CLSWiki: Tea/TrialByOrdeal

An idea for how to make LARP trials:

Quick
Entertaining
Enjoyable to be put on trial regularly

Trial By Ordeal

Justice has spoken, and the evidentiary trial is to be abolished. Actions are now to be judged by her divine authority directly, and the King of Wessex has agreed. She has empowered her priests with the ability to demand a Trial by Ordeal of suspects, in which the power of Justice itself will determine their guilt or innocence...

The Basics

A trial by ordeal is a rite, which takes a few minutes to perform. It generally involves holding a red-hot iron, but a sharp sword may be substituted, or various other such formats devised when circumstances demand. The key point is that the supplicant is set a task believed to be sufficiently difficult that only through the power of Justice could they possibly be successful and declared Innocent. Justice is known to Disapprove greatly of repeated attempts to try a person for substantially the same offense.

OC, this is physrepped using a bead bag. The priest declares their intent to perform a trial by ordeal, naming the victim and the charge, and optionally biases the result if they see fit. The ref brings up the bag, and may bias it further if they are OC aware of the truth/falsehood of the allegation. Then the subject of the trial deploys any relevant abilities, and draws a bead, which they keep secret between themselves and the ref.

While these OC preparations are being made, the priest should conduct IC preparations - honing the blade/heating the irons, preparing the charge and evidence, whatever they feel is appropriate. When the OC steps are complete, the supplicant does the ordeal, a process involving a few minutes of RP, and at the end they are successful or have failed. This answer is provided by the supplicant and watched by the ref, and they cannot lie about it.

Intended Properties

Features I want this system to possess:

1. Playing a priest of Justice should allow you to attempt to ensure justice is done. So they need some sort of skill to adjust the outcome of the trial, possibly to an extent depending on their level.

2. Characters who are lucky, blessed, or whatever should be able to survive trials better. Similarly, characters who are cursed or otherwise unlucky should be less likely to survive.

3. The system should never be certain: no matter how innocent or guilty a given character is, they should always have a small chance of being found the opposite.

4. But as a contrast to this, the refs should have the ability to affect the outcome of the trial, so that the result has some relation to the actual OC truth of the matter.

5. Because this trial system involves more OC mechanics than some others, there needs to be roleplay involved to cover the OC admin time - this is what the priest making their IC preparations is for, hopefully.

6. Trials should be of a roughly known length, and ideally involve some fun roleplay. The optimal arrangement for many larp trials currently is "the accused is unconscious on the floor while people have a long argument over their body", which basically just seems a bit terrible.

Draft Rules

The bead bag contains three colours of bead. Ten white, no red, ten black.

The priest of Justice presiding over the trial may add red beads up to their level as a priest (say on a ranking from 1 to 8), and select if they count as white (innocent) or black (guilty)

The refs may remove beads from a single colour down to one.

If the character in question is lucky, they add white beads to the bag based on their luck. If they are unlucky, black beads are added based on their unluck. Note that this happens after ref pruning.

The bead is drawn and that response is considered authoritative and canonical.

Punishments

Strictly speaking, this only determines innocence or guilt. The matter of punishment is still untouched. However, I envision this going with a setup that uses punishments like fining, maiming, or execution, and avoids long-term imprisonment or the like.

One key feature is that someone who has been found Innocent is indeed Innocent. Justice has decreed that their actions were permitted and righteous. No rerolls.

Comments

This draft system currently satisfies all six conditions. I'm sure it's not ideal, but I think it's a decent start.

I really like this, although I do have a fondness for beadbags. I kind of want some probabilities, how much the suspect can affect the result and so on. --Joey

I should really read the whole thing before commenting. Although, your beads section mentions luck, blessings, etc. Are there any subterfuge type abilities that can affect the bead draw? --Joey

: Luck or something could be a subterfuge skill, or a general skill, or whatever. I hadn't hugely thought that through because I don't feel this is necessarily tied to TT. --Tea

I think that any justice system should have a list of suggested maimings because otherwise everyone always goes for cutting off hands. (which is OK, but gets repetative) --Joey

: Agreed --Tea

I think what you have their satisfies the conditions you have laid out admirably. Those conditions are absolutely not what I would want from an IC justice system, however - specifically, I like it to be possible to Bring People To Justice, not just to Bring Them To Random. It is a nice piece of mechanic design, though. --Jacob

: The probabilities are such that if you bring someone to trial and they're guilty and the judge is convinced of their guilt they are almost certain to be convicted, but I suppose it does still have that small random element. --Joey

Does this system assume that the ref will ask the accused quietly OC if they are guilty or not? Because you say that the ref adjusts the bag based on their OC knowledge but I don't like the idea that if you are guilty then you should hide that fact from the ref. Because concealing stuff from the refs is bad. --Joey

In many cases, the refs will be aware of the answer anyway - they can e.g. ask the victim who did it, remember. But yes. I'm not entirely happy with that mechanic, but I can't think of a 'better' way to do it. --Tea

: Surely given the background, the ref should be deciding if _Justice_ is aware of the answer, not whether _they_ are aware OOC of the answer. Obviously the ref's OC awareness affects Justice's opinion on the matter, but there should probably be ways to fool Justice that aren't 'hide it from the refs' to avoid people trying to hide things from the refs... --ChessyPig

One criticism of this system is that there isn't a place for people to grandstand and people do enjoy that. Perhaps before the priest puts their beads in then they can hear a speech by the accused? --Joey

: The grandstanding is broadly intended to happen during the process of the ordeal itself, while the accused e.g. holds a razor sharp sword over their head while delivering a speech as to their innocence. --Tea

I would not like to see this used as an official trial for crimes system. I do feel it would be fantastic as a Spirit Wrack redemption mechanism and decent as a way of deciding internal faith judgements like "I'm not a heretic!". I think the current TT system of a 3-PC jury from positions of authority is good as it promotes coming to a swift verdict and allows for corruption/taking sides. --Jim
- This still gives a single combination of class and faith an even better ability to stack/screw up trials at no cost or risk. I would prefer to move away from a system where you can start with serious IC power. I'm fine with Law Enforcement PCs as you start as a bottom-rank copper with NPC superiors. Starting as a Judge fro no cost is game-skewing. --Jim
- It may be worth Spirit Wracking (or equivalent) a priest if it goes the opposite way to the one they want, for trying to subvert their god's will. That way there is an incentive for them to not make snap decisions and to allow at least some argument at them.--Jim
That's an amusing idea. --Tea
- There is no way for dodgy bastards to stack the deck or against someone's favour. OK, you could lean on the priest to try and plead for guilt/innocence, but it's got a lot of non-PC-action and OC factors. --Jim
I note the cursing/blessing note - I envision a system which contains this having the ability to mechanically manipulate somebody's luck or divine favour, potentially remotely. --Tea
- It becomes somewhat ridiculous when you have someone impersonating a Justicar and therefore able to guilty everyone with a 100% success rate. Go, go, Hanging Judge. --Jim
Easy fix: IC, the observers are aware of whether the power of Justice was at work in that situation.

This adds a means of fake priest detection. Not sure that;s a good idea. -Jim
- Everyone know that the accused is guilty, they stabbed the Mayor and ate his face in the middle of the bar. The accused gets that 1/16 chance of innocence. Justice looks all kinds of stupid. Where I think this fails hardest is that. In the case of someone obviously innocent, Watch PCs can refuse to waste a Justicar's time on it. In the case of someone obviously guilty getting off, it flies in the face of sense and leads to a greater incentive to just shank them. --Jim
Then Justice has decreed that the accused commited actions which Justice approved of. This is known as 'creating game', and is the risk you take when you decide to go for a full on trial on someone instead of just shanking them in retribution. --Tea

To expand on this a bit: you do always have the option of not trying someone and just going for vigilantism. When you do so, you may well be tried. Justice will then consider your actions. But what she disapproves of very strongly is rejecting her opinion and substituting your own. If you have the balls to just go and shank the guy who shivved the mayor, you have not rejected Justice, you are now willing to face it. But if you do so once Justice has decreed him innocent, you will almost certainly be decreed Guilty. --Tea

The problem is that "Justice" is played by the refs who now have to do a "What Would Justice Do" huddle at each trial where there's a complication like that, rather than firing a PC at it or in extremis, an NPC.

Jim's thoughts on these goals

Your goals seem to be based around creating a semi-randomised trial system, as opposed to a better one of any given sort. Is that intentional?

Playing a priest of any god requires you to aim to fulfil a certain goal. I'd argue that you don't need to give special spong out that affects a major non-supernatural game if your god-given powers give you some influence, roleplaying effects or standing. Monopolies restrict game, and lots of people have a reason to see justice done. If you're adding a "manipulate the numbers" ability via Cursing etc, this can be a Justice Priest ability.

2. Characters who are lucky, blessed, or whatever should be able to survive trials better. Similarly, characters who are cursed or otherwise unlucky should be less likely to survive.

I'm not sure of the rationale behind this, other than a set of Numbers that serve to mess with trials. It seems to be sliding down the "rollplay not roleplay" route for conflict resolution. Not to mention another source of level-based transferable power in Blessings.

3. The system should never be certain: no matter how innocent or guilty a given character is, they should always have a small chance of being found the opposite.

I feel this is an excellent goal for a supernatural trick that is respected but not given sole legitimacy. Because when the God of Justice makes a bugfuck crazy decision, you then have a more balanced level of conflict between the authorities and the temple firebrands, as opposed to the problem being Some PCs vs the Whole Legal System. Contrast with Whispers through the Black Gate at Empire, where you can bring in the murder victim as your star witness, but they are no more than a witness.

4. But as a contrast to this, the refs should have the ability to affect the outcome of the trial, so that the result has some relation to the actual OC truth of the matter.

This is effectively the refs stepping in to take the place of PCs trying to gather evidence using their own skills. Effectively one PC (the priest) gets most of the game.

This only applies to Trial By Bead-Draw solutions.

As written, the Ordeal would fix this but create a new and interesting set of problems. A legal requirement or Tradition of Mob Rule that the accused must be able to See Justice Done to them and so has to be awake and potentially able to participate would solve part of this.
Additionally, a deliberately too-strong Double Jeopardy protection would mean that you have the choice of acting now, or when you have all the evidence, or shanking them. Because tough luck if you get a signed confession too late. Also has the fun property of guilty parties trying to get themselves tried based on shit evidence. that they can disprove easily, leading to a swift trial.
One of the reasons behind this is the capacity for Stealth Priests to explode in a blast of Ultimate Faith when deep in the shit. A new system can remove such an opportunity. For example a cheap and effective warding you can place on an unresisting target to stop them casting but not speaking for 5 minutes. Think magic circles in the Dresden Files books. This sort of exists in TT but it's a L7 Purity miracle :P.