Welcome to Another New Column

[ShannonA]

In the fourth of our real-life(tm) columns, Alex looks at how the legal system applies to RPGs.

[C.W.Richeson]

Nifty cool! I look forward to reading these!

[Tylorva]

*waves hi*

I'm looking forward to producing them! Just post here if you have any questions or suggestions! :D

Alex.

[C.W.Richeson]

Sure! How many years have you been practicing, what are your specialties, and will your column be focusing on EU law or general legal principles?

[Kilgs]

I'll take up any American issues to help out our lawdog from the other side of the pond.

Three months left in school, working for county/district prosecutor for over a year, five years of criminal investigation (mainly white collar/fraud) prior to school. Certified Police 1998-2000.

[Asklepios]

Aha! So you've started your new column then, Alex.

I like it. Really clear layout, nice writing style, solid content. In fact, its inspired me to get back to work on my own (badly laid out, poorly written dubious content) column.

I shall be reading regularly!

[C.W.Richeson]

Yep, enjoyed the first one! Your use of quotes from games really pulls the reader in, great job!

[Tylorva]

I have lots of articles planned for this, as there is a huge amount of potential material. So hopefully everyone will keep enjoying and get some neat ideas. :-)

As for practicing, not very long yet as I am still currently a student (got finals in a few months). I had been hobbying in law for about ten years before deciding to go back to college and actually try and make a new career out of it. Part of my motivation for doing the column is that it makes for a more interesting way of doing large amounts of research that should gain me a few marks for the dreaded finals. ;-)

I'm hoping to go on and do the Bar Vocational Course to become a barrister (British trial lawyer with wigs and robes), but it's horribly competitive, so we shall see.

In terms of the column, I have got a wide range of issues planned. Next time will be contemporary murder and after that some medieval issues. I'm trying to keep it all much more generalistic than specifically English/EU Law. But if people want to contribute US or other country ideas to this forum, go right ahead as I will be very interested to read about it. :-)

[Mirkady]

Rather than the divisions between English Law and the Law of the the various United States, which are actually fairly minor except in detail, the real difference is between the English and American Common Law systems and the Roman/European Civil Law systems. Whilst most English speaking nations have an English inspired Common Law system, the rest have Civil Law. That makes the most common sort of legal system there is.

I'm not a huge expert on Civil Law systems but the thinking behind them is really quite dramatically different. Law is not developed in the same way on the case by case basis familiar to Common Law lawyers. Most Civil law systems instead adopted a completely codified legal system. Its assumptions are rather different as to how the law operates: proceedurally, for example, juries are a Common law feature (they have either been introduced into Civil Law jurisdictions or represent a local variation of the Civil Law model to incorporate local pre-existing tradition) and the adverserial approach to litigation might be replaced by an inquisitorial one (utterly alien to English Law concepts).

I can't help feeling that any exploration of the law will need some reference to the Civil Law systems. Sorry.

Anyway, best of luck with the BVC and pupillage.

[tquid]

I'm not even a proper law student, I'm taking Justice Studies, and am trying to get into law school here in Canada.

I agree with Mirkady's remarks. A little comparative law would be essential for picking & choosing a suitable legal system in a game. One helpful introduction is Glendon, Gordon & Carozza's Comparative Legal Traditions, although for a more thorough and modern study, I'd go with Glenn's Legal Traditions of the World. But the former book is certainly a "GM-level" introduction, giving a nice quick overview of most of what's out there and enough history to ground it.

I'd say the main questions to answer for a legal system are: what are your sources for law? Legislation, custom, case law, other (like religion)? How authoritative are each of them and do they have conflicts over jurisdiction? (This can be fun for chasing across the map, seeking out a favourable court before the authorities get you.) What are the roles and who are the actors, and what are their authorities? (Do judges just hear the facts, as in common law, or are they able to take an active role, questioning witnesses themselves, as in civil law? What functions do the prosecutors and defenders have? In less legally developed countries, a sherriff may have the roles of police, prosecutor, judge, and executioner!) What are available criminal sanctions? Torture is only just behind us, historically speaking, and remains a tool in many countries.

What about international law? Are there any bodies (trade guilds, etc.) that regulate international trade?

Finally, philosophy and law are strongly related--in civil-law countries, it's the academy, in the form of law professors and the like, that is influential in deciding cases, moreso than case precedent. So what's going on in the universities is a big deal. Even in common-law jurisdictions, your lawyers and judges all come out of schooling, so what they learn there is going to be important in forming their attitudes. And of course, what justice is comprises a major preoccupation that philosophers are going to help shape.

All this of course should be aimed at actual play--what will a charge, apprehension, appearance in court, punishment look like for the PCs? If they are there to uphold the law, what are their rights, obligations, and limitations? If answering one of the above questions doesn't make a difference to that, skip it.

Have fun with the column! I'm looking forward to the next one.

--JB

[AusJeb]

Great idea for a column.

I loved the quote from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Jeb
13 year lawyer, 25 year gamer

[smascrns]

Yes, Law is different in the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental world. Yet, in most games the main issues are not about the rules, they are about proof. I think that this is where most games will stop at. Of course, procedures are different from country to country and from a Law tradition to another. Let's see where the column goes with this.

PS I'm a non-practizing lawyer educated in the Continental tradition.

[Tylorva]

Well, the aim of the column is simply to provide ideas for RPGs by dishing up the basics and the principles, rather than going into the intrincities of civil and common law systems! Where it is relevant, I will try and cover both angles, but in most cases that will not be relevant, or simply too indepth for what I am trying to achieve here. :)

Thanks for the feedback thoguh and keep it coming!

[klapton]

It's a promising column. I'll look forward for your next articles. I'm a lawyer here in Spain, so if you want details about the continental system, send a pm.

[Asklepios]

Well, the aim of the column is simply to provide ideas for RPGs by dishing up the basics and the principles, rather than going into the intrincities of civil and common law systems! Where it is relevant, I will try and cover both angles, but in most cases that will not be relevant, or simply too indepth for what I am trying to achieve here. :)

Thanks for the feedback thoguh and keep it coming!

Absolutely agree with you, Alex. Its much better to just present a few ideas and then aim to riff off them in the context of rpgs. The readers of rpg.net are interested in rping first and the specialist topic second, IMHO.

Even a really simple idea like habeas corpus could be the root for all sorts of rp story ideas. Even simple things like what a courtroom actually looks like and what the various people in it do could be useful source material for someone ignorant of Law like me - especially if you throw in some cool ideas of how it could be adapted for various games/genres (Vampire, D+D etc.)

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[Tylorva]

Even simple things like what a courtroom actually looks like and what the various people in it do could be useful source material for someone ignorant of Law like me - especially if you throw in some cool ideas of how it could be adapted for various games/genres (Vampire, D+D etc.)


That's a really neat idea. I'll add it to my list. :)

[Mirkady]

Even a really simple idea like habeas corpus could be the root for all sorts of rp story ideas. Even simple things like what a courtroom actually looks like and what the various people in it do could be useful source material for someone ignorant of Law like me - especially if you throw in some cool ideas of how it could be adapted for various games/genres (Vampire, D+D etc.) That actually rather illustrates the point I was making: habeas corpus is a specifically common law concept (although I presume that civil law jurisdictions have different ways of achieving similar ends) and the entire question of what is in a courtroom and what roles they perform can be utterly different depending on the system (inquistorial vs adversarial systems, judge and jury systems vs expert/magistrate based systems, oral vs written evidence as standard and so on). Anyway, I hope this highlights the fact that a range of options needs to be presented so that an RPer has an idea of what legal systems might be in place, rather than being taken as discouragement for a column.