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[KittyTac]

I want to play as a slaver. That is all. Of course, that is my opinion. If you do not want to play as one because it disturbs you, then don't do it.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Can the comments like "Toady One knows what you're up to, KittyTac" and "doesn't everyone agree that GoblinCookie is hypocritical" stop? Moving from a heated object-level discussion to a passive-aggressive sniping duel is not an improvement.

[Detoxicated]

Can the comments like "Toady One knows what you're up to, KittyTac" and "doesn't everyone agree that GoblinCookie is hypocritical" stop? Moving from a heated object-level discussion to a passive-aggressive sniping duel is not an improvement.

+1

[ZM5]

Gonna have to agree with Kitty on this - even with being less than 50% done DF is already great for story potential. I'd rather not take away from that by not letting players potentially play as an evil faction if they should so choose to write a story from their perspective - if someone doesn't want to play them they could just not do it and stick with the non-evil factions, problem solved.

[Rowanas]

Bloody hell!

BACK TO THE FEATURED DISCUSSION -

I think that the Legal Decision Maker (Judge) should be the head of his own pseudo-squad of investigators, just as the Chief Doctor is. In this fashion, you can split it from anything else, or you can designate the Hammerer as Judge without a squad for a Judge Dredd style systejm, or the Expedition Leader as Judge for autocracies, or the Militia Leader and his squad as Judge+squad for military Juntas, or hell, even assign a total random and a bunch of randomly selected mooks as judge+squad for a less consolidated legal system.  This would cover a massive array of possible legal systems (religious, military, noble, etc) with very little effort.  Obviously squads are good for investigating, as ZM5 said, because more bodies are useful, but it also introduces more risk and requires more dwarf-hours.

I would be in favour of the player assigning this role as any other, and potentially having a few levels of judge, just as counts, dukes, barons etc do, so your judge might start off as just that, then the next highest position once a certain threshold is reached would become a High Judge, and finally the Supreme Judge. Again, all of these could be rolled into various other positions, so the Monarch might also be Supreme Judge, while at your colony of zealots the position of High Judge is given to a priest, and at one of your outposts, the Expedition Leader is Judge.  The outpost judge makes local legal decisions but can be overruled by your High Judge, and both of those can be overruled by the Monarch-Supreme Judge at the top.

[Miles_Umbrae]

And back to our regularly scheduled programme -

I think that, regardless of how it works, the position of judge is necessary. Whether they are Judge Dredd or just handing down sentences after conviction by a jury of peers, there's always someone making a decision, and Legal Decision Maker is a bit wordy.

If you have an Anarchist type of governance then there won't be a de facto "Judge", but rather it is based on who is the best at arguing their case before the coincidentally gathered crowd/mob, or who is more charismatic/liked, or it is based solely on peer pressure from those with a biased opinion.

Social, governmental, and judicial systems are more nuanced and varied than most people think.

[Rowanas]

And back to our regularly scheduled programme -

I think that, regardless of how it works, the position of judge is necessary. Whether they are Judge Dredd or just handing down sentences after conviction by a jury of peers, there's always someone making a decision, and Legal Decision Maker is a bit wordy.

If you have an Anarchist type of governance then there won't be a de facto "Judge", but rather it is based on who is the best at arguing their case before the coincidentally gathered crowd/mob, or who is more charismatic/liked, or it is based solely on peer pressure from those with a biased opinion.

Social, governmental, and judicial systems are more nuanced and varied than most people think.

Without wanting to derail this into a full on argument about political philosophy, Anarchism is an interstitial form of non-governance, and cannot be maintained for long enough that it's worth Toady's (Kittens Be Upon him) time to worry about it for this game.  If Anarchy is to be represented, then it is easily represented by the current state of things, simply without any form of legal decision maker present at all.  If justice is to be served, it will be vigilante justice carried out by a dwarf that has decided to tantrum against that particular person.

In fairness, beating up a specific person because you hate them, rather than throwing a general tantrum because your whole life is shit, would be nice to have ingame and would be a natural stepping stone to this kind of anarchist "legal decison making proxy".

[Miles_Umbrae]

And back to our regularly scheduled programme -

I think that, regardless of how it works, the position of judge is necessary. Whether they are Judge Dredd or just handing down sentences after conviction by a jury of peers, there's always someone making a decision, and Legal Decision Maker is a bit wordy.

If you have an Anarchist type of governance then there won't be a de facto "Judge", but rather it is based on who is the best at arguing their case before the coincidentally gathered crowd/mob, or who is more charismatic/liked, or it is based solely on peer pressure from those with a biased opinion.

Social, governmental, and judicial systems are more nuanced and varied than most people think.

Without wanting to derail this into a full on argument about political philosophy, Anarchism is an interstitial form of non-governance, and cannot be maintained for long enough that it's worth Toady's (Kittens Be Upon him) time to worry about it for this game.  If Anarchy is to be represented, then it is easily represented by the current state of things, simply without any form of legal decision maker present at all.  If justice is to be served, it will be vigilante justice carried out by a dwarf that has decided to tantrum against that particular person.

In fairness, beating up a specific person because you hate them, rather than throwing a general tantrum because your whole life is shit, would be nice to have ingame and would be a natural stepping stone to this kind of anarchist "legal decison making proxy".

To some Anarchism is a legitimate and sustainable option superior to all other forms.
By its supporters Anarchism is described as the ultimate form of Human Rights, Freedoms and Liberalism where EVERY action and interaction is your own choice and where you yourself decide what kind and level of judicial, firefighting, schooling, healthcare and welfare systems you have and pay for...

[Detoxicated]

Well regardless of the intricacies of anarchy in real life, this non-governance could be handled in df in such a way that a event is created, where the people discuss the matter at hand and act according to the outcome of the discussion event, quite similar to what was described above.

[Azerty]

Bloody hell!

BACK TO THE FEATURED DISCUSSION -

I think that the Legal Decision Maker (Judge) should be the head of his own pseudo-squad of investigators, just as the Chief Doctor is. In this fashion, you can split it from anything else, or you can designate the Hammerer as Judge without a squad for a Judge Dredd style systejm, or the Expedition Leader as Judge for autocracies, or the Militia Leader and his squad as Judge+squad for military Juntas, or hell, even assign a total random and a bunch of randomly selected mooks as judge+squad for a less consolidated legal system.  This would cover a massive array of possible legal systems (religious, military, noble, etc) with very little effort.  Obviously squads are good for investigating, as ZM5 said, because more bodies are useful, but it also introduces more risk and requires more dwarf-hours.

I would be in favour of the player assigning this role as any other, and potentially having a few levels of judge, just as counts, dukes, barons etc do, so your judge might start off as just that, then the next highest position once a certain threshold is reached would become a High Judge, and finally the Supreme Judge. Again, all of these could be rolled into various other positions, so the Monarch might also be Supreme Judge, while at your colony of zealots the position of High Judge is given to a priest, and at one of your outposts, the Expedition Leader is Judge.  The outpost judge makes local legal decisions but can be overruled by your High Judge, and both of those can be overruled by the Monarch-Supreme Judge at the top.

I think the controversy management, that is, judging, should be separate from the investigation and law enforcement, at least in criminal matters.

[Demonic Gophers]

Some societies should probably have one person who is in charge of enforcing the law and dealing with troublemakers - the Guard Captain or whatever would oversee investigations, capture suspects, and decide their punishment.  In others, the land-holding noble or similar authority would be the final decision maker.  Others ought to have a separate judiciary, which could be controlled by some other government body, independent within a heavily limited sphere of authority, or a highly influential body in its own right.  There are a lot of possible arrangements, and DF's system ought to be able to handle as many of them as is feasible.

Among vanilla goblins, it seems like any dispute that doesn't draw the attention of the ruler would be settled either by the two parties working to convince everyone interested to side with them and form a mob, or by a nice, quiet murder in the night.  I could also see formal or semi-formal dueling as a possibility.  Some more structured societies might have trial by combat; the closest thing to a judge could be the warrior tasked with fighting accused criminals.

[Detoxicated]

I really like your suggestion about goblin society, as their non existance of judicial system causes them to mob up. Beat each other up and train in combat which really flavours their society. Captured slaves can become master goblins by beating and intriguing their way up. Sometines theyd form spontaneous armies who fight amongst each other until the boss goes to war and draws all of them in. Stepping in only when his authrity is questioned.

[Rowanas]

Bloody hell!

BACK TO THE FEATURED DISCUSSION -

I think that the Legal Decision Maker (Judge) should be the head of his own pseudo-squad of investigators, just as the Chief Doctor is. In this fashion, you can split it from anything else, or you can designate the Hammerer as Judge without a squad for a Judge Dredd style systejm, or the Expedition Leader as Judge for autocracies, or the Militia Leader and his squad as Judge+squad for military Juntas, or hell, even assign a total random and a bunch of randomly selected mooks as judge+squad for a less consolidated legal system.  This would cover a massive array of possible legal systems (religious, military, noble, etc) with very little effort.  Obviously squads are good for investigating, as ZM5 said, because more bodies are useful, but it also introduces more risk and requires more dwarf-hours.

I would be in favour of the player assigning this role as any other, and potentially having a few levels of judge, just as counts, dukes, barons etc do, so your judge might start off as just that, then the next highest position once a certain threshold is reached would become a High Judge, and finally the Supreme Judge. Again, all of these could be rolled into various other positions, so the Monarch might also be Supreme Judge, while at your colony of zealots the position of High Judge is given to a priest, and at one of your outposts, the Expedition Leader is Judge.  The outpost judge makes local legal decisions but can be overruled by your High Judge, and both of those can be overruled by the Monarch-Supreme Judge at the top.

I think the controversy management, that is, judging, should be separate from the investigation and law enforcement, at least in criminal matters.

Would you assign an entirely new investigator role, would investigators be part of the Judge's Legal-squad, or would it be handed off to another existing role?  I don't think that management of criminals is a sufficiently big part of the game to warrant two separate roles, myself.  Under the suggestion above, you can tie the controversy management (as you've called it) to any other role, or allow it to be separate, though I hadn't considered the need to separate out investigation from sentencing.

[GoblinCookie]

I want to play as a slaver. That is all. Of course, that is my opinion. If you do not want to play as one because it disturbs you, then don't do it.

The problem is that your desire to play as a slaver is basically wrong.  That may or may not matter (refer back to several pages of text referring to violence in video games) but there is something else as well.

If slavers are non-playable then less work is needed to model slavery.  All work comes out of the zero-sum stockpile of work that is Toady One's lifespan.  While Toady One is busy coming up with detailed models for playable slavery, he is not working on picking up flowers to give to your loved one's (or something else benign).  The ethical dimension is not merely a question of what the player chooses, it is also a question as to the distribution of resources; is it right to indulge the player as villain at the expense of the player as hero?

Bloody hell!

BACK TO THE FEATURED DISCUSSION -

I think that the Legal Decision Maker (Judge) should be the head of his own pseudo-squad of investigators, just as the Chief Doctor is. In this fashion, you can split it from anything else, or you can designate the Hammerer as Judge without a squad for a Judge Dredd style systejm, or the Expedition Leader as Judge for autocracies, or the Militia Leader and his squad as Judge+squad for military Juntas, or hell, even assign a total random and a bunch of randomly selected mooks as judge+squad for a less consolidated legal system.  This would cover a massive array of possible legal systems (religious, military, noble, etc) with very little effort.  Obviously squads are good for investigating, as ZM5 said, because more bodies are useful, but it also introduces more risk and requires more dwarf-hours.

I would be in favour of the player assigning this role as any other, and potentially having a few levels of judge, just as counts, dukes, barons etc do, so your judge might start off as just that, then the next highest position once a certain threshold is reached would become a High Judge, and finally the Supreme Judge. Again, all of these could be rolled into various other positions, so the Monarch might also be Supreme Judge, while at your colony of zealots the position of High Judge is given to a priest, and at one of your outposts, the Expedition Leader is Judge.  The outpost judge makes local legal decisions but can be overruled by your High Judge, and both of those can be overruled by the Monarch-Supreme Judge at the top.

The investigation of the crime by the captain-of-the-guard should result in a set of suspects.  The judge (not the player as at present) should then decide if the guilty party is guilty or not based upon evidence+witnesses and the player should be able to appeal to a higher judge, if there is one.  I don't think the judge should investigate the crime directly and round up suspects, unless we were to decide to merge the judge function with the law enforcement function in the same position. 

If there is no judge function, the player should decide to convict or not (as present). 

To some Anarchism is a legitimate and sustainable option superior to all other forms.
By its supporters Anarchism is described as the ultimate form of Human Rights, Freedoms and Liberalism where EVERY action and interaction is your own choice and where you yourself decide what kind and level of judicial, firefighting, schooling, healthcare and welfare systems you have and pay for...

Problem with Anarchism is that it is a have-cake+eat-it-too ideology.  It promises everything to everyone, ignoring the internal contradictions between every promise and every other promise given the rules of reality.  Dwarf Fortress is realistic enough in it's mechanics that it would not be possible to gloss over the contradictions, so our DF Anarchism would result in a whole raft of societies, none of which would qualify as Anarchy, because key promises would be broken. 

Among vanilla goblins, it seems like any dispute that doesn't draw the attention of the ruler would be settled either by the two parties working to convince everyone interested to side with them and form a mob, or by a nice, quiet murder in the night.  I could also see formal or semi-formal dueling as a possibility.  Some more structured societies might have trial by combat; the closest thing to a judge could be the warrior tasked with fighting accused criminals.

Problem with that system is that the different mobs simply end up becoming two different governments and the goblins cease to be a unified force.  Division is not a solution to problems for a society that wishes to remain in existence.  This runs up against the whole ethics problems, ethics exist in society for a reason and they are not optional.

I reckon goblins work based upon a creative application of treason, the only thing they care about.  If a goblin kills another goblin, the other goblins just look the other way.  But if a goblin kills 10 other goblins, then the goblin get's defined as a traitor since his killing is obviously more than a personal spat. 

[Miles_Umbrae]

GoblinCookie, why did you even reply when all you do is complaining that "this" won't make the game become PRECISELY how YOU want it to be...

Furthermore, all I've done is provide examples of first governance types that exist, and now examples of justice systems that exist.

Also, DF can ACTUALLY handle the simulation of an Anarchist system .. all that is needed is for the game to either generate a compromise at the time of individual conflicts OR escalate such conflicts to varying stages of hostility.
The game already keeps track of positive relationships, negative feelings between individuals, grudges, and it will be expanded to more complex intrigues .. so simulating Anarchism is most definitely within the scope of what DF can handle.