[Diaspora] Social Combat Map for a Court Martial

[Brad Murray]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Jeffrey Hosmer <jhosmer1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> My general idea is one where the map has concentric circles around "Guilty"
> and "Innocent" and they try to move two of the tribunal members to
> "Innocent" while the prosecutor tries to move them to "Guilty," with a third
> series of circles representing "In Contempt," which can get a PC or the
> prosecutor thrown out of the proceedings.  But I'm not sure if this map will
> generate a good courtroom drama scene.  (One judge is already in the Guilty
> circle, as he trying to blame the mess on the PCs).


First, this is pretty awesome. I think your instinct to use the debate model
(two concentric circles) is spot on. In fact I would be tempted to not
complicate it any further than that -- have a GUILTY and a MISTRIAL state on
a map:

GUILTY - () - () - () - () - () - MISTRIAL

(note that this is topologically identical to concentric circles it's just
easier to show in text)

Represent everyone who is voting to judge guilt as pawns and the lawyers as
actors. I wouldn't put contempt on the map -- instead read all composure
attacks as contempt, with "taken out" getting you disbarred or jailed. Put a
hard time limit on it and when the time is up, read the map (here I assume a
unanimous jury model with presumption of innocence, which is why INNOCENT is
not a goal):

- all pawns in the GUILTY box? GUILTY!
- any pawns not in the GUILTY box? innocent
- any pawns OR ACTORS in the MISTRIAL box? MISTRIAL!

...and narrate results. Go for a swift resolution with lots of narration by
players on their actions, whether they are presenting evidence (moving
jurors), snuggling up to the jurors (moving self closer to the juror),
goading the other lawyers (composure attacks), etc. Note that this encodes
the tactic of trying to force a mistrial when things are going bad -- if you
see a looming guilty verdict, you can always move yourself to the mistrial
box and probably get yourself disbarred. The story coming out of this should
be unpredictable and awesome.

-- 
Brad Murray (halfjack)
VSCA Publishing
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