Court martialling a PC

I actually went through the same scenario with a court martial. The character really messed up big time and on numerous occassions. He knew he was in trouble. So, we talked about it before we actually gamed. I gave him one whole time in between gaming sessions to think things over and we made sure it was clear why he was going through this. Luckily, he understood.

The trial itself was pretty easy. I brought in the other PCs as witnesses and I ran the judges and JAG officers. Things went well and in the end, he only ended up with a major reprimand. Of course, later on down the road he quit Starfleet because he was going to undergo another court martial.

Someone earlier posted about bringing in guest players to act as the judges or JAGs. I have to strongly disagree from experience. I once brought in guest players for roles like this and also guest played roles like this. Both results were disastrous.

The problem is the guest players, do not have any true knowledge of the campaign or what they should expect out of the players. The players may have problems with the fate of their characters being in the hands of a strangers. And if you give the guest players a "script", then its not true role-playing as no matter what the characters do, the end result would be the same.

I hope this helps!

...I would just play the roles of the prosecutor, judge, etc. as NPCs and do my best acting. (which for me is not that great- ask my players about the time I tried NPCing a Vulcan.)

Its fine if everyone's a layman. But I'm a lawyer and well its going to be unfair if I play the role of the court marital board and the prosecuting officer. The defending counsel who'll probably be a PC may be overmatched. Then what if the accused asks for a professional lawyer, then I'm everyone, hardly role-playing for the PCs.

>A South Park meets Star Trek trial could be fairly amusing

Not likely. You'd end up in the 'Oh my God, they killed Wesley!' corner of RP-ing..... :(

More like 'Oh my God, you killed Ady' :D

We have a particular player (Ady) who in all likelyhood is the Trek roleplaying equivalent of Kenny. He has been injured, killed, reprimanded, and courtmartialed mroe times than I care to remember. Not all with one character I'd like to add ;)

Have the CO be the prosecutor, the XO be the defense, and have Starfleet ship out a JAG to be the judge... played by you.