Advise for A RPG

[James Marshall]

Just for a laugh me and a friend are doing A Fire Emblem RPG he wrote with him as The GM, but we have 3 queries and want advise. Can you help?

The problem is that 1 of The Characters is of The Warrior-Mage Class and when rolling for his Social Class, Background and reason for travel I rolled A 100 on 1D10 then A 4 on 1D6 means that his father is homelands king, then A 3 on 1D100 means that he's his fathers oldest child and one day he will also be king then 2 6's  on 1D10 means that he decided to travel the world disguised as a person from a family of very wealthy commoners due to him both being bored out of his skill and believing that the things he'd learn, see, discover and experance whilst disguised as a person from a family of wealthy commoners would make him a far better then he otherwise would have been

Also Warrior-Mage is A Class that The GM created that starts out with any 1 of The  4 types of weapons and any 1 of The  4 types of Magic, upon becoming A Warrior-Sage gets another 1 of the other 3 types of weapons and another 1 of The other 3 types of Magic and when becoming A Warrior-Archsage gets another 1 of the other 2 types of weapons and another 1 of The other 2 types of Magic

Now here are my 3 queries

The 1st is appears to be A Mercenary Leader that comes from a family of very wealthy commoners how would his followers react if they discover that their leader is a future king who became A Mercenary out of boredom?

The 2nd is do you think that its a good idea for  the person who is his The 2nd in command of his Mercenaries to  be someone assigned by his father to protect, guide and advise him?

The 3rd question is are their any real risks to him and his Mercenaries potentially committing any crime in any law book in the world The RPG's set in when if he chooses to reveal who he really is then theirs not a crime in the world that between him and his father the entire group can get full royal pardons for?

Edited March 10, 2020 by James Marshall

[hira'an]

First off a few notes on your post, I'm assuming you're not a native speaker (if you are, please carefully read your post before posting), it's a bit hard to follow at points but I think I get the gist of it (if I'm wrong on anything relevant feel free to correct me and I might be able to give you a more useful answer).  Also what you rolled on what dice is of no concern here and just distracts from what is important, which seems to be: you randomly determined your character's (I suppose it could also be someone else's, but I'll assume it's yours) background and got a crown prince masquerading as a (wealthy) commoner, you furthermore decided he'd be a mercenary leader. Nor is what a Warrior-mage is of any importance to your questions.

 

1: I'd expect very mixed, a group of people is comprised of a number of individuals, each with their own views. If your character is generally well liked by his followers most probably wouldn't mind too much, although they might be confused as to why you'd pretend to be a commoner. Others might suddenly go from liking your character well enough to hating him due to holding a grudge against your character's father/family (think Raven in Fire Emblem (GBA), if you've played that one). If your character isn't liked, or not particularly well, it's probably not going to help, but I'm not seeing any potential for great harm either.

 

2: If your character's father (at least somewhat) approves of the situation it could at least make sense (like Uther sending Oswin after Hector, again in Fire Emblem, who wasn't necessarily pretending to be a commoner but was running off to do something else than was expected of of an heir-apparent). Whether it's a good idea depends on what you're judging it on (like what do you want with it).

 

The last one is the least clear of the questions, which is a shame, as it's also the most interesting. I think you're asking: are there any crimes to watch out for that his mercenary band might commit? And if so, will a pardon save your character and his band from the repercussions? (Or possibly only the second one.)

 

3: It's important to realise that law in the middle ages (which most Fire Emblem settings seem to be based on) was very different from how we imagine law today, besides church law (which I'll ignore as most Fire Emblem settings don't seem to have a church nearly as influential as the Catholic Church was in Medieval Europe) there were customary law and whatever the local lord decided was law (and could enforce), neither of these are particularly predictable and can easily vary from region to region, as such the law is basically whatever the DM says it is (you could of course ask the DM about laws to be aware of, your character would probably know at least a good part of them). Although you should probably be fine if you just fight highwaymen, raiders and the like, but not so much if you decide to fight the local lord or his men (regardless of whether you're paid for it). Most current laws of war are quite modern so you probably wouldn't get in trouble for something like refusing a surrender (and that's ignoring the question of whether your enemies were lawful combatants, if you'd want to apply current laws of war).

As for whether a pardon would save you, that very much depends on who captures you and what you've done, as well as on the amount of power the king has over the kingdom.

If they're captured by whoever they were fighting, probably not, although depending on the circumstances a ransom (possibly called damages or something like that) might fix it.

Otherwise it'll depend on who and why. It's hard to give clear answers here but whoever captures you being friendly/loyal towards the king would work in your favor while being hostile/disloyal or on the verge of rebellion would work against you. Having fought against your captor might work quite strongly against you. Being captured in another country would add a whole lot of issues but mainly it would come down to the factors I mentioned (relations with your character's father and having fought against your captor or not).

Also interesting is that you may well be assumed to have been acting on the king's behalf, so if you're captured by a lord you've been fighting against not only may a pardon not save you but you'd also risk causing a revolt, as it could be seen as the king attacking one of his vassals unprovoked, or even a war if you're captured abroad.