Need ideas for problems in lawful evil town

[Kalridian]

Hey everyone

Last session, my players surprisingly decided to skip a part of the adventure that would have lastet for about 3 Sessions and save it for later (something they could do, but which I totally didn't expect)
Now I face the problem that I prepped this 3 session chunk in advance, because I knew I don't have much time for prepwork later.

What I am faced with now is a combination of very little time to prep and only a vague Idea of what's going to happen next session.

The short version:

The players, who are in pursuit of another group, arrive in a lawful evil hobgoblin city where their "prey" is still restocking their resources and since the group is not very sublte, their "prey" will probably become aware of their presence.

Under the laws of the city they are not allowed to harm one another without engaging in a formal duel, which the "bad guys" will not agree to.

What I need now are ways in which the "bad guys" can trap the party in legal proceedings or otherwise make their life a nightmare, so they can gain a headstart when they leave the city again.

What I have so far are the options to somehow get stolen goods into their posession and then have them accused of thievery or to spread the rumor that they are spies/assassins.

I would really appreaciate any input on what else they could do and which "tools" I could put in place for the players to overcome this.

tl,dr: I need ways for a LE villain to pester and delay TN to CG PCs in a LE city.

[ProfPotts]

If it's a homebrew LE city then you can just make up obscure local laws that the PCs won't think about (although allow them some Knowledge checks or something to be fair) and have them fall foul of them. Think that Next Generation episode when Wesley was sentenced to death (yeh!) for squashing some flowers, before the Enterprise crew got him out of it (boo!).

Or have the bad guys accept the duel... then pull out some legal loophole at the actual event where they get to send proxies instead of attending in person.

[Veilgn]

what book do you play?

[MeanMutton]

Plant evidence of a crime that the players and characters KNOW is illegal.

Have them be victims of a crime but not be able to have their testimony heard in court because they're not hobgoblins and thus be charged with bearing false witness against the hobgoblin that they accused of the crime without evidence.

Have another start a fight with the PCs and then have the PCs be the ones arrested for disturbing the peace. To add insult, have the aggressor sue the PCs for self defense and have the judge award damages to the aggressor.

Have shop owners, town guardsmen, even people in general follow the characters, stare at them, pointedly warn them repeatedly to not steal things, accuse them of stealing things that they already own.

Have a town guardsman sell them something illegal and then arrest them for buying it.

Have a hobgoblin child come up asking for help finding his parents and then have the police arrest the PCs for kidnapping.

[MeanMutton]

Oohh! Require that the PCs check their magical goods until they can be cleared by the local wizard's guild to make sure that they aren't cursed.

[ProfPotts]

You could have the bad guys accept the formal duel, but then have it really formal - in a 'PCs have to undertake ritual cleansing for a week' or something type of 'formal', or they have to arrange a location, officials, seconds, have the correct forms of dress tailored for them, memorize the formal monologue they're expected to recite, etc., etc. (a nice opportunity for the PCs to flex their skills): when they finish, they find out that the bad guys just skipped town on day one...

[Kalridian]

First of all, thank you all for your quick replies.

@ ProfPotts:
The town is not the "insane amounts of extremely obscure laws" - LE but rather the "we have some simple laws and we abide by them without mercy"- LE. All dishonorable ruletwisting and loophole exploiting should come from the "prey" who is also an outsider and falls more into the first category.

Sending a representative is completely within the realm of possibility and something that I have in mind in case the bad guys can not pull out of a duel for some reason.

@ Veilgn:
Completely homebrew campaign, so no book.

@ MeanMutton:
A certain amount of these unnerving laws are already in place, but as mentioned above, most dishonorable acts should come from the "prey" and not the inhabitants of the city.

Also every law just flatout impedes and discriminates against all outsiders is also bad for the "prey", because they are'nt hobgoblins either.

Also such laws would be illogical, because the concept of the city is to be a reliable and dependable haven for trade in the overall chaos of the darklands, where traders can safely (within the boundaries of the law) go about their business, for the price of a hefty daily fee.

[Ectar]

Think New Jersey: you can get in for free, but you have to pay a tax to leave. And since it's a LE city, you can go further. Maybe require a kind of permit by the local magistrate to exit the city after entering. That could easily have the PCS waiting awhile, or doing favors to the magistrate to try and speed politics along.

[MeanMutton]

Kalridian wrote:

@ MeanMutton:

A certain amount of these unnerving laws are already in place, but as mentioned above, most dishonorable acts should come from the "prey" and not the inhabitants of the city.

Also every law just flatout impedes and discriminates against all outsiders is also bad for the "prey", because they are'nt hobgoblins either.

Also such laws would be illogical, because the concept of the city is to be a reliable and dependable haven for trade in the overall chaos of the darklands, where traders can safely (within the boundaries of the law) go about their business, for the price of a hefty daily fee.

You can have a "reliable and dependable haven for trade in the overall chaos of the darklands" with a rigid hierarchy of hobgoblins over everyone else. Yeah, it might be bad for the "Prey" but if they understand how the system work then they'll be better able to game the system. Expect that the hobgoblins who live there to be able to exploit the system to their advantage. After all, it's lawful evil, right?

Reliably corrupt policing is dependable when you know how to play by the rules. It's appealing compared to the "chaos of the darklands" because what other option is there? It's not like there's another trading post 10 miles away run by paladins of the Oath Against Chaos ensuring fair trading practices, right? It's kind of a "deal with this or suck it" situation.

[Saldiven]

I think it really depends on your players and to what they will respond positively. This scenario feels like it will have to be very role-play heavy, unless the party wants to try to beat up the city. I am going to operate under the assumption that the party really enjoys heavy role-play.

One of my first thoughts is that the city government is particularly Kafka-esque. The city is very lawful and bureaucratic, but doesn't have anything like civil liberties (no 5th Amendment, no Miranda rights, no habeus corpus, no right to representation, no right to a speedy trial, etc.).

The party might find themselves entangled in an obnoxious set of interrogations and entanglement with the law over a trifling offense because the target group bribed a member of the constabulary to make an arrest. (This only works if the players enjoy role-playing and would be interested in playing out such a sticky situation.) At some point, the party could get a hint that the bad guys set up the situation, making the party even more eager to confront their foes.

The city bureaucracy could be very complicated, and only knowing the right people, right procedures, and right bribes to offer can expedite matters. The bad guys party knows this stuff, but the good guy party doesn't.

Even a lawful evil city will have a black market and underground crime group. The risks are probably greater, but so are the rewards. The bad guy group could approach these seedier types and pay them to accost the party. Maybe they do it in such a fashion as to try to frame the party to make it look like the party is the one who violated the city's laws. The players would get what appears to be a straight forward combat only to discover, a few rounds in, that the local constabulary has surrounded them. Everyone involved gets arrested for an unauthorized combat.

Because of the strict regulations against random combat and such, the target party might deliberately put themselves in view of the PC's party to taunt them subtly. The bad guys give the party knowing smirks as they walk into the bar and sit at the table right next to the players' party. They sit there and make thinly veiled insults about supposedly unrelated people that are clearly intended to be targeting the party, but could plausibly be applied to someone else entirely if confronted. The bad guys could also talk about a variety of grandiose schemes and plans they have, all of which are completely fake. The bad guys are willing to do this because they know that if the party attacks them, the party will be the ones that get hauled off by the city watch. The bad guys just have to fight defensively, or even flee, long enough for the watch to arrive.