Justice for 'criminals'

[CrashBlizz]

This isn't really a moan, more of a 'is this really the case'.

Question: Is there any real justice in cantr?

Most of the time, from what I've seen and experianced, people are judged not by what they do but what people say they do. If person A says that person B did it, then everyone assumes its true, evidence or not.

I've spent months developing characters just to have them imprisoned, or even killed in one or two cases just because someone who didn't like my character said they id something, whether its something recet or even things that 'happened' years ago. Do town officials actually look for proof at all? And can there really be any 'proof'?

All the other person has to do is write a note saying I saw them say this and thats it, it must be true.

I saw Jake say: I'm going to kill everyone and take over the town.

BANG, jakes in jail for 5 years.

Nothing you can say or do can change anything because they say you did it and whats more they have it on a note! Must be guilty.

So I ask: Is there any real justice anywhere in cantr, or are the ones who accuse first or know the leaders a little better right by default?

[MakeBeliever]

*she laughs holding her sides in pain*

Well thats easy Nope, none that i've seen around. No justice in Cantr.

Well unless your a leader, then you make your own up as you go along.

Apart from that nope.

If there was justice why would Jo's have invented the crossbow and sword.
and not a lawyers table.

[Sho]

It's true that people are far too credulous of event logs (see rants elsewhere on why people who use event logs as IC evidence fail at life). And yes, most places don't really have solid systems of justice. But no Cantr society really has the resources floating around to run a real justice system with checks and balances, habeas corpus, presumption of innocence and all that. Easier to just kill the suspect, eliminating both any possibility of a repeat offense and any debate on the punishment.

[formerly known as hf]

What's justice?

We have such deep ingrained ideas of what justice is and what a justice system should be, but why transfer that to Cantr?

Our 'justice system' that seems so inherent and central to western societies is a somewhat recent development. Justice has taken many forms over both time and between cultures and societies.

I'm glad to see that 'justice' is dealt out very differently in Cantr than in the real world - it shows that people are adapting and developing ways to deal with the Cantrian situation.

If people are going to comaplin about the 'justice system' of bits of Cantrian society, it should not be on the basis that it does not conform to real-life concepts of justice.

[Stan]

Some of what you say is true. But some of what happens with a justice system in Cantr is due to inactivity not a thought out judicial system.

[Marian]

Most of the time, from what I've seen and experianced, people are judged not by what they do but what people say they do. If person A says that person B did it, then everyone assumes its true, evidence or not.

I sort of agree with this, but don't think it's all that different from real life, especially if 'person A' is in their own town and 'person B' isn't . In real life wouldn't you believe your friend or someone you respected over a complete stranger?

And if 'person A' and 'person B' are both unknown, but are both newspawns who showed up in a town and one starts accusing the other, from what I've seen the person who's believed comes down to who's the better speaker.

It's like,

A man in his twenties says, "hry that guy hit me!!!"

A man in his twenties says, *looks at his accuser in contempt* Oh please. Havent' you had enough of making a fool of yourself? *addresses the town* I was on my way here to do a bit of gathering when this raving madman began insulting me, and even went so far as to try and punch me, though thankfully he missed. I slashed at him with my knife to try and dissuade him, but I find this whole business upsettign and distasteful. *gives a relieved sigh* I'm just glad I'm now off the road and in a civilized town where nonsense like that isn't allowed to go on.

A man in his twenties says, "No your lying you hit me"

Either person could be telling the truth, but which one is more believable?
(I love writing little skits like this! )

[AoM]

Justice prevented because the game doesn't provide enough ways to determine the truth.

All we can go on is eye-witness accounts, if there are any. Other than that, it's heresay. Now at least we can see if someone has died violently or not, but we still can't discriminate between an axe wound and an arrow wound, so we can't narrow the field based on the murder weapon.

What's more, there aren't any tell-tale signs of recent violence in Cantr. If Person A hits deals a great amount of damage to Person B with a claymore, the description of Person A doesn't change to "his clothes are smeared with wet blood."

If something like that happened, perhaps we would better be able to determine the culprit of these random crimes. Until then, cantrian society has its hands tied when it comes to justice.

[Kreed]

I guess I've been lucky then because I havent found a lack of justice. One of my characters was acused of crimes by two people who backed up their claims with what they said were event logs, (they'd changed them rather cleverly to agree with each other). All three of us handed over our versions of events and I argued my way out using logic and my more complete version of events. They lost and were imprisioned for their trouble.

[Sho]

Now at least we can see if someone has died violently or not, but we still can't discriminate between an axe wound and an arrow wound, so we can't narrow the field based on the murder weapon.

Wasn't this changed? See http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=143926#143926.

[AoM]

I stand corrected on that account. I haven't killed a newspawn in the past month. Guess I'm getting rusty...

[Hagan]

I guess I've been lucky then because I havent found a lack of justice. One of my characters was acused of crimes by two people who backed up their claims with what they said were event logs, (they'd changed them rather cleverly to agree with each other). All three of us handed over our versions of events and I argued my way out using logic and my more complete version of events. They lost and were imprisioned for their trouble.

Yeah Kreed I remember that event It just so happened that happened on a day when I was bored and had time on my hands to sit and read through all three accounts over and over.. finally highlighting the conflicting testamonies and comparrying them together. You dont know just how close things were to falling against you.. it was not your talking yourself out of it as much as they missed up and on their false reports which matched almost perfect at one point they forgot to change where one of them picked some items up off of the deck of the boat you were on and it showed the grams they picked up.. proofing it was fack if not for that I would of rulled against you... So False Testimonies can be good but myself I agree with some others I wish testimonies were not just copied and pasted from events log but then again since we are timed who has the time to rewrite events completely everytime.. specially if your playing 15 characters..

I have a leader in Four towns and I try to be as fair and just as I can

[Kreed]

Then I take my hat off to you Hagan. From my own experience your doing a fine job. My Character thanks you kindly.

[Sho]

I agree with some others I wish testimonies were not just copied and pasted from events log but then again since we are timed who has the time to rewrite events completely everytime.. specially if your playing 15 characters..

Many players prewrite notes or speeches in Notepad.

[MrPenguin589]

I write speeches and stuff in Notepad, and then put them as notes in that particular characters inventory (sometimes in 2 languages, becuase my Spanish chars run into Germans a lot). It works pretty well.

[Nixit]

I guess I've been lucky then because I havent found a lack of justice. One of my characters was acused of crimes by two people who backed up their claims with what they said were event logs, (they'd changed them rather cleverly to agree with each other). All three of us handed over our versions of events and I argued my way out using logic and my more complete version of events. They lost and were imprisioned for their trouble.

Yeah Kreed I remember that event It just so happened that happened on a day when I was bored and had time on my hands to sit and read through all three accounts over and over.. finally highlighting the conflicting testamonies and comparrying them together. You dont know just how close things were to falling against you.. it was not your talking yourself out of it as much as they missed up and on their false reports which matched almost perfect at one point they forgot to change where one of them picked some items up off of the deck of the boat you were on and it showed the grams they picked up.. proofing it was fack if not for that I would of rulled against you... So False Testimonies can be good but myself I agree with some others I wish testimonies were not just copied and pasted from events log but then again since we are timed who has the time to rewrite events completely everytime.. specially if your playing 15 characters..

I have a leader in Four towns and I try to be as fair and just as I can

I (and Ged) was amazed as Howto's meticulousness.