No spoilers please, other than to give an answer to this question: What are prisons like in the River Kingdoms? Particularly Restov?
Maybe there isn't a set answer. Maybe its just the GMs call. But if there is anything I'd appreciate knowing about it.
My party and I are reaching the end of Book 1.
Another party member (CG Witch) and I(CG Sorcerer) keep going round and round on something. She doesn't wanna kill anyone. Ever. She wants to tie them up during active combat, and give them a chance to repent.
If they don't repent, she wants to send them as prisoners to Restov.
I have no problem trying to redeem people *after combat's over.* But during live combat, she's trying to tie people up, instead of helping the party members that are bleeding out.
And she makes smug comments like... "Well, if you wanna kill 'em, you're going to have to settle that with your gods." And "its the price you pay for being good."
This irked me quite a bit. So I started a rant of my own that the unrepentant bandits... were going to be hanged anyway, but they'd be tormented first. (Based on my real-life experience as a volunteer in SingSing and Rikers Island as well as every depiction of a middle ages prison I've ever seen.)
I put it to her that capturing, imprisoning, and finally hanging unrepentant bandits was more sadistic and therefore far more evil than killing them in combat.
And she replied that Restov was magic candy mountain. And they'd be given a fair trial with priests of Abadar present (and then what? she wasn't clear what happens to a bandit that was unrepentant before they even received a trial.)
So... is there any scripted material on this? Or is it GMs call?
BTW the GMPC Paladin of Erastil is fine with killing bandits in combat. And I think the poor GM just wants us to get back on track with the action. Thus my porting the debate over to here.
Thanks for your input.
The Charter that the PC's are granted from Restov, gives the them the authority to "deal with" all the bandits they encounter in the Greenbelt.
By "dealing with" it is meant that the PC's will put them to the sword if they do not surrender and put up a fight. Those that do surrender or are captured somehow should be taken back to Oleg's and hanged.
Those who get captured can dwell upon their fate during the trip back to Oleg's, and may decide to repent. (Role-playing opportunity)
Many NPC's can be former bandits. (More role-playing opportunity & you will have many, many positions in your future kingdom that need to be filled)
Restov doesn't want them brought back to Restov for trial and imprisonment, it wants the bandit problem solved by the PC's.
Not sure what "candy magic fountain" is.
While the Stolen Lands are part of the River Kingdoms, Restov is not, it is part of Brevoy.
Prison conditions among the 2 dozen different River Kingdoms and Restov should cover just about every medieval dungeon nightmare you could think of, most of the population of SingSing & Rikers would be repentant if they were faced with prison conditions from the middle ages.
If your Witch can get through this entire AP without killing anyone/thing at all, that would be truely miraculous.
Simply have them be "returned to sender" when they arrive at Restov.
"Sorry, but we have enough of our own. String em up, or set em free. Just make sure the problem is fixed"
-- Ronaz, the easy-fix guard.
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Okay, before I go and get my humor out of this thread....
No, as scripted, there are no prisons or other similar establishments in the region. Restov likely has some, yes, but they're not going to bother with putting bandits there (see below as to why). Bandits and brigands, as Lex stated, are dealt with by sword or by rope ASAP in the River Kingdoms, rather than clogging up precious prison space.
Once the players start colonizing after Chapter 1 ends, you can build your own prisons if you so desire. But that's a long ways down the road from where you are, it sounds like.
And now, I begin to laugh.
And she replied that Restov was magic candy mountain.
Someone should inform her that this couldn't be farther from the truth. Restov is messed up in Game of Thrones level political backstabbings and quibbles. They don't have time nor the inclination to be "nice" to bandits - upon report that a caravan of bandit prisoners is being shipped in from the Stolen Lands, they're just as like to set the lot on fire or feed them to some hungry beastie or line them up at the chopping block and go at them like dominoes. They don't have time for trials for petty thieves who have already been "judged" by being captured by people with a charter to see to their removal and execution.
And she makes smug comments like... "Well, if you wanna kill 'em, you're going to have to settle that with your gods."
If this was my table, I'd have cut in right here with. "STOP RIGHT THERE. Did you seriously threaten to kill one of your friends? SERIOUSLY? Over a bandit who is trying to kill BOTH OF YOU? Congratulations, your alignment is now Chaotic Neutral."
Still I think this is a more personal issue for you and the witch's player so you definitely need to talk this out.
+1. This kind of play does not work well at all in D&D/Pathfinder, and it's going to only get more and more disruptive the longer it's not dealt with.
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And she makes smug comments like... "Well, if you wanna kill 'em, you're going to have to settle that with your gods." And "its the price you pay for being good."
Show her the meaning of (lawfull) good Alignment and ask her:
"What would Batman do?" - "Let his friends die or tie the bad guy?"I think that there would no prison in the river kingdoms, or only for "political prisoners".
"Evil people" can become slaves or they could pay for their freedom. "Verry evil people" came under the sword or left to die in debetors prisons / dungeons.
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A couple of things. One is, who guards the prisoners on the way back to Restov? If there are no guards available, the PCs will have to escort them or the prisoners will have to be kept insite till some arrive.
Then have Kesten Garess arrive, shake his head, and start building a gallows. He can explain to the PCs that their charter gives them the legal right to try bandits, and are they going to have the trial today or tomorrow?
Or have Oleg explain that he doesn't have any cells, and certainly no spare food, and the PCs will certainly have to pay for food, guards, and his expenses in turning one building into a cell and then have Svetlana sell tickets to the hangings. There will probably be a few interested locals cheering the hangman on.
Oh, and Oleg will sell bits of the rope afterwards.
How about setting up a labor camp in the stolen lands? I bet Oleg could use some help around the trading post. With a quick thinker around (like Svetlanna) a constant stream of ex bandits working off their punishment could be quickly turned into a workforce to start growing crops in the area, or putting in the foundations of a few buildings near Olegs such as a smith. All of a sudden then when you claim the Oleg's trading post hex, you've got a little town already in the works - maybe a house, a trademan, and a store.
Consider that the Bandits work off their sentence in 3-5 years, and you've now got skilled tradesmen and builders leading your workforce.
I did something like this with my game. some of the NPCs the players encountered decided to stay on at Olegs and help out. By the second month of Book 2, Olegs was a free village with an inn, a house, a fort, and a smith. Since the players put Oleg in place as treasurer, and decided to start their kingdom at the Staglord's castle, they have been given 12 months to claim the hex that Leveton (Oleg's trading post) is in. If they do so they get the town for free. You might want to think about something like this as an option to present to your GM - it's working out very nicely for our game.
Then have Kesten Garess arrive, shake his head, and start building a gallows. He can explain to the apace that eir charter gives them the legal right to try bandits, and are they going to have the trial today or tomorrow.
Or have Oleg explain that he doesn't have any cells, and certainly no spare food, and the PCs will certainly have to pay for. Food, guards, and his expenses in turning one building into a cell and then have Svetlana sell tickets to the hangings. There will probably be a few interested locals cheering the hangman on.
Oh, and Oleg will sell bits of the rope afterwards.
I love it. =D Especially the last few bits. Ever mercantile Oleg.
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Here is my understanding of jails...they are a anachronism is Brevoy, and probably the River Kingdoms. In other words, there are not any in the sense you are thinking of.
It works like this... why would a lord pay to make and maintain a building, hire guards to watch it, be required to feed a smallfolk that he would not otherwise have to provide for, and do all this for someone who broke the law, usually by stealing goods or killing a worker or even worse a merchant? Answer is: he wouldn't.
You want to dissuade crime, you want to instill a healthy dose of fear to encourage others to avoid criminal activities, and you want to make money. Jail=throwing people in the dungeons, which would really only be done if they were foreigners who might be valuable or locals who are valuable and you are ransoming, ie-collecting a "fine" from their family in return for their crime.
So as far as crime, the poor get hung in the public square, as a deterrent and also a popular public event. Nobles and the rich pay a hefty fine in order to not be classified as a poor, so they get off scott free except for a lighter purse.
Lords decide who lives or dies, and what punishment they receive. In some remote areas, one of his representatives, like a sheriff or mayor might decide in his stead.
Your GM might decree a different setup in his world, but all the evidence we have with descriptive texts and the severe penalty for unrepentant banditry (which you will notice the PCs get to decide at their whim) suggests it is likely to be the way of the world.
As an side note, I love Tonyz's take on the situation. IMC Kesten hates bandits and therefore Akiros and thinks he should have been hung. Instead, the queen made him her cohort and head of the royal bodyguard. This resulted in bad blood and a long running feud that may end up with someone dead before it is all done.
IMC Kesten hates bandits and therefore Akiros and thinks he should have been hung. Instead, the queen made him her cohort and head of the royal bodyguard. This resulted in bad blood and a long running feud that may end up with someone dead before it is all done.
Akiros ended up the council's Councilor in mine, while Kesten was constantly present as escort for Svetlana, who became my kingdom's Treasurer (I rewrote her and Oleg's situation in that he was the face of the operations, since the hunters and such in the wilds would more likely respect a grizzled prospector like Oleg, while Svetlana was the brains and handled all the funds and shipping orders and other things behind the scenes). It didn't take our Ruler long to notice the building feud between the two. Luckily she was able to defuse it early, and has gone to great lengths to calm Kesten's fears of "a thief-king in waiting" while at the same time encouraging Akiros to turn over a new leaf.
And she makes smug comments like... "Well, if you wanna kill 'em, you're going to have to settle that with your gods."If this was my table, I'd have cut in right here with. "STOP RIGHT THERE. Did you seriously threaten to kill one of your friends? SERIOUSLY? Over a bandit who is trying to kill BOTH OF YOU? Congratulations, your alignment is now Chaotic Neutral."
I agree 100% with your overall sentiment, but that's not how I interpreted the witch's statement. She didn't say "make peace with your gods." Her statement had more to do with the OP character being ok with killing these men out of hand and then settling that with his conscience. From a "we all have to answer to the gods for the decisions we make in life" sort of way.
But yeah, Apocalypso: This is the sort of argument that you automatically lose just by taking part in it. Kill the bandits, as your character has agreed to do by accepting the charter, and then let the witch deal with it. Unless your GM is not thinking things through, there's no way the people in Restov wouldn't push back at you asking them to do your task.
One point that the GM of the group may want to get across is that the party has been hired to 1) explore the region and 2) deal with the bandits. Everything south of Oleg's in the region is basically untamed wilderness. The only justice is frontier justice. If the bandits fight, they die. If they surrender, then they have the choice of repenting or swinging from the nearest tree. That's how it's played.
As has already been said, Restov is a long way from there. Who's going to tramp the prisoners back for trial? Not your PCs, because you have a job to do. Oleg and Svetlana won't do it. Which brings things back to Kesten, like tonyz said, who will be more than happy to string them up. Though I have to say the labor camp idea is a good one, especially once Kesten arrives to oversee such a thing while the PCs are off exploring.
As DM, I came up with a more contemporary solution to not wanting a first offence of banditry to carry the death penalty: If a bandit is found missing a little finger, he is by definition unrepentant since that means he's been caught once and has returned to banditry.
The party soon got the idea and have removed a finger from any bandit who surrendered, and have ensured that anyone they released actually has a plan for what to do next other than returning to a life of crime. Two of them have been helping out with repairs at Oleg's in return for food and board, and at least one more might end up on the council.
One might, perhaps, encourage the witch to come up with a convincing rehabilitation plan, and see how it works out.
Thanks for the humor, info, and suggestions, gang.
Personally, I really like the rehabilitation ideas, both in and out of character.
My biggest gripe IC is that the witch spent 3 rounds tying a bandit up whilst the paladin and I were unconscious and bleeding. The rogue was still in combat with archers. She was the only one with healing ability conscious at that moment-- and she chose the possibility of redeeming the bandit over saving her party members.
And every time I have brought it up, to suggest a different strategy in the future (kill bandits while in active combat, attempt to redeem them afterwards)... she has claimed moral superiority.
"you'll have to settle that with your gods"
"it's the price you pay for being good"
Her defense is that she's morally superior to the rest of us. And I don't think its a character concept, I think she, the player, believes this to be true. That she (a CG witch) is morally superior to our (GMPC) paladin, who is fine with killing bandits in combat.
I guess I brought up the whole... "Whaddaya think has been happening to the unrepentant bandits we've been sending to Restov? Don't you think torture and inevitable death anyway is far more sadistic than simple death in combat? Don't you think that's pretty dang EEEvvviiilll."
And her defense is... "That's not what happens. This is high fantasy. Everyone in Restov gets a fair trial with priests of Abadar..."
Which, as someone pointed out, is not an argument you'll ever win with someone who is smug in their self-righteous moral superiority to you.
The GM and the rest of the players have made it clear that they don't wanna get in the middle of this. They would much prefer just to get into the action. And BTW, they are fine killing bandits in combat.
In character, I just don't trust this party member.
Redeeming bandits when combat's over-- kewl.
Saving a potential convert, over helping your teammates-- not kewl.
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You'll get nowhere until you get the GM - not your fellow players, the GM, the only person (hopefully) whose authority she appears to respect - to outright say "No, they are just getting executed, they're just bandits, the Abadarans have much better things to do with their time."
Until she gets that from the GM, she'll never stop believing it. And until that happens, I don't suspect there will be a change in this moral superiority complex.
If that doesn't stop it, then you have an even bigger OOC issue - a player (much less a character) who doesn't respect the world the GM is running. And until you solve THAT, you're going to continue having issues.
(This all is assuming, of course, that the GM is running Golarion out-of-the-box, without much rewriting or homebrewing of the political situations and similar data. Golarion is not a happy-shiny super-fantasy world in the vein of Forgotten Realms - it is a much darker, much gritter setting, where very often the bad guys win, corruption and conflict are rife, and Good has to bite, claw, and fight to get a foothold in many areas. The River Kingdoms and Brevoy/Restov are among the WORST in this - the entire area is heavily leaning towards Neutrality verging on Evil, with a heavy dosing of Chaos in the mix, and not the happy-shiny-friendly Chaotic types either - hence rampant banditry and the like. It might come down to a difference of expectations: the player sounds like they're associating High Fantasy with everything around the world, or at least in this area, being relatively peaceful and devoid of corruption, when nothing could be further from the truth.
My further 2cp.)
Or if they just send them off to Restov, have some of them bribe the judges and come back, hot for revenge... Two or three times. With an extra level each time.
Or if they just send them off to Restov, have some of them bribe the judges and come back, hot for revenge... Two or three times. With an extra level each time.
ROFL!
If only I could persuade the GM to try this!
Speaking of your GM and that he's letting her get away with this crap, is he trying to butter her up?
Because as a player and a GM there is no way I'd tolerate that kind of behavior in a player.
DBH
It sounds more like the GM - and the other players besides Apoc and the troublemaker - just want to get on with the game, and don't want to get between what they might be interpreting as a feud between these two players/characters.
That's just my take from our limited perspective though.
Seems rather cut and dry. She's not willing to help a party member who's hurt and bleeding, she shouldn't expect them to do the same when the tables are turned. Keep playing as is, and when the tables are turned be sure to help her last, just as she did with you all previously.
Here's the thing -- she has a point re: the fantasy setting and fair trial, so long as that is what the GM is running for the game.
In the end it dosen't really matter what happens to the bandits once they get shipped off, if that's how the story you all are telling goes. If your GM isn't interested in running a Game of Thrones-esq, High danger, morallaly suspect game, then enjoy what you have - a traditional game of high fantasy where you get to do amazing and heroic things.
Some folks aren't such big fans of the high level of realism in their games, and they just want to enjoy the setting and have fun with their friends. Hoever if its not working for you, I'd suggest not trying to get them all to change, but instead maybe find a different game that suits your playstyle and wants better.
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The solution at this point is going to hinge on what the GM says about what kind of game you're running. Is s/he taking Golarion straight out of the books unchanged? Are they making it worse, cranking it up to SOIAF levels of grittiness and corruption? Or are they playing a lighthearted, softer-reality fantasy? Until you know what to expect, there's no way neither you nor we can tell who's right in that particular situation. You'll need the GM to give you a straight answer about the fate of the bandits you've shipped off, even if it's purely OOC.