Erroneous judgment

This is the Situation 32th and 33th of Polti. The 32th is a special case of Erroneous judgment (mistaken jealousy). In that case, the victims of the mistake are the spouse and the supposed accomplice. Elements

• a Mistaken One; 
• a Victim of the Mistake; 
• a Cause OR Author of the Mistake; 
• (Optional) the Guilty One: the one the judgement should be passed against

Plot: The Mistaken One falls victim to the Cause or the Author of the Mistake and passes judgment against the Victim of the Mistake.

Mistaken One

The Mistaken One needs reasons to pass judgement upon the Victim of the Mistake.

PCs as Mistaken One

You can plan the Cause or Author of the Mistake to deceive the PCs, but for the story to have meaning, the PCs need to be able to error by themselves. In this case, you can use an Enigma the PCs interpreted incorrectly, for instance, or give them circumstantial evidence against the Victim - like it fleeing from the crime scene.

Victim of the Mistake

The persons the Mistaken One judges against.

PCs as Victim

The PCs need to be able to prove they are unjustly pursued, punished or whatever consequence the judgement is about. For that, they need to know or be able to learn about what the judgement was.

Cause or Author of the Mistake

If it is a Cause, then it is whatever reasons the Mistaken One have to think the Victim is guilty.

PCs as Author of the Mistake

It is an spontaneous action in part of the PCs, and as such you can only give them the chance to do it and be prepared both in case they do and in case they don’t.

Guilty One

Optional Element because the erroneous part in Erroneous Judgement may be the very existence of the crime. For instance, Peter arrives home early and hears a couple having sex’s sound upstairs. Sneaking there, he sees through an aperture in the bedroom’s door a redhead woman riding over a man and thinks she’s his wife, Betty. He flees, not knowing what to do. Some days after that, living whatever crazy adventures he live through, he confronts his wife and learns that woman was not Betty but her sister.

PCs as Guilty One

If PCs are the Guilty One Element this is surely going to develop as a case of Remorse.

Development

As stated, if there is a Guilty One, you only need to add an Interrogator who doubts the judgement to develop this into a Remorse story.

If the error is known, the Mistaken One and the Author of Mistake can be considered Criminals and be pursued (Pursuit) or punished (Vengeance)

Usually the judgement provokes a Pursuit, Vengeance, Disaster or Falling Prey to Cruelty/Misfortune for the Victim of Mistake.