crime. After all, the PCs are the one's "stirring up trouble" by trying to change "how thing's have always been."

The OP's city definitely doesn't sound like this either, but it only takes one change in leadership for the city guard's attitude to change. Switch out the captain of the guard with someone who is secretly taking bribes, and who pushes the guard to stop helping out the PC's. This also adds an interesting element to the party's adventures, when they realize their foe has infected not just crime but the authorities.

3. Marvel's New York City

In the New York City of Marvel, there is a lot of crime. Like so much crime. So much crime that not only are the police slammed, the heroes can barely keep up with it. In NYC, it's not a case of the city guard not wanting to help the PC's... it's that they literally don't have the resources to help. Crime is on the rise, and there are way too many problems for the city guard to bail out the PCs every time they need help.

This solution may suit the OP the best, as it changes the city guard itself the least. It requires the external threats to go up, but this should happen anyway as the PCs level and their enemy's get smarter.

Personally, I'm most fond of the Gotham route, but you can always do combinations of the above (no organization is this monolithic in POV). But there are plenty of ways for the City Guard to stop helping out heroes.

 

[Eltab]

If you need a plot device, have a mysterious person show up on the PCs' doorstep. "I knew somebody would eventually draw -the villians- out. I have met them before. You seem to need a hand." This person is ...

• The Man With No Name (forgot which Western this is from, sorry)
• one of The Untouchables, think Elliott Ness, Prohibition-era Chicago, &c.
• 007 (your villains are the local subsidiary of SPECTRE)
• a Royal agent, who can call on the Guard for supplies but not manpower
• actually a spy for a rival villain org, seeking to soften up the competitors

 

[doogx]

The next time they call the cops on someone, have that cop be corrupt and friends with that person.

That's kinda what I was thinking. It's Chinatown!

 

[doogx]

As others have stated there are a lot of options.

• Not a top priority
• The guard is really there to serve the nobility
• The guards simply aren't particularly competent. The last time they did something like this, they burned down a city block and didn't rescue the hostage.
• While there are some honest cops, there is corruption in the ranks
• They'd like to help, but they need evidence. They can't just go kicking in doors without proper paperwork and search warrants.
• The cops are afraid of the bad guys
• If the guard gets involved they'll be breaking what is a delicate balance with far-reaching consequences. There is more at stake than the PCs realize.
• The guard can't help, but they also can't explain why. Edict from a corrupt captain? A noble is secretly in league with the gang? They have a secret operation to take down the whole gang and they don't want to expose their operative? Who knows! You don't even have to know right away, figure out something as you go along that fits the story.

I've run primarily urban adventures for years now, they can be a lot of fun.

Since we're talking about a fantasy setting, it's worth noting that it's not necessary for a pre-modern city to have a strong, honest or even minimally competent police force. One real-life cognate that comes to mind is London, which had a laughably inefficient city warden system before Peel created the London Metropolitan Police in the mid-19th Century.

 

[tetrasodium]

Since we're talking about a fantasy setting, it's worth noting that it's not necessary for a pre-modern city to have a strong, honest or even minimally competent police force. One real-life cognate that comes to mind is London, which had a laughably inefficient city warden system before Peel created the London Metropolitan Police in the mid-19th Century.

Frankenstein Chronicles (on netflix) gets into how the police force operated, who it operated for, & how it prioritized efforts before then pretty nicely.

 

[Oofta]

Since we're talking about a fantasy setting, it's worth noting that it's not necessary for a pre-modern city to have a strong, honest or even minimally competent police force. One real-life cognate that comes to mind is London, which had a laughably inefficient city warden system before Peel created the London Metropolitan Police in the mid-19th Century.

Yep, absolutely. The whole concept of an official police force is quite recent.

Then again, a lot of things we take for granted are pretty recent. Like individual bedrooms for anyone but nobles or beds or ... well lots of things.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I love urban adventures.

That said, if the OP isn't enjoying it, there's nothing wrong with that.

To add to much of the good advice here, my trick to urban adventures is the Rule of Two. While there are an infinite number of choices available in a city, I always narrow it down to two.

Need to upgrade to plate mail? Don't waste your time, and the players, thinking up names and personalities for every blacksmith on Armorer's Row. Instead, after asking around, they identify two places recommended that cater to adventurers and have a suit in stock. One is connected to the background of Character A, the other ties into the background of Character B. The players can choose which shop gets their business.

If players wanted help from the city watch, I'd take the same approach. I'd tell the player with the city watch background that there are two officers/magistrates/etc who might be helpful. One is honest but often ineffective. The other is effective but corrupt--he'll help them if they make it worth his while in coin. Let the players take it from there.

 

[S'mon]

Thinking about it, with one PC actually tied in to the city guard, a reasonable approach might be for the guard to offer backup while deputising the PCs to investigate. So a squad of say 6 Guards accompany the PCs to the location. I tend to stat them better than the MM Guard; 22 hit points (hd 4d8+4) & attack +4/d8+2 (STR 14, longsword) seems reasonable. That way the PCs are rewarded for their connections without just handing off the adventure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Since we're talking about a fantasy setting, it's worth noting that it's not necessary for a pre-modern city to have a strong, honest or even minimally competent police force. One real-life cognate that comes to mind is London, which had a laughably inefficient city warden system before Peel created the London Metropolitan Police in the mid-19th Century.

This is where it really helps to have a good knowledge of history when running urban adventures. The wilderness, on the other hand, remains the wilderness - it just gets smaller.

If you want a more realistic depiction of law enforcement, forget "city watch" and think "sheriff" Sheriff - Wikipedia.

The sheriff basically has no resources whatsoever - but he does have the authority to deputise people who do - the PCs - to act in the name of the ruler.