Kharille wrote:
Generally bandits might just ask for a toll at various points on a less travelled road. Have you incorporated much of such elements into your games? To what extent can beggars, thieves and loafers be employed to spy for you? Sometimes all you need to know is when the noble/merchant/victim is going on their daily routine walk near a potential ambush point.
Organisation requires communication, which is difficult in a low-literacy society, so 'organised' crime is unlikely to go further than the people with whom one can immediately communicate (i.e., a gang of thugs or bandits, etc.). I don't see the sprawling D&D-esque thieves' guilds thriving in Dragon Warriors. A wealthy person might be able to maintain a network of informants on a retainer over a small area (town, possibly a fief) - in my own campaign, a vintner that travels around each town and village in his fief peddling his wares is one of the baron's informants and he pops up occasionally either to spy on, or guide, the PCs, but purely in the guise of a travelling merchant, never as an agent of the baron. Deadnought wrote up an interesting take on a semi-organised network of ne'er-do-wells, which is very Legend in feel (I especially like the bit about the Rooks having a priest on-hand for confession):
http://www.libraryofhiabuor.net/crookedrooks.htmlKharille wrote:
And whilst I'm on this topic, any thoughts about fencing goods stolen from ancient tombs? Thats what adventurers are right? Grave robbing loafers that can't manage a hard days work....
DW might be fantasy, but I try to avoid the murder-hobo trope in my games. And it's not just fencing grave goods from which an adventure should shy away, but stuff looted from the corpses of the people they've killed. Imaging taking a signet ring into town to sell only to find that the jeweller recognises this ring,
"Hey, this is Sammy's ring, he's always in here pawning it and then his mother comes in the next day to buy it back. Sammy always seems to be getting into trouble, but he's got a good heart and now Old Jack has taken him under his wing, he really seems to be getting his life in order. And Old Jack can't remain on as the sexton for much longer the way his health is turning, so I'm sure Sammy will fit right in up at the church if he can just stay out of trouble for long enough. So did you win this ring from Sammy in a game of chance, or did he just owe you?"I drop things like that in my games occasionally just to remind the players that anyone they kill might not have been exactly on the level, but they were still someone's son, or brother, or father, and they had aspirations and social connections, just like anyone - if they just left Sammy's body for the crows, how will his mum feel about that? Maybe the next time they're in town, Sammy's mum has managed to get a tithingman to search for Sammy's body and has posted a reward for apprehending his murderer, etc.
But going back to your question about grave goods - anything that looks like it was obviously looted from a tomb is likely to be shunned by any reputable merchant as cursed; and so the PCs might have to find a discrete collector of such things. Basically you can make it as hard or as easy as you like - if the focus of your adventures is on combat and exploration, then you can leave out such social elements, but I like my players to feel immersed in my world, so try to paint as much of a social picture as I can. The land could just be a series of isolated locales filled with dungeons, ruins, and temples, or it could be more joined-up with a living breathing society functioning around such locales with which the PCs can interact (and interrupt...), but not all gaming groups will appreciate (or respond well to) such a thing - you have to draw the line somewhere because if it's too hard to fence goods or kill bandits, the PCs won't want to do it!
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