How do I inject courtroom drama to my game?

[fourthmensch]

I ran a courtroom session a little while ago and I think it turned out very successfully. At the very least, it was an interesting changeup for my players because they knew that in the end it came down to who had the better case, not who had the bigger sword.

A PC of mine was in possession of a sword previously owned by the now-deceased Harandil Truesilver (a royal noble of Cormyr). Truesilver had died and the PC looted his body. No harm, no foul, he thought.

Then he ran into Truesilver's friends, who naturally assumed (aided by divination spells, scrying, locate object, etc) that some foul play must have been afoot for the hereditary heirloom to fall into the hands of some greedy dwarf. So they brought him to court in Suzail.

I figured that there had to be some balance of written law and magical support, so I made the jury consist of the magistrate, a cleric, and a War Wizard. The latter two basically made sure that no one was able to get away with outright lies, and that there was no magical tampering with the proceedings. But the trial itself was based on arguments from the prosecution and defense, moderated by the magistrate.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. Everyone was aware of the magical safeguards (including the prosecution), so much the trial consisted of cleverly phrased arguments and defenses that danced around the truth rather than confronting it directly (much like an actual courtroom ). It ended up with a minor conviction, as the PC was unable to prove/argue that looting the dead was not "theft," but was able to rebut the accusation of murder.

I'm not sure about an entire campaign based on the courtroom, but for one or two sessions (when the plot called for it), it worked brilliantly.

 

[mythago]

How do I inject a little bit of courtroom drama to my game? I realised the other day that many television shows are about lawyers, who always end up in court. The reason for this has to be that the courtroom is an excellent place for some gratuitous arguing and debating. Could a similar thing be introduced into a fantasy campaign?

Definitely, since most lawyers spend very little time in court other than to file paperwork.

My suggestion would be to avoid trying to imitate real-life courtrooms, or even TV depictions of real-life courtrooms. What you want is the tension, the drama, the issue of whether the blackguard accused of murdering the Duchess is really guilty or if there's something more sinister going on...

Wouldn't it be interesting if both sides' divination/truth-telling spells gave different stories?

 

[wolfen]

Any time a player wants to roll for a skill check stand up and yell
"I object!"

Very dramatic.

 

[beaver1024]

Courtroom adventure are an excellent idea and there is a definately a possibly for some fun there. I have run a courtroom based adventure before and here are some of my experiences:

1) Make the trial itself central to the adventure but space the action evenly between courtroom advocacy and evidence gathering and analysis. For example, the judge may allow bail for the antagonist and in between court sessions, the PCs would have the task of tracking him so that they can dig up more incriminating evidence.

2) Develop rudimentary rules of procedure and rules of evidence. This is central to a courtroom drama.

This is also where you curtail the power of divination spells. For example a rule of evidence might be that if a divination is performed on the accused directly (ie zone of truth, detect thoughts etc) without the accused's consent, that evidence cannot be admitted unless it was obtained under a warrant from the court. You might have a rule that the warrant can only be granted if the divination can be performed by an approved court official. Another example might be that unauthorised invasion of privacy of the accussed (ie Scrying) may not be admitted unless it was a court ordered scrying. Remember that in real life sometimes the most incrimating and obvious evidence was suppressed as evidence simply because they weren't obtained according to the right procedure.

Another tension increasing device you might want to try is the "to try to stop the offender from destroying or removing evidence before they can be used in court". So protecting witnesses, evidence sites, objects etc.

3) Use magic extensively to counter magic. Due to the prevalence of magic in standard DnD worlds, any well resourced criminal (those worthy of being in a major courtroom drama) will use everything at their disposal to get away with their evil deeds (eg Martha Stewart). So don't be shy in giving Amulets of Proof against Detection or Cowl of Warding out. Cast the Modify Memory and Disguise self etc. etc.

 

[fourthmensch]

Speaking of courtroom dramas in D&D, there's a great story in Realms of Shadow called "Trial By Ordeal" by Lisa Smedman. Just some indication of how a trial might run in a world suffused with magic.

 

[ConnorSB]

In... I think it was Mercedes Lackey books, people could be named "Oathbreaker", where basically thier word became worthless, people would stop helping them, etc. It was like the biggest punishment possible (save death), and was this big traditional thing. Basically, the people who decided to name that person an Oathbreaker were legally required to "bring them in."

To name someone oathbreaker, a warrior, a priest, and a commoner had to publically agree that such was so, and publically agree to... umm... slay them.

Oaths and oathbreaking could come into play as the rule of law vs. tradition...

 

[Frostmarrow]

Any problems that arise are for the players to deal with. The group is the court and wherever they are the court is there with them. They are on the King's mission to bring justice to the people and their power (usually, but not without intrigue) trumps over that of a Baron or Duke. The players are free to develop any system of justice they like for this is the first time it happens. (Previously the King ruled in all disputes, but he is nowadays overwhelmed by other matters of state.)

All the DM has to do is play defendants and plaintiffs. There won't be a jury unless the party appoints one. The party will investigate strange goings-on. They will collect evidence and apprehend the suspects together. In the end the prosecutor and the defender will argue their points to the judge (who are all PCs). The judge makes a verdict. For a bit of extra action (and to entertain Grogg, mentioned above) the DM might decide that either party is dissatisfied with the verdict, and decides to appeal to Grogg - for trial-by-arms instead.

 

[Steverooo]

The Seventh Alternative:

Why in the world would the mundanes accept what a Wizard, etc., has to say as evidence, anyway? It isn't provable, and the burden of proof may lie upon the defendant, not the prosecutor!

In SuperWorld (another SuperHero RPG), evidence obtained solely through the use of SuperPowers (like Mind Reading) is inadmissable, in court. The PCs can use it (outside of the court room) as much as they like, but they cannot cast spells with verbal components in the court, and anything they learn from magic is inadmissable...

What they CAN do is take the information gained from scrying, divinations, etc., and use it to uncover evidence, which is then producable and usable in a court of law.

So, BBEG hires assassins to kill Farmer Brown and secure the deed from his widow, forcing his beautiful daughter to marry him to prevent Farmer Brow's Widow from being evicted... The PCs try Zone of Truth, etc., and detect no lies. Mind Reading and Detect Evil/Lies also fail. So does Scry. Spying determines that the BBEG has an Anti-Magic Shell up. Using magic to peer into the past (before the shell was up), however, reveals the BBEG hiring the assassin, and where the murder weapon and signed contract were hidden, who the assassin was, etc. The PCs can now attempt to capture and interrogate the assassin, or break into the guild to get the contract... Without fingerprinting, though, the murder weapon is probably just a useless red herring...

I did a Sci-Fi version of this, where an entire starship full of rich and important people was put at risk by a plague, stopped by four PCs at great personal risk. Unfortunately, the relatives were looking for somebody to blame, and these "nobodies" were available, and much easier to sue than the MegaCorp responsible... The PCs then got to secure legal counsel, match his and their skills against the prosecution, be interviewed by the media (with manipulation attempts on both sides), attempt to gather evidence, win friends and influence people, and then make a roll for how the trial went...

I had a system for this, and gave the PCs a bonus for being innocent, but they didn't need it! One of the PCs had more legal skill than their defender, and was able to gather so much evidence that they completely turned the case on the prosecution, revealed the evil MegaCorp's machinations, won over the media, and eventually were hailed as the hero(in)es they were!

When they left Kimanjano, continuing on towards Earth to receive the Carvalho Award for Medicine (which is what initially brought them aboard the ship where they encountered the plague), they were hero(in)es twice over.

You could do something similar, in D20, with Knowledge (Local) covering legal skill and research, Gather Information determining what can be found, Sense Motive needs a task to detect lies (giving only "You thinks he's lying/telling the truth/holding something back!" as a result). Diplomacy can be used for persuasion, Intimidate to coerce, Bluff to lie like a dog, Spot to read lips in the courtroom, listen to overhear whispers, search (and perhaps tracking) to gather evidence...

The trick, here, is to look at what every PC can do, and make sure that they all have an important task to accomplish. The Barbarian will have little to do, if he can't track and has no Listen skill. The Paladin may or may not be any good at persuasion and/or sensing motives... Can his Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) be made important? Whatever skills a PC is focussed on should become vital... The Lockpicking Rogue may have to break in, somewhere, to gain evidence otherwise unavailable. The Ranger (the only one with decent Climbing skill) may have to go in to get him out, if he is discovered, etc.

Anyway, basically what I did was allow law skill (Knowledge (Local), in this case) to be added to the roll of 1D20, +1 per piece of evidence presented corroborating your side's testimony, and the equivalent of +6 to the innocent party. (If they're both dirty, or both partly right and wrong, then don't award it to either side.) Compare the totals, at trial's end, and highest one wins. Severity of sentence, or accolades, is determined by the margin of victory.

This worked very well, for my group. I know that I enjoyed it!

 

[drnuncheon]

The problem with Divinations is that if the cleric says, "Joe killed John" there's no way to be sure the cleric is telling the truth. If the cleric is the judge, what's to stop him from just saying whatever he wants? Everyone knows he's got spells that make him infallible, right?

Of course, keep going with the idea of magic. If the cleric is a cleric of Tyr, given his power directly from Tyr, then if he lies about a matter of Justice, Tyr's domain, then he isn't going to be a cleric with power from Tyr for long. Even better, if he's a paladin...you get the idea. There are more reasons to be able to trust someone with this kind of power in a D&D world, if they are accountable to something bigger.

J

 

[Piratecat]

When I had a party member tried, I made an excuse to keep the rest of the group out of the gaming room while I talked to her privately. Meanwhile they bolted for the darkened library, where they covered their heads with sheets and blankets, arranged themself in a semi-circle, and pointed a light at the doorway. I brought the accused player downstairs -- and she had to stand in the doorway, facing the light and the hidden forms, while each of them (playing a council member) grilled her for half an hour. It was fantastic.