Re: Stormwind law - Improvements, updates, suggestions. A discussion thread. (Updated with drafts of the new laws)

[Braiden]

2.2 Assault on a Royal official
Attacking a Royal official of Stormwind physically or magically, with or without weapons.

I sincerely doubt that it was your intention that people could be prosecuted if they attacked a royal duty while he wasn't on the job (say, he was sleeping in his house). Currently prosecution can be done under this article which, again, I doubt was your intention. If I am correct about your intentions you should change the wording in this article to reflect that the official has to be attacked while he is on duty.

Actually it was, however clarification of what a royal official can include might be wise.

@Aelrath:

The punishments are not really designed for IC realism, that's the thing. They're designed to be reasonable to the RPers behind the character. Realistically, the punishments would be much harsher, but they're very much toned down for the sake of the player.

If you make race come into play, it ends up resulting in a serious issue with punishing the longer-lived races. Afterall, a day or week in jail is nothing next to their lifespans. Yet cutting off their hand is "a punishment they'll have to live with for thousands of years". So you're essentially left with just fines or community service for longer-lived races, because maiming is "too much" while OOCly-reasonable jail times are "too little".

For the sake of simplicity for RP, there is no sense in having different punishments for different races. People already face far smaller punishments than they should because they're unwilling to deal with more, so why complicate it further?

Also, I've always been of the opinion that the "long life makes time irrelevant!" is a shitty argument. Even the long-lived races live in the present. A prisoner sentence of "human proportions" is just as meaningful for a long-lived race as it is for a short-lived one. The threat of a prison sentence isn't about changing the "ratio of free life to prison life", it's about the actual loss of freedom for X amount of time. Simply being detained for so many years will be just as punishing and meaningful for anyone, regardless of how long they live.

As for the limb thing... if a long-lived race can't deal with losing a limb for the rest of their eons-long life, then maybe they shouldn't have done the crime in the first place.

than just critique, I'll offer an alternative. Consult the leading authorities of the race that offended, and have them punish their own, or offer punishments that seem fitting for that race and let the race that own the lands that the crime was committed in, carry out the punishment.

Dwarf breaks rules, let Dwarf mete out the punishment, or let Humans carry out the punshiment on behalf of the Dwarves. Heck, maybe even let the Kaldorei carry out the punishment as a neutral unafflicted party.

Not only does this prevent the issue of cross-species punishments being done unfairly or too lightly, but it also promotes cross-guild RP, or even positions on this Stormwind Council for legal representatives of each race. I won't say I'm too far involved in the Council and details about what goes on, but to me, as an outsider, it seems like nothing but benefitial RP can come from it.

We already do extradite when asked. The SW Regiment recently extradited a dwarven mountaineer to Ironforge when they came by asking for him, and they are currently trying him for his SW crimes.

Extradition is really iffy business OOCly, though, as it often results in people just abusing it as a way to ignore the crime entirely, or to allow their friends to place punishments so minor as to be completely irrelevant.

Pretty much this, I also believe that this whole issue is based on a specific IC view and is argued for mainly by players that play these close to immortal races. Do you really believe that anyone expressing that a human loosing a hand is not as bad as an elf loosing one might not be very popular with humans in general or for that matter met with understanding? What is done in that situation is that you belittle the significance of conditions that limits or changes a humans life pretty much to a point where you indirectly pat the entire human race on the head and say "Our lives are worth more then yours." This is of course fine IC and would surely inspire some wonderful conflict but arguing for it OOC is just pointless.

[Antistia]

Actually it was, however clarification of what a royal official can include might be wise.

Fair enough. You could choose to elaborate or keep it open for interpretation on a case by case basis.

No comment whatsoever on the rest?

[Vaell]

Braiden and Drustai hit the nail on the head with their replies, leaving me little room to put anything extra.

Night Elves don't really belong in Stormwind, it isn't suited to their culture. The ones who do have to adapt to the lifestyle and would understand the consiquences of their actions. Those that are visiting - say if Nature's Grasp popped in to say hello - would be excused of some of their actions due to culture, e.g Theft, as long as they paid back what they stole/apologised.

[Tuomas/Decurius]

Also, I've always been of the opinion that the "long life makes time irrelevant!" is a shitty argument. Even the long-lived races live in the present. A prisoner sentence of "human proportions" is just as meaningful for a long-lived race as it is for a short-lived one. The threat of a prison sentence isn't about changing the "ratio of free life to prison life", it's about the actual loss of freedom for X amount of time. Simply being detained for so many years will be just as punishing and meaningful for anyone, regardless of how long they live.

Wrong. If you keep a human in prison for 50 years of his life, you will have probably see him die there or, if he's lucky, him get out old and unable to build something in life after. In short, you took most of his life, and he'll never be able to get it back. If you do the same to an elf, he'll have like some thousands of years to rebuild his life. This, even with the 'presents' you take away from them. The how many you take and the how many you leave out is a matter that remains.

[Antistia]

It may be worth noting that prison sentences serve dual purposes:

A) A punitive purpose.
B) A security purpose.

So, you could say that a sentence of 10 years consists of 4 years for punitive reasons, and 6 years for security reason (removing the threat from society).

You could argue that the length of the punitive part is determined by how 'bad' the crime is perceived to be. More serious crimes will lead to a longer prison sentence purely for punitive purposes.

One can then proceed to argue, more or less convincingly, that we have "determined" that crime X is worth Y years in jail not because it is just a serious crime, but that we also find Y to be a correct punishment because of it being a significant (or not) portion of someone's life.

That said, the above is probably quite vague and I would reckon that this line of reasoning is not something that would happen lorewise.

[Antistia]

As I'm a tad bored:

2.5 Contempt of court
Disrupting or preventing the work of a Stormwind court of law.

Lacks any form of qualifications. This leads to the situation where a disruption which could, and should, be justified will still be held as contempt of court.

Example: Courthouse is on fire, miraculously hasn't been noticed yet on the inside but a guard rushes inside and orders the evacuation of the building (all the while court is in session). He is now disrupting the work of a Stormwind court of law and liable for prosecution under this statute.

2.6 Cultism
Being part of or aiding an organization or worshipping a being or power declared an enemy of the Church of Holy Light.

This also lacks any form of qualifications. Leading to a situation much like the above. Here someone who has been sent to infiltrate organization X on behalf of the government would also be liable for prosecution. Due to lack of qualifications this infiltrator would be declared guilty of this crime. Commanding officer could also be found guilty of aiding this organization (he increased the membership of the organization, did he not?).

This really goes for most, if not all, sections. They (almost) all lack qualifications leading to situations such as the above. I do take into account that some are unqualified for good reason, but others, I would reckon the vast majority, are unqualified by mistake. It may seem like nitpicking, and with all due respect to Braiden, but these are immense mistakes. I cannot stress that fact enough. Thankfully it's mostly a matter of inserting qualifications and those are pretty minor changes which will make greatly increase the quality of the laws without complicating the laws in any meaningful manner.

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