Post by Naem on Aug 6, 2009 19:22:53 GMT 10
READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS
Four friends. One of them was murdered by one of the remaining three. But who was it? There is one suspect, and one witness. Is everything as it seems, or is the truth hidden beneath dark motives?
This, SV, is an experiment. One day, I happened to notice two things: a) we really like text games here even though only a few people are good at them and b) I need a healthy outlet for one of my obsessions that doesn't involve drawing, because I'm at that tricky learning stage where you're good enough to see everything you do is flawed yet not good enough to know how to fix it. Anyway, I thought of a game pretty much based on the courtroom phases of Ace Attorney, with a couple of differences. I'm starting this with a very simple case so that any flaws in this system can be easily spotted. So, first, let's have a look at some of the possible roles (upon rereading the following list, I realised I switched from the third person to the first person at some point, but I don't particularly feel like fixing that now).
Judge: Basically the moderator. He has to make sure everyone's behaving and plays a role in deciding the verdict. As this is just a test, I'll be the Judge, as a general guide for how he should moderate in future games.
Jury Member: There will be three of these. At the end of the trial, they must decide on a single verdict – for the verdict to be passed, the Judge MUST agree with it. Otherwise, it must be reconsidered and argued while the killer's either giggling at your sorry asses or biting his fingernails. Thank Fiery for his help with this here!
Detective: Before the trial starts, he will be given a list of evidence. His job is to present it at the beginning of the trial, hopefully also managing to explain why the suspect is... uh, suspected.
Prosecutor: GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY THE DEFENDANT IS GUILTYYYY. Well, not necessarily. Whether you're a nice or a ruthless prosecutor, that's up to you. Just do your job. Before the trial begins, he might find a few pieces of exclusive evidence on his own.
Defence Attorney: Just defend your client... But be careful. I can't guarantee you will always be defending the right person. Just like the prosecution, the defence might find some exclusive evidence before the trial begins.
Defendant: Well, if the defence doesn't do a good job, you're screwed. If you're actually the killer, you'd better try to hide it as hard as you can. If you see things aren't going your way, you may attempt to intervene in the trial, but you'd better have a damn good reason... otherwise, you might make yourself look even worse.
Witness: There may be only one or many witnesses. They may know exactly what they saw or they may be unknowingly mistaken. They may speak the complete truth or hide it, depending on who they really are. It's up to the defence to cross-examine their testimony.
THE KILLER OH CRAP: Is ideally a shifty bastard. May or may not overlap with any of the previous roles. The killer might even get away with his crime if something goes wrong...
And that's it for the roles, I believe. As you can see, the thread's host doesn't do much once the trial's actually rolling (except in this case, where I will play the Judge), but before, there are things to be done. The roles will be randomly assigned and the evidence will be handed out to the Detective, the Prosecutor and the Defence Attorney.
“But wait,” you might be asking, “Since the evidence is handed out privately, doesn't that mean any of those three people could FORGE it?” That's correct. “Oh, well... At least the host can easily identify all the forged evidence and put a stop to it.” Wrong. I'll obviously notice the forgery, but I won't do a damn thing about it. It's up to anyone participating in the trial to find out about it – only then will the host punish the forger, probably banning him from the next game just to keep things realistic. If you think you can get away with forging something, go ahead. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Anyway, once the trial starts, the thread's host must be completely impartial – they cannot influence the flow of the game in any way. They may, of course, answer any questions about the game mechanics that come up.
One more note that I can think of: since this is obviously a forum and not a freaking courtroom, non-serious remarks ARE allowed, like, I dunno, “OBJECTION YOU'RE WRONG BECAUSE YOU ARE”. Just don't go overboard. If the Judge thinks things are getting out of hand, he has to do something about it.
And I think that's all I can think of for now. Please do ask questions and point out any flaws you see in this, and you can start signing up if you want, but do keep in mind that I'm still coming up with all the details of the murder in this case.
Participants:
CC
Zae
Doomsday
Max Fuchs
Radeon
Bishy
DA
Xad
Hunter
Eco
Fiery
Breaker
Why didn't you decide to think this earlier in order to advance in a more sane, happy way?
