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  1. - Top - End - #181
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

    I have been using the common meaning of the word and I have not given you a definition. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

    {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
    That's needlessly hostile, don't you think?

    Like, I am not sure how to even respond to this, as it seems that all I am doing is asking questions, and all of the semantic arguments seem to be coming from your end. I am not really sure what is is that we were supposed to be "arguing" over.

    Are you claiming that I was using fumble to mean natural 1, and then when I realized it was an indefensible position tried to trick people by claiming I thought it meant critical failure? Because that's not the case, but that's the only way I can interpret what you are talking about.

    No, I have legitimately never noticed anyone use fumble to mean "auto fail one a one" before. I have always used it to be synonymous with words like critical failure, glitch, mishap, and botch to mean a failure so severe that it makes the situation worse. And, as this is the definition provided by multiple rule books, including enormously popular ones such as 3E D&D and Pathfinder, and I don't know of any system that uses "auto fail on a 1 is a fumble," I fail to see how it me who is using a "very specific abnormal definition".

    Again though, I really, really, don't understand what I have said to turn this so confrontational.

    Could you please provide me with a definition of the word fumble so we can get on the same page, and please let me know what position you think I was arguing that I needed to use semantics as a crutch?
    Last edited by truemane; 2020-10-26 at 07:38 AM. Reason: Scrub the quote
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  2. - Top - End - #182
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I wonder where you draw the line about recourse and what exactly you consider a player's agency to me.

    Not that I don't mostly agree with you, I just find it odd that most players would rather wreck the game and kill their characters or just not play at all than go along with a scenario that results in the PCs capture, whether it is a natural outcome of the events in game or the premise of an adventure.
    Agency is the ability to make meaningful choices (in this case for your character). It has three necessary components, as I see it:
    1) the existence of choice. You have no agency in a movie, beyond deciding to watch or not. The unfolding events do not allow you to choose.
    2) the existence of consequences for those choices. Imagine a movie that occasionally paused and asked (using some form of menu) "should X character do Y or Z?" but then no matter what you chose, the events still happened exactly the same way. You'd have a choice, but since your choice made no difference, you had no effective agency.
    3) a minimum level of knowledge to predict (likely) consequences of choice. Now imagine that the movie wasn't a movie--you actually had input into the events. But everything was being depicted in an abstract way and all the spoken words were in a language you were wholly unfamiliar with. Effectively gibberish. But the action would stop and wait for your input. You'd be choosing at random, and while you could make choices and those choices mattered, you'd still not be able to make meaningful choices, because your choice and the consequences are not linked.

    You don't need to have unrestricted choice sets to have agency, although the larger the choice set, the larger the scope for agency.

    So in a "traditional" (ie D&D-like) RPG, players have a restricted agency, restricted to their character. That's their only lever in the game. Taking that away or restricting their ability to choose from the existing set is seen as a violation of the core unwritten social compact. It feels like the DM wanting to hog all the toys--they already have the rest of the world, why do they also need my character?

    As far as recourse goes, I think it's a sliding scale. The more tie in the "inevitable capture" has with your previous actions and the world's logic/structure, the less recourse is needed to preserve agency.

    Low/No violation:
    1. The capture is an obvious (to the players!), direct consequence of something that they did, and was obvious at the time of the action. The forces employed fit the world's internal logic (teleporting CR 42 knights arresting you for saying bad things about an old woman in the street is an example of something that would not fit most world's internal logic)--if you tried to assassinate the king, his forces attack you, which might include armies. If you robbed a regular traveling merchant, you may get local law enforcement after you. You don't get armies of super soldiers or super-ninjas.
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    2. The inevitable capture is the result of enemies you've made, using forces they've been telegraphed to have available and in the area.
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    3. The inevitable capture is untelegraphed or uses disproportionate forces, but still more than could be fought off. You can play this as "you can fight back if you want to, but your chances are small. Can we fast forward to save time?"
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    4. The inevitable capture is done by forces that you could have fought off, or you were never given a chance to oppose them in the first place, not even verbally. This is the "fully narrated cutscene" style or the "invisible, undetectable assassins in the night, no save, just captured." scenario.
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    5. You did fight them off, but the DM retconned that and said you were captured anyway. Or other types of post-hoc DM magic even if they can point out rules in the book that say they can do this (often using twisty things). The important thing is that the decision to change the rules happened after you successfully defended yourself.
    High violation

    Even if you can't do anything in case 1, that's mostly ok because you brought it on yourself and it's just the world reacting sanely. Case 2 can feel like it's out of left field, but the threads are clear. Case 3 is where you start getting sticky and making people mad. You've blindsided them and denied the consequences of their actions and broke the logic of the world. Cases 4 and 5 are progressively more egregious denials of choice and consequence.

    Case 3 can be fun, if you get player buy-in ahead of time. Cases 1 and 2 are normal play. Cases 4 and 5 (especially 5) are, IMO, no-goes. Don't even ask.
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  3. - Top - End - #183
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    That's needlessly hostile, don't you think?
    {Scrubbed}
    Last edited by truemane; 2020-10-26 at 07:38 AM. Reason: Scrubbed

  4. - Top - End - #184
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Even if you can't do anything in case 1, that's mostly ok because you brought it on yourself and it's just the world reacting sanely. Case 2 can feel like it's out of left field, but the threads are clear. Case 3 is where you start getting sticky and making people mad. You've blindsided them and denied the consequences of their actions and broke the logic of the world. Cases 4 and 5 are progressively more egregious denials of choice and consequence.

    Case 3 can be fun, if you get player buy-in ahead of time. Cases 1 and 2 are normal play. Cases 4 and 5 (especially 5) are, IMO, no-goes. Don't even ask.
    For me personally, they are all no goes. Even #1, I fully expect the players to intentionally end the campaign in a TPK in a sort of "You will never take me alive coppers!" last stand even if they know they are only going to be ransomed / fined and then released.

    I am curious about number four though. Lots of modules (for example Out of the Abyss and Way of the Wicked iirc) start with the presumption that the players are in captivity at the start of the game. I really don't understand why players should be expected to reject the premise of such a module outright, anymore than they should reject exploring the Tome of Horrors if the DM is running the eponymous module. IMO it seems to be rather poor sportsmanship to reject the premise of an adventure that the DM spent a lot of time and or money on like that, and the idea that the DM shouldn't even ask just seems weird to me.

    Again, this is a generalization, I can see specific instances where a certain player or a certain character wouldn't want to interact with a particular premise, but all in all I really do not how the DM is the one being unreasonable for wanting the players to engage with the premise of what could be a fun game.
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  5. - Top - End - #185
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    For me personally, they are all no goes. Even #1, I fully expect the players to intentionally end the campaign in a TPK in a sort of "You will never take me alive coppers!" last stand even if they know they are only going to be ransomed / fined and then released.

    I am curious about number four though. Lots of modules (for example Out of the Abyss and Way of the Wicked iirc) start with the presumption that the players are in captivity at the start of the game. I really don't understand why players should be expected to reject the premise of such a module outright, anymore than they should reject exploring the Tome of Horrors if the DM is running the eponymous module. IMO it seems to be rather poor sportsmanship to reject the premise of an adventure that the DM spent a lot of time and or money on like that, and the idea that the DM shouldn't even ask just seems weird to me.

    Again, this is a generalization, I can see specific instances where a certain player or a certain character wouldn't want to interact with a particular premise, but all in all I really do not how the DM is the one being unreasonable for wanting the players to engage with the premise of what could be a fun game.
    Note: your perception may be skewed. I'm sure you've never heard that before :small_grin:

    And if you're starting in captivity or are captured in narrative time before the game really starts, that's different. You are assumed to have bought into the starting point at session 0 and escape is kinda baked into the cake.

    I do know that my players didn't like starting in prison the one time I tried it. But that wasn't "blow up the campaign", it was "find a way to overthrow this corrupt government once we've gained power."

    I've never had a group reject the premise absolutely. And if they did, I'd probably deserve some of the blame for not selling it well or not figuring out it was a no go before investing time and money into it.
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  6. - Top - End - #186
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Dice and rules cannot have agency, because they cannot make decisions or experience consequences. Both of which are sin qua non elements of agency. Dice cannot choose to act differently, because they cannot choose to act at all. They merely exist. And the numbers printed on them require interpretation by people, who have agency to decide on their own interpretations. Dice and rules are tools, created and used by people who have agency.

    And simply altering someone else's behavior is not agency--that's just being there. Everything changes behavior. And if everything has agency, then that word is meaningless. Agency requires choice, consequences, and knowledge (not perfect knowledge, but enough to know that there's a difference between the choices).
    Call it something else if the usage of the word "agency" troubles you. I opened my post with… huh… "In this sense", apparently. OK, not my best weasel words, but intended to convey "if we use this (the proposed ANT version) as the definition of agency…"

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    And RPG rules are fundamentally different (in intent, construction, and implementation) from those of Chess, MtG, or any other such card/board game.
    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    One big thing--RPGs are generally not competitive.
    They are also spelled differently. But neither is particularly relevant.

    I mean, sure, tennis is competitive; taxes are not. You get a *different* kind of hurt when people cheat one or the other, but both have rules, and the hurt is still there.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    They're also open-ended, unlike those games where every possible interaction is either in the rules or not allowed.
    Indeed, that is one of my favorite things about RPGs. And also irrelevant.

    In RPGs, players need, as you say later (in a really great post, btw) "a minimum level of knowledge to predict (likely) consequences of choice". This is provided by the ability to extrapolate from known rules, which requires intelligence and consistency. Remove the underlying consistency of following the rules, and you are removing agency.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    RPG rules are a framework for automation of resolution of commonly-encountered situations (where common is relative to the intended playstyle of that game). They are a default set of settings which the developers claim will work well together and act as a fun UI to facilitate interactions between the fiction layer and the player layer. They have only utility value, not intrinsic value.
    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    "Following the rules", even when it's dumb or produces bad results, is not an inherently good thing.
    "Being good", even when it's dumb or products bad results, is not an inherently good thing.

    Following the rules, OTOH, is. It provides consistency necessary for agency.

    Now, you can argue that reduced agency is more fun *for you*, and that is a legitimate thing to say. However, you cannot dictate that reduced agency is more fun *for me*.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I'd say it's a bad thing. In any conflict between the fun of the table and the rules, the rules lose.
    "In any conflict between the net fun of the world and the life of one person, the one person loses" is a valid moral stance. However, it is not the only possible moral stance.

    Same thing here.

    Some lose enjoyment by living in such a world, or playing in such a game - and/or find such morally objectionable.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    The rules are not the game. The rules do not even constrain the game. They're a toolbox to make the underlying thing (free form roleplay) easier (less work) and more reliable/consistent (so that you can have groups that aren't totally on the same wavelength, at least at first). They do this at a cost, however. They do not (or should not) claim any authority or power, because they have none.
    You are starting from freeform, and view the rules of RPGs as constraining. I, however, am starting from war gaming, and view the rules of RPGs as liberating.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    ------------
    Taking people prisoners without recourse or (player) consent is a violation of their agency. The rules and dice have no cause (or ability) to complain. The offense is against the people only, and needs to be redressed at that level.
    I don't think it has to be just one: you can violate player agency *and* break the rules, and I believe that things should be fixed at *every* level/layer that they are broken.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I get what you are saying, I have just never heard fumble used that way before. You seem to have a very specific definition of it that runs contrary to how I use it or how any of the rule books I am familiar with use it.


    Not only am I not familiar with anyone ever using the term "fumble" to refer to D&Ds "nat 1s always miss nat 20s almost hit," I don't think I have ever seen anyone upset by those rules before; it is slightly annoying that it ignores player skill, but that is the smallest unit the d20 can measure, and I think most people like having that sliver of hope and randomness in every encounter.

    I wonder where you draw the line about recourse and what exactly you consider a player's agency to me.
    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    If you attempt to misunderstand, you will surely succeed.

    I have been using the common meaning of the word and I have not given you a definition. However I severely doubt you were unaware of this meaning. Although it is entirely plausible you have some very specific abnormal definition you use.

    Unfortunately you seem to adopt the semantic swamp as an argumentative crutch rather than ask questions in good faith.
    I've gotta admit, I am confused as well. I have always taken as inherent to the definition of a fumble that it is worse than a simple failure.

    That said, Talakeal, I therefore view your previous example fumble of "a burnt meal" as a failure, not a fumble. Starting a kitchen fire or burning the house down would be a fumble; allying that only reduces the food value of the food is simply a failure IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Not that I don't mostly agree with you, I just find it odd that most players would rather wreck the game and kill their characters or just not play at all than go along with a scenario that results in the PCs capture, whether it is a natural outcome of the events in game or the premise of an adventure.
    The game is already wrecked; the players (or I, at least) would be attempting to *fix* the game - and all future games - via the liberal application of a (verbal) clue-by-four.

  7. - Top - End - #187
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I've gotta admit, I am confused as well. I have always taken as inherent to the definition of a fumble that it is worse than a simple failure.
    I agree, but the "auto fail regardless of your total" is technically worse than a simple failure. I used that as one of my 6-8? examples in demonstrating the difference between fumble mechanics and degree of failure mechanics. Even if you disagree with that 1 example, you can see the differentiate I made.

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    That said, Talakeal, I therefore view your previous example fumble of "a burnt meal" as a failure, not a fumble. Starting a kitchen fire or burning the house down would be a fumble; allying that only reduces the food value of the food is simply a failure IMO.
    Yeah, I suppose. Burning my hand maybe? Or getting food poisoning?

    In my games, I typically say that a failure when crafting wastes time, a fumble also wastes the materials, but that one isn't so clear cut.

    A lot of skills have more distinct fumble / failure states; falling vs. not being able to get up when climbing, missing your target vs. a friendly fire incident when shooting, crashing vs. being late when driving, being sick vs. dying when bitten by a rattlesnake, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Note: your perception may be skewed. I'm sure you've never heard that before :small_grin:

    And if you're starting in captivity or are captured in narrative time before the game really starts, that's different. You are assumed to have bought into the starting point at session 0 and escape is kinda baked into the cake.

    I do know that my players didn't like starting in prison the one time I tried it. But that wasn't "blow up the campaign", it was "find a way to overthrow this corrupt government once we've gained power."

    I've never had a group reject the premise absolutely. And if they did, I'd probably deserve some of the blame for not selling it well or not figuring out it was a no go before investing time and money into it.
    It might not be the start of the "campaign" though; it might just be the start of an adventure. Being captured and then having to either break out or cut a deal with your captors is a pretty standard literary trope / adventure hook; and its a shame that, in my experience, most players simply reject such a scenario out of hand and would rather than play in what could otherwise be a very fun game.
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post



    It might not be the start of the "campaign" though; it might just be the start of an adventure. Being captured and then having to either break out or cut a deal with your captors is a pretty standard literary trope / adventure hook; and its a shame that, in my experience, most players simply reject such a scenario out of hand and would rather than play in what could otherwise be a very fun game.
    Out of the blue what warnings do they have that this group of people who wishes them ill are any different from the last twenty assortments of orks/gecko cat bats/lawyers/corrupt politicians? The players understand defeat is a failure state so they’ll fight against anything that superficially looks like defeat. Without warning it’s just a lurching sensation as the amusement park ride gets tugged onto the tracks.
    If all rules are suggestions what happens when I pass the save?

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Xervous View Post
    Out of the blue what warnings do they have that this group of people who wishes them ill are any different from the last twenty assortments of orks/gecko cat bats/lawyers/corrupt politicians? The players understand defeat is a failure state so they’ll fight against anything that superficially looks like defeat. Without warning it’s just a lurching sensation as the amusement park ride gets tugged onto the tracks.
    Generally, the enemies offer who are interested in taking prisoners will offer the PCs a chance to surrender, those that aren’t won’t.

    Of course, if the players aren’t sure, they could always ask their enemies for terms or make a local knowledge check to see if they know how these guys treat their prisoners.
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre
    And RPG rules are fundamentally different (in intent, construction, and implementation) from those of Chess, MtG, or any other such card/board game. One big thing--RPGs are generally not competitive. They're also open-ended, unlike those games where every possible interaction is either in the rules or not allowed.
    You are correct that RPGs are different, but both of your examples of how they're different, though oft repeated, are atrocious.

    One one hand, open-endedness and non-competitiveness exist in plenty of games which are not roleplaying games, starting with children's games such as Chinese Whispers or Telephone. On the other, it is trivial to design roleplaying games with a competitive elements, either player versus player or player versus environment, starting with tournament games of D&D and these days more popular in form of vast array of Werewolf-derived roleplaying scenarios. Computer games have also shown that a roleplaying game with a closed ruleset is perfectly viable, because a computer game requires closed design to function, yet high agency computer RPGs exist.

    What actually defines RPGs and sets them apart is this: the player assumes the role of a character and decides what to do, and how, and why, in a virtual scenario. Your argument about agency can be boiled down to a simple statement: if a player is not making decisions, they aren't actually playing. Your argument about purpose of game rules can be boiled to a slightly more complex statement: game rules exist to facilitate the character and the scenario and where they fail to make a player's process of decision-making interesting (sorry, "fun"), they are bad rules. Point being, gist of what you say is perfectly agreeable, but is actually orthogonal to some of the claims you made about nature of RPGs.
    Last edited by Vahnavoi; 2020-10-26 at 03:45 PM.

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Generally, the enemies offer who are interested in taking prisoners will offer the PCs a chance to surrender, those that aren’t won’t.
    As a player, our party has sometimes asked foes to surrender, or simply used nonlethal damage, with the intent of taking them prisoner.

    Usually they're treated fairly well (if the party has people who'd torture prisoners, I'm not gonna take any prisoners), but:
    * They're not getting their stuff back.
    * They're not going to be put in a situation where escape is at all easy.
    * If they represent an ongoing threat (rather than just needing them out of our way), then they're probably going to be taken to some town/city big enough to reasonably securely imprison them.

    So assuming that everything will work out ok if we get captured (rather than "after ten years, you're released from prison") requires assuming that the people capturing us are equally or more ethical and significantly less competent than the PCs would be in their place.

    Sure, it won't work that way because plot. But I admit, I don't really like the "you are prisoners" trope much, not enough that I want to suspend disbelief and act OOC for it when I could be saving that suspension of disbelief for other things.

    Honestly, the main circumstance where I'd surrender (as a character) is if I was fully intending to go to trial and serve the sentence if it came to that. It could be worth it to remain a non-outlaw in a kingdom you care about, for instance. But if you intend to break out, you're going to be an outlaw anyway, so why not try to resist capture in the first place?
    Last edited by icefractal; 2020-10-26 at 04:12 PM.

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    As a player, our party has sometimes asked foes to surrender, or simply used nonlethal damage, with the intent of taking them prisoner.

    Usually they're treated fairly well (if the party has people who'd torture prisoners, I'm not gonna take any prisoners), but:
    * They're not getting their stuff back.
    * They're not going to be put in a situation where escape is at all easy.
    * If they represent an ongoing threat (rather than just needing them out of our way), then they're probably going to be taken to some town/city big enough to reasonably securely imprison them.

    So assuming that everything will work out ok if we get captured (rather than "after ten years, you're released from prison") requires assuming that the people capturing us are equally or more ethical and significantly less competent than the PCs would be in their place.

    Sure, it won't work that way because plot. But I admit, I don't really like the "you are prisoners" trope much, not enough that I want to suspend disbelief and act OOC for it when I could be saving that suspension of disbelief for other things.

    Honestly, the main circumstance where I'd surrender (as a character) is if I was fully intending to go to trial and serve the sentence if it came to that. It could be worth it to remain a non-outlaw in a kingdom you care about, for instance. But if you intend to break out, you're going to be an outlaw anyway, so why not try to resist capture in the first place?
    I find the idea that the average PC would rather die than risk being captured to be rather poor RP. Now, for some characters it makes sense, like a samurai or an escaped slave, but for most people I just don't buy it.

    Most good and / or lawful foes will probably have some sort of code about treatment of prisoners, and might even give back gear as a matter of course.

    Heck, I remember Necromunda, a game about savage post apocalyptic street gangs, had a rule that you must exchange prisoners and their gear on a one for one basis, regardless of relative value and personal feelings on the matter.

    But, even so, unless you are playing in a super high magic setting, surely characters value their life more than their gear?
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I find the idea that the average PC would rather die than risk being captured to be rather poor RP. Now, for some characters it makes sense, like a samurai or an escaped slave, but for most people I just don't buy it.

    Most good and / or lawful foes will probably have some sort of code about treatment of prisoners, and might even give back gear as a matter of course.

    Heck, I remember Necromunda, a game about savage post apocalyptic street gangs, had a rule that you must exchange prisoners and their gear on a one for one basis, regardless of relative value and personal feelings on the matter.

    But, even so, unless you are playing in a super high magic setting, surely characters value their life more than their gear?
    On most cases I would rather have my character die than be taken prisoner.

    After all, I didn't create a prisoner nor am I interested on playing one.
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Why would they assume the alternative is death? Because some people are pointing weapons at them? For an adventurer, that's an average day.

    Also, why are LG people trying to capture you? Is it because you're evil? If so, are you sure that a fair trial won't result in your execution or secure imprisonment?
    Last edited by icefractal; 2020-10-26 at 05:41 PM.

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Dice and rules cannot have agency [...]
    I'm going to stop you right there. In ANT, they can. Every professor of sociology will back me on this*. Saying that dice can't have agency means you are not taking the point seriously.

    Once again: nobody's saying that dice are sentient, thinking, make choices, or whatever. The point is not to challenge conventional notions of personhood. The point is pragmatic**: it can be useful, for a given analysis of social structure, to consider the inorganic (e.g. technological) objects that are part of the social structure to have agency. That doesn't mean everything has agency. Only those things that are part of the structure that can usefully be analyzed in those terms (you are not, I trust, trying to analyze RPG gaming by taking the entire universe as starting point). In the case of "playing RPGs", it might well be that the rulebooks have agency, the dice have agency, the roll20 software has agency, and probably some other things besides players have agency, too. The road surface on the way to the game store? Probably doesn't.

    Anyway, the point wasn't to immediately make everyone read up on ANT or change their ontologies. The point was that sometimes, a different perspective is helpful, and some perspectives are as surprising as "rules and dice have agency".

    Okay, philosophy post over, back to the topic at hand.

    *Yes, I realize this is not a very elegant argument, but I can hardly quote an entire Latour book at you. You're just going to have to take it on trust that this is a real thing that real scholars use every day. "Dice can't have agency" doesn't set aside forty years of scholarship.
    **The point can also be theoretical, e.g. when arguing that "agency" is not in any useful sense observable or measurable, but rather something attributed by someone to something to name a certain pattern of behaviour (e.g. humans recognizing patterns in human behaviour), thus we can attribute it however we please. And please, this is an off-topic footnote: no need to argue the point if you disagree .
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    its a shame that, in my experience, most players simply reject such a scenario out of hand and would rather than play in what could otherwise be a very fun game.
    There's lots of things that *could* be fun, but consent and preference are important to most of them.

    However, let's look at this particular example.

    CaS says that all challenges should be "sporting". An unwinnable fight is a violation of CaS (and could explain some "fight to the death" mentality).

    CaW says "what's there is there"; however, "cut scene capture" completely violates logical consequences proceeding from facts and rules, so this is a violation of CaW, as well.

    Railroaded capture is a violation of Agency, and a sign of a GM willing to railroad, and of rails to come. Have you really known many players who *liked* railroads? I haven't. So, yeah, that's definitely a "game over, back to the drawing board" scenario.

    And…

    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    On most cases I would rather have my character die than be taken prisoner.

    After all, I didn't create a prisoner nor am I interested on playing one.

    Yeah, who said that it would be a fun game? I certainly don't expect that it would be a fun game. And I don't expect a GM so clueless about Agency to produce a fun game, especially not under such circumstances.

    How about we start with a base that shows more respect for the players Agency, and a base that has more potential for fun?

    A GM who had shown the right mix of skills, and whose pitch indicated that they would be leveraging those skills in a "begin in prison" scenario? I *might* consider it. It's as good a way as any to introduce Verbal Kent.

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    There's lots of things that *could* be fun, but consent and preference are important to most of them.

    However, let's look at this particular example.

    CaS says that all challenges should be "sporting". An unwinnable fight is a violation of CaS (and could explain some "fight to the death" mentality).

    CaW says "what's there is there"; however, "cut scene capture" completely violates logical consequences proceeding from facts and rules, so this is a violation of CaW, as well.

    Railroaded capture is a violation of Agency, and a sign of a GM willing to railroad, and of rails to come. Have you really known many players who *liked* railroads? I haven't. So, yeah, that's definitely a "game over, back to the drawing board" scenario.

    And…


    Yeah, who said that it would be a fun game? I certainly don't expect that it would be a fun game. And I don't expect a GM so clueless about Agency to produce a fun game, especially not under such circumstances.

    How about we start with a base that shows more respect for the players Agency, and a base that has more potential for fun?

    A GM who had shown the right mix of skills, and whose pitch indicated that they would be leveraging those skills in a "begin in prison" scenario? I *might* consider it. It's as good a way as any to introduce Verbal Kent.
    IMO, the right way to do a non-starting arc that involves getting captured is one of

    1. give them a reason to want to be on the inside. The whole "prison break out of an unassailable fortress" (easier to get out than to get in, at least without a massive army) scenario. Make it open, make it transparent that that's the plan and plot. This establishes that the inconvenience is going to be temporary and furthers their goals.

    2. Metagame it. Explicitly talk to the party ahead of time, out of character, and tell them what you want to do. Then get their buy-in knowing the parameters. And have them help you figure out a way to make it stick in character and in universe. If they don't agree, don't do it. Note: this is the same as starting in prison.

    Either way, you're doing it with their (the players', not the characters') cooperation, so no violation of expectations or agency. Just people playing a slightly different game. You also build trust between DM and players, at least as long as you actually follow through on the agreed-on framework.

    It doesn't work very well for highly-sandbox games, but then again much of a DM's standard arsenal doesn't work very well there, at least without substantial tweaking. And there's a large gap between a railroad and a pure sandbox--most players I've met aren't happy in either extreme. They want agency (both large-scale and small-scale) but they also want direction and (for lack of a better word) plot.
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Being captured and then having to either break out or cut a deal with your captors is a pretty standard literary trope / adventure hook; and its a shame that, in my experience, most players simply reject such a scenario out of hand and would rather than play in what could otherwise be a very fun game.
    If you want to play such a fun scenario, convince your players that it actually would be fun and get buy-in. If they don't want to play a prisoner episode, they probably won't have fun playing a prisoner episode. And no, the GM does not know better what is fun for players than players do.


    You should never force the game in a certain direction you want to tell a story about against the will of your players.
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    The kind of player who would rather kill their character than have it suffer a serious setback isn't the kind of player I'd want at my table.

    The heroic journey isn't an arrow pointing straight up. The 2nd act of many of the greatest stories has an "all is lost" point. And if a player isn't capable of experiencing the entire hero's journey - not just the triumphs - then I don't consider them a good fit to RP at my table.

    Fortunately, I've run into this problem maybe 2 or 3 times out of the hundreds of players I've had at my tables. So I certainly haven't seen an issue where "a majority of players" would balk at a capture/imprisonment/major setback situation.

    A character always has agency. Agency does not mean a character can do anything. It simply means that they are free to make whatever choices their given situation allows.

    In a prison scenario, a character has full agency to react and make choices that are available to a prisoner. If captured, a character has full agency to do what a captive would do.

    Lacking imagination is not the same as lacking agency.

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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    IMO, the right way to do a non-starting arc that involves getting captured is one of

    1. give them a reason to want to be on the inside. The whole "prison break out of an unassailable fortress" (easier to get out than to get in, at least without a massive army) scenario. Make it open, make it transparent that that's the plan and plot. This establishes that the inconvenience is going to be temporary and furthers their goals.

    2. Metagame it. Explicitly talk to the party ahead of time, out of character, and tell them what you want to do. Then get their buy-in knowing the parameters. And have them help you figure out a way to make it stick in character and in universe. If they don't agree, don't do it. Note: this is the same as starting in prison.

    Either way, you're doing it with their (the players', not the characters') cooperation, so no violation of expectations or agency. Just people playing a slightly different game. You also build trust between DM and players, at least as long as you actually follow through on the agreed-on framework.
    Strongly agree. Well said.

    I would add, "if it comes up organically" - enemy dice are hot, Wizard "friendly fires" a Fireball on the party, etc - and the party finds that they need to surrender.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    It doesn't work very well for highly-sandbox games,
    Railroading does not exist in a sandbox, yeah.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    And there's a large gap between a railroad and a pure sandbox--most players I've met aren't happy in either extreme. They want agency (both large-scale and small-scale) but they also want direction and (for lack of a better word) plot.
    Have you seen players who enjoy a) picking and choosing *which* plots to engage, or b) choosing *how* to engage plot elements? "The evil princess has kidnapped a Dragon? Let's go steal some Dragon eggs to sell/gift to her as consolation for when a group of adventurers comes along and rescues the Dragon, as they invariably do"?

    Quote Originally Posted by Democratus View Post
    The kind of player who would rather kill their character than have it suffer a serious setback isn't the kind of player I'd want at my table.

    The heroic journey isn't an arrow pointing straight up. The 2nd act of many of the greatest stories has an "all is lost" point. And if a player isn't capable of experiencing the entire hero's journey - not just the triumphs - then I don't consider them a good fit to RP at my table.

    Fortunately, I've run into this problem maybe 2 or 3 times out of the hundreds of players I've had at my tables. So I certainly haven't seen an issue where "a majority of players" would balk at a capture/imprisonment/major setback situation.

    A character always has agency. Agency does not mean a character can do anything. It simply means that they are free to make whatever choices their given situation allows.

    In a prison scenario, a character has full agency to react and make choices that are available to a prisoner. If captured, a character has full agency to do what a captive would do.

    Lacking imagination is not the same as lacking agency.
    The *lack* of Agency is in the railroading of the capture. And a prison scenario generally results in a great *reduction* of Agency. A GM who cannot comprehend this and have a discussion about it is certainly not someone I'd want GMing.

    I'm all about setbacks and failures, but I want to come by them honest - I'm not willing to accept rails, and don't care for formulaic "hero's journey". And, again, a GM who cannot comprehend this well enough to have a conversation about it is not someone I'd want GMing.

    Now, some people *do* want to hit certain "story beats". And that's fine. It's just not my thing. But someone who wants to GM should be capable of comprehending the difference, and having a reasonable conversation with their players to evaluate and discuss these differences in playstyle expectations.

    -----

    I'm a bit curious about your statistics: you say that you've "run into this problem maybe 2 or 3 times out of the hundreds of players I've had at my tables". Just how many of these players have you railroaded into a "capture" scenario, and how many of those committed suicide in response? Are we to infer that you *always* railroad all players into capture scenes (because it fits your story beats for a hero's journey?), and, of the hundreds of players you've done so to, it was only a problem for a single player each of the 2-3 times that a PC killed themselves in response?
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Have you seen players who enjoy a) picking and choosing *which* plots to engage, or b) choosing *how* to engage plot elements? "The evil princess has kidnapped a Dragon? Let's go steal some Dragon eggs to sell/gift to her as consolation for when a group of adventurers comes along and rescues the Dragon, as they invariably do"?
    All the time. My games are neither plot-free sandboxes (there's always a "main quest" for each arc) nor railroads (I don't plan far enough ahead to railroad ). My general flow goes like:

    1. At the beginning of an arc (ie when a new campaign finishes or they finish/quit their current arc), the players decide what area of the world to focus on. Sometimes this comes from a "menu" of "quest seeds" (situations going on in the world, presented in character and out of character), sometimes this comes from character or player goals. Often this has happened as "we need a power-up arc before tackling <long-term goal>, so let's find a short sidequest".

    1a. A sample quest seed (my current one) is "The village of Honedaxe is trying to build a port to <deal with local political situation>, but they've been having all sorts of troubles. People are saying that they're cursed. Figure out what's going on and fix what you can." And I only know high-level things beyond that at session 0.

    2. They start engaging however they choose. The seed is just there to get them somewhere and doing stuff. Everything snowballs from there--the world reacts to the characters and vice versa.

    3. The situation gets resolved one way or another. GOTO 1.

    So they have both a menu of choices (some self-generated, some DM-generated) and (rough, but constrained) flexibility in how they approach the situations. And they take it routinely. One example of the second was where the players had two obvious choices

    Mission: ensure the destruction of a particular facility.

    Complication: the only way to ensure total destruction is to get the controlling "computer" (a composite soul in a jar) to self-destruct. But most of that soul was, in essence, an innocent. And they liked her. They also had a chance to save her, at the cost of not destroying the facility.

    Third Way: Based on scraps of things I had said and people they'd befriended (which I did not expect), they had access to a body without a soul (mechanical). They spent some time and effort to research a way to split the amalgam soul into "innocent" and "wanting to die", downloading the innocent soul into the body and leaving the "wanting to die (out of guilt for participation in an atrocity)" part to do the self-destruct. Win-win...and totally unplanned. Because they had done the initial infiltration completely differently than expected.
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Question for the people (mostly Quertus) saying it is easier to res someone than rescue a prisoner; don't most systems have permanent stat and / or level loss from resurrections magic? Is that really worth it?

    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    On most cases I would rather have my character die than be taken prisoner.
    Well, as a player I could see that, although I don't think that is (typically) the advantageous situation from a long term gamist perspective or what the character would prefer from an RP perspective.

    The real question though is, why? Its not like you don't get to play the game while captive. Its not like you don't get to do fun things while in captivity, you can even have prison fights or formal arena matches if you like combat, and I personally love "clash of wills" type situations that result from interrogations and the like.

    Worst case scenario, you just mark some gear / treasure of your sheet as a fine / ransom / confiscation and continue playing as normal, which is (typically) less of a hassle or a setback then either paying for a resurrections or creating a new character.

    Most of the time, it will just be a launching point for a jail-break / slave revolt / infiltration quest or doing a favor in exchange for your freedom, meaning that it is fundamentally the same as any other quest assignment.

    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    After all, I didn't create a prisoner nor am I interested on playing one.
    Again, the question is why is being a prisoner specifically is so bad.

    But, on a broader spectrum, you could say that about a lot of things. I mean, odds are you didn't create a hunter, or a soldier, or a researcher, or a merchant, but those are all things adventurer's regularly do. I fundamentally don't see how being a prisoner is fundamentally different from, say, needing to take a ship to the adventure location. In character it is boring and you don't have a lot of agency while on the voyage, you likely didn't create your character for the purposes of being a sailor, and it often costs a lot of time and / or money. But, it leads to a fun adventure in the end, often has exciting opportunities for RP or even combat on board, and you simply gloss over the boring parts.

    Although, maybe that is a bad examples, as getting PCs on boats is also one of the great difficulties of being a DM... they seem to know that the DM never gets an opportunity to use aquatic monsters or castaway plots...

    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    Why would they assume the alternative is death? Because some people are pointing weapons at them? For an adventurer, that's an average day.
    Because they are in over their head, they made a tactical blunder, had a really cold steak of dice rolls, or because they attracted too much attention and are hopelessly outnumbered (the latter happens a lot to my players, they will bypass encounters rather than dealing with them, and then forget that they are now surrounded by enemies who are individually a fair fight for them).

    You don't (typically) offer to surrender if you think you have a realistic chance of victory.

    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    Also, why are LG people trying to capture you? Is it because you're evil? If so, are you sure that a fair trial won't result in your execution or secure imprisonment?
    Maybe you are an outlaw. Maybe you an enemy soldier. Maybe they are chaotic good or lawful evil and you have a legitimate grievance with them but they are still following a code of some sort.

    Even if you are guilty of capitol crimes, odds are you will still get a fair trial or (more likely for exceptional people like PCs) be able to cut a deal, which is, imo, still better odds than continuing to fight against an entire squad of armed guards who have home field advantage when half your team is unconscious and the rest are down to cantrips and single digit HP.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    CaS says that all challenges should be "sporting". An unwinnable fight is a violation of CaS (and could explain some "fight to the death" mentality).

    CaW says "what's there is there"; however, "cut scene capture" completely violates logical consequences proceeding from facts and rules, so this is a violation of CaW, as well.

    Railroaded capture is a violation of Agency, and a sign of a GM willing to railroad, and of rails to come. Have you really known many players who *liked* railroads? I haven't. So, yeah, that's definitely a "game over, back to the drawing board" scenario.

    And…


    Yeah, who said that it would be a fun game? I certainly don't expect that it would be a fun game. And I don't expect a GM so clueless about Agency to produce a fun game, especially not under such circumstances.

    How about we start with a base that shows more respect for the players Agency, and a base that has more potential for fun?
    CaS can still produce unwinnable results if the dice are cold or the players are foolish.

    Things that happen during a cut scene are by definition not play and don't have agency. I typically gloss over the downtime between adventures or travel scenes, and typically skip to the "fun part" of an adventure to keep from boring my players. You might do it differently.

    And again, being a prisoner might be extremely fun; some of the most memorable games I have played in have involved capture, and most players seem to really enjoy prison yard fights and arena matches as they scratch the combat as sport itch without needing a lot of justification.

    Also, one constant complaint from my games is that they aren't rail-roady enough. Player's feeling lost or bored is a way bigger problem than lack of agency. I tend to have what Fear the Boot calls "baby bird" players who want to plot pre-chewed and dropped into their mouths rather than going out and making their own fun, and I haven't had a great track record with sandbox style play.

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    If you want to play such a fun scenario, convince your players that it actually would be fun and get buy-in. If they don't want to play a prisoner episode, they probably won't have fun playing a prisoner episode. And no, the GM does not know better what is fun for players than players do.

    You should never force the game in a certain direction you want to tell a story about against the will of your players.
    Well... you can force yourself not to like something, but, like most things in life, you often enjoy new experiences if you give them a chance.

    But no, I don't run prison break scenarios anymore because the players are clear about their dislike. The whole point of this thread is trying to figure out what exactly they don't like and trying to craft a scenario that they can enjoy, or at least tolerate.

    It would be nice to be able to look at a book like Descent into Avernus or Out of the Abyss as something other than a fifty dollar doorstop because it starts with the PCs in captivity, or to be able to have adventures with a plot similar to Aladdin or the countless Conan stories where he gets drunk and wakes up in a dungeon.

    And it would REALLY be nice to be able to have PCs who can lose a fight without ending the entire campaign in a TPK.

    Quote Originally Posted by Democratus View Post
    The kind of player who would rather kill their character than have it suffer a serious setback isn't the kind of player I'd want at my table.

    The heroic journey isn't an arrow pointing straight up. The 2nd act of many of the greatest stories has an "all is lost" point. And if a player isn't capable of experiencing the entire hero's journey - not just the triumphs - then I don't consider them a good fit to RP at my table.

    Fortunately, I've run into this problem maybe 2 or 3 times out of the hundreds of players I've had at my tables. So I certainly haven't seen an issue where "a majority of players" would balk at a capture/imprisonment/major setback situation.

    A character always has agency. Agency does not mean a character can do anything. It simply means that they are free to make whatever choices their given situation allows.

    In a prison scenario, a character has full agency to react and make choices that are available to a prisoner. If captured, a character has full agency to do what a captive would do.

    Lacking imagination is not the same as lacking agency.
    Agree 100%
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Democratus View Post
    The kind of player who would rather kill their character than have it suffer a serious setback isn't the kind of player I'd want at my table.

    The heroic journey isn't an arrow pointing straight up. The 2nd act of many of the greatest stories has an "all is lost" point. And if a player isn't capable of experiencing the entire hero's journey - not just the triumphs - then I don't consider them a good fit to RP at my table.

    Fortunately, I've run into this problem maybe 2 or 3 times out of the hundreds of players I've had at my tables. So I certainly haven't seen an issue where "a majority of players" would balk at a capture/imprisonment/major setback situation.

    A character always has agency. Agency does not mean a character can do anything. It simply means that they are free to make whatever choices their given situation allows.

    In a prison scenario, a character has full agency to react and make choices that are available to a prisoner. If captured, a character has full agency to do what a captive would do.

    Lacking imagination is not the same as lacking agency.
    There is a difference between the players tried but failed and now must deal with the unfortunate consequences and the DM forcing unfortunate consequences on the players by fiat. If the defeated party doesn't want to surrender to the orc chief that's their business. It's not your job as DM to make them surrender.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Question for the people (mostly Quertus) saying it is easier to res someone than rescue a prisoner; don't most systems have permanent stat and / or level loss from resurrections magic? Is that really worth it?



    Well, as a player I could see that, although I don't think that is (typically) the advantageous situation from a long term gamist perspective or what the character would prefer from an RP perspective.

    The real question though is, why? Its not like you don't get to play the game while captive. Its not like you don't get to do fun things while in captivity, you can even have prison fights or formal arena matches if you like combat, and I personally love "clash of wills" type situations that result from interrogations and the like.

    Worst case scenario, you just mark some gear / treasure of your sheet as a fine / ransom / confiscation and continue playing as normal, which is (typically) less of a hassle or a setback then either paying for a resurrections or creating a new character.

    Most of the time, it will just be a launching point for a jail-break / slave revolt / infiltration quest or doing a favor in exchange for your freedom, meaning that it is fundamentally the same as any other quest assignment.



    Again, the question is why is being a prisoner specifically is so bad.

    But, on a broader spectrum, you could say that about a lot of things. I mean, odds are you didn't create a hunter, or a soldier, or a researcher, or a merchant, but those are all things adventurer's regularly do. I fundamentally don't see how being a prisoner is fundamentally different from, say, needing to take a ship to the adventure location. In character it is boring and you don't have a lot of agency while on the voyage, you likely didn't create your character for the purposes of being a sailor, and it often costs a lot of time and / or money. But, it leads to a fun adventure in the end, often has exciting opportunities for RP or even combat on board, and you simply gloss over the boring parts.

    Although, maybe that is a bad examples, as getting PCs on boats is also one of the great difficulties of being a DM... they seem to know that the DM never gets an opportunity to use aquatic monsters or castaway plots...

    Being captured is essentially catastrophic. In the best case scenario, you lose all your equipment and carried-on-person wealth, which is going for make some characters as good as dead [almost all casters] and with like the exception of Barbaian and Monk, the rest also pretty much worthless without equipment. Even if you break out and scavenge equipment from guards [which even at mid level can be a taller order than it sounds when you do 1+STR Damage], the spellcasters are still effectively the payload in an escort mission who won't be able to restore their character functionality without returning home and potentially spending a lot of money. You then have to return to friendly territory to re-arm and buy back your critical lost equipment with your spellcasters essentially useless and your martials still operating at drastically reduced effectiveness.

    In the least favorable of cases, you're not captured by civilized people who abide by the laws of war [even if your are, to be fair as adventurers there aren't really any laws of war to apply to you anyway and you might be up for punishment as a pirate or terrorist anyway and without a chance for repatriation] and could be facing execution, mutilation, and other general mistreatment.




    I've only had party members surrender twice: One time, 3 out of 8 party members got caught by a well armed search party while away from the main party. The remaining 5 launched a rescue mission basically immediately and arrived basically on the heels of the other three's captors, so the captured party members spent less than an hour in a temporary holding cell before they were rescued and the guards were caught and killed before they could remove the captured party members equipment. The other time, 1 party member was captured, but the remaining members of the party captured two enemy prisoners in the encounter, and afterwords they arranged a prisoner exchange.

    Most of the time, if a fight is going bad, the party should retreat and regroup. Abilities like Fly, Haste, Cunning Action, and Dimension Door can break contact with the enemy [anything that makes the slowest party members faster than the fastest enemy], and then Pass Without Trace or a party stealth roll with assistance can help you go to ground to shake your pursuers. Even if you're forced all the way back to friendly territory, if you retreat instead of surrender you have all your equipment and are fully operational for trip back and don't have to re-buy it upon arrival.




    Prison escape is a scenario that should probably be a one shot and requires very specific characters and builds to be fun. Monks and Barbarians, who can keep their effectiveness unarmed and unarmored, Druids who derive most of their effectiveness out of their wild shape, or Rogues who derive most of their effect from their class feature instead of their weapon so even an improvised weapon can still see them operating near full effect. If you play something like a wizard or a bard and wind up without a spellbook and focus [or cleric, or bard, or even a fighter/ranger without the armor and weapons they're specced in to] you're basically confined to following along behind the party until the arc is over.
    Last edited by LordCdrMilitant; 2020-10-27 at 12:34 PM.
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  26. - Top - End - #206
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Question for the people (mostly Quertus) saying it is easier to res someone than rescue a prisoner; don't most systems have permanent stat and / or level loss from resurrections magic? Is that really worth it?
    Most systems don't have ressurection. Of those that do, most don't have permanent stat losses. Even D&D abandoned it with 3E and changed it to experience loss and in later varations gave that up as well.

    Its not like you don't get to play the game while captive. Its not like you don't get to do fun things while in captivity, you can even have prison fights or formal arena matches if you like combat, and I personally love "clash of wills" type situations that result from interrogations and the like.
    Yes, you get to play. Get to play boring captivity stuff because prisons are mostly about restricting prisoners. Prison fights are usually pointless as you only risk injuries and punishments and even if you win, you are still a prisoner. Better avoid them. "Tst of will" is not something everyone enjoys. Mostly that is about being bullied/tortured and endure it. Somehow most people don't like that.

    Usually prison time would be something to fast forward until it is over because it is boring and unpleasent and mostly does not even have interesting choices because the whole scenario is about some other people who have full power over you and want to keep you alive and still imprisoned.
    Burt if the GM railroads you into a prison scenario, you can bet, he will want to play out prison time.



    Again, the question is why is being a prisoner specifically is so bad.

    But, on a broader spectrum, you could say that about a lot of things. I mean, odds are you didn't create a hunter, or a soldier, or a researcher, or a merchant, but those are all things adventurer's regularly do. I fundamentally don't see how being a prisoner is fundamentally different from, say, needing to take a ship to the adventure location. In character it is boring and you don't have a lot of agency while on the voyage, you likely didn't create your character for the purposes of being a sailor, and it often costs a lot of time and / or money. But, it leads to a fun adventure in the end, often has exciting opportunities for RP or even combat on board, and you simply gloss over the boring parts.

    Although, maybe that is a bad examples, as getting PCs on boats is also one of the great difficulties of being a DM... they seem to know that the DM never gets an opportunity to use aquatic monsters or castaway plots...

    Well... you can force yourself not to like something, but, like most things in life, you often enjoy new experiences if you give them a chance.

    But no, I don't run prison break scenarios anymore because the players are clear about their dislike. The whole point of this thread is trying to figure out what exactly they don't like and trying to craft a scenario that they can enjoy, or at least tolerate.

    It would be nice to be able to look at a book like Descent into Avernus or Out of the Abyss as something other than a fifty dollar doorstop because it starts with the PCs in captivity, or to be able to have adventures with a plot similar to Aladdin or the countless Conan stories where he gets drunk and wakes up in a dungeon.

    And it would REALLY be nice to be able to have PCs who can lose a fight without ending the entire campaign in a TPK.
    When i said that you could convince your players that it would be fun, that was not a joke.

    If you really want to play Descent into Avernus and really think it is enjoyable, you should have no problems convincing your players. Buy-in is possible.





    Personally i have no problems with players loosing fights without TPK. But Not-TPK is not the same thing as "all are prisoners". Retreat is an option. Even running away as fast as you can, screw your slower teammates is an option. Most often when i get PCs captured, it is not the whole group. It is those who are injured and can't move fast or those who fail at reconnaissance.

  27. - Top - End - #207

    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    Most systems don't have ressurection. Of those that do, most don't have permanent stat losses. Even D&D abandoned it with 3E and changed it to experience loss and in later varations gave that up as well.
    3e still has permanent stat loss, though in practice it almost never comes up (very few 1st level people get rez'd). But even the level loss is usually serious enough to make getting rez'd a worse outcome for you than just replacing your character.

    I fundamentally don't see how being a prisoner is fundamentally different from, say, needing to take a ship to the adventure location.
    Because you still get all your abilities on a boat (barring some edge cases) and can still have interesting adventures on a boat. You can do Pirates of the Caribbean or whatever. Whereas a typical prison environment doesn't lend itself well to adventures. If you want to do an interesting prison adventure, it has to look a lot less like what you'd expect from a real-world prison and a lot more like a dungeon crawl where the final boss is the warden. Or "fantasy!Britain has captured you, and for your crimes exiles you to fantasy!Australia". But your basic "you are locked in a cell and lose your stuff" prison is just pretty terrible for adventuring.

    If you really want to play Descent into Avernus and really think it is enjoyable, you should have no problems convincing your players. Buy-in is possible.
    That's a key thing. Getting buy-in goes a long way. IME, there are a lot of players who don't care very much about the back-drop of their adventures. If you explain that you're going to be doing a pretty standard dungeon crawl that happens to be in a prison, people will probably be fine with that.

  28. - Top - End - #208
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Well, as a player I could see that, although I don't think that is (typically) the advantageous situation from a long term gamist perspective or what the character would prefer from an RP perspective.

    The real question though is, why? Its not like you don't get to play the game while captive. Its not like you don't get to do fun things while in captivity, you can even have prison fights or formal arena matches if you like combat, and I personally love "clash of wills" type situations that result from interrogations and the like.

    Worst case scenario, you just mark some gear / treasure of your sheet as a fine / ransom / confiscation and continue playing as normal, which is (typically) less of a hassle or a setback then either paying for a resurrections or creating a new character.

    Most of the time, it will just be a launching point for a jail-break / slave revolt / infiltration quest or doing a favor in exchange for your freedom, meaning that it is fundamentally the same as any other quest assignment.



    Again, the question is why is being a prisoner specifically is so bad.

    But, on a broader spectrum, you could say that about a lot of things. I mean, odds are you didn't create a hunter, or a soldier, or a researcher, or a merchant, but those are all things adventurer's regularly do. I fundamentally don't see how being a prisoner is fundamentally different from, say, needing to take a ship to the adventure location. In character it is boring and you don't have a lot of agency while on the voyage, you likely didn't create your character for the purposes of being a sailor, and it often costs a lot of time and / or money. But, it leads to a fun adventure in the end, often has exciting opportunities for RP or even combat on board, and you simply gloss over the boring parts.

    Although, maybe that is a bad examples, as getting PCs on boats is also one of the great difficulties of being a DM... they seem to know that the DM never gets an opportunity to use aquatic monsters or castaway plots...
    If I didn't create a researcher I won't research, if I didn't create a hunter, I won't hun, If I didn't create a soldier, I won't act like one.

    Being taken prisoner is fundamentally different cause it forces restrictions on my character that I did not agree to. In order for me to agree to such a thing I would need to be convinced it would be fun to, or that it would be brief.
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  29. - Top - End - #209
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by LordCdrMilitant View Post
    Being captured is essentially catastrophic. In the best case scenario, you lose all your equipment and carried-on-person wealth, which is going for make some characters as good as dead [almost all casters] and with like the exception of Barbaian and Monk, the rest also pretty much worthless without equipment.
    That's all very specific to D&D and it makes assumptions about the nature of the enemies, culture, and imprisonment.

    Being defeated and captured by myconoids? They may not want your gear. By inevitables? They may not care at all. Nobles may accept the word of honor of a reputable opponent. A culture that is heavily invested in an honor system may accept a sworn oath for you good behavior. Maybe they imprison people in an alternate dimension where you'll need your gear.

    Narative or supers games may not have significant gear. Gear in point buy systems usually can't be permanently removed from the character. Systems that give fighter types more than "I attack again" or don't rely on gear to make up for missing character options or incomplete classes may not care.

    In modern and future games prisoners usually have more options, communication, or even freedom. Character usually at least get to call a lawyer. Your stuff may be returned after the imprisonment. Get a good lawyer and you might be out on bail. Fabricate an alibi or call up a fixer to do that for you.

    Perhaps the imprisonment is in an ancient mine where the lower tunnels are haunted and unmapped. A prison colony or planet. Alternate dimension prisons. Virtual reality "rehabilitation". Maybe prisoners are used for death match team games, real, illusionary, VR, or in clone bodies.

    As soon as you look past D&D with it's all-or-nothing fight-or-die stuff, gear reliant classes, and some characters likely to be useless outside of combat, then losing some fights and being taken prisoner stops being such an issue. Even as long as you don't just strip the characters naked, dump them in a 10x10 silenced antimagic cell, and never let them out, it's not that bad.
    Last edited by Telok; 2020-10-27 at 04:49 PM.

  30. - Top - End - #210
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    Default Re: Musings about PCs and Prisoners

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    That's all very specific to D&D and it makes assumptions about the nature of the enemies, culture, and imprisonment.

    Being defeated and captured by myconoids? They may not want your gear. By inevitables? They may not care at all. Nobles may accept the word of honor of a reputable opponent. A culture that is heavily invested in an honor system may accept a sworn oath for you good behavior. Maybe they imprison people in an alternate dimension where you'll need your gear.
    Question: Why would an intelligent captor allow the captive to keep the means to escape capture? Even myconids would separate you from your gear. Inevitable probably have a strict process for removing the gear. If the Noble accepts the PCs at their word, either that word is binding or the noble was foolish. I believe "imprison people in an alternate dimension" is code for "the PCs have no power to escape normally, the DM will provide the means of escape".

    While there are exceptions, the vast majority of the time imprisonment = lose your gear.

    Which is why their answer to "Why is being a prisoner specifically is so bad?" was "You lose your gear and that is quite crippling."

    Now you did then elaborate on why some systems can't actually remove gear and some systems don't use gear. However, I would warrant, those are also exceptions.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2020-10-27 at 08:15 PM.

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