The sharks-with-lasers thread is getting pretty excessive, so I've decided to split off a particular subtopic: The question is, how do you game a legal drama in a satisfying way? Bear in mind, different people may find different approaches satisfying.

In the prior thread, I said that I thought a more abstracted approach (like D&D combat, say) would not be very satisfying to me. This is because the legal arguments themselves often have moral and ethical content -- unlike, say, choice of sword swing.

Ron Edwards wrote: John and Marco, it seems to me that the principle of Fortune-in-the-middle addresses all these concerns, given a willingness for Fortune to be involved at all. You guys seem to be stuck in a kind of "the dice say it all" vs. "the dice are irrelevant" outlook, in this discussion. (Or maybe I'm not reading you guys right, I dunno.)

Ron Edwards wrote: However, the Hero Wars (now 'Quest) system offers a phenomenal opportunity for both to be involved, dynamically. We played many an Orlanthi legalistic wrangle or Orlanthi-Lunar status-wrangle using its Extended Contest system, which as far as I can tell, captures the best sides of both committed emotional role-playing and the "jumping bean" element of Fortune.

Yah. I second that. I would like to see an example. I suspect that even with FitM there'd need to be y'know, actual engaging, swaying, suprising, and dramatic arguments commin' out of somebody's mouth.

But really what we need is a thread to discuss Lawyers with SHARKS on their heads.

-Marco

Hi there,

Actually, John, what you're describing is Fortune-at-the-Start, which to my knowledge is pretty rare in role-playing - frankly because, as people are perceiving, it's boring.

The Middle bears close watching.

Njarl, Callacht, and Rhiannon are engaged in a dispute with a tribesfellow, Hrothulf, backed up with his cronies Helmgut and Grim. It's all about whether the two cronies are guilty of intimidating and threatening to assault a girl named Aething, or conversely, whether Njarl is guilty of overstepping his shamanic bounds in scaring the crap out of them. This is a serious clan/community matter and the elder/judge sorts are listening carefully; also, it's hardly a modern courtroom and all the issues are jumbled up together (i.e., there're no "charges").

The following example is stripped of all but the most relevant mechanics; I'm not going to go into "who goes first" stuff - it is covered in the rules, but isn't relevant.

Hrothulf goes first, using his Impress Guys ability; he's saying, "Hey, it's all in good fun, the girl's not hurt, no blood, no foul." He augments it with a roll of his Warrior Rep ability, getting +4 to his score of 10w. The two cronies act as followers with their respective abilities, at 17 apiece.

OK, Impress Guys at 14w is 34 Action Points, plus the points from the followers, for 34 + 34 = 68 Action Points. That's his starting pool. See how I've already stated what Hrothulf is up to? I've used out-of-character references ("no blood no foul") as well as in-game role-playing (not transcribed) at a general level. I have not stated anything about what's happened, but I have described what's going on. The difference is crucial.

Our heroes decide to act as a group with shared goal, and given Calliacht's filibustering abilities (total = 5w), some augmenting abilities, and Rhiannon's augmenting, she gets a good 35 Action Points. Njarl decides to keep his pool separate rather than adding to Calliacht, but he has a small pool, at 22 or something like that (Kolati shamans aren't real good at debate). Similar generalized "this is what we're up to" role-playing occurs (in fact, it was simultaneous with that described above). Looking at the size of the Action Point pools, we role-play some interactions that show that our heroes are a bit outmatched.

Hrothulf bids a solid 20 points to start - my cue for more role-playing, giving a good impression of the guy's demeanor and voice patterns. The players look non-plussed; that's a big bid. "Starting out strong," says one. I mention how it's the kind of opening that impresses the warrior-types in the listeners.

Calliacht goes with a reasoned defense, using her lawyer-ly abilities. Time to roll! Calliacht rolls against her ability, and fails (shit!); Hrothulf rolls and succeeds - at this point, it looks like our heroine is about to lose 20 whole points from her pool, right off the top! She looks glumly at her single Hero Point, which given the rolls numerical values, will still lose her points even if she spends it to bump her roll to a victory.

No problem, says Njarl's player, and exploits the rule that folks on the same side can just give one another Action Points. He does. Calliacht loses the exchange, loses the 20 points, but ends up with 2 extra because Njarl just gives them to her. In game terms, basically, Calliacht got hammered in the debate (in terms of good-old-boy vs. lawyer-widow's rhetoric), probably because all the warrior guys were slapping each other on the back while she was trying to talk, but Njarl's scary shaman presence dampens things so that the victory doesn't really help Hrothulf any. Njarl's player has great fun role-playing how nastily Njarl just looms there, or picks at his fetishes, or whatever.

Time for a new round. This time, Calliacht's side bids first ...

One point is that, exchange by exchange, loss or gain of points means nothing until it's all over. That loss of 20 Action Points looked bad at the time, only, and should Calliacht win (by driving Hrothulf to 0 Action Points or below), then it "wasn't as bad as it looked."

The other, main point is that the role-playing and the rolls are synthesized - we know what each character is up to prior to each roll, but we don't know how well it worked or even whether the words had a chance to leave the characters' mouths. This is established by role-playing the actions from their initiation after the roll. Again, prior to the roll, we know what's up, and after the roll, the sequence of in-game events is role-playing from the beginning.

Hence (to take it to physical combat for a moment) your spear-thrust fails to hurt the guy, not because you "missed," but because he grabbed the spear, yanked it, and kicked you in the crotch. You didn't "announce your spear attack," you just stated that that's what you were up to. He didn't "announce his kick," he just stated that he was getting inside. If you'd succeeded, he'd never have gotten there, again, established retroactively, after the rolls.

And then even after the roll, we still have Hero Points to spend and/or Action Points to shift around, which requires more (and much more specific) role-playing to understand. Here's where stuff like "But my buddy throws a rock!" or "The kick landed awkwardly" can totally reverse a perceived outcome.

Whoops, back to debating rather than spears and crotch-kicks. The general statements, pre-roll, concern the angle of an argument's attack, and whether it appeals to fairness or cronyism or what-have-you. The post-roll statements concern who got their points in most effectively and how, and in what order. Both out-of-character and in-character role-playing are scattered liberally in both steps, but tuned to the general vs. specific, "what's up" vs. "what happened" context for each step.

Well, let's see if that makes any sense. Questions, comments?

Best,
Ron

P.S. My account is actually a pretty butchered version of the Hero Wars rules, but the principles are intact.

Ron Edwards wrote: Actually, John, what you're describing is Fortune-at-the-Start, which to my knowledge is pretty rare in role-playing - frankly because, as people are perceiving, it's boring.

Ron Edwards wrote: In game terms, basically, Calliacht got hammered in the debate (in terms of good-old-boy vs. lawyer-widow's rhetoric), probably because all the warrior guys were slapping each other on the back while she was trying to talk, but Njarl's scary shaman presence dampens things so that the victory doesn't really help Hrothulf any. Njarl's player has great fun role-playing how nastily Njarl just looms there, or picks at his fetishes, or whatever.

Time for a new round. This time, Calliacht's side bids first ...

One point is that, exchange by exchange, loss or gain of points means nothing until it's all over. That loss of 20 Action Points looked bad at the time, only, and should Calliacht win (by driving Hrothulf to 0 Action Points or below), then it "wasn't as bad as it looked."

John Kim wrote: What I am interested in is the internal workings of the debate. For example, based on the characters involved, it might not be convincing to me that Njarl's looming would positively affect the case. Based on the mechanics, Njarl's player knows that he has to help out Calliacht's side. However, only I as GM know the personalities of those involved. He might decide to role-play an action -- such as looming -- which he guesses will help. However, the affect of that should (in my preference) depend on who he is looming at and what they are thinking.

The sample is a good sell for the Hero Wars rules--but not what'd do me for a lawyer game.

It's a good way to handle a debate, no doubt.

I think it'd work for debates that I didn't have much of a stake in (i.e. a purely legalistic exercise). And the role-playing works for one guy looming and another guy posturing--which is fine (I do see John's point as well about an unintended consequence--but clearly the system doesn't really represent that, which is fine).

For the really interesting court dramas, though, what gets me involved is how *I* change sides from stage to stage--or how *I'm* impressed with the case as it evolves. The system won't do *that*--but I don't think any system'll do *that.* So that might be as good as its likely to get.

-Marco

Marco wrote: The sample is a good sell for the Hero Wars rules--but not what'd do me for a lawyer game.
...
For the really interesting court dramas, though, what gets me involved is how *I* change sides from stage to stage--or how *I'm* impressed with the case as it evolves. The system won't do *that*--but I don't think any system'll do *that.* So that might be as good as its likely to get.

Hello,

Where you guys get the idea that the player's outlook isn't involved is beyond me.

At any point in the scene we role-played (or in other Extended Contests), a player might have decided to switch sides, because he or she found the other side's argument convincing personally. After all, Njarl might have pulled a turnaround by providing Hrothulf with the Action Points, not Calliacht, say at the bidding stage, or later if Hrothulf got an unlucky roll in the next exchange. The player has full control over this, subject to exactly the thematic or rhetorical concerns that you describe in the Vignir example.

Perhaps you're not seeing, or perhaps I wasn't clear about it, that the substantive content of the debate is established through play. That is provided through plain role-playing, just as in your example, John. What's different is that the role-playing is organized and "bounced" by the rules process. What the Action Points and dice do is (a) permit pacing and windows of announcement of that content at different levels of abstraction and (b) determine, in part, how effective they are on the conflict's resolution.

I must clarify, for those who aren't familiar with Hero Wars (and Sorcerer, and Alyria, and a few others), that dice do not carry the content. "My debate roll vs. your debate roll - who wins - OK, you do, so what did you say?" is not what I'm describing.

Hero Wars is rife with personality abilities - when Njarl's player contributes with a given ability, it has to be opposed by someone else's ability, which in this case was probably Hrothulf's arrogance. I didn't explain the actual rolls in my example, but I see now that it makes more sense when one understands that most rolls in this game are opposed by very, very specific things. Furthermore, even though everyone uses a single ability as the foundation for his or her Action Point pool, it is perfectly all right to switch the abilities used for the rolls from exchange to exchange - if one of the characters, for instance, had decided to buffet a member of the other side, the Extended Contest in progress is neither negated nor over-ridden.

I'm beginning to think, however, that I'm dealing with a degree of skepticism that isn't amenable to discussion. I've been through this a lot with explaining Sorcerer, so at this point, I'm willing to say, "Fine. Check out the game if you're interested," and not sweat about it.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Where you guys get the idea that the player's outlook isn't involved is beyond me.

At any point in the scene we role-played (or in other Extended Contests), a player might have decided to switch sides, because he or she found the other side's argument convincing personally. After all, Njarl might have pulled a turnaround by providing Hrothulf with the Action Points, not Calliacht, say at the bidding stage, or later if Hrothulf got an unlucky roll in the next exchange. The player has full control over this, subject to exactly the thematic or rhetorical concerns that you describe in the Vignir example.

Ron Edwards wrote: I must clarify, for those who aren't familiar with Hero Wars (and Sorcerer, and Alyria, and a few others), that dice do not carry the content. "My debate roll vs. your debate roll - who wins - OK, you do, so what did you say?" is not what I'm describing.
...
I'm beginning to think, however, that I'm dealing with a degree of skepticism that isn't amenable to discussion. I've been through this a lot with explaining Sorcerer, so at this point, I'm willing to say, "Fine. Check out the game if you're interested," and not sweat about it.

Woah. Ron.

I don't dig your solution *totally* and that's a "degree of skepticism not amenable to discussion"? Yer usually better'n that.

John Kim hit it right on the head. If what you have your character say doesn't change my mind and we're still rolling we have a tactical exercise--but the actual content that engages me isn't there yet.

Edited to add: I think it's a great way to run a debate or court-room drama systemically. No question.

-Marco

Characters minds are changing through the debate - NPC's anyway. That is what is resolved by the outcome of the contest.

It is *possible* that a PC would bring a suit and then be persuaded against it - but in practical terms, almost nobody makes such a public challenge unless they are thoroughly committed to their position, for whatever reason.

Marco says:

John Kim hit it right on the head. If what you have your character say doesn't change my mind and we're still rolling we have a tactical exercise--but the actual content that engages me isn't there yet.

I think you also have to dettermine at the outset what sort of trial you want to run. Most TV trials are one of two types, that I'll call the Perry Mason and the Ally McBeal.

The Perry Mason trial is essentially a framework for a standard mystery: Mason is called to defend a palpably innocent defendant, and can only defend him by proving the guilt of the true perpertrator.

In this case, the game mechanics of the trial are, by and large irrelevant; the meat of the game is in the investigation.

In the Ally McBeal, the truth of the case tends to be a matter of interpretation, and while the judge may be in a position to make a ruling based on a case of law (which, once more, would be largely established in out of court scenes of research , interview and negotiation), the final decision in most TV episodes rests with a judgement by the jury.

Unless you have enough spare players to form a jury, I think you have to have a mechanical representation for the opinion of the jury.

And, for preference, I'd run it with Hero Wars / Quest. But I'd like to see a general article on it, with mechanics for various systems.

All this is, of course, merely from a wasted youth of TV, and has no basis in the legal realities of any known state, nation, etc etc.

Marco wrote: John Kim hit it right on the head. If what you have your character say doesn't change my mind and we're still rolling we have a tactical exercise--but the actual content that engages me isn't there yet.

contracycle wrote: It may be possible to establish mechanics which would determine that a PC was 'Persuaded' regarldess of the players thoughts on the matter, i.e. that could be sort of like a loss condition of losing the argument. In fact I can see a lot of use for such a thing, but the idea has foundered by most people legitimate objection to having their character behaviour mechanically controlled.

contracycle wrote: It is *possible* that a PC would bring a suit and then be persuaded against it - but in practical terms, almost nobody makes such a public challenge unless they are thoroughly committed to their position, for whatever reason.

Ian Charvill wrote: That's perfectly fine, and the way these things work historically in large part, especialy w/r/t PCs. But I don't think there's any reliable way of systematising that, independent of literally creating a legal system with rules of procedure, etc., for use in game.

I'm gonna repeat my point (as someone who studied law for a while at uni) if you create a game system where people have to become experts in a legal system to play experts in a legal system, the take-up rate will be vanishingly small.

In terms of the size of the audience, obviously a great number of people watch legal dramas of one type or another. Unless you want to argue that there's something specific about the fantasy/sci-fi/horror audiences that predisposes them to roleplaying that would suggest a possible audience for a legal rpg.

And really we need only to be talking about, say, a few thousand people to make it a viable project. So you can run made up numbers like 10 million non-roleplayers watch Ally McBeal, a few thousand is less than one tenth of one percent - it doesn't seem like an impossible audience to aim for.

For it to feel like a legal rpg it's going to have to involve the kind of colour that you see in a legal drama: so you're going to need people citing cases, cross examining witnesses, summing up, shoutin 'objection' and so on. And you need some kind of procedure for organising all of this.

The greater the degree of expertise required to run the process, the higher the barrier to entry to the game.

If I'm going to get started seriously on writing this, and it sounds like I may be, I'd better set out some stated aims for a concrete project. Otherwise this is going to be another "all things to all players" discussion that nods and agrees "something must be done...."

So in the spirit of setting a social contract for further discussion...

Intended audience: at the moment, I'm aiming for the kind of gamers that would enjoy Inspectres, Dust Devils or Nicotine Girls, to kind of draw up the external boundaries of the target.

While not aiming at a mainstream audience, I'd like to end up with something that an intelligent TV viewer could grasp and play enjoyably without instruction from an experienced RPG player. That's not going to happen in the first iteration of the design, but if I don't have that in mind at the moment, it'll be 9 billion times harder to implement later. Yes, I came up with that figure scientifically.

That also means I'm not particularly worried about the size of the target audience yet: I'm pursuing this for personal satisfaction, as the reaction has polarised into "can't be done" or "should be easy, someone should do that..."

I've always wanted to be someone. If I can be someone who acheived the impossible, so much the better.

In the style of play, I'm still revolving around the traditional RPG set up of GM and regular group of players, possibly due to my mental inertia, but also because of my bias towards HW as a system.

Format for the game is, in my mind, presently a supplemental article with mechanics for Hero Wars. Mechanics for other systems to follow, possibly with expert input from experienced players of other systems (*cough* commercial D20 PDF *cough*). Again, developed with a view to developing a stand alone LawyerQuest game (this is not a serious suggestion for the name).

Back to the mechanical questions... I think John and Ian are both right (and wrong). Please bear in mind that what I'm talking about is developing a system for running legal dramas, including but not restricted to court room cases, as role playing games. That pre-supposes that I'm going to be creating some sort of mechanistic system to represent / simulate aspects of the court system, although the staging suggestions would, I hope, be valuable to anybody freeforming a courtroom drama.

I'm also going to have to have suggestions / instructions / systems for a simplified legal system within the game, but it will be as vastly simplified as the system presented in most legal dramas (although running things as tortuously as the first season of Murder One as an extended campaign certainly appeals to me).

John Kim wrote:

As for not reliably systematizing, I'm not sure what you mean. Systems don't always need dice and numbers to resolve them, like Hero Wars does. For example, Apples to Apples is a card game which relies on subjective judgements. It is systematic in that it has a clear way of deciding the outcome -- the designated player chooses. While cards are played, the outcome is entirely a subjective decision.

The same could easily apply to a legal drama. i.e. Each player has a lawyer PC or two. For court cases, two players play the prosecution and the defense. Another player is the jury. Other players may play the judge, the defendent, or other characters -- or they might be abstracted out. The outcome of the case is chosen by the jury player.

Ian Charvill wrote: In terms of the size of the audience, obviously a great number of people watch legal dramas of one type or another. Unless you want to argue that there's something specific about the fantasy/sci-fi/horror audiences that predisposes them to roleplaying that would suggest a possible audience for a legal rpg.

James: Er, in a nutshell, well, yes. Dead on what I'm looking at, and god bless you for expressing it better than I have.

BTW, anybody know a web site for "law for writers?" I know they exist, but damned if I can find them ATM....

pete_darby wrote: James: Er, in a nutshell, well, yes. Dead on what I'm looking at, and god bless you for expressing it better than I have.

Oh yeah, systems and hints for hooking characters into the drama. Definitely looking into that.... Maybe even a DD style mechanism for forcing it, but certainly HW personality traits.

Look at the L&O example form the other end of the telescope... assume that the show bible has established that Jack was a radical, but there hasn't been a case that highlights that. The show runner requests a script that brings that in, rather than his radicalism being added into a pre-existing script to "punch up his involvement."

Building story hooks at PC creation allows players to use PC passions to enhance their perfomance (but that also allows the opposition to use his passions to enhance their dirty underhanded tactics, and may lead to emotional outbursts in court, censure from the judge... or crunchy gaming goodness, as we call it round these parts).

Thinks... modelling parts of the show development process in the game itself... could be fun. hold that thought for later development.

James Holloway wrote:

I watch too much TV.

Now, I'd never ever be able to find people to play it with, but I just don't understand why "players have to have a bit of knowledge of the overall legal structure" is considered to be a bad thing. Players in many games are required to (or encouraged to) know huge amounts about the world. Surely a generic (or even made-up! As long as it's consistent...) legal process isn't going to be too hard.

If it's written right, the expertise level is kind of self selecting: if the game is pitched at those interested in TV legal drama, then that's the level of expertise in the law (and, more importantly, the tropes of legal drama) that the game should need to work.

If you know enough to enjoy Ally McBeal, that should be enough to grok the game, from a legal knowledge aspect. Grokking RP as a whole may be a different thing.. or may not. I'd have to run it.

edit: the rap sheet: I'm thinking of a bullet list of Things You Can Do In Court, Things You'll Get A Warning (or Objection) For and Grounds For Contempt of Court, backed up by a section in the game about court procedure.

2nd edit: So, once again, it's a bit of both. I'm assuming that anyone interested in the game will have some awareness of the process of law, but give plenty of hard information, staging tips, and "this isn't law, but it plays law on TV" stuff.

James Holloway wrote: We play out the questioning and cross-examination of major witnesses in detail, as well as the opening and closing statements (although somewhat abbreviated). If I were the GM, I'd be making little notes as the trial went on, possibly in line with a chart I'd prepared ahead of time representing the jury's feelings. This might be different for each jury, and maybe some PC skill could even allow them to get a look at the chart ("I don't think this jury will stand for another surprise witness. It'll look too much like showboating."). Each time either side did something the jury liked or hated, I'd just make a little note on my (preferably legal) pad.
...
Once that's all done, the GM plays out the judge's summing up, and then some method is used to determine who wins... possibly a point-tallying method based on the notable things each side's done, modified with a random element of some kind (because you're always a little in doubt in these shows).

pete_darby wrote: I think John and Ian are both right (and wrong). Please bear in mind that what I'm talking about is developing a system for running legal dramas, including but not restricted to court room cases, as role playing games.
...[Re: my suggestions]...
I think your idea would work as a stand alone, more freeform game (Host Your Own Trial?), but even then, I balk at the idea of a single player as jury. The idea of "12 good men and true" is to eliminate (or at least reduce) personal bias in favour of assessing the balance of a case. I'd rather mechanically abstract the jury than the judge, precisely because the whole point of the game / session is the judgement of the jury. I think that's too much responsibility for a single player.

John Kim said:
Also, as you yourself say, this is pretty GM control-freakish. As you describe it, the GM controls the judge, jury, defendant, defense attorney, and even the senior police officer and DA. These are roles which I would tend to distribute among the players.

This talk of legal dramas, medical dramas (in the mundanity thread), and now police dramas has got my scheming brainmeats percolating an idea: a compilation rpg book, or maybe a series of rpg book. "True Tales of Human Drama" or something like that.

I might give these concepts a shot as well, I've already got titles for them if I do go give it a go: "Stat!" "Objection!" and "Freeze!" (Medical, legal, police games respectively.)

The nice part of having the three games sharing elements would be crossover possibilities similar to Law & Order. An investigation and subsequent arrest of a suspect can happen in one game and later on, the case and accompanying details can be hashed out in another game, perhaps with a completely different group. I don't know how the medical game would work into the crossovers exactly, but I'm sure there's a way.

gobi wrote: "Stat!" "Objection!" and "Freeze!" (Medical, legal, police games respectively.)...

The nice part of having the three games sharing elements would be crossover possibilities similar to Law & Order. An investigation and subsequent arrest of a suspect can happen in one game and later on, the case and accompanying details can be hashed out in another game, perhaps with a completely different group.

Can't say I've ever seen that show, I take it that it had elements of medical, legal and police dramas?

The show is described as a dramatic jigsaw puzzle, looking at events in Los Angeles (aka Boomtown) from a variety of perspectives – including detectives, police officers, politicians, paramedics, reporters and ordinary citizens – until the whole picture is clear.

(snipped it from here)

James Holloway wrote: Van Buren and Adam aren't big enough characters to be made PCs, and they're both authority figures the PCs (Briscoe, Curtis, McCoy and whatsername -- the one with the nose) have to persuade. Adam never appears in court either, so he wouldn't be very interesting to play. Likewise, the defendant and the defense attorney are different every week and therefore can't be PCs (In a traditional campaign format anyway).

pete_darby wrote: If I'm going to get started seriously on writing this, and it sounds like I may be, I'd better set out some stated aims for a concrete project. Otherwise this is going to be another "all things to all players" discussion that nods and agrees "something must be done...."

A note on what John wrote: One option might be to make all of the players the jury. That is, no one plays the jury during the trial. But then at the end of the trial, everyone switches and plays a jury member. They debate the merits of the case, perhaps for some fixed time, and then vote for what the outcome should be. This is similar to, say, the "bests" voting system in "Shadows in the Fog". The prosecution player could vote for his own side, but he might also be convinced otherwise. To minimize bias, you could have the players evenly split during the trial between prosecution characters and defense characters.

John Kim wrote:

James Holloway wrote: Van Buren and Adam aren't big enough characters to be made PCs, and they're both authority figures the PCs (Briscoe, Curtis, McCoy and whatsername -- the one with the nose) have to persuade. Adam never appears in court either, so he wouldn't be very interesting to play. Likewise, the defendant and the defense attorney are different every week and therefore can't be PCs (In a traditional campaign format anyway).

Well, OK. I guess the question is: what is the reason behind sticking with tradition, other than because it is tradition? What do you see as the contrast between your approach and the more divided-role approach?

From my point-of-view, it seems like a huge burden on a single participant to handle all those major roles (judge, jury, DA, police captain, defendant, and defense attorney). So my thought would be that it would be more playable if this were spread over several people. What is your take on the contrast?

I think my differences with John are that I want a more directorial or writer stance during court scenes, whereas John wants more of an actor stance.

I'm sticking with traditional RPG roles (and more involved numerical mechanics) mainly because it fits the source material of following a team of lawyers better. Spreading the roles would necessitate a completely different set of rules, and under something like Universalis it would, I expect, run like a dream. So, if I'm going to produce a product supporting this as a genre, I'd ideally want to put in 1) a standalone system , 2) conversions for other systems (mostly conventional RPG mechanics) and 3) Staging tips for Law Stories as a whole, supporting law stories with any system, including Universalis, Godlike, etc.

So I'm looking at supporting the traditional RPG "party plus GM" model because the material produced would be more useful for immediate use, model the source better, provide more crunchy systems for those that like it and still have all the material for people running less traditional games.

It's not just mental inertia!

pete_darby wrote: I'm sticking with traditional RPG roles (and more involved numerical mechanics) mainly because it fits the source material of following a team of lawyers better. Spreading the roles would necessitate a completely different set of rules, and under something like Universalis it would, I expect, run like a dream.
...
So I'm looking at supporting the traditional RPG "party plus GM" model because the material produced would be more useful for immediate use, model the source better, provide more crunchy systems for those that like it and still have all the material for people running less traditional games.

Hmm, how about the one set of characters who do necessarily vary - the plaintifs and defendants - get rotate through the players. So if your default setup had 6 players in a defence council, one would play the actual defendant with a set of any 5 lawyers from the firm. Not having a fixed set would lend genre verisimilitude I think.

ScottM wrote: Here's my niggling question- what do you do with the extra players? Is this something that will only work with extremely small groups (2, maybe 3 players?). I suspect that we don't want a pack of six lawyers on every case. Are you thinking multiple parallel trails?

I know the question is from left field, but since we're talking about pitching it like a standard "party plus GM", what good are the extra people? In class systems, "one of each" is a good idea, cause they all contribute something necessary. But if everyone's a lawyer, what role do the extra players take?

Scott

[On Multiple Parallel trials- I think this would be rough on the GM/Jury; extensive & good notes would be necessary to keep the case points distinct for the jury phase. A fillable sheet seems necessary.]