... Law Enforcement

Law enforcement roleplay in Star Wars Galaxies on the Starsider server has one constant: Whoever, whatever PA tries it sooner or later gives up. At first sight, this seems strange, since whenever a new law enforcement PA gets founded every player with a criminal character jumps up and down with glee, and recites the old mantra of „Great! Without law enforcement there can be no crime, since there is no risk! Welcome, welcome, welcome!“ So, one would assume, if not familiar with the server or how ritual sacrifices were fawned over in past cultures prior to the actual act, that law enforcement was a rewarding role, and filled with joyful experiences.

Of course, that’s not the case. For several reasons.

First, there are tons of criminal characters. And most of them are just waiting for some fresh meat in cop uniform so they can test their latest criminal scheme - especially after the resident stormtrooper PAs got smart and stopped bothering with crimes that are not related to the rebellion, therefore saving themselves a boatload of trouble, and being able to focus on actual military roleplay instead of speeding swoops. That means that at first, any new law enforcement PA is swamped with roleplay options and proposals. After months of going cold turkey, a fresh dose of „cop presence“ stirs just about everyone who roleplays a criminal into action.
And it starts out great. The novelty of seeing cops walking around, writing parking tickets, maybe even making an arrest after a barfight or spice consumption is usually enough for most criminals to let themselves get ordered around a bit, and behave – wouldn’t want to scare the new playmates away, after all, and one needs those cops to feel like a true criminal mastermind for dodging their attempts to bring one to justice. And any roleplay scene that goes sour is soon replaced with a new encounter/plot with new people.
However, sooner or later, the sheer number of criminal characters starts to take their toll – especially if it comes to fights. When more than every second citizen a cop encounters is a criminal, things start to look strange. When just about every victim of a crime is a criminal (who usually will get his/her own revenge if the cops don’t track and kill the perp in 1.5 hours, and may have shot at the cops a week ago), the urge to serve and protect starts to lessen. When one starts to expect odds of three or more criminals to one cop in every fight, one starts to grow weary. When a cop feels not like the protector of a community of law-abiding citizens, defending them against criminals, but the bogeyman/whipping boy of a society composed almost entirely of criminals of all sorts or their faithful fans and friends, immersion starts to suffer.

Which brings us to the second reason law enforcement ends up going bad: Compared to criminals, cops operate with very limited options and a lot of restrictions. Cops need evidence to make an arrest/sentence people. They have regulations to follow, often restrictions for gear, and have to obey the law while upholding it. Criminals on the other hand have not many restrictions, but a lot of options. They do not need to have evidence, but can act on suspicion alone – or on a whim. They can usually plan where, when and who to strike, having the initiative. They can use any weapon or armor they want if they mask their faces or at least write that into their bio. They can bribe, threaten and blackmail people, such as a law enforcement officer’s superiour. They can even use the law enforcement officers themselves, siccing them on rival criminals with some leaked information or evidence, or just the right spin on an incident.
Not to mention that criminals, unlike cops, also can simply take a break and do no crime for a while, working on perfecting their PvP suit for example. A law enforcement character though is usually swamped with work – reports of crimes, small to large grievances from criminals and law-abiding characters alike. If they do take a break, people will berate them for not being there when needed – like we complain about cops being there when we speed, but not when someone breaks into our car. (Of course, in SWG, the complaints often sound more like „You arrested my character last week just because she was carrying enough ordance into the local high-class restaurant to blow up Alderaan twice, now arrest that criminal that leered at my leotard-and-composite-fashion statement! The three officers that my characters sent to the bacta tanks during the aforementioned arrest should be out by now, and back on duty too, so no excuses!“)
So, being a cop 24/7 ends up being work, not fun, especially if one has extensive in character rules and regulations to follow, and reports to write about every crime every roleplayer wants one to investigate while 90% of the other players simply have to type „/duel“ or „/emote mugs the target“.

But what happens if a law enforcement character actually manages to do everything right, dot all the is and cross all the ts, and gets the evidence for an arrest and trial? We get to see the third reason law enforcement roleplayers tend to burn out: They simply can’t win. With the rare exception of NPC-Alts or permadead characters, criminals, even killers, will return. The hitman one busted one’s back to arrest will be frolicking around with the rest of the criminal population one week later, with a more or less believable ic explanation ranging from having served their sentence fully (after all, if SWG-pregnancies can go from conception to birth in two days, and kids from toddler to teenager in a few days more, a week is enough to serve a life sentence) to getting a deal with the Empire – if they don’t just wreck the trial, or break the accused out of jail.
Not that this is a bad thing, actually, since spending time in prison IC is only fun in the rarest cases, and we play this game for fun – at least the smarter ones among us do. But it has the consequence that the law enforcement officer ends up meeting every crook he or she busted back on the streets the very next day – something that is not good for morale.
Wait wait, you say: Actions have consequences, so criminals should suffer more! They should not return to the very streets they were arrested in!
Yeah, sure. As pointed out, a large part of the characters of the average roleplay town are criminals. Drive them out, and you end up with a ghost town. And no one wants that. So, law enforcement really cannot win against crime, not without defeating themselves.

Which is actually a good thing, for criminals rarely can allow themselves to lose. I pointed out in another entry why roleplayers generally have to win, so this is no news, but it too can influence the law enforcement game experience negatively. If we’re dealing with players who are big into ic consequences that last, like permadeath or perma-exile, then we’re faced with out of character motivations that differ a lot between cops and criminals. If the cop loses and doesn’t get an arrest or sentence for a criminal, nothing changes for the player, things continue as usual. If the cop wins – one less criminal, which means one less citizen in the town.
If the consequences-criminal loses and gets arrested, tried and sentenced, we’re talking permadeath or perma-exile, given the average crime committed by the average criminal in SWG. If the criminal wins and avoids justice, well, nothing changes, things go on. That’s a rather big incentive for the criminal’s player to do his/her best to avoid a loss – and given the amount of options criminals have (from bribes and violence to out-there stuff like mindwipes of witnesses), odds are they will win if trying seriously.
And to quote a forum post: If one side loses all the time, it’s no fun. And if something is no fun, people tend to stop doing it.

Now, let’s assume some player of a law enforcement character suffers through all the stuff mentioned above, yet does not give up. What happens then, other than getting a job offer for a less stressful task, like mediating peace in the middle east? We often see law enforcement characters start to get corrupt. The temptation to fight fire with fire grows with each defeat at the hands of criminals. Why should one stick to all those pesky regulations when it would be so easy to teach those criminals a lesson by bending the law just a little?
And so corruption steps in, little by little. Some officers may simply look away when two criminals or gangs fight each other. Others may actively instigate such conflicts by various means. Some may even work with criminals to defeat „the bigger evil“, becoming little more than tools of the local gang. Others yet might break the law, fake evidence, or torture confessions out of accuseds. Or start to enforce the law selectively, giving criminals who supported them in the past more leeway than others. Or simply pay bounty hunters and hitmen for acting out vigilante justice. And sooner or later, we’re not talking about law enforcement anymore, but enforcers of a gang in uniform. And that means, they get treated, ic and ooc, as just another gang.

But let’s assume, hypothetically, that a player weathers all of this, and keeps the character on the right side of the law. Doesn’t associate with criminals, doesn’t make deals, remains impartial, and protects their reputation by not sharing drinks or body fluids with the local mafia. Does that save them?
If the prozac bills don’t make them unable to pay for SWG’s subscription, out of character stuff usually does them in anyway. The emote/duel disputes alone can drive players away. Canon fanatics and fanboys arguing about why this or that NPC organisation should reign supreme „since it states so right in the EU!!!!“, usually followed with „your character therefore would not do this!“ mop up the survivors from the emote/duel wars.
„Just /addignore them“ you say? Well... contrary to most other character concepts, addignoring characters does not work that well for law enforcement. If after the latest „my Sith-Mandalorian-Black Hutt-hybrid syndicate should be untouchable by ouny cops like you“ ooc flame war said organisation gets addignored, people not familiar with the incident and reaction might perceive this as corrupt cops turning a blind eye.
This problem is compounded when players try to solve ooc issues with ic means. It is really tempting to simply recruit/hire/deptutize criminals so that no matter what a particular crime PA one is facing off against demands to settle the outcome of a fight - emotes, duels, sheer numbers, canon-quotes about manpower – one can match them and beat them. However, in the long run, it only leads to more trouble, since people react to seeing cops and criminals fight side by side. And having to explain after each battle „please, do not consider this too ic, the criminals on this side were just helping us out for ooc reasons“ gets tiring too.

So, what exactly can one do to avoid all this trouble when playing law enforcement characters?

Honestly, I don’t know for sure. Players could play more law-abiding citizens, or at least characters that are not hard-boiled criminals with a rap sheet longer than the casualty list of the Death Star. Characters that shun criminals, and provide the cops with a society to protect, where criminals are outsiders. However, that’s illusiory. People want to interact with criminals, for various reasons, and people want to play criminals more than joe averages, if only for the freedom it offers.

Law enforcement could avoid some pitfalls, stick to player cities and the rules there, augment their forces with storyteller tools, or stick to specific crimes (playing a sort of FBI), picking and choosing their ic antagonists and avoiding getting rushed/dragged into every crime scene as well as avoiding close association with various crime gangs. And, of course, not to try too much at once.

Criminals could use alts for plots, to allow permadead criminals, or use alts in law enforcement PAs. Alternatively, or in addition to this, criminals could try to depend less on law enforcement for their roleplay. One can roleplay a criminal in places like Lok or Tatooine, with corrupt cops (if any), and get the risk of failure not by competing with the four law enforcement officers still active on the server, but by matching wits and forces with the dozens of other crime gangs. Criminals could behave when interacting with cops, and – novel idea! – try to avoid committing crimes in the jurisdiction of said four cops.

And maybe once we do not feel anymore like we need law enforcement so desperately, law enforcement, freed of the pressures and demands from all players of criminal characters, can actually become a lasting part of the Starsider roleplay scenes, not just a prop for crime plots.

Maybe it’ll even be fun for all involved.