The Plight and Plots of Town Guards
August 23rd, 2011
Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting Grave Plots, where we bring you new and exciting plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. This week I've been considering the plight of yet another downtrodden and oft-overlooked character appearing commonly in our games, namely, the town guard. Sure, most of us have town guards in our games, but are we really doing all we can to ensure that our PCs’ encounters with these fellows are all they could be? If you’re anything like me, then the answer is probably not. And what a shame that is; after all, what would our towns and cities be like without guards to help keep unsavory characters in their place? The answer, as I'm sure you realize, is incomplete and stale. So let's give those hardworking guardsmen some time in the spotlight.
Before we begin, we should look at what kind of roles town guards can serve in our game. While town guards can fill a large number of functions in our game, most of the time they will be providing us, as DMs, with one or more of three key services, depending on the nature of the game. First and perhaps foremost, they can act as adversaries for the PCs, either actively or inactively discouraging them from going on a crime spree. The threat of town guards is especially effective at low levels, but will lose some of its punch over time unless you get pretty creative with our town guards. Speaking of which, the next thing town guards let us do is provide a rich and entertaining background element in our towns and cities. Keeping the local crime in check and providing a series of fun interactions in any adventure where the PCs encounter the criminal element, town guards are often critical to selling a real fantasy crime drama experience. Finally, town guards often serve as a source of potential employment for your PCs. While this may seem straightforward enough, it is never wise to overlook an important source of plot hooks.
Now, it might seem like the role of your town guards will be largely determined by your PCs’ various outlooks. This is a good place to start if you find yourself looking in that direction anyway, since adventures which take into account the personalities of the PCs tend to be looked on with favor by the players. However, you shouldn't feel locked in by the PCs’ mindsets if you want to tell another kind of story. Model citizens might run afoul of corrupt guards, or fall victim to mistaken identity and frame jobs, while even the seediest of scoundrels might find it worth their time to work with the guard to save their own skin or bring down a rival; likewise, even the most apathetic, keep-his-head-down hero might find himself conscripted into the service of overzealous guard captains when the mood strikes them. Forcing the PCs to act in ways they ordinarily wouldn't, for reasons they can understand, can make for a great adventure which serves to both highlight the characters’ worldviews, as well as stretching your players’ roleplaying skills to see how their characters cope when injustice rears its ugly head.
Well, I suppose that's enough prattling on about that! Let's go ahead and look at a sample plot highlighting the town guard.
The Gray Watch
For generations, the city of Whiteraven suffered under a plague of thieves, murderers-for-hire, and other degenerates. While the protection of the city’s nobility was ensued by mercenary forces and personal retainers, the common folk, ignored by the ruling houses, was left to the mercy of the criminal element. The Eisnberge conflict changed all that; as triumphant crusaders settled near Whiteraven, they looked upon the plight of the peasantry with disgust. The warriors took upon themselves the mission to improve things, wresting control of the city away from the apathetic aristocracy at sword point and asserting their own set of laws based on their strict religious beliefs. To enforce their new laws, the former crusaders created a new military organization: the Grey Watch. Comprised of warriors with a particularly strong devotion to the law, the Grey Watch is an elite group who patrols the streets and actively hunts down lawbreakers. The Grey Watch also sponsors a number of programs designed to guide youth into properly godly professions in an effort to prevent would-be thieves from ever committing crimes in the first place.
Almost overnight, Whiteraven went from a crook’s paradise to one of the most difficult places to commit a wrongdoing. While this is a great comfort to the citizens, it makes life hard on the criminals still bold or reckless enough to operate within Whiteraven. To compensate, clever criminals like Throntier Hannar are often on the lookout for fall guys to cover their crimes. So when he gets wind that the PCs are in town, he decides that the time is right to rob the trade guild’s vaults. After doing some background research on the PCs, Throntier approaches their group offering them work, either asking them directly for help in knocking over the vaults or asking them to do something substantially more heroic in the near vicinity of the vaults. Either way, a short way into the job the PCs are swarmed by the Grey Watch, tipped off by Throntier, who uses the PCs as a distraction to make off with the loot and get away clean. Following the job, Throntier skips town, and he will only return to provide testimony that he heard the PCs planning to knock over the vaults and help seal their fate if they find themselves in a trial situation.
Meanwhile, the PCs are confronted with a group of heavily armed figures clad in grey cloaks, unwilling to listen to the PCs’ pleas and bearing naked broadswords. After the battle, the PCs discover themselves in a city under lockdown as a group of criminals matching the PCs’ description murdered a large group of the Grey Watch. With the man hunt on, the PCs find themselves forced to flee from the nearly omnipresent Grey Watch, live as fugitives in a town which wants nothing more than to see them hang for their crimes, and seek aid from the same unsavory characters who put them in this mess to begin with. Eventually, the PCs are approached by an undercover watchman who has checked into their claims of innocence and is willing to intercede on their behalf if they help him with a task. The watchman believes that one of the high captains of the guard is corrupt and on the payroll of criminals – criminals like Throntier Hannar. In exchange for finding the guilty party, the guard will help the PCs to clear their names, and he may even have more work for them in the future.
Well, that's it for this week's Grave Plots. Until next time, allow me to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.