Conquest of the Horde

Hey there.

Well, my question today is, how would debt collection work in a cartell town. For example. Evil character a, is a loanshark of some variety, gives good character b a loan of 30 gold. When the time to collect comes up, B cant pay.
What would the goblins allow in this senario? Taking of that person's property, such as valuable armour or weapons? Violence? Servitude to pay off the debt?

I know that in most cases the goblins dont allow violence and such. But on a matter of gold, I can see them turning very...goblin like and ruthless about it. Maybe to the point of turning a blind eye. Seems weird that your typical nasty loanshark character can do absolutely nothing to a person, even pulling someone to a table to "privately discuss" would likely warrant shouts of "Bruisers! There are bruisers, you cant do that!"

Your thoughts?

We came across this sort of thing a few days ago asking if guards would enforce something like a gambling debt.

I do believe that while the guards are definitely profit-driven there is probably a different way to settle debt. I'd imagine that debts would be brought to some office or authority and then perhaps settled in a small-claims court. Debtor would perhaps get a summons and if they didn't attend they'd get a fine. And if they didn't pay the fine I guess then the guards might interfere.

Guards have to handle a lot of things but when it comes to actual debts and money I believe that offices would handle that, if only because we can't expect guards to do every job needed to run a town.

Note: This is entirely guess based and on the assumption that guards' functions are pretty much like that of the police.

Aw, so no losing fingers, or other "persuasion" steriotypically attributed to the shady loanshark?

I think those would be the actions attributed to the loan shark itself. I do believe a loan shark that can influence guards might have some standing in the Steamwheedle that is not allowed towards players, or else it could possibly be abused.

However, you could always get a few buddies to help break some knees c:

Thats the kind of thing im thinking, but with the whole bruiser situation, its impossible to do anything like that. Its like a game of tag, with a safe zone. You can bring as many big, intimidating people as you like to back you up, but you cant drag a character out of a public place, they would have to come of their own free will, which would never happen.

Yeah, that is true. Anyways if the debt is contractual I do believe you could bring it to a court. It's kinda hard to take the bureaucratic approach at times.

Booty bay doesnt have a court And even if it did it would be NPC's, so to RP it out would be impossible.

Yeah, it's true. In the end I guess it'll be up to GMs what happens.

But I do believe having a contract in writing is pretty binding.

Taking the matter of a loan to an authority would only work in my opinion if the loan itself was legit under the rules of that same authority. For example if the loanshark offer money taken from a cartel. Otherwise I don't see anyone would care and simply ask both parties to settle it elsewhere if they wish to resort to violence.

(Guards turning a blind eye seems logical but wont work with the guard policy, so find a way to work around it. Not all places are heavily guarded and not all verbal threats are idle.)

Not everywhere is heavilly guarded, true. But its impossible to get anyone to said location

Considering 30 gold is three grand...and this is a 1900s economy. (Think 30$ cars)

Take out a huge loan, flee Steamwheedle, and live in luxery. This is my goal when we update to Catacalysm as a brave Goblin.

Jeff Wrote:Take out a huge loan, flee Steamwheedle, and live in luxery. This is my goal when we update to Catacalysm as a brave Goblin.

And suddenly a large force of masked goblins parachute into your mountain manor hideaway...

Then I must hire a bunch of these!

Well, yeah, was just throwing a random figure out there. And everyone seems to have their own ideas on the values of the currency, so none is really official.

But yes. Wish that there were a way to give consequences in the case of a loanshark, rather than being able to do nothing to a person as long as they stay in the bar. Seems like that is the place that a loanshark -would- harass people for payment.