Judge, Jury, and Executioner

from Elemental Forums

 

You know what I just realized? That I’ve never played a game where law or some formal system of legislation, judiciary action, or enforcement has been available for the player to manipulate and affect the game world. Obviously, a system of law could easily get complicated and I wouldn’t want the player to actually have to meet with congress, propose a new law, sign the law, enforce the law, interpret the meaning of the law, etc, etc that wouldn’t be any fun for most people and would take too long to implement. I would like to see a simple streamlined version of a legal system in Elemental. The system could allow for general high level manipulation of your nations legal system.

 For example at level 1 the player could pick:

 Utilitarian system- legal system based on the idea of doing the most good for the largest number of people.

+ Majority of people will support the laws

-  Opposing opinions are neglected  

 

Justice system- legal system based on the idea of equitable treatment of people.

+ People will generally feel they are treated fairly

-  Perfect equity is impossible to obtain

 

Procedural system- legal system based on the idea of perfect consistency within the law regardless of what the laws are.

+ Consistent and long lasting

-  Lacks flexibility and resists change

 

Totalitarian system- legal system based on the idea of one individual creating law for all people to live by.

+ Expedient and easily changed  

-  Lacks consistency and inclusiveness  

 

Example of level 2:

Primary Enforcers: A single group enforces laws and passes judgment

Binary Enforcers: One group is assigned to dedicated enforcement the other to dedicated judgment.

Jurist Enforcers: One dedicated group of law enforcers with judgment being dealt out by randomly selected peers.

Vigilante: No specific group or person enforces / decides judgment in regards to the law. 

The player wouldn’t have to get directly involved in work for any system however the effects on his population, trade, diplomacy, and alignment would be apparent and change over time. There could even be some interactive legal events that would require the player to make some big decisions that would affect the nation or some high profile international incidents.  

 

3,820 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Well the civilization games do something along the lines of your "level 1" examples.   Its the level 2 that doesn't really exist.

 

I notice your level 2 seems to have all enforcers, what about systems where the point is that things were not enforced, or enforced very loosly by no single group in particular?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I can't see any channeler being subject to the law.. after all, he's essentially creating the kingdom out of shards of his own essence.

Room for a game along those lines, though.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Netaddict45, reply 2
I can't see any channeler being subject to the law.. after all, he's essentially creating the kingdom out of shards of his own essence.

Room for a game along those lines, though.

You forget the RPG-oriented players. A channeler's personal character/identity could make him or her want to honor some form of legal system even if that system sometimes frustrated the channeler's work on a specific goal.

Plus, Elemental could take a solid step forward from GalCiv2 by implementing a richer alignment system. GC2 alignment is a sort of trinity in a bipolar world, a single axis running Evil-Neutral-Good. The old D&D alignment system was a Cartesian plane and included Law and Chaos. With twelve factions in the canon game, I'd like to see more than two or three alignment choices, and I'd like to see them have consequences, e.g. being obliged to support an independent judiciary in your realm if you're a Lawful type.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 1

I notice your level 2 seems to have all enforcers, what about systems where the point is that things were not enforced, or enforced very loosly by no single group in particular?

No, no I didn't mainly because it seemed counter-intuitive to me. You could have a level 1 option of anarchist system where the strong survive and the weak die and pretty much anything goes if you have the power to pull it off. Then you could have a level 2 example that equated to street justice where if someone commits a crime against a person / group of people they handle punishment themselves. The only problem I personally have with an anarchist system is they never last very long. They turn into totalitarian systems extremely quickly. The only way to consistently keep them anarchist would be to actively disrupt totalitarian systems from forming in my opinion. Although adding the level 2 example of street justice or perhaps vigilante justice to be more accurate would make sense.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Plus, Elemental could take a solid step forward from GalCiv2 by implementing a richer alignment system. GC2 alignment is a sort of trinity in a bipolar world, a single axis running Evil-Neutral-Good. The old D&D alignment system was a Cartesian plane and included Law and Chaos. With twelve factions in the canon game, I'd like to see more than two or three alignment choices, and I'd like to see them have consequences, e.g. being obliged to support an independent judiciary in your realm if you're a Lawful type.

I cooked up a whole slew of alignment axes for GalCiv: https://forums.galciv2.com/328231/page/18/#2062631 and https://forums.galciv2.com/328231/page/11/#replies. They wouldn't ALL apply to a fantasy setting and would need to be tweaked to fit AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GAME, but why not?

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

What I'm suggesting isn't a new alignment system but just a way to give a Channeler's alignment a legal context and base of operation. Thus expanding the potential for game-play / lore in the elemental world. As I said i've never personally seen or played a game where you actually got to establish a rule of law for a nation. Most games just let you pick good / evil and maybe a form of government but nothing directly relating to laws, courts, and enforcement.