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Well, I actually settled down and did some world development this past month, and if people will ever stop sending me rapid-fire IMs, I'll actually be able to write about it. I should really learn to just log off of all of my messaging programs before I try to write a CT column. Of course, that wouldn't protect me from the annoying cat who thinks that she needs to "help" me write.
Since last month's column, I've about doubled the amount that I've written on my D&D continent. I think that's pretty good, since I only worked on it for a couple of days. It seems like I can't focus on anything, because someone's always coming along and asking me to work on something else. Not only did I join two new role playing games in May (one of which I need to make a country for, too), but my annual beading charity effort always gears up in May, and my Guild Wars guild has been wanting to go out questing. Oh, and there was the random rearranging of half of the furniture in my apartment. And birthdays. And Mother's Day.
I'd really hoped to make some significant progress on the continent, just to get it done and out of my way. And actually, a couple more days with a few hours of writing time each would probably get it done, just leaving me to work out the details on my deific character, some artifacts, all that good stuff. I guess it's time to start writing until 4am again.
The main thing I worked on was highlighting the contrasts between the two main countries, without trying to make them seem like "good" and "evil." This was difficult, as one country was more my style, and thus I put all the cool stuff there. This made the other country look like a strict and boring place. That wasn't what I had in mind, so I had to come up with some cool stuff for that country, too, but it still got the short end of the stick.
Since I wasn't making any new races (as I often do when making things for my own games), I spent a lot of time focusing on the culture of the humans who live in those two countries, especially their laws. I decided that law would probably be important in this game, especially after the most recent session, in which we had one person cheating the bar by switching silver with copper, another person destroying random parts of the inn because they serve a god of destruction, and yet another person falling through someone's roof because they thought the straw would actually support an 8 foot tall half-orc. And this was all before we attacked the vampire baby and its mother in the middle of the street. It's amazing we didn't all end up in jail.
While I didn't go into extreme detail, I felt that it was important to go over things that were illegal, things that were acceptable, and the range of punishments. Of course, by the time this group reaches my corner of the world (if they ever do...), they'll probably be high enough level to wipe out the entire city guard, but it's the thought that counts.
There are a couple of things you should always take into consideration when coming up with laws for your roleplaying game. One is weapons, and the other is magic. Adventurers usually run around armed to the teeth - are they going to be allowed to bring their swords into bars? And what of casting spells in town? Is it legal, limited, or forbidden? If your group is anything like the various groups I play in, someone, sometime, is going to get drunk and have fun with their spells. In a recent gaming session, our entire group got kicked out of a tavern for making someone's pants invisible. Good times, good times.
We've actually had all kinds of brushes with the law in the past several years of gaming. A party member (who served the god of law, no less!) was falsely accused of murder and jailed. In another game, an NPC that we wanted information for was also falsely accused and imprisoned, so we engineered a chaotic and destructive jail break. Then there was the time that the entire group got into trouble, jailed, and then released and exiled from the city. That was fun.
Other times, we've worked on the side of the law and helped with investigations. It's good for a GM to consider how the guards/police work and whether or not they'll share their findings with adventurers trying to solve the same crimes. Remember that some guards may even be retired adventurers who can give the characters a good fight if they decide to start trouble (like that would ever happen...)
And feel free to make law fun and interesting. It can be pretty boring deciding what the punishments are for stealing - so throw some weird random stuff in there, too. Browse around the web a bit until you find one of those lists of "Actual, real, honest to god bizarre laws still in the books, OMG!!1oneoneone" for some inspiration. It doesn't matter if the laws really ARE real or not, it's a fantasy game, and you should feel free to do a few crazy things.
Tune in next month for more random musings on continent creation. Until then, happy gaming!
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