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That piece of paper means that you can string up bandits, kill evil dudes and loot their corpses.. and not be considered an outlaw yourself.
This means that you are under "the wing" of Restov/Brevoy, and that they honour you as being honest and honourable liberators.. Not invaders and thugs!
That's it, nothing more.. They won't help you when in trouble :D
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It's flavor.
You are Francis Drake of the Kamelands. Not a pirate, but a privateer, and this is your letter of marque.
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Pathfinder doesn't deal with "medieval realities" like the justice system very often, but having the *legal right* to string up bandits? It turns the party from a band of Murder Hobos into "Sheriffs" *and* "Judges".
It remains my favourite charter.
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You're right in that the PCs don't *need* this to go into the forest. It serves two points:
1) Restov considers this "their" lands - they call it the Stolen Lands. Restov thinks you need permission. There are Brevoy troops in that area. PCs acting on their own could get into some trouble.
2) It's more of a "prove yourselves to Restov" type of charter than it is a necessary permission. Restov is saying "do this and more good things will come". The charter is making that arrangement semi-official.
If that's still a problem, I'd go ahead and tell the PCs upfront about the second charter. "We want to build a city down there. Clear it out and we'll fund you later on to get that city started."
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Murder Hobo is now my favorite phrase. I think the Magus in my game will love/hate it instantly.
And lets not forget the "Main" point of the charter is to grant the PCs the right of "exploration and travel" in the "Greenbelt" with the understanding that they are producing A MAP. The swordlords want to settle the Greenbelt and hopefully the PCs are savvy enough to try and prove themselves by making said map and clearing out the aforementioned bandits.
Pathfinder doesn't deal with "medieval realities" like the justice system very often, but having the *legal right* to string up bandits? It turns the party from a band of Murder Hobos into "Sheriffs" *and* "Judges".
It remains my favourite charter.
Wow, when it's put that way, I wonder why other nations of Golarion (Andoran, Cheliax, Taldor...) don't require adventurers to have charters or some way or identifying them as something other than well-armed brigands rampaging around the countryside.
"You're mapping, that's what you're doing! Look guys, we have a system here. Do you think we can let just anyone travel and explore here for mapping? Go back, get the king to write you a new charter, then come back here and show it to me. Go on. Off you go then."
Now you understand. These are delicate matter we can't just leave them to some kind of... person without a charter.
I just told my players: "That charter makes you official government agents" and they rolled with it.
They Decreed that all dead bodies must be burnt to ashes. For some reason they think that an evil necromancer is behind everything. It's like a red herring I didn't have to make.
Plus at least it's easier to get a charter then to be Mayor of the city of London.
Pathfinder doesn't deal with "medieval realities" like the justice system very often, but having the *legal right* to string up bandits? It turns the party from a band of Murder Hobos into "Sheriffs" *and* "Judges".
It remains my favourite charter.
Murder Hobos is going to be the name of my next adventuring party...whether or not the rest of the group agrees.
There is no way a campaign that is otherwise perfectly water-tight...
You've obviously not read beyond page 6 of book 1!!! :)
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The thing is, telling the players "Your salary shall be paid in dead bandits", it's not going to be quite as role-play heavy, getting Olaf and Svetlana to talk the players into killing bandits, which I think will detract from the game.
While that is true, there should be no dearth of opportunities to RP or get to know Oleg and Svetlana. They are pretty much the center of things for a good while and often times the only human contact the part may have that is not hostile for days or even weeks.
I think the main reason there is a charter is to sort of get the party thinking in kingdom terms instead of just like a roving band of adventurers. A few years down the line, the party may be the ones giving a charter to a younger group of adventurers, so it is important to try to get players out of their normal adventuring mindset wherever possible.
This is one area where I think the AP is a little weak and could have used some bolstering. Not that I think they had room for more written words, it would have probably needed to be a web enhancement or something. Some groups/players have a hard time switching between thinking like a PC and thinking like a ruler. I think a little article about ways a GM can facilitate and promote this would have been very helpful.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Actually, the idea of adventurer's needing a charter isn't new. I have been in a game and ran a game well before Kingmaker where you had to have an official charter to be an adventurer. It allowed you to carry weapons inside certain parts of the city, gave you access to dangerous supplies, and allowed you keep at the very least most of what you found.
Without one, you would have to turn in all of the loot you found to the kingdom. You were limited in where you could go, who you could buy gear from, and in come cases you wouldn't be able to travel during certain times or in certain places.
It also protected you in certain legal issues, like property damage, certain kinds of theft, and trespassing. It didn't give you complete immunity, but it did reduce penalties, fines, and time hassling with the legal system.
Think of it as the charter being letters of marque. Adventurers are like the land version of privateers, or pirates if you happened to be the warring nation or monsters.
Still, I like Murder Hobos.
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Actually, the idea of adventurer's needing a charter isn't new. I have been in a game and ran a game well before Kingmaker where you had to have an official charter to be an adventurer.
I believe that place was called Cormyr of Faerun . . .
Although that probably wasn't the one you were talking about!
Cormyr has been around since early-90's though, and there may have been a setting before that which required such, too. I just don't know what it is.
Actually, the idea of adventurer's needing a charter isn't new. I have been in a game and ran a game well before Kingmaker where you had to have an official charter to be an adventurer.I believe that place was called Cormyr of Faerun . . .
Although that probably wasn't the one you were talking about!
Cormyr has been around since early-90's though, and there may have been a setting before that which required such, too. I just don't know what it is.
Cormyr's been around a lot longer than the early 90's, but yeah that was exactly what I thought of when I saw the charter, and I almost set my Kingmaker campaign in the Stonelands because of it, but was too lazy to completely redo the map.
I always thought chartering adventurers made sense for strong governments in a world where companies of adventurers are common. Makes it easier to differentiate between roving band of murdering, pillaging, troublesome whirlwinds of destruction (aka adventuring parties) and bandits, grave robbers, and psychopaths. Anyone without the charter gets lumped into the second category, anyone with a charter at least has made an effort to be on the law's good side.
In most of the more civilized/modernized/advanced times in my games regardless of setting I've assumed much the same, again likewise influenced by Cormyr - I've played on a Neverwinter Nights server set there since 2005.
I hadn't thought of Stonelands Kingmaker but the idea amuses me. Though Cormyr doesn't seem to have near the internal fractures of Brevoy.
Well, the idea with that would be, in my opinion, to set it after the goblin wars with King Azoun recently dead but have the country not rally around Alustair fully. Maybe have the Steel Regent and her young adventuring partner nobles on one side and an old guard around the other? I dunno, I ended up sidestepping that by setting it in south Tethyr. The map fit better and Tethyr is an easy sell for civil war and strife.
I hadn't thought of Stonelands Kingmaker but the idea amuses me. Though Cormyr doesn't seem to have near the internal fractures of Brevoy.
I'd swear I read some fluff in one of the last Forgotten Realms sourcebooks about Cormyr granting land titles to anyone who could pacify some monster-infested northern(?) areas and hold them for a 5(?) years.
I'd swear I read some fluff in one of the last Forgotten Realms sourcebooks about Cormyr granting land titles to anyone who could pacify some monster-infested northern(?) areas and hold them for a 5(?) years.
I hadn't thought of Stonelands Kingmaker but the idea amuses me. Though Cormyr doesn't seem to have near the internal fractures of Brevoy.
Yep. That would be the Stonelands.
hmmm. Kamelands. Stonelands.
kame = gravel (AKA stone) accumulated in grooves left by a retreating glacier.
Hah. I did not know that. Interesting catch.
Murder Hobos ... awesome. :)
Just murdered? Seems a bit on the bland side for Turin.
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This coming weekend features heavy weapons! *grins*
Name: Boatmurdered Hobos
Status: Death warrents in twelve systems.
Patron: Hanspur
People used to pay a lot of money for letters of marque, which was a license to pirate.