Making a Trial fun...help please

[Naicz]

Hello GitP forum-ers.
I have lurked here for a long time, and even posted a few times. I come to you once again seeking the knowledge of the masses for an issue I am worried about for tonight's session.

The Set-Up:
The party purchased an abandoned church, but when they arrived at the location, the local 'police' were there doing an investigation. The authorities refused to allow the party entry. The group, being of questionable moral standards (it's unofficially an evil party, most of the group is evil but are RPing that they are neutral, it's a fun dynamic), decides to disobey the orders of the captain and attempt to enter. The captain is a bit of a hot-head and attacks the group for disobeying his orders. In the end the party winds up killing the captain and a good number of the guard. A week later a much larger police force arrives to exact justice and takes the leader of the group and his advisor (both PCs) into custody for questioning.

The issue I now face is that the judicial system in this world is OVERTLY bureaucratic, there are laws on top of laws on top of laws. The trial process normally takes YEARS to complete, even in simple cases. I want to give the players a chance to RP and play out the trial, but I am at a loss for how to make it even remotely interesting. There are other players that aren't part of the trial, though they can be called in as witnesses so at least they can be involved somehow.

Should I make an attempt to have a full legal trial? If so, how do I make it an enjoyable evening of gaming?
Or do I go with my gut and plan for the escape from their holding cells and skip the meat of the trial, opting instead for a daring escape and numerous battles against knights and guard-mages as they make their way through the labyrinthine prison?
The latter sounds like much more fun, but I feel is quite railroad-tastic and I don't want the ONLY answer to be escape.
I was also considering having some sort of ancient law be able to be discovered by the intelligent advisor that he can invoke that basically boils down to: Escape is only illegal if you are unseccesful...

Thoughts?
Has anyone ran a trial before?
How did it go?
Ideas???

[nickl_2000]

An easy way out that is pretty appropriate to the times would be to have them call for a trial by combat.

Alternately, the captain could decide that he doesn't like the look of the PCs faces and run the trial himself in something that is a mockery of the true judicial system. You could have them in the gallows when the true law comes in and stops it or some other better solution.

[Corran]

Thoughts?
Go with the trial. Dnd trials are fun! Have the judge, or one of the judges if many, try to influence the court in the party's favor, in a relatively discrete way, but make sure the party notices it. After the first day of the trial is concluded, have that judge approach the PC's (the ones imprisoned preferaby, as these two are with their backs against the wall, and also since they are the leader and his advisor) and bargain a deal with them. He promises to make sure they will be proclaimed innocent, and in exchange the party has to perform some favor for that judge. Try to tie it with the general plot you have going on, if at all possible.
What are this judge's motives?
Will he keep his promise?
You won some time to think about these two. Just figure out a quick quest (or throw the one you had planned next in line).

Edit: Since there is a lot of beaurocracy, I guess it wouldnt be out of the question for the trial to be postponed for enough time so that the PC's can accomplish the quest given to them by the judge (if they choose to, ofc). The judge could be the one to pay their bail. Magical means to ensure that the ''police'' can pinpoint the location of the PC's, in case they try to escape and avoid the continuation of the trial, could perhaps be in order. It would be logical for such a beaurocratical system to have advanced such proceedures, since the trials can go on for a long time, and since you cannot keep everyone awaiting to be tried locked up.


Has anyone ran a trial before?
How did it go?
Ideas???
Two times, both as a player.
The one time ones of the PC's was being tried for a ''crime'' my character had actually commited (self defense, I swear!) . Another PC was acting as the lawyer to the accused PC. My character was a paid witness for the prosecution (what can I say, the money was good...!). There were three judges. We had 3 friends of ours, who were actually law students and completelly new to dnd, come over as guest stars and each took the role of a judge. It was fun. Really really fun! Suffice to say, both PC's, meaning the accused and his lawyer(!), were found guilty!:smallbiggrin: We rescued them the same night ofc and the campaign moved on.

The second time it didnt go all that well (this time it was a more serious campaign). The party has a quarel with some rude guards patrolling on the outskitrs of city X (cant remember the name), and a fight breaks out. We kill the captain and several other guards, but we are eventually defeated (it was so close!) and we are captured. A trial ensues. Now, this was the only time I have ever played a chaotic evil character. And while not dumb (I had a fairly good INT score), this character was young (17 years old), immature, and due to being a spoiled brat coming from a noble family (far away from where the trial took place) who had learned to throw money at all his problems to make them disappear (and lacking wisdom/streetsmarts), proceeded to make a huge mistake during the trial. He basically admitted and confessed to everything that had taken place, confessing to every accussation, justifying the party's actions by saying that the guards were rude and idiots (and other more cosmetic adjectives), and finally demanding to know the level of the fine that that the party were due to pay for compensation, so that they can end now with this boring bussiness so that everyone can carry on with their day. Did I know it was stupid? Yes, ofc. But it was hillarious, until up to the point we got TPK'ed. Long story short, we were sent to an island prison, from where we managed to escape, only to get TPK'd after we stole a boat, by a freaking Kraken that was part of that prison's defenses.... Now that I think of it, this last trial was not that much fun....

[Fayd]

Here's the thing. Most of the "interesting" parts of a trial happen in the preparatory stage. Turn it from a trial into an investigation and cap it off with a trial, wherein the party is fighting to keep as much of the party's evidence in and as much of the opponent's evidence out. Come up with (or look up) rules of evidence and use that to keep evidence in and out. Testimony would be a combination of persuade and insight checks (and maybe intimidation or deception depending on your style) with the possibility for some of the testimony to get struck down under some rule of evidence (hearsay, inappropriate character evidence, etc.)

Now, there probably won't be a whole lot in the way of surprises in a very beaurocratic court; sharing of evidence between both sides is fairly common in more complex legal systems. You can ditch this though for the sake of drama, of course.

[Bloodcloud]

A corrupt figure could offer them a way out in exchange for something... Could be a great hook for the next adventure.

[tyckspoon]

That sounds like a good lead into a classic Dirty Dozen/Suicide Squad situation. Your players have shown themselves to have a talent for violence and not much respect for the laws. There is always somebody who can make use of people like that. Have somebody approach them in prison and offer to make it all go away, in return for just one or two small jobs (of course, since nobody is dumb enough to actually trust each other, the PCs will be under a geas or wearing some custom 'cursed' items or similar until the jobs are done.) He'll come back in a week to take their answer, during which time the players can decide if they want to attempt an escape, accept the offer and deal with the further consequences, or take their chances on a trial they are most likely going to lose.

[Decstarr]

If any of the non-locked up PCs is interested, they could deliver additional advice, framing someone else, coming up with new evidence and witnesses. I think trials can be fun, if the players are into it and their PCs act accordingly. Only downside you'll face is that it'll be a split-up since you already locked up two of the group, right? Could get them out on bail maybe, if they leave something REALLY valuable behind?

If that was my group, I think our bard would just come up with some old precedent and get them out on a technicality :-)

[Naicz]

Thanks for the input everyone!
I especially like the judge approaching them after the initial trial and getting them to perform some shady actions to get out of the trial. The leader PC comes from a large wealthy baron type family, so getting out of a trial through underhanded means seem highly appropriate. Plus this allows me to turn it into another quest hook.
The judicial system themselves are a power in the land, so it would make sense for them to want to take care of certain business "outside" the law.
Thank you everyone again for these suggestions. I may be copping out by not running the actual trial (I am smart enough, but not nearly smart enough to run a legitimate court case against the PCs. I would need to invent actual laws and litigation and that seems daunting) but the important thing is I think this will be a good way to resolve the trial without bogging down the game.
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