ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist Campaign Completed!

[FinnianWhitefir]

Really appreciate it. That's a lot of good ideas and conversation. I'll re-write that intro so it's a bit less barbaric and threatening, though honestly I talked to one player and they were good with it. It felt like an appropriate "You are choosing to do this, there is a big negative if you are proven to be a bad person/threat, and as long as you are truthful nothing bad will happen and we'll let you walk or offer to help you out of whatever you ware doing". But I think it'll come across better without bodily harm.

The "Your PCs are LAW enforcers" is what I'm also trying to work around a lot. Given the current world and drama, it's a very fine line for my players. We have done campaigns where the rich/powerful are default bad and uncaring. With Zeitgeist I've had to get very explicit that Risur and the RHC are good and well-meaning. But the campaign does show problems in Flint, there is a throw-away line about how some Dockers have bruises from fights with the Guard the night before, and I know my players will take that very badly. So I'm figuring out how to ride a line of "No one is terrible and evil, but things are complicated and it's hard for everything to go perfect".

One explanation I'm making up that I like is that the Guard isn't really a competent smart police force, they are basically medieval town guards who aren't smart enough to get a job in a factory. So well meaning, but basically thugs with a club who are meant to keep the peace and grab anyone they can. The RHC will be the "You are here to make sure the right decisions are made and justice is served, so we trust your judgment and opinion". If we get into "You are here to enforce the law" I'll get a lot of "Does the law not say you can't lock factory workers in? Then let's change the law, that's a no-brainer." Or "How come the law doesn't say the Guard can't beat the Dockworkers?"

But don't mean to derail your thread, thanks for the ideas!

 

[MrsMongoose]

No problem
You have to get a lot more into the how and why of when police forces were started in the first place (not including the magic), as technology is running at a faster pace in this campaign, but think of the era being Argy-bargy or Drunken fighting via fisticuffs was common, so were barroom brawls; however, drawing a lethal weapon is a step up. So is rioting by more steps. How the authorities dealt with them, and consequences of that (see Peterloo) set the stage for reforms and so on.

Bear in mind a night in the cells to cool your heels after a bit of a slapping in this period probably won't get you much of a rap sheet, but if you continually do it or up the ante, then that's a whole other thing...

Also have a look at how the police/spies etc were started in different countries. In some countries they really were just the biggest gang. And protected the landowners' interests... look at which of the countries in the setting think (different types of) slavery is ok, for example...

Have a look at how an early Scotland Yard worked and you might have something approaching what you want, maybe? This is where the detectives went out to the regional force, headed the investigation, and tended to pick a selection of the local police to do the legwork.

For books that give a good idea, I'd probably say that the Shardlake books are too early, but has some good precursors to a more modern kind of policing/spying later, A Conspiracy of Paper (Liss) is a good one (ex-Boxer gets embroiled in South Sea Bubble stuff), The Queen of Bedlam would work if you want to run some Ragman sidequests and do more on the asylum, A Broken Vessel, (Kate Ross) is probably exactly the kind of feel just post-Yerasol wars with Danor being very French Republic, and Sherlock Holmes is maybe a bit too late, but the early stuff may work. The Gods of Gotham may also work (1860s) as it is about New York FINALLY setting up a police force...
But 1700-1837 as a time period, basically.

 

[RangerWickett]

Organizational culture and leadership matter. I wrote the adventures to show the Flint police as being vaguely NYPD-ish: reliable if you fit in as a 'respectable' member of society, but also many of them are willing to be selfish, ego-tripping a-holes against anyone they see as beneath them. A very "hierarchy exists for a good reason, and I'm a good person for enforcing that hierarchy" philosophy.

The RHC, at least the part that Delft runs, has a different view of things. They don't just recruit people who will obey; they want thinkers. And, as evidenced by the audit in adventure 3, they don't turn a blind eye to abuse of power. They understand that they operate within a system where elites have power that has to be respected or else they'll crush you, but the monarchs of Risur are more closely in tune with their people, so the RHC - the Royal Homeland Constabulary - will follow the monarch's lead and care about people.

 

[FinnianWhitefir]

I like that. Makes me realize that I don't have a good in-character speech by Delft that will set the tone and set the players on the right path. We had a funny talk because in my example questions from their joining interview one player thought their PCs answer to every questionable situation would be to report and turn in any agent doing anything semi-questionable. And I realized I need to set a tone of "You are working in a grey area, you need to trust and support your teammates, you will likely end up in questionable alliances and performing questionable deeds in order to create a great good". I'll write up a First Mission briefing from him that covers some of that.

Can't wait for their meet with Gale and seeing how they deal with a "This is the #1 person you should be arresting, but you need info from them and they have valuable insight into further problems".