Rework Lawyer into Internal Affairs

Development Feature Requests
1

I’d like to ask if this has ever been brought up before and what the consensus about it is if it has been. Lawyer in it’s current state is a largely powerless and useless role that can’t actually do anything even if sec is directly breaking space law right in front of them.

I’d like to propose that the role of Lawyer be reworked into something more like Paradise’s Internal Affairs Agent, which is a general station oversight role which includes the current responsibilities of lawyers in SS14. The main difference between SS14’s Lawyer in it’s current form and IAA is soft power. An IAA that witnesses an issue (with sec for example) that continues to go unresolved with department heads and the Captain has the opportunity to fax centcomm (admins) and have a perpetrator removed from their role in an in-character fashion. Lawyer can’t really do this in SS14/wizden’s current environment and what this means is that lawyer is entirely powerless and can be safely ignored by security with zero reprecussions unless admins are forced to get involved.

This would:

  • Immediately transform lawyer into a role with actual responsibilities that gives the player something to do.
  • Enforces sec to actually care about space law/prisoner treatment lest they be removed from their position.
  • Encourages department heads to actually pay attention to their departments and resolve issues if an IAA is around.
  • Create a way of resolving complex issues in an in-character fashion and keep people from being unnecessarily banned in some circumstances.

None of this requires coding any new mechanics, spriting any new graphics or touching space law in it’s current form at all. This is simply a responsibility and title change that gifts lawyer/IAA with a huge amount of playability.

I’m really not trying to shill para or anything here but I truly believe the role of IAA is superior in every way to lawyer and there isnt really any reason not to do this. Some might say that this transforms lawyer into a potential power-hungry hawk but I have never really seen this in my time of playing para. Any IAA who oversteps their boundries and is fraudulently faxing centcomm about fake issues can simply be job banned or banned from the server outright. I believe this is a much better tradeoff than having a completely powerless roleplay oriented role that cant actually do anything despite (supposedly) being able to.

Thanks and I’d like to hear what people think.

8 Likes
2

What is stopping lawyers from doing this already?

3

Nothing I suppose, but what I guess I’m asking for is a title change and minor amendments to the wiki and in-game descriptions to actually solidify some kind of soft power to the lawyer. The lawyer can be entirely ignored by anyone doing something wrong (shitsec) because there’s nothing that says the lawyer can actually do anything to you.

In reality I think a title change to Internal Affairs is a better route than just changing a couple descriptions because this frees them from being tied/associated to exclusively security. I don’t believe the structure is there for lawyer to work (no judge/magistrate role, good luck getting a captain to oversee court), so freeing them of “lawyer” and rebranding them into a general station Internal Affairs Agent that can actually do things on their own without having to convince a dozen different people to convene in a court room is better imo.

TLDR the name and responsibility change would give them a lot more to do and make it far easier for the lawyer/IAA to have any kind of impact on a round.

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starlight also has the IAA. and they ARE mindshielded. this increses the trust of the IAA knowing that they cant be a traitor. meaning that their word holds more weight when their icon is blinking blue.

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5

Not that I’d be opposed to renaming them to IAA, but the thing is that just a role title change isn’t gonna make LRP players respect them.

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I see where you’re coming from. I just think a move like this opens up the role to being more involved with the station in general while retaining their original intention of being legal counsel for prisoners.

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Why lawyer is effectively toothless and often blatantly ignored:

Essentially civilian, you aren’t even a NT brain probed approved non-traitor. Security/command engage in a non zero amount of meta-disregarding you for this, you are not “one of them” or “trustable”. Period.

Lawyers need command to bring a trial against any sec, this inherently takes a lot of important staff to use their time on it and often either can’t or are uninterested.

This leaves the lawyer basically BEGGING security and command to obey space law and hope that it’s early enough in the round that the only IC response doesn’t become “it’ll be sorted at CentComm.”

An internal affairs agent is markedly different: they essentially are a combination of lawyer and law enforcement officer, they are a form of law that is explicitly formed to be protected by the organizations they investigate, because of the various complications and shortcomings of civilian ability to balance powers of those who effectively hold power over them. IAA still obey the same laws and have the same boss’s boss, but they are an independent authority that carries weight with it when they’re around.

However, security would just break your fax machine while you’re interviewing them about an informal perma in brig, so you’d need to give them some kind of satellite implant comms or something.

IAA would be basically a combination of detective, lawyer, and officer. They would have the powers to perform investigations lawyers can’t, and would likely directly report to command and be at least equivalent to sec in rank (though they would not have the same focus as secoffs). They could potentially skip trials if not needed and provide evidence directly to a command committee, captain, or CentComm.

Frankly, in the absence of security needing to pay out settlement money and fill out paperwork for their public violations of space law. There’s basically no incentive not to overstep as sec, currently, disincentives are few and far in between. I see many rounds go permanently blue over the first contraband found.

This doesn’t necessarily replace the lawyer, but having just lawyers is kind of. Weak. Most people don’t even remember to radio for one because there often isn’t one anyways because few want to be so thoroughly and routinely disregarded.

3 Likes
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Notice issue > bring issue up to department head attention > if the problem continues to be ignored bring it to the Captain’s attention > if this still doesnt work and it’s a bad enough problem fax centcomm about it.

This is a general template to resolve issues as IAA that works for pretty much any problem in any department. Remember that IAA is essentially a station inspector and can stick their nose into things outside of security. Also keep in mind that IAA is still responsible for playing the part of lawyer if an inmate requests it.

I think allowing the IAA to circumvent trials is a bad idea in general because of it’s likelyhood to be abused. Paradise solves this problem by having a dedicated magistrate role that exists outside of security (IAA and magistrate are considered the Legal department) who handles issues with space law brought up by the IAA in-character. The magistrate is a whitelist-only role that is entrusted to resolve complex issues with space law in an in-character manner. This is outside of the scope of this request tho and under some circumstances I think an IAA has an obligation to directly fax centcomm about egregious problems since they’re basically a playable round moderator.

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Yeah, especially for LRP extra prosecutorial powers may be excessive and a headache to trial and error (no joke intended).

But even just having an IAA role that like sec/command doesn’t have the antag wildcard aspect to it (and leans away from “better call saul” potential), and has the independent authority to investigate violations of space law, I agree, would go a long way.

It’d make me willing to play as a lawyer again, knowing there’d be sort of a “bridge” and general deterrent to situations like getting killed as an unarmed lawyer by a bad combination of sec that was already wildly abusive and a rev round.

And, heh, of course, a rev round that was actually an agent round, but the head of sec “stepped out for 5-10 minutes and thought the good work would continue without me”, and I ended up watching sec stash corpses of people their murdered in the back of their dept on the medical tracker, and incited riots.

Like, sure, these can be ahelped. But IAA even existing would deter it and provide an IC avenue from someone with a bit of prerequisite lawyer and security experience.

1 Like
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I also kinda like this as a checks and balances vs Comand and sec.

2 Likes
11

That`s actually great idea. And would allow for lawyer to not be just a “Sec ghost”.

Like i am tired of fighting an unjust DNR over petty stuff. Like the only rounds when i was good lawyer is when i had cybersun pen and captain stamped paper as antag.

And i literally do forgeries just so i can keep the law?

Also wardens are either way to soft or cosplay SecOff. Like if guy tries to run from cell. Add 5-10 minutes for Breach of Arest with warning if they do it again. They will go into perma.

Same with second murder. If they killed a second time its perma.
But they do 15 minutes. Then 15 minutes a second time. Sometimes 15 minutes 3rd time.

Until captain get tired of this and GIB them and throw them into space.(Antag)

LIke i would LOVE to try escaping perma as antag. But i never been there EVER. It`s just stacking minutes until captain get tired of your BS and gibs you(and he is justified)

Which also a problem from other side too. Since they are soft. They can never get themselves to say “NO!” to captain\HoS. Even tho everything to do with Sentencing is their job and they can tell Captain and HoS to eat paper.(for which i would reccomend to do a template for warden players. So its more filling when cap\hos will chew on it)

Even tho i find sec a bit unrobust. Most of “SHITSEC” issues have nothing to do with seccoffs, it`s command and middle managment(warden)

Like i literally saw detective provide Fibers, Prints, DNA on needle of implant injector, Prints on bullet casings, logs from doors and being denied by warden that gives 15 min instead. While i the “Sec ghost” lawyer just stand there be like “Should i just undress, get gray jumpsuit and go tiding?”

1 Like
12

There is nothing in any in-game rules about the lawyer, no standard as to where they may have any power, trials are simply not doable with the average round length and required staff for them.
For the lawyer to do ANYTHING, several other crew with more important jobs would need to drop everything and come to court in a joint effort. ASSUMING a player even wants to spend the time in a trial considering it is faster to wait the 15 minute time.

Either trials need more clear enforcements and made easier to handle. Or the lawyer needs to be replaced.

Maybe the lawyer could be turned into a judge, and the jury could be random crew the judge elects. Give the judge access to take prisoners out of bridge so they do not have to bother sec and there you go.

When a prisoner wants a trial, the judge asks for crew to come and speak for and against the prisoner. Then the judge decides.
This obviously means the judge needs a mind-shield and a higher autorithy as well as RP standard.

I know a replacement is kind of a BS answer. But the game as-is cannot support such a role properly, the lawyer just depends on too many other crew members to do their job and such a coordination among the usual chaos is impossible.

1 Like
13

i used to play alot of lawyer and almost every single time i had to ahelp because how impossible it is to solve it IC (i play mander btw) during my lawyer experience i have been

  1. demoted for “snitching” to captain (second most common)
  2. permad for trying to make security arrest captain that just executing people without execution worthy crime (whic admeme handled afterwards)
  3. ignored by everyone including captain i got warden then HOS then HOP then Captain and both proceeds to ignore major law violations and ends up in another ahelp (most common)
  4. my fax machine (and libary s) got removed or broken by captain / HOS so i can t fax CC about the issue (third most common)
  5. insulted and get subjected to LOOC malding (also handled by admemes)
  6. told to go cryo / leave game or whoever telling me this will make sure my round goes horrible (didin t bothered to ahelp because one of the syndies heard this and proceeded to gather some other syndies to round remove him shortly after)

so yeah changing lawyer to IAA would be ewsome for these reasons

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thats also assuming that the gathering of a bunch of people, including multiple heads of staff, doesn’t get bombed immediatly (like literally every trial i’ve ever seen that wasn’t on some kind of high mrp server)

Another point a lot of people miss is that you don’t actually need to call a lawyer if the prisoner is not being interrogated

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Same way that librarians are basically just civilians with library access if you aren’t playing in an MRP server with people who want to play D&D with you.

17

Librarian is in an even worse position tbh.
In real life, librarians are basically store clerks. In a game where you have no reason to get books nor the time to read any actual book NOR even an economy in the first place. They are literally just a passenger with library access. And even then nobody ever picks them to tide because its not even worth for that.

I had proposed migrating librarian to a record keeper. Which is basically paperwork RP with AA. Goes into departments, writes down information they deem important, and they can publish it either to command or to the general crew (somewhat similar to reporter, but expected to be more objective and truthful).
The library would then double as the publishing center.

But ofc, since they don’t provide a critical service to the station, they could also just host DnD.

18

I love this idea, ive been playing a good few rounds of lwayer recently and i tend to find myself with a lot of… impossible clients which tends to lead to rounds where you dont even do anything. Like most rounds (even in mrp) end up like this: “aha finally a client (i have been sitting around for 10-20 minutes waiting for one) right then what are they accused of!” in which the secoff usually responds “yeah they threw a bomb at a crowd of 4 people, resisted arrest, and shot officers”. Oh, i dont really have a job here then do i? And this is on the occasion that the round is traitors, every other gamemode and your job tends to be useless.

Changing it to IAA where instead your role is to uphold space law, it allows you to also go against criminals and advocate for higher sentances, which i usually find myself thinking when i play it lmao. It also gives you that role of keeping sec and command in check and that sounds really fun and solves a lot of “shitsec shitcommand” IC, suddenly giving the new version of lawyer a lot to do! And as someone else already mentioned giving them a mindshield and a fancy title would defiantly help people listen to you

19

I do like the idea of an Internal Affairs agent, but I’d prefer it be separate from lawyer. Having lawyer be a civilian and able to roll antag is pretty interesting both mechanically and from a role-playing perspective. People should at least have the option to be an evil lawyer.

On the other hand, internal affairs feels like something a Corporation like NT would have and would be beneficial to them and also has good roleplaying and mechanical opportunities.

20

I mean, this post is about fixing the lawyer.
They do not work as a civilian role. It currently does nothing but fax the crew hoping someone takes them seriously, which never happens.

Antag lawyer is just antag with sec lobby access. And as an antag the last place you want to be is on the sec lobby. It does not provide anything interesting.