Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[10ebbor10]

The relevant authorities, are a that point the captain of guard, his archers and his guards who will be chasing us, potentially opening fire.

Oh, and acting first and shouting later has zero usefullness.

[Gervassen]

Opening fire on the guys carrying the Count's nephew-in-law on their shoulders? I shouldn't think so. And if we took a bookish-looking man without arms or armor to stay behind with the warrant, they'd slaughter him on sight?

[10ebbor10]

Opening fire on the guys carrying the Count's nephew-in-law on their shoulders? I shouldn't think so. And if we took a bookish-looking man without arms or armor to stay behind with the warrant, they'd slaughter him on sight?

They don't need to.  They'd block our passage. This is a city. It's got walls, and stuff like that. And gates. And guards. We can't just walk in and out.

If we do it at day, there'll be quite a lot of people around, making subterfuge hard, and hindring us enormously. If we do it at night, the gates are closed.

As for the guy with the warrant. They'd capture him, throw him in a cellar. And burn the thing. Really, if someone just send an armed force into your city, then fought his way out of it, leaving behind a single person with a paper saying that you'd been justified in doing this, would you believe it not to be faked?

[Gervassen]

Opening fire on the guys carrying the Count's nephew-in-law on their shoulders? I shouldn't think so. And if we took a bookish-looking man without arms or armor to stay behind with the warrant, they'd slaughter him on sight?

They don't need to.  They'd block our passage. This is a city. It's got walls, and stuff like that. And gates. And guards. We can't just walk in and out.

If we do it at day, there'll be quite a lot of people around, making subterfuge hard, and hindring us enormously. If we do it at night, the gates are closed.

My plan has aways been by boat, with the merchant being lead to the docks on a false pretence. He's kinda a merchant, and merchants doing some trading occasionally at the docks. Goodbye, walls and gates. Also, this is a river harbor, so let's not pretend that there's a defensible bay.

[Gervassen]

As for the guy with the warrant. They'd capture him, throw him in a cellar. And burn the thing. Really, if someone just send an armed force into your city, then fought his way out of it, leaving behind a single person with a paper saying that you'd been justified in doing this, would you believe it not to be faked?

I'd be wondering why my men tried to stop them and escalated it into a fight like that. But then, I don't have any dirt.

[10ebbor10]

Opening fire on the guys carrying the Count's nephew-in-law on their shoulders? I shouldn't think so. And if we took a bookish-looking man without arms or armor to stay behind with the warrant, they'd slaughter him on sight?

They don't need to.  They'd block our passage. This is a city. It's got walls, and stuff like that. And gates. And guards. We can't just walk in and out.

If we do it at day, there'll be quite a lot of people around, making subterfuge hard, and hindring us enormously. If we do it at night, the gates are closed.

My plan has aways been by boat, with the merchant being lead to the docks on a false pretence. He's kinda a merchant, and merchants doing some trading occasionally at the docks. Goodbye, walls and gates. Also, this is a river harbor, so let's not pretend that there's a defensible bay.

I doubt we'd catch him in the open that easily, but anyway. He'd probably be qutie paranoid, meaning there'd be at least some of his guards around. As for this being a river harbour, if it's a large harbour(which it'll need if you want to have the pretense be succesfull), it almost certainly means that docks have been dug out for ship's to load and unload (often with small and easily blockable acces parts) or there's a canal system inside the city, as happened in Amsterdam and such. Both are easily defensible, and will be guarded.

But yeah, if you can lure the merchant away, feel free to try. But don't leave anyone behind. The count'll just capture him and use him to get us in trouble.

As for the guy with the warrant. They'd capture him, throw him in a cellar. And burn the thing. Really, if someone just send an armed force into your city, then fought his way out of it, leaving behind a single person with a paper saying that you'd been justified in doing this, would you believe it not to be faked?

I'd be wondering why my men tried to stop them and escalated it into a fight like that. But then, I don't have any dirt.

Well, probably because they refused to let go off the man, or come to the Guard's office. After all, we'd have just kidnapped somebody, and are then waving a fancy paper at illiterate guards. They'll need to take us to the captain of Guard, and if we refused to comply, will treat us as ordinary bandits.

[Gervassen]

I think you're probably aware that Amsterdam is a unique case, and moreover is an estuary city like the Duke's rather than an inland river city, where rivers run straight. Why not look at this map of medieval London instead? This is far more common. Note that the walls don't even protect the riverbank, because the riverbank is its own barrier.

Lots of back-and-forth here. I'm surprised no one has challenged the whole SURLY DRUNK point that I made. You really think this Count is a 100% rational actor? You really think he won't just snap when the man with all his secret dirt is being led away by that damned peasant who has been getting rich off of his goldmine?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, I WAS in favor of waiting until he was travelling and not even on the count's lands, but since that option seems to be massively outvoted in favor of 20th century "due process" So oh well

There's also the difficulty of arranging such a thing, and the alaracity with which we want this done...

Well, a couple problems...
1. This leaves the relevant authorities' knowing we're not breaking the law for a dangerously late point in time.
2. We can't back it up with the warrant. This means the Count would be entirely justified in chasing us, as long as he didn't give orders to kill us on sight.

Who are the relevant authorities? There's the Duke and the Count. The Count won't be pleased whether its legal or not. If you really think he obeys the law, we can leave a dude that we really hate on the docks with the perfectly legal writ to show the Count as we speed off. I bet that guy dies in a rage.

How about the Captain of the Guard, or whoever's duty it is to make sure peace is kept in the town? We can't afford to have someone like that against us if we can avoid it.

That's another thing. You guys insisting that the Count knows better than to ride us down while we're operating in an official capacity are trusting a SURLY WRATHFUL DRUNK to behave like a meek choirboy.

No, we're treating a feudal noble to act in his own, rational self-interest. Besides, if he was as 100% all-drunk, all-angry, all the time, he would have appointed someone to cool his heels or else died/been demoted long ago...

Opening fire on the guys carrying the Count's nephew-in-law on their shoulders? I shouldn't think so. And if we took a bookish-looking man without arms or armor to stay behind with the warrant, they'd slaughter him on sight?

1. You're suggesting we use our prisoner as a human shield instead of using the warrant for its intended purposes?!?
2. Why not just show them the warrant and head to the merchant's house ASAP? That way we avoid the whole issue.

Opening fire on the guys carrying the Count's nephew-in-law on their shoulders? I shouldn't think so. And if we took a bookish-looking man without arms or armor to stay behind with the warrant, they'd slaughter him on sight?

They don't need to.  They'd block our passage. This is a city. It's got walls, and stuff like that. And gates. And guards. We can't just walk in and out.
If we do it at day, there'll be quite a lot of people around, making subterfuge hard, and hindring us enormously. If we do it at night, the gates are closed.

My plan has aways been by boat, with the merchant being lead to the docks on a false pretence. He's kinda a merchant, and merchants doing some trading occasionally at the docks. Goodbye, walls and gates. Also, this is a river harbor, so let's not pretend that there's a defensible bay.

And docks never have anywhere for guards to go? And we can only use the boats if we're tricking the merchant into coming? And the Count is supposed to implicitly believe a warrant transmitted by someone shouting it to the nearby guards while the alleged arestee is being dragged onto a boat?

As for the guy with the warrant. They'd capture him, throw him in a cellar. And burn the thing. Really, if someone just send an armed force into your city, then fought his way out of it, leaving behind a single person with a paper saying that you'd been justified in doing this, would you believe it not to be faked?

I'd be wondering why my men tried to stop them and escalated it into a fight like that. But then, I don't have any dirt.

The problem is, just because we shout "IT'S OKAY WE HAVE A WARRANT TO ARREST THIS GUY" doesn't mean that anyone will believe us. If, on the other hand, we enter city like we're supposed to and show the warrant to anyone who needs to see it, we can't run into that kind of trouble. Also, if we do it the "proper" way, we have the law on our side the whole time and never need to worry about legitimate authorities getting in the way...and if the Count uses his authority in an illegitimate manner, he digs himself deeper. Win-win.

I think you're probably aware that Amsterdam is a unique case, and moreover is an estuary city like the Duke's rather than an inland river city, where rivers run straight. Why not look at this map of medieval London instead? This is far more common. Note that the walls don't even protect the riverbank, because the riverbank is its own barrier.

The docks are still, by their nature as docks, chokepoints and high-priority to guard.

Lots of back-and-forth here. I'm surprised no one has challenged the whole SURLY DRUNK point that I made. You really think this Count is a 100% rational actor? You really think he won't just snap when the man with all his secret dirt is being led away by that damned peasant who has been getting rich off of his goldmine?

If he does, he's digging himself in deeper.
More to the point...if he would do something like that to an unquestionably legitimate arrest, he'd dang well do so if we ran in and kidnapped his nephew-in-law.

[Maldevious]

I can honestly say I have no idea what you guys want to do. I think these massive quote trees make it difficult to follow the argument, so please try to limit your posts to one or two quotes that are particularly important to respond to... when it gets beyond that, I can get a bit lost. So, that being said, can we get out of the minutia of this argument and provide me with a general consensus?

If not, I'll just pick what I think is the most popular or reasonable, but at the moment, this debate has gone beyond my ability to make sense of it. I don't really even know what is being argued about currently.

[10ebbor10]

There are 2 main threads in the argument.

Either we walk in, and do it the bureaucratic way, or we sneak in and kidnap him from under the Count's nose. I don't support either statement.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Gervassen wants to be all sneaky-like, trick the merchant into being by the docks somehow, then grab him, drag him onto the ship, and shout out the warrant as we sail away.

I, and I think some other people who don't post as much, want to be a bit more honest: We enter by the gates, tell the guards our motives honestly, show the warrant when needed, and hustle to the merchant's house ASAP before arresting him and dragging him to a boat or something to leave the city.

I'm not sure what 10ebbor10 wants to do.

[kaian-a-coel]

That's pretty much what GWG said, and I support the honest, legal way.
cue rant in 3, 2, 1...

[GreatWyrmGold]

Thank you for supporting me.

[Mlamlah]

I dunno, it seems to me like you guys think that there is no rule of law in medieval kingdoms when it comes to the nobility. If that was true, if kingdoms were just anarchy pits with random barons deciding what's what then there would be no kinddoms. No system of vassalhood and fealty. But there is, there is a system of government, and it was stable enough to maintain order for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I highly doubt the count is going to be retarded enough to try to attack us, because if he does, he *will* die. There is no question of that, we have the dukes warrant, the duke will kill him. If we use our authority we have power here, if we sneak in, we're gonna get killed. He has *nothing* to gain by trying to have us killed, if anything he's going to try to have everything pinned on the merchant who's screwed anyway, as soon as he figures out what's going on.

[kaian-a-coel]

I dunno, it seems to me like Gervassen think that there is no rule of law in medieval kingdoms when it comes to the nobility. If that was true, if kingdoms were just anarchy pits with random barons deciding what's what then there would be no kinddoms. No system of vassalhood and fealty. But there is, there is a system of government, and it was stable enough to maintain order for hundreds and hundreds of years.

FTFY.