Shawshank Redemption d20, or GM needs help with campaign prep

[Rechan]

I want to run a campaign that starts with the PCs in prison. They must escape, becoming fugitives from the law. Thing is, I want to plan a little bit. At least so I have some answers when they want to break out.

So what should I consider?

I see two routes I can take.

1) The PCs must work together to formulate their own plan of escape. This will require the most ingenuity from the players, and me being realistic in my responses. I also need answers for their questions to allow them to formulate a plan. This is one area I would like to have help on fleshing the prison out, and giving them enough information so they can pull it off. How do I do this?

2) In The Usual Suspects, all the characters are brought together because in their past, they have wronged Kaiser Soze. And Soze is blackmailing them unless they do a job for him. Similar situation; a benefactor has spread several tools throughout the prison, and is helping the PCs escape. So all they must do is collect the tools, put the directions together, and go about it.

I see option 2 as a backup, in case the PCs come up with nothing.

In addition, I should also decide if I want to run an adventure while they're in the prison. Perhaps it's a hard labor camp, that does mining, and many of the miners have went missing. So the prison warden picks the PC's cell block to go into the mine and find out what's going on. Or this prison is next to a debter's prison, and the debter's prison is the mining one, and has gone empty.

 

[Cyberia]

I think this is a really interesting idea. I like the open endedness of option 1, but I do think that it would require a lot of pre-planning on your part.

For something like this, I would start at the end and work backwards. Meaning, come up with a few different ways that the party could escape from the prison and then work backwards to make sure all the clues, contacts, and tools are somehow in place. And it doesn't have to be obvious... if the party needs shovels, maybe they need to steal metal plates from the mess hall to fashion the shovels, and to steal the plates, maybe they need to cause a distraction (like a fist fight with one of the other prisoners).

I also like the idea of the in-prison mission... maybe something from that mission is what compels them to escape, or keeps them together once they get on the outside.

 

[Rechan]

The real challenge is if they don't take any of the methods I've devised (being PCs, you know). So that will take Dming on the fly, so I need as much brainstorming and general knowledge of the prison.

With the "In-prison adventure", I was thinking of the Warden offering the PCs, basically, special privileges assuming they survive. Bigger cells, access to more stuff. Perhaps giving the caster access to some theoretical texts (but no spellbooks).

I'm intentionally not specifying the nature of the prison (how much security it is, who runs it) because I am going to give the PCs an option: Either play Good guys who are imprisoned by a bad regime (political prisoners, innocent, etc), or Anti-Heroes; not-entirely-evil, but perhaps a cleric of a forbidden god, a necromancer, and so on. The choice the players make will likely impact the nature of who's running the prison.

 

[Peni Griffin]

I actually did this as a one-off, back in the early days, as a test-run for the rules. I unjustly imprisoned the characters they came up with (generated at 3rd level to maximize the number of rules we could try out) and gave them a motive to break out.

The prison in question was a former residence castle converted for use as a city jail. I used the floor plan of a real castle and placed it on the map of downtown San Antonio. I set up guard rotations, populated the different cell blocks and set different levels of security, located features like the guard quarters, evidence locker, morgue, laundry room, etc., and had a timeline for what point all hell would break loose as the civil war started. Then I sat back and let the players do their thing.

I had no idea how they would break out. My job was to run the people and obstacles intended to prevent them from doing so, not to guide them or babysit them. Although their first attempt failed, their second attempt not only succeeded, it prevented the second scheduled disaster on the time line and would have changed the whole shape of the civil war, had I had the energy to play out the campaign.

Unless you have passive or unimaginative players, I recommend this heartily. Letting the players choose whether they're running bad guys or good guys is a good start. Do that, and continue to take your cue from them, playing their opposition to the best of your ability.

And get some of those genuine floor plans. They save a lot of work.

 

[kenmarable]

One way I can think to have Option 2 be available, but still push them towards Option 1 is that have #2 rely on the help of a very untrustworthy NPC. Yeah, somebody is pulling strings to help them get out, but the price is that they will have to take this other NPC (or 2 or 3) with them and quite frankly not only do they belong in prison, but the PCs don't know if they'll get stabbed in the back as soon as they get out.

 

[Rechan]

The prison in question was a former residence castle converted for use as a city jail. I used the floor plan of a real castle and placed it on the map of downtown San Antonio. I set up guard rotations, populated the different cell blocks and set different levels of security, located features like the guard quarters, evidence locker, morgue, laundry room, etc., and had a timeline for what point all hell would break loose as the civil war started. Then I sat back and let the players do their thing.

I plan on using generic fantasy instead of actual contemporary. Do you think that would effect matters as far as floor plans, etc? Where would you even GET floor plans like that?

I figure running it more or less like a contemporary prison (two to a cell, cell blocks, cafeteria, etc) is a lot more fun and for ease of convenience than more historical jails which are likely a real, bad mess.

My job was to run the people and obstacles intended to prevent them from doing so, not to guide them or babysit them.

I want the PCs to break out, just so the campaign can begin. But, I don't want to just hand them the keys to their cell either. I figure "You can find a spellbook here, a vial of acid here, and a map of the area around the prison here" suitable components. Of course, these things will also be placed in inconvenient places (Like in the cell of a very aggressive and dangerous inmate).

But among other things, this thread is just for brainstorming. Like, what's better, an island, a cliff (So they have to climb down), or just a generally traitorous area (like a swamp)? I need guard rotations and patrols set, but what else? Things like that.

One way I can think to have Option 2 be available, but still push them towards Option 1 is that have #2 rely on the help of a very untrustworthy NPC. Yeah, somebody is pulling strings to help them get out, but the price is that they will have to take this other NPC (or 2 or 3) with them and quite frankly not only do they belong in prison, but the PCs don't know if they'll get stabbed in the back as soon as they get out.

That's not a bad idea. I will require the PCs to make their characters together, with at least some sort of tangible backgrounds, so they are willing to work together beyond the fact They Are PCs. So entering some real nasty folk in the equasion that isn't part of the group sounds about right.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

There was a Dungeon adventure ("Spirals of Messanzine," IIRC, though I forget which issue) that had to do with a prison break in a mind flayer prison. It might be worth picking up for ideas (though the adventure premise was that the PCs we arriving as the prisoners busted loose, not that they were prisoners themselves). Still, good quirky fantasy prison flavor ... with mind flayers!

 

[Rechan]

Looking from dungeon 115 on Paizo's site to 150, I couldn't find any such adventure, alas. I did find one in issue 135 (Chains of Blackmaw), and one in 146 (Escape from something Prison).

Looking at the extras on Paizo's site (provides art + maps), neither seem to suit my purposes. Well, 146 does much better than 135; 135 is a prison inside a mineshaft, and so I see little opportunity for escape there.

 

[Gilladian]

I think you can combine idea # 2 and the "adventure in the prison" idea to get a perfect solution to your planning problem.

1) they get "recruited" by the prison warden (or, perhaps better, an underwarden) to do a "job" for him. The job could be to break up a prison crime ring, protect a particular prisoner from other inmates, dispose of a very dangerous/crazed inmate, etc...

2)the stated reward for the job is better facilities, but the warden hints that if they do the job quickly/well enough he'll "give them what they really want", which of course, is a way out. Or if they're evil, once they've done the job, they might blackmail him. If they don't think of that themselves, another prisoner could hint at it, or even try to blackmail them to get the idea going.

3) when the PCs make their escape attempt, the warden would be very likely to betray them; having them "killed while attempting to escape" would cover his activities quite well.

I also like the idea of having the prison be in a hostile environment. A desert or dangerous wasteland, an island in dangerous waters, or high in the cold, rugged mountains would all be possible choices rather than the (rather trite) swamps. Thus once they actually escape, they still have to survive getting back to civilization.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Looking from dungeon 115 on Paizo's site to 150, I couldn't find any such adventure, alas. I did find one in issue 135 (Chains of Blackmaw), and one in 146 (Escape from something Prison).

Search is your friend! "SPIRAL OF MANZESSINE", Dungeon 94.