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View Full Version : PC´s as local law enforcement in a High Magic Fantasy settings



Angelmaker
2020-06-09, 03:09 AM
Hey, hoping everyone´s alright. I´m more of a lurker than an active contributor, but I´ve been around and today I got a bit to contribute which sparked a solid 2 minute laughter in our group and I thought maybe y´all would enjoy it as much as we did. (Edit: Putting the entire background nonsense into a spoiler for brevity)


Alright, so this happened yesterday in our D&D 5E campaign, but I figure it would be able to happen in any sufficiently magicced up setting (hence posting in Roleplaying games):

We were investigating a brewery of sorts (small farm) which had recently been specializing into cheese which they used to smuggle gems in. The farm itself were ran by cultists (everybody likes cultists, right? :smallcool:) in a home brew setting a friend of ours wanted to GM and she´s doing a fine job so far. There are a few inter-party tension as I´m playing a shady assassin rogue whose sole purpose is to hunt down this cult at any costs and murder them all, while the (I think celestial?) warlock is on a redemption spree.

In a confrontation with one the local cult leaders we apprehended him and my suggestions of murdering him were ignored until we were confronted with the abyssal conduct of the cult (think basement of cruelty) upon which the warlock decided there was no redemption for that person and skewered him (baby steps! I´m so proud of him(player)/her(character) slowly getting the hang of murdering people).

The player of the warlock discovered then (We´re not playing that often and with huge pauses in between) that he has the ability to summon a specter of a slain enemy, binding its soul to the blade until the next long rest. The specter obeys the commands of its creator and our GM ruled, after going through the description of the ability, that the soul retained the full memories of the slain person.

Since we are on the hunt for cultists, we slowly caught on that we could play the 300 yes-or-no questions game with it, since it cannot speak, but it may very well nod or shake its head. We learned that there were more cultists in official positions in the nearby city.

So we discussed what we should do now, since I personally was of the opinion that busting into the local law enforcement/constable´s office with a murdered person attached to the sharp end of a sword wouldn´t go well for us. In the end we decided to give it a shot, since some of the cultists accused by the specter were also part of the city guard, so I had less qualms about collateral damage, while the rest of the party insisted we fight our way out if necessary with non lethal force.

Anyway, we had in on the constable´s office and then the absurdity of the situation hit me:

- A ragtag band of adventurers with blood splattered clothes, heavily armed accompanied by freed hostages (had been reported missing in the city), a former cultist which we think we can turn around to help us take out the cult (thanks to the specter´s insight and me asking "Would THIS guy help us take down your nice cult if he´d be given a chance?") accompanied by a spectral figure which we claim is not only the local brewery´s owner but also a cult leader (Which we killed in "self defense" alongside his psychopathic sister) are bursting into the local law enforcement where two clerks are doing a desk job with us bombarding them with things like "This spectre tells the truth", "Its only gonna hang around for so long","Some of your guards and one of the local officials are cultists as well", etc.



...And this is where I came up with the idea of how hilarious it would be if

The players were actually playing the law enforcement officers having to deal with absurd situations like that

It would almost feel like Ankh-morpork PD! You´re sitting at your desk filing a report about yesterday´s tavern brawl where the Goliath barbarian wagered he could drink any man under the table when suddenly a guy with an imp on his shoulder comes in yelling at you that he and his party took out the rat-cult in the city sewers, here´s the head of cultist leader *bam slams the bloody head on your table* and he´s asking for a reward of sorts. You look him in the eye, slowly open a drawer and take out an aspirin... this is going to be a loooong day. Frakkin adventurers...

Just think of D&D and the many wondrous abilities spells and class abilities give you:
- Warlocks summoning spectres of KILLED people that "SUPPOSEDLY" tell the truth
- Zone of truth casting people
- Bards using charm spells to trick people
- Rogue using disguise and infiltrates to stir unrest in a city
- Spellcasters casting passwall, etc. to steal things and you have to investigate the crime scene
- Druids using shapechange into cute pets to get cuddled and get free snacks from ladies in the city
- Graduates from the local magic college using invisibility to peep on the showers
- Adventurers coming in with a bag of holding full of animated corpses, getting stopped at entering the city gates,etc.

To be even more mean, only allow players non magic classes with maybe skills in arcana and insight, etc. - like think of the average understaffed and overworked town guard who has to deal with Mrs. mollins unicorn-rabbits digging through the fence to eat Mr. Colboroughs cale and then these even weirder guys and gals chime into your daily routine.

You could even make a campaign out of it, where you start in a sleep village town militia, slowing getting promoted to village guard, then city guard, then special crimes investigator, etc.

So, I hope I presented the idea well and this mildly entertained you (I´m lying. I want you to burst out laughing, splatter coffee over your screen and make your colleagues think you´re crazy, but mildly will do for now).

- What do you guys think of this idea? Has anyone done a similar setting or has stories to share with a similar premise?
- What, in your favourite settings, do you think would be hilarious abilities law enforcement agencies PCs would have to deal with?

Keep it fluffy my people. :smallwink:

Knaight
2020-06-19, 08:02 PM
- What do you guys think of this idea? Has anyone done a similar setting or has stories to share with a similar premise?
In the specific context of two player groups (three people including the GM) there are a couple of structures I used to default to. One of them is buddy cop, which works just fine transported to fantasy, science fiction, etc. while still using all the tropes of modern buddy cop movies. This especially pertains to the whole loose cannon trope, because PCs are gonna PC.

{Scrubbed}

King of Nowhere
2020-06-19, 08:48 PM
i think it's a good idea, if the players are on board with it. of course it's a bit railroady, in that they must agree to stay in the police (at least for a while) and deal with whatever is thrown at them, but most players would not mind that kind of buy-in. and i can see it has a lot of potential.

Hytheter
2020-06-20, 12:45 AM
Sounds like a fun concept. Might even try this next time I GM.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Gold

malloc
2020-06-22, 11:50 AM
I would consider playing that as an episodic pickup game on weeks with 3 or fewer players. I've read enough bad fantasy cop books to really hammer the aesthetic home.

King of Nowhere
2020-06-22, 10:18 PM
I've read enough bad fantasy cop books to really hammer the aesthetic home.

but have you read good fantasy cop books?
pratchett's ank morpork city watch can be a good place to start

Nifft
2020-06-26, 10:50 PM
It's a great premise, but doing it right would demand SO MUCH WORK, not just on the individual cases but on the continuity and timing of revenge attempts, public opinion being swayed by various events, and magical criminals planning a future heist going on in the background concurrently.

Honestly it might be a lot better as a story than a game, perhaps written in conjunction with a few of your funnier players.

Psyren
2020-06-29, 09:50 AM
Paizo has an upcoming adventure path called Agents of Edgewatch with the premise of the PCs playing a law enforcement role that may give some ideas, since a whole design team has thought through this concept. They also released a blog announcement around some modifications to it for reasons I won't go into or link to on this board, but I suggest you take a look at that in case any of the tweaks or subject matter there are important to you or any of your players.