PCs in Court

[Mr. T]

I'm GMing a Star Wars d20 campaign and one of my characters shot a prisoner who, although still armed was in no condition to fight because "he would slow them down." The characters are in the millitary (New Republic Army) and I thought this would warrant a court-martial. I decided to postpone the court-martial until the end of their current mission.

Have you ever had a character be in court and, if so how did you do it? I was thinking of opposed Diplomacy checks.

If this is in the wrong section feel free to move it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I'd make them roleplay it. Let the players pick one person to act as their legal counsel, and make him try and justify it. Allow each character to testify, and make whatever diplomacy, bluff, etc. checks seem appropriate based on what they say.

If they get off, they're free. If they don't, maybe they get offered a 'Dirty Dozen' type mission to earn their freedom.

It's too good an opportunity to let it be decided by a simple Diplomacy check.

 

[the Jester]

What I did the last time the pcs were in court was to bring in a guest player to play the judge. (I stole this from Piratecat.)

It worked great, and as the dm, not having a clue as to what was going to happen was great fun.

 

[Crothian]

I had a great 8 hour court session. We role played the whole thing. To help out, I had some of the players play NPCs at times as witness and made up what they knew and perosnality and printed it out for them. The players got really into it and the dwarf on trial at the end made a big moving speech invoking passages from the holy scriptures of his god as defense for his actions. It was awesome!!

 

[Mr. T]

No single die roll will decide their fate! The roleplaying will be good because the charge is kinda ambigous. He (the assassin) could of tried to attack or he could not of. I might use a modified version of the gladiatorial audience rules from complete warrior. As for punishment this would be classed as murder and probable grounds for immediate dishonorable discharge. This is asuming the New Republic has Rules of Engagement similar to the U.S.'s.