What Guvners will and will not do

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Rick Summon's picture
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What Guvners will and will not do

Inspired by What Sensates will and will not do:

We all know that Guvners cannot knowingly break the law. We also know that they're very good at finding loopholes to wriggle out of a law without actually breaking it. However, there have got to be some times where a Guvner breaking a law is inevitable.

For instance, if you're a Guvner who's not lawful evil, you basically can never enter the plane of Baator. Let's say you're playing Fires of Dis and you're in Ribcage filling out an application for some letters of transit. What do you put down under "Purpose of Visit"? "Steal holy sword from Dispater's tower?" Uh, no. But what else are you going to do? It's illegal to put false information on a official form, right?

And what if the other factions of Sigil got together and passed a law that said it's illegal to spy on other factions? The rest of them could continue to do so illegally as long as they didn't get caught -- but the Guvners couldn't do it at all without violating their faction tenets.

So how can the Guvners escape this conundrum? One way could be to issue licenses to Guvners engaged in covert operations. These licenses would allow them to violate local laws if it's necessary to complete their missions -- but they'd still be bound by Fraternity of Order regulations. Plus, they couldn't violate local laws if it wasn't necessary to complete their missions -- and they'd have to file a report listing all known violations and the reasons for them.

That way, the Guvners can still remain lawful -- but without being at the mercy of everyone else's law. What say you?

Charles Phipps's picture
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What Guvners will and will not do

Quote:
What do you put down under "Purpose of Visit"? "Steal holy sword from Dispater's tower?"

"Entertainment."

Quote:
And what if the other factions of Sigil got together and passed a law that said it's illegal to spy on other factions? The rest of them could continue to do so illegally as long as they didn't get caught -- but the Guvners couldn't do it at all without violating their faction tenets.

"Your assignment is to research Cross Cultural Interactions in a Multi-planar environment."

"Be sure to include Factol Sarrin's every move."

"It's research important."

Also, I tend to think that you're exaggerating their weakness.

Duckluck's picture
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What Guvners will and will not do

Yeah, the whole point of Guvners is that they can find loopholes in just about everything. That's why they're so willing to follow laws in the first place.

What is the purpose of your visit? Export.

Not allowed to spy? Who's spying? I'm just trying to get an accurate census.

Guvners can get away with anything. That's why they're Guvners.

Charles Phipps's picture
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What Guvners will and will not do

Even when the law is clear and direct, they actually can tear it to shreds.

"You have to eat a live human baby."

"When?"

"Right now."

"What sort of live human baby?"

"What do you mean what sort?"

"Listen, if the law can't be CLEAR about it then I don't think that we're going be successful here."

"Just eat the baby!"

"I will, provided it's non-sapient made of magic and illusionary."

"WHAT! That's not a human baby!"

"I think we need to discuss definitions of human."

Rick Summon's picture
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What Guvners will and will not do

If a Guvner can loophole his way out of anything, then what's the point of them being lawful at all? If nothing actually limits their behavior, then what makes them different from Chaosmen?

And, besides — can they really out-loophole a baatezu? Yeah, I'm sure Factol Hashkar could do it — but a A5 doesn't stand a chance.

Charles Phipps's picture
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What Guvners will and will not do

'Rick Summon' wrote:
If a Guvner can loophole his way out of anything, then what's the point of them being lawful at all? If nothing actually limits their behavior, then what makes them different from Chaosmen?

And, besides — can they really out-loophole a baatezu? Yeah, I'm sure Factol Hashkar could do it — but a A5 doesn't stand a chance.

1. They're limited by their perception of the law. If you push a Guvner too hard then he's going to break trying to wrap his way around such things. In general though, they basically act like "Red Mage" when they need to argue their way around things. Their arguments are ridiculous and frankly don't convince anyone usually but they exist FOR THEMSELVES.

You could also point out that Xaocists just have a different pattern to themselves than regular folks, they're not Chaotic at all. However, you'd never convince them of this.

2. The Baatezu are the worst nightmare of the average Guvner. In general, they're not really interested in dogging a Guvner for as long as it takes to get them to crack. It would probably take hours or weeks to get a normal FoO member to crack with his information. It would be a back and forth interrogation equal to Pichard and that Cardassian, except it would sound like lawyers arguing precedents as they slowly "riddle contested" themselves with legal definitions.

Honestly, most Devils would prefer to just torture his mission out of him.

Most Devil bureaucrats who don't honestly suspect the FoO member is a Paladin will probably go "He's here for something secret. WHY ELSE would someone come to the Nine Hells? Unless it aids the Tanar'ri, it'll aid SOME Lord of the Nine even if hurts another."

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What Guvners will and will not do

Basically, Guvner adventurers reconcile their need to get things done with their need to follow the rules by being really, really careful. Before a guvner accepts a mission, he or she will check to see if it breaks any laws. If it does not break any laws, or the laws it would break have an exploitable loophole, the Guvner will take the job. If the law in question has no obvious loopholes (such as: "Members of the Fraternity of Order may not enter the Throne Room."), then the Guvner may see the law as a challenge and pursue a loophole with fresh zeal and remarkable inventiveness (such as convincing the regent to change the name of the "Throne Room" to the "Kingdom Management Center," so you will no longer have to worry about it. Only rarely will a Guvner actually find him or herself unable to find a loophole, and that means the mission probably isn't worth undertaking anyway.

The key to playing a Guvner PC is to see every law hindering you not as a massive roadblock on your quest but a fun challenge to overcome or be used to your advantage. Sure it can be a little anal-retentive at times, but you don't like being anal-retentive, you have no business playing a Guvner in the first place.

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