Musings about PCs and Prisoners

[NigelWalmsley]

I dunno. The engineer me says the rules wouldn’t be there if we weren’t intended to use them most of the time (assuming it’s not a shoddy system).

Pretty much. It's true that you don't need rules in any absolute sense, but it's also true that people do in fact buy books full of rules for real money. So presumably there is something in there that is more interesting than another game of Munchausen.


For example; a character with super high agency is probably going to choose to be a member of the idle rich and spend most of their days drinking and shopping and playing games and attending orgies and performances and the like. But, as a player character, this would probably bore most players to tears. They would much rather be having adventures and exploring dungeons, although I seriously doubt the character would choose to be facing death, disease, and dismemberment fighting horrifying monsters in a dark and slimy hole.

I think that's a false dichotomy. Consider, for example, Iron Man. From his perspective, he probably does spend most of his time being idly rich and going to parties or tinkering with suits or whatever. It's just that we timeskip past those things to the less-frequent occasions where he is called upon to fight super-terrorists or alien invaders or rogue AIs. There doesn't have to be a tradeoff between doing things the character wants to do and doing things the player wants to do, because you can just fast forward past the unimportant bits. In fact, I would argue that it's desirable for the character to have concrete in-world goals beyond just "go on adventures" because that gives you things to hook the plot off of. If the PCs are murderhobos who wander from dungeon to dungeon, pretty much the only plot hook is "there's a dungeon over there, go explore it". But if the players have in-world goals, you can have plot hooks that are about those goals. If you can't see how to turn wealth into plot hooks, you're not trying.


Likewise, character power kind of negates choices. For example, in the adventure I am currently working on, the players need to get an artifact from a dragon, and the dragon is too powerful to defeat in a straight fight. So, the players are going to have to make plans and choices; they might decide to sneak in, or distract the dragon, or lure it into a trap, or talk to it, or sacrifice someone, or bribe it; to me this is a lot more agency than normal as they they now actually have to think and make choices; if I simply levelled them up to the dragons level or gave them some powerful magic sword of dragon slaying, all of these choices disappear in favor of the direct approach. You know what they say about problems when all you have is a hammer...

That's just the result of locking yourself to a particular perspective. It's true that if they could solve this problem easily, they wouldn't spend much time on it. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't have problems, they'd just have different problems. Higher level characters tend to have a wider range of tools, and therefore a wider range of choices. It's true that if you present them with a problem designed for low level characters, the obvious choice will be "blast through it", but that's a DMing problem, not a fundamental principle.

[Pex]

It would be nice to have another tool in my chest so that I can shake the things up with a jailbreak scenario if the urge strikes me or a buy such a module; blanket bans don't really help the game. But, on the other hand, its not exactly a big deal, it just means I go back to the drawing board for one scenario every five years or so.

What is a big deal is the players refuse to surrender when they get in over their head, which means that I have to either end the campaign or resort to some sort of deus ex machina. It would be REALLY nice if I could just say "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" and then get back to the game rather than "You die in a bloody shooutout with the cops, again. Time to spend next session making new characters and then we will start the campaign that we have all invested the past six months in over from scratch."

It's the players' characters, not yours. If they don't want to surrender that's their business. If it ends in a TPK and the campaign, that's their business. It's not your job as DM to make them surrender. You don't have to like it as much as the players don't like a TPK, but as DM you don't have the power to make the players surrender against their will. You control the gods, the NPCs, the monsters, the trees. You don't control the PCs.

I sort of take that back in that as DM you do have to like it, because I'm not sure I can trust a DM who hates it he can't control my character. It becomes an adversarial relationship by default. As I wrote in another thread I don't mind being on the trolley tracks of playing the plot the DM presents, but I have to want to be on those tracks. The DM can't make me get on the trolley.

[Talakeal]

It's the players' characters, not yours. If they don't want to surrender that's their business. If it ends in a TPK and the campaign, that's their business. It's not your job as DM to make them surrender. You don't have to like it as much as the players don't like a TPK, but as DM you don't have the power to make the players surrender against their will. You control the gods, the NPCs, the monsters, the trees. You don't control the PCs.

I sort of take that back in that as DM you do have to like it, because I'm not sure I can trust a DM who hates it he can't control my character. It becomes an adversarial relationship by default. As I wrote in another thread I don't mind being on the trolley tracks of playing the plot the DM presents, but I have to want to be on those tracks. The DM can't make me get on the trolley.

The thing is, I absolutely do have total control over the PC's actions, and if they aren't going to behave like reasonable adults, I am going to exercise it.

At the point where players are ending the game out of spite because they can't stand losing, they are violating the social contract and being rude as hell to both the DM and their fellow players.

To me, this is the equivalent of preparing a nice dinner party, and then having someone show up drunk and digging through the meal with their fingers instead of eating it; true you can't physically force them to eat, but you can sure as heck thrown them out of your house and never invite them over again.


I think that's a false dichotomy. Consider, for example, Iron Man. From his perspective, he probably does spend most of his time being idly rich and going to parties or tinkering with suits or whatever. It's just that we timeskip past those things to the less-frequent occasions where he is called upon to fight super-terrorists or alien invaders or rogue AIs. There doesn't have to be a tradeoff between doing things the character wants to do and doing things the player wants to do, because you can just fast forward past the unimportant bits. In fact, I would argue that it's desirable for the character to have concrete in-world goals beyond just "go on adventures" because that gives you things to hook the plot off of. If the PCs are murderhobos who wander from dungeon to dungeon, pretty much the only plot hook is "there's a dungeon over there, go explore it". But if the players have in-world goals, you can have plot hooks that are about those goals. If you can't see how to turn wealth into plot hooks, you're not trying.

I would agree with you.

What I don't agree with is that a character suffering means the player will suffer, or that the game as a whole is worse in the long run.



That's just the result of locking yourself to a particular perspective. It's true that if they could solve this problem easily, they wouldn't spend much time on it. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't have problems, they'd just have different problems. Higher level characters tend to have a wider range of tools, and therefore a wider range of choices. It's true that if you present them with a problem designed for low level characters, the obvious choice will be "blast through it", but that's a DMing problem, not a fundamental principle.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Regardless of the specific power dynamic or power level; having one clearly optimal solution to a problem is the antithesis of player agency.

[Duff]

It would be nice to have another tool in my chest so that I can shake the things up with a jailbreak scenario if the urge strikes me or a buy such a module; blanket bans don't really help the game. But, on the other hand, its not exactly a big deal, it just means I go back to the drawing board for one scenario every five years or so.

What is a big deal is the players refuse to surrender when they get in over their head, which means that I have to either end the campaign or resort to some sort of deus ex machina. It would be REALLY nice if I could just say "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" and then get back to the game rather than "You die in a bloody shooutout with the cops, again. Time to spend next session making new characters and then we will start the campaign that we have all invested the past six months in over from scratch."



You could try saying "Guys, you really should consider surrender is an option here. Your characters would know the likely consequences are just fines and community service" Even combine that with "Your characters know they'd be unlikely to shoot their way out of this before overwhelming reinforcements arrive"

[Talakeal]

You could try saying "Guys, you really should consider surrender is an option here. Your characters would know the likely consequences are just fines and community service" Even combine that with "Your characters know they'd be unlikely to shoot their way out of this before overwhelming reinforcements arrive"

That's what I have been trying for years.

The problem is that, in my experience (both in person and in this thread) there is a large percentage of players that either:

1: Would rather suicides their character as a matter of course (as I said above, I have trouble seeing this as anything but a childish tantrum as a response to losing and / or being told what to do)

or 2: Think the DM is out to get them and refuse to believe me.

[Duff]

Those are 2 very different motives. It could be really useful in your group to try and discuss why they act like that.
And try really hard not to judge. If they'd rather have characters die than surrender, you can think it childish (and I'm not at all saying you're wrong if that's the case) but calling it out as that is unhelpful. You might have to put up with that.

But if they don't trust you, try talking through what they think your motive for doing that would be. Maybe by talking about why you each all act as you do you can work on building up some trust. As has been said, trust is really important in getting the best from an RPG
Actually, it
s important in communication, and Communication is needed for an RPG to go well

[Pex]

The thing is, I absolutely do have total control over the PC's actions, and if they aren't going to behave like reasonable adults, I am going to exercise it.

At the point where players are ending the game out of spite because they can't stand losing, they are violating the social contract and being rude as hell to both the DM and their fellow players.

To me, this is the equivalent of preparing a nice dinner party, and then having someone show up drunk and digging through the meal with their fingers instead of eating it; true you can't physically force them to eat, but you can sure as heck thrown them out of your house and never invite them over again.




If you reached this point in your relationship with your players they've already quit your campaign before you got to kick them out by forcing the TPK on purpose themselves. A DM is welcome not to play with particular players, but the players are also welcome not to play with a particular DM.

[Talakeal]

If you reached this point in your relationship with your players they've already quit your campaign before you got to kick them out by forcing the TPK on purpose themselves. A DM is welcome not to play with particular players, but the players are also welcome not to play with a particular DM.

Suiciding a character because they lost a fight =/= equal quitting the gaming group. Making a habit of it would, however, result in being thrown out of my group.

Let’s just say that we (the hypothetical player, who suicides their character rather than suffer defeat, not Pex) have completely incompatible gaming styles, and hopefully we figure this out long before it actually comes up at the table.

I put a tremendous amount of time and emotional energy into the game, and I don’t think its unreasonable or unusually controlling to ask someone not to bother showing up and wasting everyone’s time if they are the type to sabotage the campaign in a fit of pique.

[icefractal]

The thing is, I absolutely do have total control over the PC's actions, and if they aren't going to behave like reasonable adults, I am going to exercise it. :smallconfused: I think at the point you have "total control" - why are the players even there? To observe your story?


So to the larger point - it's true that there's still gameplay to be had in a prison. It's a different style/genre of gameplay than they'd have outside the prison though, and it's usually being switched to unilaterally by the GM. Now while there's an acceptance of the GM doing genre-bending arcs in most groups, I think this one is more strongly "enforced" than most. If the game suddenly switches to looney-toons adventures in the dream realm, say, you have a choice how much to lean into that or not. You can jump on board and get ridiculous, or you can be the "straight man" and shake your head at it. With prison, you're 100% in prison. Add that it also could easily last a number of sessions, and I don't think it's so odd that players are more likely to object to that genre-change than they are to most others.

But in fact, what you're complaining about is even less surprising - you're giving players a choice of genres and complaining when they pick the one you didn't want. They face overwhelming opposition. If they surrender, they go to the prison genre. If they fight back (or run) successfully, they remain in the roving adventurer genre. If they fight back and die, they return as new characters in the roving adventurer genre. And unless you're running the game very atypically for D&D, they're obviously ok with the risk of death. If having their characters die was an unacceptable result, they wouldn't go into dungeons, nor seek to battle anyone, nor do anything as risky as the vast majority of D&D adventures.

So this is kind of like having a road sign: "Risky Mountain Trail Left, Mosquito-Filled Swamp Right" and getting annoyed when they decide to go left.

[Talakeal]

:smallconfused: I think at the point you have "total control" - why are the players even there? To observe your story?

They are there to play the game, same as all of us.

Once they are pulling a childish "I can do whatever I want!" and refusing to play, at that point then they aren't there anymore, they are asked to leave and not come back until they can behave like adults, and their characters become NPCs under my control.

I have been on the opposite side of the screen and walked out on a jerkass DM to, but I was never under any illusion that the game wouldn't go on in my absence or that I have even a modicum of creative input over the fate of my character after I have left the group.





So to the larger point - it's true that there's still gameplay to be had in a prison. It's a different style/genre of gameplay than they'd have outside the prison though, and it's usually being switched to unilaterally by the GM. Now while there's an acceptance of the GM doing genre-bending arcs in most groups, I think this one is more strongly "enforced" than most. If the game suddenly switches to looney-toons adventures in the dream realm, say, you have a choice how much to lean into that or not. You can jump on board and get ridiculous, or you can be the "straight man" and shake your head at it. With prison, you're 100% in prison. Add that it also could easily last a number of sessions, and I don't think it's so odd that players are more likely to object to that genre-change than they are to most others.

I don't agree. Generally, your character is there for the scenario the GM wants to run, or they aren't.

For example; in the long running Mage: The Ascension game I was part of, we spent the better part of a year in the spirit world on a time traveling journey. I, personally, would have much rather stayed in the real world as my character had a lot of ties to mundane civilization, but I was never given that choice. The Game Master wanted to run a game in the mythic past, the other players were down with it, so my choices were to make the best of it, or simply stay home and hope there was still a seat for me at the table in the next arc. I chose to continue playing, because even though it wasn't my preferred setting, it was still a good game and the choice was that or don't play at all.

IMO, it would have been the height of entitled rudeness to tell the GM that he needed to torch the story arc that he obviously put a ton of time and effort into because it wasn't my favorite.

If the Game Master had wanted to run a jail break scenario instead of a spirit quest scenario, I don't think things would have changed at all from a social dynamic.


But in fact, what you're complaining about is even less surprising - you're giving players a choice of genres and complaining when they pick the one you didn't want. They face overwhelming opposition. If they surrender, they go to the prison genre. If they fight back (or run) successfully, they remain in the roving adventurer genre. If they fight back and die, they return as new characters in the roving adventurer genre. And unless you're running the game very atypically for D&D, they're obviously ok with the risk of death. If having their characters die was an unacceptable result, they wouldn't go into dungeons, nor seek to battle anyone, nor do anything as risky as the vast majority of D&D adventures.

So this is kind of like having a road sign: "Risky Mountain Trail Left, Mosquito-Filled Swamp Right" and getting annoyed when they decide to go left.

So, out of curiosity, you don't expect your players to keep in character or try and succeed at their goals?

Because the idea that a character shouldn't care about survival is just so alien to me...

Like, you wouldn't bat an eyelid if half way through the dungeon one of your players got bored and instead of playing a Conan type guy started acting like Bugs Bunny and throwing pies at dragons and tying his companions shoe laces together during a tense standoff with the dark lord?

[Mechalich]

If they surrender, they go to the prison genre.

Surrendering is more complex than that though. Imprisonment following surrender is a common outcome of surrender but not the only outcome. Summary execution is also a potential outcome of surrender. So is the classic 'join us or die' proposition by the captor. Some kind of non-death punishment followed by release is an option, like branding or maiming. Prisoners might also be sold into slavery (which is kind of like prison, but tends to make it hard to justify keeping the party together). Immediate release is even an option, in certain kinds of conflicts with certain types of enemies.

And of course magic adds additional options. For example, in D&D if you surrender to a wizard with a Wand of Charm Person in their gear pile, well, unless you can escape in a matter of minutes, you are now their good friend (this is the low-level case, at high levels it gets much, worse). This is actually particularly relevant in the case of D&D because from roughly the mid-levels onward (basically whenever Raise Dead comes online, slight variations from one edition to the other) it may actually be easier to bring a character or even a whole party back from death than to free them from captivity, often significantly so - OOTS has played with this issue more than once.

[icefractal]

So, out of curiosity, you don't expect your players to keep in character or try and succeed at their goals?

Because the idea that a character shouldn't care about survival is just so alien to me...See, that's where I think the disconnect is.

In character, I would more often think that my best chance of long-term survival and achieving my goals is to flee, or if that's not possible then fight.

In character, I can't assume that being imprisoned won't just lead to execution, dangerous mistreatment, or simply last for decades. I can't assume the foes imprisoning me would be any less competent than the PCs at doing so, or any more lenient. Assuming it will be a good thing overall because the GM wants it to be fun is an OOC factor.

Not that there's anything wrong with going along with something for the sake of the story. But if you told me to "keep in character", that's when I'm the most likely to strenuously avoid imprisonment.

[Satinavian]

For example; in the long running Mage: The Ascension game I was part of, we spent the better part of a year in the spirit world on a time traveling journey. I, personally, would have much rather stayed in the real world as my character had a lot of ties to mundane civilization, but I was never given that choice. The Game Master wanted to run a game in the mythic past, the other players were down with it, so my choices were to make the best of it, or simply stay home and hope there was still a seat for me at the table in the next arc. I chose to continue playing, because even though it wasn't my preferred setting, it was still a good game and the choice was that or don't play at all.

IMO, it would have been the height of entitled rudeness to tell the GM that he needed to torch the story arc that he obviously put a ton of time and effort into because it wasn't my favorite.

If the Game Master had wanted to run a jail break scenario instead of a spirit quest scenario, I don't think things would have changed at all from a social dynamic.
I highlighted the important difference for you.



So, out of curiosity, you don't expect your players to keep in character or try and succeed at their goals?

Because the idea that a character shouldn't care about survival is just so alien to me...

Like, you wouldn't bat an eyelid if half way through the dungeon one of your players got bored and instead of playing a Conan type guy started acting like Bugs Bunny and throwing pies at dragons and tying his companions shoe laces together during a tense standoff with the dark lord?As always it depends.

If i play someone willing to risk their life for a cause, they most likely will be actually willing to give their life for the cause.

Otherwise it depends on what to expect from imprisonment. And nearly all of my characters are not in a habit of getting into deadly fights with nice, reasonable people.


I have never fought to the death instead of surrendering when it was not in character the most plausible thing to do. I also have never surprised a GM with doing so which measn they shared my reasoning.

[OldTrees1]

They are there to play the game, same as all of us.

Once they are pulling a childish "I can do whatever I want!" and refusing to play, at that point then they aren't there anymore, they are asked to leave and not come back until they can behave like adults, and their characters become NPCs under my control.

I have been on the opposite side of the screen and walked out on a jerkass DM to, but I was never under any illusion that the game wouldn't go on in my absence or that I have even a modicum of creative input over the fate of my character after I have left the group.

They are there to play the game you all agreed to. Did you get player buy in for a prison game? No? Well, then that was not part of the game you all agreed to.

So then you, the GM, unilaterally suggested changing the game from Game A to Game B. You did so by offering the players the choice: Fight to the death to continue Game A OR be captured and do Game B.

Which gives the characters the choice of: Fight to the death with a chance of doing something OR be imprisoned indefinitely, probably mistreated, and eventually executed with less chance to fight back.

The players, since you did not and do not have player buy in, prefer Game A (the current game) over Game B (the new prison game). So both OOC and IC they make the logical choice of fighting rather than being captured.

None of that is the players 'pulling a childish "I can do whatever I want!" and refusing to play'. That is the GM asking if the players want to switch to a new game (the prison) and them declining. If the GM gets upset that they can't force the players to switch to the new game (the prison), even with the threat of ending the old game, then that says more about the GM than it does about the players.

Get player buy in, and stop mischaracterizing the players, it only hurts your ability to communicate and cooperate with them.

[Vahnavoi]

Even better, stop getting player buy-in to weirdly specific games and instead get player good faith so that they'll entertain playing through whatever silly thing you throw at them.

[Spiderswims]

It's the players' characters, not yours. If they don't want to surrender that's their business. If it ends in a TPK and the campaign, that's their business. It's not your job as DM to make them surrender. You don't have to like it as much as the players don't like a TPK, but as DM you don't have the power to make the players surrender against their will. You control the gods, the NPCs, the monsters, the trees. You don't control the PCs.

True here.


The thing is, I absolutely do have total control over the PC's actions, and if they aren't going to behave like reasonable adults, I am going to exercise it.

At the point where players are ending the game out of spite because they can't stand losing, they are violating the social contract and being rude as hell to both the DM and their fellow players.

I would just point out here that the GM can roll with this. Death is not final in most games. In D&D it is easy enough to bring a dead character back to life....or even unlife. So the players can't escape by just character death alone. I've done this plot a lot, and it can be great fun. There are hundreds of plots here too. And you can make any plot fit your players.


They are there to play the game you all agreed to. Did you get player buy in for a prison game? No? Well, then that was not part of the game you all agreed to.

This is a slippery slope though. The GM asks the players if they want to do a prison game, the players say no, and the game rolls on. Everything is alright. Except...well, does that mean the PCs can never be arrested? Never be sent to jail or prison? Never be captured at all? Does it give the PCs a mandate to never surrender?

Being captured and put in a prison can happen in any game; it's a perfectly normal event. And if a normal event will be forbidden, where does it end? If the players say they don't want to get attacked by any monsters does the DM do that? I think it is obvious that most players won't like every single event that happens in a game. Really, no matter what a GM does at least one player won't like it. And I do get it, and I have lived many horror stories.

Too many times I have joined a game and in the first half hour my wizard gets zapped with an anti magic curse. The GM and other players are happy as clams, while I sit there and don't even play. So, sure, today if that happens I will just leave the game. There is no point in being in a game you can't play in.

At the same time, as a GM I'm a big fan of things happening to players they don't like. BUT! There needs to be the level of trust and faith. I love a good story where a PC gets knocked down and then has to rise back up, and I know many people like this story line too. But it just needs to be done right. Even if the player does not like what is going on, they still just keep rolling as they trust the GM to make the game fun. That is Big.

[OldTrees1]

This is a slippery slope though. The GM asks the players if they want to do a prison game, the players say no, and the game rolls on. Everything is alright. Except...well, does that mean the PCs can never be arrested? Never be sent to jail or prison? Never be captured at all? Does it give the PCs a mandate to never surrender?

Being captured and put in a prison can happen in any game; it's a perfectly normal event. And if a normal event will be forbidden, where does it end? If the players say they don't want to get attacked by any monsters does the DM do that? I think it is obvious that most players won't like every single event that happens in a game. Really, no matter what a GM does at least one player won't like it. And I do get it, and I have lived many horror stories.


I see no slope there, that is a flat plain if anything. I apply the same standard across the board.

The group (all players including the GM) are there to have a good time and should value the others also having a good time. So the group goes with what they will all enjoy rather than one person's favorite that is strongly disliked by everyone else. Also note I said "strongly dislike" because you can get player buy in for things they do not enjoy but don't strongly dislike. Some groups even have more wiggle room there than others due to the mutual trust they have built up.

I have not seen a group of players with your hypothetical preference, but it sounds like that group is either willing to buy in to monster attacks, OR should be playing a game that does not include monster attacks. Maybe a social intrigue campaign? Communication is key of course.


At the same time, as a GM I'm a big fan of things happening to players they don't like. BUT! There needs to be the level of trust and faith. I love a good story where a PC gets knocked down and then has to rise back up, and I know many people like this story line too. But it just needs to be done right. Even if the player does not like what is going on, they still just keep rolling as they trust the GM to make the game fun. That is Big.

Sounds like the difference between "player buy in" and "player likes". For the kinds of game you want, you need a sizable chunk of player trust. The GM being trustworthy and trusted is a major component to cultivating the amount of player trust needed for those kinds of campaigns.

But once you have that trust, the players are already going to buy in to a lot more than they would if you were running out of trust. It is one of the reasons I harp on player buy in, trust, communication, etc so much. Once a person (GM or other player) starts to improve in those areas, they open up better opportunities. Opportunities I enjoy and want others to enjoy.

[zinycor]

It would be nice to have another tool in my chest so that I can shake the things up with a jailbreak scenario if the urge strikes me or a buy such a module; blanket bans don't really help the game. But, on the other hand, its not exactly a big deal, it just means I go back to the drawing board for one scenario every five years or so.

What is a big deal is the players refuse to surrender when they get in over their head, which means that I have to either end the campaign or resort to some sort of deus ex machina. It would be REALLY nice if I could just say "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" and then get back to the game rather than "You die in a bloody shooutout with the cops, again. Time to spend next session making new characters and then we will start the campaign that we have all invested the past six months in over from scratch."

I really don't see how "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" would fit in most games or be interesting in any of them.

And more importantly, to solve these problems you could just talk to your players and tell them they are derailing the story in problematic ways instead of in game solutions.

[Darth Credence]

I would just point out here that the GM can roll with this. Death is not final in most games. In D&D it is easy enough to bring a dead character back to life....or even unlife. So the players can't escape by just character death alone. I've done this plot a lot, and it can be great fun. There are hundreds of plots here too. And you can make any plot fit your players.

This has inspired me. If I ever DM a TPK, I am going to have the people that killed them bring them all back to life and throw them in prison. The warden will great them, say, "You're not getting off that easily!", and then laugh maniacally.

[OldTrees1]

This has inspired me. If I ever DM a TPK, I am going to have the people that killed them bring them all back to life and throw them in prison. The warden will great them, say, "You're not getting off that easily!", and then laugh maniacally.

Depend on the players, they might enjoy that. Just in case they would enjoy it (you know your players better than I do), here are some thoughts:

1) Some systems (like D&D) have raise dead require a willing soul. That does not sound ideal for this case. However animating a souled undead (Ex: Ghoul but not Zombie) usually ignores the soul's preferences.
2) If the warden uses raise dead (or create undead) offensively to capture souls, they might also use it in other ways. This warden probably has contingent resurrection plans. Maybe even sends messengers out that suicide for untraceable recall to base.

[Telok]

I really don't see how "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" would fit in most games or be interesting in any of them.

It could be great in a supers game. A one session trip of community service at a supermutant juvenile correctional facility could be a nice break from routine. It's really jusy a set of adventure hooks that the PCs have set themselves up as being unable to refuse. You could even make them do guard duty at a prison and let them inevitably scew something up to enable an escape attempt.

[zinycor]

It could be great in a supers game. A one session trip of community service at a supermutant juvenile correctional facility could be a nice break from routine. It's really jusy a set of adventure hooks that the PCs have set themselves up as being unable to refuse. You could even make them do guard duty at a prison and let them inevitably scew something up to enable an escape attempt.

Whole that sounds like fun, it seems that Talakeal is dealing with uncooperative people that wouldn't participate on that.

[Talakeal]

I really don't see how "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" would fit in most games or be interesting in any of them.

Its not supposed to be interesting, its supposed to allow the players to lose a mission without completely derailing the game.

As for fitting, I suppose its the inverse of the "I was only playing my character," with the DM deliberately soft-balling the consequences as much as possible to keep from being disruptive.


See, that's where I think the disconnect is.

In character, I would more often think that my best chance of long-term survival and achieving my goals is to flee, or if that's not possible then fight.

In character, I can't assume that being imprisoned won't just lead to execution, dangerous mistreatment, or simply last for decades. I can't assume the foes imprisoning me would be any less competent than the PCs at doing so, or any more lenient. Assuming it will be a good thing overall because the GM wants it to be fun is an OOC factor.

Not that there's anything wrong with going along with something for the sake of the story. But if you told me to "keep in character", that's when I'm the most likely to strenuously avoid imprisonment.

Which is perfectly fine.

The problem is that a lot of players, both in person and in this thread, would rather suicide their characters than suffer any sort of setback, which is both very disruptive on the table level and also very poor RPing.


They are there to play the game you all agreed to. Did you get player buy in for a prison game? No? Well, then that was not part of the game you all agreed to.

So then you, the GM, unilaterally suggested changing the game from Game A to Game B. You did so by offering the players the choice: Fight to the death to continue Game A OR be captured and do Game B.

Which gives the characters the choice of: Fight to the death with a chance of doing something OR be imprisoned indefinitely, probably mistreated, and eventually executed with less chance to fight back.

The players, since you did not and do not have player buy in, prefer Game A (the current game) over Game B (the new prison game). So both OOC and IC they make the logical choice of fighting rather than being captured.

None of that is the players 'pulling a childish "I can do whatever I want!" and refusing to play'. That is the GM asking if the players want to switch to a new game (the prison) and them declining. If the GM gets upset that they can't force the players to switch to the new game (the prison), even with the threat of ending the old game, then that says more about the GM than it does about the players.

Get player buy in, and stop mischaracterizing the players, it only hurts your ability to communicate and cooperate with them.

You are two scenarios.

Scenario 1: I purchase a module such as out of the abyss or way of the wicked where a portion of it takes place in prison, and the players reject the game outright without giving it a try.

Scenario 2: The characters are captured organically as a result of the events of the game and I gloss over the captivity as quickly as possible to get back to the game.

You keep describing some sort of hybrid scenario where I am trying to railroad the players into prison against their will, which is not what I am talking about in either case.


When players sit down to play at my table, I assume they are going to play their character; acting within that characters knowledge and motivation (in short, not meta gaming); and that they will create a character who has a motivation to do whatever sort of activity the game is about; dungeon crawling, dragon slaying, investigating mysteries, exploring the wilderness, etc.

A lot of players choose to suicide rather than suffer setbacks; I have seen this both in person and in a few posts in this very thread. In my opinion, this is both disruptive behavior AND metagaming, and it is not playing the game that we agreed to, anymore than it would be acceptable behavior for Bob's paladin to murder Brian's rogue in cold blood because Brian never paid Bob back for his share of the pizza.


Now, sometimes you do get into the classic "I am only playing my character," where you have to choose between good RP and disrupting the game, for example if I am playing an escaped slave who would legitimately rather die than risk going back into slavery or a samurai who is honor bound to commit seppuku if captured, at which point the conversation becomes a little bit more complex and a little bit more interesting.

Likewise, we have situations where the player simply comes to a different tactical opinion than the GM and legitimately thinks that they are more likely survive if they refuse to the surrender; in which case its less about control or disruption and more about communication and trying to get on the same page.

[OldTrees1]

You are two scenarios.

Scenario 1: I purchase a module such as out of the abyss or way of the wicked where a portion of it takes place in prison, and the players reject the game outright without giving it a try.

Scenario 2: The characters are captured organically as a result of the events of the game and I gloss over the captivity as quickly as possible to get back to the game.

You keep describing some sort of hybrid scenario where I am trying to railroad the players into prison against their will, which is not what I am talking about in either case.

Scenario 1 is a reasonable response from the players. It is unfortunate you bought something your group does not want to play, but that purchase does not make their preferences unreasonable. If I bought Exalted it is perfectly reasonable for my group to voice their desire to play / not play Exalted.

The opening post included this

On the opposite side of the screen, anytime I have ever tried to run a "jailbreak" type scenario, the players protest most strongly and will rather go down in a blaze or glory and suffer a TPK rather than surrender or allow themselves to be taken prisoner, and I have long since given up even trying.
Which is closer to what I have been addressing. You had a scenario you wished to include. The players rejected that shift by having their PCs fight to the death (which is in character for those PCs). You disliked being unable to control the players at this time. However you did not railroad the issue.

I did not notice anything about scenario 2 before. Is that what the quote from the OP evolved into? When they are captured, skip ahead because the players don't want to play the jailbreak?



When players sit down to play at my table, I assume they are going to play their character; acting within that characters knowledge and motivation (in short, not meta gaming); and that they will create a character who has a motivation to do whatever sort of activity the game is about; dungeon crawling, dragon slaying, investigating mysteries, exploring the wilderness, etc.

A lot of players choose to suicide rather than suffer setbacks; I have seen this both in person and in a few posts in this very thread. In my opinion, this is both disruptive behavior AND metagaming, and it is not playing the game that we agreed to, anymore than it would be acceptable behavior for Bob's paladin to murder Brian's rogue in cold blood because Brian never paid Bob back for his share of the pizza.

Now, sometimes you do get into the classic "I am only playing my character," where you have to choose between good RP and disrupting the game, for example if I am playing an escaped slave who would legitimately rather die than risk going back into slavery or a samurai who is honor bound to commit seppuku if captured, at which point the conversation becomes a little bit more complex and a little bit more interesting.

Likewise, we have situations where the player simply comes to a different tactical opinion than the GM and legitimately thinks that they are more likely survive if they refuse to the surrender; in which case its less about control or disruption and more about communication and trying to get on the same page.

As numerous people have pointed out, in character fighting to the death can easily make more sense than imprisonment. Because in character, imprisonment is death and worse than death. It is only out of character that the possibility of a jailbreak sequence becomes plausible.

So your expectation that players will play in character is reasonable, and contributes to the PCs fighting to the death.

So it all comes back to the "disrupting" the game. However it sounds like you did not get player buy in for a prison arc. So the players and GM are disagreeing about what kind of game to have. That is not a time to label all the players as disruptive. It is a time to accept that you did not achieve player buy in. Then take time to have even more communication. See how the group as a whole (the GM is a player too) wants to go forward.

Or get player buy in ahead of time. Maybe continue to cultivate player trust while you are at it. I will admit this is easier said than done, but you did remark you are worried that the players might not trust you.

and refuse to believe me.
However trust can be grown and it is part of the 2 part plan to reintroduce jailbreaks to your campaigns. The other part is player buy in.


Edit: Of course there is 1 more possibility. However it is unfortunately outside of your control and thus I can't give you proactive advice. So I am ignoring that possibility. If you were the Player instead of the GM, my advice would be different.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Keep in mind, the alternative here is death. IMO, you are going to do a lot more good in the long run surviving and forming a resistance against the new evil order than you will throwing your life away in a hopeless fight.

Again, "the end of the world" is almost never literal in fantasy, people normally just use it as shorthand for "the bad guy takes power," and fantasy is full of stories of bad guys being overthrown despite having all of the power.



This assumes very specific characters in a very specific game. Even in a gear heavy game like 3.5, you can easily make a character who performs nearly at full efficiency without their gear. Some people might even appreciate it, a monk or psionicist might really appreciate having their chance to shine in such a situation, in much the same way that a ranger would appreciate a wilderness adventure or a cleric would enjoy getting a chance to let loose on the undead.


The point I was making is that being taken prisoner by the BBEG and being killed is effectively synonymous, and it's always better to retreat rather than surrender.

You're like "lead a resistance against the new order" but like how are you going to do that very effectively from a cell or a prison camp? If you do lose the war and are subjugated, if you retreat and hide instead of surrendering, you know, do the things that are required to form and lead a resistance.



As for "there are characters that do fine without gear", that's like the lamest justification I've heard. Like, yeah, a monk does fine without weapons, but if you're at literally anywhere other than character generation, you don't really have an ability to make such a character for this premise. And even then, I probably wouldn't sign onto a campaign where I played a monk just so we could start with a prison escape arc.

[Talakeal]

As for "there are characters that do fine without gear", that's like the lamest justification I've heard. Like, yeah, a monk does fine without weapons, but if you're at literally anywhere other than character generation, you don't really have an ability to make such a character for this premise. And even then, I probably wouldn't sign onto a campaign where I played a monk just so we could start with a prison escape arc.

That's very odd to me.

Lots of powers are explicitly balanced around their ability to be taken away. In a game like Mutants and Masterminds, things which can be stolen / disarmed actually cost fewer points, and even D&D has feats like "Eschew materials" or magic item powers that allow you to summon your equipment. If those abilities having a benefit is "the lamest justification you have ever heard," do you think those things just exist in the game as trap options for stupid players or something?


EDIT: Just to clarify, I am not saying "jailbreaks are essential because they allow unarmed characters a chance to shine" or whatever your "lamest justification" barb is insinuating; I am saying that occasionally shaking up the usual status quo of the table power dynamic is a good thing, and hardly the deal breaker you make it out to be. Jailbreaks are just one of a plethora of nonstandard mission types which keep the game fresh and interesting; but they are hardly an essential staple of a good campaign or anything like that.


Scenario 1 is a reasonable response from the players. It is unfortunate you bought something your group does not want to play, but that purchase does not make their preferences unreasonable. If I bought Exalted it is perfectly reasonable for my group to voice their desire to play / not play Exalted.

I don't agree at all . Refusing something out of hand is the very definition of unreasonable, and asking for ideas on how to persuade someone to to give something a try is a perfectly normal function of advice forums like this.

Now, trying to force someone to do something that they have good reasons for not wanting to do isn't reasonable either, but my issue was not that my players don't like jailbreak scenarios, rather they reject them on principle sight unseen.



Which is closer to what I have been addressing. You had a scenario you wished to include. The players rejected that shift by having their PCs fight to the death (which is in character for those PCs). You disliked being unable to control the players at this time. However you did not railroad the issue.

I did not notice anything about scenario 2 before. Is that what the quote from the OP evolved into? When they are captured, skip ahead because the players don't want to play the jailbreak?

Do note that in my initial post I said that I have long since given up even trying to run a jailbreak scenario. It has probably been a good fifteen years since I have actually had any desire to do something like that, and it isn't in any way an ongoing problem for me.

What IS an ongoing problem for me is situations where the group organically gets in over their head and chooses to end the campaign fighting to the death rather than just back down; for example playing in a modern game and getting the cops called on them for instigating a barfight and choosing to have a lethal shootout with the SWAT team rather than just going to the station and getting brought up on misdemeanor charges.

[OldTrees1]

I don't agree at all . Refusing something out of hand is the very definition of unreasonable, and asking for ideas on how to persuade someone to to give something a try is a perfectly normal function of advice forums like this.

Now, trying to force someone to do something that they have good reasons for not wanting to do isn't reasonable either, but my issue was not that my players don't like jailbreak scenarios, rather they reject them on principle sight unseen.

"Out of hand" means without taking the time to think.
"Sight unseen" means without looking.
I do not think these describe the players rejecting jailbreak scenarios. They have seen them before. They have thought about it before. They are rejecting this new jailbreak scenario sight unseen, by referencing prior examples they have seen, and out of hand, by using a conclusion they reached previously after prior thought.

If you offer me icecream I would reject it instantly, because I already know about icecream, and have already thought about how it would kill me. So I can reject this new icecream out of hand sight unseen, because I have enough information already. This is a reasonable response. Yes, the player's response is less reasonable than instantly rejecting a lethal allergen, but it is still reasonable.

So if their response is reasonable, how can one proceed? Communication, cultivating player trust, and getting player buy in. Learn why prior examples of jailbreaks make them reject new ones. Grow their trust in you. And then ask if they would be willing to give it another chance now that they trust you more and you have addressed their concerns with the genre. Eventually you will have enough player trust and buy in that you can just have the scenario. (Or you will learn that the player has a insurmountable aversion and learn to live with that limitation, but you will have more options in other areas due to the increased player trust.)


Do note that in my initial post I said that I have long since given up even trying to run a jailbreak scenario. It has probably been a good fifteen years since I have actually had any desire to do something like that, and it isn't in any way an ongoing problem for me.

I did notice that was your response (and I applauded your listening IIRC). However this thread makes it sound like advice that lets you run jailbreak scenarios again would be a positive. That is why there are comments about:
1) What concerns players might have with prison arcs
2) Player Buy In
3) Player Trust


What IS an ongoing problem for me is situations where the group organically gets in over their head and chooses to end the campaign fighting to the death rather than just back down; for example playing in a modern game and getting the cops called on them for instigating a barfight and choosing to have a lethal shootout with the SWAT team rather than just going to the station and getting brought up on misdemeanor charges.
Normally when a group gets in over their heads against a foe they are willing to use lethal force, fighting to the death is more in character than surrendering to death in prison. You are getting a lot of comments about the normal situation.

Cops called over a barfight resulting in misdemeanor charges is an unexpected alternative situation. Why do the players think they do it? Do they do it because in character and out of character they don't trust these NPC cops to let them go unharmed? Do the players want to play a different style of game than you do?

[Spiderswims]

I really don't see how "The police fine you a thousand dollars and sentence you to a hundred hours of community service" would fit in most games or be interesting in any of them.


Well, it is the basic Dirty Dozen plot, and things like Suicide Squad and the Thunderbolts. There are endless stories with the start of 'a character must work off a sentence'.


This has inspired me. If I ever DM a TPK, I am going to have the people that killed them bring them all back to life and throw them in prison. The warden will great them, say, "You're not getting off that easily!", and then laugh maniacally.

Well, if done in a light way sure...but don't make it too dark. But if your in a RPG of a high enough power level and there is a story reason for it: then do it.


Scenario 1 is a reasonable response from the players. It is unfortunate you bought something your group does not want to play, but that purchase does not make their preferences unreasonable. If I bought Exalted it is perfectly reasonable for my group to voice their desire to play / not play Exalted.

This is what my post was about. The GM has a module with part that has the PCs in prison. So if the players don't like that part they will refuse to do the whole module? And you think it's a good thing? Again my question is where does it end? Are the players approving each page of a module? And if they find even a single page they don't like the GM must set it aside?


I don't agree at all

I guess this comes back to being open minded?

For example, I don't like ninjas. Boring. So if some players asked me to run an all ninja RPG for them, I'd first just pass saying I don't like that idea. But if they really wanted to have me GM, I can put aside my dislike and run a perfectly fine RPG. The same way if I was a player and I was asked by the other places to play a set class (though only asked, I hate when players try and force this) that I did not like; I might be willing to do so. And so on.

[icefractal]

This has inspired me. If I ever DM a TPK, I am going to have the people that killed them bring them all back to life and throw them in prison. The warden will great them, say, "You're not getting off that easily!", and then laugh maniacally.
Pretty sure that's why that "must be willing to be resurrected" clause is there. 😛

Honestly it would be a rather darker setting without that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I don't agree at all . Refusing something out of hand is the very definition of unreasonable, and asking for ideas on how to persuade someone to to give something a try is a perfectly normal function of advice forums like this.


I don't drink for moral and personal-choice reasons. If someone says "hey, here's beer, have some", they're going to get refused out of hand. No compromise. And that's not unreasonable. And someone asking on a forum "how do I get this non-drinker to drink alcohol?" is absolutely doing it wrong.

Now I'm not saying that the situations are identical, but this quoted statement is just wrong in so many contexts. For a lot of people, "being captured" and "prison break scenario" are obviously (based on their observed behaviors) strongly unpleasant. No amount of cajoling or trickery will make them enjoy it--it'll just ruin friendships.

It doesn't matter if it's what you want to do as the DM. It doesn't matter if it's "what makes sense". If it's something the players reject strongly, you shouldn't do it. Does that entail compromises with the world? Yes. But the fun of the party is the most important thing. Nothing else, in the end, really matters. Everything else is a means to that end. Rules? Not important in themselves. Setting? Not important in itself. Roleplaying? Not important in itself. Having fun? Important in itself..

[Talakeal]

Do I really need to address how trying something that is known to be dangerous / immoral is not even close to a fair comparison to giving an RPG module a try?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Do I really need to address how trying something that is known to be dangerous / immoral is not even close to a fair comparison to giving an RPG module a try?

For most people, drinking alcohol is not known to be dangerous or immoral.

But if you want a different example, there are a whole bunch of things I will outright refuse to try and will consider any persisted attempt to persuade me to be an unfriendly act that are neither dangerous nor immoral. I just plain don't like them. I know I don't like them. I've tried them in the past, and won't do so again.

For example, offer me a chance to program in FORTRAN and I'll turn you down flat. Been there, done that, hated it.

[Talakeal]

For most people, drinking alcohol is not known to be dangerous or immoral.

But if you want a different example, there are a whole bunch of things I will outright refuse to try and will consider any persisted attempt to persuade me to be an unfriendly act that are neither dangerous nor immoral. I just plain don't like them. I know I don't like them. I've tried them in the past, and won't do so again.

For example, offer me a chance to program in FORTRAN and I'll turn you down flat. Been there, done that, hated it.

Ok... and?

I am talking about people convincing people it is ok to give new things a chance, not shoving things they know they don't like down their throats.


I have dealt with many players who shoot down PC captivity as a matter of course, I have never encountered a player who had actually gone through such a scenario and not enjoyed it.

[Telok]

Normally when a group gets in over their heads against a foe they are willing to use lethal force, fighting to the death is more in character than surrendering to death in prison.

This is where I keep getting lost. That's this constant dissonance between a subset of people who see capture/prison as sort of a next part of an adventure, and a subset of people who see it as character death or worse.

It feels like... well it feels like there's no actual discussion, just half the room gets triggered and starts chanting "death or glory!" while the rest try to talk about how to make it work.

Edit: Just for clarity, this isn't directed at anyone. Oldtrees quote was just the most recent iteration of it.

[Talakeal]

This is where I keep getting lost. That's this constant dissonance between a subset of people who see capture/prison as sort of a next part of an adventure, and a subset of people who see it as character death or worse.

It feels like... well it feels like there's no actual discussion, just half the room gets triggered and starts chanting "death or glory!" while the rest try to talk about how to make it work.

That is exactly the disconnect that I am having with my players which prompted me to create the thread in the first place.

[Pex]

There is a difference between:

1) A party engaging in a battle as a matter of adventuring but lose the encounter by unfortunate luck and/or poor choices that ends up with the party captured instead of or replacement for a TPK.

and

2) The DM wants the party captured so by golly they will be captured. He manipulates events and/or the combat so that the party is captured. They will be captured. Case closed.

It's the second scenario that I have been arguing against. It's that scenario I learned the hard way not to do as DM. That is the DM taking control of the PCs.

The first scenario I have no problem. If you have players who do have a problem with it then as DM you need to accept you have players who prefer a TPK rather than being captured. I hope they are at least willing to retreat from a losing battle, and I don't object a DM teaching players it's ok to retreat provided that wasn't the purpose of the scenario. That means the players Honestly lost, not the DM purposely creating an unwinnable battle of overwhelming force to put the players in their place how dare they think they're invincible fear my power as DM!

If you have players in the first scenario preferring a TPK and retreat is not an option I'm ok with the DM going meta for the moment speaking directly DM to players that being captured is an option, they won't be screwed over, and they'll get their stuff back or better stuff soon. If the players still rather not that's all you can do, and you have to learn to accept the TPK.

[OldTrees1]

This is what my post was about. The GM has a module with part that has the PCs in prison. So if the players don't like that part they will refuse to do the whole module? And you think it's a good thing? Again my question is where does it end? Are the players approving each page of a module? And if they find even a single page they don't like the GM must set it aside?

I feel I adequately addressed that in my reply to you.

As for this particular part, if a player does not want to play OotA, that is fine. It is okay for players to choose which games they will or will not play. Just like it is okay for GMs to choose which games they will or will not run. If someone objects to the prison section of OotA strongly enough to not want to play OotA, that is fine. If they object less strongly they might ask if the section could be skipped. Or even less strongly and they might tolerate the section.

It is not okay for a GM to feel the players are obligated to play any campaign the GM happens to want to run. The players are allowed to choose what they do and do not wish to play. That is okay. It is a good thing that everyone involved has the freedom to not play. Obviously you are not trying to advocate the players be conscripted into participating, so I suggest reviewing my previous reply to you.


This is where I keep getting lost. That's this constant dissonance between a subset of people who see capture/prison as sort of a next part of an adventure, and a subset of people who see it as character death or worse.

It feels like... well it feels like there's no actual discussion, just half the room gets triggered and starts chanting "death or glory!" while the rest try to talk about how to make it work.

Edit: Just for clarity, this isn't directed at anyone. Oldtrees quote was just the most recent iteration of it.

1) There is the IC layer and the OOC layer.
At the IC layer, yes indefinite detention in a prison is a death sentence. It might be a death by old age, but it is a death sentence.
At the OOC layer, but that would have the adventure end so the GM won't have it be a death sentence. Instead it will be a prison arc.
2) Some have been struggling to understand why the IC layer is so bleak in the normal case. The replies have enumerated the numerous advantages that the prison has over the prisoner to keep them powerless. For some reason this explanation is being ignored and repetition is being requested.
3) On the OOC layer some have been struggling to understand why some players don't like prison arcs. The replies have enumerated the numerous reasons different players have for strongly disliking / objecting to prison arcs. Some of those replies were by people (like myself) that are personally fine with prison arcs, but can understand the reasons other players might object. Rather than accept that different player preferences exist, the replies are ignored and repetition is being requested.

4) Then you get to the advice layer. Once you accept the barriers and obstacles, then you can provide advice for how to deal with them. This has many rather boring claims like "Communication, Player Trust, Player Buy In" as suggestions. This dates back to the 2nd post. The replies are ignored and repetition is being requested. (sorry, I had to do the rule of 3)

So both "sides" are trying to talk about how to make it work. However, one "side" is trying to explain the obstacle to deaf ears. If there is no obstacle then the solution is simple. If there is an obstacle, it helps to recognize it exists so you can deal with it.

TLDR:
Empathy is a useful skill. One "side" is trying to empathize with Talakeal's players in order to understand the problem well enough to address it. That does not require being like Talakeal's players, but you do need to attempt to see it from their perspective.


That is exactly the disconnect that I am having with my players which prompted me to create the thread in the first place.

[Talakeal]

I kind of think the conversation has become more fundamental than the specific topic at hand. Honestly; at this point I think I could rewrite the OP as "Is there an appropriate way to try and talk people into trying new things," and "How do I deal with players trying to appeal to RP to disrupt the game" and the conversation would be equally productive.

As for the latter, (virtually) every player knows that a PC being captured doesn't ever actually mean execution / rotting in a cell for life; it is almost always going to be resolved with a: a short jailbreak scenario, b: cutting a deal with the captors or a third party, or c: paying a small financial penalty and being cut loose.

Didn't The Giant used to have an article in the sidebar about just that issue; that it is ultimately the responsibility of a good player to come up with a rationale for character actions that supported rather than disrupted the game?



There is a difference between:

1) A party engaging in a battle as a matter of adventuring but lose the encounter by unfortunate luck and/or poor choices that ends up with the party captured instead of or replacement for a TPK.

and

2) The DM wants the party captured so by golly they will be captured. He manipulates events and/or the combat so that the party is captured. They will be captured. Case closed.

It's the second scenario that I have been arguing against. It's that scenario I learned the hard way not to do as DM. That is the DM taking control of the PCs.

The first scenario I have no problem. If you have players who do have a problem with it then as DM you need to accept you have players who prefer a TPK rather than being captured. I hope they are at least willing to retreat from a losing battle, and I don't object a DM teaching players it's ok to retreat provided that wasn't the purpose of the scenario. That means the players Honestly lost, not the DM purposely creating an unwinnable battle of overwhelming force to put the players in their place how dare they think they're invincible fear my power as DM!

If you have players in the first scenario preferring a TPK and retreat is not an option I'm ok with the DM going meta for the moment speaking directly DM to players that being captured is an option, they won't be screwed over, and they'll get their stuff back or better stuff soon. If the players still rather not that's all you can do, and you have to learn to accept the TPK.

I am talking about scenario 1.

Scenario 2 is pretty much just text-book railroading and has little to actually do with capturing PCs.

Now, there is a conversation to be had here, particularly about where to draw the line between a railroad and refusing to engage with the premise of the game, as well as precisely how much autonomy you should give players during downtime / setup, but it is much broader than the topic of jailbreaks and captivity.

[Mechalich]

2) The DM wants the party captured so by golly they will be captured. He manipulates events and/or the combat so that the party is captured. They will be captured. Case closed.

It's the second scenario that I have been arguing against. It's that scenario I learned the hard way not to do as DM. That is the DM taking control of the PCs.

If you're going to do the second scenario, at the very least you, as the GM, you to just come out and fiat what happens openly. 'You're going to be captured now, because that's what the story demands,' is lousy and railroad-y to the max, but at least it's honest with the players. It also avoids wasting anyone's time playing out an unwinnable battle.

This is actually a lesson that video games have (mostly) learned. Unwinnable battles, where the plot only advanced once everyone in the party has been KO'd actually used to be a pretty common feature of certain types of RPGs, and people hated it (especially because if your party happened to be overleveled or otherwise OP it might take a very long time for you to figure that out and you might expend non-renewable items during such a battle). These days, most games that need an unwinnable battle just do a cutscene rather than play the battle out.

[Satinavian]

This is where I keep getting lost. That's this constant dissonance between a subset of people who see capture/prison as sort of a next part of an adventure, and a subset of people who see it as character death or worse.

It feels like... well it feels like there's no actual discussion, just half the room gets triggered and starts chanting "death or glory!" while the rest try to talk about how to make it work.

Edit: Just for clarity, this isn't directed at anyone. Oldtrees quote was just the most recent iteration of it.

The first couple of responses in this thread were about how both can be true and how that really depends on circumstances. Many people have explained how they would have their PCs surrender in some situations but not in others.

There were even (many!) answers about how to run a prison escape scenario.



But Talakeal never cared about that kind of nuance and always came back to universal truths about surrender. Which lead all the "in some case this, in some case that" players only argue the part where they disagree with him.

[Mechalich]

But Talakeal never cared about that kind of nuance and always came back to universal truths about surrender. Which lead all the "in some case this, in some case that" players only argue the part where they disagree with him.

And of course there aren't universal truths about surrender. Across human history the viability of surrender - to both opposing militaries and to civil authorities - has varied greatly across varied cultures, legal regimes, international agreements, and other circumstances (including the simple ability to even determine that an antagonist is trying to surrender, which some theaters of conflict, like submarine warfare, basically do not permit).

[Xervous]

Didn't The Giant used to have an article in the sidebar about just that issue; that it is ultimately the responsibility of a good player to come up with a rationale for character actions that supported rather than disrupted the game?

Which, in the case of most captivity scenarios, is shutting up and waiting to be fed the plot.

[OldTrees1]

I kind of think the conversation has become more fundamental than the specific topic at hand. Honestly; at this point I think I could rewrite the OP as "Is there an appropriate way to try and talk people into trying new things," and "How do I deal with players trying to appeal to RP to disrupt the game" and the conversation would be equally productive.

-snip-

Didn't The Giant used to have an article in the sidebar about just that issue; that it is ultimately the responsibility of a good player to come up with a rationale for character actions that supported rather than disrupted the game?

Yeah if the conversation has moved that much a new OP or a new thread would help. A lot of this thread is tied to actual prison arcs rather than "misdemeanor = time in drunk tank + a fine".


If the players made the thread instead of the GM, this article by the Giant would be my first piece of advice. It is not perfectly applicable in this case but it is a great start. Now I will elaborate on the qualifier.

It is the responsibility of the player to come up with a characterization that fits with the game that the group has decided to play. But that is the sticking point in your case, it sounds like the players as a group have decided that they are playing "fight to the death over misdemeanor" rather than "misdemeanors mean capture ending with a slap on the wrist". There is some disconnect that can only be bridged by talking to those players and finding out why they are playing a different game than you are providing.


As for talking people into trying new things (the former part). Build up trust and player buy in. I am sorry if that sounds like a broken record but it is the foundation of the solution. If a GM I trust to make a bad module fun asks me to play a bad module, I am likely to buy in because I trust they will make in fun in spite of it being a bad module. In the misdemeanor case it sounds like the best way to build trust is to investigate the disconnect with a goal of learning what the players want to play. Demonstrating listening to their concerns and reasons is a good way to build trust.


As for the latter, (virtually) every player knows that a PC being captured doesn't ever actually mean execution / rotting in a cell for life; it is almost always going to be resolved with a: a short jailbreak scenario, b: cutting a deal with the captors or a third party, or c: paying a small financial penalty and being cut loose.

I agree (although I would not say "ever/always"). Those subthreads were
1) Education about how disadvantaged prisoners are by default (someone claimed they could not see the severe impact).
2) Addressing why fighting instead of surrendering is in character (someone claimed they could not see how it was in character).

[zinycor]

Ok... and?

I am talking about people convincing people it is ok to give new things a chance, not shoving things they know they don't like down their throats.


I have dealt with many players who shoot down PC captivity as a matter of course, I have never encountered a player who had actually gone through such a scenario and not enjoyed it.

And that's their desires, I believe you should respect that instead of questioning it.

[LordCdrMilitant]

As another musing on the PC's and prisoners...

PC's basically never take prisoners. At least in my games, the only time my players take prisoners is when they intend to subject them to "enhanced interrogation techniques", which typically ends with them disposing of the prisoner afterwards. This isn't really an unexpected result, as a small group of irregular combatants, they don't have the resources or ability to take charge of and handle prisoners of war. But, your willingness to and treatment of prisoners highly affects how likely and how well enemies will treat you when you are captured. Irregular forces already generally aren't expecting great treatment once captured anyway, but if you engage in a persistent pattern of behavior like PC's usually do... well, even if the enemy doesn't shoot them and leave them in a ditch, they're still likely facing repercussions or retaliation for their behavior, which could include trial and execution.

There's also no real expectation of repatriation following the conflict for the party, so even after the conflict ends, they might still be sitting in a prison for a long time.



Also, the knowledge that you'll get any of your gear back and be able to escape at all is essentially out of character knowledge that the game would be over and it would be the same effect as a TPK if the GM didn't plan such an arc. Realistically, POWs' wargear doesn't make the trip with them to the internment facility, so there won't be a convenient box with the cleric's and wizard's foci right in the guard house.

Any way, I think it's pretty reasonable in-character to avoid capture at all costs, particularly given that retreating is also usually an optioin

[Darth Credence]

My PCs take prisoners all the time. They just took a number of cultists prisoner, and next up is interrogation. Their method of interrogation is being nice to the prisoners, building rapport, and then judicious use of some spells to get information out of them - such as using suggestion to ask the prisoners to tell them their troubles and how they ended up in this situation. At the end of that, they will bring the prisoners to the nearest town with a justice system, which is well defined as effectively the church of the god of justice. One of the characters would probably be a murder hobo by inclination, but he has a deep bond with the bard in the group, and they are pretty honorable. None of them has in any way indicated that they would ever execute a prisoner - maybe it would be different if they were truly out in the wilds, but it hasn't happened yet.
As far as equipment being near where they are imprisoned, it has been firmly established that until the trial is complete, any equipment would indeed be nearby, as it would be returned if the person is acquitted. So if they were to escape first, or succeed at trial, they would absolutely be able to get equipment back. If they are convicted, if they need to pay fines, some of it may be sold to pay those fines, but otherwise, it would be returned to the person's next of kin or stored on site. I don't see this as very unrealistic, since that is what is done at most jails and prisons I know of. There is certainly an opportunity to get them back.
Now, if they were taken prisoner by bandits or the like, the bandits would keep their gear until they could sell it, which would not be anywhere close to immediate. Some might be taken by particular bandits to use. But bandits are not going to be great at holding prisoners - if they were disciplined enough to hold highly skilled people, they almost certainly wouldn't be bandits. So my players would certainly expect that they could escape, and that they could get their stuff back if they took down the bandits.
They certainly would not see capture as a death sentence. Heck, they have floated plans of allowing themselves to be captured in order to infiltrate somewhere, although in the end they went a different route. They don't do things that would get them executed by a town or city, so that isn't a concern. They may be in line for execution from a power they are at war with, but the people at war trade prisoners.

[LordCdrMilitant]

My PCs take prisoners all the time. They just took a number of cultists prisoner, and next up is interrogation. Their method of interrogation is being nice to the prisoners, building rapport, and then judicious use of some spells to get information out of them - such as using suggestion to ask the prisoners to tell them their troubles and how they ended up in this situation. At the end of that, they will bring the prisoners to the nearest town with a justice system, which is well defined as effectively the church of the god of justice. One of the characters would probably be a murder hobo by inclination, but he has a deep bond with the bard in the group, and they are pretty honorable. None of them has in any way indicated that they would ever execute a prisoner - maybe it would be different if they were truly out in the wilds, but it hasn't happened yet.
As far as equipment being near where they are imprisoned, it has been firmly established that until the trial is complete, any equipment would indeed be nearby, as it would be returned if the person is acquitted. So if they were to escape first, or succeed at trial, they would absolutely be able to get equipment back. If they are convicted, if they need to pay fines, some of it may be sold to pay those fines, but otherwise, it would be returned to the person's next of kin or stored on site. I don't see this as very unrealistic, since that is what is done at most jails and prisons I know of. There is certainly an opportunity to get them back.
Now, if they were taken prisoner by bandits or the like, the bandits would keep their gear until they could sell it, which would not be anywhere close to immediate. Some might be taken by particular bandits to use. But bandits are not going to be great at holding prisoners - if they were disciplined enough to hold highly skilled people, they almost certainly wouldn't be bandits. So my players would certainly expect that they could escape, and that they could get their stuff back if they took down the bandits.
They certainly would not see capture as a death sentence. Heck, they have floated plans of allowing themselves to be captured in order to infiltrate somewhere, although in the end they went a different route. They don't do things that would get them executed by a town or city, so that isn't a concern. They may be in line for execution from a power they are at war with, but the people at war trade prisoners.

I suspect your party might be the exception; I rarely see parties take enemy combatants prisoner. There's a fundamental factor here that they just don't have the ability to manage PoW's. With 4-8 PC's usually operating in enemy territory, even if they do have the backing of a national military who can take control of PoW's, some of the party would have to detach to escort captured prisoners all the way back to friendly lines, thus removing themselves from the game and from the arc. And the party is usually unwilling to just release captured enemy combatants, because they will A: report on the party's consist and disposition, and B: resume armed activity against them. So the PC's usually don't take prisoners except for interrogation, and usually execute them after interrogation so they don't have to deal with handling them.

As for equipment processing, when a combatant surrenders, most field manuals specify that they are to be searched and relieved of all arms and military documents as soon as possible by the forces taking them prisoner and turned over the military intelligence and/or quartermasters. Personal effects can also be seized if they are either a security risk or of intelligence value, but if not a security risk should be returned after analysis. The weapons and stuff goes to MI and then is usually destroyed, recycled and reissued, or placed into reserve storage, and the prisoners go to successively higher order staging areas before transportation to a prisoner of war camp.




As far as what jails and prisons do, as far as I understand it [since I've never been arrested, aren't an employee of the correctional system, and don't have any official manuals on hand]:
After arrest and before the trial, the accused goes to jail, evidence [like weapons and armor and lockpicks] goes to the evidence room, and the jail holds onto the accused's other personal belongings [like ID and clothes].
Prisons, however, aren't usually in the business of storing inmates belongings, so unless someone comes to pick it up, it's usually destroyed, donated, or otherwise disposed of. Evidence will be kept as long as required, but isn't usually kept at a prison.

That said, most of my PC's aren't really in a situation where they'd be going through a civil prison system as opposed through a PoW handling system. Even as irregulars, they're usually combatants under arms opposing either a semi-regular opposition force which would treat them as PoWs, or an insurgent force [like cultists]. I think this situation is broadly applicable to most parties. Either way, they're not going to end up in a federal court and correctional system. If they are being tried, it would usually be for war crimes, which your average D&D party commit in spades.



As far as bandits go, most bandits aren't in the business of murder, and also aren't in the business of dying for their cause. Highwaymen taking prisoners would be doing so to ransom them, otherwise they'd let them go after relieving them of their valuables, usually.

[PhoenixPhyre]

On the topic of PCs taking prisoners--

My current party has taken prisoners now twice. They performed...percussive[1]...interrogation on the spot, then hauled them (having a high-str warforged makes that practical) to the nearest town.

The first set has thrown themselves on the mercy of the town council, which deadlocked[2] on kill vs keep and put to work (not slavery--they've credibly promised to not re-offend). So they're still in prison awaiting a final decision. Their stuff? Gone. But they were also crippled as part of being taken prisoner (the first one unintentionally due to hitting 0 HP with a crit crossbow bolt to the back leaving him paralyzed, the second one very intentionally by a PC[3] breaking his kneecap once he was subdued).

The second one died before trial due to a mole on the council.

[1] And were fully willing to kill. Physical abuse, including breaking a kneecap. Not the best morality on display here. And only hauled them in for trial because one PC is a very law-and-order cleric of a very law-and-order god.
[2] They were supposed to deadlock (due to moles). And the party was supposed to break the deadlock. But the party deadlocked...
[3] the local paladin, at that.

[Darth Credence]

I absolutely agree with the first statement that my party may be an exception. The nature of the campaign and where they have traveled is fairly unusual, I believe.


I suspect your party might be the exception; I rarely see parties take enemy combatants prisoner. There's a fundamental factor here that they just don't have the ability to manage PoW's. With 4-8 PC's usually operating in enemy territory, even if they do have the backing of a national military who can take control of PoW's, some of the party would have to detach to escort captured prisoners all the way back to friendly lines, thus removing themselves from the game and from the arc. And the party is usually unwilling to just release captured enemy combatants, because they will A: report on the party's consist and disposition, and B: resume armed activity against them. So the PC's usually don't take prisoners except for interrogation, and usually execute them after interrogation so they don't have to deal with handling them.

As for equipment processing, when a combatant surrenders, most field manuals specify that they are to be searched and relieved of all arms and military documents as soon as possible by the forces taking them prisoner and turned over the military intelligence and/or quartermasters. Personal effects can also be seized if they are either a security risk or of intelligence value, but if not a security risk should be returned after analysis. The weapons and stuff goes to MI and then is usually destroyed, recycled and reissued, or placed into reserve storage, and the prisoners go to successively higher order staging areas before transportation to a prisoner of war camp.
I was talking primarily about being captured by guards. There is a war going on, but they haven't really been part of it yet. I'm really not sure if they will ever end up in an actual war situation, since the campaign has not been moving in that direction. But they do spend a lot of time in large cities with guard forces who will be serious about keeping the peace. The most likely situation where they would be taken prisoner, I think, is if they got involved in a large bar fight.



As far as what jails and prisons do, as far as I understand it [since I've never been arrested, aren't an employee of the correctional system, and don't have any official manuals on hand]:
After arrest and before the trial, the accused goes to jail, evidence [like weapons and armor and lockpicks] goes to the evidence room, and the jail holds onto the accused's other personal belongings [like ID and clothes].
Prisons, however, aren't usually in the business of storing inmates belongings, so unless someone comes to pick it up, it's usually destroyed, donated, or otherwise disposed of. Evidence will be kept as long as required, but isn't usually kept at a prison.

That said, most of my PC's aren't really in a situation where they'd be going through a civil prison system as opposed through a PoW handling system. Even as irregulars, they're usually combatants under arms opposing either a semi-regular opposition force which would treat them as PoWs, or an insurgent force [like cultists]. I think this situation is broadly applicable to most parties. Either way, they're not going to end up in a federal court and correctional system. If they are being tried, it would usually be for war crimes, which your average D&D party commit in spades.

AIUI, when people go to jail, the personal possessions they have on hand are generally put in an envelope, and the envelope is stored at the prison until they are released. The clothes they have are stored in garment bags, and are sometimes stored there until the prisoner is released, or sometimes allowed to be picked up by a designated agent of the prisoner. In my campaign world, their stuff would all be stored in the equivalent of the envelope, waiting for them to be released. I know you can't trust media representations to be accurate, but there are a whole lot of movies that have a prisoner being released and getting the clothes they came in with back to wear out, as well as the envelope being opened and the stuff inside given back. I think Ocean's 11 started out with such a scene, among many others.

So far this campaign, my group has had three interactions with the legal system of the land. In one, a sketchy group was holding a thief prisoner, and they wanted to interrogate the prisoner. The sketchy group roughed up the prisoner first, which led to the players telling the judge about it, and the prisoner was let go. The players then investigated the sketchy group and brought them down. They then spoke with the judge again, who admonished them for taking matters into their own hands, but thanked them for getting the job done. He sent them on their way, telling them to let the authorities handle such issues. The second time, the Bard entered into a recording contract and lawyers had to hash out the details. The last time, they chased a serial killer down a river, eventually catching him and taking him prisoner. They turned him in at the next town, collecting a reward.


As far as bandits go, most bandits aren't in the business of murder, and also aren't in the business of dying for their cause. Highwaymen taking prisoners would be doing so to ransom them, otherwise they'd let them go after relieving them of their valuables, usually.

I agree - they would absolutely be held for ransom if they were captured, but they'd definitely lose their goodies in that case. But if they could escape (and I wouldn't find it to be that hard, because these are bandits probably living in the woods or maybe caves) they would have a decent shot at finding their stuff in the camp.

[icefractal]

Wait, when did the subject become getting arrested by a legal agents of a nation-state that you want to be a part of, for a crime with relatively low stakes? Sure, a number of characters I've played would surrender in that circumstance. Although they wouldn't then try to break out of jail, because that ruins the whole 'not becoming a wanted outlaw' thing.

What I saw mentioned earlier is surrender to enemies that you were (like a few seconds ago) fighting with lethal force. Which is the one I usually wouldn't consider a good idea IC.

Or attempted arrest (by non-enemies) for something where "life in prison" is a plausible outcome, in which case it depends on what you think your odds are at trial are and how feasible escape is if that goes badly. That one does push things more toward "flee" rather than "fight" though.

[Talakeal]

And that's their desires, I believe you should respect that instead of questioning it.

You can't have a game where people aren't on the same page. I know this forum is big on kicking people out of gaming groups rather than working with them, but imo it is always better to at least try and reach a compromise first.


Which, in the case of most captivity scenarios, is shutting up and waiting to be fed the plot.

In my experience modules that involve captivity are no more rail-roady than any other sort of modules.

And, as I have said repeatedly, my issue is not with players "going off the rails," it is with players who would rather suicide their character (and likely take the rest of the party with them) and wreck the entire campaign than suffer a setback such as captivity.



But Talakeal never cared about that kind of nuance and always came back to universal truths about surrender. Which lead all the "in some case this, in some case that" players only argue the part where they disagree with him.

You sure about that?

Because I am pretty sure I am arguing against absolute statement the entire time.

I have repeatedly said that there are some enemies that it isn't worth surrendering to, and that there are certain times when surrendering would be out of character for the PCs (for example the escaped slave on the previous page). What "universal truth" is it that you think I am even advocating?

Heck, my OP is titled "musings" and doesn't really come to a conclusion, and even talks about how I have been guilty of disrupting games to avoid capture in the past, and how I don't see why some DMs think they need to strongarm PCs. What universal truth is there in that?


As for talking people into trying new things (the former part). Build up trust and player buy in. I am sorry if that sounds like a broken record but it is the foundation of the solution. If a GM I trust to make a bad module fun asks me to play a bad module, I am likely to buy in because I trust they will make in fun in spite of it being a bad module. In the misdemeanor case it sounds like the best way to build trust is to investigate the disconnect with a goal of learning what the players want to play. Demonstrating listening to their concerns and reasons is a good way to build trust.

The issue I am having with that advice is that you seem to be saying that it is rude / unethical to ask people to try experiences outside of their comfort zone, so I don't know how you would ever build up relevant trust.

Like, imagine if I love hamburgers but think hot dogs are gross. If I go to a restaurant and order a great hamburger every weekend, I trust the restaurant, but I am still unlikely to ever try their hot dogs, and will instead just order hamburgers every week.

So to with D&D, if my players trust me to run the world's greatest dungeon crawl every week, but still refuse to allow their PCs to be captured, how am I ever supposed to convince them that a scenario involving captivity can be fun if I never get the opportunity to show them what such a scenario is like or even try and talk to them about it?

[LordCdrMilitant]

AIUI, when people go to jail, the personal possessions they have on hand are generally put in an envelope, and the envelope is stored at the prison until they are released. The clothes they have are stored in garment bags, and are sometimes stored there until the prisoner is released, or sometimes allowed to be picked up by a designated agent of the prisoner. In my campaign world, their stuff would all be stored in the equivalent of the envelope, waiting for them to be released. I know you can't trust media representations to be accurate, but there are a whole lot of movies that have a prisoner being released and getting the clothes they came in with back to wear out, as well as the envelope being opened and the stuff inside given back. I think Ocean's 11 started out with such a scene, among many others.

So far this campaign, my group has had three interactions with the legal system of the land. In one, a sketchy group was holding a thief prisoner, and they wanted to interrogate the prisoner. The sketchy group roughed up the prisoner first, which led to the players telling the judge about it, and the prisoner was let go. The players then investigated the sketchy group and brought them down. They then spoke with the judge again, who admonished them for taking matters into their own hands, but thanked them for getting the job done. He sent them on their way, telling them to let the authorities handle such issues. The second time, the Bard entered into a recording contract and lawyers had to hash out the details. The last time, they chased a serial killer down a river, eventually catching him and taking him prisoner. They turned him in at the next town, collecting a reward.


Weapons and armor would be taken as evidence, though, which isn't part of the prisoner's personal effects, so like the party would be able to recover their pictures of loved ones, but that ain't going to do much good when their weapons are impounded elsewhere as evidence.

[OldTrees1]

The issue I am having with that advice is that you seem to be saying that it is rude / unethical to ask people to try experiences outside of their comfort zone, so I don't know how you would ever build up relevant trust.

Like, imagine if I love hamburgers but think hot dogs are gross. If I go to a restaurant and order a great hamburger every weekend, I trust the restaurant, but I am still unlikely to ever try their hot dogs, and will instead just order hamburgers every week.

So to with D&D, if my players trust me to run the world's greatest dungeon crawl every week, but still refuse to allow their PCs to be captured, how am I ever supposed to convince them that a scenario involving captivity can be fun if I never get the opportunity to show them what such a scenario is like or even try and talk to them about it?

1) I do not think asking is rule / unethical. However I accept "no" as a valid answer. If they say "no", then that is a reasonable response. I not only accept their answer (aka not railroading), but also respect it as a valid answer. This demonstrates I asked in good faith and I am listening to them. If I offer you a hot dog and you call it "gross", I don't doubt your ability to evaluate your own preferences. Although I might seize the opportunity to increase trust by asking "okay, could you elaborate so I understand your preferences better?".

2) You don't have to hyperfocus on this issue. You can build player trust in other areas. Yes, some trust is context specific, but some is based on how much they trust you in general. Oh, and general trust can go far beyond "I trust them to serve me a hygienic tasty hamburger".

3) Some things take more trust than others. A "trusting you to run a dungeon crawl" probably takes much less trust than "trusting you to run a captivity scenario. Just like a campaign involving <insert a censored topic> would require even more trust. However you can use those opportunities to demonstrate you are more trustworthy than their expectations.

4) It is probably a good idea to revaluate any instances of "I know them / what they would enjoy / their preferences better than they do". Even out of context this is a decent suggestion because everyone has constant room for improvement here. Several times in this thread you have made comments implying either diminishing their opinion as unreasonable OR claims to know they would enjoy something they believe they would not. Improving in this area might be refraining from diminishing their opinions (even mentally) and asking the players about the preferences in various areas. That can lead to the players trusting you more when it comes to respecting & handling the group's preferences. Which in turn will help related areas (like captivity).

[Satinavian]

You sure about that?

Because I am pretty sure I am arguing against absolute statement the entire time.

I have repeatedly said that there are some enemies that it isn't worth surrendering to, and that there are certain times when surrendering would be out of character for the PCs (for example the escaped slave on the previous page). What "universal truth" is it that you think I am even advocating?

Heck, my OP is titled "musings" and doesn't really come to a conclusion, and even talks about how I have been guilty of disrupting games to avoid capture in the past, and how I don't see why some DMs think they need to strongarm PCs. What universal truth is there in that?
Maybe i just misunderstood you.

So you do agree that there are many situations, where surrender would not be in character, even if the alternative is certain death ?

And you do agree that it is wrong for GMs to strongarm/railroad PCs into surrender ? Even if they want to run a prison scenario ?

And you do agree that people imprisoned likely are deprived of any means of escape and thus imprisoned PCs likely only can get out via GM fiat ? Which immersion-first-players probably won't like even if it happens because it is so implausible ?

And you do agree that it nearly always makes more sense IC to retreat/flee than to surrender so that "whole group is captured" should rarely ever happen without railroading, especially if the most mobile members are willing to leave the rest behind ?

And you do agree that the best way to GM the prison arc you are keen to run is to just get player buy-in by asking your players out of game ? And that it is a ****ty move to get them imprisoned anyway when they don't want to play that prison arc?


Then i don't think there is much disagreement. Except that over ~30 years of playing several times a week in man many groups i have not once seen

players who would rather suicide their character (and likely take the rest of the party with them) and wreck the entire campaign than suffer a setback such as captivity
so i am very sceptical of your statement that this is a common accurance for you. I have however seen people levaing the table after being railroaded to certain defeat for story reasons.

[Telok]

Then i don't think there is much disagreement. Except that over ~30 of playing several times a week in man many groups i have not once seen

so i am very sceptical of your statement that this is a common accurance for you. I have however seen people levaing the table after being railroaded to certain defeat for story reasons.

Nah, I've seen a bunch. Generally in my experience it's more the groups that really only play some version of D&D or a close variant and are all male. I'm not trying to sound elitist or sexist, tho it does sound that way, but that really is my experience over the last 20ish years. Oddly I don't recall being taken prisoner as such a big deal before 2000, although that could be sample bias and the lack of internet supported navel gazing that we do these days.

[Xervous]

In my experience modules that involve captivity are no more rail-roady than any other sort of modules.


I was speaking broadly with no differences drawn between the presence or absence of a module. Capture does not open up options for the PCs to interact with generally, that’s what developments after the capture do. Thus for the game to follow its expected course and return agency to the players these developments first must occur. Thus capture implies ‘sit down, shut up and watch the cinematic’. If it comes as a logical (As can be reasoned out by the players) foreseeable consequence of player choices that’s all well and good. Forcing it without buy in has produced many a historical GM horror story.

[Pex]

Nah, I've seen a bunch. Generally in my experience it's more the groups that really only play some version of D&D or a close variant and are all male. I'm not trying to sound elitist or sexist, tho it does sound that way, but that really is my experience over the last 20ish years. Oddly I don't recall being taken prisoner as such a big deal before 2000, although that could be sample bias and the lack of internet supported navel gazing that we do these days.

The only times I've seen it is when the DM is purposely manipulating events to get the PCs captured, including one time with me as DM. Players generally hate being forced into capture. If it's a natural consequence of their own actions or after an unfortunate but legitimate TPK yet everyone wants the campaign to continue getting captured is fine and the escape is played.

[Spiderswims]

There is a difference between:

1) A party engaging in a battle as a matter of adventuring but lose the encounter by unfortunate luck and/or poor choices that ends up with the party captured instead of or replacement for a TPK.

and

2) The DM wants the party captured so by golly they will be captured. He manipulates events and/or the combat so that the party is captured. They will be captured. Case closed.

It's the second scenario that I have been arguing against. It's that scenario I learned the hard way not to do as DM. That is the DM taking control of the PCs.


The problem here though is what is the difference?

The vast majority of encounters, in most games, might end up with characters captured or characters killed. It's not really luck or choices, it's just a possible outcome. And plenty of encounters might want to capture the PCs for lots of reasons. And plenty of places will even have specialized capture forces. So unless the GM does something like 'chains fall from the sky and all PCs are auto captured' nothing else is really the GM manipulating events.




So to with D&D, if my players trust me to run the world's greatest dungeon crawl every week, but still refuse to allow their PCs to be captured, how am I ever supposed to convince them that a scenario involving captivity can be fun if I never get the opportunity to show them what such a scenario is like or even try and talk to them about it?

Most often, you don't. The idea that someone might suddenly like something if they try to is a bit of a false idea. I works with food, and maybe music and TV shows....but not really much else. And it only works in small doses. You take a bite of a food to see if you like it, you don't eat several meals of that food to decide.

How often are you open to trying things you don't like? Would you be willing to play a RPG in a way you did not like for say a year? Think you'd change your mind?

Some times...quite often....people do dislike things at random, or worse based off a rumor or worse. And it's true that this sort of person can be brought around to a different view point by exposing them to the set thing. Though often people dislike things as they know a great deal about a thing and dislike it. Just about nothing will change this persons mind: it's not impossible, but it's very unlikely.

If your players would rather do character death instead of be captured, I think you might have the second type.

[JoeJ]

The only times I've seen it is when the DM is purposely manipulating events to get the PCs captured, including one time with me as DM. Players generally hate being forced into capture. If it's a natural consequence of their own actions or after an unfortunate but legitimate TPK yet everyone wants the campaign to continue getting captured is fine and the escape is played.

I agree with this, and I also think that most of the angst over getting the PCs to surrender goes away if you don't design adventures that require the players to make one particular choice in order to continue. If you have to have the PCs decide to do some specific thing, whether it's surrender or anything else, discuss it with the players OOC, and then (assuming they're willing) don't even play out that decision, just narrate it. Otherwise, have capture be just one possible outcome of the scenario and let the players' decisions and the dice gods control what actually happens.

[Pex]

The problem here though is what is the difference?

The vast majority of encounters, in most games, might end up with characters captured or characters killed. It's not really luck or choices, it's just a possible outcome. And plenty of encounters might want to capture the PCs for lots of reasons. And plenty of places will even have specialized capture forces. So unless the GM does something like 'chains fall from the sky and all PCs are auto captured' nothing else is really the GM manipulating events.




The difference is one of the DM deliberately getting the PCs captured no matter what the PCs do. Fudge rolls behind the screen. Inflate bad guy hit points. More bad guy reinforcements. Anything it takes to get the PCs captured because his plot demands it. The encounter could be unfair from the start. The DM deliberately set the players up to face a foe they could never defeat either by overwhelming numbers or too powerful a foe or both.

[Telok]

The only times I've seen it is when the DM is purposely manipulating events to get the PCs captured, including one time with me as DM. Players generally hate being forced into capture. If it's a natural consequence of their own actions or after an unfortunate but legitimate TPK yet everyone wants the campaign to continue getting captured is fine and the escape is played.

I've got several where the DM didn't plan for it, the players directly caused the events and capture was an option and a viable alternative. The PCs of course fought to the death each time.

Here's one from about a decade ago: ShadowRun. The party is paid ~8k nuyen to kneecap some people. Seattle mayoral election time and the targets are advisors and managers on one side. Literally just put some people in the hospital until the election is over. It went well until I missed a session and came back to a different game because they'd TPKed.

They'd decided to go to a BBQ election event at a downtown park in a AAA rated security zone... and use a machine gun on the people on a stage or at a podium or something. I recall something about someone throwing grenades at a police helicopter towards the end. They could have surrendered at any time and lived. We weren't even hired by a johnson, someone who knew someone from the other campaign actually hired us. They could have turned evidence after being caught, or the DM would have figured something out.

I've only seen a couple novice DMs try to force a capture. All the rest of the capture issues have been PC instigated, usually involving fairly public criminal activity without any attempt at covering up, and resulted in death-by-cop scenarios because the players took a hard stance against capture and wanted to fight to the death. And it's always the all-guy groups. The groups with reasonably even gender splits accept the occasional capture and play through it, it's just another part of the game.

Of course now that I'm talking about I'm realizing that it was only the all-guy groups that regularly ended up being wanted dead-not-alive criminals or comitting war crimes and atrocities. I guess I know what kind of players I'm recruiting once this plague is over with.

[Talakeal]

So, did anyone happen to catch Star Trek Discovery last night?

If anyone did, the scene where David Cronenberg is interrogating Michele Yeoh is my example of an A+ RP scene. Both characters get to act in character, learn about the setting, and reveal stuff about themselves, and while both are trying to get control and information out of the situation, it is extremely unclear about exactly who is in charge at any given moment.

In my mind, that would be an amazing scene to play through, but it is the sort of scene that I would never be able to actually run in a game because I have never had a PC who would submit to interrogation, regardless of whether it was a planned scenario or occurred organically though the course of play.



And you do agree that people imprisoned likely are deprived of any means of escape and thus imprisoned PCs likely only can get out via GM fiat ? Which immersion-first-players probably won't like even if it happens because it is so implausible ?

And you do agree that it nearly always makes more sense IC to retreat/flee than to surrender so that "whole group is captured" should rarely ever happen without railroading, especially if the most mobile members are willing to leave the rest behind ?

And you do agree that the best way to GM the prison arc you are keen to run is to just get player buy-in by asking your players out of game ? And that it is a ****ty move to get them imprisoned anyway when they don't want to play that prison arc?

You know, for someone who doesn't like it when I make absolute statements, you sure seem to be asking me to make a lot of absolute statements :)


So you do agree that there are many situations, where surrender would not be in character, even if the alternative is certain death ?

Yes, there are many situations where death is preferable to capture, either due to the circumstances or due to the personality / history of the people involved. I would say they are in the minority though.


And you do agree that it is wrong for GMs to strongarm/railroad PCs into surrender ? Even if they want to run a prison scenario ?


Again, generally yes. But gaming is a constant tightrope walk for the DM, go to far in one direction and you have a railroad, go to far and you have a boring session where nothing happens.


And you do agree that people imprisoned likely are deprived of any means of escape and thus imprisoned PCs likely only can get out via GM fiat ? Which immersion-first-players probably won't like even if it happens because it is so implausible?

Again, it depends on the scenario. In real life, yeah, you try and keep prisoners helpless; but PCs are exceptional people, and generally know that they are capable of escaping most prisons.

Again, depending on the scenario, I find it far more likely both in and out of character that the PCs will cut some sort of deal.


And you do agree that it nearly always makes more sense IC to retreat/flee than to surrender so that "whole group is captured" should rarely ever happen without railroading, especially if the most mobile members are willing to leave the rest behind?

No.

Retreat and capture are both almost always worse than victory but better than death.

Which one is more practical to surrender or retreat really depends on a whole bunch of factors. I wouldn't even say one is typically preferable to the other, let alone nearly always.


And you do agree that the best way to GM the prison arc you are keen to run is to just get player buy-in by asking your players out of game ? And that it is a ****ty move to get them imprisoned anyway when they don't want to play that prison arc?

Yes... but again this goes both ways.

I think players and DMs should both be flexible and willing to accommodate the sort of game that the other one wants to play.


Then i don't think there is much disagreement. Except that over ~30 years of playing several times a week in man many groups i have not once seen

so i am very skeptical of your statement that this is a common occurrence for you. I have however seen people leaving the table after being railroaded to certain defeat for story reasons.

It is a common, but not universal, occurance for me. But its probably just a small sample size, I have had a lot of... eccentric... players in the past. But it is hardly an unknown opinion, if you look back through this very thread several posters have said that they would rather suicide a PC than allow them to be captured as a matter of course.




Most often, you don't. The idea that someone might suddenly like something if they try to is a bit of a false idea. I works with food, and maybe music and TV shows....but not really much else. And it only works in small doses. You take a bite of a food to see if you like it, you don't eat several meals of that food to decide.

How often are you open to trying things you don't like? Would you be willing to play a RPG in a way you did not like for say a year? Think you'd change your mind?

But we are talking about playing a game; not a major lifestyle choice.

I think games are absolutely something that people are likely change their opinion after actually playing them.

And yes, I have many times played in RPG systems / campaigns that I didn't like because that was what the rest of the group wanted to do. Usually I enjoy it when I come around; although there have been games that I liked significantly more, or less, that I initially thought I would.

4E D&D was a very common one, I hated it, but most of my friends loved it, and so I agreed to play 4E on a number of occasions just so I could do something with them. In that particular example, I ended up hating the game more and more every time I tried, until eventually I stopped giving it the benefit of the doubt.

I had a similar, although loss profound, experience with New World of Darkness, and after giving it a fair try I eventually came to like it more than the original, atleast mechanically.

[Pex]

I've got several where the DM didn't plan for it, the players directly caused the events and capture was an option and a viable alternative. The PCs of course fought to the death each time.

Here's one from about a decade ago: ShadowRun. The party is paid ~8k nuyen to kneecap some people. Seattle mayoral election time and the targets are advisors and managers on one side. Literally just put some people in the hospital until the election is over. It went well until I missed a session and came back to a different game because they'd TPKed.

They'd decided to go to a BBQ election event at a downtown park in a AAA rated security zone... and use a machine gun on the people on a stage or at a podium or something. I recall something about someone throwing grenades at a police helicopter towards the end. They could have surrendered at any time and lived. We weren't even hired by a johnson, someone who knew someone from the other campaign actually hired us. They could have turned evidence after being caught, or the DM would have figured something out.

I've only seen a couple novice DMs try to force a capture. All the rest of the capture issues have been PC instigated, usually involving fairly public criminal activity without any attempt at covering up, and resulted in death-by-cop scenarios because the players took a hard stance against capture and wanted to fight to the death. And it's always the all-guy groups. The groups with reasonably even gender splits accept the occasional capture and play through it, it's just another part of the game.

Of course now that I'm talking about I'm realizing that it was only the all-guy groups that regularly ended up being wanted dead-not-alive criminals or comitting war crimes and atrocities. I guess I know what kind of players I'm recruiting once this plague is over with.

I'd expect such behavior from players who are playing literal murdering hobos or other criminal/evil characters. They're playing out whatever fantasy and don't want consequences or other legal ramifications. Players of heroic characters or at least not stupid evil can accept capture. Heroic character players trust the DM it's only a set-back and they'll get their chance for escape and Justice. Intelligent evil players would love nothing better than to use the NPCs' laws against them to prove their innocence, show them to be hypocrites, or humiliate them in their escape.

[Satinavian]

You know, for someone who doesn't like it when I make absolute statements, you sure seem to be asking me to make a lot of absolute statements :)It is just an easy way to actually make your position clear which is useful for discussion.

Again, generally yes. But gaming is a constant tightrope walk for the DM, go to far in one direction and you have a railroad, go to far and you have a boring session where nothing happens.Maybe. But if your group is unhappy with the railroading, you always know that your tightrope walk failed. And railroading into prison a.k.a. a situation where the GM has even more control about everything the PCs can do and what is generally an unpleasant situation anyway is nearly always disliked. Which most GMs know.

Again, it depends on the scenario. In real life, yeah, you try and keep prisoners helpless; but PCs are exceptional people, and generally know that they are capable of escaping most prisons.

Again, depending on the scenario, I find it far more likely both in and out of character that the PCs will cut some sort of deal.For all my groups imersion trumps story. Which means NPCs do their actual best to keep prisoners. And most of the time people who manage to take the PCs prisoner have some idea about their capabilities.
If the enemy group think they can't reliably prevent the PCs from escaping, they won't take them as prisoners in the first place. They might strip them of all ressources and then let go naked, they might mutilate them or in some edge cases they might kill them.

So yes, i find prison escape quite unlikely. I don't think the chances are significantly better than in real life because versimilitude and not-idiot-NPCs. And the PCs themself will think the very same. However I do think that story-centric groups would expect an attempt because disempowerment via prison leading up to some dramatic escape and table-turn is a popular story arc. But i don't play at tables where "what makes sense ingame" takes the backseat to "what gives the best dramaturgie".

As for "cutting a deal", diplomacy best happens before the fighting. It is possible to have a PC ransomed, but really rare. In most situations the PCs don't have enough leverage to cut any deals with people who willing to risk injury or death by fighting the PCs earlier.


Which one is more practical to surrender or retreat really depends on a whole bunch of factors. I wouldn't even say one is typically preferable to the other, let alone nearly always.Really ? I can't remember a single time over my whole carreer where retreat would have been worse than surrender. This should never happen outside of rare, strange edge cases. There are situations where retreat is not feasible but those are still rare. Usually at least part of the group could get away.



Yes... but again this goes both ways.

I think players and DMs should both be flexible and willing to accommodate the sort of game that the other one wants to play.Yes. That is why you talk about what you want to play to each other and only play what you collectively agreed to play. And with enough flexibility on all sides you will see a lot of playable options coming up. If not, the group is just unworkable and people should look for players with more common interest.


But we are talking about playing a game; not a major lifestyle choice.

I think games are absolutely something that people are likely change their opinion after actually playing them.

And yes, I have many times played in RPG systems / campaigns that I didn't like because that was what the rest of the group wanted to do. Usually I enjoy it when I come around; although there have been games that I liked significantly more, or less, that I initially thought I would.
I tend to give new systems one chance, but i can't remember the last time a system felt differently than i thought it would after reading the rules. And i won't join games bvased on genres i don't like. And i wouldn't expect others to do.

I won't expect someone hating Star Wars to give a new Star Wars RPG a fair chance.
I won't invite someone who really feels uncomfortable with horror to an horror RPG even if they have never tried it.
I won't expect someone who says they don't like intrigue based roleplaying and dishonest scheeming PCs to try out the new intrigue based courtly arc i have in mind.
And when my players don't like prison arcs, i don't do prison arcs. Which means, they can only be taken prisoners organically, never as plot point and time in prison is not played out.

I assume other roleplayers know about their own preferrences as well as i do. Also i don't assume anything they don't like is something they just don't know. Dislike tends to come from somewhere.

[Talakeal]

Maybe. But if your group is unhappy with the railroading, you always know that your tightrope walk failed. And railroading into prison a.k.a. a situation where the GM has even more control about everything the PCs can do and what is generally an unpleasant situation anyway is nearly always disliked. Which most GMs know.

Sure, but on the other hand if your group is sitting around bored, then you know your tightrope failed and you didn't railroad enough.


For all my groups imersion trumps story. Which means NPCs do their actual best to keep prisoners. And most of the time people who manage to take the PCs prisoner have some idea about their capabilities.

I agree, to an extent.

As a general rule, willingness to work with the party and to engage with the material the the DM has prepared are basic requirements for playing the game. If you can't come up with any reason why your character would go along with the adventure hook, or why they wouldn't betray the party, maybe you should come up with a new character?

Again, this is a general rule, not an absolute, and there will obviously be specific instances where this needs to break down to suspend immersion, but as a general rule I tell players upfront not to play anyone who is so risk averse (or suicidal) or who is not a team player to the point where it will frequently disrupt the game.


If the enemy group think they can't reliably prevent the PCs from escaping, they won't take them as prisoners in the first place. They might strip them of all resources and then let go naked, they might mutilate them or in some edge cases they might kill them.

I don't think there are any absolute's here. But yes, I agree that if the enemy doesn't think they can keep you, they are unlikely to take prisoners, and I agree you shouldn't surrender to someone who isn't interested in taking prisoners.

On the other hand; villains who underestimate their enemy's capabilities are a dime a dozen, and there are many situations where "lawful" enemies don't have a choice about accepting a surrender, for example because they are operating under some form of treaty, code of laws, or simply their masters orders to bring the heroes in alive.



If the enemy group think they can't reliably prevent the PCs from escaping, they won't take them as prisoners in the first place. They might strip them of all resources and then let go naked, they might mutilate them or in some edge cases they might kill them.

So yes, i find prison escape quite unlikely. I don't think the chances are significantly better than in real life because versimilitude and not-idiot-NPCs. And the PCs themself will think the very same. However I do think that story-centric groups would expect an attempt because disempowerment via prison leading up to some dramatic escape and table-turn is a popular story arc. But i don't play at tables where "what makes sense ingame" takes the backseat to "what gives the best dramaturgie".

As for "cutting a deal", diplomacy best happens before the fighting. It is possible to have a PC ransomed, but really rare. In most situations the PCs don't have enough leverage to cut any deals with people who willing to risk injury or death by fighting the PCs earlier.

This is a very strange level of realism.

In fiction, attempting to convert one's enemies or offering a talented prisoner a pardon in exchange for a dangerous mission are pretty standard; but even if you are running a hardcore simulationist game which doesn't run on any sort of narrative drama (and I doubt that is even possible) history is replete with instances of this happening.

Criminal informants are fairly commonplace irl, and governments often recruit talented enemies (Project Paperclip for an example, not to Godwin the thread). Likewise, people, especially if they are rich or famous, frequently get out of their crimes in exchange for community service.

In the middle ages, ransoming enemy soldiers was extremely common behavior, and in the ancient world prisoners of war were frequently made slaves, but had the chance to win fame, fortune, and their freedom while in slavery; roman gladiators probably being the most famous (and gameable) example.



Really ? I can't remember a single time over my whole career where retreat would have been worse than surrender. This should never happen outside of rare, strange edge cases. There are situations where retreat is not feasible but those are still rare. Usually at least part of the group could get away.


Off the top of my head:

The enemies have ranged weapons and the battlefield doesn't have enough cover.
The enemies are faster or better at tracking than the PCs.
You are in enemy territory and don't think you can evade their patrols / reinforcements.
You are in the wilderness and don't think you can survive a pursuit through the wilds due to any number of natural hazards.
Some of the party members are injured or already captured and you don't want to abandon them.
You are under some sort of time constraint and expect your imprisonment to be shorter than the pursuit.
The enemy offers you favorable terms of surrender, some version of "We will go easy on you if you come quietly".
You think you have the diplomacy / clout to make this go away; especially if you are wrongfully accused and can prove your innocence.
You have a favor you can call in to pull some strings.

Of course, these are all situations where surrender is simply easier than retreat, not where it is preferable.

A situation where you actually want to be captured is rarer, but hardly unthinkable. Maybe you want to get close to the enemy, and being escorted to their dungeon and then breaking out is easier than breaking in. This is particularly the case if you are doing some sort of covert mission like espionage, sabotage, or assassination. On the other hand, maybe you simply want a chance to talk to the enemy, like Luke in Return of the Jedi.

[Satinavian]

Sure, but on the other hand if your group is sitting around bored, then you know your tightrope failed and you didn't railroad enough.



I agree, to an extent.

As a general rule, willingness to work with the party and to engage with the material the the DM has prepared are basic requirements for playing the game. If you can't come up with any reason why your character would go along with the adventure hook, or why they wouldn't betray the party, maybe you should come up with a new character?

Again, this is a general rule, not an absolute, and there will obviously be specific instances where this needs to break down to suspend immersion, but as a general rule I tell players upfront not to play anyone who is so risk averse (or suicidal) or who is not a team player to the point where it will frequently disrupt the game.Yes, there are a lot of issues that have to be solved out of game via communication. That does include "how much railroading is accepted/wanted". And yes, switching characters when one character can't follow the adventure hook/doesn't work well with the rest of the group is a thing.

But i was writing about the plausibility of escape which has nothing to do with your answer. Which is all about the players and how they should play along and not atall about the prison situation.

I don't think there are any absolute's here. But yes, I agree that if the enemy doesn't think they can keep you, they are unlikely to take prisoners, and I agree you shouldn't surrender to someone who isn't interested in taking prisoners.

On the other hand; villains who underestimate their enemy's capabilities are a dime a dozen, and there are many situations where "lawful" enemies don't have a choice about accepting a surrender, for example because they are operating under some form of treaty, code of laws, or simply their masters orders to bring the heroes in alive.Opponents who actually manage to take PCs prisoners tend to have intelligence on them. Furthermore, PCs likely show their abilities when the enemy tries to take them prisoners so that is nearly always a known and experienced quantity.

There are situations where PCs have abilities their jailors don't know about that would allow escape. But that does not happen that often and when it happens, escape is usually pretty straightforward.

As for treaties, law enforcement, lawful people etc. : Those would not take prisoners they can't keep either. Letting the PCs just walk away (without dangerous gear or contraband and after taking their IDs and all proof needed) is an option.

In fiction, attempting to convert one's enemies or offering a talented prisoner a pardon in exchange for a dangerous mission are pretty standard; but even if you are running a hardcore simulationist game which doesn't run on any sort of narrative drama (and I doubt that is even possible) history is replete with instances of this happening.That is only an option if you can control the prisoner. Which is not always that easy to do. And if you actually can, the PCs won't be able to escape. Furthermore, many of those control options have other drawbacks that you won't want at the table. Typical measures would include mind-control (with its agency issue), splitting the party and sending them somewhere where they don't know anyone and don't understand the language of the locals (which was pretty popular historically), take their relatives hostage etc.

Criminal informants are fairly commonplace irl, and governments often recruit talented enemies (Project Paperclip for an example, not to Godwin the thread). Likewise, people, especially if they are rich or famous, frequently get out of their crimes in exchange for community service. Project paperclip was after the conflict was completely over and pretty much a straitforward recruitment under favourable conditions. For PCs to be valuable informants they have to know something. For PCs to wield their wealth and fame, they need to have such wealth and fame. And even if that is possible, there are drawbacks. An informant betrays his contacts and thus loses them, maybe provoking revenge. Someone paying a lot of money loses a lot of money.

In the middle ages, ransoming enemy soldiers was extremely common behavior, and in the ancient world prisoners of war were frequently made slaves, but had the chance to win fame, fortune, and their freedom while in slavery; roman gladiators probably being the most famous (and gameable) example.Ransoming only works with wealthy PCs. Who also don't have their wealth with them and instead behind with trustworthy people who can be reasonably contacted. Slavery ... well, that would earn its own discussion but usually involves splitting the party and sending them somewhere where escape is difficult.



The enemies have ranged weapons and the battlefield doesn't have enough cover. -> might be a situation where escape is not feasible
The enemies are faster or better at tracking than the PCs. ->You have nothing to lose by trying to run. Maybe they can't get you all.
You are in enemy territory and don't think you can evade their patrols / reinforcements. -> You have nothing to lose by trying to run. Maybe they can't get you all.
You are in the wilderness and don't think you can survive a pursuit through the wilds due to any number of natural hazards. -> what are you doing in a wilderness where you can't even survive without enemy presence ? Possible but rare.
Some of the party members are injured or already captured and you don't want to abandon them. -> You abandon them. If you are free, you are in a better position to help them anyway. That is actually the most common situation where an enemy gets prisoners.
You are under some sort of time constraint and expect your imprisonment to be shorter than the pursuit. -> Are you often pursued for trivialities ? Imprisonment shorter than pursuit seems unplausible
The enemy offers you favorable terms of surrender, some version of "We will go easy on you if you come quietly". -> It won't be easier than getting away.
You think you have the diplomacy / clout to make this go away; especially if you are wrongfully accused and can prove your innocence. -> In this case you do diplomacy at the start and don't get into any fights because fighting only weakens your position. Otherweise it is still enough if the representative of the group lets himself get captured and presents the proofs. There is no gain for the rest being captured as well.
You have a favor you can call in to pull some strings. -> a favor that let's you allow to get away later but does not allow you to not get captured in the first place ? Unlikely. And even if that happens, you are probably still better off just retreating and not needing to call in that favor.

Of course, these are all situations where surrender is simply easier than retreat, not where it is preferable.Of course it is always easier to just give up instead oftrying to pursue your goals. That is a non-argument.

We are talking here about retreating/running away as alternative to surrender. Not about death as alternative to surrender. And it is really hard to find any situation where successfully getting away at least with a part of the group is not preferrable to getting them all imprisoned.



But of course their are some assumption. One was about versimilitude vs. drama. Another one is about the assumption that actions splitting the party should be avoided. If a table plays that way, it is way more likely to capture the whole group.


A situation where you actually want to be captured is rarer, but hardly unthinkable. Maybe you want to get close to the enemy, and being escorted to their dungeon and then breaking out is easier than breaking in. This is particularly the case if you are doing some sort of covert mission like espionage, sabotage, or assassination. On the other hand, maybe you simply want a chance to talk to the enemy, like Luke in Return of the Jedi.Those things do happen. But they always happen on the initiative of the PC because it is their plan.

[Rogan]

Opponents who actually manage to take PCs prisoners tend to have intelligence on them. Furthermore, PCs likely show their abilities when the enemy tries to take them prisoners so that is nearly always a known and experienced quantity.


This is not always true. The PCs might have spent most of their resources when they get captured. So instead of using the rest of their resources in an attempt to escape or fight, they keep them hidden.
Of course, this does not always work, but it depends on the situation / the game.



As for treaties, law enforcement, lawful people etc. : Those would not take prisoners they can't keep either. Letting the PCs just walk away (without dangerous gear or contraband and after taking their IDs and all proof needed) is an option.

The soldiers/ police/ agents capturing the PCs might have no choice. It's their job to capture them, it does not matter if they have a realistic chance of success.
Plus, if the PCs are some kind of heros, they might not be willing to break out of prison.
Hell, they might not really be in a prison, but they gave their word of honour to stay in town.



Ransoming only works with wealthy PCs. Who also don't have their wealth with them and instead behind with trustworthy people who can be reasonably contacted. Slavery ... well, that would earn its own discussion but usually involves splitting the party and sending them somewhere where escape is difficult.


Or the PCs are members of a bigger institution. A guild, a state, an army... lots of options.
As for slavery, there are lots of options that won't involve splitting the party. In fact, for slavery to involve splitting the party, it would have to be some kind of private slavery. But organised slavery would probably mean something like a state owned mine or other workplace.




The enemies are faster or better at tracking than the PCs. ->You have nothing to lose by trying to run. Maybe they can't get you all.

Of course you have something to loose. You might get killed while on the run. Or maybe, the enemies won't accept surrender anymore after you tried to run.



You are in enemy territory and don't think you can evade their patrols / reinforcements. -> You have nothing to lose by trying to run. Maybe they can't get you all.

Same thing as above. Plus, depending on the party, they might not be willing to leave their friends behind. It might not be a logical thing to do, but most definitely a human thing.
Plus, OOC: never split the party!



party members are injured or already captured and you don't want to abandon them. -> You abandon them. If you are free, you are in a better position to help them anyway. That is actually the most common situation where an enemy gets prisoners.

See above



The enemy offers you favorable terms of surrender, some version of "We will go easy on you if you come quietly". -> It won't be easier than getting away.

If you think you have a good chance to get away AND you won't suffer additional consequences for running (like getting on a kind of most wanted list in a place you want to visit a lot), running will be better. Otherwise, coming quietly and getting a much better treatment will be an advantage.



You think you have the diplomacy / clout to make this go away; especially if you are wrongfully accused and can prove your innocence. -> In this case you do diplomacy at the start and don't get into any fights because fighting only weakens your position. Otherweise it is still enough if the representative of the group lets himself get captured and presents the proofs. There is no gain for the rest being captured as well.

The guys trying to capture you might not be the guys who can accuracy decide your fate. So you first have to allow them to capture you before you can proof your innocence.
About fighting at all, maybe they did not know why they are under attack at first? Or maybe, there was no fight at all? Only soldiers pointing weapons at some dangerous individuals and demanding surrender.



You have a favor you can call in to pull some strings. -> a favor that let's you allow to get away later but does not allow you to not get captured in the first place ? Unlikely. And even if that happens, you are probably still better off just retreating and not needing to call in that favor.


How would a favor with the judge help you when the cops are the ones trying to arrest you? A "get out of jail card" can be used to get out of jail, but you need to be in jail first.
And retreat usually has it's own cost. Like, you will be chased or you might not be able to visit a certain town or even a whole kingdom anymore.



Of course it is always easier to just give up instead oftrying to pursue your goals. That is a non-argument.


Running away and hiding is not really helpful for reaching your goals as well. Sometimes, every way will be a setback, but you can still choose the way that will hinder you most.
Running might get you or your friends killed. Surrender to a fair enemy will probably spare you this fate.
Again, it does depend a lot on the situation and the actors involved. Sometimes, it will be better overall if one guy can escape while everyone else in the party gets killed. But in other situations, getting imprisoned is a better option than the risk of death.




We are talking here about retreating/running away as alternative to surrender. Not about death as alternative to surrender. And it is really hard to find any situation where successfully getting away at least with a part of the group is not preferrable to getting them all imprisoned.

While trying to get away, you risk death. Sometimes, this risk is low, sometimes it's high. Depending on the power gap between your party and the hostiles, nobody might get away and the whole party gets killed. I really doubt most characters would see this as better than imprisonment.
If you play in a setting where death is cheap, this might not be a big deal. But in other settings, it will be a huge thing.
In some groups and settings, splitting the party will not be a big deal. In others, it will be really bad, either for IC or OOC reasons.

[Spiderswims]

So I think it's worth pointing out the two main vague ways RPGs are played by style. And disclaimer: neither style is better they are just different.



Type A- Is a very casual, laid back game atmosphere. The idea is to relax and have fun. Players and even the GM does not need to know the rules well: just the basics will do. Often the game has a large list of rules that are not used or changed anyway. Though, at the same time, this game firmly limits a characters actions to what is written on that characters sheet. There is very little, often none, improv game mechanics. This game often has no record keeping mini game at all, or just a lite oversight. Players don't really need to keep track of time or consumables, or other such things. A lot of handwaved away, like food and water, where the characters are just assumed to eat and drink and it never realy needs to be mentioned. This game is built on all sorts of Agreements, Understandings, Playing Fields of Fairness on Handwaves. Often in circles like : the GM does not think that attacking PC when they are vulnerable (like sleeping) is fun or fair, so they outright tell the players they will never do this: in turn the players do take any game slots (feats, spells, etc) for this or prepare for it in any way; and then the DM would now never attack as the PCs are doubley vulnerable and doubley unfair and unfun. You will also see the wound circle of : characters get wounded and heal up and get wounded again and heal up again.

This type has a massive focus on the plot and story that can not be changed by any random dice roll. Only the players and GM can change things: never the dice. Often dice are not even rolled for such things. Along with no random dice rolled effecting the game is also rare or no character death. The game would never, ever let a random dice roll kill a character. This game also has it rare or never that a character losses an item, even more so an important one. The characters can only fail a mission or other such role playing, non mechanical effects. Combat encounters are always to be fair and balanced, and both a set number per day but also spaced apart far enough for any recharge or cooldowns to be done by that next encounter. In general, most combat should take place with the PCs at 100% or close to it.

This is a very serious game of hard fun with an intense atmosphere. It's relaxing and having fun by manic intensity. Everyone must know all the rules and be at least an average expert. Often all or nearly all the game rules are used, even ones that "most" other games toss aside like encumbrance. And even with the massive manic focus on the rules, the game is overly open to improv game mechanics. This game has major resource management. Every item in the game must be carefully tracked. At the extreme end players must even keep track of exactly how much food and water their character has and when they eat. This game often has a bit where players must specificity tell the GM every set time frame that their charterer eats or drinks or the GM will apply thirst or hunger penalties. There is no hit of an agreement or any other such thing in this type of game: anything can happen at any time.

This game has a focus on the story and plot that can be changed on the whim of fate by any random dice roll at any time. Dice are seen as a random element in the game that can change things up on a roll. Such dice are often rolled for any such thing. Character death is common, or at least possibly common. Any random roll can kill any character. Damage and loss of items is common. In many games players must keep track of the hit points of each of their items. Any item can be lost or destroyed at any time: even if it utterly ruins the characters ability to play in the game. Combat encounters can be anything, happen at anytime and no regard will be given to characters that need a rest or recharge. Combat will happen no matter the condition of the PCs.


So, now the Type A game is not set up for an event like the PCS being captured. In fact, it is often impossible for it to even happen. Plus a GM would refuse to do it, and the players would refuse to stay in such a game.

The type Z game....it's likely the PCs will get captured in the very first part of their very first adventure or even just on the way to the adventure. The goblin bandits of Bunglewood will be relentless with poison, nets, sleep smoke, and sundering worn items: so it's very likely the PCs will get captured. It's not impossible for the PCs to avoid that fate, but it is improbable.

The type A game is the common default for 3E D&D and 5E D&D and Pathfinder

Type Z is common default for 0E, 1E and 2E D&D, plus all the OSR games.

Though really edition or game does not matter as it's how you play.

And the over all point here is how you play the game:

Does your game involve character item loss, characters facing overwhelming encounters, character death, character penalties and characters being captured right from the start?

Does your game allow for a character to lose a vital item like a spellbook or weapon that utterly makes the character completely unplayable in their build intended way?

Does your game allow for characters to try nearly anything outside the rules?

How often, if ever, do characters in your game run out of things? How often has a spellcaster run out of spells or an archer run out of arrows for an extended time such as hours or several game sessions?

How often, if ever, has a character in your game been inflicted with something such as damage or a poison with no way to end it and had to simply keep playing for an extended time such as hours or several game sessions?

If the above such things are common in your game, then PCs going to prison is not a big deal. Of course, if your game rarely or never has any of the above things, then PCs going to prison is a big deal.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Honestly, I think your Type A game is more likely to have players taken prisoner than the Type Z game.

Fundamentally, having a prison scenario work and be fun requires a certain degree of the plot and an entertaining narrative overriding verisimilitude, mechanics, and "reality ensues".



In a type Z game, the party should reasonably do everything they can to avoid capture, because there's definitely no expectation of being able to escape and a situation like being taken prisoner can initiate a death snowball effect where there's a loss of force parity in at-CR encounters. [Also, you're more likely to be able to escape or to refuse a dangerous encounter in the first place]

[Talakeal]

snip

This seems to be pretty much just the "combat as war" vs "combat as sport" divide with a whole lot of extra baggage thrown in.

Not that I disagree with you though.

Actually, now that I think about it, in my games a lot of complaints about railroading are actually about the CaW/CaS divide.


Honestly, I think your Type A game is more likely to have players taken prisoner than the Type Z game.

Fundamentally, having a prison scenario work and be fun requires a certain degree of the plot and an entertaining narrative overriding verisimilitude, mechanics, and "reality ensues".



In a type Z game, the party should reasonably do everything they can to avoid capture, because there's definitely no expectation of being able to escape and a situation like being taken prisoner can initiate a death snowball effect where there's a loss of force parity in at-CR encounters. [Also, you're more likely to be able to escape or to refuse a dangerous encounter in the first place]

I think that is probably the major disconnect of this thread.

I personally can't see how many people think it is more realistic for people to choose to choose go down in a blaze of glory rather than surrender when they are in over their head, but there it is.

[Mechalich]

I personally can't see how many people think it is more realistic for people to choose to choose go down in a blaze of glory rather than surrender when they are in over their head, but there it is.

Whether it is more realistic or not depends entirely on circumstances.

This includes both actual in-character circumstances - as in whether or not the PC in question is physically able to produce a demonstrable act of surrender they can expect their foes to both recognize and honor (in D&D specific circumstances you can only even attempt to surrender to about 1/4th of the MM), and whether they expect that surrender to not result in their character's death anyway.

Out of character there's the key circumstance of whether or not surrender is functionally equivalent to character death in that it results in the removal of the character from the campaign. For example, in a modern campaign set in basically any functional nation state if you get into a firefight with the cops and subsequently surrender your character arc just ended because you are now staring down years to decades of imprisonment (depending on whether or not you actually hit anyone and the local laws involved) on a suite of extremely serious charges. Even in a fantasy campaign where escape is both possible and could potentially occur in a timely fashion surrendering might still mean an automatic campaign failure depending on campaign structure.

It's also worth mentioning that the average modern TTRPG player has been trained by years of video game play to just never even think of surrender as an option, because very, very few video games allow for it, which matches their internal logic, because in most video games the enemies are more likely to eat your soul than put you on trial.

[JoeJ]

Out of character there's the key circumstance of whether or not surrender is functionally equivalent to character death in that it results in the removal of the character from the campaign. For example, in a modern campaign set in basically any functional nation state if you get into a firefight with the cops and subsequently surrender your character arc just ended because you are now staring down years to decades of imprisonment (depending on whether or not you actually hit anyone and the local laws involved) on a suite of extremely serious charges. Even in a fantasy campaign where escape is both possible and could potentially occur in a timely fashion surrendering might still mean an automatic campaign failure depending on campaign structure.

Death is campaign failure in a game that doesn't have resurrection. Capture allows the game to go on.

Your analysis doesn't take genre into account, and that makes a big difference. Both supers and spy games, for example, should involve the PCs getting captured quite frequently (although often not because they surrendered, especially in a supers game) if they're playing true to the tropes of the genre.

[Talakeal]

Out of character there's the key circumstance of whether or not surrender is functionally equivalent to character death in that it results in the removal of the character from the campaign. For example, in a modern campaign set in basically any functional nation state if you get into a firefight with the cops and subsequently surrender your character arc just ended because you are now staring down years to decades of imprisonment (depending on whether or not you actually hit anyone and the local laws involved) on a suite of extremely serious charges. Even in a fantasy campaign where escape is both possible and could potentially occur in a timely fashion surrendering might still mean an automatic campaign failure depending on campaign structure.


IMO, this requires a very specific level of realism (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=615).

Out of character, a character who was permanently imprisoned is effectively dead, even though in character they are still very much alive.

The thing is, the GM also knows this, and in virtually 100% of games, the GM is going to come up with some way to get you out of prison ASAP, and so in effect being imprisoned is just another adventure hook; whether it be cutting a deal, organizing a jailbreak, a rescue mission, etc.


Death is campaign failure in a game that doesn't have resurrection. Capture allows the game to go on.

Your analysis doesn't take genre into account, and that makes a big difference. Both supers and spy games, for example, should involve the PCs getting captured quite frequently (although often not because they surrendered, especially in a supers game) if they're playing true to the tropes of the genre.

Heck, it isn't just those genres. Look at fantasy, both high and low. Probably one in four Conan stories started with him having to do something to win his freedom, and in Tolkien's work it seems you never go more than a few chapters without the protagonist being captured in some form or another. Of course, in Tolkien is almost always works out for the best, and people who get captured tend to find magic items and allies that they would have otherwise passed by. And, in Sauron's case, being imprisoned led to him achieving what is arguably his greatest victory of all time that resulted in the utter corruption and destruction of Numeonor.

[Satinavian]

IMO, this requires a [URL="https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=615"]The thing is, the GM also knows this, and in virtually 100% of games, the GM is going to come up with some way to get you out of prison ASAP, and so in effect being imprisoned is just another adventure hook; whether it be cutting a deal, organizing a jailbreak, a rescue mission, etc.No.

I have seen plenty of characters being caught and thus leave the game forever. Most of them in Shadowrun. But there have been others where escape was too unlikely/ the rest of the group did not attempt any rescue and a new character was rolled.

I would say, of characters caught over all the years, maybe a third left the game forever this way.



But "leaving the game when imprisoned" is not ever an IG reason to fight to the death instead.

[Telok]

being imprisoned is just another adventure hook; whether it be cutting a deal, organizing a jailbreak, a rescue mission, etc.

Sell them into a penal battalion so you can send them somewhere incredibly dangerous with woefully underpowered guns. Surgically move their brains into their abdomens so they can infiltrate mind flayer society disguised as snack food. The possibilities are as endless as the players and characters abilities.

[JoeJ]

Sell them into a penal battalion so you can send them somewhere incredibly dangerous with woefully underpowered guns. Surgically move their brains into their abdomens so they can infiltrate mind flayer society disguised as snack food. The possibilities are as endless as the players and characters abilities.

Or just go with the classic: the BBEG explains the entire evil plan to the PCs (because they're the only ones intelligent enough to understand, and BBEGs do love to hear themselves rant), then traps them in an easily escapable situation that would allow an overly elaborate and exotic death.

[icefractal]

I think what's throwing me here is that the examples keep going back and forth between "the police try to arrest you" type of scenarios and "you were fighting some people, started losing, then surrender" ones, which are IMO quite different and have different answers.

Personally, there's seldom a time when I would surrender that I would also fight first. Like, considering some modern-day setting scenarios, if playing a relatively normal person. Someone shouts "Hey you, get over here!":
* The cops - Probably surrender, maybe run, definitely not fight.
* Probably security guards (but no badges) at an industrial area where I'm trespassing - Possibly surrender, possibly run, still wouldn't fight unless things started seeming very fishy.
* Bunch of drunk guys, maybe starting **** maybe just loud - Run/walk away in preference, then see what they want, then maybe fight (but not lethally) depending.
* Probably criminals pointing toward an alley - Run away, if that fails then try to judge if this is just a mugging or something worse and surrender or fight accordingly.
* Probably criminals pointing towards a van (ie. kidnapping) - Run or fight, no way that surrender is going anywhere good.

The common factor in all of these - "fight to the death" is pretty much a last-resort thing. If we've even reached that then surrender has almost certainly been ruled out.

Another common factor is that I guess typical D&D characters are suicidally brave and/or consider themselves superhuman IC, given how seldom they run away and how often thinking from a "normal person" headspace leads to "GTFO!" So another reason I'd not find it surprising for them to chance the odds in preference to surrender.

[Quertus]

That's just the result of locking yourself to a particular perspective. It's true that if they could solve this problem easily, they wouldn't spend much time on it. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't have problems, they'd just have different problems. Higher level characters tend to have a wider range of tools, and therefore a wider range of choices. It's true that if you present them with a problem designed for low level characters, the obvious choice will be "blast through it", but that's a DMing problem, not a fundamental principle.

I'm gonna start here. From the "All-the-enemies-are-dead-except-the-boss-who-says-he-surrenders-what-do-you-do (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?620907-All-the-enemies-are-dead-except-the-boss-who-says-he-surrenders-what-do-you-do#post24769923)" thread, I detailed some of my characters's responses to just such a scenario.

What would my characters do in this scenario?

Quertus: Well, the Bandit Leader attempting to surrender is kinda... odd. Because Quertus probably nuked the site from orbit. (perhaps the bandits stole something he had shipped in; annoyed, Quertus (performed divinations, scryed through time, then) teleported through space and time, and replaced the shipment with, well, something that went "boom" (for example, a few hundred metamagic'd Delayed Blast Fireball gems stored in Quintessence, plus a few diminutive Simulacra to extract the gems at the appropriate time)). Or he sent an army of Golems to deal with the problem. In any event, in the strange scenario where my epic wizard was dealing with bandits, their calls for surrender should go unheard. On the off chance he was somehow "on the ground" dealing with bandits (they happened to be camped at the site of a rare convergence of magical energies or something, and they mistook Quertus for an adventurer come to wipe them out, and attacked), calls of "I surrender" would, perhaps, be met with a response of, "don't resist", followed by Quertus casting a spell (most likely Polymorph Any Object, to turn the surrendered leader into a shovel, or whatever other tool Quertus thought he needed at the moment).

Armus: Armus most likely hired the bandit leader (likely through an alias), to manipulate the political landscape (and/or, in the case where we've killed all the bandits, to collect irredeemable ne'er-do-wells in one place for the party Paladin to slaughter), so of course Armus would (say what was necessary to get the party to) accept his pawn's surrender (unless getting the pawn killed was somehow part of the plan).

Illirian: The only reasons Illirian wouldn't pull a Stark and execute the surrendered bandit leader would be if someone else had greater claim to swing the blade, or if the party didn't accept the surrender and killed the bandit leader outright.

Briq: Yeah, um, Briq would beat the bandit leader unconscious, just as he did to all of the minions that he came across. Apparently, someone else in the party has been going along slitting all their throats after the fact (probably the paladin (forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?618515-In-party-conflict-how-do-we-tell-which-player-s-in-the-right-and-which-in-the-wrong&highlight=Paladin+dwarf+prisoner+horse)), and I expect that they'll do the same to the bandit leader.

Eladove: Nah, she doesn't need a bandit leader (A'Jin: especially an unnamed NPC) as a Synthesis - they need to at least measure up to Hessalo Synthesis One, Irmutar Synthesis Two, and Rathkuul Synthesis Three.

Pidge: Pidge would disarm the bandit leader - literally, as in remove his arms. And his tongue. And eyes. And all his hair (including eye lashes, eye brows, etc) and teeth. And wonder if he missed anything. Which leads us to...

Delock: Much more efficiently, Delock would simply turn the bandit leader into a brain in a jar. We can always give him a body back later if he is absolved of his crimes.

Anna: <Bang!> <Headshot!> "Sorry, what was that?" Much like Quertus, Anna would not be in range to hear the surrender; unlike Quertus, she isn't terribly perceptive in the first place.

Rita: :smallfurious: (looks for a Staff of the Magi to break across the bandit leader's face)

Datch: "Finally, someone who surrenders! ... Don't resist" <Arcane energies>

Korin: "Sorry, I've ordered too many undead to kill you - I can't order them all to stop in time. So make peace with whatever gods you follow - quickly." (turns to party) "Can you believe I used to be good, and that this used to be something of a moral dilemma for me?"

K'Tamair: K'Tamair am be taking bandit leader's belt, am be tying their shoe laces together.

Raymond: (Quirks an eyebrow, turns to party/Tivek) "Is he worth keeping?"

Tivek: (looks bandit leader over) "...Yes. Let's invite him to dinner."

Even being highly over-leveled, even being railroaded into all the minions being dead, there were still a variety of responses, from accept the surrender (followed by polymorphing / charming / disabling / subduing / executing / eating the prisoner) to denying the surrender to having nuked the site from orbit.


Likewise, character power kind of negates choices. For example, in the adventure I am currently working on, the players need to get an artifact from a dragon, and the dragon is too powerful to defeat in a straight fight. So, the players are going to have to make plans and choices; they might decide to sneak in, or distract the dragon, or lure it into a trap, or talk to it, or sacrifice someone, or bribe it; to me this is a lot more agency than normal as they they now actually have to think and make choices; if I simply levelled them up to the dragons level or gave them some powerful magic sword of dragon slaying, all of these choices disappear in favor of the direct approach. You know what they say about problems when all you have is a hammer...


Necessity is the mother of invention.
Regardless of the specific power dynamic or power level; having one clearly optimal solution to a problem is the antithesis of player agency.

Absolutely not. Less agency is not more agency.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Yes, characters are likely to be more... "inventive" when their primary shtick is demonstrably suboptimal. Or, rather, uninventive characters are likely to be forced to be more inventive; naturally inventive characters less so.

But reducing agency does not increase agency. It merely railroads the characters into being forced to use a broader section of their toolkit than they might otherwise be inclined to do.

This is, of course, different when discussing a character with a broad toolkit than a character with but a single tool.


So I think it's worth pointing out the two main vague ways RPGs are played by style. And disclaimer: neither style is better they are just different.



Type A- Is a very casual, laid back game atmosphere. The idea is to relax and have fun. Players and even the GM does not need to know the rules well: just the basics will do. Often the game has a large list of rules that are not used or changed anyway. Though, at the same time, this game firmly limits a characters actions to what is written on that characters sheet. There is very little, often none, improv game mechanics. This game often has no record keeping mini game at all, or just a lite oversight. Players don't really need to keep track of time or consumables, or other such things. A lot of handwaved away, like food and water, where the characters are just assumed to eat and drink and it never realy needs to be mentioned. This game is built on all sorts of Agreements, Understandings, Playing Fields of Fairness on Handwaves. Often in circles like : the GM does not think that attacking PC when they are vulnerable (like sleeping) is fun or fair, so they outright tell the players they will never do this: in turn the players do take any game slots (feats, spells, etc) for this or prepare for it in any way; and then the DM would now never attack as the PCs are doubley vulnerable and doubley unfair and unfun. You will also see the wound circle of : characters get wounded and heal up and get wounded again and heal up again.

This type has a massive focus on the plot and story that can not be changed by any random dice roll. Only the players and GM can change things: never the dice. Often dice are not even rolled for such things. Along with no random dice rolled effecting the game is also rare or no character death. The game would never, ever let a random dice roll kill a character. This game also has it rare or never that a character losses an item, even more so an important one. The characters can only fail a mission or other such role playing, non mechanical effects. Combat encounters are always to be fair and balanced, and both a set number per day but also spaced apart far enough for any recharge or cooldowns to be done by that next encounter. In general, most combat should take place with the PCs at 100% or close to it.

This is a very serious game of hard fun with an intense atmosphere. It's relaxing and having fun by manic intensity. Everyone must know all the rules and be at least an average expert. Often all or nearly all the game rules are used, even ones that "most" other games toss aside like encumbrance. And even with the massive manic focus on the rules, the game is overly open to improv game mechanics. This game has major resource management. Every item in the game must be carefully tracked. At the extreme end players must even keep track of exactly how much food and water their character has and when they eat. This game often has a bit where players must specificity tell the GM every set time frame that their charterer eats or drinks or the GM will apply thirst or hunger penalties. There is no hit of an agreement or any other such thing in this type of game: anything can happen at any time.

This game has a focus on the story and plot that can be changed on the whim of fate by any random dice roll at any time. Dice are seen as a random element in the game that can change things up on a roll. Such dice are often rolled for any such thing. Character death is common, or at least possibly common. Any random roll can kill any character. Damage and loss of items is common. In many games players must keep track of the hit points of each of their items. Any item can be lost or destroyed at any time: even if it utterly ruins the characters ability to play in the game. Combat encounters can be anything, happen at anytime and no regard will be given to characters that need a rest or recharge. Combat will happen no matter the condition of the PCs.


So, now the Type A game is not set up for an event like the PCS being captured. In fact, it is often impossible for it to even happen. Plus a GM would refuse to do it, and the players would refuse to stay in such a game.

The type Z game....it's likely the PCs will get captured in the very first part of their very first adventure or even just on the way to the adventure. The goblin bandits of Bunglewood will be relentless with poison, nets, sleep smoke, and sundering worn items: so it's very likely the PCs will get captured. It's not impossible for the PCs to avoid that fate, but it is improbable.

The type A game is the common default for 3E D&D and 5E D&D and Pathfinder

Type Z is common default for 0E, 1E and 2E D&D, plus all the OSR games.

Yeah, um... no. Looking back at my... has it really been 40 years?... of gaming, with *many* different groups, I struggle to find a group that actually fits well in either camp you describe.


Death is campaign failure in a game that doesn't have resurrection. Capture allows the game to go on.

Absolutely not.

Death is standard in a meat grinder, which keeps on rolling after that death.

A TPK *can* be a campaign failure, but it doesn't have to be. The campaign can pick up with relatives, those who have heard the tale or been saved by the heroes, etc, joining together and picking up the cause.

Or the TPK can be soft-retconned into a dream sequence, alternate reality, or KO and capture (*if* the group is onboard for a capture scenario, and that wouldn't be *worse* than a TPK).

Capture, otoh, is often a huge derailment or game-over scenario.

Which brings us back to the main thrust of the thread.

-----

There are oh so many factors to consider when evaluating the pros and cons of surrender. These include

IC, some characters "never give up, never surrender". (Syndrome's voice) "lame, lame, lame". Some genres really expect rather "heroic" characters.

Not all characters are perfectly omniscient to completely realize exactly what all of their options are, or exactly when they are in over their head.

Some systems have resurrection.

Some worlds have an abundance of monsters that won't accept surrender, cannot be communicated with, or straight up eat people.

Not all foes will accept surrender - especially after the PCs intended to fight them to the death, and then started losing.

Many humans will do very nasty things to or simply execute surrendered prisoners.

Some GMs will railroad a "get out of jail free" scenario; others will play it more realistically.

Some GMs will make the rescue attempt quick and relatively painless; others will not, and it's "split the party, twiddle your thumbs" time (or "let's just make new characters who didn't get captured" time).

Some GMs will flash forward 40 years to when the PCs are released for their crimes; others will not.

Some campaigns, the world will end before the PCs get out of prison.

But the most important factor is:

If your players have expressed a dislike of prison scenarios, don't be a **** and force one on them anyway.

Because, no, in my ~4 decades of gaming, I have never once enjoyed a prison scenario. Yes, one demonstrated that by beggar was better equipped to deal with having nothing than his companions... but I wouldn't more than shrug if someone wanted to balefire all prison scenarios out or RPGs throughout all time. Even ignoring their potential damage to suspension of disbelief or contribution to railroading, they just aren't worth my time to play through, IME.

Perhaps the best "prison" scenario I've ever encountered was the (generally horrible) campaign where the scene opened with my new character being taken prisoner, as the party blundered across and began murderhoboing his captors. This certainly set the tone for that campaign, and the "we're fighting through a prison" allowed players to instantly rejoin the action in this meat grinder. But exactly 0 time was spent "roleplaying prison".

If you really want that "battle of wits between prisoner and captor", let the party take an NPC captive, and play it out that way. Done. Everybody is happy.

(Also, as an aside, a GM requesting "Don't build a character who is suicidally stupid and gets the party into trouble" is a great example of poor communication if they expect that that request will in any way create a character more likely to surrender.)

[Xervous]

It appears others are of a similar mindset on this topic. Namely that being taken captive and subsequent progress of the plot in a player desired/enjoyed/immersed direction occupies a narrow subsection of all cases of being taken captive.

Averting a TPK wins on desire and enjoyment. When faced with a defeat the players earned it is a far more efficient use of everyone’s time to continue on with the same characters so long as the circumstances reasonably allow for it.

Forcing capture in a campaign where the topic hasn’t already been discussed potentially runs afoul of enjoyment and desires. It’s a hard right turn of railroading that’s diverging from the original tone. In the case where it’s not desired, the players view it as a speed bump, a series of pop up ads they have to silence before answering a captcha just to get back to what they were enjoying.

Should the players expect to be robbed of agency to sit through cutscenes before a quest is settled upon their shoulders? That’s an expectation to iron out in session 0. Is this a chivalrous game where it’s expected all crest bearing knights take one another captive for the glory of their lords, with defeat being a simple fade to black and a monetary deduction of their ransom? Is the opposition somehow cartoon lopsided incompetent where they capture the PCs but leave their escape pill in a child proof container?

Your awesome NPC might be the best thing of the year with whatever backstory and witty comments. Players can easily give him an OK COOL and wander off to stuff they actually are interested in. Put that NPC above the players in a capture situation and they’ve got no options, shut up sit down and better hope you enjoy the ride. Forcing players into undesired situations doesn’t get them upset at the game since it wasn’t anything mechanical or even part of the narrative dialogue. It gets them upset with the GM when events go too far or have long lasting adverse impacts without much in the way of foreshadowing.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I think that is probably the major disconnect of this thread.

I personally can't see how many people think it is more realistic for people to choose to choose go down in a blaze of glory rather than surrender when they are in over their head, but there it is.

I agree, while there are both stories of last stands and stories of escapes, both are the exception rather than the norm. However forces almost always prefer retreat to surrender, and surrender is the last possible option.

An escape arc is something that really only the player knows is coming as a consequence of surrender. Most people who are taken prisoner don't have an intent to escape when they're taken prisoner, because if you were going to attempt to escape, your best probability of doing so would be when you're fully armed and close to friendly lines [or at least closer than you'd be in a PoW camp]

And then, in general, willingness to surrender is based on an expectation of treatment as a prisoner. If you don't expect to be treated acceptably as a prisoner, you don't surrender. Generally, I don't think PC's would be expecting fair treatment as prisoners of war due to multiple factors, so it seems reasonable that they'd do everything they can to avoid capture.


In the realm of arrest by law enforcement, plenty of people have died in a shootout or taken their own life rather than go to jail if they know that what they've done will result in a life sentence, death sentence, or even just an unacceptably long stay in prison. Basically every time there's a mass shooting or bombing, it ends with the perpetrator either shooting themselves or getting shot.

[JoeJ]

Another common factor is that I guess typical D&D characters are suicidally brave and/or consider themselves superhuman IC, given how seldom they run away and how often thinking from a "normal person" headspace leads to "GTFO!" So another reason I'd not find it surprising for them to chance the odds in preference to surrender.

IME, surrender is not usually the way PCs become prisoners. I've seen PCs captured many times, from both sides of the GM screen, but I can only recall one instance where it happened because they surrendered. Every other time the party was either knocked out or caught in some sort of trap.

It should be remembered that in some systems, including all of the superhero games I'm familiar with, fighting to the death isn't a realistic possibility because the character will go unconscious or be incapacitated while they're still very much alive.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think what's throwing me here is that the examples keep going back and forth between "the police try to arrest you" type of scenarios and "you were fighting some people, started losing, then surrender" ones, which are IMO quite different and have different answers.

Personally, there's seldom a time when I would surrender that I would also fight first. Like, considering some modern-day setting scenarios, if playing a relatively normal person. Someone shouts "Hey you, get over here!":
* The cops - Probably surrender, maybe run, definitely not fight.
* Probably security guards (but no badges) at an industrial area where I'm trespassing - Possibly surrender, possibly run, still wouldn't fight unless things started seeming very fishy.
* Bunch of drunk guys, maybe starting **** maybe just loud - Run/walk away in preference, then see what they want, then maybe fight (but not lethally) depending.
* Probably criminals pointing toward an alley - Run away, if that fails then try to judge if this is just a mugging or something worse and surrender or fight accordingly.
* Probably criminals pointing towards a van (ie. kidnapping) - Run or fight, no way that surrender is going anywhere good.

The common factor in all of these - "fight to the death" is pretty much a last-resort thing. If we've even reached that then surrender has almost certainly been ruled out.

Another common factor is that I guess typical D&D characters are suicidally brave and/or consider themselves superhuman IC, given how seldom they run away and how often thinking from a "normal person" headspace leads to "GTFO!" So another reason I'd not find it surprising for them to chance the odds in preference to surrender.
This makes a lot of sense.

The choice between "surrender" and "fight to the death" basically never occurs. It's either "negotiate a surrender" or "fight" or "run". Then when you've already done significant fighting, the choice between "continue to fight" and "fighting escape", with an outside option of "surrender unconditionally". Once the fighting has started, you can no longer negotiate--it's unconditional surrender or nothing.

[Darth Credence]

This makes a lot of sense.

The choice between "surrender" and "fight to the death" basically never occurs. It's either "negotiate a surrender" or "fight" or "run". Then when you've already done significant fighting, the choice between "continue to fight" and "fighting escape", with an outside option of "surrender unconditionally". Once the fighting has started, you can no longer negotiate--it's unconditional surrender or nothing.

Why would one not be able to negotiate after the fighting has started? If one side is winning, but is losing a lot of people to do so, they may try to bring up something like 'drop the McGuffin and we'll let you walk away with your lives'. Or if one side knows that they've used up just about all of their magic, but they have done substantial damage to the enemy, they may try to use that as leverage to at least let some of their people go in exchange for the people they really want.

[icefractal]

Drop the McGuffin, let them pass, stop trying to get past them, those are all possible. That's not the kind of surrender that leads to being prisoners though. More like forms of negotiated retreat.

Like to go back to the examples I had, if the people trying to get me into an unmarked van are chasing me and shout "drop your wallet!" - sure, I'd probably do that, if I'm not confident of getting away otherwise. That's a lot different than agreeing to get in the van.

[Talakeal]

And then, in general, willingness to surrender is based on an expectation of treatment as a prisoner. If you don't expect to be treated acceptably as a prisoner, you don't surrender. Generally, I don't think PC's would be expecting fair treatment as prisoners of war due to multiple factors, so it seems reasonable that they'd do everything they can to avoid capture.

Way too many variables to say what is typical.

I can give some examples though:

I am currently playing a Mage game; my character is in a demographic that is likely to evoke sympathy rather than prejudice from the court, and also a member of the technocracy. If I get caught doing something illegal, short of murder or high treason, I can almost guarantee that making a plea deal or calling in a favor is the most realistic outcome.

Likewise, in the last game I ran the PCs were members of a noble house in a medieval setting during a declared war; there is no realistic reason why they should expect anything other than to be ransomed if they are taken prisoner.



In the realm of arrest by law enforcement, plenty of people have died in a shootout or taken their own life rather than go to jail if they know that what they've done will result in a life sentence, death sentence, or even just an unacceptably long stay in prison. Basically every time there's a mass shooting or bombing, it ends with the perpetrator either shooting themselves or getting shot.

Sure, but that is not the norm. There are many mass murderers who are taken alive, and most people who engage in such behavior are already suicidal and mentally disturbed. But even so, the idea that capital punishment is worse than life imprisonment is almost universal in human justice systems, so I can't see the argument that it is realistic to consider imprisonment to be worse than death to hold too much water.


Absolutely not. Less agency is not more agency.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Yes, characters are likely to be more... "inventive" when their primary shtick is demonstrably suboptimal. Or, rather, uninventive characters are likely to be forced to be more inventive; naturally inventive characters less so.

But reducing agency does not increase agency. It merely railroads the characters into being forced to use a broader section of their toolkit than they might otherwise be inclined to do.


Then we have a fundamentally different view of the world. That probably also explains why we disagree in the magic vs martial debate and several other things.

For me, being overpowered is just plain boring. Playing a video game with the cheat codes on or on beginner difficulty, or playing a monty haul RPG or an unrestrained T1 caster in 3.5, is just a grind, there is no thought, no decision making, no creativity, just an endless slog to the end.


No.

I have seen plenty of characters being caught and thus leave the game forever. Most of them in Shadowrun. But there have been others where escape was too unlikely/ the rest of the group did not attempt any rescue and a new character was rolled.

I would say, of characters caught over all the years, maybe a third left the game forever this way.



But "leaving the game when imprisoned" is not ever an IG reason to fight to the death instead.

Wow, yeah, if that is your experience I can see never wanting to surrender.

And these are characters that the players want to continue playing? Its not just a convenient excuse to swap out a boring character to try something new?

If so, it sounds like your GM and / or fellow players are kind of jerks.

I think if I was in such a group I would passive aggressively just keep playing my character in prison and force the rest of the group to split the party until they took the hint; but that is probably not the healthy way to deal with such a situation.


IME, surrender is not usually the way PCs become prisoners. I've seen PCs captured many times, from both sides of the GM screen, but I can only recall one instance where it happened because they surrendered. Every other time the party was either knocked out or caught in some sort of trap.

It should be remembered that in some systems, including all of the superhero games I'm familiar with, fighting to the death isn't a realistic possibility because the character will go unconscious or be incapacitated while they're still very much alive.

Same here; but you still get the same experience of the players doing everything in their power to argue against it and cry railroading.


This makes a lot of sense.

The choice between "surrender" and "fight to the death" basically never occurs. It's either "negotiate a surrender" or "fight" or "run". Then when you've already done significant fighting, the choice between "continue to fight" and "fighting escape", with an outside option of "surrender unconditionally". Once the fighting has started, you can no longer negotiate--it's unconditional surrender or nothing.

I don't see why.

I have negotiated terms of surrender several times in game after the battle started, and it seems to be fairly common on television and in military history.

[Quertus]

Then we have a fundamentally different view of the world. That probably also explains why we disagree in the magic vs martial debate and several other things.

For me, being overpowered is just plain boring. Playing a video game with the cheat codes on or on beginner difficulty, or playing a monty haul RPG or an unrestrained T1 caster in 3.5, is just a grind, there is no thought, no decision making, no creativity, just an endless slog to the end.

First response: this feels like a lot of "one thing has nothing to do with the other".

Second pass: … nope, being overpowered has absolutely nothing to do with the quoted text.

I don't want to try to guess what you actually mean, or how it might relate to what I actually said, for fear of building my house out of straw.

So, care to try again to reply to what I said in a way that I can understand what your point is, and how it relates to my position? Because, while I'll not deny the possibility that we might have fundamentally different views of the world, I cannot relate your words to my view on the world, and so must conclude that either we're falling to communicate, or you're tilting at windmills here.

(As an aside, if you do try to explain, and your next iteration also requires referencing previous conversations, you may need to refresh my senile memory what you're referencing)

For reference, my position is "decreasing options reduces agency, even in the case where doing so increases the (likelihood of a higher) number of distinct responses being given."

And you fundamentally disagree with this because…?

[Talakeal]

(Also, as an aside, a GM requesting "Don't build a character who is suicidally stupid and gets the party into trouble" is a great example of poor communication if they expect that that request will in any way create a character more likely to surrender.)

How so?

Going out in a blaze of glory against a superior enemy after they offer a chance to surrender (and you have no reason to believe its a trick) seems to be extremely reckless and / or suicidal to me.


For reference, my position is "decreasing options reduces agency, even in the case where doing so increases the (likelihood of a higher) number of distinct responses being given."

And you fundamentally disagree with this because…?

Its not about number of options, its about the disparity in power between the options. If you have one option that is clearly optimal in most every situation, then you really only have a single option.

Imagine, for example, if Batman had the power to simply snap his fingers and teleport his villains to jail. If he didn't use this power in 99% of situations, he is just being an idiot and putting innocent people at risk for the sake of playing around and / or showing off. But the comic would be very boring, and Batman would be a very one dimensional character. As is, sometimes he uses martial arts, sometimes he used a gizmo, sometimes he uses stealth, sometimes he uses diplomacy, sometimes he calls in an ally, etc.

It is the same in RPGs, especially in D&D where character classes tend to do one thing really well and everything else is kind of an afterthought. If you take away that "one thing" they suddenly have a whole lot more options as they are all on a more or less even playing field.

[JoeJ]

Same here; but you still get the same experience of the players doing everything in their power to argue against it and cry railroading.

I've never seen anybody cry railroading just because they lost a fight or got caught in a trap that they could have avoided. I wouldn't keep playing with people who do that very often.

[Pex]

Sure, but that is not the norm. There are many mass murderers who are taken alive, and most people who engage in such behavior are already suicidal and mentally disturbed. But even so, the idea that capital punishment is worse than life imprisonment is almost universal in human justice systems, so I can't see the argument that it is realistic to consider imprisonment to be worse than death to hold too much water.




It's not unusual in many stories for the BBEG to kill himself rather than be taken prisoner, so it's not unusual for people to prefer death over imprisonment.
Sometimes the Hero is successful in preventing the suicide, sometimes not. If the BBEG doesn't want to be taken to Good Guy's version of Prison, how less so would PCs want to be taken to Bad Guy's version of Prison. If the PCs are the bad guys in the campaign . . .

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't see why.

I have negotiated terms of surrender several times in game after the battle started, and it seems to be fairly common on television and in military history.
It is not common for a battle to end with negotiation while the fighting is going on, if only because it's bloody hard to talk to the enemy commander across an active battlefield. Retreat is common, ceasefire-plus-negotiation happens, negotiating with the defeated commander is common (but that's not so much "terms of surrender" as it is "working out the political consequences of your defeat"), and sieges do often end by negotiating surrender terms for the defenders. The latter is rather helped by the defenders knowing that once the walls are taken, they will not be treated well. Besieging armies tend to feel that if you didn't surrender before they did all the hard work taking your walls, you've had your chance, and they're going to do some looting and killing while you overthink your life's choices. Seriously. Losing a siege sucks. It's almost like a D&D encounter.

Negotiating terms during combat requires a great deal of trust on both sides. Lord so-and-so gets to propose a ceasefire and negotiate because he's a political factor, he worships Pelor (like his opponent), and he's got his reputation and the well-being/future usability of his remaining army to think of, so he's more or less forced to "do the right thing" (he's more predictable, in a way). In addition, lords tend to have a bit of distance to the fighting. Though their armies just fought, they may be quite polite at the negotiating table--battle isn't necessarily personal. That sort of relation is not going to exist between adventurers and an EL + 2 encounter. Robbie the Rogue, however brave and heroic, doesn't command quite the same level of respect as a general, and after three rounds of sneak attack, it's getting reaaal hard for St. Cuthbert's inquisitors to trust him.

In addition, there's just the timing issue. A battle can take hours, which is plenty of time for a cease-fire and some diplomacy. RPG encounters tend to be much shorter. D&D, in particular, tends to have fast, highly lethal fights--typically under a minute with one to ten dead--and it's hard to imagine you can fit a cease-fire in the middle of that.

[Quertus]

How so?

Going out in a blaze of glory against a superior enemy after they offer a chance to surrender (and you have no reason to believe its a trick) seems to be extremely reckless and / or suicidal to me.

Because you're looking at it from the wrong PoV.

You are asking them to craft a personality to particular specifications. And that's perfectly reasonable.

Your request will likely rule out "Leroy Jenkins" personalities, or Abu, or anyone who will *actively endanger* the party.

But what someone does once the post is already endangered is largely outside the bounds of your request. Anything that is remotely reasonable - including fighting to the death - does not logically follow as banned.

In fact, a noob who constantly flees from danger / surrenders / tries to avoid violence may well be lethally problematic for your standard D&D pay


Its not about number of options, its about the disparity in power between the options. If you have one option that is clearly optimal in most every situation, then you really only have a single option.

Imagine, for example, if Batman had the power to simply snap his fingers and teleport his villains to jail. If he didn't use this power in 99% of situations, he is just being an idiot and putting innocent people at risk for the sake of playing around and / or showing off. But the comic would be very boring, and Batman would be a very one dimensional character. As is, sometimes he uses martial arts, sometimes he used a gizmo, sometimes he uses stealth, sometimes he uses diplomacy, sometimes he calls in an ally, etc.

It is the same in RPGs, especially in D&D where character classes tend to do one thing really well and everything else is kind of an afterthought. If you take away that "one thing" they suddenly have a whole lot more options as they are all on a more or less even playing field.

Ah. Hmmm…

"Why doesn't Voltron always open with 'form blazing sword'?"

That's definitely a problem, and one worthy of its own thread.

But it's… not something that changes what words mean.

Right now, you have the agency to type any words.

If your "a" key stops working, you'll need to be much more inventive in writing. But you'll no longer have the agency to type "agency". Your creativity and net word usage may increase, but your agency has decreased.

So, what about obviously superior options?

The only way I can see removing them to increase agency is in the case of the Determinator, who simply *cannot* choose a suboptimal option.

Providing diverse content that allows the player to showcase all facets of their character is a good thing. (Well, forcing it feels forced, and is a bad thing, IMO.) But saying "you're not allowed to X here" is still curtailing their agency.

Take, for example, an übercharger.

Providing difficult terrain is reasonable; forcing them to be unable to charge despite having picked up an item that allows them to charge through difficult terrain is not.

Providing a flying opponent is reasonable; forcing them to not use their flying mount to charge that flying opponent is not.

Maybe, despite a really rich set of content, they never once open combat with anything other than a charge that turns their foe into a fine red mist. And that says something about their character. You gave them the opportunity to show just how well prepared and competent they were.

You don't *need* to force them out of their groove. Don't take away their accomplishments. Let them be… whatever they are. Create something that will allow them to showcase just what that is. (And be a fan of the PCs - let them showcase their "better selves").

And yes, IMO, a character who has and displays more than a single tool is more fun for me. Quertus throws shuriken and sketches monsters/dwoemers rather than just spamming spells. Armus… moves to protect someone with better defenses than himself, and has only used each of his 3 "biggest guns" once each. I consider creating a character that the player will find fun to play (in my case, one that readily displays many tools from their toolkit) is as much a matter of player skill as it is GM skill in creating a rich environment.

(Most GMs lacking that skill (at least, at the level I desire) for *role-playing* encounters, I prefer to run my characters under multiple GMs, in order to really feel them out under the full gamut of stimulus.)

[Talakeal]

The only way I can see removing them to increase agency is in the case of the Determinator, who simply *cannot* choose a suboptimal option.

Providing diverse content that allows the player to showcase all facets of their character is a good thing. (Well, forcing it feels forced, and is a bad thing, IMO.) But saying "you're not allowed to X here" is still curtailing their agency.

Take, for example, an übercharger.

Providing difficult terrain is reasonable; forcing them to be unable to charge despite having picked up an item that allows them to charge through difficult terrain is not.

Providing a flying opponent is reasonable; forcing them to not use their flying mount to charge that flying opponent is not.

Maybe, despite a really rich set of content, they never once open combat with anything other than a charge that turns their foe into a fine red mist. And that says something about their character. You gave them the opportunity to show just how well prepared and competent they were.

You don't *need* to force them out of their groove. Don't take away their accomplishments. Let them be… whatever they are. Create something that will allow them to showcase just what that is. (And be a fan of the PCs - let them showcase their "better selves").

IMO, uber-chargers are bad characters. They turn combat into binary affairs, either you can charge and win or can't charge and do more or less nothing. In either case, somebody contributed nothing to the fight and is bored.

I wouldn't recommend an uber-charger as a character, but if you have one I would recommend varying the environments as much as possible to try and ring what little diversity there is out of the class.

And if someone a way to build an uber-charger who somehow ignores all of the restrictions and just one-shots everything, then no, that is not a fun character for anyone at the table in almost all cases except in the extreme short term.

And again, this may be where we come to a fundamental disagreement. I think that the GMs job, maybe the most important job, is to keep things new and interesting, on both a mechanical and narrative level, and an important tool in doing that is occasionally throwing out a session where the standard tools don't work and the standard power dynamic is shaken up, jailbreak scenarios are one way (but far from the only way or even the best way) of accomplishing this.


Providing difficult terrain is reasonable; forcing them to be unable to charge despite having picked up an item that allows them to charge through difficult terrain is not.

Providing a flying opponent is reasonable; forcing them to not use their flying mount to charge that flying opponent is not.

Is anyone arguing that arbitrarily taking away abilities for no reason is a good thing? That is certainly not my position. Just to clarify, do you think it is?


Ah. Hmmm…

"Why doesn't Voltron always open with 'form blazing sword'?"

That's definitely a problem, and one worthy of its own thread.

But it's… not something that changes what words mean.

Right now, you have the agency to type any words.

If your "a" key stops working, you'll need to be much more inventive in writing. But you'll no longer have the agency to type "agency". Your creativity and net word usage may increase, but your agency has decreased.

Are we arguing semantics here? Because I don't think agency is a good word to do such about, as the dictionary definition "the capacity to act or exert power:" is woefully brief and lacking in context for the current discussion, and we would need to establish our own working definition within the context of gaming.

For me, a very important part of player agency is making meaningful decisions. If you give the players to, for example, go left or right, but don't give them any information about what might lie in those directions, that isn't agency, it is a choice without meaning.

Likewise, if there is one clearly optimal choice, that isn't agency either.

IMO, to use a very simple analogy:

Say you have four spells, magic missile for 1d6 force damage, shocking grasp for 1d6 electric damage, chill touch for 1d6 cold damage, and burning hangs for 5d6 fire damage.

Now, in this scenario, you only have 1 meaningful choice here; the latter spell which simply does more damage.

But, if you are fighting an enemy who is immune to fire, you now have three meaningful choices, the loss of an option has increased agency.

Not the best example, but I hope I got my meaning across.


To use another example, World of Warcraft tries to have non-comparable things as talents because they recognize that anything that can be mathed out will mean that there is a right choice and a wrong choice, aka no choice at all. So they will try and have related things with no mathematical way to compare them, for example: +5% movement speed, +10% movement speed that is only active half the time, or immunity to slowing effects.[/QUOTE]


Because you're looking at it from the wrong PoV.

You are asking them to craft a personality to particular specifications. And that's perfectly reasonable.

Your request will likely rule out "Leroy Jenkins" personalities, or Abu, or anyone who will *actively endanger* the party.

But what someone does once the post is already endangered is largely outside the bounds of your request. Anything that is remotely reasonable - including fighting to the death - does not logically follow as banned.

In fact, a noob who constantly flees from danger / surrenders / tries to avoid violence may well be lethally problematic for your standard D&D pay.

The idea is that players are expected to keep in character and to play a character who has a reason to go along on the adventure and go together with the party.

Neither someone who surrenders at the first opportunity or who always fights to the death is ideal; but what I will put my foot down about is solving OOC issues with IC reasoning, for example refusing to surrender when it is clearly the optimal chance of survival, when neither victory or escape seem at all likely, but deciding to fight to the death anyway because you would rather roll a new character OOC than suffer a setback.

What I am NOT talking about players having a different tactical assessment than the GM, specifically making a character with a suboptimal personality quirk and playing appropriately, or (especially) demanding a character ignore their motivations for the sake of going along with a railroad (although again, there is a line where "but I am just making my character" as an excuse to disrupt the game shouldn't be tolerated, I really wish I could find the giant articles that used to be on the sidebar here).



I've never seen anybody cry railroading just because they lost a fight or got caught in a trap that they could have avoided. I wouldn't keep playing with people who do that very often.

In my experience railroading arguments occur when one side or the other starts making excuses for why something should / shouldn't occur.

For example:

GM: After being knocked out, you wake up in a cell.
Player: I teleport out with my teleportation ring.
GM: You don't have a teleportation ring.
Player: Yes I do, I bought one last month.
GM: The enemy guards searched you and confiscated it.
Player: I swallowed it.
GM: The guards gave you an x-ray and force fed you a tonic which made you throw it up.
Player: I have built up an immunity to all such tonics.
GM: Not this one, its a super tonic. Besides, you are in a special cell that blocks all teleportation.

And so on...

Now, sometimes these arguments are in good faith, sometimes they aren't, and it gets really nasty when people start accusing one another of retconning and / or lying about it, but this is still the general structure of how they tend to go at my table.

[Vahnavoi]

So, what about obviously superior options?

The only way I can see removing them to increase agency is in the case of the Determinator, who simply *cannot* choose a suboptimal option.

This is a question that's repeatedly asked and solved in context of even remotely competitive games, such as Pokemon.

I'll be using Pokemon as an example, simply because it's well known. You can just go to Smogon (etc.) if you feel like double-checking what I say.

In the original games, there are 151 Pokemon, of which you can choose and field 6. Of these, Mewtwo is the strongest by a wide margin. If Mewtwo is allowed, then both players have to field Mewtwo, and the game revolves around Mewtwo and just a handful of other Pokemon capable of countering it. The rest don't matter, because Mewtwo steamrolls them all.

Disallow Mewtwo, and the pool of viable Pokemon increases, as does team variety because now Mewtwo isn't eating both players' 6th team slot.

The same phenomenom can happen, and happens, with tabletop games. If "Obviously Superior" options are superior enough, they obviate options they trump not just on the side the player using them is on, but on the side opposing them, reducing overall variety and agency in the game.

[OldTrees1]

This is a question that's repeatedly asked and solved in context of even remotely competitive games, such as Pokemon.

Of course we also see counter examples in casual games. In most MtG EDH/Commander games, the players have made many suboptimal (with regard to power) choices before even starting the game. And they might make more midgame as well. Now some of this is explained by non comparables. However that explanation in itself is a counter example.

When it comes to PC choices, there are numerous non comparables that could interrupt the "dominance" of the "superior" option. On the other hand, sometimes those non comparables are not enough to interrupt the dominance of the superior option.


When fighting a horde of undead the wizard might avoid using 5d6 fire and instead use 1d6 cold for any number of reasons. Maybe they are a necromancer so prefer to use cold and necrotic, even if it is less damage. However if you make the situation desperate enough the necromancer might be faced with using fire or failing to save someone. That is still agency but I can see how it could be described as decreased in those edge cases.

[Quertus]

Note: I tried to go back and change all use of 'you' (person in general) to 'GMs', but I probably missed some.


IMO, uber-chargers are bad characters. They turn combat into binary affairs, either you can charge and win or can't charge and do more or less nothing. In either case, somebody contributed nothing to the fight and is bored.

Well, this is a whole lot of issues. Let's see how much I can untangle them.

First off, this is a content issue. Against single foes, yes, what you said is true. Against 30 orcs, however, it is not. If a GM finds their encounters are all samey, single-foe affairs, then they should up their GMing skills, and provide more diverse content, so that a fully functional battle station übercharger does not consistently produce the results that you describe.

Then there's the notion of shine / participate / thumb twiddle. I'm generally a fan of most combats, most characters getting to "participate". But my BDH party was full of Shine, and it was great, too. If the player has produced a character which has either failed to balance to the table, or to meet the group's style guidelines, then this merits an OOC conversation (and, likely, a revisit to the Session 0 style guidelines, which, honestly, almost no groups ever think to write until after it has been an issue).

I think that those are the two main ones.


I wouldn't recommend an uber-charger as a character, but if you have one I would recommend varying the environments as much as possible to try and ring what little diversity there is out of the class.

This kind of thinking puts the complaints of your previous players in a different light.

This is why I encourage the creation and "publication" (placing in a sealed envelope) of the adventure in module form, to demonstrate that the GM isn't cheating just to **** over the characters.

(This is also why I encourage GMs upping their GMing skills, to just naturally produce varied content even before seeing what the party is.)


And if someone a way to build an uber-charger who somehow ignores all of the restrictions and just one-shots everything, then no, that is not a fun character for anyone at the table in almost all cases except in the extreme short term.

I mean, clearly we play at different tables. Vaporizing only a single opponent (and, often, only on the first turn of combat) has been... quite fun in many of my parties.

Granted, in the BDH party, the DPS was a bit lower than true übercharger range, so big foes would usually survive about half the party before turning into a fine red mist chunky red salsa.


And again, this may be where we come to a fundamental disagreement. I think that the GMs job, maybe the most important job, is to keep things new and interesting, on both a mechanical and narrative level,

Not, IMO, the most important, but... sure, sounds reasonable.


and an important tool in doing that is occasionally throwing out a session where the standard tools don't work and the standard power dynamic is shaken up,

Eh, no.

But let me step back, and remove the word "Important". And, heck, ignore "tool" and "session" for a moment, too.

Does a scenario where standard tools don't work...
Does a scenario where the standard power dynamic is shaken up...
... make things interesting...
... on a mechanical level?
... on a narrative level?

Hmmm... it can. Or this change can be mechanically and narratively uninteresting. Or even mechanically and/or narratively bad in numerous ways.

I would say that this sounds like a very dangerous tool, one ill-suited to this purpose.

Discussions of what tools might be good for this purpose would probably be its own thread.


jailbreak scenarios are one way (but far from the only way or even the best way) of accomplishing this.

Jailbreak scenarios are certainly one way to make standard tools "greyed out", and to shake up the power dynamic. They are simply too high risk, low reward to be used willy-nilly.


Is anyone arguing that arbitrarily taking away abilities for no reason is a good thing? That is certainly not my position. Just to clarify, do you think it is?

Thank you for giving me to opportunity to clarify what I meant.

If a GM creates an adventure with thick woods, icy mountain passes, crumbling temples, etc, that's cool scenery. If that GM has those involve lots of terrain obstacles, that's translating the fiction to the mechanics. If the GM chooses those with the *intent* of giving the players / PCs obstacles to overcome, that's cool, and.... what were your words... well, it sounds like a great way to try to keep things interesting on a mechanical level.

If one PC - or even the whole party - happens to be immune to these terrain obstacles, then instead of providing that mechanical challenge, the GM including these simply highlights their competence and preparedness along this particular vector.

If that GM then responds by including *more* obstacles - ones tailored specifically to hinder these particular PCs (antimagic blizzard hurricane, ha!) - just to *force* the PCs to play their "be hindered" minigame, that undercuts the players' choices to run prepared characters.

And, obviously, neither of us are fans of "you're hindered because I say so" GMs.


Are we arguing semantics here?

Yes, I believe we are.


For me, a very important part of player agency is making meaningful decisions. If you give the players to, for example, go left or right, but don't give them any information about what might lie in those directions, that isn't agency, it is a choice without meaning.

If they have no capacity to gain information (even by sending skeletons wearing red shirts in one direction or the other first), then yes, they lack agency (even if another party *could* have agency at this intersection). Which means that whether or not a decision is meaningful is not entirely on the GM's shoulders.


Likewise, if there is one clearly optimal choice, that isn't agency either.

IMO, to use a very simple analogy:

Say you have four spells, magic missile for 1d6 force damage, shocking grasp for 1d6 electric damage, chill touch for 1d6 cold damage, and burning hangs for 5d6 fire damage.

Now, in this scenario, you only have 1 meaningful choice here; the latter spell which simply does more damage.

But, if you are fighting an enemy who is immune to fire, you now have three meaningful choices, the loss of an option has increased agency.

Not the best example, but I hope I got my meaning across.

Semantics: you have a choice either way, but only one "real" option under the initial scenario. That out of the way,

Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, often takes these "suboptimal" options. The reason is that he is operating in a world of imperfect information. He throws shuriken at monsters to attempt to divine the nature of their protections (AC). In fact, his most traded custom spell, "Quertus' Spell Star", is explicitly designed for gaining such information, as it strikes the target with 5 different elements (and explicitly reports back on the effectiveness of each).

Armus constantly employs highly suboptimal moves, because it is the optimal tactic - in part because he is playing the information game, and those attempting to learn about him will almost certainly fail.

However, when told "never play an ace when a deuce will do", one of my characters responded, "never play a deuce when you have an unlimited supply of aces". So I am not unfamiliar with the mindset.

It's just... why make the game boring for yourself?

Now, if you *like* pressing the same button over and over again... then the GM forcing you to press other buttons won't exactly be well received.

So... it's a dance. There's give and take. There is some extent to which the GM should vary the content, to allow the player to showcase the full extent of their character. But, at the same time, there's limits to how far out of their comfort zone they should force the players. And that balance will vary by player.

That probably didn't make as much sense as I intended. But I think you used a "walking a tightrope" metaphor earlier, so maybe you can see what I'm trying to say. If not, I'll revisit it later.


To use another example, World of Warcraft tries to have non-comparable things as talents because they recognize that anything that can be mathed out will mean that there is a right choice and a wrong choice, aka no choice at all. So they will try and have related things with no mathematical way to compare them, for example: +5% movement speed, +10% movement speed that is only active half the time, or immunity to slowing effects.

Yeah, this is definite Determinator territory here. Whereas I enjoy playing a Sentient Potted Plant alongside Not!Thor for peat moss's sake. In an RPG, I feel no impetus to be purely optimized to perfection.

As you strongly push Challenge... well, actually, you might have players who think that way, or you might be blind to the fact that you *don't* have players who think that way (Loki knows I sure have been blind to certain playstyle differences).

Point being, while this is an important consideration for a certain playstyle, that isn't the only valid playstyle.


The idea is that players are expected to keep in character and to play a character who has a reason to go along on the adventure and go together with the party.

Neither someone who surrenders at the first opportunity or who always fights to the death is ideal; but what I will put my foot down about is solving OOC issues with IC reasoning, for example refusing to surrender when it is clearly the optimal chance of survival, when neither victory or escape seem at all likely, but deciding to fight to the death anyway because you would rather roll a new character OOC than suffer a setback.

... I'm not sure that the bolded bit is what you wanted to say?

Aversion to "suffering a setback" could be its own thread; aversion specifically to prison seems to be the thrust of this particular thread.

Liking vs disliking the idea of getting a character killed in order to not cause problems with the group (splitting the party, playing through a prison scenario, etc) is a valid dichotomy of playstyle preferences. I certainly won't fault you for which side of that line you fall on. (I'll just word my response to show the bias of the opposed mindset, so that you can see where they're coming from instead of potentially thinking that they're just problem players who want to have BadWrongFun).


What I am NOT talking about players having a different tactical assessment than the GM, specifically making a character with a suboptimal personality quirk and playing appropriately, or (especially) demanding a character ignore their motivations for the sake of going along with a railroad (although again, there is a line where "but I am just making my character" as an excuse to disrupt the game shouldn't be tolerated, I really wish I could find the giant articles that used to be on the sidebar here).

I "grew up on" "Roleplaying is good, Metagaming is bad", that would have considered "My Guy" to be the path to sainthood. So, if anything, you'd be preaching to the (reformed) choir here. :smallredface:

That said, I also thoroughly disagreed with the Giant's article, so that would be the very wrong way to bring up something where I already ostensibly agree with you.

However, I think where we're having some disconnect may be... close to... the related notions of "characters who fit together at character creation, but have grown apart" and "good vs good - how two good characters can be morally justified to disagree, perhaps violently".

But it is also related to... hmmm... there's got to be better words for this... a disconnect between what different people see as the correct way to metagame for cooperation. Sometimes, people play characters as especially brave or heroic, because they believe that that's what's expected of them... only to suffer a TPK for their stupidity. Sometimes, people play along with the Questgiver, to keep the game running quickly, because they believe that that's what's expected of them... only to be stabbed in the back by the twist that they should have investigated.

Ugh. Again I'm not making as much sense as I should be. Maybe another day I'll be able to communicate more clearly.

[JoeJ]

In my experience railroading arguments occur when one side or the other starts making excuses for why something should / shouldn't occur.

For example:

GM: After being knocked out, you wake up in a cell.
Player: I teleport out with my teleportation ring.
GM: You don't have a teleportation ring.
Player: Yes I do, I bought one last month.
GM: The enemy guards searched you and confiscated it.
Player: I swallowed it.
GM: The guards gave you an x-ray and force fed you a tonic which made you throw it up.
Player: I have built up an immunity to all such tonics.
GM: Not this one, its a super tonic. Besides, you are in a special cell that blocks all teleportation.

And so on...

Now, sometimes these arguments are in good faith, sometimes they aren't, and it gets really nasty when people start accusing one another of retconning and / or lying about it, but this is still the general structure of how they tend to go at my table.

It doesn't sound like there's a lot of maturity on either side of that conversation, but the GM needs to make a decision and refuse to argue about it. Further discussion about whether or not it was the right call can wait until after the game, when the other players aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

[Talakeal]

snip.

Not going to respond to each individual point, but I think its safe to say we are more or less on the same page here.

I am also fine playing a "potted plant", but a lot of players are really competitive. I have seen a lot of instances where one player gets mad and leaves the group because someone else's character overshadows theirs, and I have also seen a lot of players bullying other people who don't "pull their weight". One of the common issues in my "horror stories" is players getting mad and throwing a fit when they lose and then looking to blame someone, and I can guarantee that a potted plant is going to look like a bullseye to them.

To use an example from outside of Bizarro world, there was a thread on this forum a couple of years ago about someone who made a cleric who had a fear of crowds as part of their backstory, and refused to charge into the middle of a zombie horde to turn them. And the other players then turned on her for not being able to do what they considered a cleric's duty.


I don't actually remember the specifics of The Giant's article (although I remember strongly disagreeing with parts of it); but the takeaway was that player's should look for reasons why their character might go along with the party / game rather than looking for reasons why they wouldn't.

Basically, a smooth / fun game and being true to the verisimilitude of the setting are both goals in RPGs, and you should try and make sure they align as much as possible. What I was saying is totally unacceptable is doing the opposite; essentially looking for excuses to betray the party or disrupt the plot.



It doesn't sound like there's a lot of maturity on either side of that conversation, but the GM needs to make a decision and refuse to argue about it. Further discussion about whether or not it was the right call can wait until after the game, when the other players aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

It isn't very mature, I agree.

Normally though, it starts with a disconnect in what one side considers reasonable, and then both sides simply dig in their heels and get less reasonable as time goes on.

A classic one in my groups though, is the party trying to logic their PCs out of the adventure; for example "Elminster" will hire them to scout out a goblin warren, and the party will ask him why he doesn't do it himself. Now, the OOC reason is because then there would be no game and no role for the party, but I have to come up with increasingly flimsy reasons for why he can't do it himself.

[icefractal]

I don't actually remember the specifics of The Giant's article (although I remember strongly disagreeing with parts of it); but the takeaway was that player's should look for reasons why their character might go along with the party / game rather than looking for reasons why they wouldn't.
The "Choose to React Differently" one?
I have mixed feelings on that. I mostly agree, but there are some cases where characters clash too much with other characters or the direction the campaign has gone, and it would be better to switch to a new character that can be played wholeheartedly rather than a kludge with the personality sucked out.


A classic one in my groups though, is the party trying to logic their PCs out of the adventure; for example "Elminster" will hire them to scout out a goblin warren, and the party will ask him why he doesn't do it himself. Now, the OOC reason is because then there would be no game and no role for the party, but I have to come up with increasingly flimsy reasons for why he can't do it himself.
While of course GM's aren't always perfect, and I wouldn't fault someone for a clumsy hook, I think you'd agree that it's better when the premise does make sense? This one is an easy fix too - don't use quest-givers who are personally capable of doing the whole thing with one hand behind their back.

"Elminster? No, you misheard, I'm the Elf Minister.
As in, the minister in charge of diplomat relations with the Elven kingdoms.
And I'm not going to personally fight those goblins because I'm an elderly 6th level Aristocrat with Con 7."

[Talakeal]

The "Choose to React Differently" one?
I have mixed feelings on that. I mostly agree, but there are some cases where characters clash too much with other characters or the direction the campaign has gone, and it would be better to switch to a new character that can be played wholeheartedly rather than a kludge with the personality sucked out.

That is probably the one, I don't remember all of the details of the article either, just that I disagreed with some of it and agreed with some of it. But it was many years ago, and I wish I could find where it went after the site redesign so I can quote it directly.


While of course GM's aren't always perfect, and I wouldn't fault someone for a clumsy hook, I think you'd agree that it's better when the premise does make sense? This one is an easy fix too - don't use quest-givers who are personally capable of doing the whole thing with one hand behind their back.

"Elminster? No, you misheard, I'm the Elf Minister.
As in, the minister in charge of diplomat relations with the Elven kingdoms.
And I'm not going to personally fight those goblins because I'm an elderly 6th level Aristocrat with Con 7."

That's the idea, but as a GM I don't always think of everything and sometimes need to resort to post hoc rationalizations.

Some times I also have the opposite problem; I come up with so many reasons why the quest giver can't do it themselves and had to resort to hiring adventurers, that it looks like I am shooting down the PCs plans.

[Quertus]

Not going to respond to each individual point, but I think its safe to say we are more or less on the same page here.

Seems likely. :smallwink:


I am also fine playing a "potted plant", but a lot of players are really competitive. I have seen a lot of instances where one player gets mad and leaves the group because someone else's character overshadows theirs, and I have also seen a lot of players bullying other people who don't "pull their weight". One of the common issues in my "horror stories" is players getting mad and throwing a fit when they lose and then looking to blame someone, and I can guarantee that a potted plant is going to look like a bullseye to them.

Yeah, I... think a thread on "building a good gaming environment" would be most beneficial to you. Me running a potted plant is no small part of my version of cultivating a good gaming environment: when the other player see that the guy who can build something that can roflstomp the guy who came in and didn't grok "balance to the table" can also have fun playing a sentient potted plant, it helps push people away from the more toxic forms of Competition.

Although my senile mind cannot remember an instance of it occurring in my past off hand (senility willing, I'll keep thinking about it), I'm sure I would have loved having your players try to "blame" me for a "loss". :smallamused:


To use an example from outside of Bizarro world, there was a thread on this forum a couple of years ago about someone who made a cleric who had a fear of crowds as part of their backstory, and refused to charge into the middle of a zombie horde to turn them. And the other players then turned on her for not being able to do what they considered a cleric's duty.

I'm still a fan of the story of the RSoP who didn't heal (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?499590-Dealing-with-an-entitled-hissy-fitter).

The idea of "everyone has a role to play" is a fine one, in and of itself. And, once everyone is on the same page about and accepts those roles, one can then make commentary about a character's performance in that role.

However, when some Harry Potter espy (foolishly / suboptimally, IMO) tries to claim the "opens locked doors" role, just assuming that it is their right, while the Rogue just assumes that that role is their right, you get problems. Just as neither is justified in assuming that the other has "Roguish Charm" or "Charm spells" as their niche. Niches are not, IMO, inherent to a character - like all things (such as the thread namesake), they're things which should be discussed, not assumed.


I don't actually remember the specifics of The Giant's article (although I remember strongly disagreeing with parts of it); but the takeaway was that player's should look for reasons why their character might go along with the party / game rather than looking for reasons why they wouldn't.

Basically, a smooth / fun game and being true to the verisimilitude of the setting are both goals in RPGs, and you should try and make sure they align as much as possible. What I was saying is totally unacceptable is doing the opposite; essentially looking for excuses to betray the party or disrupt the plot.

My railroad sense is tingling. I cannot accept the bolded part.

There are certainly things that players can do to be disruptive. They can be disruptive to the group. They can be disruptive to the party. They can be disruptive to another PC's goals or even (per your doctor story) another PC's spotlight time.

But so long as none of those (or a technically longer but similar list) is true, they should be given carte blanche with "the plot".

My opinion on the matter that we are discussing here and the Giant's article attempted to address is that it behoove the player to Metagame the consequences / response to their intended action, and, if negative, a) see if there is an in-character option that is better; b) if not, bring up the issue to resolve with the group OOC.

[King of Nowhere]

If a GM creates an adventure with thick woods, icy mountain passes, crumbling temples, etc, that's cool scenery. If that GM has those involve lots of terrain obstacles, that's translating the fiction to the mechanics. If the GM chooses those with the *intent* of giving the players / PCs obstacles to overcome, that's cool, and.... what were your words... well, it sounds like a great way to try to keep things interesting on a mechanical level.

If one PC - or even the whole party - happens to be immune to these terrain obstacles, then instead of providing that mechanical challenge, the GM including these simply highlights their competence and preparedness along this particular vector.

If that GM then responds by including *more* obstacles - ones tailored specifically to hinder these particular PCs (antimagic blizzard hurricane, ha!) - just to *force* the PCs to play their "be hindered" minigame, that undercuts the players' choices to run prepared characters.

And, obviously, neither of us are fans of "you're hindered because I say so" GMs.


I was writing a post about how, when you're throwing surmountable difficulties to your players, you're not really throwing difficulties at all, but then i realized we're all basically on the same side, and we're mostly arguing sematics. stilistic differences, at most.

[Quertus]

I was writing a post about how, when you're throwing surmountable difficulties to your players, you're not really throwing difficulties at all, but then i realized we're all basically on the same side, and we're mostly arguing sematics. stilistic differences, at most.

It's an obstacle, but it's not an obstacle for him. Surmountable difficulties help showcase characters' capabilities, and are a healthy part of this nutritious breakfast gaming.

[Satinavian]

Wow, yeah, if that is your experience I can see never wanting to surrender.

And these are characters that the players want to continue playing? Its not just a convenient excuse to swap out a boring character to try something new?

If so, it sounds like your GM and / or fellow players are kind of jerks.

I think if I was in such a group I would passive aggressively just keep playing my character in prison and force the rest of the group to split the party until they took the hint; but that is probably not the healthy way to deal with such a situation.
It is just the "versimilitude trumps all" mindset. It is really rare that prisoners can escape and most players don't expect the chances for PCs are higher than those of other people in similar situations. And the GM, running the world as impartial and plausible as possible feels no reason to make escape any easier than for other people.

As for not rescuing, there are some cases where the other PCs never liked the imprisoned ones anyway, but most of the time it is a situation where the group has just been thoroughly beaten and is down some people and their abilities and the enemy deposited the prosoners somewhere safe and a rescue attempt would most likely fail but still carry many risks. If players in my group can't make a plan they think can succeed, they don't try.







The idea is that players are expected to keep in character and to play a character who has a reason to go along on the adventure and go together with the party.

Neither someone who surrenders at the first opportunity or who always fights to the death is ideal; but what I will put my foot down about is solving OOC issues with IC reasoning, for example refusing to surrender when it is clearly the optimal chance of survival, when neither victory or escape seem at all likely, but deciding to fight to the death anyway because you would rather roll a new character OOC than suffer a setback.
Yes, it is stupid to solve OOC problems IC.

Which is why there is never any need to kill your character just because you want to switch. One can leave old characters behind just fine, without killing or mutilating or imprisoning them. Just say that you want to switch the character and discuss how to introduce the new one into the group/adventure.

There is also never a reason to kill your character just because you don't want to play a prison episode. Just tell your group that you don't like playing prison episodes and either fast forward through them or set out a couple of sessions until it is over.

All those problems can be resolved by talking.

[Talakeal]

It is just the "versimilitude trumps all" mindset. It is really rare that prisoners can escape and most players don't expect the chances for PCs are higher than those of other people in similar situations. And the GM, running the world as impartial and plausible as possible feels no reason to make escape any easier than for other people.

As for not rescuing, there are some cases where the other PCs never liked the imprisoned ones anyway, but most of the time it is a situation where the group has just been thoroughly beaten and is down some people and their abilities and the enemy deposited the prosoners somewhere safe and a rescue attempt would most likely fail but still carry many risks. If players in my group can't make a plan they think can succeed, they don't try.

Yes, it is stupid to solve OOC problems IC.

Which is why there is never any need to kill your character just because you want to switch. One can leave old characters behind just fine, without killing or mutilating or imprisoning them. Just say that you want to switch the character and discuss how to introduce the new one into the group/adventure.

There is also never a reason to kill your character just because you don't want to play a prison episode. Just tell your group that you don't like playing prison episodes and either fast forward through them or set out a couple of sessions until it is over.

All those problems can be resolved by talking.

For me, verisimilitude and gameplay are both roughly equally important. If that's how you roll, then yeah, getting captured sucks, but (I think we agree) you should be analyzing only IC consequences rather than OOC desires for such a situation to work.



My railroad sense is tingling. I cannot accept the bolded part.

Why exactly is that?

Do you not like having plots at all, or not like having plots that can be disrupted?

As I said upthread, not every campaign is a sandbox, and not every GM can pull of improv, and for the vast majority of campaigns the GM and players both to roughly agree on what the game will be about beforehand, especially when running a module.

To use an example that happened to me from just last week, we started a new World of Darkness campaign, and the plot hook was I, along with the other PCs, was left partial ownership of a (haunted) house by someone I had never heard of. Now, obviously, the plot is us going to the house, meeting up, and then something spooky happens and we have to explore / cleanse the house or solve its owner's murder, and that is in no way a bad thing or a railroad IMO. The thing is, my character is a very busy and serious minded person, and the taxes on the house alone would be close to 20,000 dollars a year, and the IC response would be to simply disclaim the inheritance and forget about it, but that is very disruptive behavior because at that point I am effectively writing my character out of the game, so I need to come up with a reason why I would get involved that works IC. Which is tough, but needs to happen with our groups style / skill level.




This is a question that's repeatedly asked and solved in context of even remotely competitive games, such as Pokemon.

I'll be using Pokemon as an example, simply because it's well known. You can just go to Smogon (etc.) if you feel like double-checking what I say.

In the original games, there are 151 Pokemon, of which you can choose and field 6. Of these, Mewtwo is the strongest by a wide margin. If Mewtwo is allowed, then both players have to field Mewtwo, and the game revolves around Mewtwo and just a handful of other Pokemon capable of countering it. The rest don't matter, because Mewtwo steamrolls them all.

Disallow Mewtwo, and the pool of viable Pokemon increases, as does team variety because now Mewtwo isn't eating both players' 6th team slot.

The same phenomenom can happen, and happens, with tabletop games. If "Obviously Superior" options are superior enough, they obviate options they trump not just on the side the player using them is on, but on the side opposing them, reducing overall variety and agency in the game.


That is a very good example of what I was talking about, much better than mine. Thanks!

[kyoryu]

This is a question that's repeatedly asked and solved in context of even remotely competitive games, such as Pokemon.

I'll be using Pokemon as an example, simply because it's well known. You can just go to Smogon (etc.) if you feel like double-checking what I say.

In the original games, there are 151 Pokemon, of which you can choose and field 6. Of these, Mewtwo is the strongest by a wide margin. If Mewtwo is allowed, then both players have to field Mewtwo, and the game revolves around Mewtwo and just a handful of other Pokemon capable of countering it. The rest don't matter, because Mewtwo steamrolls them all.

Disallow Mewtwo, and the pool of viable Pokemon increases, as does team variety because now Mewtwo isn't eating both players' 6th team slot.

The same phenomenom can happen, and happens, with tabletop games. If "Obviously Superior" options are superior enough, they obviate options they trump not just on the side the player using them is on, but on the side opposing them, reducing overall variety and agency in the game.

The game theory term for this is a "dominant strategy". A dominant strategy is one that is better than another strategy no matter what the opponent does.

The problem with this is that it effectively removes the dominated strategies from consideration - there's simply no reason to play them any more. As such, if it dominates more than one other strategy, it actually reduces the depth of the game to anyone that understands how the game works.

Good designers know that adding options doesn't necessarily increase the number of viable options - and if the options combine in various ways, it's highly likely that the combinatorial complexity will reduce the number of choices (once it's figured out) to a small number of viable options.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The game theory term for this is a "dominant strategy". A dominant strategy is one that is better than another strategy no matter what the opponent does.

The problem with this is that it effectively removes the dominated strategies from consideration - there's simply no reason to play them any more. As such, if it dominates more than one other strategy, it actually reduces the depth of the game to anyone that understands how the game works.

Good designers know that adding options doesn't necessarily increase the number of viable options - and if the options combine in various ways, it's highly likely that the combinatorial complexity will reduce the number of choices (once it's figured out) to a small number of viable options.

Cf 3e D&D at higher levels of optimization. While not single valued, the functional build list is much smaller than you'd naively expect given the number of options available. Basically, all that flexibility goes out the window and you're stuck into a much narrower range. Most of whom are basically the same at the 10k foot view. Different flavors, same dish.

[Pex]

When I think of a player disrupting a plot it's more he's being disruptive in general. He will cause random chaos to happen. He provokes NPCs. He wants a combat to happen when dialogue or sneaking was doing just fine. When the party is trying to do something he does something else to make the party's task harder or impossible. When there's a party plan he will not do his part and do something else. If the party agrees he should not do something because of reasons he will do it anyway. If the party agrees he should do something he won't. This is not to mean the party is playing his character telling him what to do but rather it's about completing whatever the mission is and it's vital he do or not do something, and he takes the opposite action. He's That Guy.

[King of Nowhere]

This is a question that's repeatedly asked and solved in context of even remotely competitive games, such as Pokemon.

I'll be using Pokemon as an example, simply because it's well known. You can just go to Smogon (etc.) if you feel like double-checking what I say.

In the original games, there are 151 Pokemon, of which you can choose and field 6. Of these, Mewtwo is the strongest by a wide margin. If Mewtwo is allowed, then both players have to field Mewtwo, and the game revolves around Mewtwo and just a handful of other Pokemon capable of countering it. The rest don't matter, because Mewtwo steamrolls them all.

Disallow Mewtwo, and the pool of viable Pokemon increases, as does team variety because now Mewtwo isn't eating both players' 6th team slot.

The same phenomenom can happen, and happens, with tabletop games. If "Obviously Superior" options are superior enough, they obviate options they trump not just on the side the player using them is on, but on the side opposing them, reducing overall variety and agency in the game.

yes, this is very well put on why i feel the need to eliminate some of the stronger options to increase diversity.


It's an obstacle, but it's not an obstacle for him. Surmountable difficulties help showcase characters' capabilities, and are a healthy part of this nutritious breakfast gaming.

I beg to disagree. you are the dm, you are making obstacles specifically tailored to your players. so, everything you throw in their path are obstacles for them. the only difference is between obstacles that they are supposed to overcome, and obstacles they are not supposed to overcome. and obstacles that are supposed to be luck-based (i.e. requiring a dice roll that is not trivial nor impossible).
Notice that an obstacle you are not supposed to overcome is not the end of the game; maybe this time your teammates will have to cover for you; more often, you need to find alternative ways to do something; for example, you must win the alliance of the king to get an army, and you may think to charm the king. "the king is immune to mind influence" is an obstacle you are not supposed to overcome, but it does not mean you cannot befriend the king on normal ways.
anyway, if you are only throwing your party obstacles they can overcome, then they are no obstacles at all, and the game becomes a cakewalk. i've been there, and it's boooring.

Ideally, the dm should be able to challenge the party without resorting to dm fiat, but that may not always be the case.
From what I can gather from your posts, you and your group are all extremely competent. that's quite rare, and you miss some of the nuances that can happen in other groups.
In my group, I am the most competent player by a fair margin. then there is the wizard player, who alwyas plays some kind of wizard at the highest optimization the table will let him, and he knows wizard optimization better than me, but he's much less knowledgeable on everything else. then we have another guy who has experience but is only moderately competent mechanically, and four others who are below that.
and it happened in our previous campaign that the moderately experienced guy was the dm, and we reached a point where he was unable to make challenges that me or the wizard player could not solve easily with brute force. do notice that there was attempt to balance to the table; the wizard player accepted several bans and nerfs to his build, and i was playing a monk.
anyway, what I'm trying to get is that in a case like this, the dm is in a bind. he can put dm fiat obstacles to curtail our power, which is bad, or he can let us steamroll through everything without opposition, which is also bad. Increasing the power level of the game would not be viable, because both the dm and the weaker players would not be able to handle it.

what i'm trying to say is that as dm you are supposed to put up against your players obstacles that are not trivial, and ideally you can do it by playing along the rules, but sometimes you cannot; and in this case, you only have bad options, and you must pick a lesser evil. sometimes, a dm fiat obstacle is simply a well-intentioned, and necessary, attempt to make the game not a cakewalk, performed by a dm that lacks the mechanical expertise to do better.
but personally, the main difference i see is whether such restrictions make sense from a story perspective. if the villain prepared this area to stop enemies from charging him, then the players can accept that they cannot charge in the area. if there is an area introduced as wild magic, i've never seen a player complaing when their spells malfunction within the area. even though those restrictions may not be surmounted.

[OldTrees1]

I beg to disagree. you are the dm, you are making obstacles specifically tailored to your players. so, everything you throw in their path are obstacles for them. the only difference is between obstacles that they are supposed to overcome, and obstacles they are not supposed to overcome. and obstacles that are supposed to be luck-based (i.e. requiring a dice roll that is not trivial nor impossible).

I think you rightly identified that you two mostly agree and there is just some semantics going on.

If I design a swamp with muddy oozy water, then I designed that terrain for them (the players).
If one of the PCs is agile enough to run across the swamp canopy rather than through the muddle oozy water, then that terrain is not a challenge to them.

So I designed terrain for the PC that was not an challenge to the PC.

Whether designed intentionally or accidentally the DM has 3 responses to this situation:
1) Remove it (skip, fast forward, delete, etc) because it will have no mechanical impact on the PC.
2) Keep it because the lack of impact demonstrates something about the PC.
3) Alter it to make it a challenge.

All 3 have their uses (subject to the group's play preferences) but personally I prefer a big serving of #2 with some #1 for seasoning.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think you rightly identified that you two mostly agree and there is just some semantics going on.

If I design a swamp with muddy oozy water, then I designed that terrain for them (the players).
If one of the PCs is agile enough to run across the swamp canopy rather than through the muddle oozy water, then that terrain is not a challenge to them.

So I designed terrain for the PC that was not an challenge to the PC.

Whether designed intentionally or accidentally the DM has 3 responses to this situation:
1) Remove it (skip, fast forward, delete, etc) because it will have no mechanical impact on the PC.
2) Keep it because the lack of impact demonstrates something about the PC.
3) Alter it to make it a challenge.

All 3 have their uses (subject to the group's play preferences) but personally I prefer a big serving of #2 with some #1 for seasoning.

Not all challenges need to challenge all players. As long as the challenges themselves require the whole team. Sure, one person can skip across things. But that doesn't solve the challenge, merely lightens one aspect of it.

Basically, single-note challenges are boring and too-easily trivialized. Real challenges should have multiple facets that affect different people differently. No more than a "first person to hit the enemy wins" combat challenge is an appropriate one[1]. I have a strong dislike of people claiming that a locked door, in the absence of anything else, should be a challenge. Even a trapped locked door. That's still a solo challenge requiring a single (or a couple from the same person) roll(s) or a single spell. Boring! Either roll it into some larger, multifaceted challenge or just skip it (narrating how cool the rogue is as he pops the lock effortlessly, but not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).

[Darth Credence]

Not all challenges need to challenge all players. As long as the challenges themselves require the whole team. Sure, one person can skip across things. But that doesn't solve the challenge, merely lightens one aspect of it.

Basically, single-note challenges are boring and too-easily trivialized. Real challenges should have multiple facets that affect different people differently. No more than a "first person to hit the enemy wins" combat challenge is an appropriate one[1]. I have a strong dislike of people claiming that a locked door, in the absence of anything else, should be a challenge. Even a trapped locked door. That's still a solo challenge requiring a single (or a couple from the same person) roll(s) or a single spell. Boring! Either roll it into some larger, multifaceted challenge or just skip it (narrating how cool the rogue is as he pops the lock effortlessly, but not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).

The only time I will have the party roll for unlocking a door is if there is a time crunch. Get through the door before the minotaur charging through the labyrinth towards them gets there type deal, or anything else that would mean they can't just slowly and calmly work the lock.

Was the [1] supposed to denote a footnote that you missed adding?

[OldTrees1]

Not all challenges need to challenge all players. As long as the challenges themselves require the whole team. Sure, one person can skip across things. But that doesn't solve the challenge, merely lightens one aspect of it.

Agreed. Challenges affect 0+ PCs and can be trivialized by 0+ of those PCs.


Basically, single-note challenges are boring and too-easily trivialized. Real challenges should have multiple facets that affect different people differently. No more than a "first person to hit the enemy wins" combat challenge is an appropriate one[1]. I have a strong dislike of people claiming that a locked door, in the absence of anything else, should be a challenge.

For tailored challenges, this is very good advice. For emergent challenges it becomes less applicable because the nature of the challenge emerges from the PC choices that lead to the challenge existing at all. However since this is design advice, it was always going to be most applicable to the tailored challenges.


Even a trapped locked door. That's still a solo challenge requiring a single (or a couple from the same person) roll(s) or a single spell. Boring! Either roll it into some larger, multifaceted challenge or just skip it (narrating how cool the rogue is as he pops the lock effortlessly, but not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).

Depending on the mechanical resolution (Take 10 or Take 1 for example), narrating how cool the rogue is could be #2 (keep it) rather than #1 (skip it). I agree about not wasting time on boring things. However the show don't tell might not be boring to the group.

Rolling it into some larger challenge fits in with your previous advice. It is really good advice for tailored challenges.

[King of Nowhere]

Even a trapped locked door. That's still a solo challenge requiring a single (or a couple from the same person) roll(s) or a single spell. Boring! Either roll it into some larger, multifaceted challenge or just skip it (narrating how cool the rogue is as he pops the lock effortlessly, but not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).

i mat require a roll, then, depending on how high the roll is, i may narrate how cool the rogue is popping open the lock effortlessly, or narrate the rogue having to sit down, study the thing and take his time. but yeah, no mechanical effect.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Agreed. Challenges affect 0+ PCs and can be trivialized by 0+ of those PCs.



For tailored challenges, this is very good advice. For emergent challenges it becomes less applicable because the nature of the challenge emerges from the PC choices that lead to the challenge existing at all. However since this is design advice, it was always going to be most applicable to the tailored challenges.



Depending on the mechanical resolution (Take 10 or Take 1 for example), narrating how cool the rogue is could be #2 (keep it) rather than #1 (skip it). I agree about not wasting time on boring things. However the show don't tell might not be boring to the group.

Rolling it into some larger challenge fits in with your previous advice. It is really good advice for tailored challenges.


i mat require a roll, then, depending on how high the roll is, i may narrate how cool the rogue is popping open the lock effortlessly, or narrate the rogue having to sit down, study the thing and take his time. but yeah, no mechanical effect.

Honestly, even for emergent challenges, if something is trivial (or impossible!), don't use mechanics that allow failure/success (respectively). Roll all you want for show, but it's not a real challenge. It's a narrative blip.

I guess the main thrust is to always think in terms of "how can I engage as many people in this challenge as possible." Along with "how can I prevent single points of either success or failure for anything that should matter" (speaking in terms of the emerging/established fiction). If the task is "persuade the king to send help", and the party has already bribed the chancellor to agree, dueled the chief military advisor to prove their worth, and brought heads of demons to show the real danger, then those were already part of the task-resolution, along with the culminating social conversation. No individual part of that would be enough, nor would (normally) any individual part be absolutely essential. They could have handled the blockers (chancellor/military/proof) differently or tried to just push through without one of those things. Or done without the king's help and found other allies. That prevents the party from hitting the tried-and-true "diplomacy win button", while also letting them chart their own path. Of course, it requires lots of on-the-fly rulings from the DM, as well as knowledge of what those blockers are and what they want.

So at design time, the DM creates the following:
* Situation: demons are invading.
* Optional Approach: get king to send army
** Blockers:
*** king is suspicious of attempts to pull the army away from established fronts.
*** chancellor is greedy and corrupt and won't support anything that doesn't benefit him personally
*** chief military advisor only respects personal strength and won't support anyone he doesn't respect.
** Difficulty of final check:
*** 0 blocks removed: impossible
*** 1 block removed: Difficult [numbers depend on system]
*** 2 blocks removed: Medium
*** 3 blocks removed: Easy or trivial (you don't have to work to convince someone who already agrees with you).
* Optional Approach: etc.

How (and if) they remove the blocks is up to them. If they can get away with it, they might be able to assassinate the chancellor and replace him with someone else. But they need to do something--no single check is enough.

[OldTrees1]

Honestly, even for emergent challenges, if something is trivial (or impossible!), don't use mechanics that allow failure/success (respectively). Roll all you want for show, but it's not a real challenge. It's a narrative blip.

I feel there is a disconnect here. Where there is no chance of failure, there is no chance of failure.

Even if you roll (or use "Take 10") to demonstrate there is no chance of failure, where there is no chance of failure, there is no chance of failure.


As for emergent challenges, it is really hard for the DM to design what the Players create. So the design advice becomes useful but less relevant because the DM has less control. So if the Players create an emergent challenge that only engages 1 PC, then that is what they created. My comment here was basically "that is good advice for the DM, the DM is not the only source of challenges, but that is good advice for the DM".

[PhoenixPhyre]

I feel there is a disconnect here. Where there is no chance of failure, there is no chance of failure.

Even if you roll (or use "Take 10") to demonstrate there is no chance of failure, where there is no chance of failure, there is no chance of failure.


As for emergent challenges, it is really hard for the DM to design what the Players create. So the design advice becomes useful but less relevant because the DM has less control. So if the Players create an emergent challenge that only engages 1 PC, then that is what they created. My comment here was basically "that is good advice for the DM, the DM is not the only source of challenges, but that is good advice for the DM".

I don't see how players create challenges (directly anyway). Players take actions within a framework set up by <someone else>, at least in a D&D-like game. They don't design the world in which they move as they go. In response to their actions, the DM has to react in some way. And before they can act, the DM has to set the initial conditions (this is cyclical in that the conditions depend on the prior actions). In general, a more "sandboxy" DM should think even more in terms of scenarios and challenges than a more-controlled/tailored one. A tailored one can design linear steps that must be accomplished without regard to lumping them into abstract "scenarios" or "challenges". A more sandboxy one has to do more design up front and more ad-lib design.

So a tailored approach can say task1 -> {choice set: tasks 2-n} -> etc.--both the allowed approaches and allowed tasks are set ahead of time (how far depends on how linear the game is). A more sandboxy one would have to design high-level "things going on" that the party might interact with and then at runtime do a lot of interpolation to figure out all the details that depend on exactly how they interact. But in both cases, those tasks (tailored case) and scenarios (non-tailored case) should be designed to make single-action (or single-actor) solutions implausible or alternatively make those single-action/actor solutions only work for things that didn't matter anyway. Where the scenario outcome either assumes they'll happen or doesn't care if they happen. They're baked into the scenario already.

Just crossing the swamp is a non-challenge. You can (and should) assume that it will happen one way or another if the party tries. The challenge of "crossing the swamp" lies in the range of other things (ranging from random/not-random encounters to interesting finds to other complications) that occur while crossing the swamp. So being able to skip across the tops enables one person do bypass one part (the actual slogging through the mud), but
a) doesn't get the rest of the party across
b) doesn't bypass any of the rest of the challenge.

Does it make it easier? Sure. You've got one person with good mobility when the rest don't. Great. Having them along is a boon. But it doesn't trivialize the challenge, because the part it trivializes wasn't central to the challenge anyway. It was just one small component. Even a whole party of such people wouldn't trivialize it, although it might be able to just skip the sub-challenges. But doing so should come at a cost--they don't get the rewards of interacting there in the challenge.

The same thing goes for all the other "ways to trivialize challenges" I've ever seen. They're either bad challenges or they have the cost of skipping the interesting parts of the adventure. Don't make challenges with single points of failure. Or accept that those challenges aren't really challenges at all.

[icefractal]

I beg to disagree. you are the dm, you are making obstacles specifically tailored to your players. so, everything you throw in their path are obstacles for them. the only difference is between obstacles that they are supposed to overcome, and obstacles they are not supposed to overcome. and obstacles that are supposed to be luck-based (i.e. requiring a dice roll that is not trivial nor impossible).I think this is where we're hitting a disconnect in play style. For me the bolded part is not the ideal.

Ideally, the obstacles are based on their place in the world. Did some low-level woodsmen secure a place a long ways from the nearest city? Well then it probably has a lot of snares, pitfalls, spikes, and other hunting-type traps, maybe some dangerous animals or vermin they captured, but probably not magic traps or anything with complicated engineering. If that's easy for the PCs, then I guess the woodsmen are just an easy challenge. For a world to feel real, challenges should range from easy to overwhelming, not just all be on-par.

There's degrees - in a full sandbox, the woodsmen would just be there doing their thing regardless of who the PCs were. In a "guided sandbox", you wouldn't put the focus on them unless you thought they'd be entertaining, but you also wouldn't make them be 15th level just because the PCs were - rather, you could focus on a different group in the region that was plausibly that powerful.

Even in a more linear game (and I'm fine with playing those), it's better if things feel plausible. "These are just ordinary bandits harassing local farmers but not going after anyone better-defended" does not square with "Oh, and they're mostly 10th-12th level with +5 equipment".

[OldTrees1]

I don't see how players create challenges (directly anyway). Players take actions within a framework set up by <someone else>, at least in a D&D-like game. They don't design the world in which they move as they go. In response to their actions, the DM has to react in some way. And before they can act, the DM has to set the initial conditions (this is cyclical in that the conditions depend on the prior actions). In general, a more "sandboxy" DM should think even more in terms of scenarios and challenges than a more-controlled/tailored one. A tailored one can design linear steps that must be accomplished without regard to lumping them into abstract "scenarios" or "challenges". A more sandboxy one has to do more design up front and more ad-lib design.

PCs are walking through the forest. That is not a challenge. Presumably they have some reason, let's say they are making a time sensitive delivery to a village on the other side. That time sensitive delivery sounds like a DM created challenge. It might be a non challenging challenge. A trivial one if you will. However it will stand as an example of a DM creating a tailored encounter as a contrast to the following.

One Player likes the idea of their acrobat running along the canopy. The DM figures out the details of that player created challenge of running along the canopy.

One Player likes the idea of their pyro starting a forest fire. The DM figures out the details of the player created challenge of starting a forest fire, and the following player created challenge of the PCs travelling through a forest that is on fire.

All 3 of those are examples of emergent challenges. They emerged from the player choices rather than from a challenge the DM designed. since the players had a greater influence in the design of those challenges, the challenge design advice you gave the DM is less applicable.

So in addition to you repeating my advice about "Accept that those non challenging obstacles are not challenging." you gave additional advice about avoiding single points of failure and avoiding challenges that only involve 1 person. I agree that is good advice, but elaborated by mentioning emergent challenges and how the DM has less authorial control over what the Players help create.

[Talakeal]

A few pages ago I said something to the effect of "If players are never supposed to be separated from their gear, doesn't that make things like Eschew Materials into a trap option for dumb players."

This conversation about locks is making me feel the same way; if you don't roll to pick locks, doesn't that turn the open locks skill, and to a lesser extent several of the rogue's class features, into pointless trap options?

[PhoenixPhyre]

A few pages ago I said something to the effect of "If players are never supposed to be separated from their gear, doesn't that make things like Eschew Materials into a trap option for dumb players."

This conversation about locks is making me feel the same way; if you don't roll to pick locks, doesn't that turn the open locks skill, and to a lesser extent several of the rogue's class features, into pointless trap options?

No? Just because you don't roll for it when it doesn't matter (ie when the consequences for failure are simply "try again") doesn't mean that having that skill isn't useful when it matters.

A locked door by itself is not a challenge. It's either unpickable (for that group) or picked open eventually. And if time doesn't matter, then it's much simpler to assume that it just gets opened.

But sometimes time does matter. Getting it open now because the guard is coming back within 30 seconds matters. So you roll for it. You're not rolling for "does the door open at all", you're rolling for "is the door opened in time to avoid the door".

Beware of absolute statements. They're often incomplete. My position is that, assuming you want a locked door as part of a challenge, you can't just stick a locked door there and call it a challenge and whine when they overcome it trivially. That's like saying a single goblin is a challenge fit for a level 20 T1 party. There better be a reason that you've only got one shot at picking the door. Maybe there's a lock that seals shut if you fail. Maybe you're on your last lockpick, and it's on the verge of breaking. Or maybe the guard is coming back. Something, anything that makes failure have interesting consequences that move the story...if not forward, at least in some direction. Something that requires the next action to be along a separate line. Each roll should at least run the risk of foreclosing further attempts directly on that line of attack. You did your best, your best wasn't good enough, now try something else. The bad option is "you failed, back to status quo ante where you can try again." Because that does nothing but waste table time, the most precious of resources.

And not having that option means you have to take other paths. Which (depending on the situation) may or may not be more difficult. So having someone good with locks along (assuming you have any locks at all) is always a benefit[1].

IMO, rules and mechanics exist to help move the fiction along. To keep things rolling when otherwise you'd not know how to resolve something. To resolve uncertainty in a fun, fair, game-appropriate fashion. That's all. Bad rules tell you to use them all the time. Good rules give guidance on when to set them aside and do what works. Bad (TTRPG) rules dictate. Good (TTRPG) rules assist.

[1] unless having those capabilities has an outsized cost in character resources. To be hyperbolic, if being able to pick locks also meant that you never progressed any other skill, then yeah. It's a trap. It's why I'm not so fond of 3e's "have to pick between all these things" skill model. If rogues are supposed to be good at dealing with locks and traps, give them that as a class feature straight up. But that's an aside.

[Pex]

Not all challenges need to challenge all players. As long as the challenges themselves require the whole team. Sure, one person can skip across things. But that doesn't solve the challenge, merely lightens one aspect of it.

Basically, single-note challenges are boring and too-easily trivialized. Real challenges should have multiple facets that affect different people differently. No more than a "first person to hit the enemy wins" combat challenge is an appropriate one[1]. I have a strong dislike of people claiming that a locked door, in the absence of anything else, should be a challenge. Even a trapped locked door. That's still a solo challenge requiring a single (or a couple from the same person) roll(s) or a single spell. Boring! Either roll it into some larger, multifaceted challenge or just skip it (narrating how cool the rogue is as he pops the lock effortlessly, but not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).

Horrible flashback of a Pathfinder DM constantly reminding the party the need for proper equipment to open a door. Because we didn't do it in his One True Way opening doors always took forever. Doors are always supposed to be hard and take time to open. The worst case was needing to open large heavy iron doors. We had to make strength checks, could help another to give +2, or whatever bonuses. Because we didn't care how long it took or how much noise we made I told the DM we can take 20 but he refused the option. He insisted we keep rolling the die until we beat the DC, so everyone kept rolling until finally someone rolled a Natural 20 and got the door open, cue the DM berating us for our ineptitude. He finally took pity on us later giving the party a Ring of the Ram just so we could blast open a door.

[King of Nowhere]

I think this is where we're hitting a disconnect in play style. For me the bolded part is not the ideal.

Ideally, the obstacles are based on their place in the world.

yes, for me too.
the world must be consistent and it must provide a framework to adjudicate stuff, otherwise the game boils down to "dm may I?"
but at the same time, as dm you have considerable leeway with it. ok, if you're visiting a lone woodsman in the wood, and he wasn't supposed to be some retired high level adventurer, then the world dictates he's not a challenge.
but you decide how strong the final boss is. how many minions he can call. what kind of traps he has available. you decide how difficult the terrain is exactly, if the terrain is just difficult enough to stop charging, or whatever. you decide if the zombie plague was started by a 5th level cleric with delusions of grandeur or by a 20th level opponent with layers upon layers of backup plans.
even for the lone woodsman, he may have set a couple of snares tied to an alarm or he may have turned his land into a minefield or deep pits and spikes coated in poison from the black lotus that spontaneously grow in his backyard. both are within what you can justify for the world. you can also change the traps dc within a +/-5 range (this trap was particularly well/poorly hidden) and it's reasonable.
you are also the one giving them plot hooks, so you can direct them towards the lone woodsman or the dragon's lair.

and so, when you decide the traps dc, you are really deciding how likely the players should be to find them.

EDIT: you should not change your world to create difficulties for the players, as that would make their efforts pointless. but you should look into your world for things that would make good challenges for your players

[Quertus]

I beg to disagree. you are the dm, you are making obstacles specifically tailored to your players.

Well, no. First, as others have brought up, sometimes, it's the *players* who have set the forest on fire.

Second, sometimes you're challenging the *players*; other times, the *characters*.

But, when I write content, it is written for its versimilitude, for its place in the world, not to ping at a specific level on some challenge metric. And certainly not specifically tailored to my players *or* their characters¹.

Nor would I want content specifically tailored to my characters (I could do with this world being better tailored to me, though).

¹ unless, like, Bob is afraid of spiders, so I removed all spider references or something


Whether designed intentionally or accidentally the DM has 3 responses to this situation:
1) Remove it (skip, fast forward, delete, etc) because it will have no mechanical impact on the PC.
2) Keep it because the lack of impact demonstrates something about the PC.
3) Alter it to make it a challenge.

All 3 have their uses (subject to the group's play preferences) but personally I prefer a big serving of #2 with some #1 for seasoning.

Strongly agree. (And similarly prefer a hearty helping of 2, with a side of 1).


not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).


Depending on the mechanical resolution (Take 10 or Take 1 for example), narrating how cool the rogue is could be #2 (keep it) rather than #1 (skip it).

Narrating past the challenge can *definitely* qualify for my original comment (your #2). And doesn't necessitate "wasting time".


Bad rules tell you to use them all the time. Good rules give guidance on when to set them aside and do what works. Bad (TTRPG) rules dictate. Good (TTRPG) rules assist.

Disagree. 3e "Lock is DC 15”, "d20+ bonus vs DC" should always apply in 3e. *If* someone has enough knowledge, and knows that the Rogue has "I have +50 bonus to Open Lock", they can simply have the Rogue "take a 1" and succeed, to expedite past the physically rolling. But the underlying mechanics should always apply.

Regarding information… if the Rogue doesn't *know* that the guard is coming back in 30 seconds, he could *declare* that he is "taking 20".

[LordCdrMilitant]

Not all challenges need to challenge all players. As long as the challenges themselves require the whole team. Sure, one person can skip across things. But that doesn't solve the challenge, merely lightens one aspect of it.

Basically, single-note challenges are boring and too-easily trivialized. Real challenges should have multiple facets that affect different people differently. No more than a "first person to hit the enemy wins" combat challenge is an appropriate one[1]. I have a strong dislike of people claiming that a locked door, in the absence of anything else, should be a challenge. Even a trapped locked door. That's still a solo challenge requiring a single (or a couple from the same person) roll(s) or a single spell. Boring! Either roll it into some larger, multifaceted challenge or just skip it (narrating how cool the rogue is as he pops the lock effortlessly, but not wasting any time with mechanical resolution of boring things).

I think a locked door is very much a far challenge to the party, because the means of how they chose to overcome it are very significant.

In a non-prisoner related scenario, whether they breach the door with explosives, cut through it with a torch, pick the mechanical locking mechanism, or hack the door controls all have different consequence of success and failure via those methods.

In a prisoner related scenario, more on topic, how a party overcomes doors at all could be of critical importance to the scenario. If they're in a cell, a cell door is designed inherently not to be opened by the people within. The lock and hinges are on the outside, the door is usually reinforced relative to other doors, it may be guarded, and of course, you don't have any of the tools that you would use ordinarily to open it. How a character overcomes this problem, and whether they can at all, is decisive and a significant puzzle for the players.