Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalillama
I take it from this that the existence of this race is not generally known? Any legal system that was aware of such a trait would certainly take it into account for things like weapon registration, ID, and similar documentation.
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Yes this is mostly correct. More correctly it's a modern day campaign where things like this are generally not known about, but that there are rules in place made by the people that do know about such things.
Take any random relatively law abiding citizen in our society. They can go and purchase a gun and have it registered to them without a DNA check. It just takes a standard background check and the idea behind these shapeshifters is that both shapes are human looking enough that big red flags are going to be raised.
If on the other hand a shapeshifter has gone and been careless, and both forms have been finger printed by the police and it's been noticed that those finger prints match, it's going to raise a few red flags and the campaign's local Men in Black organization is going to start poking their nose into things.
The biggest problem I'm thinking is going to be there for this campaign is that while I want the shapeshifters to be a big part of the campaign, I don't want them to instantly become the "All the time bad guys". I don't want either of these happening:
- Time for another adventure, who's the shapeshifter this week?
- Oh a shapeshifter is involved in this plot? Well let's focus all our attention on him.
I don't mind either of those happening at first as I do want them to think the shapeshifters are important, but as soon as it is known that the shapeshifters are not the bad guys all the time there is the question of "Well then can I play one?" by the players.
In a campaign where magic is real, but just not known about to the players, once they do learn about magic there's always the question of "Well can I have my character learn magic?" and while with magic that makes sense, it doesn't so much make sense with this style of shapeshifting. One doesn't learn to be this type of shapeshifter, they are born this type.