Freeport is not my creation,it is the
creation of the brilliant minds over at Green Ronin games. I have
borrowed from a lot of great sources in my story’s that I have
told.
Lets take a moment to reflect. We have
looked at the idea of a fantasy city and how it works as well as the
sewers that bubble under the city. Before we close our February visit
to Freeport lets take a look at one more thing that any decent
fantasy city needs. Especially a city populated and run by thieves,
pirates and adventurers and that’s law enforcement.
A few First level guards can handle
themselves against a drunken bar brawl or a simple shop robbery but
how does a city like Freeport deal with the amount of weirdness an
average adventuring party can bring.
When the wizard summons 15 giant apes
what are the options? The city could just let them run rampant and
then charge them. They could employe a special forces of individuals
who have the same powers and skills as those meddling adventures but
then that would just mean Two wizards summoning 15 giant apes. They
could ban them from the city, but lets face it when adventures are
drooping $50.00 GP gems to pay for a 3CP dinner, its a good idea to
keep those wacky adventures in the city. Plus, how many times has the
city had the adventures solve a problem for them.
So the conundrum for the law
enforcement of any fantasy type city is how do they deal with the
adventures and still capitalize on the adventures?
Give them a job!
Why do you think so many campaigns end
with the party being given land and a castle and some position within
the city government? Because the Authorities WANT the adventures
running things?
No of course not, would you give a 5
year old the keys to the death star?
No they give them jobs because they
know that once that wizard has to deal with a G-w-TS 36 report (in
triplicate) for the 75th time, any thoughts he might have
had of destroying the city are soon replaced with thoughts of “i
just want to go home for the day”
No foe the heroes has ever faced is
more dangerous or insidious then a well run GOVERMENT! Bureaucracy
and litigation will soon become names the party fears more then Orcus
(hail orcus).
After a few months of having to pay
the city various funds and taxes and fines out of there own pockets
will soon lead the party to find that they no longer have that
endless supply of 50GP gems to use to buy dinner, they may have to
start actually being smart about there investments?
Soon after that the daily drudgery of
the Government will either drive the party into a mindless worker bee
fugue or send them running from the city to the nearest death pit
because they would rather face Orcus (hail orcus) then another day of
complaining citizens and paperwork.
So the adventures are gone or dealt
with and things return to normal in the city, until the next band of
Heroes arrive!
While I am being somewhat silly about
this the fact of the matter is the greatest threat any fantasy city’s
faces is the heroes and we all know it,. Paying for simple things
with 50GP gems would soon ruin the economy as money would become
pointless when the Wizard is buying bread with platinum and the
cleric never pays for anything because he can just make food appear
The amount of damage and injury’s a
typical bar brawl between two high level heroes would be staggering
Its is in the city’s best intreist
to milk the party dry of there funds as soon as possible and then get
them out of the city as fast as they can or give them jobs.
So now we take our leave of freeport
and perhaps we better understand when Lord Ulric sadly talks about
how things were in his day. Back when he was still a Warrior of Might
and not the assistant minister of the Haberdashery
Next month is march and march is
MEGADUNGON month.
Till then, Beware the great and
powerful BUACRAYCY and LITAGATION
and, Be excellent.
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