How do I inject courtroom drama to my game?

[Frostmarrow]

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?

I used to DM a campaign in Mystara back in 2ed Player’s Options-days. The back-story was that one of the characters was a travelling judge in King Stefan’s service. One other character was his bodyguard, a cavalier of sorts. The shtick was that the judge would travel from one town to the next and always encounter disputes, of some kind, between people. The judge would set up a provisional court and have the different parties argue their point, and then he would rule. If they had a problem with the judge’s rulings they could appeal - by besting the cavalier in single combat. It was a lot of fun! In many ways the best game I’ve ever run. Sadly, the game got so popular that the group grew in numbers and the new players didn’t really grasp what made the game so good.

I’ve been thinking of doing something similar in a new campaign and was wondering if any of you have any ideas of how to make this work in 3ed? Are there special considerations to be made concerning the current rules?

 

[Calico_Jack73]

See the problem lies with Divinations spells. There is really no reason for a courtroom when you have a spell that will tell you if someone is or is not guilty.

A similar thread came up before on foiling divinations. I like to use the movie Minority Report for inspiration. If you haven't seen it I highly reccomend it. Picture the Precogs as Clerics of Tyr and you are all set to go.

 

[Crothian]

Divinations can be foiled and are not 100%. Bob thinks he sees Fred kill someone. Fred was actually with friends at a bar. So, Bob testifies and truthful says he saw Fred kill someone. Fred testifies and truthfully says he did not and that he was with other people at that time. Both people are saying what they know to be the truth.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Well, the judge is appointed by the King, so he has been given the power to rule in disputes. It’s really up to the player if he wants to go for divinations. Or even, if he admits such as evidence. That choice alone can be very telling.

I was thinking more on the lines of JAG. The characters in that show are colleagues and friends yet they still have to fight each other in court. They do some researching, fly some jets , and then they duke it out in front of a judge. Too bad Harmon Rabb has plot-immunity and simply can’t lose a case.

What if there are four characters? There might be a judge, a defence attorney, a prosecutor and a duellist, for trial-by-combat appeals. Sometimes they go dungeon bashing (i.e. fly jets), sometimes they investigate and in the end they put the bad guys to justice with the victims as plaintiffs. It could be interesting to see the judge let the bad guys go from lack of evidence, as argued by the defence attorney. Especially as they all participated in the apprehension of said bad guys.

 

[WayneLigon]

Divinations might ruin such a thing.. if there is a priest around of high enough level to cast one. And if he prepared one of those spells that day. If you're out and about among the peasentry, the chance of that is slim.

If you do actually have a legal system in place, one similar enough to ours that arguement and debate over points of law are taken into consideration (in other words, they follow the rule of law, rather than the rule of the local baron or duke or whatever) then divinations might not be allowed in several cases.

1. It's known that many spells can not work on a person. Unless the priest can provide proof that his spell works regardless then any knowledge gained from it might be suspect.

2. The subject might be exempt from such divination magics by reason of some special status. Nobles, for instance, might not be required to be subjected to Zone of Truth. Maybe a priest cannot cast a divination on someone not of his faith. Or might be prohibited from casting spells on those of his faith.

3. As a follow up to (2), some sections of the populace might have their own court system. Guilds, for example. Certain religions might not recognize judgement passed on their members by anyone not of their faith.

4. Divination might not be seen as 'reliable enough' to convict someone of certain classes of crimes. It might be well and good to use to find out if Farmer Brown did indeed sow an acre of Farmer Greens fields with his own crops, but not in a murder investigation; there are so many things that could foil a divination that it might not be seen as accurate enough.

5. People may have rights! Once the populace moves away from the idea of 'rule by man', then more and more they have the concept of rights, especially inalienable ones. One of the first ones will probably be 'Right to be free of Hostile Sorceries' meaning no Charm, Suggestion, Detect Thoughts, etc.

Even if not, there are still some inherant rights under a feudal system; usually the subject swears to uphold the lord, and the lord swears to protect the subject. If Lord Arnold has a beef with the local Church of Thereman, then he might well see use of divinations by the Theremanites as something he needs to protect the populace from. He might issue a proclamation that the Servants of Thereman shall not practice their arts within a hundred feet of the Courthouse.

6. Rights and Privledges. In a medieval society, the concept of privledge is very powerful. The local duke may well have the traditional right to judge those accussed and he'll be the one to do it, not some local priest trying to horn in on the process.

 

[drnuncheon]

That's where the judge (or lawyers) have to be clever. "Did you really see Fred? Could you have been mistaken? Could it have been someone who resembled Fred? What makes you think it was Fred and not a wizard or doppleganger disguised as Fred?"

If the spell not only forces them to tell the truth, but also to answer, then you might get stuff reminiscent of Heinlein's "Fair Witnesses", who would testify that this side of the barn was red, but they could not say about the other side.

J

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

See the problem lies with Divinations spells.

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?

In a fair legal system there has to be a way to independently verify the evidence. Now, it's very true that most medieval legal systems were anything but fair, but the point still stands.

You could use the Complex Skills Checks system from Unearthed Arcana to allow a lawyer to try his case. That helps guard against one blown check screwing the whole session. Liberal use of skills like Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate and so on would be in order - you could try to accomplish the same thing three ways with those last three skills, each having advantages and drawbacks depending on the situation. Opposed skill checks would be better than going with a straight DC, I would think.

I've had a lot of very successful sessions that involved heavy RP in front of a crowd to be swayed, whether it was a trial situation or a PC trying to convince a group of nobles why he should be made King.

 

[catdragon]

Drama vs. Action

I love the idea of teh courtroom in DnD. unfortunately i don't think it would go over too well, at lest with the people around *here* (as in where i live).

Courtroom drama are popular on TV fior several reasons: drama, conflict (what is right, what is wrong, someone getting away with something, innocent man found guiltty, etc)., investigation (mysteries add a lot!), and personality interactions (DA vs. Defense attorny, juror vs. lawyer, juror vs. juror, lawyer vs. lawyer, defendent vs. lawyer, defendent vs. people, etc.)

All of this makes great drame, but i don't think it would work well at a table-top game.

For example, Grogg the Barbarian comes into the room to be a juror?!?! i don't think so. Grogg not like defendent, Grogg rip out battleaxe and kill defendent! Too many players see DnD as a way to escape and killing monsters and taking treasure is a large amount of what table-top gaming is about.

 

[WayneLigon]

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.

The GURPS Supers book discusses some of the ramifications of superpowers on the legal system; in their world, there were lots of 'supers' that didn't put on capes and fight crime. They just used their powers in their day-to-day life.

They had the 'three telepath' system, where if all three (or maybe just two? Shades of Minority Report...) have to agree. Maybe a triad from the three local faiths?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The GURPS Supers book discusses some of the ramifications of superpowers on the legal system; in their world, there were lots of 'supers' that didn't put on capes and fight crime. They just used their powers in their day-to-day life.

They had the 'three telepath' system, where if all three (or maybe just two? Shades of Minority Report...) have to agree. Maybe a triad from the three local faiths?

That could be a cool way to handle it. Chances are, a system like that would only be used for major trials, possibly only for trials of nobles. Loads of opportunities for intrigue and messing around with peoples heads. With practice, maybe targeted telepathic projections could be made to seem very similar to the results of a divination...