In a home game that I am running I am planning on trying to capture the party. I was wondering if anyone has ever participated or (perhaps more valuable to me) ran a game where you did this.
I want to avoid OOC animosity from my players regarding this. However, I have never been the type of DM to run a game where every encounter is one that can be won outright. The party I am DMing for has opted to run headlong into a difficult quest without doing proper research or preparation first.
Now, originally they had to act quickly to get to the swamp that they are now in and rescue the son of a noble who had been captured in an attack that devastated a city. However, they have since rescued him and are now working to cure a blight infecting creatures of the swamp. Basically, currently there is no particular rush. I have done my best to make that clear through information given by NPCs. But I am also roleplaying the NPCs who realize that the party is their best (if not only) means of helping them. The NPCs are pleading with the party to get them to help them as soon as possible as they do not want to allow them time to leave and possibly reconsider.
The PCs have went into this situation woefully unprepared. Worse, they are not expecting any real resistance that they may not be able to deal with well. A couple examples of things that they know: they know they will have to fight "Swarmlords" and they have few ways of successfully laying damage down against swarms. They do not have an arcane caster among them and only really have one party member with a wand of fireballs CL5. Secondly, they are dealing Fey and things that have DR/Cold Iron with no cold iron weapons. This is particularly hurting the archer of the group. I feel a little bit bad for them but I can't feel too bad; they knew what they were likely to go up against and didn't properly prepare for it.
All this being said, I do not have a vendetta against the party; but neither do I want to cater to an ill prepared party. I'm not interested in doing this to prove a point; but hopefully by the end of it they do look at future situations more carefully and come better prepared. The real reason I am doing it is because it seems like a fun reprieve and a good opportunity to look at the situation they have tangled themselves into in a new light.
I guess if there is another alterior motive it would be that I have introduced several NPCs along the way whom the party has become involved in the affairs of. They have rescued some, worked with others, even been at odds with before realizing common goals. One way or another they have made some strong allies. I think it would be interesting if their party were to be captured only to have to be rescued by the NPCs that they have built strong relationships and community with. I think a fun way of doing this might be to write up character sheets for each of these NPCs and when the party gets captured to lay them out in front of them. I could make up a sort of bidding system and let them pick which NPC they want to play for this mission. Then, later, once the NPCs rescue the PCs, I will take control over the NPCs again (a bit burdensome for me) and have a nice battle royale against their captors.
I know I am taking a lot of creative license and leaning heavily on something I think may be fun without knowing if the players will or not. But don't we always do that as DMs? In fact, I think we have to.
There are some pitfalls I know I want to try to avoid. First, I want to make sure it doesn't feel railroaded. I don't think this will be a major issue plotwise as what I have planned should fall in nicely with the plot. It also makes sense from the affairs of who they are fighting and where they are at. On the other hand I don't want them to feel purposefully overwhelmed though that is exactly what is happening as there aren't a lot of good ways of capturing them without having an encounter over their APL CR.
Second, I don't want them to think that I am doing this out of any sort of animosity or anything directed at them. I also do not want them to think I am setting them up for failure. But then again, even adventurers don't always succeed in everything they do. Everyone fails sometimes.
Anyway, if anyone has any advice on this I am open to hearing it. I plan on running this on Saturday so, you know... no pressure on posting before then or anything. ;)
|
Capturing an entire party, usually rarely works, unless you send an overwhelming encounter at them, as in much stronger opponents than they could ever hope to beat. The problem of using such tactics, is that often the players would feel like that they have no power or influence in whatever events are about to transpire.
One way that I would do it, would be to give an illusion of choice, like for example, your players need to go into a prison to save somebody, but to do so, they need to get arrested and plan a prison break with the NPC ally in question.
So you have Fey and Swarms as your more beasty opposition. You have the swamp and a "blight" operating as your scenario/environmental area.
Fey tend to be tricky and mischievous- so I don't think traps, mind effecting magics or poisons are entirely out of order
Swarms have their own issues but have the nice distraction ability
Swamps could be secreting foul smelling gasses, cause you to lose your way (though I assume someone has at least 1 point in Survival) and could have fog cover to remove visibility.
Remember that the APL can be raised in order to provide for an "Epic" challenge, but as your PCs are not prepared for their current level challenges I don't think they will be ready for advancing those challenges.
I might do something with Will-o-wisps... Your setting seems pretty ideal for it- fog cover causing the party to get lost- maybe some natural hazards (even re-tooling something like a Fear trap as being a natural gas warped by the Blight) could cause party members to separate. The will-o-wisps serve as a "guide" out of the fog/scary air/etc. Leading through fey traps and enchantments until you face off against the Aberration.
I might do something along those lines. It keeps thing consistent with the party. Not prepared as a group generally means less prepared solo. And the separation from other PCs tends to shake players up and get them thinking outside of the box.
As for the actual capture... There are Drow poisons that cause unconsciousness, sleep spells, or even the drug Shiver (has 50% chance to do it- NO save!) I don't think any of those things are ENTIRELY out of context for the scenario.
I read in another forum once that if you are DM-ing and you have a scenario in place (i.e. the PCs are captured) then it should simply be. The rolling of dice when they are ultimately going to end up in something that was always outside their control is what makes them feel powerless. And no one wants that.
One thing that can help jar everyone into paying attention is doing something new. As a DM I don't normally do much with weather, or environmental hazards, or gravity effects- I am pretty straight forward: there is a thing, kill the thing, treasure- YAY! So when I try something new (I did a session revolving completely around Haunts... it was awful!) my PCs have to adjust to the new thing... which causes them to think... which takes a WHILE! (I am convinced my group is working on a collective 8 INT- lol)
But hey- Maybe they overcome the fey/fear/WoW and then they learn that it doesn't matter if they are prepare... Perseverance CAN win the day. Maybe.
In my experience as both player and GM, parties prefer TPK's to being captured. Being captured and rescued by NPC's is just rubbing it in.
I also agree with this. PCs are heroes. Not NPCs even when they are played by PCs. Conan does not get saved by Baryl the Bard's sweet talking the guards into letting him have a 2nd chance. He tears down the jail bars with his teeth and the broken leg of his cell mate.
So if PC get captured. PC save self!
Eltacolibre: Become a prisoner to rescue a prisoner. Hm... I like it.
What's in the box?: Many of your ideas I have already used. Some of them I haven't. Swamp gas causing them to get lost is a great idea.
I did think of doing the whole "this happens" thing. That could be problematic as well. It has the potential, I think, to make them equally upset. I will mull it over, though. Maybe do a sort of choose your own adventure type thing for a bit and their decisions lead to outcomes but the net outcome is capture. But they can make the circumstances of their capture better. Perhaps someone knows where their gear is being held. Another person knows where the keys to their shackles are at. One of them could have got word out to allies about their location.
I have some creative juices flowing now...
Awesome! Good luck :)
I once had the party in my game taken prisoner. I was reluctant to do it, because I share the concerns raised above about railroading. What really surprised me was. . . the players *loved* it. We were going through Rise of the Runelords and the party was in Magnimar and I had this happen as a tangent completely unrelated to the storyline. I did it because of the back stories of two of the PCs, who were two self-styled Robin Hood types who had run afoul of the Sczarni and had (before the game began) captured a lower level Sczarni boss and left him tied up among the cargo of a ship headed for Absalom.
Now, I don’t think back stories should be entirely forgotten, and at a minimum I like to use them for inspiration to try to make the world seem a bit more real. So I had them drinking at their favorite local pub in Magnimar and they had an inkling that something was amiss, because the owner and his wife were not present. Only the serving girl, Clara, was there and she gave some fairly thin excuse about why the owner and his wife were away (which was very unusual for them). They all ordered their food and drink, which Clara brought them and they consumed. Turns out, the drinks were poisoned and knocked them all unconscious.
The explanation (which they never really investigated, but which I have sort of fleshed out, at least in my own mind) is that the Sczarni they abducted, a guy I named Milo Scarnetti, managed to put the fear of the Sczarni in the crew of that cargo ship and they arranged his return to Magnimar. Once he was back in Magnimar, Milo reached out to his contacts and started gathering information on the group. He determined that they were fairly “powerful” (I think they were around 6th or 7th level at this point), so he hired a splinter faction of the Tower Girls (contrary to their leader’s wishes and without her knowledge) who in turned hired an expert on this type of deception. That person (who is a 3.5 Beguiler, updated to Pathfinder) came to the inn and overpowered the innkeeper, his wife and Clara the serving the girl (she tied and gagged them and left them upstairs). She then used Disguise Self or similar magic and assumed the role of Clara. She poisoned the drinks and arranged for the Tower Girls to come in and carry out the sleeping heroes. The PCs missed several rolls to pick up on various clues about what was going on and they displayed a decided lack of interest in anything other than treating opponents like treasure-filled piñatas. There being no obvious enemies here, they were seemingly in a hurry to get to the next battle. Then they woke up naked in a cell in the lower part of a slave ship bound for the Fleshfairs of Okeno.
Sometimes bad things can be overcome with good things. Being railroaded is bad. Getting a reason to really hate a bad guy (and then getting even) can be *very* good. As I expected, they quickly figured out a way to escape and then laid into the pirates who were manning the ship. They’ve yet to get even with Milo, but I’m sure they will.
So I think the railroading is okay, so long as it is used sparingly and used to help make the story more compelling. So far the group still says that was the part of the campaign they’ve enjoyed the most. I think it may have been because I was off script. Or, at least, I was off the AP’s script and on my own. The important thing is they had fun. (Did I mention they killed the crap out of every pirate on board?). Every group is different, though, and you should gauge what you do based on what you think they’ll enjoy. Although heavy handed from a game mechanics perspective, the events at least made sense, because it happened when they were in their comfort zone (their favorite inn) and they let their guard down. It worked because if it happened in a book it would seem plausible.
Kelvar:
Thank you for the support. It sounds like you have a similar situation to my group. I am normally opposed to railroading and I try not to do that. In this situation though, I think it was inevitable.
Update:
I ended up choosing to do a sort of "choose your own adventure" style start to the game. I let the party make some decisions which would influence their capture and even their rescue. Most of the players had no issue with this and actually liked it a lot. I think they realized when I started breaking things down just how in over their heads they were. They may have even been relieved that it didn't go more poorly for them.
As is, all of them did get captured. There is one character death and due to the circumstances I allowed the party to choose based on group story telling who was the most likely to have been taken down. It was nearly unanimous that it was my son's character. There were multiple reasons for this. 1. He was the most worse off physically speaking due to several failed poison saves a quite a bit of ability damage/drain. 2. He is definitely the type to not back down, surrender or go down without a fight. 3. Because of this it is likely that the enemy would be forced to kill him to stop him. 4. He is one of the mostly likely to escape if he tried.
Luckily my son wasn't too broken up about it. He actually liked the idea of playing their own rescue party and he had a liking for one of the NPCs that they have come to know. It wasn't my son who was upset. Surprisingly it was my newest player who disliked not being able to use his character's abilities and basically the entire idea of the ad hoc thing. It is more surprising because he actually didn't care for his current character and said he would prefer to make a new one. I hadn't opposed this idea at all. I want my players to have fun.
In the end, it all worked out very nicely. I did a bidding system and allowed a blind bid for them to choose which NPC they wanted to play. I gave them brief descriptions but didn't let them see the entire character sheet for each NPC. I wanted them to base their picks on flavor rather than mechanics. I let them know that which NPC they chose would determine what kind of boon their PC would gain. It would be something relevant to their PC and it would be a benefit appropriate based on which NPC they played.
If I judged things correctly, they really liked the bidding system. As it turned out everyone got their first pick except one player who got his second pick. He still seemed happy with his second pick. I let them get associated with their new NPC characters. They had questions about how certain things worked and looked up some of the new equipment they had access to. I gave them a pool of money to spend on their rescue to best outfit their party. I also gave a couple of them extra money based on decisions they made with their PCs.
They went off on their new mission and won their first encounter. The player that was upset about the ad hoc stuff I think understood why I did this and wasn't so upset when he learned they were playing their own rescue party. In fact, he said he thought that character was so interesting that he would enjoy playing it from there out. I'm not sure how I feel about it due to what the character is.
The character he was playing is a Gnomish Cleric whose town was overran by a necromancer and turned most of his brethren to undead. In a last ditch effort to try to save himself from impending doom he asked his god to spare his soul. To do so his god transferred his soul to the nearest receptical which was a Graven Guardian that was set to stand watch in his shrine room. So basically, this character is a 5th level Gnomish Cleric Lifespark Template applied to a Graven Guardian. He is in a party of other level 8 (or at least CR8) NPCs. In the hands of a PC, I'm not sure if the Template applied to the base Golem and given class levels is too powerful or not. I'm probably going to make a separate post on it.
I'll let you all know how the next session (the rescue) goes. :) So far (overall) so good.