Random rules and rulings

1. Seeing that Arduin had a table for it ("Arduin has something about everything. It's like Dianetics for men." — Psycho Dave), I was inspired to ask how to quickly mimic rope breaking for GURPS. So thus, after folks told me some things, I come up with this:

If you use a rope for more than its listed weight capacity, you must make an HT roll for the rope (assume HT 10 unless you paid more for higher HT) to see if it breaks. The rope is at -1 to HT for each 10% of listed weight capacity by which the load goes over the weight capacity, so for a normal rope, going at 170% of listed weight capacity will always break a normal rope. Remember that this weight capacity is halved for dynamic loads, which would be lifting or climbing without slowing down first (say, in combat, or lifting an animal without making an Animal Handling roll first). Also, a critical failure on a Climbing check while climbing when the rope is overburdened breaks the rope unless the climber's Climbing skill is 16 or better.

2. Weregeld. Seeing as how I like making lawbreaking penalties fines rather than prison time, I wound up reading up on the weregeld. In short, use the Cost of Living-based fines based on the Cost of Living of the victim rather than stock Status 0. So killing a Status -2 bum would be a mere $1,000 weregeld payment to his family or liege lord, but killing a Status 7 king is $600,000,000. I know this does not scale with the historical weregeld (which was about $4,000 for Status 0, with a halving for Status -1, and about $40,000 for killing the king), but it will deter murderhoboes from murderhoboing after a big haul.

EDIT (3nov2017): Since that scales up way too fast, the fines scale up with victim Status +1. Halve for Status -1; quarter for Status -2. Have fines be twofold the Class B/C felony fine for a Class A penalty, but Mīšarkênē is definitely a death penalty jurisdiction.

3. We didn't play on Sunday, as we had one player out-of-town and another in the hospital (again). So Roman, who plays Xórin the fox-man, his nephew Joseph, who may be joining us shortly, and I all played Blackmoor at the Source Comics and Games, which is kind of a Midwest Mecca for nerdery. Bob Meyer, who played Robert the Bald in the original Blackmoor game, ran the game. According to him, he inherited the game when Dave Arneson died. I never got to play with Dave even though I had met him a few times in the early Nineties, so this was the closest I could come. (My brother, however, not a huge D&D player, not only played with Dave, he got his D&D Rules Cyclopedia signed by Dave and Ross Maker and whoever else was around that night. Lucky little shit.) I'm the guy wearing the Cartman t-shirt, Roman is next to me in the black T-shirt and with one side of his face that looks like it was caught in a time glitch with the panoramic shot, and Joseph is in the Twins tuque. No, it wasn't cold in there, so I don't know what was with the tuque.

How was it? Fun. It was rules-light, with us playing ourselves as one of a man-at-arms (what I played; there were two others), the guard captain (who served as the caller), a couple of scholars (Roman, who could cast spells by smashing a vial of Blackmoor water), three scouts (Joseph), and one woodsman (er, woodswoman, who was one of Dave's "Scandihairians," or hairy Vikings drawing on Dave's Norwegian ancestry). We cleared out two levels of Castle Blackmoor, with Orcs and Trolls, and managed to burn out six rooms, including the floor of one room. We all had one special power of our choosing—mine was to be able to make friends with anyone, which I didn't tell the others, leading to a funny episode wherein the I led out the first Orc we met, with the intent of having him show me where the other Orcs were, and instead the other fighters killed him. (Plus there was the idea of having my own Orc army.) It was a good lesson in keeping things non-linear.

Crimes and fines

A few sessions ago, I had do wing a trial for “unlawful spell dueling” because one of the players thought he’d run inside and sit around after said unlawful spell duel. When it came time for penalty, I had no frigging clue, and no guidelines, so I fined Caleb the Cost of Living for a month of high living at Status 0: $600. I didn’t want the game to slow down, and I didn’t want Caleb to admit to an airline pilot that he had been in a Turkish prison, so I made it a fine.

Thinking about it later, I made the right choice on many levels. Not only did a fine speed the game along, but it sapped a resource precious to the players. Still, I lacked guidelines beyond the Cost of Living, so I did some reading and googling.

First, I should say outright: I’m not a lawyer. My father is, and my mother was a librarian for a law firm, and I passed press law in college. I haven’t been in trouble with the law since the powers that be haven’t found out that I peddle hookers, blow, and guns. This is from looking through the legal codes of Minnesota, Google, and Wikipedia. I’m sure I fucked something up somewhere.

Anyways, the characters have committed a crime, and someone has found out and called for the police or Town Watch. To see if it comes, I roll 1d, and compare to the local Control Rating. If it gets below the Control Rating, the gendarmes come, but it takes long enough that the characters can think of something to try to flee. If it gets above the Control Rating, the authorities are too busy eating doughnuts. If it rolls the Control Rating exactly, the authorities come so fast that the characters don’t have a chance to flee.

EDIT (3nov2017): I realized that this always means you have a 1-in-6 chance of having the gendarmes come if you don't flee, regardless of CR, which, come to think of it, seems wrong. So instead, have the fuzz show up on a roll of half the CR, rounded down. A roll of the CR or less but more than half, means you can still get away.

Next, run the trial, per p. B508 in the Basic Set. Make the Reaction Roll, and the Quick Contest of Law (Criminal) for an adversarial trial. The result and the level of offense determine what happens. Apply a -3 to the Reaction Roll for Social Stigma (Criminal Record); once a crook, always a crook.

Good or better reaction: You’re walking.
Neutral: For a felony, you get off. For a lesser crime, you pay half the listed fine (see below), but serve no jail time or probation.
Poor: You lose. What you lose depends on the level of offense.

• Petty misdemeanor: This is being caught speeding or smoking a joint. The fine is Cost of Living for a week, or $150.
• Misdemeanor: First-time DWI, or fifth degree assault (scaring someone into thinking he’s gonna die, or giving him a good bop on the head). The fine is Cost of Living for a month, or $600.
• Gross misdemeanor: This is second-time DWI, or prostitution. The fine is Cost of Living for three months, or $1,800.
• Class D felony: The list of offenses here include possession of stolen property, false claim of crime, weapon possession violation, promoting child molesting, vehicular homicide, fraud, domestic violence, or unlawful firearms sale. At this point, you’re assured of doing some jail time. The fine is Cost of Living for five months, or $3,000, plus 1d-2 years of jail; treat a roll of 0 as 6 months, and a roll of -1 as 3 months.
• Class C felony: You did something like kidnapping, arson, sexual assault, second degree murder, robbery, bribery, receiving stolen property, or forgery. Needless to say, you’ve been a bad boy, or somebody really doesn’t like you. The fine is Cost of Living for ten months, or $6,000, and 1d years of jail.
• Class B felony: You’ve really been bad. You did something like attempted rape or attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault, reckless homicide, manslaughter, assault and battery, or heroin or cocaine possession. The fine is the same as a class C felony, and the least of your problems, as you’re also serving 2d years of jail. (An aside here. I try to keep politics off this blog. I don’t like it in gaming blogs since we’re not going to agree on this stuff, and it’s irrelevant to our elf games. But the idea possessing some blow can get you the same penalty as beating up someone or shoving your dick in someone’s face is truly fucked up to me.)
• Class A felony: Rape, murder. It’s just a shot away. And you’ve been put away for life. I assume you don’t care about the fine anymore.

Bad: Twofold fines and jail terms. A gross misdemeanor also has 1d weeks of jail. Twofold the 1d-2 years of jail for a class D felony is 1d years of jail.
Very Bad: You likely drank Jobu's wine. Twofold fines and threefold jail terms. A gross misdemeanor has 1d months of jail, and a misdemeanor has 2d days of jail. Threefold of 1d-2 years is 1d+2 years. Class A felonies become death sentences in jurisdictions that have death penalties.
Disastrous: Twofold fines and fourfold jail terms. Gross misdemeanors serve 2d months of jail, misdemeanors serve 1d weeks of jail. Fourfold of 1d-2 years is 2d years. In CR 6 jurisdictions, lesser felonies get death at this level.

This is a quick generalization. Obviously, if you’re running a game in England in the 18th century or in Athens under Draco, the juries will react at a bonus, but anything worse than Neutral for a felony brings death.

If there is a jail term with a misdemeanor or a gross misdemeanor, after the offender gets out, he has probation for sixfold his jail term. Probation in game terms is having Social Stigma (Criminal Record) for this length of time. If you don't get in trouble again, the Social Stigma goes away once the time is up. Otherwise, you'll have to spend half the sentence in jail again. Felons have Social Stigma (Criminal Record) for the rest of their lives unless they can get the government to overturn or nullify this.

For civil cases, the base amount is the amount of damages sought. Each level of difference of reaction grows the payment by half as punitive damages. The government instead of the plaintiff might get the punitive award in some areas.

If an amount is needed for bail, use one tenth of the standard fine, or the standard fine for felonies. That’s the amount actually paid to the court or a bondsman, not the amount of bail. Caught skipping bail means you have to pay the full fine, or tenfold the full fine for a felony, and stand trial for the original offense, with a -3 penalty to the Reaction roll at trial. You’re also at -3 to future Reactions to whoever bonded you.