60) Do not plan on capturing the PCs. The moment you write "the orcs will capture the party and take them to..." you are stepping on the path of railroading. Plus, you have the added problem, of if you capture the PCs, they WILL want to escape. That means you need to be prepared to offer opportunities for escape, or to block methods of escape. In any case, if can quickly become un-fun.
61) When you do capture the PCs, do not strip the characters naked, especially the ones belonging to female players. While tactically advisable, this cross a social line. In real life, 1 in 5 women are raped in the U.S. Women can easily find this situation personally offensive. Stripping the PCs down is a short walk to this topic. Furthermore, no player likes being emasculated, especially in front of others. If you catch a PC, just take their weapons.
62) Don't reward seperationist behavior. If the party stops to scoop up loot, and one PC says goes to scout down a side corridor, tell him ", that's fine. I'll get back to you later." A common mistake is to keep the focus on the one player (because he's doing something), and thus cut out all the other players.
63) Keep a spare wandering encounter handy to throw at the party if they sit still for too long. In the dungeon, players can bog down the game by talking strategy about how to enter the next room. If they take too long and the game isn't moving, bring in a low level encounter (as a patrol) that walks in on them. This forces them to action. You can do the same thing in town, using thieves (against the party) or having an external event the party witnesses (a mugging, a fight, a fire). Try to make the event drive the party to action (doing something, versus nothing).
61) When you do capture the PCs, do not strip the characters naked, especially the ones belonging to female players. While tactically advisable, this cross a social line. In real life, 1 in 5 women are raped in the U.S. Women can easily find this situation personally offensive. Stripping the PCs down is a short walk to this topic. Furthermore, no player likes being emasculated, especially in front of others. If you catch a PC, just take their weapons.
62) Don't reward seperationist behavior. If the party stops to scoop up loot, and one PC says goes to scout down a side corridor, tell him ", that's fine. I'll get back to you later." A common mistake is to keep the focus on the one player (because he's doing something), and thus cut out all the other players.
63) Keep a spare wandering encounter handy to throw at the party if they sit still for too long. In the dungeon, players can bog down the game by talking strategy about how to enter the next room. If they take too long and the game isn't moving, bring in a low level encounter (as a patrol) that walks in on them. This forces them to action. You can do the same thing in town, using thieves (against the party) or having an external event the party witnesses (a mugging, a fight, a fire). Try to make the event drive the party to action (doing something, versus nothing).
