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The Guide to Korvosa does not list dueling as illegal. It mentions duels as becoming more frequent within the Acadamae, without saying duels are against or within the law. It does make a difference between formal and informal challenges (the latter of which are called 'trouble' for the Acadamae tiefling guards). Finally headmasdter Toff Ornelos has defeated 17 wizards in secret mages' duels. (Does secret imply they are not allowed?)

The Fencing Master short story (somewhere on this site) also mentions dueling as something that happens in Korvosa, but again it doesn't really state whether or not it is illegal.

So dueling is certainly a thing in Korvosa. There are no sources to confirm its legality, so, like so many things, it's a GM's call.

Thanks. You seem to be pretty sure on the sources and clearly have access to those books.

Right now I think I will have it banned. I am tempted to go with my original plan of seeking permission from arbiters. I am also very happy if people would tell me what they think would be a good idea.

There is at least one sword school/fighting academy that sounds like a duelist's dream, the Orsini Academy. Its headmaster is a famous local swordsman, Vencarlo Orsini.

And if kung-fu movies have taught me anything, its that where there is one fighting school, there will be others, and the students will duel to prove superiority of style.

But as a very lawful community, it is probably illegal, unless maybe a contract detailing terms was written up by both parties and then authorized (for a fee).

Yes, if I make my own decision on it ... I was thinking of the parties must be noble or held in high esteem and that if they go to an arbiter it can be authorized. I didn't think of a fee but that's cool, because if it's expensive then it kind of favours nobles or rich people anyway and the so-called "riff-raff" won't be killing eachother left, right and centre. Cheers

I have integrated much of Curse of the Crimson Throne into my own campaign and the party are at the Blood Veil plague stage. A PC just asked me if dueling was legal in Korvosa. The PC is Tour Kegbelly, a CG dwarf fighter level 7 of some fame (he routed Barvasi and was awarded the Drake's Mark medal) from Janderhoff, and he has an ongoing dispute with Jukk the Juicemeister, an influential LE dwarf rogue/merchant from the same dwarven citadel who is in charge of the trading between the two cities and has very tough bodyguards. Both dwarves now live in Korvosa. I was doubting dueling would be allowed as arbiters/magistrates exist to settle disputes. In extremely lawful and supposedly more advanced cities dueling would unlikely be allowed, replaced by trials or rulings by said arbiters. When the dwarves clashed in Janderhoff earlier I had a trial by jury and Kegbelly was jailed for one week on trumped-up charges of impersonating Jukk (casually in a bar) and thus interfering with dwarven trade. Kegbelly now seeks revenge or to put an end to the feuding once and for all. Can someone tell me if anything has been published on dueling? Or give me their own ideas.

I run an intrigue-packed campaign and I want to dramatically curtail fights that last 2 or 3 hours so that we can get back to politics and role-playing. I have tried many things so I don't need obvious advice on how to quicken combat ... I just want to ask would there be any major problems if I made a house rule that a natural 20 is an auto crit and a natural 1 is a fumble (with result you get -2 AC for the rest of the combat or can only take one action, move or standard). Also after 5 rounds of combat everyone gets +2 to hit and -2 on their AC. The idea being the faster people hit eachother the more damage done and the faster the combat ends. What are the main drawbacks of such a radical house rule??? I'm sure I am missing some major potential problem. (Note: Currently the party level is 6-8)

The body parts of dead monsters surely retain magic or have intrinsic chemical properties otherwise they would not be so prized by alchemists and wizards and the like, and used as material spell components. I recently decided that the dwarf fighter in our party will receive 30 gold pieces for each Xill egg he has been carrying since they were surgically removed from his stomach a few months ago. If he had sold them fresh he would have got a lot more.

Thankyou all for your posts. This is the kind of advice I hoped for. As that's how I played it! Cheers!

Thanks guys. That's given me some promising ideas. I spent a long time organizing the latest scenario and used a lot of brainpower and time in doing so and my brain started hurting when I came to the assassin part, which is another layer on top of many others. This will enable me to write a more intriguing situation. Thanks!

Yeah, I think the common sense approach (as usual) is the way to go! But I know the players might grill me on it. But this conversation gives me a better grounding (excuse the joke!) on the matter! Thanks guys.

I promised I would tell you what I did. Initially I planned on the centaurs trailing them out of the holy area and once outside a powerful centaur wizard turning the dwarf into a dodo. I thought it would be pretty funny if he had to waddle around as a dodo for a session and it probably would have been hilarious ... but ... the end of the session coincided with a three-week break from the game and then I thought that it would be best to simply warn them that NPCs will react appropriately. I thought if I turned him into a dodo perhaps he wouldn't learn anything from the experience apart from "they got the better of me this time, but ..."
So I told them they are free to insult an NPC, but they have to be aware there may sometimes be consequences ... so I let them off this time, but I was helped in being lenient because of their mitigation ... they had rescued the centaur chief's relative from being certainly eaten by the troll.
Since this incident then the dwarf in question seems to have cut back on insulting NPCs and concentrated more on other aspects of role-playing, so it seemed like my action has benefited the group as a whole.
Many of you gave me some excellent advice and I thank you for that.

Kitty Catoblepas wrote:

You, as the GM, will have a lot more fun if you change the tone of the campaign slightly than you will if you're constantly butting heads with your players. Actually, if you're the only person not having fun, that's probably the easiest problem to solve.

I couldn't disagree more with that statement.

Of course everybody has to have fun, but when you start being so permissive with your players and letting them do anything they want without facing consequences you're entering a dangerous game. Coherence is lost, control is lost, and if you let them do anything that's exactly what they will
do. There will be the kind of players that will take advantage and the ones who'll feel frustrated because of the players taking advantage of GM's permisivity and of the story losing coherence.
I'm not talking about railroading players so they only do what you want of them. I hate that. I'm talking about increasing the realism of the game and the feeling of dealing with real people by the simple principle of action/reaction. Everything has consequences. You treat others nicely: you are treated nicely. You behave like an idiot: very few people are going to like you. If you are OK with that, it's OK to me. Some people might actually enjoy their characters to be punished for they acts, why not? My only issue is with players who love to play total idiots but don't want to deal with consequences.

Kilenna ... you hit the spot there. I agree totally, hence my post in the first place

Bill Dunn wrote:

Kitty Catoblepas wrote:

Rereading this thread, all input seems to be Destroy Character with Massive NPC!!! without asking the question, Who isn't having fun? (and trying to change things up a bit until the answer is No one). Honestly, I've never seen fun be the destination of a DM power trip.

Who's not having fun? Quite possibly the GM since fun for the GM isn't always the destination of a PC power trip...

You, as the GM, will have a lot more fun if you change the tone of the campaign slightly than you will if you're constantly butting heads with your players. Actually, if you're the only person not having fun, that's probably the easiest problem to solve.

To be honest we are having a lot of fun ... both me and the players in my campaign ... just wondering about the players' characters insulting NPCs and about when do you draw the line ... this is the interesting topic.

I would caution the OP, though, about punishing "players". That wording is a bit telling here.

I don't mean punishing the "player", I mean would the centaurs try and punish the player's character. I am referring to the character within the scenario and the NPCs within the scenario. Not the human being playing the dwarf. Would the centaurs, especially the hardcore centaurs (maybe not the leader) who got very angry while the insults were thrown, would they seek to take action later against the character. Basically follow the characters through the wilderness and do something. The issue is really about how" real" do you keep the game. Do you let players get away with insulting NPCs? Or do NPCs react? Or do you just think "it's just the player talking so forget it?"

I would like to thank you all for your comments and any future comments. I kind of new what I was probably going to do already, but this helps finely tune things and it's good to get your various opinions and good ideas. After the session I will post here letting you know what actually happened.
(I have to be careful what I say right now because it's not impossible that one of the players might be reading this). Right now, all they know is that the centaurs are very angry.
I also just wanted to know if you had similar situations of insulting NPCs. I think it's an interesting topic and there's not enough debate about it on the Net. Cheers again for taking part in this thread!

Evil people can have personalities. And they can be slightly evil rather than rampantly evil. I just ran a revenant, Wolfgang, in my campaign. He was an undead boatman cursed to transport people to a fog-shrouded lake for one gold piece per person. He was a gregarious fellow and in life had been a good-aligned cavalier. The evil had started tainting him as an undead, in that for example, he was desperate to kill the person who had wrongfully executed him for a crime he did not commit. I played his as this gregarious, chain-smoking figure who occasionally lasped into bouts of melancholia over his undead status. His being undead was driving him insane basically. Evil on the basis of insanity caused by being undead. But still capable of being good at times. He did help the party out in their escape from the island (but admittedly tricked them into breaking his curse so he could run off and kill his executioner).