Laws for Magic in your big fancy city

[BerzerkerUnit]

So I'm making a supers world and trying to figure out how powers are regulated. I figured the regulating agency would create a kind of rating for Powers Related Events once the investigation is done. Then I thought, this could kind of work for how Magic Crimes.

Here we go:
Azmo Index (Morality Scale for PRE)
1. Irrelevant/Unavoidable/Morally Correct. Using Magic to save lives. Using Magic to harm in order to protect others. Using Magic to kill in a warzone.

2. Amoral. Subject does not grasp the difference between good and evil. Most commonly applied to events involving high Magiced children or the mentally infirm. Occasionally used when cultural norms for the individual are very disparate from the event location. Also a default rating when Intent to Harm in defense of others results in the attacker’s death.

3. Subjective Morality. LE, NE, NG, CG. Subject appears to grasp difference between good and evil but breaks rules under consistent external circumstances such as losing control when a loved one is threatened, abusing legal technicalities to excuse a malicious act.

4. Malicious or Malevolent act performed in bold and/or open contravention of the law.

5. Malicious or Malevolent act performed in bold and/or open contravention of the law with the intent to undermine
established social norms or values.


Let me know if you'd make it 10 with a finer gradient, or if it's somehow terrible. I am waiting on the hat-man right now.

[Maat Mons]

So, the worst offenders are the ones who think society needs to change?

[Tzardok]

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think about it. The descriptions oscillate between a law-based definitions used to determine wether an act is punishable or not and an alignment system. Like, is position 3 in any way important to determine wether an act breaks the law or not? I can accept having position 2 in there, as some kind of "unsoundness of mind" clause, but the others...

[BerzerkerUnit]

The idea is it's a scale used to annotate events by an organization responsible for regulating magic.
Of course the scale will end with those crimeing by hurting people to change the status quo. It presents a decent enough question, are you freedom fighting or terrorizing.

Here's some examples:
Say you're a mage. Day to day you don't hurt people with magic, maybe you help people with magic. Maybe you only magic to do stuff like tie your shoes. Every time you're using magic, that's a 1. No one is investigating these events.

Now let's say you jump in and magic missile a couple of street toughs. Harm has been done, and investigation is needed. The investigation reveals they physically assaulted you or someone else or were gonna blow up a building. Still a one, you made the morally correct choice. The law won't have anything to say about this.

Now you're emboldened, you move into a neighborhood full of gangs, and you become a vigilante, using magic to take out the bad guys. Permanently. Those will be rated a 2. You're trying to make the neighborhood safer, you're protecting others. You're not hunting them down, you're patrolling. These are still a 2. There's no punishment, but you're going to get some raised eyebrows, especially if you aren't associated with any peacekeeping force. But you might get recruited by one.

Then a few things happen. You're out at dinner with your baby brother. Someone makes a snide remark. You magic them to choke on their burrito, someone needs to heimlich them. That's going to be rated a 3. You used magic to do harm, not to protect your brother, but to avenge. 1st offense, no lasting harm done, maybe you pay a fine or do some community service.

But no you understand. The Gangs are just going to get smarter, soon they'll hunt you, they may be a danger to your brother, so you start to stalk them back to their stash houses and safe houses, haunts and hideaways. You trap them inside with open bags of flour and burn them alive inside. You know murder is wrong, you know not every gang member is guilty of something, you're murdering as insurance for your brother, not because he's in any actual danger. That's still a 3, but now it's a problem. Property, collateral damage. It's too much, you're gonna spend some time in the dungeons.

You get out after a few months and told it's time to move on to a new town, but while you were on the inside, the gang leader got to your brother. So you hunt him down and torture him and his family. Pure revenge killing. That's 4.

Now you've learned meteor swarm, you don't think any governing or regulating body should try to control your behavior, you explode the palace with meteors. That's a 5.

[Maat Mons]

What I’m asking is, why does your system rate Meteor Swarming a gang hideout for “justice” as worse than Meteor Swarming an orphanage for fun? Because the first one meets the criteria for a class 5 offense, while the second one doesn’t. The former has the intent to change society (for the better, by cleaning it up), while the latter has no intent for social reform.

[NichG]

Presumably because someone using personal power in contravention of the law to force a change in society is riskier to society than someone who just uses it for awful but random or strictly personal reasons.

Though there's the meta question of, would the society make meteor swarming a gang all that illegal if vigilantism is accepted if watched. Are harm and death the really bad things, or is the legal system for magic mostly there to prevent the rise of despots?

In which case, 'abuse of magic to manipulate society's will' could be worse than outright murder. A politician charming people to get elected could receive a higher penalty than meteor swarming an orphanage in that case. It depends how much the legal system's job is to protect individuals from each other, versus effectively protecting the state from individuals wielding the power of states themselves.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Presumably because someone using personal power in contravention of the law to force a change in society is riskier to society than someone who just uses it for awful but random or strictly personal reasons.

Though there's the meta question of, would the society make meteor swarming a gang all that illegal if vigilantism is accepted if watched. Are harm and death the really bad things, or is the legal system for magic mostly there to prevent the rise of despots?

In which case, 'abuse of magic to manipulate society's will' could be worse than outright murder. A politician charming people to get elected could receive a higher penalty than meteor swarming an orphanage in that case. It depends how much the legal system's job is to protect individuals from each other, versus effectively protecting the state from individuals wielding the power of states themselves.

This is a very accurate read of my "hat-man's a-coming" effort to produce the scale.
For the uninitiated, people that take too much pseudoephedrine for allergies have reported having a vision of a shadowy figure wearing a hat. I usually take 1 at night to avoid sinus issues and combined with the drowsiness of the late hour I was just riffing. I did not and do not OD on sudafed.

Vague but powerful extragovernmental agencies that exist to regulate magic would prioritize events on their overall danger to society. So while orphanage burner Murdock is a particularly grotesque serial killer, if the agency had limited resources, they'd probably prioritize Tenbaku Zenzen, the cult using magic to ethnically cleanse Harengon.

In a standard fantasy setting something like this might be used by an organization created by a High Magic Empire or a major religion.

Thanks for letting me share!

[NichG]

I'd think the important bit for consistency is to make sure that the thing which justifies the existence of the policing organization is actually being fulfilled by the policing organization's priorities.

E.g. one theory of policing is that individuals give up the option to deal in force and assign a monopoly on the use of force to the state, so that individuals don't need to live their lives as if they might be required to defend themselves using force at any time. So in exchange for individuals voluntarily eschewing the possibility of using force to resolve their problems, the state promises to make sure that it's never necessary for individuals to use force to resolve their problems. Even if the state would rather prioritize other things for its own motives or larger scale strategies, if it fails to uphold its end of that deal then people will start using force again, and so the situation will become destabilized.

In your case, you have vigilantism as being somewhat accepted, so the social contract here doesn't have to do with a monopoly on force exactly. People still might need to be able to use force on their own behalf. So what thing does the state (or religion, or whatever) not want people to do on their own, and what correspondingly must they guarantee to make it so that people aren't incentivized to do it on their own anyhow?

It's not magic usage in general, since it seems that you want private use of magic to be acceptable. It's not the use of force, since 'harming others to defend people' is considered to be so minor as to not even warrant investigation. The choice of principle here could give rise to interestingly different societies. Is the idea that, well, doing what others say is a necessary evil in life, but at least everyone only has one master in the emperor and if within that structure someone tries to extort something from you then the emperor's duty is to stop them from doing that? Is the idea that the best protection from a lot of insidious magics is to withdraw from society and minimize exposure, so in exchange for people not doing that, the government must ensure those insidious magics aren't in play?

This sort of thing would also determine the balance between the society's theory of justice being about risk minimization, retribution (e.g. disincentivization), and reform. If the main focus is for people to not have to fear a thing that is potentially very scary and hard to do anything about once its been abused, there may be a focus on banning things pre-emptively rather than judging each application for what it says about the user. If the things are too useful to ban (e.g. what wants to be protected is the utility of something that has dangerous secondary usages) then 'licensing' type considerations like the moral character of the users might be emphasized. If its more the endpoints and not the individual acts that are to be avoided - e.g. if its easy to reverse the harm done by individual magical events, but its really hard to bring down an archmage who is actively maintaining a despotic rule - then things might hash out differently.

[MrStabby]

Lets start from the end on two fronts.

1) What is the goal of its existance at the table? Is it to provide the background to support RPing a legal defence? A way to give them a list of offences to charge others with and to support takin on mor re of a Guards type adventure path? "A good legal system in this context is one which meanyns X, Y, Z is more likely to happen at my table". Codifying a legal syste is a means to and end; what is that end?

2) What is the goal of its existance in the city? Why this formal (and no more formal) and why this level of specificity but no other specifics? Is it so serve and guide the actions of police who won't be able to to remember more than 5 laws pertaining to magic? Is it a shorthand so that more information can fit into a sending spell? Is it political - that it lets people campaign on tougher punnishments for cateory 3 offences or similar and its purely a colloquial meaning with no legal rigor? Who makes what decsion based on what category an offence is? Whay can't it be less broad?

There is also the mssage this sends about the world. Is everything surrounding magic mysterious and arcane and full of esoteric knowledge - including the legal aspects with rich sets of loopholes and rights and historical exemptions all xpressed in an ancient language and the judges are all casters of great knowledge, or is magic more "scientific" and can be catalogued, listed, categorised, ranked and so too for the law surrounding it? Who shoul be able to understand the law and to what degree?

[Amechra]

Legitimate question: why do magic crimes need to be tried under different laws than normal crimes? Outside of very specific stuff like "the Tailor's Guild complained that Mending cut into their livelihood, so Mending cloth carries a fine", most criminal uses of magic are breaking other laws. If someone uses Meteor Swarm on an orphanage, that's just an especially flashy form of arson.

I feel like any laws and regulations about magic are going to be more focused on restricting who can learn certain spells/types of magic (I've definitely seen setting where Charm Person and the like are straight-up illegal to know) and clearing up corner-cases in other laws (Is Divination magic permissible evidence in court? How does resurrection magic interact with inheritance laws?).

[Anymage]

Magic criminals do require magic cops, just because of the capabilities that magic brings. Magic cops have little reason not to be attached to regular cops, or if technically distinct (being attached to a temple or guild that's larger than just one city or nation) to be instructed to work with local cops. Most magic crime, as Amechra points out, should just be reasonable extensions of normal crime. Normal crime, assuming you want your city to feel like the sort of place that has a functioning legal code, is more concerned with acts performed while intent and situation act as modifiers on those.

The other options are to have law enforcement in general be arbitrary (which tends to make the local area seem kinda scuzzy unless the whole legal system is preternaturally competent and moral), or to have the magic people want to live under a masquerade which makes it hard for them to integrate with normal society. Masquerade-based societies tend to have the scuzziness of arbitrary legal systems, plus being primarily concerned with the maintenance of said masquerade and only caring about harming outsiders to the degree that it brings in masquerade threatening attention.

[NichG]

There are a lot of things that aren't either legal or illegal because they're impossible or 'not how that works' though. If magic (or technology) changes that, sometimes the law does have to expand.

Like, IRL advertisements are legal. Highly effective advertisements based on people doing A/B testing and studying psychology are legal. Would using Glibness to make yourself so convincing that people buy your product even if they don't need it be legal? Would it be fraud? What if instead of magic, we were talking subliminal ads that actually work? Would they remain legal, or be treated like drugging someone without consent, or what?

Now how about something like speaking with the dead. Who owns the corpse? Can the original person specify whether they consent to post-mortem interrogation in their will, or does self-determination end with death? What about acts taken against souls? Do the dead remain citizens, protected by the laws of the country they lived in? Do the transmigrated dead still retain obligations to the country of their past life? When those lines can be traced and even pulled thanks to things like resurrection, it's something the law needs to have a position on.

[Amechra]

Or, I mean, the law could basically just operate as a set of precedents for how the courts should arbitrate disputes (which includes stuff like "hey, this guy killed my brother!"). The "modern" system, where we have a whole profession whose sole purpose is to actively enforce an extensive legal code that have the power to toss you in jail or whatever is a shockingly modern thing, because it requires a lot of government power (it also requires your society to have invented lawyers, or at least be descended from one that did).

There's also the question of how common magic is — if the ability to use magic is demographically rare and you need training to use anything past the most minor of stuff, you're probably going to be able to count the number of spellcasters who you'd need special provisions to handle on one hand unless you're in a massive city.

EDIT: Like, Glibness is an 8th level spell in 5e. How many 15th level+ people are running around in the setting? And how many of them are working in advertising?

[NichG]

Or, I mean, the law could basically just operate as a set of precedents for how the courts should arbitrate disputes (which includes stuff like "hey, this guy killed my brother!"). The "modern" system, where we have a whole profession whose sole purpose is to actively enforce an extensive legal code that have the power to toss you in jail or whatever is a shockingly modern thing, because it requires a lot of government power (it also requires your society to have invented lawyers, or at least be descended from one that did).

There's also the question of how common magic is — if the ability to use magic is demographically rare and you need training to use anything past the most minor of stuff, you're probably going to be able to count the number of spellcasters who you'd need special provisions to handle on one hand unless you're in a massive city.

EDIT: Like, Glibness is an 8th level spell in 5e. How many 15th level+ people are running around in the setting? And how many of them are working in advertising?

The issue is still there with low level spells. Is Calm Emotions assault? Should it be legal to use Detect Thoughts on someone without consent? How about Detect Evil? What kind of crime is it to spam Message to someone when they're in an important conversation? Is it one? How about if someone sets up a Silent Image to hide the entrance of their house? Should that be legal or illegal, and under what legal theory? If someone happens to be under Sanctuary in a riot and the police try to arrest them, are they by default to be considered to be resisting arrest? What's the protocol?

The point being, there's lots of stuff we intuitively feel should be legal or illegal, but if it isn't explicitly written then in an acts-based legal system that's a loophole. So you might actually need an intent-based law or a principles-based law when the boundary of the possible is much harder to see than in real life. Like, 'a person's free will shall not be abrogated' covers stuff like Dominate Person or Glibness or Charm Person or whatever in ways that real life laws would not cover because those effects do things which we don't even consider possible.

[BerzerkerUnit]

That's a lot of fantastic discussion and thank you so much for the additional insights. I did mention in the OP that I concocted this for a supers game. To describe it in DND terms. 80% of humans have 1 or two related non combat cantrips or are just a species like Elf or Harengon. 15% are like sorcerers from levels 1-20 with a very finite # of spells known (with the breakdown there heavily favoring levels 5 and below). 5% are baseline humans with no stat bonuses or feats. Notably, that remaining 5% contains the entirety of "the 1%" leading some to attribute it to the rumored in-breeding among the wealthy or some kind of divine retribution. Others posit the wealthy experimented on poor people which led to the manifestation of powers.

In my setting, when super stuff appeared in the late 1800s, a multinational organization of scholars appeared with relevant research about the propagation of powers, the potential for scaling and so on. They made themselves known and in the wake of a "suspiciously unfortunate" terrorist attack and negotiated a position as an extragovernmental agency with broad authority to oversee Power Related Events. A handful are like Spectres from Mass Effect (shhh, we don't talk about them). They also have public facing groups in capital cities and major population centers.

So for my purposes, the laws work this way because a powerful organization set them up and remains entrenched. However, the industrial revolution occurred normally as powers were one in a million for a few decades before really exploding in the 60s. A handful are like Spectres from Mass Effect (shhh, we don't talk about them). They also have public facing groups in capital cities and major population centers.

I imagine a setting in which Magic is discovered after civilization has gotten going might be the same. An organization sets itself up to deal with rare but hazardous magical events, but the utility of magic is too great and it becomes ubiquitous, so as Magic becomes more common, the organization is gradually granted more authority and power. It keeps the laws separate because doing so keeps it in power.

[BerzerkerUnit]

-snip-

Like, 'a person's free will shall not be abrogated' covers stuff like Dominate Person or Glibness or Charm Person or whatever in ways that real life laws would not cover because those effects do things which we don't even consider possible.

This is exceedingly germane to the game I'm going to run... Thanks!

[Maat Mons]

Personally, I’d categorize spells and legislate them in groups. Broadly speaking, Abjuration, Conjuration (Creation), and Conjuration (Healing) spells would all be allowed with no license required. Conjuration (Calling), Conjuration (Summoning), Enchantment, and Necromancy spells would, again, broadly speaking, not be available even with a license.

Training as Wizards and Archivists could be encouraged. Those classes have difficulty accessing spells for which they can’t lay hands on a physical copy. It would also be possible to periodically review spellbooks/prayerbooks to verify no unsanctioned spells have been researched. Clerics, Druids, and Artificers would all be highly illegal. Any member of one of those classes would have access to a variety of banned spells.

[Buufreak]

Antimagic zones are likely to be a thing beyond a certain developmental point. Today we have designated zones, like a court house for example, with it well posted no weapon of any kind beyond the doors unless you are specified personal, and it is regularly enforced by devices used to detect said items at entrances. It would seem equally possible that similar locations in a fantasy setting have strict no magic policies, with antimagic check points and fields keeping it like that while within.

[Vahnavoi]

So, the worst offenders are the ones who think society needs to change?

Yes. It is in fact a consistent feature of developed legal systems that they go out of the way to criminalize things that could obstruct or threaten existence of that legal system. Kill a random person, and it is merely murder. Kill someone above you in a hierarchy of power, and it is also treason. Kill the top dog of the system, and it is high treason.

---

Now, more directly to the original poster, these five stages roughly correspond to stages of guilt/blame in modern justice systems. This raises the question of why, exactly, would be specific to magic? It seems more plausible that the legal system in question assesses every crime under the same five steps, regardless of method. Exceptions might exist for things only possible through magic, but that's a separate thing.

To wit, stages of guilt, or mens rea, usually are:

Non-liable: the person cannot be considered responsible for what they did due to unsoundness of mind, lack of cognitive ability etc.

Negligent: a person caused harm through ignorance or lack of knowledge inexcusable of their position.

Reckless: a person caused harm due to consciously disregarding a risk in a way that's inexcusable of their position.

Knowing: a person caused harm by taking a risk they pretty much knew would cause harm.

Purposeful: a person deliberately did this thing to cause harm.

Now, there can also a category of crimes that do not care of a person's state of mind or guilt: strict liability crimes. As in, some conduct is considered a crime because the law establishes it as such, regardless of mens rea. So if you want a men-in-black overseeing all magic, it might be that magic as practice is a strict liability crime, but in absence of more severe crimes (to which mens rea might apply), the punishment is simply being put on men-in-blacks' watchlist.