[We The People] Working thru the Mechanics

[nitramwi]

"We The People" is my first attempt at designing a RPG.  Its about a group of jurors deciding the guilt or innocence of the accused in a trail.  Its influence comes from "12 Angry Men", a 1957 movie about a jury, locked in a room, decided the fate of a young man accused of killing his father.  Initially, the vote was 11 for conviction, 1 opposed.

The drama and tension of what happened after that is what "We The People" is all about.

I want to create mechanics that:

A)  Creates the initial "evidence" presented during the trail.

B)  Allow the players to expand upon that evidence from what they may have "observed" during the trail.

The players will vote on conviction in 3 phases; no mechanics needed there, as the players will decide how to do that.  The "GM" will be the "Bailiff", and one player will be the "Foreman", with there roles the same as in a real jury.
My goal is to have the session player driven, with no clear result apparent at the beginning.

Here also is a great Wikipedia Link to the original movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men

Any ideas or suggestions?

:)

[King Turnip]

First off, I like the idea.  It definitely has some legs to it.  I especially like the fact that the players set the rules on how they vote.

The "GM" will be the "Bailiff", and one player will be the "Foreman", with there roles the same as in a real jury.

What does the Bailiff do?  This game seems to be completely focused on the interpersonal interaction between the jurors, wouldn't the GM be a third wheel?

I want to create mechanics that:
A)  Creates the initial "evidence" presented during the trail.
B)  Allow the players to expand upon that evidence from what they may have "observed" during the trail.

Creating evidence: each player could kick in one piece of evidence at the start of the game to the initial pool.
Expanding evidence: each player has tokens (maybe a dice pool) to create facts or evidence.  Possibly include a mechanic to replenish these.

Simple mechanic:  Each player decides at the beginning to vote "guilty" or "not guilty" (or possibly rolled randomly) and has a disposition of X.  As the argument goes on, the players can influence each others dispositions, convincing them to switch sides.  Of course, unanimous decision is necessary to go either way.  While sheer force of will (straight roll) could possibly switch a low disposition, building a bonus by bringing in the evidence, etc, is a more probable solution.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I couldn't have put it much better than the Turnip.  To begin the game, each player should secretly write a piece of evidence on a slip of paper and hand it to the Balif.  Then he should write guilty or not guilty on a second slip and hand it to the Foreman.  Each player starts with X number of tokens- say ten.  Each time a player wants to add an "Observation" he has to spend a token.  An "Observation" is treated by a fact by all the other players.  If a player wishes to modify that Observation, he/she must also spend a token.  Turn order is important and probably should go in order of Jury Number.  That's probably something the Balif would hand out at the begining of the game.  Then, and players narrate their observations and discuss they will get closer and closer to a verdict.  Each time a player runs out of tokens, a vote is taken.  All guilty or all non-guilty means the players succeeded.  If it winds up a hung jury, that means the players failed.

How's that sound?

Peace,

-Troy

PS: This would probably be a diceless game.

[nitramwi]

I like both ideas presented so far!

I am considering a few things...

First, to ensure that there is a "split vote" at the begining, to make the players take different sides initially.  Would be as easy as handing out a card from a playing deck, red cards not guilty, black guilty.  That would help create some initial tension.

The idea of each "group" of players presenting evidence is good also.  I also want the game to end in a reasonable amount of time.  I've already considered 3 rounds of votes, so letting each side have 3 attempts at persuasion seems reasonable.  I could always add more latter.

The idea of a "Hung Jury" = Players Loose I do not like.  Instead, a mechanic of each player on each side draws a card.  Red cards count as a point, whichever side has the most points wins the verdict.

While the Bailiff role is limited, he is also there to help deal with arguments between players, act as an impartial moderator.  While a "GM-less" approach could work,
some one still has to set up the initial case, and some initial evidence.

Thanks for the input!

:)

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hey Len,

Since we talked about this game at Rock Con, I've been doing some thinking about it. I think to get the investment you likely want from the players you'll need something that really pushes people towards wanting to win but being willing to lose. I'm not sure how to do that exactly, but I imagine there should be some sort of resource management going on.

If I was making the game I think I'd use voting for the conflict resolution which I believe you are already considering. I would start perhaps by handing out an even split of guilty and not guilty cards, or a near even split for odd numbered groups. I would add to it some resource that people have that the players can use to bribe other players to vote their way. I think I'd split this into guilty tokens and innocent tokens, and have the initial cards provide a bonus to one of those totals. I'm not sure why but in my head I seem to see this resource being non-even so certain players can have more chips... perhaps someone stands in for the prosecution and the defense. Perhaps even adding a win condition to drive competitiveness, so the person with the most number of chips of the verdict is the winner. I think that conflict resolution would add more chips depending on who won. I would also add structure so we have perhaps an introduction, the prosecution's case, the defendants case, and then of course the jury room. I think my ideas would require a time duration or turn duration to bring the game to a close. I'm not sure how to prevent a hung jury though.

So there's an initial jumble of ideas for you. Hope it's helpful.

I also agree with other folks in that it sounds like the Judge role as presently envisioned can be taken care of through the game system. You could take something like InSpectres and have a chart to generate the initial condition.

[nitramwi]

Currently, I want to develop mechanics to create a case.  Once the "case" is on the table, how to let players manipulate it should be clear.  I'm also considering having the GM act as the Foreman.  I just want to avoid "bias" of the GM from effecting the judgement as much as possible.

Perhaps that can not be done.  I've also considered letting the GM develope a case, with his own bias, and see what testers reach as a verdict.  Getting ahead of myself though...

:)

The idea of resource mangement seems like a great idea also; since I want to get case creation down first, that will be something I'll mull over thru this holiday week.

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello,

This game idea is taking on less of an RPG and more like a bidding and resource game. The actually case and evidence don't seem to matter much, but the qualities and quantification as related to the defense, prosecution, judge, jury and other court staff do. Expand on this by developing relationships, triggers and actions for all the participants and objects in the court room. Assign values to those and let the opposing players buy resources to sway the outcome.

You may also have a deck of random actions, witnesses, evidence and court procedures that affect the case.

This could make a fun card game, too.

To make it seem fair, the players would be divided into teams. The participants of the courtroom would be depicted with a game board or mat. The teams each have chips representing their focus and expend them to sway jurors, witnesses, evidence and the judge. The teams physically place chips on the elements of the courtroom and use thresholds and simple formulas to determine a juror's decision. Each turn the prosecution must "lock" a juror into voting guilty through the mechanics of the game. The defense must keep that juror "open" but can never lock them. After 12 turns if the jurors all vote guilty then the prosecution wins. Otherwise, some mechanism is used to randomly determine the votes of the remaining jurors.

Troy

[nitramwi]

Thanks for an interesting alternate to the initial idea Troy!  That may be worth looking into.  However, my initial idea is to "lock" the Jurors in there own room, and have them decide the case.  I want to avoid a real "trail", and concentrate on the inner workings of a "jury", and the interplay that occurs there.  Some one has suggested that I might be better creating mechanics that allow the players to create a "case" they want to judge, and use player driven mechanics to let that "jury" decide the outcome.  That may be a good route to start with...

Some suggested that the game should allow for various types of jury's, from a conventional murder case, to a Vampire LARP style judgement from a Princes court.  I'd like to have that flexability in the game.

I also like the idea of a game that can run, at say a convention, with 12 people, over a few hours, that is mostly player driven, with little to no knowledge about the game by potential players.  Keep it Simple Silly, (KISS), seems a good motto as to how I'm approaching the games design.

:)

[masqueradeball]

The thing about "12 Angry Men" thats getting overlooked here is that the movie was a statement about racism, and the motivations of the characters within the movie were largely based on interpersonal factors that they brought with them before entering the courtroom. I think the game should have something along the lines of Pendragon's "Traits" or perhaps randomly assigned/choosen prejudices. Also, bring a sensitive matter like racism to the gaming table may make for some volatile, but exciting roleplaying of done skillfully and with earnest players. I don't know, maybe your looking for something lighter than that, but court drama, for me, looses much of its appeal when the moral questions that rise up around crime and the justice system's views are ignored.

[contracycle]

When you say that players will vote in three phases, is there some structure to these phases?  Because as I recall part of the tension on the film in question is that they vote many times and fail to get a unanimous decision.  So maybe that should be something they can do any time?  The requirement for a unanimous outcome provides tension every time a vote is called.  Its also a primary duty of the foreman.

Howvere I also think there is an inherent contradiction between the tension-through-unanimity idea and the bidding suggestions, becuase if I am playing to win surely unanimity is what I'm trying to avoid.

[David Artman]

IIRC, 12 Angry men also presented most (all?) of the case as flashbacks or descriptions by the jurors.

So I'd begin play with entering deliberations, and I'd try something like letting each player provide a word or concept so that, when all are taken together, they describe the crime (i.e. shared contribution and negotiation). Thus, folks would begin the game by establishing what sort of guilt/innocence issue they want to explore.

Then, go in turn order, but have two stages to each turn cycle: a Courtroom Stage and a Jurors Stage:
Courtroom Stage: The player may introduce a piece of evidence in favor of or against the defense. Another player may attempt to "cross-examine" by bidding a resource. A successful cross eliminates the item of evidence; otherwise, it's entered into the Court Record. All of these interactions should be role played, with various players taking roles of attorneys, the witness(es), and the judge (if, say, someone bids a resource to make an objection rather than to cross--say, if they can't figure out a way to refute the claim on cross but they want it knocked down).
Juror Stage: In this next round of turns, the player may call for a vote, try to argue a point (i.e. try to refresh his bidding resource), or try to manipulate another juror (ie.e. give up resources to, perhaps, skip that juror's Juror Stage or to force that juror's vote in a guilt/innocence vote).

The Courtroom Stage scenes, then, would be the main points of role playing; and the Juror Stage scenes would have some role playing (arguing a point would basically mean trying to get the other players to give you resources) but would really be where the mechanics engage (exchange of resources, control of other players).

Thus, one could end up with a sort of push-pull of tensions: portraying various characters in the courtroom is how one fleshes out the details of the trial, while also trying to be persuasive so that folks don't knock you down in cross; but once in the jury room, a player is trying to "win" by getting a verdict that utilizes or satisfies their evidence contributions. So folks don't even need to come into the game with a guilty or innocent agenda; rather, they want to build up as much of their own evidence to support whatever verdict is eventually reached; "winning" comes from being the "most right" in the verdict or the "most contributing" to the verdict, not from steering the vote to a preordained goal.

Hmmm... maybe I'm losing my thread. I was imagining a sort of game where folks play more than one character (to keep everyone engaged in each scene) but where "success" in the game comes from entertaining the other players such that they mechanically enable you to control the verdict and, thus, the final thematic resolution of the case. Yep, basically trying to inject story into an otherwise merely mechanically competitive game.

OK, so you can't lift these ideas whole cloth and make them work (I don't think); but hopefully I have at least inspired you to shift the design away from pure mechanical competition and into more of an "improv" or "story co-authoring" model.

HTH;
David

[nitramwi]

Update:

I've shifted to letting the players create the case, with in some guide lines.

As the "jury", they flashback into the courtroom with an observation, either
for or against the defendant.  This should help let the Players decide what
they want the jury time to be about, and what issues they want to explore.

I'm also considering having each member of the jury have an issue, such as
"racist", "I don't care", "I need to get this done", etc, as a guide to roleplaying
their character.

As to what the movie was about... I think it was about a lot of different things.
Each character seemed to have there own issue, (the racist, the father), and
some where easier to see than others.  That's more of the goal of the game,
that 12 strangers work thru there differences for the common good of deciding a
case, based on facts, not emotions.

:)

[masqueradeball]

Your totally right about that... the various characters in the movie having a wide range of motivations. It seems like some kind of random element could help the game a lot, like, maybe evidence or ideas that are drawn from a deck or rolled for on a table. Although a purely "talk" version of this game would be fun and very playable (I'm thinking of me better experiences from LARPs) it seems like it could be hard for players to "backwards build" the case and keep up the creativity, tension and unfolding "story" the insertion of random, or perhaps preplanned but unknown to the players at various points throughout the deliberation would help to keep the pot stirring. I don't know, maybe that would be a bad way to handle it, but I definitly see the biggest hurdle to a game like this working is players who don't feel confident about what they can do or who feel like they've exhausted all of the given possibilities.

[nitramwi]

Masque, thats why the GM would be the jury Foreman.  He acts to keep things moving, and to keep things from getting out or hand.

Also, letting all the players help "design" the "case" should help make the game more personal to everyone, even easier to modify
as the deliberation goes on.  The important part is how the initial case is built; it has to allow for the creativity of the players to change
things.  I'm working on a list of questions to be answered, a kind of "case list", that the players modify thru deliberation.  I was
concerned about a "bias", one way or another, but I might find some answers to that concern once I have something to test.

Have a good holiday all!

:)

[nitramwi]

Had my first play test before Xmas; this game is starting to shape up!

My one concern, and something I'm looking for feedback, is that a "Not
Guilty" verdict may be reached rather often.  I'm not sure if this is good
or bad, or if there is anything I can or should do about it.

Otherwise, I'm developing some Conflict mechanics, and working at better
defining some aspects of the game.

Happy new year!