City is covered with permanent epic Zone of Truth

Almost sounds like 1984 table top edition

>
Relationships break down as people have no choice but to admit the truth about how they feel about others, since no one likes everything about their friends and family.
This
Imagine an entire city of Rogal fucking Dorn from TTS, that's what you get.

>zealous subjective "good" council that fights evil with evil

Continued
>eventually enforcers drop down to neutral
>they see it as evil corruption getting to them
>penance rituals begins untill pure again
>meanwhile another enforcer group returns from theirs
>eternal "good" crusade continues

Maybe it would eventually produce a group of people able to deal with the fact that they aren't perfect.

>Children can not be given gentle "white lie" versions of the truth regarding the stresses of life and death, as well as the lewd bits of relationships, denying them them innocence. Because they will ask because kids always ask.

Well there's always the "I'll tell you when you're older" and other cop-outs that aren't technically lying. They're not compelled to give answers, they just can't give false ones.

Possibly. It's not a lie if you believe it, for one. Omission is not technically a lie either. Omission with intent to mislead might ping on detection spells, but different people will emphasize different aspects of a given issue. Also even genuinely pure LG might have different ideas on how best to achieve the common good, hence conflicting priorities. It could be very interesting to see politics conducted in such an environment.

Of course, curropting such a system up to and including the divine level is a fine art, so the city might not last that long.

>The city remained pure and truthful, even while the world around it crumbled into degeneracy and eventually into magical CN or CE hellscape. The city is now a rock of righteousness on a stormy sea.

>The leader of the city is an ex-adventurer. The sole survivor of his party after they sacrificed themselves to defeated the previous BBEG. Due to his strong devotion to his god, he alone was granted a "second chance".

>He now rules this city with a strong but benevolent fist. He has seen the worst, and best, the world has to offer. He knows he can not change the nature of man, but he can try and guide them on the right path. And does what he can to protect his people , oblivius to the harm it's causing.

This actually makes me really eager to try and realize it in a game.
Like, it's some envisioned utopia, founded by the noblest mages and paladins, working together, and it's just gone horribly, horribly off the rails.

Supposed to become the shining beacon of a just and hopeful empire, but traders won't travel to a city where one cannot lie, mighty adventurers don't want to homebase in a city where their power is constantly suppressed.
Vices are outlawed viciously, and the enchanted Mark of Justice prevents all murder, but also strikes a shitload of false positives, or just affects people indiscriminately of the weight of their crimes.

>But milord, my husband cannot earn his wage without the use of his eyes.
>Did he strike you?
>Aye, he was in his cups, and he gets angry
>The Mark of Justice forbids violence
>Milord, please, our little ones are starving
>Justice has been served.

>anything wrong with this city?

Alignments as an actual thing.

isn't 1984 world basically a lie? government lies to people, people lie to each other, people lie to themselves even... here there's none of that.

and no mind probing. you just can't commit severe crimes without serious repercussions from MoJ, that's it

user, I think you need to go outside and discover that civilization doesn't work the way you think it does, and just how destructive your line of thinking is.

>anything wrong with this city?
It is the worst kind of dictatorship, the one that crushes the will of it's people and tells them "it's for their own good".
It is a city run by secret police made of magic and fear alone. Disregarding how actually easy such a city would be to hijack by skilled manipulators, it is neither good, nor just, and should be dismantled entirely.

Im the Wheel of Time the wizards werent allowed to lie, but still had factions and politics.

>lawful stupid
Dropped

That would tank the economy. Same as the treasury just printing shitloads of money.

Lawful stupid happens in the world. Hell, lawful stupid was more or less the norm in the middle ages.
To this day, people die in staggering numbers over disputes regarding interpretation of holy texts.
Maybe my particular example was sort of on-the-nose, but a Mark of Justice-enchantment just invites a good "OH NO, the AI has gone crazy because it interprets all input to the logical extreme"-scenario.

hm, maybe city like that could have communism? sells gems to foreign countries, use the money to buy anything the city needs

Does magic/the gods care about the economic value?

'I think -lie-' might not be a lie.

magic sure does
if you need 1k gp worth diamond for a spell and you buy it with a discount for 750gp, you'll have to go and buy more diamond for 250gp at least

A lot of the time, D&D uses "A [Gemstone] worth [Hefty amount of money]" as a material component to make certain spells more difficult to cast. Problem is, what does a diamond worth 5000 GP or a black opal worth 50 GP look like in a world where infinite gems can be retrieved from the Plane of Earth and there's no De Beers diamond racket to artificially limit supply and force demand?

Let's not go full fedora here: lying is not an intrinsic part of politics. Its merely a tool (an outrageously powerful tool that almost everyone uses).

Government would be probably be improved overall though it might lead to intractable partisan politics as politicians lose the ability to lie to their constituents - government is ultimately about compromise but the people who vote you in are occasionally unwilling to accept that

>party offs the Very Big Bad, but his final contingency splits his body into a thousand-thousand bits and spreads them to a myriad of dungeons, strongholds and hidden crannies all over the world, for him to be revived one day
>unable to possibly find them all, the party resolves to reduce diamond's cost in the world to dirt and starts a massive campaign to import diamond from EPoE and spread them all over the setting, so a diamond worth enough to cast Resurrection would have to be the size of a small planet

>government is ultimately about compromise but the people who vote you in are occasionally unwilling to accept that
See US politics. People elect senator who promise they'll "kick [other party] ass" and "fight for YOUR wants", and then the entire fucking engine of national government throws a gear and stops working because there's no ability for anyone to compromise on anything.

Absolutely. Nothing about a zone of truth means people must agree on anything or see the world the same way, so the need for compromise (and thus politics) remains.

How about its also a town you can't get into? Everyone just gets turned away.

All other kingdoms choose city as neutral place for diplomacy.
War never ends.

War. War never changes.

but war has changed, user

If someone competent writes about it, that could turn into something like Italo Calvino's cities.

Specifically the Aes Sedai swore a binding oath on an artifact used to punish criminals, and the oath was "To speak no word that is untrue."

Which leaves a lot of wiggle room.

The tools of war change, the reasons never do.

I'd play this campaign.

Yes. Inevitably it will boil down to arguing whether not not something is a lie and if lying by omission is actually a thing.

we will assume that this is done in a way that allows itself to exist somewhat comfortably and not overtly evil

>people with the ability to best twist their words without outright lying would be valuable
>people would refuse to enter the city due to extremely stringent requirements, straining trade and travel
>undead, fey, and fiends cannot enter the city, causing people who need them for spells to be less efficient
>people with a natural slant to non-conformity are limited in their opportunities, meaning all magical studies are limited in their creativity
>people with a slant towards self-interest have their oppurtunities limited, causing their merchants and businessmen to be less driven and competitive

you would over all have an extremely rigid, highly conformist, and conservative city that has chosen security above freedom. they would be highly insular, and be very direct and blunt in their speech. their lives would likely be austere and simple

Assuming 3.5:

>Zone of Truth

Some persons may succeed the saving throw when they first enter, since rolling a 20 on saving throws is an automatic success. These people can lie with impunity. All persons within the affected area are aware they are under the enchantment, and can not lie deliberately - but if they don't know something is or isn't true, this doesn't count as a lie.

Which means this "utopia" is already showing cracks.

>Mark of Justice

It can only be cast on willing or restrained persons, which means you either have to convince them it's "for their own good/the law" or you've got to force it on them, which seems counter to the idea in the first place.

Also, you have to specify a "criminal act" that triggers the Mark. Is it theft? Murder? Sodomy? Fighting on Sunday? Not attending church? Lighting fires on the new moon?

>Detect Alignment

Four different spells. Not including the Marks of Justice to cover littering and jaywalking. There would need to be an entire bureaucracy in place to process even a single person.

Not to mention there's no way to detect True Neutral persons, they simply have an absence of Chaos, Law, Good and Evil. I can see a situation arising where persons of Neutral alignments are considered the least trustworthy.

A simple spell (Undetectable Alignment) would allow a person to smuggle (unknowingly) objects that are Evil or possessed by Evil outsiders into the city. A second spell will prevent Detect Magic from detecting that an abjuration has been cast on the object or creature (Nystul's Magic Aura).

>Forced suppression of magic and supernatural abilities limited to Chaotic and Evil persons

Because no one would employ spies or agents who are Lawful and Neutral, right?

>Protection from Alignment

Won't stop espionage or sabotage attempts.

Honestly this whole city seems like some kind of well meaning nightmare where people have no rights except to obey the ruling classes chosen morality.

The problem is that it takes a good idea and throws it out the window for a lazy conflict premise. The original ideas of are much better because it looks at the actual results of a city that actively condemns selfish or ruthless people and enforces truth. For example using the wife and husband example.
>Husband and wife get married
>Have children
>Begin to grow apart
>Cannot lie to each other, each of them know how much they hate each other
>Children grow up around parents that hate each other
>Parents cannot lie about thinking that their kid is the reason their marriage is in shambles
This is a great backstory for either a PC or a BBEG. The PC joined the paladins who rule the city in order to try and remove the magical restrictions for greater overall good. The BBEG saw the paladins as a force of conflict and saw that the forces of good ruined his upbringing.

I know Zone of Truth is save-able, so I included word "epic" just in case.

well, visitors are willing - if you're willing to enter our fair city, you are willing to have the MoJ cast on you, otherwise good day to you, the road is right behind you

I'm pretty sure the city this big would have the Detect Aligment spells woven into, say, a door, automatically showing the guard captain the aligment (or lack thereof) of everyone passing

of course there are way to beat those precautions - but that's sorta a job for local police force. precautions are there to maintain regular everyday security.

>epic

You'd need to create an epic spell that had all the effects of ZoT, but didn't allow a save in that case.

>MoJ

It's not just a single MoJ though. It'd have to be dozens, likely hundreds. Imagine all the little statutes, like not being able to wear certain kinds of shoes unless you're a specific class of person, or being FORCED to observe a particular religion's practices because it's the LAW, despite you not worshiping (or wanting to worship) that divinity.

>door

It'd either need to be real big, which would require a lot of minders, or there would need to be a lot of them. Otherwise, it'd be a bottleneck and you might be waiting to get into the city for hours while every teamster in the caravan is checked out and subjected to MoJs (including the one that prohibits having sex with virgins).

But couldn't the parents also be truthful about what makes them unsatisfied with eachother, adress those problems together and find positive compromises?

But yeah, just cause you have to tell the truth does not mean you can do it tactfully, or be able to discuss from there.

If this was like the first generation living in the city, I could see this being a problem, but it's probably quite likely that they have found a solution for this (probably really good counselors or laxer marriage laws that don't force people who are unhappy with each-other to remain married).

Or people stop talking about what's actually bothering them, since ZoT doesn't force people to talk. People do this all the time, evading the truth and letting a bad situation fester like an unlanced boil.

And then someone breaks a MoJ and gets one of three negative effects:

>-6 decrease to an ability score (minimum 1)
>-4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks
>Each turn, the target has a 50% chance to act normally; otherwise, it takes no action

Justice works!

Etiquette and manners are the grease of society's wheels and a large portion of it involves lying to other people for various reasons. Telling the truth all the time can cause misunderstandings because people can often misinterpret what others say, and we usually don't have time to explain or clarify every possible misunderstanding that could arise between people in everyday life. So we have established a set of behaviors that are culturally recognized as polite and reapectful so people can have a shared base to start on or fall back to without constantly risking misunderstanding and conflict. The white lies of everyday life are necessary for society to function. It has nothing to do with narcissism or arrogance.

Yeah, no one's going to do business in there so it's going to be a dried up husk with a huge squalid shanty town around it.

Yeah, it's bankrupt.

Not every problem can be solved by being truthful. Lots of people in bad relationships are aware of why the other party hates them. Just knowing what the problems are doesn't mean you have the ability or even the desire to fix them. It's also rather difficult to have tactful discussions without lying when both party's hate each other. And besides, kids are pretty smart, even when couples can lie a lot of kids can pick up on it anyway.

I know how civilization works, you retard, and I think it's shit.

>so people can have a shared base to start on or fall back to without constantly risking misunderstanding and conflict.
They do constantly risk misunderstanding and conflict anyway, though.

>It has nothing to do with narcissism or arrogance.
"Nothing" is a massive exaggeration. It has shit tons to do with both of those things. Just because those are the practical uses of those things, doesn't mean it was developed intentionally or that people think about it that way. Most people have no fucking clue why their social instincts work the way they do.

This, also dancing around things will make people a lot angrier about it and people are more liable to explode at each other.
The polite response of a curt yes to "are you doing ok?" Is in our culture for a reason.

This. It makes the dystopian aspect of the city a lot more interesting than "hurr its a good thing we blinded you for smacking your wife even if your kids starve."

Gems are still rare on the elemental plane of earth. There's more of them, sure, but there's also a lot more cheaper stone.

And, they're just as precious to the denizens that live there. If you managed to find a fist-sized diamond, prepare to have to fight for it against a multitude of interested parties, including some who simply wish to eat it.

"It's evil", "it's broken", "it's a dystopia", and "everyone is crazy" are the really obvious takes on this premise, so let's go with something else. Assume that the scheme works as intended. What do you get? I think I'm going to regard the city-wide Zone of Truth spell as being such a staggering magical feat that it's almost more like a geographical feature.

The city's defining attribute is its insularity. Its builders do not wish to expand beyond the Zone of Truth, so the city can only accommodate an expanding population by becoming denser. Moreover, its citizenry fears the outside world, viewing it as a lawless and dangerous place; emigration is rare and immigration is sharply curtailed. The walls of the city are thick, well-manned, and well-maintained. Its buildings are tall and crowded together. Many of them have been rebuilt and renovated multiple times, and those with the eye for it can often spot the marks of two or three different architectural styles on the same structure. Though it is fairly priced, living space is expensive. The streets are narrow, labyrinthine, and poorly marked. The address system is a complete nightmare, and directions from a native are often more useful than a map.

Outsiders view the inhabitants of the city as being kind, trustworthy, gullible, sanctimonious, and brutally honest to the point of tactlessness. They usually believe they have the moral high ground and they often do. However, outsiders sometimes assume that those from the city are more virtuous than they really are; in fact, the city's magical systems do nothing to prevent its inhabitants from being prejudiced, cowardly, foolhardy, rude, or stupid. The inhabitants of the city have a fairly well-founded reputation for becoming enraged by lies, indiscretions, or even insults that most people would consider minor. They are often unfairly stereotyped as being boring, brainwashed, or even dronelike.

>anything wrong with this city?
yeah, it has no trade, no lawyers, limited industrial progress and a very low output of cultural works like art and literature

>The polite response of a curt yes to "are you doing ok?" Is in our culture for a reason.
see, now this is interesting. we lie to each other in the name of social interaction every day. while the true answer to
>hey don, how you feeling today?
might be
>i really want to bash your goddamn brains in kyle
that's going to cause a whole lot more problems than a simple
>i'm good, how about you?

>Relationships break down as people have no choice but to admit the truth about how they feel about others, since no one likes everything about their friends and family.
I feel like if this was the culture, then everyone would just get over it. From what I understand, this is largely how Germans are, and look at the shit they get done

>The entire kobold encampment and caves is covered in a ward of non-lethal damage
>They charge non-kobolds to run around and practice adventuring through their encampment in a sort of Adventurer theme-park

What is wrong with this place?

besides the churros being six dollars.

(cont'd)

As previously mentioned, the city dwellers view people from outside their walls as suspicious. They have an exaggerated idea of how dangerous everywhere else is. (There's a grain of truth to it, though: people from the city are usually easily spotted and are disproportionately targeted by thieves, scammers and con artists, so it really is dangerous for them to go traveling.) However, the city dwellers also find the outside world exciting, and they're hungry for thrilling stories from other places, so it is possible for foreigners to wind up in a sort of "scary but cool" category. Many a would-be raconteur has stumbled over the city's Zone of Truth, though, so lurid tales of perilous adventure are best recounted in written form, ideally in the form of books written elsewhere.

The city's strict rules for visitors deter many merchants, so trade is somewhat anemic. But this phenomenon has a silver lining: foreigners who trade within the city have fewer competitors, and an honest, skillful trader can quite a lot of money doing business there. Goods manufactured within the city are known for being simple, well-made, and durable, because poor-quality products are hard to sell within the Zone of Truth.

The city truly shines as a center of scholastic activity. The Zone of Truth and the prevailing culture strongly encourage diligence and humility in intellectual work, plagiarism can be detected with a few questions, and the city's low crime rate ensures that scholars need not fear retribution for holding controversial views. Likewise, data is difficult to falsify and engineers are forced to own up to any flaws in their designs. Academic work coming from the city is well-regarded, and people from other places sometimes visit the city to commission work from engineers who live there.

Municipal politics is generally very boring and nobody pays much attention to it. The city's administrators are rarely charismatic but always well-intentioned.

>The city truly shines as a center of scholastic activity. The Zone of Truth and the prevailing culture strongly encourage diligence and humility in intellectual work, plagiarism can be detected with a few questions, and the city's low crime rate ensures that scholars need not fear retribution for holding controversial views. Likewise, data is difficult to falsify and engineers are forced to own up to any flaws in their designs. Academic work coming from the city is well-regarded, and people from other places sometimes visit the city to commission work from engineers who live there.

Could it become one one the region's cultural (not sure if this would be the best term) hubs?

(cont'd)

However, the actual competence of the city's leadership varies about as much as anywhere else.

The judicial system probably pairs a moderately well-developed legal system with a comically inept and understaffed police force (beyond the wizardry needed for the Marks of Justice and so forth).

Many people regard the art and fiction of the city as weird. Romances written within the city sound cold and cynical to people outside it, and the city's inhabitants think romances written elsewhere sound ridiculous. Nobody in the city can write a villain worth a damn and even the people there admit it; the more acclaimed works which come from the city often substitute thorny ethical dilemmas or complex historical forces. The city's insularity hampers its art: the joke runs that its artists paint and compose the same things over and over again.

I think the main problem is really a military one. I don't know how a group of people who can't quite grasp the nature of deception will manage to defend themselves. They certainly can't be good at geopolitical intrigue. If it's a city-state with a sort of foreign policy, it's got to be pretty lousy at foreign policy. The people there don't have a clue how spying works and they wouldn't be any good at it if they did. Their military strategy, such as it is, probably hinges on having really good fortifications. The Zone of Truth might screw up an army that managed to breach the walls, though.

You can probably troll these people very easily by claiming that lying to children is ethical.

Interesting concept, OP, even if I didn't answer your question.

Maybe. I think it all depends on how much they're exposed to people from other places.

...And it also depends on how other people regard their punishingly frank form of discourse, but I don't think that's necessarily a deal-breaker; I mean, New Yorkers aren't known for being nice...

Maybe hub may not be the word I wanted. What I meant was, with its scholarly output, and high standards for goods and engineering, would it affect the culture of surrounding cities?
>Product x is sold in Truthjustia, so it must be of high standard. We should by that too.

It's basically Fantasy Singapore. Look it up.

SOMY / Aqqle - type knock-offs that play off the Truthjustia aesthetic, at FANTASTIC LOW PRICES!

Can't see how it wouldn't. Stuff made there would get a good reputation, and other people would probably copy their craftsmanship and their architecture. (Their civil engineers have to answer questions about their plans honestly.)

>It's pricey, but it's from Truthjustia, so you know you're getting your money's worth.

>We commissioned a Truthjustian architect to design this tower, so the plan is definitely solid.

As for defending itself, an invading kingdom might find it more useful when left alone. If you mess with the city, they won't be able to build shit for you, discover things for you.

No kingdom that's done it's research would want to invade the place, let alone live there. The people there are kind of dull compared to the rest of the world, but you get what you pay for while in there(if you know to ask the right questions), your money is safe there, your loved ones are safe there(if they toe the line). It's predictable and dependable at nearly all times, and those are very valuable qualities.

It's a interesting feature to point out while traveling and a reliable place to commission gear from or trade magic and ideas with. It's also fairly safe neutral grounds for parties honestly willing to compromise. Few outsiders would love the idea of having to stay in there for long periods of time but many would just suck it up for the little time they'd have to spend inside Truthjustia.

Would it actually be possible to create works of fiction while in Truthjustia? Fictional stories are by definition false.

It's not conducive to adventure.

Nobody cares about the happy suburb, they care about the corrupt downtown rife with crime and culture.

My group has brought up making something liked that before though a little less extreme. Still think a more minor version is a completely reasonable idea.

Slowly but surelly, a huge ass sattelite city embraces the truth town, where a lot of the things you cant do inside happen.

That half-truth shit abruptly reminded me of the cringey scenes from Paolini's Inheritance trilogy where the MC is talking to his elf waifu in the snowflake magic language that can't be lied with. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

embraces, as in encircling?

Do you have an autism spectrum disorder.

Would depend on the exact mechanics of it. Most fiction isn't portrayed as being true, so it might be fine.

Nobody would want to fucking stay.

Yes. Yes it is, Hillary.

Hurr durr.

I like this, make it in ironically working as intended, but show how that would effect the population

I can see people developing their own ritualized manners that don't involve white lies. I'm thinking particularly of the phrase "well bless your heart", which AFAIK has many shades of passive aggressive nuance.

If you ask someone a question they're uncomfortable answering they'll just repeat the question back as many times as it takes for the questioner to get the hint. Or talk about the weather. Or just make up some nonsense (Assuming the spell doesn't compel an answer, and assuming that being deliberately hurtful counts as a minor evil act)

You'd probably have grades of politeness. Like a repeat would be politely declining, weather or other obvious fact would be "It's fine" or your local equivalent of whatever you tell someone when you want to end engagement. And saying "I have never eaten a dragon's egg hard boiled" or equivalent non-sequitur would be a passive aggressive insult.

So going into this city would be like taking crazy pills. Because everyone is friendly, talking nonsense, and probably treating you like a mildly retarded child for not getting that you are asking very transgressive questions indeed.

my guess is that fictional works would have to be constantly breaking the fourth wall and mentioning in the footnotes that it's not true

makes me imagine much of Truthjustian literature is categorized as absurdist humor by other lands, even the stuff that's supposed to be dead serious(more than one Truthjustian playwright has had a breakdown after going to a performance of their latest Romantic Tragedy in another land only for it to be treated as an uproarious comedy by these foreigners)

It shouldn't be too bad, depending on the durations of those spells (I CBA to go double-check them).

You'd need to enchant the Zone of Truth, but that's a one-time expense as long as you make it an item-style enchantment.

The Evil/Chaos detectors would just take a few low-level casters on the payroll, with how many being based on how many visitors you expect to have at peak tourism/trade season. It would be a pretty cushy job, though pretty boring. Actually, come to think of it, it wouldn't be too expensive to just have a supply of wands of those spells.

The Marks of Justice would be the main expense, though for something like that the city would probably just have something set up where reusable enchanted items cast them on people, either in the form of some kind of regular checkin, or at regular intervals along the streets and so on. That would take people, and a small number of criminals would be able to circumvent them by just going around.

The Mass Protection from Evil/Chaos spells would probably be done in the form of a small number of relatively high level casters on the payroll. They might even stipulate something along the lines of each religion that wants to operate within the city has to have Clerics capable of casting those spells on duty X days per month, which would make it much easier on the city (assuming this is someplace that religions want to have presence).

Really, it would come down to how interested people are in being there to pay taxes and bring in foreign cash. This city would have the same sorts of expenses as any other, plus a few extras, so they'd need a little more income to get by (assuming the reduction in crime and lying doesn't pay for that).

The whole bottling up fails the moment when one of them asks the other "is something wrong?", since you can't just answer "nothing".

"Don't worry about it."

Does ZoT allow evasive answers like that?

Losing two world wars? Being cucked by "refugees"? Having a national leader too embarrassed to display their own flag?

>That would tank the economy. Same as the treasury just printing shitloads of money.
Except spell components are consumed in use, not released into circulation, so not really. Economies, as we think of them, don't really function when you apply extended 3.5 logic to them.

>Losing two world wars? Being cucked by "refugees"? Having a national leader too embarrassed to display their own flag?

Ah hey /pol/, isn't pen and paper to unmannly for a brave white nationalist.

>From what I understand, this is largely how Germans are

Well let a german tell you that is bullshit. Towards our "inner circle" we lie as much as every other culture. We just have a more distanced attitude towards strangers or people we are not really friends with.

>people quickly develop a culture that substitutes for the little lies everyone else uses
>wearing a yellow ribbons means don't fucking talk to me for example
>i am not inclined to lead this conversation isn't seen as rude because it could have 10000 different reasons
>foreigners are completely lost in the complex etiquette of symbols and phrases

>government of zealots
>harsh restrictions on emigration and imigration
>certain people who have economic/magic/etc. value aren't allowed to leave
>strict laws that aim to prevent the influence of outside culture
>massive propaganda that claims the outside world is completely lawless and degenerate and the gods are on our side

>most people retreat into their private circles
>want as m,uch interaction with the government as possible
>apathetic for the most part
>government tries to counter this with forced cultural shit like huge parades in which the people are forced to participate

>culture and entertainment from other places is massively sought after
>thriving black market which is even more dangerous in a city like this
>city is constantly ripped off in trade because foreign merchants just demand that trade is conducted outside the city limits
>strict isolation prevents a lot of progressive influences from other places so a lot of the goods produced are pretty basic
>government secretly uses clandestine methods to acquire information/tech/new magic etc.

>pic highly related

>*as little interaction with the government as possible

The city is a metagaming piece of shit

>no lawyers
I fail to see how that's a problem. with everyone truthful (no scams) and MoJs everywhere (no crime) - who needs that scum?