D&D is a world full of magic, there are spells that relate to many parts of daily life: making food(goodberry), plowing fields(mold earth), cleaning and flavoring(prestidigitation), repairing (mending), etc. Something that has been bothering me for quite some time is that despite there being many utility spells, they are not used, even in high-fantasy settings I have played. The worst instance of this is in the justice system, despite there being spells available for discerning what happened in a particular instance, it ends up being a "he-said, she-said" contest of whoever has the highest deception or diplomacy. Sometimes, they would look at evidence which can be interpreted in any number of ways.
One line of reasoning I have heard is that they wouldn't use spells like zone of truth or otherwise because it can be gotten around with spells like glibness. Glibness is an 8th level spell though, even trained magic users are unlikely to be aware of its existence let alone know how to cast it.
Another line of reasoning is that they wouldn't use spells because very few people end up having magical ability. However, assuming that judges (people of high rank, which there are few of) being a first level mook is absurd.
Another line of reasoning is that spell slots are limited, number of convicted may outnumber how many castings per day one may be able to use, and people may resist some spells. However, I find it more likely that people would have the option to have magic be used to prove their innocence, with the deterrent in place that if they are again found to be guilty that they would have an increased fine or punishment. In addition to resisting judicial spells being an offense (which is trackable with spells like zone of truth "You know whether each creature succeeds or fails on its saving throw.")
My question is: considering that D&D is a world involving magic, what changes would that have to the justice system, either spells used or otherwise?
This is a great question. My feeling is that the more severe crime, involving people with high status, get to use magic. Mostly likely, due to them able to pay for it. Even today, poor people have a harder time with the justice system due to their inability to hire good attorneys or expert witnesses.
By the same token, criminals, especially those with a high risk of escape or violence, may be subject to a Geas spell to ensure compliance.
Since magic items in the default campaign world are difficult to come by (no magic shops, as such), then maybe spellcasters are also rare.
I seem to remember in other games that maybe the major NPCs in a town would be no higher than 5th level; so having lots of NPCs able to cast 2nd or 3rd level spells would be rare.
With a zone of truth, you would probably have many anti-establishment people simply refusing to answer any questions in such a zone, regardless of their innocence or guilt.
With a zone of truth, you would probably have many anti-establishment people simply refusing to answer any questions in such a zone, regardless of their innocence or guilt.
In-game justice isn't the same as real world justice.
Refusing the answer might be a crime in itself, or an admission of guilt.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Another line of reasoning that people don't often seem to consider is that you can limit individual spells just like you can limit overall magic. Maybe your basic NPC cleric only has access to four or five spells from a sublist of what PCs can get. This way you can have casters exist but they're still impressed as hell when you cast Zone of Truth because they've never seen it before. This is a nice way to have magic be common but still have the PCs feel like chosen heroes.
I tend to handle magic-in-the-world defensively like this because my players will absolutely go down roads like this justice system thing and while it's all good fun it can unravel your whole setting if they take it far enough.
In a high magic game reimagine one of the most well known monsters as the judges in your courts of law:
Have all parties concerend have to swear an oath to tell the truth whilst within the beholders anti magic eye and then once all parties have sworn to tell the turth the whole truth etc, close the anti magic eye and have one of the eye beams emit a ray of bestow curse (target cannot lie), another detect thoughts etc and let the trial commence!
For a low magic world, not even Regicide would involve magical courts.
For a High Magic World Nobility and High Crimes (Murder, ****, treason, etc.) would all have magical detection used in court - with some attempt to prevent cheating.
I also could see the following option for a High Level Magic World:
Plead Guilty and accept the non-lethal punishment.
Demand a Trial by Magic - if found innocent released, if found guilty, punishment tripled and the death penalty goes on the table.
In a high magic world with magic in law enforcement and trials, the bad guys also stack up on illusion magic, teleportation and nasty enchantments and charms.
So, the stakes are not getting caught in the first place.
Another aspect to take into account is how much magic can be abused by a corrupt courtier or magistrate. They may be getting paid by the local crime syndicate, or be a part of it, and use magic selectively depending on who is being accused.
Or it may be that the powers that be find mind-altering spells unethical and have them banned, so spells the compel the truth are not allowed, or possibly that Someone has been charmed into doing something unethical in the past and use a lot of dispel magic seals in the court room itself so as to prevent any tomfoolery from happening from anyone.
keep in mind a good way to pass zone of truth and other truth telling spells is if you have thieves can't, which all rogues have, you can tell the truth while lying at the same time. you can say no I didn't do it in thieves cant while actually saying it, yeah it was me i committed the crime. also thieves cant isn't limited to common so you can speak in common while using ork in thieves cant. and only others who speak thieves cant can understand if they also have the base language. also if a judge or whoever casting the spell knows thieves cant either the dm is metagaming or you commited a crime so bad they had to bring a criminal to cast zone of truth.
keep in mind a good way to pass zone of truth and other truth telling spells is if you have thieves can't, which all rogues have, you can tell the truth while lying at the same time. you can say no I didn't do it in thieves cant while actually saying it, yeah it was me i committed the crime. also thieves cant isn't limited to common so you can speak in common while using ork in thieves cant. and only others who speak thieves cant can understand if they also have the base language. also if a judge or whoever casting the spell knows thieves cant either the dm is metagaming or you commited a crime so bad they had to bring a criminal to cast zone of truth.
Or if they have Tongues cast on them, since it's spoken they understand it.
In my setting, judges and nobles that settle civil disputes are typically under level 10 NPCs. They usually have higher than average wisdom even if their class wouldn't normally have this attribute in a nearly optimized build. I have homebrewed a magic rod, a symbol of the noble's or magistrate's authority, that permits 1, 2 or 3 castings of enhance ability per day, but the spell must be used to enhance wisdom and it gives advantage on the roll as well. So I very high level noble might have his Rod of Noble Authority able to cast enhance ability on wisdom and for the purpose of this roll his wisdom score will be 18, or 20. This is one of the methods I bestow authority on the rulers in a good established civilization. The common folks don't know why, but it seems the rulers make the right decision when it is important that they get it right. And this establishes confidence in the nobility that they understand what they are doing.
In a like manner, I have other homebrewed magic items to obtain the truth. My favorite is a special Lute carried by Bards in the Diplomatic Service. When they visit nobles on their travels they offer their services in 'sort interrogations' conducted by nobles and magistrates. Imagine a dinner party where the host needs to question some folks informally, or even formally, but there are no oaths administered. The Bard plays his lute and anyone that can hear the music is spellbound. If a person tells a lie they develop a feeling of extreme discomfort that becomes apparent to anyone that knows the spell is in effect. They can still "tell" their lie, or half-truth, but they will become notably uncomfortable for a moment and the feeling wears off. So a skilled interviewer can come back to that question and this allows them to catch them in their lie when they typically contradict themselves later.
In court, The judge has a candle that sits on a stand on his desk. If he lights the candle it emits a pleasant odor. But the candle reacts to testimony and dishonesty. One good feature about this candle is the local "law enforcement" know all about it so they don't attempt to lie at all. However, if someone within 12 feet of the candle tells a blatant lie, the candle goes out as if it was deliberately blown out. If the speaker says a carefully crafted half-truth the candle wavers significantly. If the speaker is simply trying to leave out something, the candle wavers a little bit. Judges have learned to watch the candle carefully and visitors that don't know about the candle are sometimes given a very abrupt lesson. It is not uncommon in trials for a suspect to be testifying when the candle abruptly goes out, and there is a gasp that overcomes the gallery as the judge holds up his hand and then lights the candle again. At this moment, many suspects realize they aren't going to lie their way out of This One.
As far as failing to testify, the judge simply finds the suspect in contempt and sentences them to jail until they change their mind. If this is a very short period of time, the trial resumes such as on the next day. If it is longer than a short time, the trial is suspended, and this is up to the prosecutor and the judge. If the trial is suspended, the suspect must remain in jail until he agrees to testify and then he has to wait for the related parties to travel back to the town/city to resume the trial. If a suspect doesn't agree to testify for a long period of time, he is transferred to prison. The only useful part of this affair is to avoid a death penalty. But it is a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
These are the "High Court" procedures. Most disputes and criminal matters don't go to "High Court." So other sorts of mischief can happen in towns and the countryside.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
keep in mind a good way to pass zone of truth and other truth telling spells is if you have thieves can't, which all rogues have, you can tell the truth while lying at the same time. you can say no I didn't do it in thieves cant while actually saying it, yeah it was me i committed the crime. also thieves cant isn't limited to common so you can speak in common while using ork in thieves cant. and only others who speak thieves cant can understand if they also have the base language. also if a judge or whoever casting the spell knows thieves cant either the dm is metagaming or you commited a crime so bad they had to bring a criminal to cast zone of truth.
Or if they have Tongues cast on them, since it's spoken they understand it.
If you trust someone to cast tongues, what would stop a clever or corrupt magistrate from also casting charm person on a suspect or a witness to get them to say what they want them to say?
There are so many ways magic can be abused in a justice system, just like there are many ways it can be used to ensure you do get the truth. I'm not going to tell people what to do in their campaigns but I know in one of my games I had a local magistrate not trust magic at all and wouldn't let anyone use any magic because they were once a witness who was compelled through a spell to give false testimony to put an innocent person away.
This magistrate started out as an antagonist for the party, dealing with someone in a small, out of the way location (starter town) who could not be corrupted nor let them get away with any hijinks.
If the magistrate wants to rule against the accused, barring a truly robust appeals system, the accused would almost certainly be convicted even without any magic use. Also it could get really awkward if the witness or defendant resisted the attempt to charm them and the magistrate would still have to give instructions in some way that would not be noticed and not get caught up by any defence council.
And as Magistrate, they would almost certainly have an easier time falsifying evidence when there are no magical means to examine evidence, no Speak with the Dead or Commune spells, etc.
Never said it was a perfect system. I simply had fun with a magistrate who hates and distrusts magic and a party who were not even in that much trouble, at first, but decided to try and use magic and bribery to make some minor problems go away and ended up making things worse for themselves.
If the magistrate wants to rule against the accused, barring a truly robust appeals system, the accused would almost certainly be convicted even without any magic use. Also it could get really awkward if the witness or defendant resisted the attempt to charm them and the magistrate would still have to give instructions in some way that would not be noticed and not get caught up by any defence council.
And as Magistrate, they would almost certainly have an easier time falsifying evidence when there are no magical means to examine evidence, no Speak with the Dead or Commune spells, etc.
Never said it was a perfect system. I simply had fun with a magistrate who hates and distrusts magic and a party who were not even in that much trouble, at first, but decided to try and use magic and bribery to make some minor problems go away and ended up making things worse for themselves.
Heh, did not say it was a perfect system either... merely suggesting that magic being usable as investigative tools is less imperfect than you seemed to be arguing.
lol. True, true. It depends on the DM as well as the NPC perspective.
I find medieval justice systems extremely boring, so I look at this question with more modern standards. Divination magic can't be used by law enforcement without a warrant, witnesses or suspects can't be compelled to give self-incriminating testimony, and guilt can't be inferred from a refusal to answer questions while in a zone of truth, for example.
It's actually a lot of fun and really interesting to take post-Enlightenment ethical principles and think about how they interact with the kind of magic available to characters in D&D settings.
Just sticking every suspect in a zone of truth and punishing them for lying or refusing to answer is an extremely reasonable thing to imagine a 14th-century society doing, but it's also really lame from a storytelling standpoint. If society as a whole has rejected such behavior because it's obviously unethical, as societies began to in the 18th and 19th centuries, things get a lot more exciting.
A functioning justice system is a deterrent to crime. I desire Characters to obey the law in civilized areas. The modern legal system in the US is not interested in justice. I suspect the other developed western countries are in a similar pickle.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
A functioning justice system is a deterrent to crime. I desire Characters to obey the law in civilized areas. The modern legal system in the US is not interested in justice. I suspect the other developed western countries are in a similar pickle.
The modern legal system in the US is far from perfect, but it is nevertheless interested in justice. And something can be a deterrent without being 100% preventative.
keep in mind a good way to pass zone of truth and other truth telling spells is if you have thieves can't, which all rogues have, you can tell the truth while lying at the same time. you can say no I didn't do it in thieves cant while actually saying it, yeah it was me i committed the crime. also thieves cant isn't limited to common so you can speak in common while using ork in thieves cant. and only others who speak thieves cant can understand if they also have the base language. also if a judge or whoever casting the spell knows thieves cant either the dm is metagaming or you commited a crime so bad they had to bring a criminal to cast zone of truth.
Thieves' cant is not "say the opposite of what you actually mean." That would make it useless as a code- trying to answer "did you steal the necklace" truthfully in cant would result in the character saying something about the price of turnips in Waterdeep or wondering if it might rain on Thursday, which would probably tip the judge off that they were trying to sidestep the question.
At least in 5E you can't have any shenanigans where someone with a +40 to bluff takes the witness stand and convinces the prosecutor that they're not a human but actually a delusional salamander.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I like this topic. Some initial impressions, and I'm hoping to put on a longer think piece getting into what I really know about how the real world systems work.
1.) The "law of the land" by and large ends at the borders of said land. That is, while you may have one state, city, kingdom or what have you that has some sort of right against magical surveillance without due process, that doesn't mean a neighboring state has to have it. In fact, a neighboring or further away country could well have a magical police state. And it need not be that dramatic. To the lay person, one may think that the rights of the individual within a criminal investigation are pretty much the same among modern "developed" democracies, but that's not the case at the due process level. Miranda does not have an equivalent everywhere. In fact the whole orientation of the justice system can vary fundamentally. Look at the differences between modern inquisitorial system within civil law jurisdictions (France, I think Italy, Greece) versus the adversarial common law system of the U.S. and UK. Magic's role in justice systems can vary wildly, unless you're playing some sort of CSI: Waterdeep, where the characters are campaign bound to a single jurisdiction.
2.) Integrity of officers of the system. What controls does your magical justice system have in ensuring the integrity of its magical inquisitor? "My liege, the spell says he is lying" could in itself be a lie. In modern real world court, even the most technically expert testimony most often relies on tangible evidence or presentation of data. Magic divination is often, "well, the Mage says so." Corruption can be a problem compounded by possession, doppelgängers, and other forms of supernatural manipulation.
3.) I'm thinking about what some have called "surveillance capitalism" that is, the ability of private entities to gather troves of data on a persons most intimate details, details that are way beyond the reach of public entities charged with protecting a society due to rights to privacy. Maybe your legal system doesn't allow magic because it is invasive. That doesn't mean there may not be an influential power in your society who has become in many ways above the law by doing what the law doesn't allow its protectors to do.
4.) "Secret police" and grey areas. In most modern states, there's often a blurry relationship between criminal justice/law enforcement and state security agencies. So while your criminal system may not allow for magic, there may well be a magical intelligence community that is very much aware of what's going on within the state because the laws were written in response to 9/11 of broad authority invested in them because of a perceived existential threat. So while they may not act in court per se, they can guide some investigative activity, if the investigators trust them.
5.) Thunderdome is just cooler. I don't know if I'd recommend it, or if I did recommend it I'd say check up on it with good grain of salt toward anachronism and some language that may be offensive to modern readers, but this thread reminded me of The Once and Future King (I think this particular plot straddles between The Ill Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind) where Arthur tries to pivot his society from Trial by Ordeal to a nation governed by civil laws. What I'm saying is one could argue prior to an embrace of facts, divined or no, a society may have a preference for an honor system where "right" may well be determined through duel or a quest etc. Really, criminal code is a relatively small section of law and consequence for a much broader system designed to handle disputes. Disputes were handled, arguably to a communities satisfaction prior to truth. And within those systems one could actually escape persecution through ordeal (though the systems were often rigged so it wasn't so much trial but ritual with a known outcome).
Anyway, good topic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
D&D is a world full of magic, there are spells that relate to many parts of daily life: making food(goodberry), plowing fields(mold earth), cleaning and flavoring(prestidigitation), repairing (mending), etc. Something that has been bothering me for quite some time is that despite there being many utility spells, they are not used, even in high-fantasy settings I have played. The worst instance of this is in the justice system, despite there being spells available for discerning what happened in a particular instance, it ends up being a "he-said, she-said" contest of whoever has the highest deception or diplomacy. Sometimes, they would look at evidence which can be interpreted in any number of ways.
One line of reasoning I have heard is that they wouldn't use spells like zone of truth or otherwise because it can be gotten around with spells like glibness. Glibness is an 8th level spell though, even trained magic users are unlikely to be aware of its existence let alone know how to cast it.
Another line of reasoning is that they wouldn't use spells because very few people end up having magical ability. However, assuming that judges (people of high rank, which there are few of) being a first level mook is absurd.
Another line of reasoning is that spell slots are limited, number of convicted may outnumber how many castings per day one may be able to use, and people may resist some spells. However, I find it more likely that people would have the option to have magic be used to prove their innocence, with the deterrent in place that if they are again found to be guilty that they would have an increased fine or punishment. In addition to resisting judicial spells being an offense (which is trackable with spells like zone of truth "You know whether each creature succeeds or fails on its saving throw.")
My question is: considering that D&D is a world involving magic, what changes would that have to the justice system, either spells used or otherwise?
This is a great question. My feeling is that the more severe crime, involving people with high status, get to use magic. Mostly likely, due to them able to pay for it. Even today, poor people have a harder time with the justice system due to their inability to hire good attorneys or expert witnesses.
By the same token, criminals, especially those with a high risk of escape or violence, may be subject to a Geas spell to ensure compliance.
It depends how common magic is in your world.
Since magic items in the default campaign world are difficult to come by (no magic shops, as such), then maybe spellcasters are also rare.
I seem to remember in other games that maybe the major NPCs in a town would be no higher than 5th level; so having lots of NPCs able to cast 2nd or 3rd level spells would be rare.
With a zone of truth, you would probably have many anti-establishment people simply refusing to answer any questions in such a zone, regardless of their innocence or guilt.
In-game justice isn't the same as real world justice.
Refusing the answer might be a crime in itself, or an admission of guilt.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Another line of reasoning that people don't often seem to consider is that you can limit individual spells just like you can limit overall magic. Maybe your basic NPC cleric only has access to four or five spells from a sublist of what PCs can get. This way you can have casters exist but they're still impressed as hell when you cast Zone of Truth because they've never seen it before. This is a nice way to have magic be common but still have the PCs feel like chosen heroes.
I tend to handle magic-in-the-world defensively like this because my players will absolutely go down roads like this justice system thing and while it's all good fun it can unravel your whole setting if they take it far enough.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Tongue in cheek response:
In a high magic game reimagine one of the most well known monsters as the judges in your courts of law:
Have all parties concerend have to swear an oath to tell the truth whilst within the beholders anti magic eye and then once all parties have sworn to tell the turth the whole truth etc, close the anti magic eye and have one of the eye beams emit a ray of bestow curse (target cannot lie), another detect thoughts etc and let the trial commence!
Depends on the level of magic in the world.
For a low magic world, not even Regicide would involve magical courts.
For a High Magic World Nobility and High Crimes (Murder, ****, treason, etc.) would all have magical detection used in court - with some attempt to prevent cheating.
I also could see the following option for a High Level Magic World:
In a high magic world with magic in law enforcement and trials, the bad guys also stack up on illusion magic, teleportation and nasty enchantments and charms.
So, the stakes are not getting caught in the first place.
Another aspect to take into account is how much magic can be abused by a corrupt courtier or magistrate. They may be getting paid by the local crime syndicate, or be a part of it, and use magic selectively depending on who is being accused.
Or it may be that the powers that be find mind-altering spells unethical and have them banned, so spells the compel the truth are not allowed, or possibly that Someone has been charmed into doing something unethical in the past and use a lot of dispel magic seals in the court room itself so as to prevent any tomfoolery from happening from anyone.
keep in mind a good way to pass zone of truth and other truth telling spells is if you have thieves can't, which all rogues have, you can tell the truth while lying at the same time. you can say no I didn't do it in thieves cant while actually saying it, yeah it was me i committed the crime. also thieves cant isn't limited to common so you can speak in common while using ork in thieves cant. and only others who speak thieves cant can understand if they also have the base language. also if a judge or whoever casting the spell knows thieves cant either the dm is metagaming or you commited a crime so bad they had to bring a criminal to cast zone of truth.
Or if they have Tongues cast on them, since it's spoken they understand it.
PyscoSonic#4554
In my setting, judges and nobles that settle civil disputes are typically under level 10 NPCs. They usually have higher than average wisdom even if their class wouldn't normally have this attribute in a nearly optimized build. I have homebrewed a magic rod, a symbol of the noble's or magistrate's authority, that permits 1, 2 or 3 castings of enhance ability per day, but the spell must be used to enhance wisdom and it gives advantage on the roll as well. So I very high level noble might have his Rod of Noble Authority able to cast enhance ability on wisdom and for the purpose of this roll his wisdom score will be 18, or 20. This is one of the methods I bestow authority on the rulers in a good established civilization. The common folks don't know why, but it seems the rulers make the right decision when it is important that they get it right. And this establishes confidence in the nobility that they understand what they are doing.
In a like manner, I have other homebrewed magic items to obtain the truth. My favorite is a special Lute carried by Bards in the Diplomatic Service. When they visit nobles on their travels they offer their services in 'sort interrogations' conducted by nobles and magistrates. Imagine a dinner party where the host needs to question some folks informally, or even formally, but there are no oaths administered. The Bard plays his lute and anyone that can hear the music is spellbound. If a person tells a lie they develop a feeling of extreme discomfort that becomes apparent to anyone that knows the spell is in effect. They can still "tell" their lie, or half-truth, but they will become notably uncomfortable for a moment and the feeling wears off. So a skilled interviewer can come back to that question and this allows them to catch them in their lie when they typically contradict themselves later.
In court, The judge has a candle that sits on a stand on his desk. If he lights the candle it emits a pleasant odor. But the candle reacts to testimony and dishonesty. One good feature about this candle is the local "law enforcement" know all about it so they don't attempt to lie at all. However, if someone within 12 feet of the candle tells a blatant lie, the candle goes out as if it was deliberately blown out. If the speaker says a carefully crafted half-truth the candle wavers significantly. If the speaker is simply trying to leave out something, the candle wavers a little bit. Judges have learned to watch the candle carefully and visitors that don't know about the candle are sometimes given a very abrupt lesson. It is not uncommon in trials for a suspect to be testifying when the candle abruptly goes out, and there is a gasp that overcomes the gallery as the judge holds up his hand and then lights the candle again. At this moment, many suspects realize they aren't going to lie their way out of This One.
As far as failing to testify, the judge simply finds the suspect in contempt and sentences them to jail until they change their mind. If this is a very short period of time, the trial resumes such as on the next day. If it is longer than a short time, the trial is suspended, and this is up to the prosecutor and the judge. If the trial is suspended, the suspect must remain in jail until he agrees to testify and then he has to wait for the related parties to travel back to the town/city to resume the trial. If a suspect doesn't agree to testify for a long period of time, he is transferred to prison. The only useful part of this affair is to avoid a death penalty. But it is a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
These are the "High Court" procedures. Most disputes and criminal matters don't go to "High Court." So other sorts of mischief can happen in towns and the countryside.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
If you trust someone to cast tongues, what would stop a clever or corrupt magistrate from also casting charm person on a suspect or a witness to get them to say what they want them to say?
There are so many ways magic can be abused in a justice system, just like there are many ways it can be used to ensure you do get the truth. I'm not going to tell people what to do in their campaigns but I know in one of my games I had a local magistrate not trust magic at all and wouldn't let anyone use any magic because they were once a witness who was compelled through a spell to give false testimony to put an innocent person away.
This magistrate started out as an antagonist for the party, dealing with someone in a small, out of the way location (starter town) who could not be corrupted nor let them get away with any hijinks.
Never said it was a perfect system. I simply had fun with a magistrate who hates and distrusts magic and a party who were not even in that much trouble, at first, but decided to try and use magic and bribery to make some minor problems go away and ended up making things worse for themselves.
lol. True, true. It depends on the DM as well as the NPC perspective.
I find medieval justice systems extremely boring, so I look at this question with more modern standards. Divination magic can't be used by law enforcement without a warrant, witnesses or suspects can't be compelled to give self-incriminating testimony, and guilt can't be inferred from a refusal to answer questions while in a zone of truth, for example.
It's actually a lot of fun and really interesting to take post-Enlightenment ethical principles and think about how they interact with the kind of magic available to characters in D&D settings.
Just sticking every suspect in a zone of truth and punishing them for lying or refusing to answer is an extremely reasonable thing to imagine a 14th-century society doing, but it's also really lame from a storytelling standpoint. If society as a whole has rejected such behavior because it's obviously unethical, as societies began to in the 18th and 19th centuries, things get a lot more exciting.
A functioning justice system is a deterrent to crime. I desire Characters to obey the law in civilized areas. The modern legal system in the US is not interested in justice. I suspect the other developed western countries are in a similar pickle.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
This is completely true.
Thieves' cant is not "say the opposite of what you actually mean." That would make it useless as a code- trying to answer "did you steal the necklace" truthfully in cant would result in the character saying something about the price of turnips in Waterdeep or wondering if it might rain on Thursday, which would probably tip the judge off that they were trying to sidestep the question.
At least in 5E you can't have any shenanigans where someone with a +40 to bluff takes the witness stand and convinces the prosecutor that they're not a human but actually a delusional salamander.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I like this topic. Some initial impressions, and I'm hoping to put on a longer think piece getting into what I really know about how the real world systems work.
1.) The "law of the land" by and large ends at the borders of said land. That is, while you may have one state, city, kingdom or what have you that has some sort of right against magical surveillance without due process, that doesn't mean a neighboring state has to have it. In fact, a neighboring or further away country could well have a magical police state. And it need not be that dramatic. To the lay person, one may think that the rights of the individual within a criminal investigation are pretty much the same among modern "developed" democracies, but that's not the case at the due process level. Miranda does not have an equivalent everywhere. In fact the whole orientation of the justice system can vary fundamentally. Look at the differences between modern inquisitorial system within civil law jurisdictions (France, I think Italy, Greece) versus the adversarial common law system of the U.S. and UK. Magic's role in justice systems can vary wildly, unless you're playing some sort of CSI: Waterdeep, where the characters are campaign bound to a single jurisdiction.
2.) Integrity of officers of the system. What controls does your magical justice system have in ensuring the integrity of its magical inquisitor? "My liege, the spell says he is lying" could in itself be a lie. In modern real world court, even the most technically expert testimony most often relies on tangible evidence or presentation of data. Magic divination is often, "well, the Mage says so." Corruption can be a problem compounded by possession, doppelgängers, and other forms of supernatural manipulation.
3.) I'm thinking about what some have called "surveillance capitalism" that is, the ability of private entities to gather troves of data on a persons most intimate details, details that are way beyond the reach of public entities charged with protecting a society due to rights to privacy. Maybe your legal system doesn't allow magic because it is invasive. That doesn't mean there may not be an influential power in your society who has become in many ways above the law by doing what the law doesn't allow its protectors to do.
4.) "Secret police" and grey areas. In most modern states, there's often a blurry relationship between criminal justice/law enforcement and state security agencies. So while your criminal system may not allow for magic, there may well be a magical intelligence community that is very much aware of what's going on within the state because
the laws were written in response to 9/11of broad authority invested in them because of a perceived existential threat. So while they may not act in court per se, they can guide some investigative activity, if the investigators trust them.5.) Thunderdome is just cooler. I don't know if I'd recommend it, or if I did recommend it I'd say check up on it with good grain of salt toward anachronism and some language that may be offensive to modern readers, but this thread reminded me of The Once and Future King (I think this particular plot straddles between The Ill Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind) where Arthur tries to pivot his society from Trial by Ordeal to a nation governed by civil laws. What I'm saying is one could argue prior to an embrace of facts, divined or no, a society may have a preference for an honor system where "right" may well be determined through duel or a quest etc. Really, criminal code is a relatively small section of law and consequence for a much broader system designed to handle disputes. Disputes were handled, arguably to a communities satisfaction prior to truth. And within those systems one could actually escape persecution through ordeal (though the systems were often rigged so it wasn't so much trial but ritual with a known outcome).
Anyway, good topic.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.