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Personally I appreciate dark themes and roleplaying more than playing a hero who never experiences being beaten down. If it honestly is a DM on a power trip then I will be pissed, but as long as there is good roleplay and experiences to be had then I don't mind.The GM has unlimited resources, he can just declare a character dead, or trapped...
In our group, either of these is considered lame.
We like to be in situations where our characters contribute to the story as heroes, not be stuck in crappy situations where they require help.
I mean, seriously, beyond level three or four, getting captured seems... odd...
I had it happen at (I think) 9. With a random encounter.
Lame.
Oh, quit your whining.
I get it, GMs on a power trip is bad, and those GMs should feel bad. However, sometimes, your character takes some hits. They lose someone they love, their favorite token is stolen, their retirement inns burn down. And sometimes, yes, the evil government throws them into prison.
The reason adventurers are cool is that they get right back up again. The more adversity they overcome to win, the greater that final victory is.
@OP: Still Spell, Eschew Materials, Spell Mastery and Silent Spell will let a wizard prepare and cast spells in absolutely any situation.
In prison without your spellbook? No problem.
Bound and gagged? No problem, suck on a fireball.
Blindfolded as well? Aiming might be hard, but just magic missile the sound of the guards, can't miss 'em.
Your eyes and tongue cut out, your arms and legs amputated? Works just fine.
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It's kind of odd that most characters would never surrender, don't you think? In both the real world and fiction, it happens a lot. People who fight to the death against obviously bad odds are rare. That happens to religious fanatics and to people convinced that there's no escape or chance of surrender; that to surrender is to just be killed anyway.Often in fiction (movies for example) I am very puzzled by how people act. People dig their own graves, knowing it's their own. Why?
People follow villains with guns to some quiet place where the villain can kill them without witnesses. Why? Sometimes guys with pistols run amok and kill more people than they have ammo in one clip. Why?The answer: People are scared and because they are scared they don't act. Player characters are meant to he heroes so they should be able to act. Sure, it might mean the bad guy shoots you in the street but at least there are witnesses. The bad guy might shoot you for not digging the grave but he'd have shot you anyways. That way at least someone else has to dig the grave. And if several people attack the one running amok at once while he is short on ammo he can't kill all of them and in the end less people die.
If the fighter tells the party: "Run, I'll buy you time" he does so to save his friends.
I'm not trying to advocate that adventurers should be meek sheep.
But if you're playing a game where an enemy is holding you at gunpoint and a single gunshot is likely to kill you (maybe a readied Maximized Empowered Enervation?), then you can rant that the GM is using fiat to force you, or you can follow along for now, playing for time, hoping to get a more favourable tactical situation where you can escape. Waiting for the moment when the BBEG has to switch his readied action to deal with a distraction and you can then get at him to grapple him perhaps.
Or even let him put you in his dungeon from which you can escape and slaughter all his pathetic minions (it's so hard to hire good help these days).
Maybe to a degree what also matters here is that many PCs are woefully prepared for the "naked" scenario. They're built for normal fights with their gear. Monks, sorcerers and druids are notably better at this. And a rogue should be able to sneak-attack a guard and use the guard's weapons.
One of the problems here is that PF locks some classes into extreme dependence on specific gear. Someone who only gets Dex to damage with one specific kind of weapon is in big trouble if he can't steal those weapons from a guard. A fighter with all his feats invested into falcatas is kind of lackluster with a longsword.
These kinds of scenarios are a lot less fun if you're basically anti-prepared for them.
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I gotta say, Does no one ever take the time to get into their character's head space anymore? When I play a character (even for those one of scenarios that sometimes occur where you never play the character again) I try my best to keep away from the idea that my character is simply a collection of numbers on a page. If you want a rewarding incarceration experience, take some time to ask yourself the following questions:
1. How does the current situation make my character feel?
2. How do those feeling modify his behavior?
3. My character is locked in a confining space with limited resources available, What are those resources, and how does my character view them.
Those questions if posed seriously with a reasonable amount of time for thinking should yield interesting results and rewarding roleplay.
Then once you have passed the scenario and escaped, ask yourself these questions:
1. How does my character feel now that he is free?
2. How will my character cope emotionally with what happened to him?
3. What changes have occured in my characters personality because of these events?
4. How do these changes affect his behavior?
5. How do they affect his interactions with others?
7. What steps does my character take to avoid or prepare for the possibility that he will be placed in that situation again.
When you step away from the game mechanic aspect and focus on the roleplay aspect of your character, you need to think of your character as a free thinking creature with thoughts and emotions of his own. Like any creature, experience changes them, and not just in the obvious ways like numerical bonuses on a sheet of paper, but in how they look speak and act as well.
I gotta say, Does no one ever take the time to get into their character's head space anymore? When I play a character (even for those one of scenarios that sometimes occur where you never play the character again) I try my best to keep away from the idea that my character is simply a collection of numbers on a page. If you want a rewarding incarceration experience, take some time to ask yourself the following questions
[...]
It's a table top game with story element for me, if a GM feel that I should spend more than 30 minutes in a game doing nothing but ponder how my soul has been tormented by whatever grandiose idea came to his mind while watching game or throne or god know what trope. I usually leave the table. I have very little time to play this game, I am lucky to get a 4 hour session every month.
Fact is yes, bad stuff happen to characters.
Fact is no, players should not be sidelined for story sake.
Rule #1 is having fun, no GM is beyond that and if they think they are, I hope they enjoy playing alone.
