Justice System Brainstorming

Knowing some folks want a functioning justice system and having started to get a few ideas myself I find interesting I thought I'd start throwing some stuff out there.

I expect this will probably be a long post but I'll make some kind of attempt at brevity.. starting now.

Definitions - For the context of this thread
Criminal: The player's character who has engaged in an 'illegal' act according to the local authorities of New Britannia resulting an aquiring a bounty.

Victim: A player character who is both the victim of a crime and not a criminal themselves.

Bounty: A cummulative sum of fees charged for criminal acts, owed by the criminal responsible.

Witness: Any PC or NPC within line of site of a crime when it is committed.

Crime: A form of PvP or PvNPC act deemed illegal by New Britannia authorities. Such as theft or assault. NPCs are included so that players may commit crimes without a PvP flag.

Note: The ideas I'm suggesting here are strictly in relation to interactions between players and Justice related NPCs (mainly guards). How other NPCs react to criminals or former criminals should be a result of overal reputation and personal interactions with any given NPC. In other words.. being a 'former' criminal will likely still draw negative reactions from NPCs as a result of past crimes.

Accumalting a Bounty
Whenever a crime is winessed by one of more NPCs who survive.. said crime is reported to authorities and a bounty is assigned to the criminal according to the crime(s). I point out survival here as it wouldn't make sense for anyone to know who committed a crime if there are no surviving witnesses.

A PC can also report any crime they witness or are a victim of by talking to any living guard. The details of the dialogue can be left for later discussion but it can be anything as simple as "I'd like to report a crime" to needing to know the criminals name and the type of crime.

If a PC is a victim of the crime they can go the local magistrate or court house and file charges against the criminal. Doing so could give you the option to offer a bounty yourself which is added to any existing bounty.

The higher the bounty the more aggressive guards will be in hunting criminals. There are already numorous discussions about bounty systems, guard patrols and prisons so I'd rather leave those discussions where they are for now.

Allowing victims (and only victims) to offer their own bounty allows them to contribute to the system beyond taking an active role in hunting the criminal.

Paying off the Bounty / Path Towards Redemption
There should be options should the criminal decide to pay off or reduce their bounty.

Simply doing good deeds won't satisfy legal authorities. Your bounty must be paid in one form or another.

1: Pay off bounty in cash.. Not my favorite option. I don't like the implications. Perhaps this can be limited to 'petty' crimes. If every bounty is tracked separately this is easy.

2: Prison or labor camp of some kind. Several discussions revolving around this.. so without going into too much detail my favorite concept is paying off the debt through labor..

3: Community service. The general concept is similiar to what I have in mind for prisons. You pay off your debt by completing assigned tasks.. These could possibly be more quest related with more freedom than a prison system.

When the criminal pays off his bounty through some form or other.. a portion of that bounty is awarded to victims who filed charges. In this way the victim is compensated indirectly by the criminal and also recieves something for their trouble. This could require them to pick up their payment or it can just go straight to the bank. I might also consider a time limit on when they can collect.

As for bounty hunting.. assuming there is a PC bounty hunting system.. then I think the bounty collected should be only a portion of the total bounty owed by the criminal. Then if caught and they escape without paying anything off then the amount paid to the bounty hunter should be tagged on to the bounty owed.

A few other thoughts.
If players can file charges then it could be possible to file false charges against someone. Which would be a minor crime in itself if caught. (As such both parties would have to be PvP enabled). The victim in this case would somehow prove themselves innocent resulting in the offender recieving a bounty. The problem I have in this scenario is the proces by which one proves themselves innocent.

Courts & Trials
I really don't see a very good way to do this. It has been suggested that we could bypass a trial system in favor of dealing directly with a judge or magistrate.

Local vs Global Justice
I'm rather fond of regional society elements as opposed to global. Bounties should only apply to regions where crimes took place. Unless a criminal gains enough of a reputation and becomes wanted in multiple counties/towns. (if you think of a county as being x number of hexes surrounding each town). If you're wanted in enough towns then perhaps some of your bounties become local.

Injustice System / Rogue Towns?
Rogue towns could perhaps have a corrupted justice system allowing criminals to post bounties on goodie goodie avatars that give them a hard time. These 'bounties' would not apply elsewhere. Regular criminal bounties wouldn't apply here.

Anyway.. just some thoughts. Also feel free to post links to related discussions. I'm sure there's a few I haven't been following.

 

You have added to The magicpvpsliderbarthingy(TM) like a BOSS, I like it. PvP only enabled fake justice smackdown in a Kangaroo Court would be pretty fun. Judge Membrane presiding of course.

I think I would only add that another detection method be considered, if the game allows for it. If forensic skills/abilities are used and are able to conclude a person is responsible for a crime, any player which uses those skills should be able to have the ability to report this. No automatic report on detection.

 

Much rather see symetric instead of any kind of good vs evil. You're not likely to see any of these crimes with people being able to opt out of PvP.

Now if two cities are at war, you can help either side, and anyone can play either cop or robber, then it gets interesting.

 

You know I'd love to have skills like this. They present some interesting design challenges though that would all be ensure post episode 1 development.

The problem I've been struggling with for a really interesting justice system is how does one go about proving guilt or innocence? What would you have to keep track of? How would you find it? etc And witness testimony just seems kind of out there in left field as far as implimentation in any kind of orderly manner. It's one of those things you can't really do well unless it's all or nothing. Anything in between will just fall flat. On the other hand.. since they're intent on continuing to add new skills the idea may be worthy of further discussion at some point in the future.

 

Bounty systems are not a good idea. They have always been exploited. Get a friend (or another account) to claim bounty and split the cash. Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

That is probably the most obvious challenge of a bounty system. Even if you say a criminal can't claim a bounty you just team up with a non-criminal.

That makes an assumption though that the bounty is collectable on the death of a criminal.. BUT.. if you account for the fact that NPCs in New Brtiannia are aware that avatar's don't die.. then who is going to pay a bounty on the "death" of an avatar? I'd suggest that no legal authority would. You kill the criminal so what? They're still on the loose if you do that and nothing has changed. If you were guard or judge would you pay out a reward for that? I sure as heck wouldn't.

I might even go so far as to suggest that no bounty is paid until the criminal pays it themselves either through currency or labor. That wouldn't be worth trying to exploit. Too much effort for too little reward.. if there's any net monetary reward to begin with. Also if death is severe enough it would also discourage that kind of exploit.

 

If it was a murder charge, then no. If its theft, and you recover the item following the death of he criminal, then yes that that seems like 'punishment' enough.

Unfortunately, applying a single solution to all crimes is not likely to work.

 

I'm thinking non player run towns must have many limits on what you can do. So most crimes would not even be possible.
But if we can have player run towns then this would open things up for your justice system.
Lets say I drop a trapped chest on the ground and someone comes by and BOOM they are dead.

So the guy who got killed should be able to petition the town ruler to do something about this crime.
They guy who put the chest down could then send in his rebuttal if he chooses to.
The ruler then would decide the criminals fate and a bounty if needed.
This would avoid the court battle but the town ruler might have a busy day dealing with its citizens.

Lets say the criminal will not pay his fines and goes about killing others.
I'd say you could use town guards inside city limits and if caught he pays the consequences (whatever those are).
Outside the city should be where the bounty hunters come in.

But we are always back to the question of what to do with the criminal once caught?

 

That's seems far beyond the scope of what a programmed justice system can manage. In fact that sounds like exclusively player run RP to me.

 

Yes, I would like the justice system to be player driven.
Lets say it is not.
Then your only down to the crimes the game knows your committing.
Which are what? Killing, Stealing and Looting?
That should not be to hard to figure out penalties for.
Bounties should include a large sum coming from the criminal who gets caught or killed.

Anyways I think it would be much more interesting leaving some places for players to decide if something was a crime and the fate of a criminal.

 

If a large enough community forms and enough of them have that kind of interest then they can do that. They don't really need a game mechanic for it.. but most players.. outside of that community won't recognize their laws or abide by those judgements. At least not unless there's some sort of mechanism in place for the game itself to enforce it. Which I really have a hard time seeing. It would likely be more interesting though.

Other easy crimes to figure out would be assault and trespassing.. though the latter would require an NPC home as I doubt it will ever be allowed for player property. That's what housing access permissions are for.

 

An intresting idea could be to hold lotterys and have the person who's name is drawn put in stocks for one of two set time periods (50/50 chance).
One day equals a point taken from your physical stats, Two days equals a point from your physical stats and one from your mental stats.

This could be used to appease some "higher power" or as an example of what happens when the law is broken.

But like I said, this is not punnishment for actual crimes but a random happening in some or all towns/cities and all player characters who happen to be in the area of the time of the lottery will be placed in the drawing.

**Better idea than having it be town spescific, have a traveling inquisitor show up...you never know when or where.

 

It may be interesting but don't you think players would be annoyed to suddenly be randomly punished for no apparent reason?

 

Justice system musings for SotA
All of the followings are my own selfish narrow opinions. No guarantees or logic is expressed or implied. Also, the context of what is below is for Online play for SotA.

Justice can have a range of penalties for a range of crimes. The goal of a justice system should be to enforce the law, in a particular region, in SotA. Different regions, both civilized and uncivilized, may have a different concept of what is acceptable, or what is law. Some regions may find theft of any kind to be a capital crime. Some regions may find murder to be a trivial crime absolved by a simple fine.

Ideally there will be a range of consequences for reputation, not just a binary system. Any justice system without NPCs involved will fail. No one can stay awake 24x7, and NPCs don't care about time zones.

Economic/Story Consequences

all tasks & services offered, max reputation
bonus tasks offered
bonus services offered
+1 lower prices (discounts)
0 standard prices, standard services, standard tasks
-1 higher prices
fewer services offered
fewer tasks offered
no services or tasks offered

Justice/diplomacy/political consequences

you are a hero to the citizens
you are trusted by the citizens
+2 you have committed what is considered a heroic act in this region
+1 you have helped the citizens of this region
0 you are considered a standard citizen of the region
-1you have hindered the citizens of this region
-2 you have committed what is considered a crime in this region
you are untrusted by the citizens
you are an enemy of the citizens

If these and more types of reputation exists, with at least these levels of granularity, then a players actions should have a variety of responses from what passes for "law" enforcement in the given regions. In some regions, a player will start out an enemy of the citizens in the region, by default. They may or may not choose a path of redemption, in the eyes of the citizens of that region, or they may choose to reduce their reputation.

In either case, provided both are valid play style choices, a complete set of systems need to be in place, both for raising reputation and lowering it, in all regions. You could certainly have a separate system of justice, not tied to reputation, but that wouldn't be quite so feature rich.

As far as how the guards react to you, it may be that until you are "below zero", the guards pay no negative attention towards you. They may offer you services and tasks as a hero, but as a criminal, you may suffer a wide variety of penalties. What a penalty is in a given region may be completely different compared to another region.

You can always gain reputation by killing enemies of the citizens in a region. However, only doing this will be the slowest way to gain reputation, overall. Performing tasks, contributing to the economy, outfitting NPCs, upgrading structures, upgrading services, feeding the citizens, clothing the citizens, all of these will raise your reputation.
You can choose to perform tasks, entirely for the benefit of the region you want to improve your reputation with. This would include gathering, harvesting, crafting, combat, diplomacy, scouting, transportation of goods and citizens, and so on. (this covers gladiators, hard labor, crafts, smuggling, etc)

Keep in mind, some regions don't have "nice people" in them. Some regions may have, as their dominant population, Orcs, Ogres, and Trolls. That doesn't mean you can't choose to help them. Orcs need food, clothing and cooking equipment. Orc homes need repairs, upgrades. The orc military needs weapons and armor. Orc outposts need wood, stone, metal, and cloth as raw materials. In their reputation and justice system, they may be quicker to trust someone who donates 100 swords and 100 helmets than someone who will bake them 100 pies. Ogres, on the other hand, LOVE pies. But you'll never know until you try and offer them some.

Bounties can be incorporated as long as all bounty hunters are NPCs. The moment you allow players to be bounty hunters, is the moment the bounty system will fail. All you need are NPC organizations that specialize in bounty hunting. You feel you are victimized? You go to them. You select from a server-side list of murderers that killed you, or robbed you, without provocation, and you can dispatch an NPC bounty hunter to kill them, rob them, or beat them up.
Depending on how much you pay will determine what class of bounty hunter or thug is sent. Pay a little, and maybe the target can fight off or kill the bounty hunter. Pay enough, and you can hire a bounty hunter of equal strength to the individual that victimized you. In between those two choices is a large range of options, including more than one bounty hunter, in and out of civilized areas, multiple or infinite attempts until success, and proof of death delivered or not.
The most expensive options could be as much as an expensive house, if necessary, in particular, those where assassination is a high probability. Prices could also be adjusted such that if you truly were an innocent victim, the cost for these services would be greatly reduced, or personalized based on your net worth.

There may be room for players to join the bounty hunter NPC organization, and become bounty hunters themselves, but I don't personally think it's a good idea. Justice should be blind and swift.

Now let's talk about the "normal" civilization areas, and guards and so on.

Crimes in one of the normal 20 civilization locations shown on the current overland map would likely be things like theft, burglary, robbery, and murder. For the moment, let's keep the discussion to those crimes committed against NPCs by PC's. So, PC predator and NPC victim. If your crime is observed by an NPC, either the victim or another, your reputation is immediately affected. You are caught in the act. The guards are enforcement, pure and simple.

So, on the sliding scale of justice, what consequences are used? It can be based on the act at the moment, how frequent the offender offends, is this the nth offense, the reputation value only, or a combination of several factors. Personally, I'm a fan of it being based on reputation only, rather than other systems, because then you always know where you stand, there's no mystery.

As such, the moment you're caught, your reputation is affected, and now NPCs in that region treat you differently. If you've just done something like got caught snooping in an NPCs inventory (hand caught in their purse) you might be just below average, reputation wise. Now, at that point, before more serious consequences, you might note that you have higher prices to pay, some NPCs won't speak to you any more, and some tasks or opportunities are no longer available. However, if you go work in the regional mines, donate food or clothing you've personally crafted, have gone out on patrol duty as volunteer militia and cleaned out a giant spiders nest, or similar acts of community service, now your reputation is healed and you're treated well again.

While your reputation is negative, both the Justice NPCs as well as all normal citizens of the region will treat you poorly, verbally. Name calling, tripping you, pushing you aside, bumping into you, things like that would add greatly to the immersion of the experience.

Where do Jails play a role in justice?
If a player's reputation finally reaches a point where they are no longer welcome in the areas of a region patrolled by NPC guards, they should at first be removed from those areas without harm.
As has been pointed out, death to an Avatar/Otherworlder is an inconvenience. Each region has the power to prevent entry into their land hexes, though, (banishment) and may do so in an incremental fashion.
At first, as a reputation value drops, a player is no longer welcome in cities. (Miscreant)
Then, a player is no longer welcome in towns or cities. (Criminal)
Next, a player is no longer welcome in villages, towns, or cities. This is the lowest possible permanent reputation a player could have. (Enemy?)
Finally, a player is no longer welcome in villages, towns, cities, or immediately adjacent wilderness hexes. This would be the lowest possible reputation a player could have in a region, but it would be temporary. (You could call this "Exile") Why?
There needs to be a way for a player to attempt to gain reputation with a region, in particular, if that region treats all outsiders as hostile. If a player manages to get themselves Exiled, after a timer expires they can still work their reputation back up by killing creatures that are enemies of the region, in the land hexes that are adjacent to the region.

What reputations warrant detention and/or arrest and/or banishment? I think the following could work:

• Miscreant - fined & ejected if observed by a guard in a city
• Criminal - fined & ejected if observed by a guard in a town or city. Fined if observed in a village.
• Enemy - fined & ejected if observed by a guard in a town, city, or village.

Being ejected sets a banishment timer on the land hex(es) that cannot be reduced.
With respect to how often you can be fined, that would be once per in-game day, to start, more frequent if necessary.

Optionally, this may be an interesting mechanic to have; If you can't pay the fine, on the spot, you must participate in a jail scenario to be ejected. Otherwise, if you can pay the fine immediately, you're transitioned to the overland map.
Optionally, each attempt to re-enter an area you are banished from increases the fine that must be repaid before re-entry, (after the banishment timer expires) with a dialogue box to confirm the attempt to re-enter. Or you could just prevent them if you don't want to bother with that.

Ejected means you leave. How you leave could be up to you. You can leave immediately via a transition to the overland map or there may be a jail scenario you could attempt.
Tasks to gain reputation would be found in village hexes, outside the protected-wall area of the village.

Working up your reputation from Enemy to "normal", then, would involve:

1. Killing creatures in the land hexes adjacent the civilization hexes of the region until considered a Criminal at least.
2. The above, as well as sneaking into a village unobserved to accept tasks and perform deeds to increase your reputation
3. All of the the above, as well as sneaking into a town, unobserved (if possible) to accept tasks and perform deeds to increase your reputation
4. All of the above, as well as sneaking into a city, unobserved (if possible) to accept tasks and perform deeds to increase your reputation

It's worth noting that although common citizens do not enforce the justice system, they are part of the reputation system. They know you're a criminal. This means even though the guards may permit your presence in a region, you still have to work up your reputation outside the justice system (note the economic/story consequences above).

This could mean that every NPC faction, group, or organization within a region, outside of Justice, may be involved with the reputation system, and require similar player interaction.
--
Looking forward to discussing this further.

 

Ok here are my thoughts on the whole banishment thing.

It only seems natural that at some point guards don't want you around. This could be a result more of reputation than an outstanding bounty. However, I think you have to be caught by a guard in the area before any such status (ie outcast) can be enforced.. if the guards don't konw you're there they can't kick you out. Which isn't to say a citizen can't report your presence.

If this kind of thing was in place then your presenec in the area would be a crime in itself and subject to the same rules as any other crime. Like any other interaction a criminal has with a guard you should have the option to resist.

What I don't want to see is a hard coded mechanic that prevents you from entering an area altogehter.. or guards stationed right at the entrance of a hex. You could also circumvent your exhile by entering an area through the catacombs.

I do like the concept of aiding an 'enemy' which should be a crime in itself. Which gives a whole new depth to criminal activity. Depending on the extent of the crime we could add charges like treason to the list of possible crimes (with appropriate consequences).

I'm not reminded of another post awhile back.. where I suggested the possibility of sabotaging the tesla towers.

If your reputation was "low" enough maybe you could end up being friendly with enemies to the point where the 'dark forces' wouldn't attack you and you could attempt to join them on town raids.. although I'm not sure what the benefit of that would be apart from PvP.

 

The idea of sneaking in to each civ hex via the underworld might work, if that's possible via underground transitions, hex-to-hex, without having to use the overland map. Portalarium hasn't confirmed such a mechanic is going to be possible in SotA, but the technology certainly exists to do it with what's been demonstrated so far.

I don't see any other easy/simple mechanic, other than preventing transition from the overland-map to the hex, as a deterrent equal to banishment using that mechanism.

I'll explain that in more detail. Without preventing transition from overland to ground-level, it's messy. It's not clean. It's also temporary, though, so not overly punitive. I'm not partial to messy, for something like a Justice system.

I should also mention that a variation on this banishment mechanic can be used for strategic pvp death, which is why I'm so keen on it. It's a different topic, but in short, if where you're fighting in PvP matters, or if geographical attack and defense matters, in world-altering player conflict, then removing your target from the land hex for a period of time is the ultimate in strategic death. It can give every PvP death strategic value, without any of the anti-social behavior.

 

@vjek I agree that the more crime you commit should force you out into the wild away from cities.
I think I would go a bit further on working up your reputation from enemy to normal by giving back things you have stolen or some money at least.

As for any justice system without NPCs involved will fail, I don't agree on that.
The example I gave would allow someone to petition the town ruler about a crime commited.
The town ruler does not even have to be online for days before he gets around to reading his petitions.
Plus there would be a voting system to vote in or out town rulers so if none of the petitions are being taken care of then he would be voted out.
I would also have an option for the poeple to look at the petitions and see how the ruler voted on them.
Then the people could show in favor or against the ruling which would effect the rulers reputation.

The problem with NPC taking care of crime is that the system does not always know a crime was commited.
AOE spells could go either way like firefield. Did someone cast firefield on him or did that player run into the fire?
Maybe putting walls next to someone while they are fighting a creature to get them killed or even standing next to them so they can't move.

I'm sure each town will have its share of things people think are unfair and instead of bothering the devs about these things I think many of them could be taken care of through your town ruler and if you don't like it then either vote him out or try to find another city to live in.

 

Here's one of my issues for any RP based system.. something you've kind of touched on already.. is what happens when a critical individual (ie town ruler in this case) goes missing for any length of time. Any system that is dependant upon volunteers to function can easily fall apart. There is no guarentee that their replacement will do any better.

Even among an RP community it takes a special kind of player to commit to taking on roles on which others are dependant upon them for a period of time. People have a tendency to vanish without word due to whatever circumstances and all RP that relies on them grinds to a halt and either has to be set aside or they have to be excluded and/or somehow somehow in order to continue. Simply voting in a replacement also takes time.. and there's no guarentee the replacement will be reliable.

This kind of thing can easily become work. You really need specific individuals who enjoy that sort of thing to stick it out for the long haul. Otherwise burnout will be common.

 

So yes this could happen.
What happens when someone goes missing?
Maybe there can be a second, third, fourth person in charge that takes care of business when the ruler is gone.
It will take some work to keep a town from falling apart.

But even if all the leaders quit, how long would it take to fill those positions again?
I guess this depends on how big the town is and if the system is fun enough to want to rule.

Maybe the town can fall under the non-player town rules until they can vote someone in again.
I think it can work but your right there has to be a way to fall back on something when it doesnt.

 

On a little reflection.. the types of communities that form their own governments are usually going to be somewhat committed and organized just to get to that stage.. but I think that is a topic of PC governments.. (which is popular among RPers but hasn't come up in awhile).

I'm thinking largely of guilds like PaxLair and own PC townships that formed in UO. Those groups for whom community building is a large part of their game. They could do some interesting things. The real overlap in topics here is what kinds of tools should SotA give a player government to enforce laws?

Some thoughts.. mainly I'm thinking the ability to influence guard behavior in their town. I know the original topic in this regard was a system devoid of NPCs.. but I like where my current thought process is going.. keeping in mind that some of this could also be considered a form of PvP.

A town execultive could place a bounty on someone causing the guards to treat them as a criminal. (I would consider this a form of PvP unless the individual really is a criminal). You would basically charge them with a crime.. effectively turning them into a criminal.. but this might not effect their reputation with NPCs..

A town official could perhaps pardon or reduce bounties for crimes committed within the area of the town.

If a player is elected as a guard they might have badge or some other item they can interact with in order to send someone to prison (assuming they are unconscience).

I'm reminded.. yet again of my NWN days. I was Captain of the Guard by election. We recieved special gear and badges which gave us certain powers. DMs would occassionally cause trouble for us to handle and other RPers also tried to cause trouble. One of the few PvP moments I'm actually happy about came about this way.

I would have the stipulation here that all parties involved in the justice system be PvP enabled.. at least while in their own town. They could turn it off when they leave.