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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 8809224" data-attributes="member: 11760">Singapore is nominally a democracy. There is no way to oust the Lady of Pain if you disagree with what she's doing. You can't even reason with her, since she can't be entreated with.While its politics are not great from a Western perspective, a lot of people want to live in Singapore, including Westerners, because it's a beautifully gilded cage that everyone believes they retain autonomy within, whether it's the nominal democracy or the ability to just leave.If the Lady of Pain decides she doesn't like you, you don't get to leave, you don't get to appeal your sentence, you're just punished.I agree. That's why I didn't say anything of the sort.I've actually been to Singapore and the caning thing -- while it gets lodged in Westerners' memories -- isn't the whole story. There are also warnings on the airplane before you land in Singapore that bringing any marijuana into the country leads to long (maybe lifetime) prison sentences. The "free press" in the country is almost entirely free of even the mildest criticism of the ruling parties.It's a very aggressively Lawful Neutral society. (Although I'd argue that only one family having any chance of winning power in elections suggests that maybe it's not as LN as officials would like everyone to believe.)While I certainly have criticisms of recent WotC books, I think we have to blame this on, once again, WotC cutting the setting info down to beyond the minimum.I believe the implicit reason for the taxes is it takes a lot to maintain a city with no resources other than the planar connections, including a peacekeeping force that has to deal with whatever comes out of the Ethereal at them. That's something that has a lot of value.In my campaign, I'm going to spend at least the first adventure actually exploring the city before jumping into the level two adventure. I think the obvious answer to the underwritten parts of the Citadel setting are that ... it's complicated. The Deep Space 9 parallel is a good one, as the citadel is full of people seeking refuge from war and other crises, in addition to the other travelers. In some cases, people will be happy to pay for security and calm (and note that some of the other settings in the book have a very oppressive sort of "peace" imposed on them),The mind-reading is there, IMO, to keep out the people who are determined to bring the drama of their home worlds to the citadel. It won't always work -- meaning that there's things to do for Shield Bearers who want to do more than settle disputes between merchants and the like -- but it's not there for no reason (even if one doesn't agree with the reason).I'm not sure why taxes are handwaved in the case of Cormyr (or Sharn or Ansalon or Greyhawk)  but [USER=3117]@Azenis[/USER] insists it has to be played out in the Radiant Citadel. This isn't a unique issue and I have a hard time seeing it as a defining element of the Radiant Citadel setting.That said, it does make me think it'd be interesting to map out -- probably on another thread -- how real-world politics map onto different fantasy settings and groups. (I assume most wandering bands of murder hobos are toting around a copy of Atlas Shrugged in one of their backpacks, for instance.)</blockquote>

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