Help a DM: how to "make an example"

[Kol Korran]

Tomer, Guy, Itay, Alon and Ariel, stay out.

from time to time i post thoughts and dilemmas about my RL gaming group, for which i DM (if you're interested, follow the link in my sig, but it's not necessary for this post). i'm in need of the forum's help again. The system is 3.5, the world is Eberron, but it matters little.

The Dilemma: some characters are caught in a really bad situation, where their enemies want to make "examples" of them. this is not due to the players fault, who played quite brilliantly to this point. i need to make something severe and memorable, but not something that will make the players want to throw away their character and start a new one.

the situation:(or just skip ahead)

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at the last meeting most of the party was captured and taken to be slaves of a goblinoid clan, in a small town of about 1200 goblinoids, and about half as much slaves. the sneaky guy avoided capture, and immediately tried to rescue his fellows, killing a patrol and stealing the keys to their cells and manacles.

but the other three captured decided not to escape that night due to slim chances of success, and since they have seen the "examples" the hobgoblins made of other slaves that tried to escape (breaking someone's arm and healing it the wrong way and the like. yes i know the rules don't support it. i don't care. as a justification, they got priests of the Mockery, god of pain and torture and flayed flesh).

meanwhile the last character, which was taken to the chief's house managed to escape, kill his adviser, steal from him, help another prisoner escape under his nose, and made a fool of him (the wonders of an amptly prepared wizard, even 4th level)

This made the chief VERY angry!he assembled the slaves and warrior in the arena, and was going to have the characters tortured/ make an "example" of them. the players and characters panicked, and tried a desperate attempt at grabbing weapons and fighting, even wounding the chief. they were beaten to negatives.

where we are now: the players were right, they did have slim chances to escape, and they acted accordingly. they are in trouble due to the last and first players succeeding so well. the players are expecting from what they have seen from the failed escapees that the punishment would be severe, and fear it greatly. some even started preparing new characters. any ideas/

(My current idea- don't read if you're reading the log and prefer surprise):

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I am thinking of having the chief proclaim something on the likes of "Death is too good for them! they offended us, they offended the mockery! (the torture and pain god) we shall make them remember it ever more! they shall live in constant pain!" then the priests of the mockery bring their scalpels and... "work"... on the characters, making their nerves somehow more susceptible to pain all over. mechanincal effects: every 10 damage or part of causes them 3 damage more, physical skills have a negative modifier, and casters need to make concentration checks for every spell (low enough DC). maybe even a Con drain.

all of the above could be cured by a house Jorasco greater healer (or heal spell) which they will receive once the adventure is over. what can't be healed is the scarring that might affect social skills (lowering diplomacy, increasing intimidate)

so... what do you say? ideas? comments? suggestions? critics?

thanks in advance for the help, i want this to be memorable, bugging, but not utter fun ruining.

[Ceaon]

I'd probably would not hurt the PCs directly. That might cause some of them to WANT to switch characters, even if they're not dead. Instead, I'd have the goblins kill/disfigure a number of slaves because of the the PC's deeds. Assign each PC a slave (just announcing, this woman named Zelda will be killed because of X's deeds, this boy named Link will be crippled because of Y's attack, etc.)
That is what I'd do, at least if your group a) can handle this kind of evil acts and b) is able to feel 'connected' to NPCs.

[super dark33]

he will cut their arms and legs, and will make them to fight each outer!

and anouter israeli! i count 2 in the playground!

[subject42]

Hm, that's a bit of a dilemma. If I were going to make them pay, but still try to figure out a way out of it without making the PCs just want to make a new character, I would conveniently make one of the NPC priests have a scroll of plane shift. They could then strip the characters of their weapons, tie them to posts, beat them unconscious, and whisk them off to some extremely nasty demiplane.

It would make sense for the goblins to do that, since for an average 1st level warrior that means an eternity of torment.

For 4th level characters they may still have a chance.

[Calmar]

This could be the right moment to let The Cavalry arrive - if you have no aversion against such a sollution, have not used this device yet and don't intend to do so again later, and if you have a logical explanation why someone is there to help the PCs.

The chief could decide make his example with a nice arena fight of the unarmed characters against some dangerous wild animals. Even while the chief is bragging how the "filthy maggots will be thrown to the dire wolves and torn to bloody shreds" the chained heroes spot allied reinforcements in the distance and know that they will be saved if the can survive the arena long enough. Maybe a nice air rescue by one of those nifty airships of Eberron?

Depending on the situation in your campaign and your execution of the cavalry's arrival this could be either a very memorable end for the adventure - or a really lame deus ex machina.

[Valameer]

Getting cut on by a scalpel would make me lose interest in my character. It's no fun, especially it being caused by other players - that's a hard pill to swallow.

I don't know how gritty you're trying to get. Heroism is always more fun than grit, IMO.

My idea:

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Have an annonymous anti-slavery group warn the wizard and rogue about their friends being in grave danger. He gives them some means to create a distraction or whatever, to help their friends (disguises, potions of healing, mage armor, a flashy wand like pyrokinesis). The anti-slaver (Brelish Dark Lantern?) wants to use the ensuing fight as a distraction to stage his own little prison break, and discredit the goblin-chief.

So player 1 and 5 are standing by, ready for action.

The slaver-chief takes the other 3 characters and wants to do a little "demonstration." He tortures (perhaps - still a tough pill to swallow. Feel free to leave this part out in a non-gritty game) five innocents in place of the five PCs, just to drive their guilt up. Then he sends the remaining three captive PCs into a deathmatch with each other! They are unarmored and poorly armed. Any attempt at escape will bring death. The last man standing gets to be a gladiator under the slaver. Perhaps the winner will get to pick one of the previously tortured victims to heal, as incentive. If they refuse to fight, the innocent victims will be executed.

This is the players chance to be crafty - throwing the fight, bluffing mortal wounds, etc. If they actually PvP, that could still be sort of fun - just so long as the power isn't completely out of their hands. When only the last man is standing, the goblin-chief comes down personally (perhaps a mistake) to shackle the victor. He's armed, but alone. Perhaps the chief comes out angrilly because the last PC won't strike the killing blow against his friends.

This is an opportunity for the PCs, if they grab it. The two in the crowd could jump in, and within a few rounds (a matter of seconds) the PCs could have him defeated (especially if the two 'beaten' PCs were faking it). Chaos erupts in the arena! The PCs now can beat a retreat, probably fighting their way past some confused guards.

Once outside, they see another slave pen has been freed - and chaos fills the streets as the goblins try to recapture their slaves. This was a blunder by the anti-slaver group - they freed one important group secretively, but an individual freed slave sneaked back and started opening pens left right and center, trying to cause a bloody revolution.

The three rescued PCs are still without their gear, and probably none of them are in perfect health. There's a riot and confusion everywhere. Do they try to help the prisoners escape? Do they go back to find their gear? Or do they book for the hills?

If the PCs didn't attempt any escape (you never know what players will do), the goblin chief doesn't actually coup-de-grace the two fallen, since they could be useful later. He just wanted to see if the victor would. There will still be a riot outside, so who knows what could happen?

Course, I'm of the mind that playing a captured character, with no options, getting tortured for something that wasn't my fault, wouldn't be very entertaining. So I guess there's not much "making an example" in there. Oh well.

[Jayabalard]

Have the chief sentence them to be tortured to death in the very ear future (midnight, noon, dawn, dusk, whatever is significant to their god). A political rival to the chief sets things up so that they can escape, to further embarrass the chief and erode his position, strengthening his own. He's not being good, or helpful to the PC's, just looking to cash in on a political opportunity, possibly even using more misdirection to point the blame at another rival for power. PC's escape and regroup in the ensuing chaos.

[jiriku]

Yeah, permanent disfigurement and weakness as "punishment" for being placed in a no-win scenario and correctly diagnosing it as a no-win scenario wouldn't sit well with me. Instead of doing gruesome things, give the players an opportunity to be the heroes they signed up to be. Find a way they can escape this horrible fate by battling (or tricking) their way to freedom.

[Raum]

I'd leave the torture off screen but apply a mental fear / phobia applicable to the situation. Let scars heal disappear as normal with magical healing, just keep the 'fear of goblins' or 'fear of imprisonment' (or whatever) and apply penalties next time they're in a situation facing goblins, imprisonment, or whatever. I'd let the mental 'scars' heal with time, perhaps even sooner if they RP some sort of dealing with it. (Talking to a priest, some sort of mindhealer, or simply putting themselves through it over and over to desensitize themselves.)

[Dingle]

You could torture them and give them Iron Will or Endurance or some other feat for thier trouble

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah, permanent disfigurement and weakness as "punishment" for being placed in a no-win scenario and correctly diagnosing it as a no-win scenario wouldn't sit well with me. Instead of doing gruesome things, give the players an opportunity to be the heroes they signed up to be. Find a way they can escape this horrible fate by battling (or tricking) their way to freedom.

This. Yeah, battles, tricks, etc are all great. An arena battle can be awesomely appropriate. And, it results in them being reunited with their gear, which might lead to fun things.

[Lord Bingo]

I say "CRUCIFY THE BASTARDS!"


Yeah, really. Hear me out

I think it would be unfair to permanently disfigure, nerf or kill the characters as you yourself has put them in this situation through little or no fault on their part. Hence I think you should give them a chance to escape relatively unharmed and perhaps even let them think that they "beat" you when you were about to make them sit through a session of "roleplaying their slow and painful death".

Crucifiction is a slow and painful death and would serve well as an example to would-be heroes in the future.
Do it on a hill that is significant to the gobbos and leave them with a small guard they have a chance of defeating once they figure out how to get down from their crosses.
While you should deal a little damage when you nail them to the crosses remember that people who died on crosses did so from starvation/thirst/fatigue. When they break free they will of course take a little damage from the nails but the real nuisance/problem will be the penalty you apply to them due to fatigue.

Now, crucifiction has certain connotations, especially to christian influenced cultures and hence it is likely that you can use this to make the heroes feel even more heroic/good because they attribute some meaning to this very symbolic punishment. If you feel uneasy about the cross remember that the cross as a symbol precedes the christians -not the other way around. Even so the crosses that were used for crucifiction in general probably looked more like T's anyway. Escaping crucifiction would be a truly memorable feat.

[Fhaolan]

Hrmmmm... Goblinoid clan, worships torture and pain, captures the party. What to do, what to do.

Well, first off, the high priest/shaman of the torture god will likely weasel in and convince the chief to make this *really* hurt. But to do so has to wait until some specific portent shows up. New moon, thunderstorm, river runs red, something that's going to take few days to arrive.

That's to give the free character some time to come up with a plan. In the meantime, the party is incarcerated in some really nasty way. Dumped in a underground cell that is too small for the group because it's goblin-sized, for instance. Then starve them so they start taking con damage, unless they eat the only food being provided, which is other prisoners.

Make it atmospheric, and terrifying. Torture tools, some actually being used, are out of reach far beyond the cells, but in view for it's psychological impact. Just outside the cell the goblins keep some horrible (and noisy) mutant animals at a near starvation state that can't quite reach the prisoners providing they keep moving, so they can't sleep. Make them feel powerless.

If the free character can't come up with a plan, here's your out: Have one of the animals start to get a bit smart, and dig it's way under the cell bars. The animal will be effectively prone when it comes through, so it'll be a fight but one an entire party should be able to win. Then they can use the dead animal's corpse as a distraction for the other starving creatures as the party heavy hitter gets out using the animal's tunnel, and gets to the torture tools to use as improvised weapons. Big fight between horrible animals and starving prisoners on their last legs. To finish the escape, they need to sneak out, but *not be quiet*. The animals made lots of noise which covered the fight noises. But a sudden quiet? That will tip off the goblins. They have to figure out a way to sneak away but still have enough noise happen at the cell.

Good luck. :)

[Tyndmyr]

I say "CRUCIFY THE BASTARDS!"!

Thats actually not a bad idea. Have the goblins partying around as they hang em up, then wander off throughout the day. Have a coupla kids pegging rocks at them or something. Either they'll get the idea to break free, or their comrades(presumably watching from afar) will attempt to rescue them.

What happens to the rock chuckers then is entirely up to the players.

[Mewtarthio]

Alternatively, you could have the goblins try to torture the PCs via starvation and/or exposure to the elements. Those are fairly unpleasant fates (certainly the sort of thing sadistic goblins might try), but they both buy some time to give the PCs an escape option.

[Kaervaslol]

Mechanical effects like x damage every y turns are boring.

Maim the characters.

Remove their eyelids, cut their thumbs, castrate them, cut a feet/hand, remove both ears, cut their toungue, remove a couple of teeth.

Don't incapacitate the character completly, but do your worst and don't hold bakc.

[nihilism]

its impossible to torture pcs unfortunately.

i once tried to think of something and ended up half considering asking permission to make em' drink chili sauce or something. Obviously not my best half idea.

an active gruesome scene of torture could work but it would have to be rather extreme and I am not sure how many groups would be comfortable with that, i know i wouldn't.

[kyoryu]

Magical branding, perhaps? Which may have some other side effect, but can then trigger a quest to remove the brand?

Advantages:
1. Doesn't have to get squicky with the RP
2. Gives a quest hook
3. Can inconvenience the characters to whatever degree you find appropriate

Disadvantages:
1. Players will be, well, branded, likely visibly

[Zansumkai]

I was actually thinking of ways to torture a PC earlier at work for some reason. I was thinking of going for the classic, the rack. Put one character on, with some kind of degrading act of obedience as the only way out, like participating in the torture of a slave or eating something gross, whatever you think they're not likely to want to do. Then you start cranking away at them, letting them make Con checks or the like to keep it together. Eventually though, something is going to break, like a shoulder, leg or spine, something that could be healed later on but would be a major penalty to escaping the situation.

In either case, the gobos rotate the PCs through one at a time, maybe giving a day or two in-between. That would give your escaped players time to plan a rescue.

[Dark_Nohn]

I'm going to suggest that you take away the PC's abilities to do what they're supposed to be able to do as PCs.

Disarm the fighter-types

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Take away the clerics holy symbol (probably already done,) and find a way/reason that they wouldn't be able to get one for awhile.

If there's a druid, forge a crude breastplate on him by having iron melting onto their chest. (Don't require an atonement for this, I forget if the PHB says you do need an atonement or if you just lose your spellcasting [Edit:temporarily],) but he still has to find a way to get it off before he can

Use ability damage to cripple the PCs even further (probably just a lot of rays of enfeeblement,) and keep them at 0 HP, exactly, and they can't get a good nights rest (what's required to heal damage overnight.)

Then have the PCs put in carts where they're told that they're going to be transported to another location to be sacrificed, and/or turned into undeads, but another group of adventurers kill off the goblins with only the new groups cleric surviving. The cleric stabilizes his comrads (so that they're at negative HP, but will recover,) and loads them up in a cart so that they can be transported to a town before he finishes healing them. This cleric breaks open the cage that the PCs were in, but it was trapped, and sends the cleric literally flying for a mile or two. PCs are crippled, maimed, but now free. If they can reach the cleric (and feed the cleric a potion due to the fall damage that the cleric took putting him unconscious, which they should be able to do, even with 1 STR) he'll heal the PCs, as well as do restoration on their limbs and ability scores in exchange for help getting back to his companions, but all of this cleric's spells over the journey will be restoration and prepared gentle repose for the cleric's companions.

[Arbane]

And DMs wonder why so many PCs would rather fight to the death than be taken prisoner....

I've got nothing valuable to contribute. Just remember that you can do whatever you want to the players' characters, but you can't make them continue playing them.

[Skorj]

Hm, that's a bit of a dilemma. If I were going to make them pay, but still try to figure out a way out of it without making the PCs just want to make a new character, I would conveniently make one of the NPC priests have a scroll of plane shift. They could then strip the characters of their weapons, tie them to posts, beat them unconscious, and whisk them off to some extremely nasty demiplane.

It would make sense for the goblins to do that, since for an average 1st level warrior that means an eternity of torment.

For 4th level characters they may still have a chance.

I htink this is entirely the right approach to take. Give the PCs some punishment that, for a goblin, would be a fate worse than death - that way it makes sense IC. But the actual punishment is something that results in a heroic escape against all odds (or at least presents the opportunity), not in permanent damage.

[Noircat]

What we need to do is give the free PCs time to rescue their comrades.

Okay, how about. The Goblin Clerics want to use these heroes as sacrfices to fuel some sort of ritual as they are high level enough to be proper sacrifices to summon the blah blah blah.
One catch, it must be done on the full moon/new moon/eclipse/sparkly vampire so they must wait for this. Also it must be done at the sacred site at the end of a long canyon with boulders at the top/caves connected by short underwater passages which are home to bandits who set up there now and then.

Of course they are yelling all this loudly as a PC spies on them and arguing about it. Perception DC 10 5.

So, now there is enough time for the remaining PCs to pump up and prepare an ambush and maybe ally with the bandits(costing a pretty penny).

One thing NOT TO DO is to describe the torture. If you must, be vague and leave most of it up to the imagination of the players.

[Jallorn]

I would advise specializing the penalties. Make it something that each player will feel, but not something that debilitates their best skills. Do it in a way that makes the character interesting, and it will create a tie to the character so the player won't simply throw them out. So for, say, a ranged character, maybe he gets some tendons in his back sliced so he's not as strong, but in such a way that it doesn't impair his archery. Or for the stealth type, perhaps a specialized poison that makes his blood clot more slowly, making him even more reluctant to be hurt.

Each character should receive a different penalty, that adds the quality of it belonging to the character, rather than the event. And I would make it difficult, though not impossible, for it to be fixed, it's not very interesting to make it easy, but it's also not fair to make it impossible since they couldn't escape.

I's like to second the "don't show it happening" for anything gruesome, the imagination is far worse than any description you can come up with.

I also wouldn't worry too much about the players rolling up new sheets. Showing fear over the punishment means they care about the story. It could be that they are afraid the punishment will be death is why they are readying new characters.

This could also be an opportunity for a player or two to create a new character if they want to. if you're willing to work with said players before hand you could give their character a truly debilitating punishment, but have them save their next character, leading to them joining the party. The old character can then be mourned or relegated to NPC status.

[mangosta71]

Talk to the players individually before the next session. One of them might be willing to RP a character that's been ritually scarred/disfigured (make sure that you explain exactly what the results of the scarring will be so he's not taken by surprise later).

[Arutema]

I'd go with some sort of public humiliation torture, something like being tied to a post or hung by the wrists for goblin children to throw rocks at, and left out there at night to suffer from exposure.

At night only one guard is assigned to watch them. He falls asleep. (Yes, I know it's cliche.) Time to make those Escape Artist checks.

[Rixx]

Permanent disfigurement would be awesome.

You don't see enough battle-scarred adventurers these days. You can't just go out into monster-filled wilderness and fight inherently evil creatures and expect to come home with your hair still fresh from the barber and cry foul at every little nick and scratch. Missing an eye isn't a part of your character concept? Now it is, thanks to that run-in with the goblin tribe you'll never forget. And hey, if you reach high enough level without getting some badass magical prosthetics or eye patches, you can get yourself regenerated and no longer have to deal with regaling young barmaids with stories of your battle scars.

[jumpet]

Have the chief sentence them to be tortured to death in the very ear future (midnight, noon, dawn, dusk, whatever is significant to their god). A political rival to the chief sets things up so that they can escape, to further embarrass the chief and erode his position, strengthening his own. He's not being good, or helpful to the PC's, just looking to cash in on a political opportunity, possibly even using more misdirection to point the blame at another rival for power. PC's escape and regroup in the ensuing chaos.

I was thinking the same thing and it makes perfect sense.

[icefractal]

And DMs wonder why so many PCs would rather fight to the death than be taken prisoner....

I've got nothing valuable to contribute. Just remember that you can do whatever you want to the players' characters, but you can't make them continue playing them.

This. I mean, I get that this circumstance is somewhat difficult to work with. Having the goblins not try anything nasty just doesn't make sense. But that doesn't actually mean you should maim them.

Ritual sacrifice, on the full-moon (or whenever) expands the time-frame. Now there's a lot of things that can happen. Rescue by outside forces, a rivalry within the tribe, a giant monster busts out of the ground and creates a diversion, the prisoner ahead of them in line has a big explosive curse set to go off when he dies, whatever. Or send them to a hell-plane - that's your problem solved, right there; just adjust deadliness of the plane and time before they find a portal to taste.

Or, if you want to get gritty ... then they die. They all get sacrificed or fed to monsters or beheaded or whatever. Roll up new characters. You might as well, because very few people want to play maimed characters. And yes, this probably applies even to maiming that later gets healed - it's just a turn-off for most players. And yes, this is an entirely different situation from someone who chooses to play a one-eyed or scarred character from the start.

Also, if it's about being realistic - why would they escape after being tortured, either? If they're going to get rescued by some outside force or event, then it can just as easily happen "in the nick of time". If they're not, then being maimed is certainly not going to improve their chances against the goblins.

[Cerlis]

Why not torture the players, kill them, make an example of them and not hurt them at all while giving them a fun and dynamic adventure!


The Goblins pick out 1 or 2 other groups of slaves that have caused trouble in the past, perhaps they are to much trouble (if powerful/abled slaves) or you might have a gimp one or two (A One handed Ex-warrior). They use a ritual to put the PCs in The Mockery's hands, The Mockery connects their souls to the other prisoners. They put the prisoners in a pit with strange monsters. Not wolves and bears that kill you normally. But acidic slimes, creatures that swallow whole, or spiders. when the ritual begins each of the players' mind goes into one of the prisoners. As the monster comes at them they will have to figure out their hosts' strengths (which will become apparent quick enough. A person remembers if he can cast spells, or they might feel how athletic their new body is). It might be fun to like have the fighter get stuck in a sorcerer's body and yell across the arena for advice from the wizard. "No its MeleviOsa, not MeleviosA!". When they take a hit say they feel double pain (i dont know how to explain that better). But both their host and their own self feels the pain. but they have to live with the fact that if they fail in the fight someone else dies. (and if the entire party wipes you got another batch of slaves).
I think players are inclined to not die in whatever form so they will try to stay alive, but its not their characters that die. If all the prisoners die the PCs have to live with it, but they the players dont suffer any humiliation of their actual characters. Further if things go well, they could even kill the monsters and start a slave rebellion using the slaves bodies.
See to insure the wizard or rogue dont help again a barrier made by The Mockery himself is errected to prevent the players bodies from being touched, when things get chaotic he actually uses the players bodies invulnerability as a "test" of his goblins.