Crossing the Border, Travelling the Land

[Aphel]

Events during the "Destroyer's Curse" as well as a recent discussions, events and the travelling habits of parties made me wonder about border customs, border patrols, laws and so on. While it is quite well represented that there are dangerous things in the wilder parts of the world and about those it is rather unproblematic to RP - encountering a creature not everybody in the group has seen before or encountering enemies that somebody has a grudge against or a phobia of.

What I usually find more difficult to portray is the crossing of borders and moving around in areas/lands that are a bit more civilised than the wilderness an average adventurer seems to find caves, monsters and treasures in.

While it is quite simple to let a character react appropriately to certain forms of border customs/control - be that the border is closed down or it simply takes longer until the border is crossed, usually if there is some change, it is mentioned within "Rumour has it ... "
But what about the rest of the borders and lands, factors that influence traveling as much as big scary monsters that roam the wilderness? Should I just apply "common sense" when there is no GM around, or are there guidelines that I could, should, or have to use - so that when a GM is around, I'm not caught cold in the water (and there's no time, because six people demand attention at once with their actions)?

To make an example, I'd like to give my view on how [lore]Aden Delaveth[/lore] would go about crossing various borders or enter various places.

First Example: Port Hempstead
Being a member of the Angel's Guild, Aden is around Port Hempstead rather often for Guild buisness. Which means that he most likely has already talked and dealt with most of the guards at the Gate he uses and, while being controlled, they let him pass most of the time unless he has something or somebody with him he should not. But if it is just a crate of cotton, some topaz etc he is transporting for the Guild or a customer, he pays the fees, does the paperwork (most likely reduced by any paper work from the Guild, be that some sort of license or whatever) and is in Port Hempstead to go about his merry crafting buisness.

Second Example: Stone
For curiosity and an invitation for pecan pie made by Galathea, Aden wants to travel to Stone. Things are a bit more complicated since he is a free elf in a land where they aren't welcome at all. If he is travelling alone and without a heavy backpack, it should not be too hard to cross the border into Sun for Aden - he can sneak pretty well, and he can inform himself about some things that go on in the Kingdom in the Crest Hills. If he avoids towns, shepards, patrols with dogs and - depending on the True Sight issue - mages and so forth, he should be able to reach Stone eventually. Sure, it takes time to cross those spots that nobody wants to go, it takes time to lay low and bellycrawl, to chose paths that hide one's silhouette against the sky, it takes observations on the paths of the people that cross the land and even the animals. But given that Layonara is a low magic world, there should not be a mage or sorcerer with an animal companion for every square kilometer of land in the Sun Kingdom. Travelling to Sun Castle or anywhere to more interesting points is, however, a totally different issue to the point where any travels there should be human only. It should not be easy to reach and leave Stone undetected and unbetrayed, but it should be possible for Aden, keeping in mind that this is what he is about and how much experience he already has.
Is that a good approach for this issue? If so, is there a rule of thumb that could be used as orientation? Or should I as a player just keep away from areas that are labeled "Your race/class/religion isn't welcome here" when there is no GM around instead of seeing if my character has sufficient skill in evading controls and such (Argumentation: "If I can sneak past monster xyz without being seen, and hoping that they don't have a spellweaver with true sight every threehundred meters, I can go there - carefully and quietly.")? There are some places where that is true, but those have been mentioned in the rumour section or the thread dealing with the aftermath of the Cult War. I am not certain if there is a list with areas that are restricted to travel (for certain races/classes/religions/colors/etc, GM guidance needed - and not needed, depending).

[Dorganath]

Your examples are fairly divergent, primarily in scope and definition.

The key difference is the scope.  Port Hempstead is a walled city, so the entrances and exits can be pretty well-controlled. The prohibitions on monstrous races within the city are likewise easy to enforce.  True-seeing mages and/or simple visual verification can weed out and reject those who are not supposed to be there with relative ease.

The Sun kingdom is pretty much hostile to non-humans of any stripe (with a begrudging and limited tolerance in a locale such as Stone), though elves in particular are of particular note.  There's an active slave trade of elves in Sun.  Calling oneself a "free elf" is meaningless within the borders of Sun. But, is a whole kingdom, and it does have better things to do than to patrol every square inch of land in any form (mundane or magical), and in fact it's rather absurd to think that could be the case.  So yes, it's possible and potentially simple to cross the border into Sun, but the issues result in getting caught within the borders of Sun as something that's not human.

Yes, in reality, if a GM is not online and watching, it's "safe" to think, in an OOC context, that there's no problem going in and out of Sun. In an RP sense, however, it should be portrayed appropriately, which either means refraining from entering Sun and/or accepting (in advance) any consequences of being caught within.

Speaking more generally, most civilized places in the world would see most monstrous races negatively. Some may be as positive as a begrudging tolerance. Dark elves are shunned or excluded pretty much everywhere, with only a few exceptions.  However, there's really only a handful of kingdom-wide prohibitions.  Sun is one, and Kuhl is presently the other that jump to mind most immediately. The latter is actually enforced mechanically and they're excluding everyone regardless of race.

For the rest of the borders between places in-game, it's fair enough to assume some minor checkpoints along the roads, though for the most part, the actual borders are not represented in-game. You're certainly welcome to RP border crossings as appropriate, but for the most part simply acknowledging the realities of where you are, at least to yourself, is sufficient.

[MadHattan]

Trail signs representing borders would be helpful so as a players, we are more aware of when we are taking our chars into a unfriendly kingdom, and to reinforce the RP at border crossings.
 
"Tri'As'gra!  That trail goes to the Sun kingdom unless you want to be enslaved.. or ahh you want to raid them and free some brothers and sisters *smiles at the druid bear*, lets go!"
 
-Madd