What’s in a Law?
This is a blog post that I have been wanting to make for some time. I have been asked multiple times through the years about law and order in the wastelands. The concept of having some kind of law in the wastelands has always been intriguing to me. How do you enforce these things? Who gets to say when the laws are applied? When is breaking them justified? All of these can lead to wonderful role-play and scenes involving both sides of the law.
Now there is the other side of the equation here. Some people believe that having these laws are oppressive and can prevent some people's ability to play their character in the way that they want for fear of repercussions.
Both sides have merit here. While I encourage the discussion between all players, this is not actually why I am here today. Today, I want to discuss the metagame reasons as to why the NHIC laws were written in the way that they were. During the September event, the representatives from the NHIC came to Emberforge with a thick packet of laws in hand. There were some voices who were upset that it seemed as though the NPC settlements just made a bunch of laws and then expected the players to accept them or else. That was not my intent for this. I created the first draft of the NHIC laws for multiple reasons. The biggest (and the bored faces around the table at the 90 minute mark of us reading and debating the laws confirmed this) reason was that I did not think you all would have enjoyed hashing out inter-settlement laws for several hours. While I am sure there are people who would love that, I just thought I would save everyone the time and then we could adjust as needed.
The second reason is more meta. Without laws, there is no crime. When everything is legal, that nullifies those trying to interact with the black market. I wanted to create a story where the hands of the criminals are in the pies of those making the laws. This gives those who want to break the law a reason to break the law (money) and those who want to enforce the law people to fight against.
The third reason here is that several laws give some kind of authority to the network societies. The Blacktide hunters retain the right to call a Deathcon, The Wells Society must be involved in arbitration, the Ossuary Society has control of all Necrology in the area, and the Arbiters of the Bond must be respected and cannot be challenged when the Bond is invoked. All of these are there for two reasons. One is this gives the players who want to interact with these societies a reason to interact and maybe join them. If you need Necrology materials, you will have to go talk to a member of the Ossuary Society to get approval to get them. This is not meant as a major restriction, but as a roleplaying opportunity to get more people involved in whatever it is that you are doing. Most of the laws that put an item under the authority of a society also state that they can authorize non-members to have these items.
Of course, should your character have a need to break these laws, I highly encourage you to do so. These are fake laws in a fake town in a fake nation. None of these actually matter in the end. If you want to play a criminal and are struggling to find a way around the laws without being vilified, I encourage a discussion with myself, the players of the law-breaking characters, or even the players of the law-enforcing characters.
As of today, Thursday the seventeenth of September, we will have a thread open on the Discord for players to discuss the laws of the NHIC. I encourage everyone to talk about the ideas and things that they want to see in the game. If you want to see laws changed, 86’ed, or added, please discuss it there with everyone. I want to produce a collaborative storytelling game. Not just ‘my’ game. I want to give the players the choice to edit the laws of the NHIC and play the game that they want. If we all decide that the NHIC sucks and we do not want to play with them anymore, that is okay too. I want to make that a viable choice and not as some kind of ‘punishment’. We are all in this together and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say now that we have had some time away from the game space.
Finally, we have a google form that has each of the laws as the question, and a blank spot for your response to them. I want to hear your thoughts on the laws and how they could improve in whatever way you imagine. The president of the NHIC doc and the bounty hunting doc are also there. Should you hate or love any of these things, I want to hear them. You do not have to have a response to all the points, but a handful of thoughts goes a long way here.
As always, my door is always open to discussion. I am happy to talk over discord as I am over email, or even in a voice channel with a dozen people in it.
