So my friends and I wanted to celebrate the new movie coming out with some good ol' fashioned pen and paper style roleplay. Thing was, as far as we knew, none existed for Phoenix Wright and company. So we worked out rules for our own! We decided to go minimalist with them, as we figure, with the ace attorney series, it's always best to have the most amount of creative freedom! I present those few rules now to you, court-records, as you seem the most logical place to, well, place them.

Oh yeah, and feel free to help adapt this concept into something more formal. While my friends and I don't mind loose rules and creative breathing room, we're also PnP RP veterans from back when D&D only had a 3 at the end of it. For us, a lot of rules just go unspoken and mostly unthought about.


Game Play Rules

The GM needs to decide what timeline the game will take place in (we chose after the AJ games because we wanted to play with the Jurist system) and if canon characters will be playable.

There are two modes of play. Investigation and Court. This is an Ace Attorney game, after all.

On Investigation days the players are encouraged to collect evidence, but could piddle it away at a bar or the movies if they really want to. The idea here is to have plenty of freedom to run about developing your character or finding fun and colorful NPCs to interact with.

On Court days the DA and prosecution characters are limited to the courthouse. Other characters are free to roam about, maybe even continue the investigation, but need to understand that the GM's focus will be on the court case. The game also shifts from free form to turn based on these days.


Character Creation Rules

The player can make anything under the sun, but at least one DA and/or prosecutor needs to be in the game. (After all, things would be pretty boring of the GM has to play both sides of a court case.)

After you've decided on your character(s) for the game, choose their special item (like Phoenix's magatama, Apollo's bracelet, Miles' common sense, etc.) The player only gets one of these and it can do either one major thing (magatama/bracelet) or several smaller things (common sense).

The DA or prosecutor can also have an assistant (preferably played by another player or the GM) who can perform a secondary special task when called. Ex. Maya can summon the dead, but only once per case. Assistants are also available to other characters if it makes sense for them to have one.

Sample Characters

Name: Apollo Justice
Job: Ace Defense Attorney
Special Item: THE TRUTH (via his bracelet)
Assistant: Trucy Wright - Magic Panties (can "magically" produce one missed evidence item during any court day once per game)

Name: Lawrence Faveo
Job: Assistant in Defense
Other Info: Wears hideous ties, hangs out with police, and wants to be a judge someday.
Special Item: SORT-OF- MAGIC PAPERCLIP (nifty for lock-picking and has the ability to keep papers together)

Name: Rankin File
Job: Prosecution
Other Info: He's very generic in a lot of ways apart from his unprecedented win streak. Wears Grey because he looks good in it.
Special Item: Brief case full of ACTUAL LEGAL DOCUMENTATION

Name: Phil N. DeBlanks
Profession: Reporter
Other Info: Talks to the point that doctors believe he was born with two mouths.
Special Item: Microphone.

Name: Joe King
Profession: Poker, grease-monkey, and stand-up womanizer.
Other Info: A big talker when it comes to betting, but when cards are on the table, he's nowhere to be found.
Special Item: His Motorcycle (seriously, how does he carry that thing around?)

Name: Bloody Mary
Profession: Victim
Other Info: Very, very dead.
Special Item: Autopsy report + empty bottle of scotch.

Last edited by Serenity Frost on Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Very nice I do like occasional pen and paper RP's though I think I spy a problem.

Mile's 'common sense' doesn't sound like a valid thing. Not that it's a problem with the RP...rather I always had this problem with his 'logic' system. It implies it's some...unique thing that he has...when really Phoenix and Apollo can demonstrate this ability without any fancy system for it.

Think about how this plays out around a table.
What does this mechanic mean...lets run some scenarios.


I imagine since Apollo's bracelet indicates when an individual is hiding something it would operate in a similar manner.

Now the 'Logic' system.

Assuming this is a mystery-RP where the players go around inspecting clues and making their own assumptions before going to a court phase where they place arguments to witnesses and the jury. Aren't the player's expected to use their own common sense and deductions? I can't see how we could implement a logic system.

That aside onto other things.

Now for cases it comes down to perspectives as the final verdict:
The Defence Opinion The Absolute Verdict The Prosecution's opinion

Only the GM will know the Absolute Verdict as it contains the entire story and case including who is the guilty party. The guilty party can sometimes be the defendant for that matter however it is up to the GM to hide it.

The jury would have to consist of other players who would make a decision based on personal opinion and information put forward from the defence and the prosecution.

More to come later XP

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I agree with you on the "common sense" thing if you intend on running something more seriously minded. Obviously what sort of special items are acceptable are entirely up to the GM and the sort of mood they want to create. I was going for something silly and lighthearted, so the idea that "common sense" was something special lended to that nicely. If I had wanted to do something more serious (like, say, mimic the tone of the Shelly de Killer cases) I would have insisted that "common sense" be treated more like "genius insight." Allowing their character to notice something others wouldn't if only because they have a massive amount of knowledge on a particular topic.


I am digging the idea of helping the GM work out a case for the players by separating them into perspectives. Keeping in mind how the case should be presented to each player via the evidence and testimony that player gathers can help greatly at making sure the final show in court has less meta-gaming.

We also toyed with the idea of having an inventory the other day. The players had always been allowed to examine evidence, (For example, a shoe was left behind and bagged. The player was allowed to scan the shoe into their court record and then examine the shoe further to find it had some gum at the bottom with a pattern pressed into it. Had the player not examined the shoe they wouldn't have had the secondary clue on the shoe.) however, no one had really considered picking up things that weren't related to the case and using them to get testimony. In one game we had a rather morally ambiguous DA (he worked for the mob, and was, subsequently, representing a mobster) who decided to scan the potential true killer's place for "signs that he may have an important loved one" he then found photos of the PTK with a little girl. After further investigation he found out that little girl was the PTK's daughter. The DA then used that information as leverage to make the PTK "more willing to open up to the truth".

Oh, and some minor mechanics we worked out in regards to how things would function in an RP setting. Your court record was more like an ipad that was hooked up directly to the court's mainframe. It would download evidence as it arrived (and if the prosecution wanted you to have it, har har) and you used it to take pictures of crime scenes and scan evidence bags. The evidence itself was never meant to be handled directly. Once it was placed in a bag the bag itself created a digital copy of every inch of the item's surface for you to be able to examine with the court record. The only players allowed to have the court record were the DA and the prosecutor, and only the prosecutor got to have a personal one. The DA always got one on loan from the court house at the beginning of each case.

We've already had an interesting incident with the court records where a computer whiz NPC decided to bungle up the DA's case by planting lines of fake information into their court record. Discovering the fake information was actually the clue to figuring out who the real killer was.

I'm not sure there's still a way to implement 'common sense' as a gameplay mechanic even if it's given a more serious title. In an investigation roleplay the players will still be required to use their own logic to determine results so making common sense a thing seems unusual...

Unless it functions....in a way that it is like a quick answer.

Edgeworth during his investigation finds a pipe iron at the crime scene.
The Player has no idea what it is for and asks to utilise the logic feat on it.
The GM takes Edgeworth aside and tells them that the pipe iron was used to loosen something in the nearby area.

The player continues to investigate and uncovers a loosened air vent grate which could serve as an additional escape route.

Is a possible way to implement it but it's still something that could simply be uncovered through further investigations.

I think you should also include new powers for the Prosecution such as "Suppress Witness" where they can hide or change one witness' statement from investigation to court (where the jury is watching). Also should include "Fabricate Evidence" however the creation of the fabricated evidence is the responsibility of the Prosecutor, they cannot simply say "give me useful evidence GM" they need to think of a way it will sway the jury and tie into the case themselves. Also it should take time out of their investigation day and not arrive immediately for the next court scene.

I'm also thinking about rules for detective characters: Neutral factions who have more powers that can be re-used like "Forensic team" which develops forensic information about an item along with other investigative powers. However as a neutral faction and a result of their position they are given the initial evidence which incriminates the defendant. The point of the detective character is that they have useful reusable powers which can massively aid an investigation, but the DA and PA need to sway the detective character to their stance and their rationale if they wish to utilise the powers.

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The player is really the one that defines what a special item is and what it does. The GM just approves or disapproves it depending on how well they feel it will work. Obviously in your games "common sense" wouldn't be accepted unless, I suppose, the player worked out a fantastic way to implement it. d:

I hadn't really considered giving the P&DAs powers to use on court room days. Mostly because the player does those things on their own depending on how they've built their character's personality. So far we haven't had a shady prosecutor in our games, so no one has attempted to suppress a witness or falsify evidence, but we did have that DA for the mob, and he was pretty ruthless towards questioning witnesses. During a recess the DA even convinced the PA that his assistant's life could be a terrible danger if he objected to how the witnesses had been treated by him one more time. Because of that the person playing the PA rolled a d6 to see if their character could gather the nerve to yell objections, cross examine witnesses effectively, etc.

But, as I've said, just because my players govern themselves, doesn't mean we couldn't use some nice rules. Perhaps setting up some common classes (not limiting what the character can make, just giving some easy to pick defaults) and character traits could help.

Like, say, someone picks the "Detective" common class and the "Shady" personality trait would make it easier for them to do dirty cop activities, but also less trustworthy looking on the witness stand.

Hmm y'see I'd always thought it would be more of a story-telling RP, less emphasis on dice rolls and stats. I'd imagined additional players being brought in as jurors during the court sessions and arguments occurring based on how well they'd done the investigation phase. The Jurors at the end of the RP would give a verdict and what's done is done someone wins and someone loses.

Maybe you'd best go into more detail about the mechanics though if I'm wrong, what needs dice rolls and what doesn't?

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No, you were right. It's entirely story telling. The player just used dice like one would flip a coin. It was all their call.

The idea of an Ace Attorney RPG popped into my head a while ago, so I'm really excited to see this!

Using a percentile system (something along the lines of Call of Cthulhu, where characters solve mysteries and combat is something to be very wary of) could also work nicely.

You said that players can play as any character - does that mean you could have players playing as the prosecutor and DA in the same case? I'm not sure how that would pan out.

Udgy!

No it wouldn't be quite that way since they'd be on opposing sides plus it would mean no matter what the Jury called the one player would win thus taking some of the challenge out of it.

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I agree. Playing both sides would be really dull for everyone involved.

I do like taking cues from CoC to work out some more solid RP rules. I'm only vaguely familiar with the system, but I'll look into it more when I can get my hands on the books.

The percentile system uses rolls out of 100 and if the roll is lower than your level in that skill (0-99) then you succeed. The skills used by CoC seem pretty well suited to an AA rpg because of the investigation element to the game, but then again its the only proper investigation/mystery rpg I've played. The emphasis is on the player being a normal human being - thus getting into a gunfight with a mobster will probably end up with you dying. Of course, the whole Sanity mechanic has no place here...

Maybe there should be the possibility of losing a trial... It could always come back to be part of the 'campaign' later on, and would mean that players won't get too cosy in thinking that there's no way they can fail. *Present evidence randomly!*

I'm hoping that a lot of the game will simply be player and GM judgement as to what would succeed and what would fail, however, having a sort of dice system for backup (and to end arguments quickly and decisively so as to not disrupt the game) would be a good idea. Especially if the GM suspects a battle would be involved at some point. Ace Attorney isn't really known for its fighting mechanics, but there is potential for some very epic things in that regard. Especially with there being an entire spirit world to deal with from time to time.

I've been toying around with the concept of poltergeists and spiritually sensitive characters in the game. (Like making Spiritually Sensitive a character option you choose if you wanted to make a chaneller like character.) A player approached me with an idea for their prosecutor that involved him being haunted by the ghost of someone he had put to death. The ghost would subtly manipulate the items around him in annoying ways like hiding his keys and moving around evidence in crime scenes. It'd also make sudden loud noises while he tried to sleep and other such things that could ride on a man's nerves and make him jumpy.

My other players latched on to the idea as well, with one wanting to make a chaneller like character (one of those telephone psychics who just happened to be sort of legit) as an assistant to our mobster DA. This is giving me the chance to do a full on character arc with the prosecutor culminating in the players doing battle with a ghost during a haunted house style whodunnit.

I will most certainly need to be working out some battling rules in the near future. d: So again, thanks for pointing me at CoC.

If you ever type up the rules in full point me I'd love to see it! Good luck with everything :)