Board Thread:Event Discussion/@comment-5722194-20140402005508

Hey everybody! I wanted to open up a discussion about the Laws of Stormwind and the Stormwind House of Magistrates. There have been a number of concerns recently about just who has "control" over the courts and whether or not every criminal arrested by law enforcers deserves a grand trial by judges and jury in role-play.

When everything boils down, no one has "control" over another's RP. A law role-player cannot force a criminal role-player to take punishments for his character, nor can a criminal role-player force a law role-player to host a grand trial when they don't have the time or resources to.

In my opinion, law enforcement and court RP is only valid and viable when both the criminal role-players and law role-players act on mutual good faith to make the RP fun for everyone involved. It's when people try to get the upper hand out-of-character and ruin others' RP experience that the court system buckles and becomes a problem.

Guard and law enforcement guilds often do not have the time or resources to do the footwork needed for big inter-guild trials when they process dozens of criminal role-players a week as it is. I spoke with Eliorah of  and Adroby of  and came up with the idea of having the guild leaders of law-enforcement guilds be Magistrates of the court so that they do not have to wait to schedule trials when their guild RP gets backed up. They can host their own trials as needed.

On a case-by-case basis, the law-enforcement guilds can decide together whether or not certain court cases require more than one guild's input. A criminal role-player deemed a significant threat to the kingdom, for instance, would merit several experts on Stormwind's Law to attend on their court hearing. I think this qualification should be left vague as different situations will prompt different ways of handling larger court cases.

I would like to hear the thoughts of all Magistrate and Law Enforcement role-players on these topics. Thank you for your time and consideration. 