Atlas Shrugged in D&D

[Talakeal]

So my DM has a rather odd house rule.

In his campaign world magic items are strictly controlled, and we are playing an extremely low wealth campaign. Magic item creation is not banned, however there is a global law that if you create a magic item you must immediately surrender it to the local monarch for military use. Failure to do so is both a chaotic and evil act and brands you an outlaw in the eyes of both man and god, meaning that anyone can attack or rob you without violating their alignment, and paladins are actually obligated to do so.

What do you guys think about this from an ethical standpoint? Do monarchs have the right to seize property arbitrarily? Can a paladin attack someone because their church (who is allied with said king) has declared them a heretic or outlaw? How about if you are wrongfully accused of a crime; can good characters smite away without risking their own alignment?

[aspekt]

Uhm. Yes.

However that doesnt mean that a fictional world can't have ways of mitigating these powers.

For instance, in the real world, while monarchs and churches have done these things in the past they have also abstained from using those powers. Often because the political and general support of the populace would affect them negatively.

There is no reason a monarch has to be the same thing everywhere. Especially not in a fantasy world.

[Almarck]

Uh, is this a house rule because it's a setting detail that makes the game interesting? Or is it because your DM does not like people making magic items (because it might break low wealth) and decides the best way to handle that is by restricting doing that the hardest and most unbelievable totalitarian way possible?

Also, I get no edition tag is listed, so, does detect alignment work on arbitrary or objective good? As in, based on the teachings of your faith or on what "cosmic" forces of good think is good. There is a slight but important difference here.

[Talakeal]

Uh, is this a house rule because it's a setting detail that makes the game interesting? Or is it because your DM does not like people making magic items (because it might break low wealth) and decides the best way to handle that is by restricting doing that the hardest and most unbelievable totalitarian way possible?

Almost certainly the later.

However I was wondering, from an ethical standpoint, if this is actually rules legal from an alignment standpoint.

[Lord Torath]

I personally would cry "Shenanigans!" If that is the case, then no one should have any magic items that are not direct gifts from the king. Unless the rules are different if you find the magic item instead of making it yourself, which makes no sense from the ruling authority's point of view. If all magic items created belong to the king, then any that are found were also created at some point, so they also belong to the king. I don't suppose you get reimbursed for your newly created magic item when the king takes it? Yeah. Didn't think so.

Is it still an Evil Act if you make your magic items beyond the boundaries of any kingdom? Or will the border simply be too far/hard to cross?

Unless the monarchs are personally powerful, as well as politically powerful (army, navy, etc.), I don't see them lasting long before a coalition of nobles and magic user/artificer guilds depose them. Not even the Sorcerer Kings of Athas try to claim ALL the magic items...

[Milo v3]

Why is it an evil act? Even if it is deemed selfish, that would just be neutral.

Also, it is not a good act to kill someone just because they broke the law. Killing is deemed only as a good act if it would prevent a considerably larger amount of evil in the world, a person making a single item and not handing it over would not be any justification to murder the creator as a single act. Also, gods are irrelevant for paladins, since they get their power from good rather than gods, so they would be obligated to actually Not kill a person just because someone made a tyrannical law about it.

[Segev]

Technically, debating whether a church or god CAN do this is easily answered: obviously, they can. They have the force of arms and magical/divine power and can use it how they will.

The real underlying question that is being asked is whether a church and god can do this and still be good.

The head of any autocratic state can lawfully do whatever he wants. If he is consistent in how he lays out his laws and why, and he enforces them even-handedly (not necessarily "fairly" in the sense that the laws themselves must be fair, but in the sense that he doesn't change them or choose not to enforce them arbitrarily), then he is Lawful-aligned.

"All magic items created immediately become property of the King, and failure to hand them over marks you an outlaw!" is a harsh law, but if enforced consistently, is not Chaotic.

A Chaotic magic item crafter, obviously, will only obey the law if he fears being caught or has some motive for turning over his items that serves him more than keeping them for himself.

A Lawful magic item crafter will likely turn them over if he is an adherent to the King's laws. This will be most of them, as Lawful people don't tend to stay in regions whose laws contravene their own ethical code. John Galt, whom I reference because of the title of this thread, was actually Lawful. But he did not agree with the laws being passed in his land. He had a very throughly thought-out ethical code, and he operated within the bounds of that code to deprive those whose laws contravened it of his (and other, like-minded men's) services.

A Lawful Church could also support the King's law, and could even determine that this is part of their dogma (perhaps they really do believe in divine right of kings), and require it to be law in all lands devoted to the Church.

The sticky point is the one where the refusal to adhere to the law is not only automatically Chaotic (which it should only be if you're otherwise a believer in that Church and the laws of that Kingdom), but automatically evil, to the point that a paladin's Smite power works on such an outlaw.

That implies moral authority. The reason this smells off is because a god who tells his followers to rape women and children and then sacrifice them on bloody altars is probably not a good god. Even if he says he is. And he probably doesn't get to empower Paladins to smite those who refuse to commit these "sacred" acts.

Similarly, it is questionable whether one can dictate that "all magic items are the property of the King" is a sufficiently Good-aligned commandment that not only can a Good-aligned god issue it, but refusal to obey would constitute an act of evil so outrageous that one becomes smite-worthy from doing it even once.



Obviously, the DM can do whatever he wants. But, frankly, I would argue strenuously with him over his definition of "Good" and "Evil." There could be a good explanation in-story. Perhaps the Church and god are NOT "Good," and have something other than Paladins that they claim are Paladins. (Clerics with appropriate Domains, perhaps?)

But barring that, just from what is presented here, I would not, personally, say this is the stricture of a Good-aligned god or church, and that it certainly would not make you both Chaotic and Evil to refuse to adhere to it. Chaotic, it could be argued, depending on context. You'd need an awfully strong personal ethical system to countervail the refusal to adhere to the world-spanning one to maintain a Lawful alignment while flying in the face of this societal norm. But it certainly shouldn't be considered Evil in a moral sense. Not objectively.

[Talakeal]

Why is it an evil act? Even if it is deemed selfish, that would just be neutral.

Also, it is not a good act to kill someone just because they broke the law. Killing is deemed only as a good act if it would prevent a considerably larger amount of evil in the world, a person making a single item and not handing it over would not be any justification to murder the creator as a single act. Also, gods are irrelevant for paladins, since they get their power from good rather than gods, so they would be obligated to actually Not kill a person just because someone made a tyrannical law about it.

Resisting legitimate authority. Also, they are willing to use lethal force to make you comply, so therefore anything you do in self defense is a violent act against a lawful good entity, therefore an evil act.

Also, it is not even their "god" which is giving the command, merely a high ranking member of the god's church who is in tight with the king.

I personally would cry "Shenanigans!" If that is the case, then no one should have any magic items that are not direct gifts from the king. Unless the rules are different if you find the magic item instead of making it yourself, which makes no sense from the ruling authority's point of view. If all magic items created belong to the king, then any that are found were also created at some point, so they also belong to the king. I don't suppose you get reimbursed for your newly created magic item when the king takes it? Yeah. Didn't think so.

Is it still an Evil Act if you make your magic items beyond the boundaries of any kingdom? Or will the border simply be to far/hard to cross?

Unless the monarchs are personally powerful, as well as politically powerful (army, navy, etc.), I don't see them lasting long before a coalition of nobles and magic user/artificer guilds depose them. Not even the Sorcerer Kings of Athas try to claim ALL the magic items...

We are sometimes allowed to keep magic items we find. It is more or less arbitrary, based on whether or not the DM find's the item to be "OP". I do not know if they give compensation, no one has had the balls to actually try it yet; but I assume no. Also, the item does not have to be made in the kingdom, it is merely taken as a "tax" the first time you enter a kingdom.

Also note that the king doesn't use every magic item personally, he gives them out to agents who are in his pocket for military or law enforcement use. Thus the nobles are unlikely to rebel as they are the one's who actually get to keep the magic items more often than not.

[NichG]

It feels like there's a lack of context. There are lots about this that feels weird, but to me the biggest question is 'where does this global law come from?'. A global law suggests a global ruler of some form who makes the law. Without something like that, there's weird jurisdictional problems that seem like you could use to rules-lawyer your way out of it.

For example, if you make magic items while in territory that is contested by two countries, whose law should apply? Or how about unclaimed territory? If you plop yourself down on a deserted island that is very far away from other countries, announce 'I have invaded this land and claim it in the name of me', and declare yourself king of the island, do passing ships suddenly have to deliver their magic item cargo unto you?

So it sounds like there must be a global authority in order to make this a global law (so e.g. in the island situation, if your title doesn't come from that authority, it doesn't count). Who is the global authority, and what's their deal? Why is the cosmos making their laws a matter of Good?

If it turns out that the world is e.g. a bastion of the forces of the heavens situated in Celestia, under direct command of a solar emperor and tasked with providing forces to fight against the hordes of the hells, okay, that's something of a justification for things working this way. If this is just mortal self-appointed kings independently and simultaneously deciding to grab all the magic items for themselves, there's no real reason why it should be evil.

[Milo v3]

Resisting legitimate authority. Also, they are willing to use lethal force to make you comply, so therefore anything you do in self defense is a violent act against a lawful good entity, therefore an evil act.

Except if they are using lethal force to make you comply, they are committing an evil act, there is a reason why police aren't meant to shot everyone who commits a crime, if you steal a loaf of bread and run from a cop who tries to catch you, and then the cop tries to murder you for it, they are committing an evil act, since killing is defined as an evil act with only very specific exceptions. Self-Defence is self-defence. Doesn't matter if it's a violent act against a lawful good entity, it is a neutral act to defend yourself from a Lawful Evil paladin trying to murder you.

Also, it is not even their "god" which is giving the command, merely a high ranking member of the god's church who is in tight with the king.

Doesn't matter. Good is what paladins are about first and foremost. Law is secondary to Good for a paladin. They aren't allowed to commit evil acts, just because some guy made an evil act the law.

[Talakeal]

Except if they are using lethal force to make you comply, they are committing an evil act, there is a reason why police aren't meant to shot everyone who commits a crime, if you steal a loaf of bread and run from a cop who tries to catch you, and then the cop tries to murder you for it, they are committing an evil act, since killing is defined as an evil act with only very specific exceptions. Self-Defence is self-defence. Doesn't matter if it's a violent act against a lawful good entity, it is a neutral act to defend yourself from a Lawful Evil paladin trying to murder you.


Doesn't matter. Good is what paladins are about first and foremost. Law is secondary to Good for a paladin. They aren't allowed to commit evil acts, just because some guy made an evil act the law.

Many places in the real world authorize the use of force for resisting arrest, and it often escalates into lethal force regardless of how trivial the initial crime was. I don't think we can debate the morality of such without getting into RL politics, but it is hardly an open and shut issue.

As for paladins and goodness, I agree that is the RAW of it, but in all of my years of gaming I have never met another DM who would allow Paladins (or any divine caster for that matter) who was not dedicated to a single god from whom they derive their power.

It feels like there's a lack of context. There are lots about this that feels weird, but to me the biggest question is 'where does this global law come from?'. A global law suggests a global ruler of some form who makes the law. Without something like that, there's weird jurisdictional problems that seem like you could use to rules-lawyer your way out of it.

For example, if you make magic items while in territory that is contested by two countries, whose law should apply? Or how about unclaimed territory? If you plop yourself down on a deserted island that is very far away from other countries, announce 'I have invaded this land and claim it in the name of me', and declare yourself king of the island, do passing ships suddenly have to deliver their magic item cargo unto you?

So it sounds like there must be a global authority in order to make this a global law (so e.g. in the island situation, if your title doesn't come from that authority, it doesn't count). Who is the global authority, and what's their deal? Why is the cosmos making their laws a matter of Good?

If it turns out that the world is e.g. a bastion of the forces of the heavens situated in Celestia, under direct command of a solar emperor and tasked with providing forces to fight against the hordes of the hells, okay, that's something of a justification for things working this way. If this is just mortal self-appointed kings independently and simultaneously deciding to grab all the magic items for themselves, there's no real reason why it should be evil.

The DM feels that it is just "common sense," and that every monarch in every campaign world he has ever run in the last 30 years (according to him) has had the same draconian laws for dealing with PCs, which he claims is the only realistically and rational course in the world of magically powered murder hobos.

[Milo v3]

Many places in the real world authorize the use of force for resisting arrest, and it often escalates into lethal force regardless of how trivial the initial crime was. I don't think we can debate the morality of such without getting into RL politics, but it is hardly an open and shut issue.

Then consider it from the D&D perspective. Where it would be evil. Since Book of Vile Darkness describes killing as evil, unless certain prerequisites are met and then it becomes neutral. This situation wouldn't meet the prerequisites, so it would be an evil act for the paladins to use lethal force in this situation. Lawful Evil admittedly, but evil non the less.

As for paladins and goodness, I agree that is the RAW of it, but in all of my years of gaming I have never met another DM who would allow Paladins (or any divine caster for that matter) who was not dedicated to a single god from whom they derive their power.

To me that more disappointing, every single divine caster has the option of getting powers from non-god sources... Paladins have Good as their source, Druids have Nature as a default (with gods as a side option), Clerics have Gods as their source (with a concept as a side option).

Strangely, I have only seen one paladin in my games that ever choose to worship a god.

[BWR]

In defense of the absent DM, there may be some rhyme or reason to the acts that we are not party to. DMs banning items because they don't like it is fine. DMs banning item creation because they don't want PCs to do it is fine. DMs wanting a stricter control on what sort of gear the PCs get is fine.
In short, there is nothing wrong with DMs putting limits in their games that aren't in the basic toolbox (the rule books). They should just be upfront about what and why and how, and try to think things through and listen to arguments why X isn't as much of a problem as the DM seems to think.

From an in game perspective, this is fine. It adds flavor and whatnot. Ethically? The DM is the final arbiter of what is ethical in his/her setting, so anything s/he says is ok, is by definition ok. Players may not agree with it personally, PCs may not agree with it, it may even be self-contradictory, but the DM's word is final.

[HunterOfJello]

Sounds like a good world to either go join the army in or take over the monarchy in. (Or both!)

You could alternatively declare yourself as a monarch in rebellion and then get the gods' blessing that way.


Reminds me more of Fullmetal Alchemist than Atlas Shrugged.

[1337 b4k4]

Obviously, it's well within the authority of a monarch to claim whatever property they see fit in the name of the crown and to use the force of the state for force it's subjects to comply. That is inherently a "lawful" act provided such things are allowed for within the laws of the land. Assuming the monarch is of the absolute variety, it's probably safe to assume the have enacted such a law. Lawful does not imply a "nation of laws" as we think of it today. Within the bounds of absolute monarchy, it is certainly possible for the king to authorize deadly force for compliance of even the most mundane laws, and many a peasant before you has died testing this theory.

As to whether violating that particular law could also be an "evil" act largely depends on how morality is implemented in the game world. Is there an objective morality, handed down by the gods themselves? Or is there a morality largely formed from cultural norms? In either case, it would further depend on how that morality addresses your responsibilities (as a subject) to the monarch. For example, if the morality of the land declares that the monarch is an agent of god, and that all the laws passed by that monarch are the word of your god, and assuming that said god is of the "good" alignment and approves of such a law, then it could be reasonably argued that the act is indeed evil as a direct contradiction of the edicts of an agent of god.

That said, even within the D&D milieu, a singular evil (and for that matter unlawful) act is not (usually) sufficient to alter someone's alignment. Remember alignment, even as GG proposed it, was relative to your overall temperament and persuasion. An orc who saves a drowning kitten is no more good than a man who pees on a statue of his god is evil, even though the orc has saved a life and the man has blasphemed. The only class which is held to a stricter standard is the Paladin, and that has to do with their code, not their alignment per se. A paladin could theoretically fall, even without changing alignment.

[goto124]

This is assuming the DM wants to make stories out of the whole 'magical-items-are-outlawed' thing. If he wants to limit magical items for purely mechanical reasons without going into its implications, might as well tell the players OOCly.

How, exactly, does the kingdom keep track of everyone who makes a magical item? If guns are illegal in a country, and you make a gun in your home, there're ways to track you down. But it's not 'police magically appear and take away the item as soon as it is made'. Sure, it could happen in a fantasy world, but the DM might as well have magical items not exist at all in the world. Also, what exactly happens if the PCs refuse to hand it over? If it's LG (not LE), it's probably more reasonable for them to be sent for trial. As long as the players know beforehand, so that they won't argue about how the DM is punishing them needlessly for having magical items. Stuff to consider.

It seems that the DM wants to make magical items hard to get and make. Outlawing them ICly means you can't waltz into a store and buy them, and it can make for interesting storylines if a magical item is required to e.g. take out the BBEG. Nothing wrong with that, as is the Chaotic nature of it (since you are breaking the law).

Speaking of the Chaotic nature, your Lawful PCs are going to have a hard time justifying them keeping magical items. It could be resolved, just something to take note.

Breaking the law doesn't have to literally push your alignment towards Evil, especially if it's for a good cause and the monarch is Lawful Good, not Lawful Evil.

The DM feels that it is just "common sense," and that every monarch in every campaign world he has ever run in the last 30 years (according to him) has had the same draconian laws for dealing with PCs, which he claims is the only realistically and rational course in the world of magically powered murder hobos.

Since the DM wants the monarch to be LG, he has to make their Good-ness beliveable...

[gom jabbarwocky]

I can totally understand wanting to make magic items rare or harder to acquire as a GM. But there are a lot of ways to do that without resorting to the above mentioned tactics, which seem weirdly totalitarian, arbitrary and, most damningly, uncreative.

[goto124]

Agree. Either just make it an OOC ruling and tell your players beforehand, letting players not join if they don't like it (RL issues might kick in, but I digress), or make it not so arbitrary and uncreative, which is what we've been discussing.

[Talakeal]

Agree. Either just make it an OOC ruling and tell your players beforehand, letting players not join if they don't like it (RL issues might kick in, but I digress), or make it not so arbitrary and uncreative, which is what we've been discussing.

I can totally understand wanting to make magic items rare or harder to acquire as a GM. But there are a lot of ways to do that without resorting to the above mentioned tactics, which seem weirdly totalitarian, arbitrary and, most damningly, uncreative.

I agree it is heavy handed and overly complicated, but the DM in question likes to pretend that he plays by pure RAW (he absolutely does not, but he likes to keep up the veneer, but that is a different topic).

I am more wondering about the claim that refusing the follow the arbitrary and selfish demands of people who are in positions of authority is an evil act and that they and their allies can then persecute you with lethal force without risking their own alignment or divinely granted powers.

[Red Fel]

I'm going to agree with other posters.

It's one thing if your DM opens by saying, out of character, that he will be throttling WBL and vetting magic items. That's fine, I can respect that decision, assuming he has the decency to adjust challenges accordingly.

It's quite another to support the dramatic leaps of you-might-very-well-call-it-logic-but-I-never-would that you've described. To wit:

• Barring an incredibly sophisticated divination system, I see no way for the administration of the kingdom to know, instantly and automatically, when unauthorized magical items have been crafted.
• Regional laws are rarely perfectly parallel to cosmological laws, nor are the latter generally enforced by mortal rule.
• Violation of regional laws is not, by default, a Chaotic act. Even assuming it is, a single Chaotic act is rarely sufficient to shift a character's alignment all the way into Chaotic.
• Violation of a law, in the absence of other considerations, is not a moral or immoral act whatsoever, and thus is not an Evil act. Even assuming it is, a single Evil act - particularly one as minor as "crafting an item" is not sufficient to shift a character's alignment all the way into Evil.
• The fact that a person is in power does not make them the legitimate authority, nor does it make resisting their jackbooted thugs enforcers an Evil act.
• Self-defense, even against a Lawful Good entity, is not an Evil act, provided you aren't employing unjustified force. Self-defense against an unexpected or lethal attack is not an Evil act, period.

The DM's arguments are hollow and fallacious. There is no charitable way to describe it. If he wants to make magic items not-a-thing, that's his prerogative, but this particular method is an atrocious way to do it. He doesn't just break immersion; he stalks it into an alleyway, smashes its knees with a sledge hammer, slams its fingers in the lid of a dumpster, then cackles cartoonishly while running it over with a steamroller. The Joker watches all this with a queasy look on his face.

It ain't right, s'what I'm sayin'.

[Almarck]

No, it is not. Legitimate authority does not make one good, it makes one lawful for adhering to strict due process and proceedures. Law can be good or evil depending on the purpose of the law itself.

Given the data you have given us so far, the laws themselves are inherently selfish and thus cannot be good or just. At most, it's selfish opposing them and slightly evil. Slightly. And if it's a guy who's got nothing else than that item and it helps him live and support his family? Well, then it's not evil, not good.


Put another way, would guillotining someone who decides to not hand over a pair of really good shoes he just made to the local governor who has entire warehouses of shoes a justifiable or good act? Would you people who carry out the deed an kill this man for no other reason than refusing to hand over a pair of shoes have acted in the right? If I was a guard who signed up to support such draconian and arbitrary laws, knowingly it would lead to situations like this, I can't call myself a "good guy"

[goto124]

the DM in question likes to pretend that he plays by pure RAW (he absolutely does not, but he likes to keep up the veneer, but that is a different topic).

Ouch. This is going to be a problem. Either he picks up on the creative ways to do it, or it ends up a bad game and more posts get contributed to the Worst DMs thread. The players could just not try to make/get magical items, but might run into trouble if the encounters aren't adjusted accordingly.

Do you think you could convince him?

Given the data you have given us so far, the laws themselves are inherently selfish and thus cannot be good or just.

The DM's argument is that those shoes are more like overpowered killer hidden knife shoes. Or guns. Your main point about the overly harsh rule still stands.

[JusticeZero]

Legally, they can do it. Pragmatically it's less clear. Furthermore, it's not clear he realizes that that is actually pushing for a very high magic game, because list casters will faceroll everything.

[gom jabbarwocky]

*Snipped for brevity*

Well said. I'd argue that the OP's GM doesn't really have a leg to stand on, either in-game or out of game, especially since there are plenty of ways to deprive a setting of magical items that aren't so hamfisted. If I'm a player and that's how the GM rolls, that's fine as long as they are up-front about it and don't feel the need to hide behind rules and setting contrivances. It breaks verisimilitude and assumes you don't think much of your player's intelligence.

It kind of sends up a red flag for me if a GM establishes a setting where an otherwise conventional thing is suddenly punishable by capital punishment. Generally speaking, the only crimes that merit that are stuff like, you know, murder. Even if you don't care about stuff like the finer points of ethics, murdering criminals can get expensive. It's usually more lucrative to fine them.

[Arbane]

This sounds unreasonably heavyhanded as described, but it has some interesting ramifications. (As in 'ways the PCs can break the setting for fun, profit, and DM's tears.')

The first country to announce "make all the magic items you want and keep them, we just charge a tax!" will have EVERY MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD moving there.
Which admittedly will carry its own set of problems.

Hm. If this is a D&D world, that means there's large societies of 'monsters', right? Who make their own magic items, and probably don't care what the 'good' gods want.... So there's probably a Drow (or Duergar, or someone) group getting rich smuggling magic items while destabilizing the surface governments....

[Knaight]

As a setting element, this isn't necessarily too unreasonable. There are stability issues, but a monarchy wherein standard practice is to ban independent production of magic items makes sense - the skills to make them are rare enough that centralized control is reasonably feasible, and presumably the monarchies are in the habit of retaining people who make them and having them do so. Similarly, the outlaw system wherein legal protections are removed was a proven method of control for older civilizations. There are going to be black market problems, as magic items are generally reasonably easy to transport and smuggling shouldn't be all that hard, but as a setting element it's generally believable. If the magic items are D&D style, they are also generally really expensive and heavily military, so it's not necessarily that different than state control of production of military vehicles, with obvious differences in smuggling.

The problem here is that the DM has decided to stick in alignment, and from the sounds of things distort the setting element to make it punitive. Take the attacks and robbery - it sounds like just about any character will, because it "won't violate their alignment", which doesn't make any sense. A lot of people just don't favor attacks and robbery, and even a lot of people who do probably have the self preservation instincts not to attack adventurers, particularly when they can't even legally keep what they took and will have people attacking them. This is like looking at a tank, concluding that it is an illegally owned tank in private hands, concluding that you have the legal right to try to capture it, and then trying to capture it knowing you have to give it right back. I can easily see getting to the point where you conclude you have the legal right. The actual capture attempt? Not so much.

Then there is the requirement of paladins. You'd think that they could get to be a bit choosier in what fights they pick. Presumably there are other things they should be doing, and as a setting element the imperative to try to repossess magic items right then and there is somewhat less believable. There are other priorities, and then there's the even bigger matter of survivable plans. To use the tank analogy again, say some police see a stolen tank. Their job is to deal with crimes, and for the analogy these particular police aren't on some sort of dedicated force that puts this one outside of their jurisdiction. Somehow, I don't see the police driving after the tank on their own trying to recapture it.

The first country to announce "make all the magic items you want and keep them, we just charge a tax!" will have EVERY MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD moving there.
Which admittedly will carry its own set of problems.

Other then the magicians on lucrative contracts making magic items for the nations which have the ban, anyways. Probably while enjoying special access to some magic items at that.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

It's a stupid draconian law that is a pain in the ass to enforce properly (unless you have the power of DM Fiat) and would likely draw the ire of every single dragon and arcanist with a magical bauble who ever crossed paths with a lawman of that nation.

And the alignment crap is worse. It's only feasible that violently resisting arrest would be evil. Owning it surely isn't; perhaps chaotic if the law makes sense (which the DM's brain somehow suffers to believe), but if upon discovery your plan is to surrender or run away from the legitimate authorities instead of fighting them, you're not ever actually doing anything evil! And in order for a paladin to murder you with impunity they have to assume you're going to respond with violence, which is complete and utter crap unless you've done so before... in which case they're attacking you because you killed their fellow lawmen, not because you're smuggling a Feather Token.

Playgrounders in Talkaleal's area, I beseech you: Recruit him to a decent game!

[icefractal]

So who actually makes magic items? Seems like there'd be no incentive to, if they're going to be immediately seized. Which means that even more so, a kingdom that only takes, say, 25% of the item's value would have most of the world's supply of items, given as people living there actually craft items, unlike elsewhere.

But hey, maybe all the rulers have agreed on this. Which brings up the next question - why would the PCs want to bring any items back to this kind of kingdom? Live out in the wild, send someone to get supplies while you keep your items outside the kingdom. Or become outlaws, why not? If the DM didn't want a party of lawless rebels, he shouldn't have given such a good motivation to become that!

[goto124]

This thread is generating some nice campaign ideas...

[Knaight]

So who actually makes magic items? Seems like there'd be no incentive to, if they're going to be immediately seized. Which means that even more so, a kingdom that only takes, say, 25% of the item's value would have most of the world's supply of items, given as people living there actually craft items, unlike elsewhere.

We know that they're seized by the monarchy. That's a pretty strong disincentive for making anything for people other than the monarchs or black market purposes, but that still leaves the monarchy there to commission magic items. It also leaves them open to having them commissioned through them, by those they are willing to let have magic items. It's heavily implied that churches have access to them, which itself heavily implies that they can pay the monarchy to have the royal magic item producers make something for them.

In essence, every indication points to magic items being prevalent, just strongly controlled by the state apparatus, which includes religious orders, nobles, etc. that all have access to them. It's not necessarily all that unstable, and the world's supply of items really aren't up for grabs.