My players are basically town guards in a low fantasy settin

>>54932054
my players would instantly seek out ways to indulge in corruption if they were forced into guard duty, maybe play off that somehow?

>>54932054

Burn the damn village to the ground in a raid both showing the Players that there will be no status quo to be had and set them on an unending cycle of revenge that will either forge them into heroes or damn the to something worse than what burned their homes down in the first place?

>>54932054
>Missionaries that may or may not be just corrupt people looking for money
>Local baron/warlord decides town needs to pay taxes/protection fees
>orphanage has fewer and fewer children and nobody knows why
>disease in the outside world, do they quarentine and lose trade or risk their crops?

>>54932054
the last time i ran a campaign where my players played as law enforcement they were investigators who had to find a stolen artifact.

it gave them autonomy to do things as they see fit while keeping the "guard duty authority/responsibility" theme

Underground fightclubs.

Perhaps there is a professional arena/ formalized fighting sport. Maybe a well known fighter (duelist? boxer? whatever fits the fluff) is visiting and everyone wants to challenge him.

Whatever the reason, a lot of commoners end up maiming themselves and the resultant hooliganism doesn't help either.

Depending on how corrupt the party is, you might be involved in fixing high stakes underground fights while keeping them hidden from more responsible guards, ending the practice all together or participating yourself.

Well, if it's about crime, you have a lot of variation, even in a small town (especially, towns out of the way). Gangs shouldn't be that big or important. Maybe a group of around twelve good-for-nothing thugs, more or less. But that's the surface. Due to the farmlands around the place, bigger fish are coming to town, and the small and relatively safe underworld is stirring. No dead yet, but things are escalating and that may change.

As for the crimes: gambling and smuggling, if it's a small town. If trade is coming through the docks, and the country is in ruins after a war, those docks are going to be very desirable for anyone wanting money. Not only gangsters and underworld barons, but also more "respectable" merchants. A secret war between te gangs and a merchant guild can happen: The gangs are small, but have the help of some of the locals. The merchants have a lot of money, but can't risk public violence, so they try to shift the allegiance of the civilians, and the gangs are fighting each other as well, so they may choose to back one of those gangs and see what happens.

And rebels, you say? Well, they're using that smal town as a staging point for a full revolution. They're one of many cells, but this one may be pretty important in the planning of said revolution, who knows. Have the players find some kind of hint of this planning, or something.

You can also go full horror here. The town is controlled by a secret cult. This newfound attention is unwanted. The cult wants to retake the town. Spoopy murders happen. The guards have to do something.

File: Guards there is a pervert watching us.jpg (123KB, 636x896px) Image search: [Google]

123KB, 636x896px

>>54932054
Some of this might have to be downscaled to fit a smaller town.

>Festival, riot and gang fight all in one.
http://www.thearma.org/essays/BridgeWars.htm#.WZassPmGPcs

http://www.medievalists.net/tag/crime-in-the-middle-ages/
>All the kind of things your players might have to deal with, like
http://www.medievalists.net/2016/01/medieval-traffic-problems/
http://www.medievalists.net/2015/07/cracking-down-on-illegal-gambling-in-medieval-livonia/
http://www.medievalists.net/2016/01/municipal-problems-in-mediaeval-switzerland/

>pack of man-eating wolves who terrorized Paris during the winter of 1450
http://www.coolstuffinparis.com/wolves_of_paris.php

>...one after another the prisoners were hurled from the walls of the citadel and hacked to pieces by the mob of the Zealots assembled below. Then followed a hunt for all the members of the upper classes
http://byzantinemilitary.blogspot.com.br/search/label/Civil%20War%20-%20Zealots%20%20-%20%20A%20%22Marxist%22%20Revolution%20in%20Byzantium

>Proto-detective and enemy of idleness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaesitor

>War and devastation, you said? The quaesitor calls those homeless people vagabonds
http://deremilitari.org/2014/08/spurred-on-by-the-fear-of-death-refugees-and-displaced-populations-during-the-mongol-invasion-of-hungary/

>The team associations had become a focus for various social and political issues for which the general Byzantine population lacked other forms of outlet. They combined aspects of street gangs and political parties, taking positions on current issues, notably theological problems or claimants to the throne.
http://byzantinemilitary.blogspot.com.br/search/label/Government%20-%20Controlling%20The%20Population%20of%20Constantinople

>In the middle of these texts, however, he added detailed instructions on six ways you could commit fraud.
http://www.medievalists.net/2014/02/defraud-lord-medieval-manor/

>>54932054
How serious is your campaign?
And also what emotions are you trying to evoke?

>>54932054
Look up some florida man.

>>54932054

One of my players is a cop IRL and I like to use his small town USA work stories as inspiration for beginner level quests.

>Local bar patron refuses to pay his tab at the end of the night. Upon being confronted by the bartender he slashed at him with a knife before running away and hiding himself in the keg room. Haul the drunkard out and smack him around.

>Low level local criminals have made contact with some serious criminals and are starting to deal more potent substances. Track the locals to their trailer and rough them up.

>Local farm animals show signs of physical and sexual abuse. Find the redneck responsible and beat them.

And so on and so forth.

>>54932054
You could always introduce an item to a high up official. An item that talks and only wants murder and slowly corrupts whoever is using this item. You could call it a Gonne

File: rhodoks.png (675KB, 724x687px) Image search: [Google]

675KB, 724x687px

>>54932054
The textbook urban rebellion probably hasn't been written and performed yet in setting, so I'd recommend distancing yourself from that refinement that isn't already blatant Noble insurrection or Peasant revolt. That said, I doubt that Opaque cares about anachronisms so go ahead.

To play up the racial and political tension, you have a wealth of things to do. Go out in force and take censuses of the townfolk and surrounding land. Interrupt rebel training sessions, beat the resistors. Or perhaps not. Maybe they're sympathetic, maybe they're not. If they're not, up the ante with having fellow guards murdered in their homes, at the tavern. If they are, make them feel the foreign presence. Maybe growing rebel influence causes the state to think foreigners will manage better, or even suspect them.

If you're seeking less grand tension or perhaps more traditional, one can always play up the human element. Have small arcs. Maybe a child waits outside the cobbler's shop every day during a player's beat, so one of your more virtuous players takes to inquire the situation. Maybe a local tavern owner suspects that his competitor is stealing his pigeons, screwing with his burgeoning squab business. Maybe the local mayor is actually a piece of garbage and is actively supporting a violent crime organization over one of the older, peaceful local ones.

Or, since you're in the TR, you have a wealth of other options. Clachish raiders, Gallian mercenaries, even horny raucous Zells. Some pompous Ruvian fuck shows up in full plate, questioning about the local cuisine. Perhaps something even more absurdly foreign, like a Burdinadin botanist, shows up and causes a ruckus through a combination of local xenophobia and foreign naiveté.

File: 1502908669222.png (456KB, 1316x2127px) Image search: [Google]

456KB, 1316x2127px

>>54932054
Make a backstory in a session or two about how your kingdom was attacked by neighbouting kingdom, and your king attacked amd conquered them in kind.

Then read Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning, have the players ordered to go to keep peace at the conquered territories and see how far you can make them go.

>>54932054
Merchant princes and underworld gangs who are basically indistinguishable.
20th level monks, incognito.
Rancid, stinky vagrants claiming to be "great wizards". Bonus points if they try and settle a debt by paying with an almost-as-stinky magic carpet.
Low-level adventurers who think they're HOT SHIT and cause trouble.

>>54932054
Swarthy gentlemen are crashing carriages into store fronts and making off with the merchandise. They possess small hand-crossbows which they turn sideways to shoot for some reason, all have terrible dental hygene, and last but not least they dindu nuffin.

>>54932054
Nothing, help them realise the town is a shithole and being a guard kind of sucks and maybe leaving ill prepared is better than staying another day. You would have to bridge this well though as DM to avoid boredom. Or the classic irresolvable legal misunderstanding has them all skip town.

>>54934956
>plot hooks from cop stories
>every quest ends with a beating
great job america