City Guards: Difference between revisions

[[City Guards]] are a common form of the [[Broken Bridge]], in which case they may well be [[Invincible Minor Minion|Invincible Minor Minions]] in order to make [[Sequence Breaking]] impossible.

 

{{examples}}

* [[Runescape]] used these too...and were attackable. They weren't actually programmed the same way most [[City Guards]] are actually...and players would regularly kill them for experience. It's even been lampshaded how guards don't have a very long lifespan.

** On the flip side, however, these guards will be out for your blood if you happen to do such incredibly suspicious things as ride a horse at a speed exceeding 1/2 MPH on an otherwise empty road or get pushed by some random crazy person.

* In a sequence in ''[[Okami]]'', you are required to sneak past a door guarded by two weak, early-game monsters, even though you could probably kill them at this point with a flick of your Reflector.

** Also, the very literal Sei-An City guards, who you have to sneak past.

** Receiving unusual mercy because [[What Measure Is a Mook?|they can talk]].

* In the Nintendo 64 game ''[[Ganbare Goemon|Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon]]'', one necessary path is blocked by two guards. After getting the required pass, the guards [[Lampshade Hanging|complain]] that now they have nothing else to do but stand there for [[No Fourth Wall|the rest of the game]].

* On the other side of the coin, some of the guards in earlier ''[[Ultima]]'' games were just way stronger than your characters, at least at first. In addition, many [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMOs]] use City Guards which are pretty well leveled, largely to keep [[The Great Player-Versus-Player Debate|PVP]] from getting out of hand.

** For example the guards in ''[[Ultima Online]]'' are nigh-invulnerable teleporters who kill with one hit.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' has city guards wearing light armor, Imperial Legion soldiers wearing heavy armor; neither is superior to the player character, but they are seldom alone. Attack one, and more will come. Each one killed adds significantly to the bounty the character must pay off to avoid jail time. But you ''can'' kill them. It's even possible through underhanded methods (legitimate and not) to get them to attack ''other'' innocent NPCs on the street.

** For example by casting "Frenzy" on a person. The target goes crazy and starts attacking anybody nearby, the guards rush in and kill him. It's apparently perfectly legal to use magic that causes people to go berserk.

** If the guards witness you attacking/killing someone, there is a pretty good chance that they will [[Determinator|literally chase you across the entirety of the game world]]. One player was apprehended three weeks after attacking a civilian, on nearly the opposite edge of the map, [[Inspector Javert|by the SAME GUARD that witnessed the attack]].

** They can always be very spiteful, too. And not to mention, 99.9% of Tamriel's citizens are above the law. If you provoke somebody into attacking you, the guards will simply tell you to "Move along outlander" or calmly say "Tell me outlander, what do you need?" when there's a Dunmer ''trying to punch your lights out''. If you try to sleep in town, you'll be sent ''right'' to jail, whereas they might get stuck trying to walk over somebody's unconscious body.

** ''[[Skyrim]]'' manages to avoid some of the previous problems with the city guards. While they'll still chase you down and try to arrest you, you can still attempt to flee, as each of the holds (read: city/provinces) tracks crime separately. Kill a man in Riften, and the guards in Whiterun won't care. Also, if you commit a crime and leave the city, the guards ''will'' remember you; an overt crime that earns a bounty will cause them to arrest on sight, while a covert crime like thieving (without getting caught) will periodically result in a guard who will comment "Wait a minute, I know you...." If you stop to talk to said guard, he'll realize you're apparently behind that theft and try to arrest you.

*** Let's get the joke out of the way now. Shooting a city guard in the knee with your bow does count as a crime.

* [[Bethesda Softworks]], in keeping with their above example, included guards in some locations in ''[[Fallout 3]]''. The most notable is Rivet City, which has a practically unlimited amount of guards with combat armor and small arms in defense. Of course, almost everybody in Rivet City can be slaughtered, leaving only the guards and [[Infant Immortality|a few kids]] to take care of.

* Spiderweb Software's ''[[Exile]]'' (and ''[[Avernum]]'') series features guards that aren't really all that tough versus various miscellaneous enemies and tend to get killed easily when defending the town... Except for when YOU piss them off. When that happens, all of their stats (and their attacks/round) instantly triple.

* Each town in ''[[Animal Crossing]]: Wild World'' has two armed canine guards at the north gate. You can't even leave your own town until you get friend codes. The trouble is that you can't get friend codes within the game; you have to get them from other players.

*** Keep in mind, at one point an old lady walks through a field in front of a guard when she is mugged and completely ignores her cries for help. If that weren't enough, after running around a bit the mugger escapes through ''the very door he is guarding''. It seems the ''only'' job these guys were hired for was keeping small children from going outside.

** Alternately, ''Twilight Princess'' assumes that all of the competent guards were killed off/imprisoned when Zant/Ganondorf secretly invaded Hyrule Castle, leaving only the [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|bungling fools]] to stumble around castle town, unaware of why nobody's heard from HQ.

*** Presumed, nothing; the oft-ignored guard on Hyrule Castle's battlements will comment on how most of the guards lost their minds since [[Evil Chancellor|Agahnim]] took over, and muses that it'll only be a matter of time before he's affected too.

* Minetown in ''[[Nethack]]'' has guards that will simply stand by and watch as you and its inhabitants try to kill each other, but God help you if you {{spoiler|dry up one of the town's two fountains}}, in which case every last one of them will be out for your blood.

** Oh, they will also attack you if you directly assault a shopkeeper. {{spoiler|The key word being 'directly': If you anger the shopkeeper by zapping him with a wand or throwing things at him, the guards won't care, and any subsequent beating will apparently be considered self-defense.}}

* ''[[Eve Online]]'' has CONCORD, the neutral police force. If you attack an another player in high-security space without a <s>war declaration</s>bribe, retribution is swift, deadly and unavoidable. In fact, successfully evading them is a bannable offense on the basis that [[No One Could Survive That|it all but requires hax to do so]]. Factions also maintain their own navies, but those are at least escapable, if not survivable.

* ''[[Ever Quest]] 2'' has guards in major cities. Some which are harder than high end raid bosses.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has guards in every city and town (as well as invisible elite guards that only appear to opposite faction players). Guards will give you directions if you ask them, however in some cities (specifically the ones in Stormwind for starters) are rather unpleasant about this. The ones in Undercity basically demand to know what you want for talking to them. To sum it up, all guards are somewhat [[Ax Crazy]] with [[Fantastic Racism]] and will attack/kill players of the opposite faction on sight whether they're causing trouble or not.

** Notably, town guards are usually level-appropriate to the area their town is located in. So they do a good job of driving off enemy-faction players questing in the area, but provide laughably weak resistance to high level players intent on killing everyone in town ([[Hide Your Children|except the kids]]).

** Guards vary on how helpful they are to players in need. Some guards, like Booty Bay Bruisers, will rush to your aid if you've got monsters after you. Other guards won't lift a finger unless the monster attacks ''them.'' Certain guards will react to [[PvP]] combat by killing everyone involved, even if one player didn't do anything. For awhile, this was a very common cause of [[Griefing]].

** Some guards got the [[Invincible Minor Minion]] treatment as of Cataclysm. In all starter areas but Quel'Thalas and The Exodar there are level 90 Elite guards that can kill most level 85s in three hits or less. Should the player ever [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|feel the need to wipe out a town of the opposing faction]] guards will spawn with several times the player's health pool just to be an annoyance. The latter type [[Death Is Cheap|respawns instantly]] on death and [[Determinator|begins to chase you until you leave the town.]]

* In the ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' mod game ''[[A Dance With Rogues]]'', every city guard is single-handedly capable of killing you, and it's impossible to bribe or evade them if they either spot you committing a crime or someone ''else'' reports you to them. This necessitates the use of stealth over brute force, which is the focus of the game. The one leeway you're given is that they'll only give you a verbal warning if it's a minor crime (like walking around with your weapon unsheathed).

* [[Tabletop RPG]] example: This trope is [[Exaggerated Trope|taken to it's logical conclusion]] in [[Exalted]] with the demon Sondok, whose literal ''reason for existing'' is to guard things (thus the title "She-Who-Stands-In-Doorways"). She's ''so'' good at her job, that some of the merchants who summon her have formed a cult expressly devoted to her as a form of contract.