Omniscience and Impotence in RPG Legal Systems

[Carpe DM]

I've been working on coming up with principles for designing legal systems in D&D (these will extend to other games).

The basic problem is that legal systems and local authority go underdeveloped in D&D.

Here is the basic set of difficulties that create the problem: (1) Impotence; and (2) Omniscience:

(1) Impotence

First, gamemasters cannot imprison, kill, enslave, or yoink toys from their players without seriously threatening the game. Players, even when they are "lawful," are convinced of their own rectitude, and vigorously resent any legal authority interfering in their activities.

This is the problem of impotence: there are not useful and game-enhancing sanctions that are easy for a gamemaster to impose.

(2) Omniscience

Second, gamemasters often make the mistake -- when they do try to invoke the power of the local authorities -- of making the authority omniscient. This is usually via spells. "The police wizards teleport in, having seen everything through their crystal balls."

The problem with this is that omniscient foes are insanely boring to combat, and players are instantly tired of dealing with them. (Of course, omnipotent foes draw the same reaction, but the important thing here that many DMs miss is that in game terms the one is pretty much equivalent to the other).

Having defined the problem, the challenge becomes:

How to create a potent, non-omniscient legal system, with sanctions that the players care about enough to interact with, rather than resenting the gamemaster.

I've seen this done precisely once, in a campaign with which we are all I'm sure familiar (Eversink, anyone?). What I'm interested in sussing out is what the characteristics of effective RPG legal systems are.

Here is my first crack:

1. Players who you trust. If you have a kick-in-the-door group, introducing strong legal systems is likely to be either (1) perceived as railroading; or (2) a bust ("You lock me up? I kill myself.").

2. Clearly defined parameters: players should know the penalties ahead of time for basic crimes.

3. Opportunities for the players to use the system and become invested in it. Letters of Marque and Reprisal permitting the party to trash an enemy realm's ships is a great example.

4. Actionable sanctions: Let's face it -- imprisonment is a lousy sanction because it ties up the game and pretty much only serves as a plot hook for escape. But fortunately most legal systems didn't use long-term imprisonment as a sanction; they took a person's hand or head off, and went on about their business.

So one good thing to do might be to impose penalties, not imprisonment, for illegal activities.

Are there any other basic principles of effective gaming legal systems that one might use?

very best,

Carpe

 

[Torm]

One thing that can be assumed about the law-enforcement people in a campaign world - they've got TOO MUCH to do. So, with appropriate magic available, unless you're just too nasty a character to allow to go roaming around at all, they're likely to draft you temporarily (or permanently) into helping them with their job, and use magic to do it if necessary, as a punishment..... ?

I thought this thread was going to be about how laws apply to the omniscient and/or omnipotent - is, for instance, Mystra guilty by the laws of Man of criminal negligence for allowing a fireball to be cast at innocents? Could She be sued?

 

[adwyn]

You're right, this is a tough subject that is usually glossed over for reasons of gameplay. Any legal system used must conform to the needs of the game. Some of the things I've found to work in the past for punishments include;

Fines Historical legal codes are great, many go so far as to allocate fines for damage to different parts of the body. Finger 1 penny, hand 7 pennies, and so on.

Private Revenge In several historical societies courts simply granted the aggrieved party the right to go after the law breaker without repercussions. Poorer or weaker parties might have to seek out professional help.

Collective Guilt PC's are slower to get the message here, but in some cases any damages inflicted are repaid (by force if necessary) from others of the same village/race/clan. It is assumed that the criminals own people will then deal with him.

Magic/Curses I once ran an Al-Qudim game where one city relied entirely on the curses of the Hakima. Do something wrong and the victim or his family would go to one of the wise women and have you cursed, usually a hefty penalty to one stat. Wouldn't be lifted until reperations were made.

 

[Crothian]

I use the heavy fine bit. peopel who can't afford the fines are placed in work camps but the PCs can usually afford them. The fines can be steep and inconvient but it won't take away from the game too much.

 

[Carpe DM]

Adwyn:

I think those are great ideas. I am using several similar ones for my far northern setting.

Fines: I'm using wergild (blood-money) instead of death or imprisonment as a sanction for murder. This costs the PCs, but is something that does not disrupt the game.

Curses: Runecasters are good for this one -- a Bestow Curse rune on an item, triggered "If the item is taken from its rightful owner." This idea I got from the Avalanche Press Viking Age book, which discusses Dwarf curses.

I'm also using law in a positive way, so that it is to the players' advantage:

Oaths: If a binding oath is made, the person breaking the oath suffers a curse effect, see above.

Hospitality: If an NPC offers the party bread and water in their household, they are sworn not to harm the party until the next sundown. This gives a nice feel to encounters, where people dining together suddenly learn they are archenemies, but cannot act until the sun goes down because they have broken bread together.

Another question:

How does one deal with the fact that an invested and powerful society can solve any crime using divination magic? (absent the crime being committed by a prestige class with special training -- Zhentarim Spy, e.g.).

I've thought of using a "social scale" to determine when a society's trigger has been tripped, and the violation becomes bad enough that magical means will be used to track down wrongdoers.

best,

Carpe

 

[Henry]

I use the heavy fine bit. peopel who can't afford the fines are placed in work camps but the PCs can usually afford them. The fines can be steep and inconvient but it won't take away from the game too much.

My problem is that I have two players in my game that would rather stage an armed insurrection than pay a fine. It may not be the best solution, but I usually use metagaming to guide those two players along the straight and narrow ("Are you SURE you want to set fire to the magistrate's house/steal from the merchant / get in civil trouble?"), Mainly because I and the rest of the group don't feel like spending the afternoon playing "World's Greatest Police Chases: The RPG".

 

[Carpe DM]

Right -- and I guess I include metagaming in the formula too, Henry (the choose your players well part might also be "Guide your players a little bit").

But it does feel funny to warn players off of illegal acts: I mean, they *know* they're breaking the law, and, indeed, often that's the entire fun of the thing. We do fantasize about being "too cool for school" as far as the law is concerned.

If your players did rob and steal, how would you conduct the police chase? What sanctions are worth imposing?

Is there any way to make this fun for the party as a whole, or is interaction with the law something that -- as you point out -- we just avoid because it's more trouble than it's worth?

best,

Carpe

 

[The Grackle]

Well, your typical PCs are wandering adventurers w/little to no connection to the town they're in (at least at first). If you're capable of killing 90% of the population (at once) and you have millions of dollars of stuff in your backpack, of course you're going to be a little sociopathic. I sure would be.

If a player is more invested in a town (this usually happens later on in most games I play) then they tend to respect the law more. If they own land or buildings, hold titles, or have some office, then there's something the law can take away from them w/o having to wrestle it out of their cold dead hands.

I had a group of PCs that was pretty unruly in a port city they were passing through- beating merchants, threatening police, barging into nobles houses, etc. Then they ingerited a few houses and buildings and they spent the next two adventures raising money to pay the taxes! They were much more civil in that town from then on.

After that, I was sold. Now I always try to provide stronger ties between the PCs and the setting, either in the adventure or through back story.

 

[shilsen]

Another question:

How does one deal with the fact that an invested and powerful society can solve any crime using divination magic? (absent the crime being committed by a prestige class with special training -- Zhentarim Spy, e.g.).

I've thought of using a "social scale" to determine when a society's trigger has been tripped, and the violation becomes bad enough that magical means will be used to track down wrongdoers.

One of the biggest restrictions on a society using divination magic to solve crimes is the fact that magic is a non-transferable tool. What I mean is that the person casting a divination spell is the only person with access to the information gained. In contrast to science, where any number of trained users can use the same tool (e.g. a number of forensic investigators using the same microscope) and see the same thing, the cleric casting the commune or the wizard casting the detect thoughts is the only person receiving the information. Even if four wizards cast the same spell, none of them can know for a fact exactly what information the other one is getting.

So a court - and by extension, a society - becomes completely and utterly reliant on the word and honesty of the magic-user using the divination spell(s). I think this works a very powerful deterrent against relying too strongly on divination magic for legal issues. The fact that there are a large number of anti-detection spells and creative ways of using other spells to fool divinations only adds to their unreliability.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

So a court - and by extension, a society - becomes completely and utterly reliant on the word and honesty of the magic-user using the divination spell(s). I think this works a very powerful deterrent against relying too strongly on divination magic for legal issues. The fact that there are a large number of anti-detection spells and creative ways of using other spells to fool divinations only adds to their unreliability.

It would be possible to get around this, at least to an extent, by having magic items usable by mundanes so you wouldn't have to trust the word of that shifty-eyed cleric. Say, a table that casts divination once or twice/day and displays the answer via image or automatic writing, so the answer can be verified.

Brad