I'm currently running an entirely in the underworld campaign and the only city they characters know about is deep below them.  It's ruled by an oligarchy of witches.  And it's as dangerous as any dungeon.  I've already established that the city trades with some other nearby settlements and haven't yet decided what the experience at the gates will be like.  The witches are probably far more concerned with preventing things like demons disguised as people from getting into the city than a small band of armoured warriors.  Some of the witches though, are in league with the demonic and monstrous though, so it's a seriously dangerous place for anyone who doesn't have friends and family and know how to stay safe and who not to cross.

Any town big enough to have a standing guard would stop this behavior. Smaller settlements don't have the muscle to stop an adventuring party from running rough shod over them. Realistically no one wears armour one second longer than they have to.

Yeah they walk around in armor. Shaintar is a dangerous place. But they are also Grayson's Grey Rangers, so they are within the legal right to do so being a fantasy police agency of sorts in the Wildlands.

The only time they aren't wearing armor is assumed during their sleep. There is even a Dwarf edge that allows them to sleep in full armor.

It depends on the game.

In some games, we let characters be in armor in most/all situations, as a conscious choice to be surreal / campy / gamey. We didn't think about it at first, then realized this was a bit silly, and as we added realism, it became a joke because we'd played for a bit with this assumption, and many games (and some films - e.g. Excalibur...) seem to not question this.

In other games, we acknowledge that most people would not spend most of their time in heavy armor, because it's uncomfortable, inconvenient, and impractical for non-combat purposes (reduces speed, increases fatigue and water use, requires more time to don and maintain, makes more noise, scares other people), so would only be worn when expecting sudden attack. And, there's often one level or another of social or legal reasons as well, depending on the place and who the characters are in society.

Ironically, the players who also always fight to the death may not realize that when they're unarmored, they may have a really easy time avoiding fighting people who are armored by out-running them... ;-)

Quote from: Votan;841797So, I admit my default was D&D.  But armor restrictions are not unique to D&D.  These limitations show up in other fantasy settings as well for example, Rolemaster (which puts the on clerics!) or GURPS (where the point buy favor low STR; if you look at GURPS wizards armor shows up for very high point buy characters). But Runequest or Mage: the Dark Ages would not have these restrictions.  

So, how do you police magic?

Nah, but it was obvious.  No stress.

When I play a d20 variation, I go back to the advice in the DMG about The guards also having casters, etc.

But 99% of the time, I play my own variant, which is very guild- derivative.  So there are laws about casting in public in every town and city, though they vary.  
Here is the Laws of Igbar, the main play center of one of my groups.

Quote from: LordVreeg;841913Nah, but it was obvious.  No stress.

When I play a d20 variation, I go back to the advice in the DMG about The guards also having casters, etc.

But 99% of the time, I play my own variant, which is very guild- derivative.  So there are laws about casting in public in every town and city, though they vary.  
Here is the Laws of Igbar, the main play center of one of my groups.

That was a nice setting document.  I liked the goggles of Least Eye (and having them randomly scattered about is a nice deterrent to magical hijinks).  The banded armor as a social faux pas seemed decent as well.  If you had a good reason for wearing it, then you could always explain (like people do with many minor social foibles) but doing it all the time has soft consequences.

A common law in many of my civilized lands (i.e., everywhere out of which players have been based) is that only uniformed military or liveried and registered guards are allowed to wear metal armor, carry anything beyond smallswords or wield strung bows or shields within municipal limits.

As far as the I'm-wearing-my-armor-all-the-time crowd goes, while they've sometimes accepted the fatigue penalties, the reaction penalties for the increasing stench from their bodies -- above and beyond those for being socially gauche -- they're far less sanguine when they start getting slammed for the spreading rash.

One guy went hardcore enough to get to the point where his mail started to rust, and you can all imagine how well that went over.

There are reasons that low-tech armor wasn't worn 24-7.  Hell, the SCA fighters I've known with mail invariably have carried duffle bags filled with about 10 lbs of coarse sand, and as soon as practice or the tourney is over, into the bag the armor goes to tumble about: it's the most practical way they've found to keep them clean and rust-free.

... the nine-year old sticky response:

QuoteI think the real question here is, "why do you consider the mechanics nonsense"? We're talking an imaginary dwarf, with 100 imaginary hit points, falling off an imaginary cliff, taking damage that is, also, imaginary.

If the designer finds it desirable that a character could fall off a cliff and survive, it will be so. If not, for whatever reason, it will not be. (The first mention of "but it's not REALISTIC!" gets you kicked. This is all *imaginary*, remember?)

If I had a dime for every time I've heard this over the last couple decades, I could pay all the bills this month.

Well, yes, it's all imaginary.  So why use cliffs, or indeed any recognizable terrain at all?  Why not adventure in big fluffy masses of amorphia?  Or just 'port to anywhere we want to go, and imagine it to be anything convenient to us?

Why should we use perfectly recognizable medieval weaponry?  It's imaginary, isn't it?  Don't limit yourself, hit the enemy with your kerfluffmezoz or your wheezimithuzit!

And since it doesn't have to make sense, we don't need to have these pesky movement rules, besides which we all want to be Matrixy and John Woo-esque, don't we?  Tell your DM that you're running through the air and phasing right through every intervening tree and foe to hit the Big Bad with your wheezimithuzit, and better yet you're doing it before he cut down your friend, because since it's all imaginary we don't have to use linear time either.

No, I don't care that I rolled a "miss."  Skill progression is one of those boring realism constructs, and I don't believe in it.  Let's just imagine that I hit the Big Bad whenever I need to, and for twenty-five hundred d8 of damage, too.  Encumbrance is boringly realistic too, so I'm ignoring it, and I'd rather imagine that my snazzy quilted vest protected me like the glacis armor on a T-72, please.

Alright, show of hands.  Why don't we play our RPGs that way?

It's called suspension of disbelief. We put our games into recognizable settings that mimic real life.  We use swords in fantasy games because we have the expectation that such milieus use swords, and those swords do the relative damage of a sword instead of the damage of a 155mm mortar shell because that is our expectation too.  Our fantasy characters wear tunics and cloaks, live in walled cities or sacred groves, and scale ramparts where the force of gravity pulls us downward, not pushes us up.  We have an expectation of how fast we can walk, how far we can ride, and how long we can sail.  All these expectations are founded in reality.

To the degree we ignore these things, just because, we lose touch with suspension of disbelief.  If the ten-foot-tall Big Bad hits a peon with his greatsword, we expect the peon to be in a world of hurt; we don't expect the sword to bounce off.  If the party wizard shoots a fireball at the orcs' wooden stockade, we expect that it might catch fire; we don't expect the wall to grow flowers instead.  

And if an armored dwarf takes a gainer off of a hundred foot sheer drop, we expect to find a soggy mass at the base of the cliff.  We sure as hell don't expect a dwarf boinging around like a rubber ball, happily warbling, "Bumbles bounce!"

That there are a great many gamers who want their rule systems to reflect reality, rather than ignore it -- so that we find ourselves constantly sidetracked as to issues of WHY suchandsuch doesn't make sense, or because the GM has to explain how come the dwarf isn't a soggy mass -- ought be a surprise to no one.

Why is it such a surprise to you?

Quote from: Ravenswing;842009That there are a great many gamers who want their rule systems to reflect reality, rather than ignore it -- so that we find ourselves constantly sidetracked as to issues of WHY suchandsuch doesn't make sense, or because the GM has to explain how come the dwarf isn't a soggy mass -- ought be a surprise to no one.

Why is it such a surprise to you?

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

You want your rule system to reflect reality, only where you want it to.

I don't give a flying blue fuck if you need to use armor encumbrance rules.  If that is what makes you shudder in ecstasy, you go gurl.

Once you tell me I'm playing wrong or don't get it....

Go fuck yourself.

Quote from: tenbones;841438I always laugh at the noob PC that tries to sleep in their armor... bwahahaha. Sure go for it.
You may not like the result.

Hmmm, I disagree.
I used to do Battle re-enactment for many years and I slept quite well wearing a Padded Jacket and Leather armor.

Chain linked armor ( A chain Hauberk, chain down to elbows and chain down to about halfway between knees and groin. )was heavier, but it sort of slumps around your body as it's very loose  (and is meant to me). I slept fine in chain.
Note that you generally wear a padded jacket or leather armor under chain, which probably helps.

I used to wear Scale armor for a while too (metal scales sewn with leather onto a Padded jacket and leather) and whilst rolling over and stuff was noisy, I slept fine.

when I tried it out did this over a few days, so it wasn't like it was just ok for one night.

I even tried sleeping in Lamellar armor type breastplate, which is a kind of wired together breastplate made of metal pieces.
I never expected that to be ok, but actually it was a bit like sleeping in a cradle, although I had to sleep on my back. It was quite uncomfortable sleeping on my side. but other than that it was mostly ok.
Getting up from a laying down position in Lamellar can be interesting though. so if you had to get up in a hurry, it might take a bit longer..

I'd imagine sleeping in Full plate would be a nightmare, but who knows, I've not tried that.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;841354That never even occurred to me until you said it.

+1

In Exalted PC's would hide that they were wearing orichalcum armor, but otherwise, very few games I've played in has "hiding armor" or "armor control laws" been a thing.

In answer to the question, it's very circumstantial on the setting/campaign/world and local events and so on.

But as a general guideline, in a city, you'd be expected to remove armor and weapons etc, but again, that just depends on circumstances.

I certainly HAVE had circumstances where the characters have been confronted for wearing armor and weapons, but it doesn't always happen.

Quote from: Sommerjon;842048(snip)

And when you post lines like "I'm playing a fantasy game," with boldface, italics and underlining, then you can take your faux indignation and shove it in your ear.  News flash: your cock doesn't get any bigger by playing the "I'm too good for verisimilitude" card.

Quote from: Ravenswing;842068whine whine whine, but whine

Yes.  It is a fantasy game.  

Yes I find it extremely stupid.  If that is what makes you shudder in ecstasy, you go girl.  Once you tell me I'm playing it wrong or "don't get it"....

Go.  Fuck.  Yourself.


See I find it laughable that people have no problem with walking corpses strolling down main street, but drop the suspension of disbelief card when a PC wants to wear armor in town.  You want your rule system to reflect reality, only where and when you want it to.

Quote from: Sommerjon;842093Yes.  It is a fantasy game.  

Yes I find it extremely stupid.  If that is what makes you shudder in ecstasy, you go girl.  Once you tell me I'm playing it wrong or "don't get it"....

Go.  Fuck.  Yourself.


See I find it laughable that people have no problem with walking corpses strolling down main street, but drop the suspension of disbelief card when a PC wants to wear armor in town.  You want your rule system to reflect reality, only where and when you want it to.

I read this and I remember when the movie Excalibur came out and I had to listen to guys tell me that, "You can totally have sex while wearing plate mail!!"