Musings about PCs and Prisoners

[Talakeal]

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?