Showing the PC's evidence of corruption in a city

[nakedonmyfoldin]

I'm getting ready to start a new campaign, and i'm planning on centering in a very corrupt city - so there is plenty of fun to be had, factions to be joined/opposed, etc. The Lord will pay no mind to his hold, leaving the decision making to his "Grima-esque" advisor who uses this power to forward his own evil agenda. The guard (without fear of punishment) expect bribes, will blackmail/falsely imprison, etc.

I just want some more ideas to really flesh out this idea of a truly corrupt town. Keep in mind its not necessarily "good" or "evil", nor is it true anarchy with rioters throwing flaming bricks and whatnot. Should smugglers operate out of taverns, should gang wars carry on in different sections of town?

I'm excited to see some interesting and useful tips!

[Pokonic]

Slaves are always a surefire way to show that a place is, well, pretty bad.

But it's how they are used, now, that's a way to show that a place is messed up.

For example; Meat is currency amongst the local flesh cultists, and they preform duties to anyone who can bring up the proper sacrifices. A object in the city can be found with a eye as a offering, a object can be obtained with a hand. No one wishs to use there own flesh, of course, but cheap "blessed bodies" are easily bought within the temple itself, the placid shells of initiates to the cult's ways who failed the initial tests.

[tzar1990]

I'm getting ready to start a new campaign, and i'm planning on centering in a very corrupt city - so there is plenty of fun to be had, factions to be joined/opposed, etc. The Lord will pay no mind to his hold, leaving the decision making to his "Grima-esque" advisor who uses this power to forward his own evil agenda. The guard (without fear of punishment) expect bribes, will blackmail/falsely imprison, etc.

I just want some more ideas to really flesh out this idea of a truly corrupt town. Keep in mind its not necessarily "good" or "evil", nor is it true anarchy with rioters throwing flaming bricks and whatnot. Should smugglers operate out of taverns, should gang wars carry on in different sections of town?

I'm excited to see some interesting and useful tips!

Here's a generally good ruleset for generating corrupt governments:


There is one leader. The leader's primary goals are to remain in power, and then to accumulate wealth - everything else is at best secondary, and at worst lies or self-delusion. Note that the leader here is not the official leader, it's the advisor.
The leader maintains his power with the help of the Winning Coalition - a number of individuals without whom the leader WILL lose power. These can be generals, priests, guildmasters, whatever. In your case, the official leader is probably in here - without him, the advisor might well lose power to some degree.
The Winning Coalition is part of the Real Selectorate - people with the power to control who the leader is. If enough of the real selectorate turn against the leader, he can be replaced.
The real selectorate are part of the Nominal Selectorate - people who theoretically have power, but in practice are unable to truly choose the leader.


The Leader has five rules to follow to maintain power:

Keep the winning coalition as small as possible - the fewer of them there are, the less you have to spend to maintain their loyalty, and the fewer effective rivals you may have.
Keep the nominal selectorate as BIG as possible. Not only do they pay taxes without getting power back, but the more of them there are, the more you can threaten the members of the real selectorate with replacement.
Make sure revenue flows from the bottom to the top. You don't want peasants or low-rankers gaining enough money to be a legitimate rival, and you need to spend money to keep your winning coalition happy.
Pay your peasants and nominal selectorate JUST enough to keep them loyal - you want them not to rebel, but you don't need to worry about getting their active support.
NEVER, if possible, take money from your winning coalition or the real selectorate to pay for something. Even if it helps the nation or even them in the long run, developing a sustainable farming system to feed the city for generations will never stop your generals from stabbing you in your sleep.


Now you've got a basic corrupt government - customize it with local fluff. If the real selectorate is guildmasters, then the city will be investing in artisan workshops and so on, resulting in beautiful rich areas surrounded by slums, whereas if the selectorate is religious orders, expect to see lots of temples, and holidays for the deities of the favored priests.

[Phelix-Mu]

Corruption is a very broad category, and takes a number of forms. Generally, it's basically a system that looks/talks like x, but is actually y. In the baddest sense possible.

Some useful notes of inspiration from common lore or pop culture:

- The various incarnations of Robin Hood feature a corrupt government in the absence of the rightful king. They also provide a good idea of the kinds of actions that those seeking justice or fairness are likely to take in response to corruption.

- Alias, a spy show from some years ago where a person who appears to work for the bank is actually a spy. She thinks she is working for a branch of the CIA, but then discovers that it's actually an evil shadow organization when she is recruited by the real CIA to be a double agent. Organizations with hierarchical power structures and internal controls on information flow can be colossal reserves of corruption, as few things fester more than secrecy. There are numerous other spy shows and movies that can add inspiration for how to manage complex intrigue and deception in organizations.

- Boardwalk Empire, the movie Bugsy, and other depictions of organized crime. When the law is just a pretense to cover up the real mechanisms of power, then crime often becomes a business. Highly organized operations exist to distribute "contraband," manipulate the black market, extort public officials, and otherwise get a cut of every profitable business transaction going down. Those that don't observe the "standard operating procedures" are fitted with concrete shoes and introduced to the local reservoir or flooded quarry.

- The Borgias, The DaVinci Code, and other depictions of the intersection of religion and power. People implicitly place trust in religious figures, and this faith can easily be exploited. Charlatans, cult leaders, religious revivals that are basically just cons, and more, all thrive in a dense, and often dystopian urban environment where the huddled masses thirst for a bone of truth or hope amidst the generally pervasive suffering and persecution of life.

In the darkness of sci-fi and fantasy, the possibility exists for forces much darker and sinister than real life. The first response had some good ideas, but consider some following:

- Memory alteration. Welcome to Magic for Evil Masterminds 101. The alteration of memories, both voluntary by the subject and otherwise, is a weapon of great power. Truth largely exists in the mind of the beholder, and when one's memories are manipulated, distorted, removed, or rewritten wholesale, then the truth enters a whole new level of subjectivity. Mind rape is an awesome tool in the hands of a clever DM, and can add numerous levels of mindscrew to an otherwise average situation.

- Creatures that feed off of suffering/death/negative emotions. There are demons, devils, undead, and aberrations that all fall into this category. They are all good antagonists, especially as many of them operate from the shadows and employ misdirection and deception to back up their schemes to inflict pain on those around them.

- Body alteration. Many view life as a sacred thing. But how life manifests, how the senses are influenced by our form, and how our form influences our lives, these are all areas with substantial grayness. Scarification, self-mutilation, grafting, and other magical/psionic alterations can all be sources for evil to exert an influence on "life." Driven by masochism, desire, madness, or pragmatism, there is much opportunity for darkness and corruption in this area (as noted by the first response).

[JusticeZero]

Well, my campaign world has a pretty corrupt city..
The mayor had representatives of farm and industry as advisors, and pretty much rubber stamped a lot of things they suggested. These advisors became very very rich as a result. Now, the Mayor had had the side of his face burned, and covered it with a wriggling psionic tattoo. At first, it was banned to have anything like it, but then the advisors got some, then their higher ups, then eventually anyone who had a few hundred spare gold burning a hole in their pockets.
One of the things that happenned was that the city allowed debts to be paid off in service.. this ended up turning into defacto slavery, and eventually, there were people wandering around trying to collect ficticious debts from anyone who didn't look like they could afford to hire a judge to look into whether the debts were real. If they couldn't pay, slap them in irons and haul them off to work off their debts - plus costs for room and board and tools of course. People who couldn't afford a tattoo probably couldn't afford to pay a judge to look into their case, either.
Laws were generally loosened. This was done to raise money for tourism of course, have to help boost business - but given that many of the people providing the services were essentially slaves...