Criminal defence quests

[Kjujik]

It’s been bugging me for quite some time, so after lurking a bit in this obviously prestigious magazine, finally decided to sign up.

The typical criminal defence quest in most RPG’s always goes for the same ol’ tired goody-two-shoes jury of peers fair trial nonsense. Just think of Rolgan’s trial in NWN or the murder trial quest in NWN2. Someone is accused of murder. You interrogate the witnesses (only direct examination and no cross – what gives!). Than the jury raises torches to show their verdict. I know the most dev’s are based In Anglo-Saxon culture, but why can’t they try to make things more realistic.

In the ‘ye good old days’ (TM) we had Inquisition, confessions were extracted by torture, hell even the witnesses got tortured to see if they were lying. And what about the trial of water/fire/combat or burning at stake. The cool stuff we always wanted to do but never had the chance to IRL. And it would make for a much more interesting quest, instead of just talking some BS and waiting for the juror to raise a torch. Why not let the player fight as representative of the accused to prove his innocence. To let him bribe or intimidate the judge/jury. Or to accuse someone else of causing the crime through sorcery – ensuing in a lynch mob scene. The possibilities are endless.

So far the only games that IMHO got it right were Fallout 2 with the Joshua quest in Vault City – you got real taste of oppressive police state – or TWicher series – with the lynch mob scenes (especially in TWicher 1, where you could choose to just slaughter the whole village to defend the witch).

Anyway, what is the opinion of prestigious posters on this subject?

 

[Skittles]

I would kill for a Judge Dee game, by the way.

I'm having a hard time thinking of many games that use this mechanic, so I can't comment expansively. You get executed if you fuck up a quest in the last Co8 mod of TOEE that I played, but that didn't have much of a trial component. I did play through NWN2 a couple of months ago, so I do have some specific critiques of that game's handling of the trial system.

First, the obvious flaws and some observations:
--No matter how you performed, the outcome was the same, trial by combat.
--Collecting evidence was a no-brainer. I guess if I were supremely confident of my character's speaking abilities, I could've just called the trial then and there, but that was obviously just cutting myself off from content and hurting my chances of succeeding in the trial.
|_>This could've been handled much better if it were more ambiguous about success or failure in collecting evidence. A wide variety of possible evidence, some of it useful, some of it useless, and perhaps some of it outright harmful to your case would've been a good first step. Next, ambiguity about whether you have the 'best' possible testimony from a witness or all the clues you need to make a specific point (e.g. that it was Starling that did the killings, in this game).
--The trial was pretty railroaded. There was very little strategy in the process except for a sort of 'gamble' on using a bluff or other speech check to advance your case.
|_> Tying the ability to use gathered evidence to make a point to an intelligence/knowledge/other check would've added a little more risk to the trial scene beyond the simple speech checks--failure to correctly interpret or present evidence should result in a deterioration of your position.
|_> Giving the player to plan the order in which they present their evidence and witnesses to allow some player strategising would've been fun. This runs the risk of getting mini-gamey, but an honest-to-God puzzle, requiring the player to logically construct a case (by simple ordering, no more) could've been a great opportunity to add a fun mechanic.
--There were no consequences for prior actions--I burned down a goddamned police station in broad daylight, but the city was still 100% on my side during this trial, except for one or two snide comments before. Your relationship with the parties should play a role in how the trial goes (I know, justice is supposed to be blind, but c'mon).

These suggestions imply that the success of the trial wouldn't be a 0 or 1 outcome. Adding different conditions for success and failure would be important to keep this interesting. In NWN2, it seems like it would've been easy to do something like this, from most to least optimal outcome:
1. Your accuser is demonstrated to be trying to frame you, and is held in contempt of court, imprisoned and you are given all her stuff.
2. Your accuser is demonstrated to be making accusations in bad faith, and is ordered to pay you restitution.
3. Your accuser's accusations are thoroughly rebutted, and you are free to go.
4. Your accuser's accusations are rebutted, but the judge deems a trial by combat fair/politic.
5. Your accuser's accusations are not rebutted, but the judge grants you the right to defend your self in trial by combat.
6. Your accuser succeeds making her case, and you are fined and jailed.
7. Your accuser is able to convince the court beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are guilty of the crime, and you are arrested and extradited, with the possibility of fighting your way out.
8. Your ass is executed.

Further, there should be faction consequences. Most optimal solutions should provoke assassination attempts down the road by the kingdom (don't make me look up names) of your accuser, while it might open up potential quests with the court. Less optimal solutions, where some of the charges seem to have stuck, should provoke higher prices and perhaps fewer quest options from the watch down the road, but could open up the possibility of missions with an assassin's guild or earn you respect from warlike groups (like the orcs, if they had ever really come up again) who respect the whole massacre thing. Escaping captivity should require a secondary quest to keep the watch from trying to arrest you on sight in Neverwinter.

This is all fantasy, of course, but they're mechanics that I think could've improved the game. While I'm fantasizing, let me add a few things:
++The trial could've been turned into a wholly strategic affair, with rounds of 'battle' for different witnesses and during opening and closing cases, and presentation of evidence (fuck it, I'm not a lawyer, but you get the idea). Before the trial, you can decide what order you want to present your witnesses, as mentioned above. In the trial, you should be able to competitively produce evidence to counter claims made by the opposition as they're made with arguments of your choosing (supported by evidence, if you can). As you say, cross examination of witnesses could be an awesome opportunity to either destroy a witness' credibility (WITH THEM HATING YOU LATER, please) or turn them to your side. Success or failure for each action should be a distinct check on your intelligence or speech skills (3.5 has three, doesn't it?), and there should be a contextually logical 'best' attack, so tactics as well as character level matter.
++There could be more pre-trial politicking. Beating, bribing, befriending or killing key witnesses, members of the jury or even people responsible for executing the law in order to sway them should be a possibility. I would love the chance to find a way to have somebody set fire to the goddamned building if you want to sidestep it all and make an escape.
++If we were getting really far afield, each juror and the judge should have vested interests and things that are more or less effective in swaying him or her. Part of the trial should be figuring out what affects what jurors and playing to the right audience. It doesn't matter if you intimidate your accuser into looking like a cowering fool if the jury is still sympathetic--or vice versa, if you make a good enough perform check, you could play through as a martyr in the eyes of they jury.

Anyway, end fantasy. Fun thing to think about.

 

[Kjujik]

A lot of good ideas

Whoa thanks, never thought anyone would seriously reply to a newfag and all.

Anyway, the Judge Dee game would really be awesome, however not likely to happen. I’m not familiar with the mentioned mod, but it sounds cool and will definitely give it a try at some point.

As for the NWN trial system, at least it’s not as railroaded as IRL here on the Old Continent. As a defence attorney you can just sit back and let the prosecutor and judge do all the work – after all they have to include all the evidence advantageous to the defendant. So packing some sandwiches and a newspaper before going to court is mandatory. All work is done before the trial – but that’s just usually filing a few motions.

The evidence gathering in NWN, while okayish, could sure use some tweaking, like skill checks etc. That way it would reward assigning skill points to search by being able to see some clues and lore by being able to interpret them. Thus power-gaming and ignoring “useless” lore skill would punish the player. Or maybe the requirement to have some books in the inventory or such. I really liked how in TW1 you could not properly conduct the autopsy unless you read some obscure book about flies.

The trial by combat, although cliché is actually fairly historically accurate. It could be possible to spice things up by having to select a representative and controlling a different character in combat (i.e. some weakling againt mega-uber-tough inquisitor).
The “Ordalia” (trial by fire etc.) could easily be implemented as a series of save throws (against fire, will etc.). While not as cinematic as the rest, it would be more historically accurate. A fun twist could be the trail by water (if drowns = innocent, if survives = guilty). That way not dying would result in major reputation loss, just like it used to in the past. Or would at least requirie the player to sacrifice one party member to prove the innocence of the whole party.
Also the confession under torture could provide for some plot twists. Like in Umberto Eco’s “The name of the rose”, where confession to witchcraft would save Salvatore from torture and grant him quick death, while William of Baskerville’s continuous objection resulted in long agony. That way the typical BioDrone going for “paragon points” would end up losing reputation.

Your suggestions about implementing trial strategy are spot on and it sure would be sweet if some game had at least parts of such system. If I recall correctly back in early 90’s there used to be a fun DOS game called “trial” or “objection” or something like that. It had a really good system of witness interrogation and raising objections. It was supposed to be “educational”, but was quite fun. Don't bother checking out the new editions, they are really overpriced and technicall, even real ambulance chasers get bored playing them. Sure would be great to see something similar to the original implemented in an RPG.

Thanks for the grate ideas, it sure is good to fantasy.

 

[DraQ]

It’s been bugging me for quite some time, so after lurking a bit in this obviously prestigious magazine, finally decided to sign up.

The typical criminal defence quest in most RPG’s always goes for the same ol’ tired goody-two-shoes jury of peers fair trial nonsense. Just think of Rolgan’s trial in NWN or the murder trial quest in NWN2. Someone is accused of murder. You interrogate the witnesses (only direct examination and no cross – what gives!). Than the jury raises torches to show their verdict. I know the most dev’s are based In Anglo-Saxon culture, but why can’t they try to make things more realistic.

In the ‘ye good old days’ (TM) we had Inquisition, confessions were extracted by torture, hell even the witnesses got tortured to see if they were lying. And what about the trial of water/fire/combat or burning at stake. The cool stuff we always wanted to do but never had the chance to IRL. And it would make for a much more interesting quest, instead of just talking some BS and waiting for the juror to raise a torch. Why not let the player fight as representative of the accused to prove his innocence. To let him bribe or intimidate the judge/jury. Or to accuse someone else of causing the crime through sorcery – ensuing in a lynch mob scene. The possibilities are endless.

I blame attempts to politcorrect everything, including fiction, while forgetting that fiction is just that - fiction.
So we have no racism, fair trials, no sexual discrimination and so on, completely overlooking how unlikely would all those be in typical fantasy or even somewhat crapsack sci-fi universe.

So far the only games that IMHO got it right were Fallout 2 with the Joshua quest in Vault City – you got real taste of oppressive police state – or TWicher series – with the lynch mob scenes (especially in TWicher 1, where you could choose to just slaughter the whole village to defend the witch).

Anyway, what is the opinion of prestigious posters on this subject?

Well in Twitcher it was the villagers that made a choice and they chose wrong.

 

[oscar]

KotOR 1 actually had some decent ones, where who was wrong and who was right was hard to tell (and often required a lot of extra investigation). Also gave you a decent moral decision if you did find the truth, whether you protect the Republic and it's image at the price of letting a murderer go free.

As mentioned I quite liked Mannan (though the slow walking underwater shit sucked).

 

[SCO]

The laura bow games ended with a "inquest" where a investigator dealt you extremely detailed questions about the murders (you had to gather evidence AND annotate "common sense" things to be able to even start to figure out the right response, sans power word: Internet.

If you failed, you had a "bad ending" where the murder killed you next - it caused much butthurt (because the game didn't record anything for you, or handhold you in any way, and it wasn't necessary to gather the evidence to progress - you could reach the end without a clue about the murders).

 

[JarlFrank]

I blame attempts to politcorrect everything, including fiction, while forgetting that fiction is just that - fiction.
So we have no racism, fair trials, no sexual discrimination and so on, completely overlooking how unlikely would all those be in typical fantasy or even somewhat crapsack sci-fi universe.

Absolutely. The political correctness in modern RPGs is one of the main reasons why we cannot have nice things. Religious persecution? There might be some conflicts like between mages and templars in DA, but there's nothing like an inquisition, no forced conversions, no fanatical holy order warriors who kill pagan women and children. Racism and cultural oppression? Witcher is the only game that does this halfway satisfactory, and, of course, if a game has some racial prejudices it never really extends to the player. You don't even have slavery or a restriction of citizen rights.

I hate how all the faggots and trannys go "OMG GAMING IS MAKING SO MUCH PROGRESS IN PORTRAYING SERIOUS TOPICS BY SHOWING SEXUAL DEVIANCY IN POSITIVE AND TOLERANT WAYS!". No. Fuck you. That's not progress. That's not serious portrayal of serious topics. That's faptastic fanservice. A serious portrayal of such topics would mean including persecution, bigotry, corruption, fanaticism, etc, and force the player to deal with these issues or even to make use of them in order to save his own ass.

 

[DraQ]

Absolutely. The political correctness in modern RPGs is one of the main reasons why we cannot have nice things. Religious persecution? There might be some conflicts like between mages and templars in DA, but there's nothing like an inquisition, no forced conversions, no fanatical holy order warriors who kill pagan women and children. Racism and cultural oppression? Witcher is the only game that does this halfway satisfactory, and, of course, if a game has some racial prejudices it never really extends to the player. You don't even have slavery or a restriction of citizen rights.

I hate how all the faggots and trannys go "OMG GAMING IS MAKING SO MUCH PROGRESS IN PORTRAYING SERIOUS TOPICS BY SHOWING SEXUAL DEVIANCY IN POSITIVE AND TOLERANT WAYS!". No. Fuck you. That's not progress. That's not serious portrayal of serious topics. That's faptastic fanservice. A serious portrayal of such topics would mean including persecution, bigotry, corruption, fanaticism, etc, and force the player to deal with these issues or even to make use of them in order to save his own ass.

This. It's not much of a problem if you have some futuristic utopia as your setting (attacked by some evuuul obviously), but in fantasy or any somewhat crapsacky setting it's a problem, because it's the equivalent of creator's going "LOOK EVERYBODY! MODERN VALUES!".

Conversely, if someone made a historical or mythological ancient Greece game, it'd be equally infuriating if it didn't have a lot of nudity and general gayness.

Also, Morrowind had a lot of potential, too bad it remained mostly untapped.

 

[KickAss]

Racism and cultural oppression? Witcher is the only game that does this halfway satisfactory, and, of course, if a game has some racial prejudices it never really extends to the player. You don't even have slavery or a restriction of citizen rights.

I think Arcanum did racism well - towards gnomes and orcs (the latter was class struggle as well)..

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

KotOR 1 actually had some decent ones, where who was wrong and who was right was hard to tell (and often required a lot of extra investigation). Also gave you a decent moral decision if you did find the truth, whether you protect the Republic and it's image at the price of letting a murderer go free.

As mentioned I quite liked Mannan (though the slow walking underwater shit sucked).

Though it must be remembered that all the moral ambiquity is sucked right out of it by the way they've established the Sith as completely, irrevocably evil (and of course, there's really only positive depiction of Sunry). Shit quest.

 

[Phelot]

Isn't this more of a "Why can't they make cool games?" rather than an actual problem with cRPG's? It's really just a matter of writing, like with TW1, in the English version just about everything sounded nonsensical and excessively edgy "Yeah racists, take that!" I thought TW2 did it better.

I think Arcanum did racism well - towards gnomes and orcs (the latter was class struggle as well)..

Yeah, definitely thought Arcanum did a good job especially since racism towards gnomes was in a sense justified, but the gnomes appeared to be justified with what they did in order to protect themselves.



Anyway, I think a fun game could be made that revolves around criminal defense though I'm not sure if it'd fit as an RPG, but would probably be easier as a adventure game. I can't imagine a defense lawyer running around killing rats and thugs in order to find clues to his client's innocence. If it's just latched onto a cRPG than it almost always feels gimmicky.

TBH I thought NWN2's trial was pretty good, but I barely remember it.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Then NWN2 trial was decent because you could still lose even if you had all the evidence backing you (like black people in the Kwa - yes I know keep it in GD). A lot depended on how you presented the evidence and how far you pushed the witnesses and court. At least I think that's how it worked. It has been awhile.

Of course they chickened out and allowed that duel to prove your worth. Would have been better to have a mandatory save before the trial and if you lost you died.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, generally Diplomacy was the winning move all the way (if you wanted the FLAWLESS VICTORY feat), but there were a lot of fun variables there. Like how being part of the thieves got you that drunkard act sent in to defend you.

 

[Davaris]

In the ‘ye good old days’ (TM) we had Inquisition, confessions were extracted by torture, hell even the witnesses got tortured to see if they were lying.

This is a great little movie for exploring that. Witchhunter Vincent Price and his torturer henchman, are paid for each witch they find. Both are corrupt and any excuse will do. Vincent's character is very well connected and is untouchable using legal means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchfinder_General_(film)