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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5280491" data-attributes="member: 58197">Okay, I'm gonna be blunt here.Deliberately planning to curbstomp and capture your PCs, with no way for them to avoid or anticipate it and in response to no action of theirs, is classic railroading and very bad form. Doing it at the start of a campaign is a horrible way to lead off. And doing it to a bunch of newbies at the start of a campaign is... well, frankly, it's the sort of thing that helps keep our hobby from growing like it should. I doubt any of them will walk out right there (more experienced players might, depending on how blatant you were about the railroad), but it'll certainly put a bad taste in everyone's mouth and you'll have to work that much harder to wash it out.If the PCs do something dumb that results in them getting arrested, like making death threats to the king in his own throne room, them's the breaks. In the scenario you describe, however, they should have a chance to respond--whether that response be agreeing to make the deal, or revealing the captain's perfidy to the king, or trying to kill the captain, or just running like hell into the wilderness.If you absolutely must start the PCs off in prison, then I agree with what others have said--make it clear beforehand that the PCs are going to start off in prison and don't even bother playing out their capture.</blockquote>