Strongholds?

[Kraydak]

Or rather, PCs to Steve: "Go collect from the Mayor".
Mayor: "But I don't owe Steve money!?"
PCs: "Our bill for saving the town time and time again just came due."
Mayor: "Whaaaaa?!"
PCs: "If we were charging fair market prices for our work, this whole problem would never have come up. We were being nice, under the assumption that you fools would play along. You didn't. So now we are charging a retainer. 10% of your tax base and dealing with issues like this before they come to our attention sounds fair to me."
Almost-smart Mayor: "And if I don't pay up, you leave, leaving us defensless. Yup. Steve, come along, we'll arrange something for you." (and, probably, punish Steve for threatening the town's relations with the PCs)

Smart mayors would have dealt with Steve long since.

 

[Kraydak]

And note, the King probably values the PCs over financiers. You can get more money. You can't buy the service of HLCs easily. HLCs can flaunt the rules *because they are important enough to*. HLCs *should, in a reasonable world* be *showered* with gifts. People faced with somewhat morally ambiguous extremely powerful people will try to influence them as best they can. Without the strength to police them, this means bribery. Mayors and Dukes and Kings should be paying HLCs through the nose. The mere fact that they *aren't* means they are treating the HLCs like dirt, like people so socially beneath them that they aren't deserving of common respect. And, eventually, people who treat their loosely allied military like that pay the price.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I always hear how people's PCs build strongholds and build up their own armies. This experience is totally alien to me as in the games I play in we pretty much always zip across the contient or world all the time and do not have time for strongholds or followers. The idea of PCs paying taxes is alien to me too cause the PCs never stay in one place long enough.

Tax Collector: *Knocks on Inn door* Hello? I am here to collect the taxes for those fellows who came into town a couple of days ago?
Inn Keeper: Them? They left last night.
Tax Collector: Oh...

I am not saying that Stronghold building or taxes in the game are bad, I am just curious to other people's experiences with them.

And while the rest of the thread happily veers off into arguing about details, I'd like to recommend one of Paizo's GameMastery adventures to the original poster. Take a look at W1 - Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale if you want to see how a transitional adventure that takes a group of 6th level adventurers from adventurers to land-owners (and to 8th level) can look. A pretty nicely sized valley that had once a trade route going through has to be cleaned up from monster infestation and other problems that the local Fort cannot handle. The adventurers come in, battle some of the monsters, negotiate with a big tribe of lizard men, confront a sorcerer who wants to take the valley for himself, and if they make good progress they can either end up as knights with their own 2x2 mile parcel of land, or get nominated as knightly rulers of the whole valley, with all the responsibilities of a trade route newly opening on top of it. Really great stuff in there.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

PCs kill things and take their stuff. They fight and loot especially hard when someone is trying to kill them first. This is, by and large, the game.

Pitting the PCs against local politics, hired champions, and the military might of a kingdom will rarely dissuade them once they hit about 10th level or so. At this point, conspiracies without high-level magic simply fall apart; there are too many magical ways to get information. Poison is also useless; a few Rod-extended spells of Delay Poison mean that the PCs can always get to an antidote before taking any damage.

From there, it's fairly simple to throw divinations out until a name pops up. The PCs then capture and interrogate (fatalities are acceptable; Raise Dead and Speak with Dead are both options at this point. Heck, Plane Shifting to the appropriate Outer Plane and hunting down the soul is an option at this point.) Repeat as necessary; overlapping divinations with multiple casters can get you to very high levels of certainty very quickly.

The mayor (or a convincing illusionary duplicate of him) will probably be killed by a similarly-illusionary duplicate of Ironfist. If Ironfist was a member of any guild or organization of professional killers, said organization would learn the folly of attacking enemies that can cast Lesser Planar Binding. On the rubble of whatever was left of their guildhouses would be a polite note to the survivors (if any), requesting that if they wish to avoid a further army of fire elementals, they should consider their targets more carefully in the future.

At level 10, an adventuring party is essentially sovereign against most nations without significant magic. If you don't like this, perhaps E6 is for you. Optionally, you should consider that if you don't want the PCs to fight something or someone, you really shouldn't have it oppose them in the first place.

Oh I see, we're talking about playing D&D wrong.

 

[robertliguori]

Oh I see, we're talking about playing D&D wrong.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, yes. D&D has both rules, and assumptions about default PC actions, default NPC actions, and the PC's places in the universe. The rules state that if the PCs use the resources available to them in certain ways, they are virtually unassailable by common threats (such as poison, nighttime ambush, etc.). The assumptions about the PCs place in the universe are usually that characters above level 5 are rare and special. If you're playing in FR, for instance, than 10th-level PCs are nothing special. OTOH, if you're playing in a world like this, the assumption that peasants will live in villages instead of magically-fueled extradimensional arcologies is not necessarily a valid one. The assumptions of the NPC actions is that most non-heroic NPCs simply want to live their lives in peace, free from both blatant tyranny and major change or upheaval. Finally, it's assumed that by the time they've made it to 10th level, most PC parties have stumbled upon the basic tricks of the magic system (Rope Trick sleeping arrangements, magic-detecting watches, protective buffs and items on at all reasonable times, use of Prestidigitation to cut down on vulnerable moments spent bathing, etc.), and as such know exactly how to use their resources to circumvent common threats.

Now, you can alter the rules so you're playing a more Iron Heroes-esque game. You can keep the rules, but change the assumptions, and forbid the PCs from using their resources effectively. Finally, you can up the average level of the world, so that their plotter has the necessary countermeasures to defeat Detect Thoughts and Divination.

But given the D&D rules, and no external metagamy restrictions on PCs behavior, yes, expecting a conventional web of conspiracy and politics to ensnare PCs rather than being being ripped up and set on fire is doing it wrong.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, yes. D&D has both rules, and assumptions about default PC actions, default NPC actions, and the PC's places in the universe. The rules state that if the PCs use the resources available to them in certain ways, they are virtually unassailable by common threats (such as poison, nighttime ambush, etc.). The assumptions about the PCs place in the universe are usually that characters above level 5 are rare and special. If you're playing in FR, for instance, than 10th-level PCs are nothing special. OTOH, if you're playing in a world like this, the assumption that peasants will live in villages instead of magically-fueled extradimensional arcologies is not necessarily a valid one. The assumptions of the NPC actions is that most non-heroic NPCs simply want to live their lives in peace, free from both blatant tyranny and major change or upheaval. Finally, it's assumed that by the time they've made it to 10th level, most PC parties have stumbled upon the basic tricks of the magic system (Rope Trick sleeping arrangements, magic-detecting watches, protective buffs and items on at all reasonable times, use of Prestidigitation to cut down on vulnerable moments spent bathing, etc.), and as such know exactly how to use their resources to circumvent common threats.

Now, you can alter the rules so you're playing a more Iron Heroes-esque game. You can keep the rules, but change the assumptions, and forbid the PCs from using their resources effectively. Finally, you can up the average level of the world, so that their plotter has the necessary countermeasures to defeat Detect Thoughts and Divination.

But given the D&D rules, and no external metagamy restrictions on PCs behavior, yes, expecting a conventional web of conspiracy and politics to ensnare PCs rather than being being ripped up and set on fire is doing it wrong.

tl;dr

 

[Kraydak]

Oh I see, we're talking about playing D&D wrong.

For what its worth, I'm a strong proponent of including the following into the game's social contract:

1)NPCs won't pay the PCs what they are worth and won't shower them with gifts. In exchange, the DM won't ask why the PCs aren't paying a cent in upkeep and luxuries. Also, only the most extreme of legal issues will matter. The above becomes valid as PCs gain a few levels. The costs are assumed to be a wash.

This avoids a whole raft of issues and keeps the players focused on adventuring for loot as opposed to (RL boring for the DM at least) wallowing in luxury.

2)NPCs won't ambush the PCs in town at maximum effectiveness and the players don't need to spend half of game time designing elaborate defenses. The effects are assumed to be a wash.

This keeps the game flowing and allows for NPC amushes to be something other than either irrelevant or TPKs (which is what happens when the defenses get "hard" enough). It also promotes PC/NPC interactions, as opposed to hiding out in underground lairs only accessible through teleports, creeping forth only under the cover of anti-scrying spells.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Or rather, PCs to Steve: "Go collect from the Mayor".
Mayor: "But I don't owe Steve money!?"
PCs: "Our bill for saving the town time and time again just came due."

Assuming the DM isn't a tightwad, the PCs have already been rewarded for their actions. Perhaps that's how they got the land they mortgaged to Steve, neh?

Plus Steve had 1,000gp available to loan to the PCs. That implies Steve is pretty darned affluent, if not right out wealthy. Steve can probably hire his own muscle, and might be sneaky enough to bringing in a squad of Paladins to drive off the robbers who declared they were taking over once they were asked to pay their debts. There's my next game session or three.

And at this point the players have just decreed they are immune to local law. If there is a higher power to appeal to, the Mayor should do that right now. Either the King will promote the PCs to the nobility and put in charge of the town or he'll consider them interlopers and seek out "heroes" to "free the town from the greedy and capricious rapscallions demanding tribute from the good townsfolk."

Ta da, adventure! These things write themselves.

Assuming the entire group plays like the "Knights of the Dinner Table" gang and it isn't just one jerk, I can readily apply the worldview of "there are no problem players, merely plots hooks awaiting a gobbet of flesh to impale."

 

[Kraydak]

Assuming the DM isn't a tightwad, the PCs have already been rewarded for their actions. Perhaps that's how they got the land they mortgaged to Steve, neh?

Are non-local NPCs giving the PCs large gifts to try and get them to move to help the non-locals? Are the local NPCs giving the PCs large gifts to try and keep the PCs local? If no, and you want to try and be realistic, I'd say yes, then DM is being a tightwad.

Plus Steve had 1,000gp available to loan to the PCs. That implies Steve is pretty darned affluent, if not right out wealthy. Steve can probably hire his own muscle, and might be sneaky enough to bringing in a squad of Paladins to drive off the robbers who declared they were taking over once they were asked to pay their debts. There's my next game session or three.

And at this point the players have just decreed they are immune to local law. If there is a higher power to appeal to, the Mayor should do that right now. Either the King will promote the PCs to the nobility and put in charge of the town or he'll consider them interlopers and seek out "heroes" to "free the town from the greedy and capricious rapscallions demanding tribute from the good townsfolk."

This is an important point. All HLC are de facto immune to local law. In addition, given that there is enough local adventuring to turn LLCs into HLCs, the local law needs the aid of HLCs. It follows that HLC that are semi-decent are a vast, vast improvement over no HLCs at all or downright villanous ones. The PCs as local, decent folk are immensely valuable. To the point that people who mess with the town/PC relationship are going to viewed somewhere between negatively and outright treasonous. It isn't a case of financially incompetant PCs or an order of paladins. It is a case of financially incompetant PCs or tyranny (tiny chance of paladins on the horizon).

If you want to pull "realistic" politics, please emphasize the "realism". Where the nice, not actually abusive, self-sacrificing, town rescuing heroes are, well, important and valued. And competed over. The statement that the PCs can find patrons elsewhere isn't a statement of disloyalty. In a realistic world it is a mayor's *nightmare* that the PCs will accept one of the offers that the mayor knows is being made. PCs that *aren't* testing the towns coffers by demanding counteroffers is a dream come true.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

And while the rest of the thread happily veers off into arguing about details, I'd like to recommend one of Paizo's GameMastery adventures to the original poster. Take a look at W1 - Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale if you want to see how a transitional adventure that takes a group of 6th level adventurers from adventurers to land-owners (and to 8th level) can look. A pretty nicely sized valley that had once a trade route going through has to be cleaned up from monster infestation and other problems that the local Fort cannot handle. The adventurers come in, battle some of the monsters, negotiate with a big tribe of lizard men, confront a sorcerer who wants to take the valley for himself, and if they make good progress they can either end up as knights with their own 2x2 mile parcel of land, or get nominated as knightly rulers of the whole valley, with all the responsibilities of a trade route newly opening on top of it. Really great stuff in there.

Thanks for the recommendation, if I ever get the chance to I will see if I can look at it.