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MrUberGr
2015-07-08, 05:11 AM
Greetings! In our last session, on our magic restricted world, i.e. where magic is banned in the cities, and specially disintegrates and the likes, our hothead sorcerer decided it didn't suit her to help the rebels at that time, (she agreed to help for a substantial amount of money) and when the rebel got a bit pushy, she decided to disintegrate him in the middle of the street. The antimagic guard tracked her down, and took her into custody, she is currently in a cell with wards against all sorts of magics.

My question is, unless I make up a riot or something to give her a chance to escape, she's must undergo a trial. I was thinking two different options. Either a public city-square type-trial, or a dungeon/inquisition trial. How could I run each? Go full bluff-insight etc? What's holding the judges back from casting circle of truth, and just making her tell the truth? That she just blasted away a rebel, because she didn't want to hold up her end of the bargain?

Given that I don't really want to kill her, what would be a good punishment? Pay off a huge amount? Prison for some time would be worse than killing her since she wouldn't be able to play.

P.S. Disintegrate says that if the target is killed by this spell, it is disintegrated. What is left behind? Pile of ash?

noob
2015-07-08, 07:14 AM
What is left is dust or ash and a pile of clothes and items (It changes depending of the gm).
In dnd money is something governments always wants to have more since money directly increase the power of the government so there will probably have at least a tax(also the player must pay its advocate).
One other question is:how many people did see the event.

MrZJunior
2015-07-08, 07:55 AM
They might force her to perform some tasks for them, some sort of magical community service. Having a powerful magic user at your beck and call is a useful thing. Maybe they could attach some sort of bomb collar to her to enforce their will.

Sam113097
2015-07-10, 02:26 AM
Given that the city has laws against magic, I assume that the people there are pretty superstitious, so I would suggest a trial with a "witch hunt" atmosphere, with false witnesses, dim courtrooms, and other dark elements
Additionally, there's a precedent for this right here on the GitP website! In Order of the Stick, Beliar receives a Mark of Justice to keep him under control. Something like that could work as a punishment, a curse or item that prevents the player from using any magic within the city (or any settlement if you're feeling particularly cruel).

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-07-10, 03:19 AM
A short session with a prejudiced interrogator, and then a public hanging in a square with plenty of spaces to pull off an ambush from.

Okay, maybe it's not that kind of setting and you actually want the group to be able to come back to this city, but that's the first thing that came to mind.

But yeah, I like the "perform a task" idea too. It can have a bit of a Nikita vibe. "Official documents show you've been condemned to death and are currently awaiting your sentence in Darkstone Magical Security Prison, but go on this mission and at the end you will get a new identity." - "And what if I don't go?" - "Row 8, plot 30 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100263/quotes)".

She can still just pretend to agree and run away as soon as she exits the gate of course, but that way she chose to have law enforcement on her ass from now on, very annoying.

How big the mission is you send her on will kind of depend on how in the middle of a quest you are right now. Maybe you can even find a way to tie it in to there, because whatever trouble the PC's are trying to solve is bothering the city as well. That way you can give off a warning that you're enforcing the laws without breaking up the flow of the game.

ShaneMRoth
2015-07-10, 04:26 AM
...Our hothead sorcerer decided it didn't suit her to help the rebels at that time, (she agreed to help for a substantial amount of money) and when the rebel got a bit pushy, she decided to disintegrate him in the middle of the street.
...

So she murdered a guy... in public...

And disintegrated his ass. Like Dr Manhattan in Watchmen.


...
Unless I make up a riot or something to give her a chance to escape, she's must undergo a trial.
...

Gee, ya think?

She murdered a guy.

She literally murdered all of the crap out of him.

Yes, a trial might be warranted.


...
Either a public city-square type-trial, or a dungeon/inquisition trial. How could I run each? Go full bluff-insight etc? What's holding the judges back from casting circle of truth, and just making her tell the truth? That she just blasted away a rebel, because she didn't want to hold up her end of the bargain?
...

Either angle can be made to work.

A public square trial should be dangerous. There should be angry mobs attending an event. This would be the best route to go if the city were corrupt and the "trial" were merely a formality. (There is a reason we don't do public square trials anymore.)

An ostensibly fair trial would be more likely to take place in a secure indoor setting. and would imply some form of due process.

What you have to decide is if this is going to be a "fair trial" or a "Hollywood trial".

In a fair (boring) trial, she will be found guilty by the evidence alone. (Witnesses... so, so many witnesses.) Remember to bring the Stone Tell spell into play for the prosecution. She would be found guilty of murder. An adequate defense would impact her penalty, but she is guilty. The DM knows it.

In a Hollywood trial, there would be something in play that is in conflict with a trial finding a reasonably just verdict and penalty.


...
Go full bluff-insight etc? What's holding the judges back from casting circle of truth, and just making her tell the truth? That she just blasted away a rebel, because she didn't want to hold up her end of the bargain?


Bluff vs Sense Motive (the accused vs the judge / jury)

Diplomacy vs Diplomacy (the prosecutor versus the defense lawyer)

The problem with Zone of Truth type spells can be handled many ways.

A cultural bias against magic would likely persist in the court system. If people don't trust magic, they won't trust that they got a fair trial if magic is used.

Zone of Truth fails randomly (A natural 20 Will save) and unpredictably. A 1st level commoner is just as likely to roll a Natural 20 as a 10th level rogue.

Zone of Truth explicitly allows a subject to take the fifth (lie by omission).


...
Given that I don't really want to kill her, what would be a good punishment? Pay off a huge amount? Prison for some time would be worse than killing her since she wouldn't be able to play.
...

Remember, she killed a guy with a Disintegrate spell. She had to memorize prepare the spell in advance and then decide to use that spell, as opposed to any number of other spell options. And Disintegrate has no non-lethal function.

That's premeditated murder. Not even manslaughter.

The death penalty has to be a possibility.

The best way for her to avoid the death penalty is to save the state the cost of a trial and plead guilty.

She would then pay for the victim to be resurrected, and since she disintegrated his ass... it might have to be a Wish spell.

She should have to give a statement of how the crime happened and what lead up to it.

Bringing the rebel back to life opens an entirely different can of worms, since he will should be questioned by the state to verify if her story holds up. If her story proves false, then she might be tried anyway and given no deal.

The best she should expect is to be banished from that city, and the county in which it sits, for life. (That's county, not country.)

The courts may have to stage a fake execution to satisfy the public, or actually kill a patsy.


...
P.S. Disintegrate says that if the target is killed by this spell, it is disintegrated. What is left behind? Pile of ash?

"a trace of fine dust"

Good luck!

Sith_Happens
2015-07-10, 07:59 AM
Remember, she killed a guy with a Disintegrate spell. She had to memorize the spell and then decide to use that spell, as opposed to any number of other spell options. And Disintegrate has no non-lethal function.

Sorcerer, so the bolded part is wrong. Not that it makes any real difference.

elliott20
2015-07-10, 10:12 AM
A lot of these will depend on what it is you want to convey about the society that the players are in and the person they're dealing with. Either way, what you should do is dedicate a scene to the actual trial, whatever form that will take place in.

Some suggestions:

first of all, you need to figure out what would be a procedure for this kind of thing in this society. Law based societies would probably have the person get arrested, held in detention until trial, and then you'd get a trial scene where there would be opening statements, witness interviews, cross examinations etc, etc, etc. (all the while you'd have investigators running around trying find more evidence to feed to the trial) Either way, go find your favorite legal drama, watch a couple of eps and you'll get a good idea of what kind of scenes and skill checks you'll need to do. If you want the results of the trial to not be carved in stone, I recommend doing a pre-trial negotiation with the player on what what kind of results are they trying to achieve, and then do success tracks to see how well each side argues their point. Use the difference to move the judgement in one direction or another. for argument's sake, let's say you're doing 7 "rounds" of this stuff. Each round, a successful check to bring evidence and what not will add a check to one side's favor. Maybe the prosecutor wants to put the PC in prison for the next 20 years. But at the end, the prosecution only got 3 boxes, while the player got 4. Then you negotiate results. Since it's more or less equal, it means that the jury is not convinced that the player is completely innocent, and so maybe SOMETHING needs to happen. (i.e. reparations to the victim in the form of spending money on their res, or community service, etc)

If, however, the players are in a society where the law is really more like whatever the authorities say is true, then a dungeon interrogation scene will seem appropriate. At this point, it becomes an endurance test to see if you crack under interrogation and copping to all of the charges. and so on, and so on.

You get the idea.

ShaneMRoth
2015-07-10, 04:43 PM
Sorcerer, so the bolded part is wrong. Not that it makes any real difference.

Corrected for clarity.

Algeh
2015-07-11, 02:11 AM
Honestly, I'd decide what kind of outcomes I wanted to have to keep the story and the setting going along, and then decide on the type of trial around those kind of potential outcomes.

This PC just straight-up murdered someone in the middle of the street, and, in addition to that, did so in a way specifically forbidden (magic) rather than just, you know, generically forbidden (stabbing). Furthermore, they did it in such a way as to really tick off the group of people who are probably the most organized at things like breaking people out of jail and getting them out of town in a hurry (rebels). The typical concept of punishment is to either deter that specific person from doing whatever-they-did again or to deter other people from doing whatever-that-guy-did in the future (oversimplifying a LOT here), so any punishment a specifically magic-forbidding society is going to come up with for using magic to do something that is also (presumably) forbidden in general is likely to be pretty nasty. I'm having trouble thinking of a punishment such a society would admit to in public, at a trial, that would make for a good arc to continue playing that character. I'm guessing likely punishments more along the line of "imprisoned in the Naughty Magic User Tower for the the rest of your natural life", "magic ability forcibly removed (if possible in setting)", or "burned at the stake" would be the official, declared penalties. Maybe start by asking yourself what the penalties would be for non-magically murdering someone in the middle of the street, and for using magic to do something less severe: it's going to be a worse penalty than either of those things for sure.

If you're committed to outcomes that keep this PC in the campaign (rather than having the player make a new character, which would be the likely outcome in a lot of groups I've been in), you're probably not looking at a modern-thinking "fair" trial. As a matter of fact, I'd suggest thinking of a way to avoid a trial at all. Either a jailbreak or a secret recruitment out of prison by some group of authorities or other.
Since the person they murdered is a rebel, if they can somehow spin that aspect of it to the authorities they may be able to reduce their punishment that way, depending on how the society in question feels about vigilantes.

Bobb
2015-07-11, 04:01 AM
Did she kill a known rebel? Wouldn't that be grounds for a reduced sentence?

Also, if her friends could convince/bribe the witnesses to take her side those two conditions could let her walk, provided she accepted a magical tracking device. Think about it, "Yes officer, I did decide to kill that dangerous rebel who was trying to extort me for money and was about to kill me/threatened me with deadly force if I didn't do [some magical thing] for the rebellion." Easy.

Make the judge extremely corrupt. When/if the details come out (or even if they don't) have the judge offer her a walk with just a 'few' 'paperwork' fees. (Ideally a little more than the rebel paid her to show consequences for such shoddy murdering)

Then next session the corrupt judge gets paid by an enemy of the party to string her up on false charges! Then you do the trial session with bogus charges and evidence that the player can beat due to internal consistencies and a higher profile case [REPEAT OFFENDER MURDERS LOVABLE TOWN BAKER]. Bonus points if they get an unskilled lawyer in training who objects to ordinary courtroom proceedings. [Objection! This witness should recuse herself because she got dusting from the victims' ash remains!]

GungHo
2015-07-16, 12:26 PM
How would the rest of the party react to an exile? Would they go with her?

DigoDragon
2015-07-16, 12:47 PM
How would the rest of the party react to an exile? Would they go with her?

I've once run a campaign where a PC was arrested for murder. One of the other players who was not at the scene of the crime had ranks in Law and applied to be the PC's lawyer for the case. Then the other players got together evidence and we played out a short trial (short as in keeping details on the steps of the judicial process brief). It was fun for everyone because they all participated in one way or another, and the PC was acquitted due to the other players gathering enough doubt on the validity of the witnesses present.

ufo
2015-07-16, 02:34 PM
Skip the trial, have law enforcement trade the sorceror's freedom for information on the rebels. If the sorceror becomes a snitch, that's wonderful RP drama right there.

dream
2015-07-16, 02:58 PM
Is this an evil party/adventure? How does a PC go around killing NPCs at will?

Funny point: over the last two decades or so players have grown increasingly concerned with "Player Agency". They want to be able to make decisions that impact the setting. Real choices with real outcomes. No GM fiddling in their decisions. I agree, wholeheartedly.

Run the trial. Make sure there's two or more powerful mages there, along with a nice-sized police force to challenge any attempt to escape. Bring eye-witnesses who "saw the whole thing from nearby". Bring witnesses who made contact with the party before the murder that the prosecution can use to vilify the accused/party. Most important, bring fellow rebels, friends & family of the deceased forward to testify that the rebel was a good person.

It's murder. Let the PC(s) deal with the outcome of their decisions.

ShaneMRoth
2015-07-16, 03:18 PM
...Skip the trial...

On paper, a trial sounds like it is full of roleplaying potential.

But at the table, it may prove to be disappointing.

Manage your expectations of the value of the trial as an encounter.

How many decision points are available to the player character during the trial itself?

There really aren't that many.

In game mechanic terms, the trial comes down to one decision, and that decision is supposed to be out of the control of the character... or at least look like it is out of the control of the character.

The aftermath of the trial is more likely to have greater role-playing encounter potential.

Start this encounter late and end it early.

VoxRationis
2015-07-16, 03:42 PM
Well, whether the trial is "fair," with full due process, or a kangaroo court is irrelevant, since she blatantly and publicly killed someone (illegal) with means that are banned in the city (even more illegal) in order to renege on a contract (which might not be wholly illegal in a criminal sense, but probably won't come off as a good pretext for homicide). Regardless of the court system, unless the PCs do some serious tampering, the verdict is going to be the same: Guilty. The sentence is going to be what's really up in the air.
Also, I'd like to point out that "superstitious" might not always be a good way of describing a magic-hating populace in a world where magic is real and can do various horrible things to you (like disintegrate people). Certainly some people would have an irrational fear of magic, coupled with misunderstanding and prejudice, but it's legitimate for a society to say "No, you can't cast magic here" in the same way that ours says "You can't set up a nuclear reactor in your garden shed" or "No use of napalm in the streets."

Demidos
2015-07-16, 03:58 PM
They enforce some Mark of Justice type thing (used from a relic, not some mere mortal spell that might be evil and stuff), and send her to go wipe out the rebels.

Its a win win for the law -- either she kills the rebels, or they kill her. Optionally, if the rebels are very clever, they might be able to set things up to make her think she's killing them when she's actually attacking the town guard and furthering their cause.

Shamash
2015-07-16, 07:24 PM
Make her look at the judge and yell: "Trial by combat!"

Zale
2015-07-16, 08:59 PM
Make her look at the judge and yell: "Trial by combat!"

That always goes well. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1EpAmjwfeY)