The PCs go before the Grand Inquisitor of the Endless Court on charges for a heinous malfeasance. The stakes are their very souls! The Grand Inquisitor delivers his condemnation and the PCs mutter their defenses and roll dice. They get mediocre results and the GM has to make a decision - either let them off the hook or bring down the gavel. A decision is made and this awesome scene ends on a whimper. Sound familiar? I imagine so as courtroom scenes are difficult to execute. By ‘courtroom’ I mean any situation where the PCs are before someone who has the power to make a decision that significantly affects them. This might a judge, queen, deity, Baba Yaga, whatever. There will be rules to the exchange, most likely unstated but nonetheless obvious, such as don’t backtalk the witch with the chicken legged hut. The PCs are either here because they have to be or they want to be. It might not be a trial; they might have come to petition for aid in some noble, or necessary, cause.

What you want in this situation is for the NPC in charge to inspire a little awe in the PCs yet you also want the PCs to have, in some fashion, control of the outcome. This is a difficult balance. Relying on dice to determine the success of the PCs simplifies one side but undermines the other. If the actions of a powerful NPC can be dictated by a roll of the dice it removes a lot of the mystery and uncertainty you want to surround that NPC. On the other hand if the PCs roll is mediocre then the GM is stuck making a decision, which means it’s not the actions of the PCs but the judgment of the GM that decides the outcome. Everything becomes artificial and forced. This is what you want to avoid and I have a few suggestions that might help.

Roleplaying

As you might suspect, I favor roleplaying over dice rolls in these situations. Dice rolls should add tension not take it away. The classic, and flawed, argument for why we roll dice in high drama social scenes is that some players might not be up to the challenge of roleplaying it out. Ridiculous. Yes, there are players that might not be able to deliver great speeches but every player can make a sincere pitch, perhaps awkwardly delivered, to get their message across. I have run many players and all of them can do this, yet if you give them an out (roll dice) many will take the out, which is a shame because when you remove the out and they make an attempt and succeed it’s a superior experience for everyone.

Yet the main reason I advocate that these scenes are roleplayed is that by doing so the GM will find the character of the master of the court. Every GM knows this truth: if you have a little time to roleplay a NPC, you will find the voice and personality of that NPC. When you find the character of the NPC ‘judge/lord/witch’ the final decision will feel natural, and might be quite unexpected. You become the character through interacting with the PCs. You aren’t making an artificial, detached decision of what the NPC will decide - you are making a decision as the NPC. Sound weird? Maybe, but it’s very accurate to how the process should work.

Set the Stage

To make these scenes work you need to set the stage, which means informing the PCs of the stakes and any rules to the encounter they need to know. If the PCs have come to a warlord to ask for his aid then play up the size and strength of his army. There are three ways to set the stage: description, dialogue, and demonstration. Description is the easiest but least dramatic approach. Players also zone out descriptions so keep it brief and to the point. Dialogue is good. If you want to warn the PCs about the temperament of Baba Yaga then have the imp guiding them be terrified. It’s more engaging for the players. Finally, there’s demonstration. This is where you bring the PCs into the scene and they have to take some action. For example, as they enter the sanctified church their weapons become heavier and heavier with each step. They have to deal with this in some fashion and it’s giving them a concrete example of the magic at play.

Make the Scene Dynamic

One problem with courtroom scenes is they can be static. The PCs are pleading their case to a NPC. There isn’t much action. This doesn’t have to be the case if you want to be a little creative. Most RPGs involve settings that are more than a little fantastical - embrace this. For example, the PCs have been arrested for accidentally killing a half dozen peasants during a battle with one of their nemeses. They begin to make their arguments for self-defense, necessity, and so forth when the judge snaps his finger. The PCs are now in the minds of the half dozen peasants before the battle. They are dealing with their families, friends, and need to go to the market. Is this an illusion? Is this real? Is there a lesson here? Can they change things? Regardless they are in a dynamic scene. The more fantastical your campaign the more your courtroom dramas should be parables, the stuff of legends. If your PCs demand trial by combat to escape punishment for some crime…then what if one of the PCs old parents or grandparents is named the champion of the court? Admittedly, these examples are a little heavy-handed. That’s a problem but sometimes to immerse the PCs into the situation for them to grasp the reality of it - you need to be bold just make sure they have control of the situation and reward them if they go above and beyond. If the PCs bend over backwards to try to save the peasants, who they have become, then let them save the peasants. You want these scenes to be cool and awesome so don’t fight it.

Empower the Players

Last year during a Pendragon session I set up a situation where three PCs served as a tribunal for King Uther to determine the fate of a villainous NPC. I had one PC defending the villain and two trying to get him ordered turned over for justice. The evidence was clearly against the villainous NPC and yet the PC defending him worked behind the scenes wheeling and dealing until he convinced one of the tribunal to scuttle the trial in favor of the villainous NPC. As a GM I probably wouldn’t have let that outcome play out but here it did and truthfully it was the better, i.e. more dramatic, outcome.

Bring in a Guest Star

For a fun twist bring in someone else to play the main NPC. Brief them on the character and the situation but let them do as they see fit with the NPC. Of course, this might be a hassle for another player to come just to run a NPC who might only end up a small part of the adventure so give the player another NPC to run after the courtroom drama is concluded. This is a sure way to make your players a little tense and if you’ve recruited a good roleplayer then you are going to have a dynamic scene. It could very well go in a different direction but let it play out. The best outcomes are the organic ones not the cleverly scripted ones.

The main goal is to make courtroom scenes engaging, which means there needs to be stakes and the players need control of the outcome. It’s the control that provides the tension. In a situation where the GM railroads a scene, no matter how dramatic he tries to make the scene, the tension is frustration from the players, not worry about the stakes. Control is what gets the players to commit emotionally and intellectually. That’s what you want.