Except that there are more potential outcomes than "everyone gets away" or "everyone gets captured." In fact in most cases with the abilities that PCs have available to them, it is far more likely that SOME of the party will be captured and some will get away. Which is what would have happened in our case. And that creates new issues and problems, among which are "Ah, those lame bozos deserved to get captured, let's go back to town and find some new and more capable teammates." (Which is what my ranger and the other character who would have escaped would truly have done based on their alignment, allegiances and history.)
That sounds like a perfect example of a character's backstory getting in the way of being a team player.
IMO this would be the guy that the Neutral Cleric would refuse to heal out of spite.
"Hey you were incompetent enough to get injured, why should I waste my time and energy healing you?"
Except that there are more potential outcomes than "everyone gets away" or "everyone gets captured." In fact in most cases with the abilities that PCs have available to them, it is far more likely that SOME of the party will be captured and some will get away. Which is what would have happened in our case. And that creates new issues and problems, among which are "Ah, those lame bozos deserved to get captured, let's go back to town and find some new and more capable teammates." (Which is what my ranger and the other character who would have escaped would truly have done based on their alignment, allegiances and history.)That sounds like a perfect example of a character's backstory getting in the way of being a team player.
IMO this would be the guy that the Neutral Cleric would refuse to heal out of spite.
"Hey you were incompetent enough to get injured, why should I waste my time and energy healing you?"
Who said every character is expected to be a 100% team player? I've played lots of characters over the years who would abandon teammates under certain circumstances. Are you suggesting that such characters should not be played?
What I mean is they are heading in a certain direction to obtain an item for someone. They have never been where they are going before. Not many people have been to where they are going to and come back. They are doing this task because one of the characters was resurected and they agreed to the task in exchange for the resurrection. Where they are going to is the main city of these slavers. So they have on the side where the PCs are coming from bandits and such looking for talent. Now I have had the encounter with the bandits set up. And a village where some of the bandits hide out, and basically run, is on the way to this city. So, by saying they are headed in that direction it is literal.
At this point you have protagonists (the players) and antagonists (the slaver/bandits). It's one thing to set up an encounter and play it out (letting the chips fall where they may) and another to come right out and say you are going to capture and enslave the characters, they will emerge triumphant and gain some major reward.
What if one or two of the PCs decide to sacrifice themselves to save the others?
Anyway, do as you will. You asked for opinions, I gave you mine. I don't care for what I am interpreting your posts to say about your game plans. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I don't think I am. I think if you capture and enslave the PCs you are running the risk of ruining some fun for some of your gaming group.
I've never cared for this sort of thing. I've endured it, but that's about the best I can say about it. I rarely appreciate it when the GM assumes that my character would do things without consulting with me first. My character in the game I am referring to had a backstory including being captured as a child and raised as a slave. He would literally die before being a slave again. The GM knew that, it was right in his backstory which the GM asked us to write and submit.
Who said every character is expected to be a 100% team player? I've played lots of characters over the years who would abandon teammates under certain circumstances. Are you suggesting that such characters should not be played?
I'm saying it's less than conducive to fostering teamwork.
And from an RP point of view (for pragmatic characters) it rarely makes sense for someone to just abandon their teammates. They're trying to get a job done, usually for some other reason besides getting paid. Just saying "F@!$ 'em" and leaving is generally going to jeopardize the mission.
If they're a sociopath, that's not an issue, but then the question is raised...why are the others working with this guy if he can't be trusted to help them out?
Who said every character is expected to be a 100% team player? I've played lots of characters over the years who would abandon teammates under certain circumstances. Are you suggesting that such characters should not be played?I'm saying it's less than conducive to fostering teamwork.
And from an RP point of view (for pragmatic characters) it rarely makes sense for someone to just abandon their teammates. They're trying to get a job done, usually for some other reason besides getting paid. Just saying "F*~+ 'em" and leaving is generally going to jeopardize the mission.
If they're a sociopath, that's not an issue, but then the question is raised...why are the others working with this guy if he can't be trusted to help them out?
Who said my ranger wouldn't help them out? He's sure as heck not going to try to tackle a group that just beat his whole group on his own. He would probably have tried to go rescue the old teammates, but not by himself.
Assuming GMs give Perception checks to begin with (I suppose it would depend on the type of poison, the drink, the amounts of each, the GM's inclinations, and other circumstances).
A colorless, tasteless, odorless poison wouldn't be at all noticeable for example.
From my understanding, oil of taggit has an oily nutmeg taste. Mix it in a drink that's supposed to have nutmeg in it (such as mulled cider, mulled wine, or eggnog) and a person drinking it might not notice anything is amiss.
A bit more on the situation my ranger ran into in my 4e game. Our GM had a concept of "front line" and "reserve" player characters. Every player in the group had at least two rolled up and ready to play characters in case we lost our character. On occasion we would take a break from our "main characters" and pull in the "second string" and run some encounters with them just to keep our hand in. The first and second string characters were both part of the same organization and interacted regularly.
So what would almost certainly have happened if I had not gone along with the GM's arbitrary "you are captured, stripped naked and thrown in a pit" plan is that my ranger and one other PC would have escaped and headed back to "headquarters". We would have brought in the captured PC's alternates and gone back to try to rescue them.
That's specifically what the GM did not want to happen. He wanted the "you are at your lowest point" trope to be played out.
So we went with it.
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LazarX, my main problem with the "you are captured" trope is that it beggars belief that the sorts of evil monsters my characters generally fight would do anything but eviscerate their enemies immediately upon defeating them. They have nothing to gain from "capturing" their sworn enemies and in every single case I've been involved, the contortions the GM goes through to "explain" why the evil bad guy who just destroyed an entire town doesn't just gut the PCs right then and there result in universal eye-rolling.
And then, on top of that, there's the "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" (But I'll inexplicably leave the room and not put watch on you so that you can use your dastardly secret watch to foil my evil plans again!) mess that usually follows.
I would give one of the divine character 's a heads up via a dream. Let the character see glimpses of themselves being in chains, glimpses of thier would be captors, and finally I would give them a glimpse of a goal. This goal can be a lost artifact or even a person who is in need. This will provide them with focus on something other than themselves.
OP you are playing with fire
Make sure your players will not have a problem with roleplaying slaves or participating in such a campaign before you try something like this
They do not have to know when it is coming, but they should be okay with such a plotline before you spring it on them
There is a deeper issue here than this specific case of kidnapping the PCs and putting them into slavery. That deeper issue is the whole notion of player vs GM agency.
The kidnapping scenario is just an extreme case of a GM temporarily taking control of the PCs' destiny. There are other hints in the OP's comments that this is not an isolated instance, it is merely the most overt and potentially enjoyment killing one.
The dynamic tension that most RPG campaigns have to manage is the desire to follow a specific story/plot vs the full exercise of player character free will. One extreme is derided as "GM Railroading" and the other is generally called the "Sandbox campaign".
In my experience the more enjoyable RPG experiences I have had have been somewhere between those two extremes. The most enjoyable have been those that have managed to create a plausible illusion of PC self-determination while still keeping the story predictable enough that the GM can prepare and direct the narrative. That is always my goal as a GM, and I know I fall far short of achieving it on occasion. But things like overwhelming opposition forcing the characters to follow the GM's whims are the most heavy-handed way I can think of for a GM to try to negotiate that path to try to tell the story they want to tell.
Generally speaking when I am a player, I tend to become wary when the game is obviously restricting my options for a purpose that is pre-determined. In general if the GM wants to have a specific thing happen in the campaign, I prefer to have the illusion at least that my character chose to go in the direction they are moving. Creating that illusion of control while still maintaining direction for the story is one of the most important GM skills.
If I were to set up a scenario where the PC party would be captured, stripped of posessions and enslaved, I would definitely discuss that with the players first and explain why it was important to the narrative.
In general I can't think of a plausible reason to do that for any but the absolute lowest level characters because by the time they get to level 5 or so they are powerful enough that any reasonably intelligent adversary would find no reason to capture them when they can just kill them instead.
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First, it's a bad idea that may cost players. In my novice years, I drove away a pair of players by GM-contrived plots. One was the Scourge of the Slavelords adventure. One newly added player didn't want to play with a GM who would railroad him so badly with an obvious "inevitable" capture device and take away his equipment. The other was a bad decision to have bad guys "steal" a player plot item in an unwinnable battle. If they wanted a story read to them, they'd buy a book. Anyways, I've learned lessons: don't unless you know your players really well.
Second, it won't work in Pathfinder. 1st/2nd Edition kidnapping at mid-levels (Scourge, Curse of the Azure Bonds) worked because players stripped of equipment had to rely on their wits, not their stat blocks since there were few innate special powers outside equipment. However, that is not the case today. The purpose of kidnapping plots was to test the ingenuity of the players when they cannot rely on anything but their (real-life) wits. Scourge is an excellent example, designed for tournament play where it wasn't the ideal character build that would win the day but player thinking.
While I can wax nostalgic about the pros and cons of it, it doesn't translate into Pathfinder at anything but the lowest levels of power.
And you get your "Death before Dishonor" types for whom capture is dishonorable and who therefore fight to the death even against insurmountable odds.
The one time I was captured and forced to fight in an arena( Dark Sun) it was a super pain in the as for my GM. I was a 3.5 ninja. the dm tried to torture me but he could really do any thing to me. when he finally intorduced the plot hook to get us out of slavery I jumped across the table snapped his neck and screamed "no man is my master!" i did escape but i couldn't go any where and he spent half the time just on my character and all his ninja abilities and trying to wander around a town and steal things. to be honest my thinking was pretty screwed up my motto was i can do anything to escape slavery even kill towns people because they attend the games there for they are part of the problem. but in my opinion it will NEVER GO HAS PLANNED. SO BE PREPARED
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I did this twice in 2e.
1) Massive amounts of drow sleep poison and unlimited number of opponents.
2) Epic battle in scourge of the slavelords where one player spotted the unbeatable ambush ... and was immune to all poison. he single handedly killed all the bad guys, and saved the asses of his companions by stowing them on a rowboat when the bad guys ship caught fire because of too many fireballs...
I had to rewrite the rest of the campaign after that.
Simply saying "you're captured" without playing it out or having any mechanics to back it up is nothing less than a cop out from a GM who is either lazy, or incompetent.
I've never met a player who wouldn't consider that a smack in the face. There characters and their abilities mean absolutely nothing in YOUR world. You have all the power.
Good for you. Bad for them. Good luck finding a new group after the dust settles.
Simply saying "you're captured" without playing it out or having any mechanics to back it up is nothing less than a cop out from a GM who is either lazy, or incompetent.
I've never met a player who wouldn't consider that a smack in the face. There characters and their abilities mean absolutely nothing in YOUR world. You have all the power.
Good for you. Bad for them. Good luck finding a new group after the dust settles.
Your players just need to learn how to behave better RD. :)
This was a big part of the classic Slavelords modules. I can remember in 1st edition being devastated that my staff of power got thrown over board but that is the game. In 1st edition however the amount of money was different so it did not take that long to be able to buy one.
And some GMs need lessons on running good and proper games that are fun for everyone involved.
(If your game is fun for everyone involved, only then it is "good and proper.")
In one of these "your characters are captured, stripped and tossed into what appears to be a bottomless pit" scenarios my favorite part was when the GM told me "your character wouldn't fight to the death."
Oh.
Really?
For the record, my sessions at the time were really well received. Because my players knew that payback would be coming at some point.
Interesting.... how did their characters know that?
For the record, my sessions at the time were really well received. Because my players knew that payback would be coming at some point.
But how is that not metagaming? The CHARACTERS are letting themselves get captured because the PLAYERS know the GM will make it worth their while?
That almost exactly mirrors the example of metagaming as set forth in several roleplaying books.
EDIT: Ninja'd! :|
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In 1st edition however the amount of money was different so it did not take that long to be able to buy one.
Really? In the 1st edition games I played in magic items were almost never available to purchase, and on those very rare occasions when they were you could only choose from a limited list pre-determined by the DM.
Sounds like we played in different campaigns then.
Some enchantment magic might keep them from fighting to the death. :)
Some enchantment magic might keep them from fighting to the death. :)
Assuming my saves fail. And everyone else who might be able to remove enchantments if my save does fail. Or my initiative isn't high enough that I disable the spellcaster...
Or, in other words, let's play it out.
I tried to run a scenario like this many, many years ago. The idea was based on the finale to AD&D module A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords and A4: In The Dungeons of the Slavelords.
It was a complete, utter, and total fiasco.
Seriously-- it was the worst gaming experience I've ever had as a GM. And it was entirely my own fault for not warning the players or setting proper expectations.
All of the players assumed that capture by the bad guys was truly a fate worse than death-- they really thought that they'd be tortured to death and then eaten. In the big fight that the PCs were supposed to lose, everyone decided that "They'll never take me alive!" When it became clear that the fight wasn't winnable, the whole party decided to use suicidal tactics to bring the most harm to the bad guys to at least give them a pyrrhic victory.
We ended with an extremely unsatisfying TPK-- my first TPK as a GM in a regular (non-tournament) game-- when the PCs deliberately set off explosions centered on themselves.
There was LOTS of bad blood between me and my players over that, and two stopped speaking to me.
Tread extremely carefully here. I would strongly recommend checking with the players to see if this is a storyline they are interested in going through-- or at the very least warn them in advance that they may be up against an unwinnable fight and might be captured for a while.
Good luck!
I've pulled this off in a couple of campaigns with various groups over the years.
The first was in a dnd campaign where the whole 'shanghaing' was planned by me and some of the PCs felt it was a bit forced. They were high level and didn't like losing all their stuff so maybe it wont be so bad at 6th-7th level.
The most recent was in Dark Heresy where it was a punishment for the PCs messing up their mission spectacularly. It actually became a really fun story arc because it felt like a natural progression from their in game actions.
Some enchantment magic might keep them from fighting to the death. :)Assuming my saves fail. And everyone else who might be able to remove enchantments if my save does fail. Or my initiative isn't high enough that I disable the spellcaster...
Or, in other words, let's play it out.
Wouldnt that be a part of playing it out?
Yes. Setting expectations is important.
OP... Honestly I say go with your gut.
You know your players better than anyone of the folks who have posted thus far. If you believe that your players will enjoy a game where they become enslaved I say do it. If not talk to them about the campaign in broad strokes (you get captured, enslaved, and hopefully escape) and see what they think.
Ultimately, I think you just have to make it believable and compelling. Perhaps they are going undercover to find another slave. Or perhaps there is no other way into a certain temple. Or maybe they are hired by an outside party to sow discord in the ranks of their slavers. Or maybe they just got beat and right before the last hero falls your villain asks "death or slavery?" If they say slavery. Done. If they say death... then you make them slaves anyway because you're a villain and to hell with the heroes last request. What ever the reason make it interesting for the players.
A lot of people have claimed that capturing some PCs are almost impossible but that is just not true. For every PC there is a weak save or a weakness in the build. There is always a battle you can not win or a scenario that has no way out. Remember that any group of slavers or villains that are thinking about going against a large powerful group like yours are either idiots or criminal masterminds. Just ensure that they have the right spells, items, buffs, etc and the fight is almost over before it begins. An opening volley of high level save or suck spells will knock most parties on their ass, especially if it comes at the end of an adventuring day when the cleric is using band-aids and gauze instead of spells and the wizard is complaining that all he has left is a magic missile and that wand of mending you gave him.
As a player I had a blast when I was thrown in shackles. Role playing a slave who had to fight for his freedom was lots of fun and ultimately when I escaped and killed my captures I couldn't complain. My DM however threw us through a loop however. We had been turned to stone by several basilisks and gorgons as well as a spell or two from an unknown source. When we were turned back to flesh and enslaved nearly 300 years had passed and the world was a very different and scary place.
Wouldnt that be a part of playing it out?Some enchantment magic might keep them from fighting to the death. :)Assuming my saves fail. And everyone else who might be able to remove enchantments if my save does fail. Or my initiative isn't high enough that I disable the spellcaster...
Or, in other words, let's play it out.
The original post laid out the capture and enslaving as fait accompli leaving no opportunity for the PCs to actually win the battle or figure out some way to avoid the fate set for them.
It was the predetermination that most of us have been objecting to Shalafi. In that scenario there was no "playing it out". That's the point.
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For the record, my sessions at the time were really well received. Because my players knew that payback would be coming at some point.But how is that not metagaming? The CHARACTERS are letting themselves get captured because the PLAYERS know the GM will make it worth their while?
That almost exactly mirrors the example of metagaming as set forth in several roleplaying books.
EDIT: Ninja'd! :|
Well they trusted me or something. Also they knew we were all supposed to have fun in the end.
Also, the characters themselves fought every way they could. they just did not stand a chance vs 5 saves vs poison per round.
I did it once. The Character in question was level 15. He was forced into a voluntary surrender, as an NPC they were protecting was caught by these dudes he was going to end up dead. He surrendered as a distraction. (It was in a civilized location, so continued fighting would also have a similar result.)
I set-up this scenario because this PC took several feats and abilities that would make this kind of situation interesting for him. When I asked why he took those, he said so if this happened he could use them. I asked if he wanted to use them, he replied he did, so I gave him an opportunity.
It ended in a three-way party split. He fought to escape, a part of the group went to free him, and another part continued with the plan/protected the NPC. The group had fun. I kept switching between them like some sort of cheesy show. I would switch to the other group right when something dramatic was going to happen. Good times, but I had player buy in, so that was why it worked.
Who said my ranger wouldn't help them out? He's sure as heck not going to try to tackle a group that just beat his whole group on his own. He would probably have tried to go rescue the old teammates, but not by himself.
That's not the impression that I got from your post. How I read it was that when you said "they deserved to be captured, let's go get some new guys" it was an abandonment of the other PCs.
That's my mistake, sorry.
Remember the following:
Eschew Materials is Your Friend.
Wizards are not 'unable to contribute' until your prepared spells are depleted. Spell Mastery is nasty under certain circumstances - such as these, especially combined with Eschew Materials. Put the two together and your Wizard will be able to contribute quite meaningfully.
Clerics are more hosed (unless you took the Birthmark trait) than the Wizard, but there are a few perfectly effective spells in your list starting with your orisons. Eschew Materials benefits you less than it does the arcane casters, but it does add some worthwhile options (shield of faith for starters).
CRB only Cleric spells - a * denotes alignment dependant spells; none of these account for domains and subdomains: animate object, bestow curse, blade barrier, blasphemy*, bleed, blindness/deafness, break enchantment, breath of life, cause fear, chaos hammer*, command, command - greater, contagion*, control weather, create food and water, create water, cure wounds (all of them), daylight, death knell*, deathwatch, detect magic, detect poison, dictum*, dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, dispel magic, dispel magic - greater, disrupting weapon, endure elements, energy drain, enthrall, entropic shield, ethereal jaunt, etherealness, find traps, fire storm, geas, geas - lesser, guidance, harm, heal, heal - mass, holy smite*, holy word*, implosion, inflict wounds (all of them), invisibility purge, make whole, mending, obscuring mist, order's wrath*, purify food and drink, remove blindness/deafness, remove curse, remove disease, remove fear, remove paralysis, restoration - lesser, scrying - greater, searing light, silence, slay living, stabilize, status, storm of vengeance, undetectable alignment, unholy blight*, word of recall, word of chaos*. EDIT: none of these spells requires anything other than V or V, S components. Use them until your cleric dies, has their manipulative appendages lopped off or becomes an ex-cleric.
Gunslingers are proficient at full BAB with more than just firearms - they get less use of their class features in the same way that Fighters do.
Alchemists are the one base/core class that I'm aware of that is totally hosed by this scenario pretty much regardless of build, with some exceptions for internal alchemists (very discovery/feat dependant) and vivisectionists (sneak attack - just give 'em a scalpel). Everyone else, to differing degrees, can get along well enough in such a scenario - with the provisio that 'appropriate challenges' vary from the norm.
It is worth noting that fly expressly requires a Focus to cast. So the PCs won't be using this spell to weasel their way out of the scenario until they recover a spell component pouch.
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This entire concept is what I call an "A4 scenario". It takes some work to make the set up happen. When it does, it can be an absolute blast as it forces higher level PCs to struggle against much lower level threats than they usually deal with. And of course they exact blood-splattered vengeance upon the jerks that took their stuff.
Guy, as I and others have repeatedly stated, if the OP wants to do this, talk to the players to get their input before inflicting it on them. That appears to be what you did.
This can be done and can be fun, especially for a party where the players have anticipated and planned for this scenario. The sorcerer or wizard with eschew materials, still and silent spell is a classic example of a character built for this sort of thing.
Talk to the group and make sure they are OK. If so then go for it. But come up with something plausible then. I like the idea of the party agreeing to allow themselves to be "captured" and enslaved to infiltrate and sow rebellion from within. But that's different than "you lose all your stuff". Then the players can arrange to stow their good stuff and have replacement stuff to be taken from them so that when they do escape, they can get their real stuff back.
It's the rails that we are disagreeing with, not the concept.
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The one time you can definitely get away with this scenario is at character creation time. You just tell them, "Create characters of X level. Don't worry about equipment, you start out without any. Your first adventure will be a jailbreak." All of the problems of capturing the player characters then become mere background.
The one time you can definitely get away with this scenario is at character creation time. You just tell them, "Create characters of X level. Don't worry about equipment, you start out without any. Your first adventure will be a jailbreak." All of the problems of capturing the player characters then become mere background.
This is best done if the PCs are the victims of mistaken identity or were targeted for capture and framed by some evil boss. Unless the players want to play an evil party.