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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6268253" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's not necessarily the the case with magic.   Heck, that's not necessarily the case with science.It's quite possible to work magic without understanding how it works.  Likening it to succeptibility to illness still admits the moment of weakness theory above, but it also opens up another approach/justification which is not particularly modern but which was adopted by subsistance societies - the notion of quarantine.  That is to say, the person who has been mentally dominated has become diseased, and there is a fear that what he carries is communicable or at least dangerous.   As a point of fact, in my current fiction this is how the large and wealthy city of Talernga has been dealing with the problem, albiet in this case the character in question's crime was against a PC who is not making a complaint (because its another PC).  And the issue of, "How do we know when he is safe to let out?", has already been raised in game.  But Talernga is prosperous, ancient, and powerful with extensive magical resources of its own and a center of learning reknowned through out the world.   It is for lack of a better word, 'progressive', though that word is relative because they stll allow trial by combat as a resolution to some civil suits.  But "We hand him over the priests of Tinel and they ascertain the truth and nature of the illness and proscribe appropriate quarantine and treatment", isn't a real option for most of the world, to say nothing of the matter of Justice if the accused has committed a crime (arson let's say).  If the culpable party is a ghost long dead, where is the justice for the newly devestated family?   Who owes the duty of restitution?On the issue of automatism, I would note that there is even in our spectacularly wealthy societies a great deal of popular skepticism over defenses of insanity, and (especially) temporary insanity and automatism.  What for example gaurantee's temporary insanity won't overtake you again, and wow that sure is convienent isn't it?  Isn't all or almost all crime at some level a sort of insanity anyway?  So the skepticism of my homebrew world to the defense, "Well, it wasn't me doing it", isn't I think that unusual.   In the game world, the bar is set high on the standard of evidence required to prove it, and the bar is set low in terms of the depravity of the crime and the injury incurred before it is natural and easy to excuse it.   For some crimes, like murder for example, I can see the society going, "Ok, well accept a plea of manslaughter and in light of the situation your reduced degree of culpability" (as I've already stated).   But, I have a hard time believing they so readily go, "Oh, he'd been bewitched; he's innocent."</blockquote>

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