Trial by Jury – A GURPS Approach?

[Onime]

Hi everyone!
Sort of a new GURPS GM here (barely a few months). A player of mine just got into BIG trouble with the local authorities, so a Trial is in order. I have tried to rummage around some books to find rules for it... But no luck. I did not want to resolve it with just a couple rolls, so I though I would try to build something a bit more robust!

Could I please get some feedback on this? Or directions towards where to find something better? Thanks in advance!

Trial by Jury – A GURPS Approach
These 7 Stage Trial rules have been designed for a TL4+2 setting (akin to the English Restoration, but with magitech!). It’s a Trial by a Jury of 6 people and a Judge presiding the case. The Verdict will be both based on Trial Points (TP), awarded to the sides as result of modified Quick Contests during the Statements and Cross-Examination Stages, and on the reactions of the Jury and Judge.
Total Trial Points calculated after Jury Deliberation are: Total TP = Prosecution TP – Defence (TP).
Negative TP will result on a failure for the Prosecution, with an Innocence Verdict for the accused. Positive TP will result on a victory of the Prosecution, with a Guilty Verdict for the accused.
Once at every stage, the parts can do one Psychology or Body Language check to gauge either the combined reaction of the Jury, of a Juror or of the Judge.

1. Building the Case:
Pre-Trial Defence vs Prosecution Quick Contest (QC) of Law, another one of Administration and a last one of Forensics.
Margin of Success (MoS) of Law QC gives a bonus to the Opening Statement.
MoS of Forensics gives a bonus to presenting one piece of Evidence.
MoS of Administration gives a bonus to contesting one piece of Evidence.

2. Choosing a Jury.
First, for the Defence and the Prosecution will protect a Juror each, then each one will ask the judge to strike an unprotected Juror out of the case, this will bring the number of Jurors from 8 to 6.
The Judge will roll Will to avoid being influenced by the choice of the Prosecution and the Defence.
All Jurors will be outstanding citizens of noble families or prosperous guilds, with relevant blood ties or lands that account for loyalty to Land and the Queen.

3. Opening Statements.
The Prosecution will open with a Public Speaking roll, contested by the Opening Statement of the Defence in a QC. The MoS will determine how many Trial Points the winner gets.
Relevant modifiers for the Prosecution: A strong case built up during years: +3. A notably public case: +2. A dodgy story of the Accused: +1
Relevant modifiers for the Defence: A solid record of Heroism of the Accused: +3. Notable public support for the accused: +2. A homely story of the Accused: +1.
At the end of this Stage, each of the Jurors will roll a modified reaction roll towards the Accused.

4. Witness Testimony and Cross-Examination.
The Prosecution will open this stage presenting a list of their pieces of Evidence and Testimonies, then will present each one of them. The Defence will have the opportunity to contest each piece individually. Then, the Defence will present evidence and the Prosecution will be able to contest it. Evidence can be either an Expert testifying facts, a testimony who saw the presumed crime, a critical item that yields information… Anyone who takes the stage will be treated as Evidence, included the Accused.
All Evidence must be submitted to the Judge before sunset of the day previous to the Trial, all evidence that is late will have a -5 to the presenting skill roll.
Process of Cross-Examination.
i. Presenting Evidence: Each Piece will require a successful Skill Roll of a related discipline (Interrogation, Science, Forensics, Thaumatology, Dicplomacy, Psychology, Criminology, Law…). A success will award 1 Trial Point, a critical success will award 2 Trial Points. Note down the MoS.
ii. Contesting Evidence: If it has been presented successfully, the other part can contest the Piece by using the same Skill or any appropriate other. The contesting roll will have a penalty equal to the noted down MoS. A success will null any Trial Points the piece of Evidence provided.
iii. Throwing out Evidence: Instead of contesting the evidence, the other part can try to find a legal loophole or excuse to throw it out by rolling Law. If the evidence was acquired illegally it gets +5 to it. If the evidence was acquired via legal means, there is penalty of -5. Lack of proof for either option can tone down modifiers to -2 if it was “probably” acquired legally or +2 if it was acquired by “probably” dodgy means. A success will null any Trial Points the piece of Evidence provided.
iv. Present the next piece of Evidence. Each successive piece of evidence after the first has an increasing penalty. -1 for the second, -2 for the third, and so on. On lengthy big cases Trials, this penalty can be halved or even waived.

5. Closing Arguments.
The Prosecution will open with a Public Speaking roll, contested by the Closing Arguments of the Defence in a QC. The MoS will determine how many more Trial Points the winner gets.
Relevant modifiers: The part with the most Trial Points will get +1. The part with the post accepted pieces of evidence will get +1.
At the end of this Stage, the Judge a modified reaction roll towards the Accused, with a penalty equal to the MoS/F of the closing Argument of the Prosecution.

6. Jury Deliberation.
The Judge and the Jury will now move back into the Deliberation chambers, where they will assess the Trial, assigning and modifying the Trial Points. First, the Judge will roll Will to avoid modifying the Trial Points. If he fails, use the table below according to his reaction to modify the Trial Points. Then, average the reaction of each member of the Jury towards the Accused and apply the table. Finally, calculate the Total Trial Points by deducting to the Prosecution Trial Points the Defendant Trial Points.

Reaction of <6 means a Change to Trial Points of a +30% to Prosecution TP
Reaction of 6-7 means a Change to Trial Points of a +20% to Prosecution TP
Reaction of 8-9 means a Change to Trial Points of a +10% to Prosecution TP
Reaction of 10 leads to a no change of TP.
Reaction of 11-12 means a Change to Trial Points of a +10% to Defense TP
Reaction of 13-14 means a Change to Trial Points of a +20% to Defense TP
Reaction of 14< means a Change to Trial Points of a +30% to Defense TP

7. Judge Verdict.
After deliberation, the Judge will come back to he room, and pass the Verdict. If the total TP is negative, the verdict will be Innocent (with grades according to how negative). If it's Zero, the trial will declare the accused not guilty due to lack of evidence. If it's positive, the accused will be declared Guilty, the higher the TP the worse the punishment.


What do you think about the system? Do you think it's fun? Would you like to play on it? What would you change? Is there something better around? Is this idea horrible and I should ditch it in a trench?

[hal]

At the risk of being unhelpful...

If a "player" is in trouble, that's one thing, if a player character is in trouble that's another. *teasing grin*

That having been said...

ACES AND EIGHTS had a nice system for simulating trials. The gist of it was this:

Each trial member of the jury had a reaction to the trial. The Lawyers involved would have a contest of sorts versus their skills, and the points they earned on their skill use, could be used to sway the jurors towards a given point of view. The number of juror affecting points earned depended upon the skill level of the lawyer, the risk he was willing to take, and some odds and ends other things that worked for their game system that is not easily transferable to GURPS directly. None the less, trying to influence the jurors themselves as opposed to a juror group might be a somewhat better approach. Here, body language and psychology might come into play. Maybe it is a direct appeal to the facts that gets the job done. Maybe it is the step by step approach to proving the guilt of the defendant that reaches a logical conclusion that the defense can't stop. Maybe - the whole thing hinges on one facet that the prosecuting attorney built his entire case upon, which the defending lawyer unravels and causes reasonable doubt. Maybe there is witness tampering. Maybe, the case just doesn't reach the level of a fully agreed upon verdict and the jury ends up hung - and the prosecuting attorney refuses to re-file the charges.

If you're interested in picking up Aces & Eights for use with GURPS as a reference item, I would heartily suggest that it is worth the effort. If you want ONLY the "meta-games" such as the cattle drive, the prospecting for gold, or the trial, there is a $5 PDf that you can pick up from RPGNOW.COM - this in turn will potentially give you ideas on how to make a trial by jury work for your own campaign, assuming you go that route.

Keep in mind, that while Aces & Eights looks complicated as far as conversions go, it really isn't. While GURPS has a "top value, roll under mechanism", A&E uses a low value roll high. Just invert it a bit, and go with the concept that just like GURPS utilizes a bonus for easier tasks, and penalties for harder tasks, A&E also utilizes a similar concept.

On that note - feel free to contact me privately if you have questions. Their character profiles used in various products are really nice, and their wage listings and pricing for goods is rather comprehensive. Heck, even the rules for determining price increases due to how far the town is from the nearest rail head is worth looking into. ;)

[John_A_Tallon]

The traditional trial by jury and judge is listed as an Adversarial Trial, in both the GURPS Basic Set (page 508) and in GURPS Social Engineering (page 54). They both treat the trial as a single Quick Contest of Law (Criminal) roll, with modifiers applied for circumstance. I feel this is a great way to deal with the question since most players aren't all that interested in crafting detailed legal arguments and would rather find out quickly if they'll need to perform a jailbreak or make a new character.

If the players are an entire legal team, a protracted series of incremental contests like what you've made may be interesting. The viability of your resolution system really depends heavily on how the players are using their characters and what they expect from the game.

[RyanW]

One question that needs to be addressed is whether the prosecution wants the truth or a conviction, and how far they are willing to go to get it. If they uncover evidence that tends to exonerate the defendant, will they follow up (or at least turn it over for the defense to follow up), or keep it under wraps? Of course, even in a fair system that requires turning it over doesn't necessarily require them to call attention to one specific item in a pile of paperwork.