Advice for my game, please. Party captures.

[RangerWickett]

By the way, if I ever get around to writing a storyhour of this campaign, consider this thread to be mild spoilers.

See, here's my problem. Players hate having their characters captured. I don't know why, since often in movies (especially with James Bond) the hero gets captured, learns something about his enemies, and has a daring escape in the process. It would seem like being captured would be a great thing, narratively-speaking.

But players don't like their characters being captured.

Now, the PCs in my game know a lot, enough that several different badguys would prefer to either a) make friends with them and have them as allies, or b) capture and interrogate them before the actual killing. Additionally, the PCs have made a few bad choices recently, which has resulted in one of the major badguys knowing they're going to be at a particular place on a particular day with a particularly powerful magic item that the villain wants. And the villain has it within her power to make sure there's practically no chance the party can escape. We're talking armies surrounding them so they can't flee over land, dozens of trained antimagic mages to counterspell their attempts to fly or teleport away, and overwhelming strength of numbers.

So, this Friday, on Halloween, there's going to be an ambush, and the party will quite possibly be captured. If they go along with this, they get to enjoy an adventure breaking out of a haunted dungeon. If they miraculously escape (who knows, they might manage to get off a teleport spell even with several dispel magics aimed at them), I've got a few hooks to lead them to an equally spooky location.

But I'm worried that they might not go for it. Do you have any suggestions to help make it easier for me to capture my party? Or do you think I should scrap the whole thing, simply toss a small force against them to teach them the error of revealing too many secrets, and then just prepare for them to explore another spooky location?



Spooky Location 1: Haunted Husk Dungeon. If the PCs are captured, they'll be brought to this dungeon, deprived of their equipment, and imprisoned deep below the earth. The dungeon has been crafted by the slave labor of thousands of captured spellcasters, and though it is supposedly just a mine to recover ore, the layout of the dungeon actually forms a huge glyph that produces antimagic fields, so magic is unreliable, and teleportation out just causes you to get stuck in walls and stuff.

The dungeon has seen the deaths of hundreds of magic-using slaves, such that the place wails with uneasy spirits. Additionally, the psychic incarnation of Agony has taken residence in the tomb, and will oppose any attempt to escape. Once every day, pain washes across everyone in the dungeon like a crashing wave pressing down tunnel after tunnel, and learning the pattern the wave takes is critical to escaping, since the guards make sure to sequester themselves in their rooms before the pain hits them. And, of course, being wracked with agony for 3d4 rounds per day can have a painful effect on people.

Finally, deep in the center of the dungeon/glyph is a heavily-guarded room that holds a very important prisoner. The party has heard about him before and if they can rescue him they'll be halfway toward defeating the main badguys. However, he's defended by numerous traps and undead guards, one of whom used to be a party member. All in all, I think it will make for a good spooky adventure.


Spooky Location 2: Phylactery Cave of Pilus the Stormbringer. Pilus is a lich air elementalist mage who is building a doomsday weapon. The group has managed to learn where his phlactery is, but unfortunately, it seems to be an entire cave. Yes, the man has bonded his soul with a cave, particularly a cave which figures into the mythology of the world, in a story about a giant eagle and a dragon. Long story short, the eagle is lured into chasing the dragon deep underground, and after the eagle clips its wing on the narrow wall of the cave, the dragon is able to kill it. But the dragon cannot eat the eagle entirely, or else it would disrupt the balance of the world, so it hides the eagle's heart.

This isn't the place where the heart is, but rather is the cave where the eagle was killed. It is infused with powerful magical energy that can overwhelm people and allow them to see spirits and visions. Because Pilus needs to guard this place, but can't use living people, he has created constructs of air and storm, plus various magical traps, and he has the mountains around the cave guarded by dangerous creatures. Sadly, this place isn't very spooky until you get to the end, so I'd like to thing of some more tricks to make the place interesting.


Spooky Location 3: The Tomb of the Aquiline Heart. Legend says that after the great dragon killed the eagle, it hid the heart in a place so dangerous that even he would never be tempted to return and devour the rest. The power of the Aquiline Heart is to make anyone who eats of it immortal, unaging, and impossible to kill, and thus many have sought it throughout history. And apparently, a handful have found it. Of this handful, one is a major villain of the campaign.

The 'Tomb' is actually just a cavern network made of a rare stone called Opalite, which scrambles teleportation and negates magic. The source of the opalite is unknown, but people who have held it have compared it to touching the end of time.

No one can scry here. No one can teleport here. Magic is practically useless. The plain above the cave is a wasteland full of cracked stone where no life grows, and the sun never breaks through the haze of clouds. Any one of the cracks in the earth could lead to the cave, and the tunnels cross and interweave like a labyrinth more complex than any artist could ever create. In random caves one might find the remains of an expedition that failed, just a few bones and equipment covered in pale white dust. Somehow, even undead do not enter here, so the caverns are truly empty. The only danger is your own mind and fears. You may begin to travel so long that your sense of place and the passage of time becomes warped, and it feels like it takes years to cross one chamber.

And that is the trap of this tomb. After you lose sight of the open sky, the deeper you travel, the closer you come to eternity. Space becomes time, and a few hundred feet equates to a year, or a decade. As you near the center of the tomb, you can see the signs of aging in yourself. Flesh wrinkles, sags. Muscles weaken. Joints seize. You never grow younger, only older, and the change is subtle enough that few notice it until they are already graying.

When you reach the age of sixty (or the equivalent for your race), you see the first signs of danger. Smoke coils across the floor, clings to the ceiling. You see flashes of fire out of the corner of your eye down other tunnels. Like will-o-the-wisps on the moor, if you follow these, you'll be led to oblivion. And like the legend of the aquiline heart, if you chase them too long, eventually the flames will turn and bite you. This fire is the memory of the great dragon, now immortal, and it will kill anyone who tries to destroy the heart.

When you are very near the heart, the pains begin, as your body revolts against the unnatural aging. You feel like one hundred years old, and though your mind is still clear, all your memories feel distant and faded. And then, you enter the last chamber, and can hear the beating of the heart from the depths of a bottomless, black pit. A rough path is cut into the stone, leading down into the pit, but the beating of the heart is like a clock counting down your remaining life. You know that if you turn around now, you just might be able to see the sun again before your bones collapse, and you sink into death. And if you do continue downward, the fire dragon is there to stop you.

If you do turn back, you actually do grow younger, and will be back to your original age when you reach the surface. But I imagine few will be willing to fight a dangerous monster when they are nearly dead from age, even if they know that they can get out alive.

This location isn't actually necessary if the party wants to save the day. But I know at least two players would like to have their characters be immortal, so I can see them going here if they can manage to find out where it is. Also, the one immortal badguy they know of is bad, but there's a normal, mortal villain that is much worse, and he will eventually find out where the Aquiline Heart is, so they may have to go after him to stop him.


So, what do you think?

 

[Steve Jung]

/snip/
Do you have any suggestions to help make it easier for me to capture my party? Or do you think I should scrap the whole thing, simply toss a small force against them to teach them the error of revealing too many secrets, and then just prepare for them to explore another spooky location?

Hmm. Can you use a hostage trade to turn their capture into a heroic action? If you want to go brute force, silence spells on rocks or thugs would at least slow a magical escape. Nets or ropes of entanglement would also help.

/snip/
However, he's defended by numerous traps and undead guards, one of whom used to be a party member. All in all, I think it will make for a good spooky adventure.

Did the undead party member have any memorable physical or behavioral traits? That way you could use them to describe the poor soul, instead of just saying, "You see the shambling form of X coming toward you." Hopefully your players can recognize him to get that creeping horror.

 

[Geoff Watson]

There are several reasons many players hate being captured. One is loss of control. Most captures are obvious rail-roading by the DM, with no chance for the PCs to escape. The DM wants the story to go a certain way, and the players aren't allowed to spoil his precious plot.
Just because it happens in the movies doesn't mean it will make a good game.

If you really want to do a short 'captured' plot, start the adventure in media res, with the PCs already captured. Just make sure it's short, and they can recover any important equipment they have.

Geoff.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Capture adventures require a high level of trust between the DM and the players. You are going to deprive them of their equipment, which in D&D becomes a very distinct part of the character. They have to be able to trust that you will create challenges appropriate for them given their lack of equipment and that their equipment will eventually be returned. You break either of these unspoken covenants and your players will probably hate your adventure... and quite possibly you.

As long as you fulfill the unspoken covenants and make the adventure fun, your players shouldn't mind going through an adventure where they are captured and stripped.

 

[Greatwyrm]

To be honest, all of those sound like a heck of a lot of fun. I'd hate to see you scrap any of them.

Sure players hate getting captured. Then again, they love to escape and they'll tell stories about it forever. Escaping from the unescapable dungeon and smacking around the bad guys in the process is one of the biggest payoffs in D&D. One of the most fun games I was in started with all of us getting captured by slavers, shipped half way across the Flanaess, and then shipwrecked.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

Since my party was recently attacked by people who wanted to take us prisoner... It didn't go so well for them, and I've been thinking about how I would go about it if I wanted to capture our party.

I would suggest a three pronged attack.

1. Is the elaborate attempt, such as the one you describe, to capture the party.

If they escape...

2. The BBEG's "Plan B", a less elaborate, more subtle attempt to nab them just at the moment that they relax.

If they escape...

3. An adventure hook that will lead the party, unwittingly, right through the BBEG's front door. And there he is, or rather his "home security", waiting for them... Or perhaps they've walked themselves into his dungeon and the door/portal/whatever slides shut behind them. (Of course then you'd have to be ready to up the CR because all or some of the party will still have their equipment.)

The possibility that they will escape in steps 1 and/or 2 will give the party a sense of accomplishment at having thwarted your nefarious plan to capture them. And they will no doubt give you crap for years that they managed to do so, while you smile and nod, knowing that, the whole time, they were slowly but surely walking themselves right into step 3 and the "Kobashi Moru" it provided.

Another thing to remember is "don't set your sights too high". That is to say... Don't worry so much about capturing the ENTIRE PARTY all at once... Picking off individuals one at a time is easier and will weaken the party overall. (Both from the loss of a member or two AND the depleating of party resources in trying to protect them.)

Obviously, the BBEG knows that the party is a force to be reckoned with or he wouldn't have dedicated so many resources to their capture, so it would make sense that he/she/it wouldn't think that it would be a good idea to get everybody all at once.

Focus on whomever the BBEG thinks is the weakest member of the party... It should seem to the PCs that this person is the real target of the attack. Hopefully this isn't the same person that is holding the object of the BBEG's desire. (But if it is then that's okay.) The rest of the party will, hopefully, start doing stupid stuff in an attempt to protect the "target" and make it easier to nab individuals.

And if you do manage to nab some PCs, but not others, that gives you the hook you need to drive the uncaptured PCs towards steps 2 and 3.

And remember this above all... A sense of urgency is the key to any good con. (And I don't mean "constitution".)

Good luck! I'd love to hear how this goes.

 

[Mista Collins]

I like the idea of capturing party members. A bard in my campaign thought he could cast tongues and talk his way though a monsters lair to get to the other side, but he said something he should have. He mentioned he can from these monsters rivals. So the three guards jumped him, tied him up and drug him off, while the rest of the party had to deal with some other creatures. The best part about this is that the players are no all paranoid. Is the bard dead? Will he die? What did they do to him? Wonder how much time we got? There is just an overall sense of adventure. Too bad we had to stop the session right after the player was kidnapped, but all my players are so excited to actually rescue the bard. And just so the player doesn't feel left out when he is waiting for his rescuers he is going to roleplay a monster for me that disguised himself as the bard. I can't wait to see what happens. It should be very very entertaining.

So in other words: Capture/Rescue adventures are loads of fun (as long as the trust is there)

 

[Bloodsparrow]

One of the most fun games I was in started with all of us getting captured by slavers, shipped half way across the Flanaess, and then shipwrecked.

.

Treasure Hunt!

I loved that one.

 

[Rel]

I think the two best methods of capturing the party have already been talked about but I'll just boil it down:

1) Do it as a set piece of exposition before you even start the session. Either describe how the characters fought valiantly but were taken anyway (I lean away from this option) or mention how it was obvious that they had no chance of survival if they struggled so they surrendered, hoping a better opportunity to escape would reveal itself (an opportunity you are just about to hand them). This latter option works especially well if the bad guys have a hostage that the characters care very much about.

2) Present the party with incredibly overwhelming odds that they KNOW they can't defeat. Don't be afraid to pull out all the stops here and let their be a litteral army of enemies before them. It also helps if you spring this on them right after another tough fight when they are low on resources.


Of these two methods, I like the latter more because it still provides the illusion of choice and, so long as it is done in a way that doesn't clash with what the party knows about the bad guys and their resources, it doesn't violate suspention of disbelief (insofar as that term applies to D&D). I'd go with the first method if the players are known to be suicidal in the face of possible capture or if you are afraid that it will eat up too much of the session to do use the second method.

Good luck.

 

[Storminator]

.

Treasure Hunt!

I loved that one.

I'll be running that soon, with PCs as 1st level commoners to start...

And it's easy to capture PCs, even if they don't want to be. Use subdual damage, and jump 'em hard enough for a TPK. With the subdual damage it becomes a TPC, and you're right in your game.

I just captured my PCs, as they were mucking up everything they touched. So one of their employers got sick up and fed with their BS and thumped the snot out of 'em. Then interogated and tortured them. I think one of the PCs snapped.

PS