Lemme try to reply to everyone.
Hi!
Personally, I don't think that is a good idea. If you want it to be really flexible (and it has to be really flexible in order to allow things like genocide unless you want to limit players to certain cliches) it seems like a real mess to set up. And I don't really see an advantage for my personal Dwarf Fortress experience.
However, on a somewhat related note, it made me wonder about an alternative proposal: How about having the harshness of punishment and some of the things currently in the ethics settings be determined by the highest ranking dwarf in the fortress? For instance, if your expedition leader is honest to the bone, punishment for theft may be harsher than the default. But then, you get a corrupt mayor who is not so interested in theft, making it a personal matter. This could add more personality to the fortress and its inhabitants and clearly gives you tales to tell.
Deathworks
Having a Mayor set all the laws does sound good, however, i think more than likely if they were set, there would be a chance for a rebellion, or a vote for a new mayor. However, perhaps it would be nice to see a Mayor sign up on laws he wants. Yes you can edit laws and what they think of them in ethics (that i know now, after seeing it in the wiki), but most would want to be able to set it within their fortress than let EVERY fortress have a modded default. I was only suggesting this as a muse for people to change the way their fortress works, so it doesn't go too far/becomes a tantrum spiraled mess/causes too much fun.
I'm with Deathworks, but before this there'd need to be more things that fall under the jurisdiction of the law beyond tantrums and mandates. Dwarves can't be caught (or, rather, observed) lying, stealing, breaking oaths, torturing animals, or any of the other things in the ethics files.
That is one thing Toady has a bug in. In adventure mode, anything you steal, even when noone sees you, makes everyone know of it. Normally, i'd think it should be like this: You make friends in town, they see you steal something that isn't thiers, they ignore it and tell noone. If anyone sees it, they should contact a nearby guard, the guard will know your description by looks (cept if armor is around you, so if they can only see your face, then they describe that), the guard adds a talk message for (Oblivion idea steal, sorry) to come with them, or pay a fine. You pay, or resist, or just get jail. You resist, they'll try to give you a beating until your knocked unconcious. Weapons will make them use weapons. Going to jail, and you wait. Depending on the civilizations laws though, they may provide a different punishment. Or the fine. Or hell, try to bribe guards. You see, i actually think things can be more flexible with customizable laws...
I never looked at the raws myself, are the law codes and ethics located in files that are accessable by us? I would definitely consider mucking about in my DF files if I could add modify the dwarven legal system.
§164: All dwarves that are less than estatic shall be struck thrice with Asmel Udeshlogem, the artiface mace, let it be written, let it be done!
All laws are within the Entity_Default.txt. They're called "Ethics".
Dwarves with low happiness (with a threshold determined by personality traits and skills, and possibly life-long memories such as lost loved ones, and with some thought as to the current state of the fortress, such as number of jails, etc...) will attempt to commit crimes, which, if successfull, will increase happiness slightly. Victims of crime will, of course, become less happy. If a successfull crime gives the thief 100 happiness points, it takes 150 from the victim; thus, it's in your best interest to keep crime down and thus avoid crime and tantrum spirals.
Depending on the skills, personalities, and relationships of the guards and victims, either the real criminal or else some random dwarf that a guard or the victim has a grudge against will be suspected. Ideally, innocent units can be suspected but won't always convicted; and highly skilled, personable units might be able to talk their way out of a crime.
Sounds good. I actually like that kind of thing. Having them steal things. However, without an economy, they won't need to steal things, as they can get anything they want.
I think it could work. Especially the built-in negative feedback is interesting in order not to make things get out of hand too often.
The happiness loss could be based on the total wealth of the dwarf: a millionaire whose shoe is stolen just buys a new one. A tramp whose shoe is stolen would be significantly more unhappy: those stone floors are cold.
Would make sense once a very good economy works out. If someone is rich, they won't care much for a random item with low value.
I like it. I see no reason not to include this.
In answer to Deathworks, I think a flexible and detailed system would be easily put in and avoid mess if we had a system whereby we select the class of activity and the object of the activity and then the punishment. in this way, we can make as many or as few rules as we like for any given "crime".
For instance:
>Theft
>Diamonds
>Shooting
Or, to give the other end of the spectrum:
>Owning
>Cats
>Beating to death
The option "All" would be available for the object, so you could specify any killing as a crime, or, I suppose, sleeping.
Toady One (armok be with him) would have to put in a nice long list of all the activities, but the objects would just be a collection of all items and creatures in the universe, as plucked from the raws. A search function is therefore critical. I don't see any issue with the plan I've outlined, but I'm open to suggestion 
Sounds like a good idea. Having laws to pass by voting could help out. Say for example there is a need of a council. They could help the Mayor pass laws. For example laws that require voting could be like this:
Mayor Only
Council
All Dwarves
For Mayor Only, it would give people who hate the law bad thoughts, and ones who like it happy thoughts. For the Council, the same, except less severe, and for All Dwarves, much less severe than mayor only. Thats my part of that, cuz i think that depending on how private it is, it should be anymore severe. However, there could be a "Select Few" who would be able to pass it instead.
This makes me think though. What if a king comes around? It would mean he would set all the laws instead of the mayor, however, could use a council to vote for passings and such. And if enough dwarves hate the current law, they could suggest a change, which can be made to pass, or be denied.
Now, my idea in a sense, i think would work well when adventure mode, and fortress mode gets merged, and you have your own character to play with and work inside. So lets say you are a dwarf of your own, being the leader/king, then you will be able to have a say in it. Or, be a council member, or just a random dwarf. So yeah.
Anywho, thanks for the feedback on my suggeston. I hope i wasn't too rude on any answers to some comments.
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Topic: Making the entire justice law up (Read 3113 times)