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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 5214112" data-attributes="member: 99">I find this to be a very interesting topic that our group has dealt with in pretty much every imaginable way over the years.Where we have arrived for now (at least in my part as the GM) is an extremely expositional method.  If the defeated bad guy(s) in question have meaningful information to impart that is directly relevant and valuable to points of interest in the campaign, that's nothing I want to leave to chance.  A million things could go wrong between "Roll initiative" and "you learn some interesting info" that would prevent the PC's from getting access to the information I want them to have.Based on my general knowledge of the group, the genre and the PC's in question, I'll pretty much just tell them a summary of what happens after the dust settles and the battle is over.  Like, "One of the goblins turns out to have only been knocked unconscious for a moment.  You have to cuff him about a little but he tells you that the Goblin Chieftain rules by more than simple might:  He drinks the blood of the living and seems almost impervious to normal weapons!  The goblin swears that he will leave and never come back if you let him live, so you decide to cut him a break this time...unless any of you object strenuously?  No?  Ok, moving along..."Now that's railroady as hell.  But it took me only a few seconds to convey the same information that we could have gotten from more than an hour of blow by blow roleplay of specific intimidation tactics, bribes, threats and then a HUGE debate on the fate of the prisoner.I'll of course vary the particulars based on those earlier factors.  I might describe the prisoner as being so awed by the might of the party that they spill the beans without so much as a threat.  If this is a cutthroat type of game where all the PC's are vicious rogues then I might describe them as killing the prisoner without hesitation (once again giving them the option to do otherwise on a case by case basis).  But the simple fact is that dealing with prisoners is not what my games are all about and I don't want debates on the topic to take up a lot of time.Luckily I've been playing with more or less the same group for upwards of 15 years and so everybody is pretty cool with us glossing over the details for the rank and file prisoners (or lack thereof) after most battles.  I give a lot more time and special attention to "named bad guys" of course and those have given rise to some of the more interesting roleplaying moments in my games.</blockquote>

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