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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fourthmensch" data-source="post: 1429786" data-attributes="member: 16723">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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />). 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.</blockquote>

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