Um..Non human? You mean like the all those people with Faerie blood, or maybe Giant blood?
Just start feeding the Rat 'Creo Cheese'.
Well the decision is in:
Skerrit sent his apprentice to declare the charges against me. The insult was totally lost on my chara because for the most part of it he thought it was a "joke" by the other magi. He sat there waiting for the punch-line.
On Skerrit's behalf the Apprentice demanded restitution for damage to himself and several other "grogs", specialized lab equipment, 3 pawns of Animal & Corpus vis and 7 months of lab time lost - at House Verditius rates (even though he is a Bonisagus). There was also a second lab which was being "stabilized" which contained 5 pawns of Vim, which would be added to the total if it went critical.
My chara finally realized it wasn't a joke when the quesitor noted the claims and repeated them - they are not known for their sense of humour. As the charge was accidental damage and negligence instead of malicious damage, he pleaded guilty. He then questioned the apprentice about how exactly the vis was lost. He found out the Corpus and an Animal pawn were lost in the explosion and the other 2 Animal were used to heal the apprentice. Brutus decided that as it was the Master's duty to heal the apprentice after the explosion, then the master was correct in reclaiming the vis used.
They then debated the matter of the lost time, and Brutus pointed out that Skerrit had declared himself to be a Bonisagus, so couldn't use the benefits of another house. As the cost would be "how much vim he could extract in a season, multiplied, then rounded up", our Bonisagus asked how much Skerrit could extract in a season. We were reasonably confidant it would be the 5 already specified, but then our Bonisagus asked if the lab was attended or not. It turns out that it wasn't.
Yep, the rat knew Hermetic Alchemy and was using it to distil Vim. The council decided not to press the issue, and after a vote it was decided that the fine would be 5 pawns of Vim vis per season.
For 7 months this came to 12 pawns (rounded up).
Brutus then asked what about the lab being "stabilized", and how long until it would be classed as "at risk". He proposed 3 days and 3 nights, after which if it blew, he would not be held accountable. This was debated around the table, and accepted. One magus suggested that the 3 days should begin from when the incident happened, Brutus countered with it starting from the evening following the council meeting. The shocked a number of people, but was quickly agreed.
It was decided that due to Brutus owning up to the charges, and being reasonable about the process, no additional fines would be levied - even though the Flambeau kept voting for more and more fines.
So Brutus has to pay 12 pawns of Vim, 3 pawns of Animal and 3 pawns of Corpus. Due to his junior position and his conduct during the meeting he was given 2 years to pay. He also has to pay for the replacement lab equipment from his own pocket - (no-one quibled about that, he has a mountain of gold).
A number of magi abstained from the important votes because they didn't want to go against Skerrit - the Tremere were notable for this.
Thanks for following up.
I'm curious... did the other players play their PC's in deciding the fate of Brutus, or did they step in and play NPC "judges"? I have yet to run a tribunal or a trial, and am curious how others do it.
Yes, yes. Please tell!
Been through one Tribunal already (VERY well done) and am very curious how other have run them.
-K!
Alright Verticius... how did YOU guys do it?!?
<<Whew!!>>
Not a quick answer.
First, mechanically, there is a lot of planning that goes into it and, in this case, it was our storyguide that did almost all the heavy lifting since, as players, most of us had never been in one and we didn't know what to expect. He's been playing since Second Edition so knows the game cold. Particularly cononical views on the Code of Hermes. If you don't have the 4th Editions book Wizard's Grimoire, I recommend you get it as a foundation to build apon for CoH questions and also to get an idea of the kinds of issues that get labeled as important that are discussed at Tribunal.
That being said, running a trial inside the Tribunal meeting was done as a sort of parlimentary process. And as only one of several agenda items (albeit an important one). The queasitor with the issue, played by one of us, had been told what precedents would probably apply and was given several weeks to prepare opening statements and "trial strategy." A fair amount of manuevering had happened before Tribunal proper, but I won't cover that here. Coaching was done out of character and out of session (with any serious missteps -- very few -- corrected by the storyguide in session).
When the Praeco for the Tribunal gave the floor over to the Queasitor, the session went into continuous and largely diceless role-play. The investigating Q. made his opening statement, presented a summary of his evidence, and recommended a result. The floor was then open and all the rest of us acted as our own characters or played "a particularly obese Bonisagus", "a snide comment from the gallery", or whatever. Questions came fast and furious running the gamut from penetrating to preachy. And one crowd question could be answered or interrupted by others, though the Preaco, played by teh storyguide, kept some semblance of order. No question was too wild, though we, as players, did try to be serious in our roles. The whole time, the player running the Queasitor was in character -- it had to be about four hours or better -- and almost entirely improv. Bryan did an extraordinarily good job. When we started running down, the Preaco asked the Q to call the question.
At this point, the SG designated each player as responsible for a bloc of votes, in this case divided by houses or pairs of houses. We were told of any large scal political motivations for the group we were responsible for (largely none, since this was a murky case of diabiolism) and any peculiarities of individuals in our blocs. No discussion was allowed between individuals across blocs unless it was in character and very limited. The SG tallied out votes and the decision was passed down.
So , for the trial, the mechanical sequence was
1A) Allow in-character pretrial manuevering
1B) [in parallel to 1A] Brief player who is responsible for playing the investigating queasitor. If there is another player playing an advocate queasitor, you would brief them now as well.
2) Work out important NPC motivations and note them for later voting. The SG needs to be able to play a lot of NPCs if he or she doesn't want the players taking over the trial.
3) Give the player that is playing the Queasitor(s) the floor. Opening, summary, and question. If the character on trial is present, have them also present. Note, I recommend that these two don't pick up many improve parts. Remember, the Preaco has very broad discretionary powers in terms of who can speak and when so feel free to exercise it as you, the storyguide, see fit.
4) Give the players free reign. Trust that right questions get asked, and if they don't, play a voice from the crowd to ask them.
5) Call the questtion frrom the Q-player.
6) Set up the voting and play out whatever the result is.
Whatever the case, any trial in ArM that your players are involved with will take a LOT of work. But this was also some of the best role-playing I've ever done and all of us, to a man, were etremely satisfied with how well it went. All the effort was very well appreciated.
As for larger tribunal, that will have to wait for another post. Hope this helped.
Best,
-K!
In our session there was no deep thinking as such. As Skerrit is an NPC, it was the SG who came up with the exact charges and restitution. The other players in the group voted or didn't vote on specific issues, such as which vis scale to use etc. There was no manouvering as in character the trial happened the next day. The magi didn't have much chance to plot and scheme.
As Brutus admitted to the charges, it cut down on a lot of stuff that could have happened and it was just left to the council of magi to decide on the parts of the punishment that Brutus challenged. Brutus had to do a lot of rolls to try and counter the charges from the initially massive ones to something manageable.
To put it simply, Brutus is accident prone. If something goes wrong, he caused it. As soon as the covenant started to smoke and shake, everyone wondered what he had done this time. 
There was no-question of guilt, just punishment.