How do you like your guards, Veeky Forums (in terms of equipment, discipline, etc)?

Incompetent civilians that get to be above the law and have special rights to arms and use of force that they don't have the training or oversight to justify.

Like the police in real life.

>inb4 massive, thread destroying argument

CURVED. SWORDS.

Fried or fertilized.

I like them as professional (albeit not necessarily efficient) fighters who are just trying to do their job without breaking protocol or risking their own necks.

My GM likes them as lazy self righteous bureaucratic borderline corrupt assholes who refuse to be helpful or take initiative no matter how many people end up getting slaughtered.

Competent. Whatever that means to you, that is what I mean by competent. No more, no less.

The default is:

>small village
Local toughs act as a volunteer militia. Major crimes are met with undisciplined posses/lynch mobs led by eccentric veterans.

>walled town or small city
Semi professional guards that keep watch, and call up volunteers for bigger problems.

>Major city or imperial capitol
A variety of palace guards and private enforcers who mainly look after their masters. Poorer districts are policed by gangs. If the ruler is good and forward thinking, something like a police force exists (though it may just be magistrates hiring ad hoc deputies and mercenaries).

Militias usually, run-ins with cops can be a bigger deal if the cop in question is also the blacksmith whose family the PCs just met.

Meant to reply to . Disregard, I suck cocks, etc.

looks like you were succesful

Guard might get nervous, a man approaches with his weapon drawn.

...

>How do you like your guards
Soviet, of course!

I finally figured out what the hell to do with guards in my settings.
>National guard academy.
All guards have the follow standard breakdown: Warrior2/Adept2/Expert2. These are the standard fuckall guards you see everywhere. Then, they can do one of two things: go to a small town to guard, or, with further dedication which 90% end up failing because they are average joes, not pc's, continue their studies.
They are taken into advanced programs and take pc classes anywhere from 2-4 levels (added to their already level 3 characters). this is to create specialized guards to protect cities or act as lieutenants on the battlefield or even act as low level spies.
Finally, there is singular legion called the Homeguard This battalion has units specializing in total war tactics. Each company has 5 paladins, 10 clerics, 10 sorcerers/wizards, 10 rangers, 5 rogues, and 10 fighters matched with 200 standard soldiers each with ftr1/war2. Each company has a captain at ftr5/rog3/sorc2 to allow a heavy hand to aid in combat.

He asked how you like your guards, you inbred fart huffer

My guards are all local heroes and the sons of noblemen with the equipment to reflect that. If the PCs want to start shit and kill a guard, they had better be prepared to spill noble blood and make themselves enemies of the state.

Are the guards also shota foxboys?

Depends on the nation, though I tend to follow a few tropes.

Evil Empire: Either corrupt bullies who are more interested in making money than doing their job, ambitious cut-throats that are do whatever they can to advance in rank and position,brutal enforcers of the regime or some mix of the three. With the occasionally genuine good guard thrown in there to shake things up.

Generic Kingdom: Generally semi-professional force that works for the local ruler and upholds the peace. They're there to ensure safety in the towns and nearby farms or villages. They tend to run the gambit of normal people that you'd see as cops, leaning towards people who want to keep their town and family safe.

Good Guy Kingdom: Either a hopeful, naive and somewhat under-equipped militia that has the what's best for the community at heart or a fairly well trained well organised peace keeping force that forms the basis of the nation's military.

I just adjust depending on population, tech, religion, etc. as need be to fluff them out more. But generally I like my guards to be good guys that uphold the law and do the right thing. And are willing to help out the PCs if they PCs are good people and aren't a public nuisance. Big if there.

Better than these assholes, sometimes one will glitch and try to kill me even though I'm not wanted, no other guards give a shit, when I kill him they all aggro, then I run away and hide, and then they all give up and I'm not wanted anymore. What the actual fuck.

>like the police in real life

Depends on the country. Some have higher Standards than others.

Brazilian.

Douchebag kids off the street given weapons and free reign to lord them over their former neighbors.

Well, in my current setting city guards are at the same time city militia. So they are semi-professional soldiers (they have their own way to make money, but get paid to keep order and military skills), with equipment as good as the wealth of the city allows to. They kinda decent to their own people, but dislike outsiders.

I like to emphasizse them as normal guys. They're just in it to make money and in the safer parts of major cities it's seen as an incredibly easy job (you just walk around, scare off pickpockets and collect your paycheck) while in the nastier parts of town some fights are common, though that doesn't make guards hardened warriors. A knife fight is probably the most grave situation a guard is prepared to deal with, anything above that is usually above their level. So yeah, just regular guys trying to make ends meet with okay equipment and discipline that ranges from mediocre to bad.

Unless you're dealing with the Royal/Republican/Imperial guard, in which case you're dealing with the best of the best who could probably turn your asshole inside out by staring at it hard enough.

Really depends on the city and setting. I've had them be everything from professional soldiers to well-meaning but incompetent volunteers to corrupt stereotypical jerk-wads drunk on their own power.

Usually I like to keep them competent and a real threat, though. I don't like it when my players can massively overpower the guards, so I try to make it so that the players can beat a couple of guards, maybe even a dozen, but if the whole Guard brings their best, the players are fucked.

In my current setting, in the city where the players are right now, there are no dedicated town guards, the local army does their job when not deployed on campaign. It just so happens that there's a campaign coming up, so there's been a military buildup, so about 1 in 5 people are in the army, so effectively each 5th person the players see is a town guard. So they're well advised not to make any trouble (until the army marches away).

Two historical flavours

Militia Option:
A force made from the wealthy burghers, who have an obligation to defend the city and keep social orde by serving on rotating shifts. They have excellent equipment (owning wargear is a requirement by law, gradiated by wealth brackets and privately purchased) and a sense of civic pride, but skill at arms varies widely. A guard's day job is something like a goldsmith, merchant or mastercraftsman, which also means a large portion of the townsfolk have the kit and some skills should shit go down.

Alternatively: Slave Soldiers.
A regular, professional force of soldiers who are technically the property of the ruler but in practice are well-paid troops. Most are steppe nomads captured in war, but the best cadres are raised from child slaves into (mostly) loyal and elite warriors who are indoctrinated into their captors religion. Being foreigners in the employ of the ruler, they are independant from the city's internal politics but also have fewer reservations about using lethal force to quell riots.

Either somewhere else, under my command, or under this guy's command.

Depends on location, polity, level of settlement, etc.

Typically a colony will either have it's own volunteer or paid police force, in addition, it may either be a requisite for citizenship/legal privleges to serve or provide equipment for a local militia or police force. If the colony belongs to one of the larger nations, it may have external police or military forces present. Corporate colonies have corporate security instead of municipal police forces; nations tend to have more organised police forces, basically the same as today while the Outer Rim League has a more medieval approach where nobility provide their own equipment and hire retainers to enforce the law within a broad set of guidelines. This can vary from small mining colonies with a noble with one machine and a few supporters to the larger ones with big houses having small armies. Then there's various anarchic and freeport colonies and settlements where law is largely derived by whatever the local syndicates want and enforced by their thugs.

Equipment and discipline vary wildly. A normal mining colony might have some surplus frames tuned up or civilian rigs pressed into service. Big corp colonies will have the best they can legally run. Nation-owned will have 2nd line or purpose built police frames. Outer Rim can vary wildly in equipment and tactics and syndicates will use whatever they can strap guns onto.

>Detect criminal
This would hurt rogues everywhere it's not fair at all

No, no mistake. You have committed crimes against Skyrim and her people! What do you say in your defence?

>[Bribe] [100]
>Resist arrest
>Turn yourself in

Don't tempt me.

Rolling for temptation
dice+1d20+7

That can't be right. Can't you see, it's the Hero of Kvatch

The joke is that it's a mostly spot on description of TES guards

This won't be a dump. Mostly because there's not nearly enough cute foxboy images.

STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!

...

>Not ghosting
Taffer.

I guess I have a variety but for the most part its either

>Small village or border town
Any volunteer veterans or maybe hunters with somewhat decent equipment. Usually just simple gear and only keeps order, they wont really be an effective force to fight off the dark lord or anything like that.

Or

>Major town or fortress
Usually a professional core of disciplined ex fighters, soldiers, and adventurers with plate armor assisted by a much larger group or "Watchman" which are much more lightly armored and personable. Watchmen always carry the shield emblazoned with the symbol of their clan/hold/lord.

depends on government. They ranged from vets of wars to criminal scum hired to be enforcers.

Like american cops but with swords

#Kenderlivesmatter

no they fucking don't you turbothief