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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 672427" data-attributes="member: 812">It's a painful problem, to be sure. You can of course just say to your players, "Hey, this is really not much in the way of how someone of your alignment ought to behave." Which is still heavy-handed, I know.Well, but consider this: what level were those hobbits? Or even Boromir, eventually overcome (I have to point out that he faced a hundred orc archers and managed to kill twenty before going down) -- were these 15th-level characters? I would not describe them as such. Middle-Earth just isn't a high-level campaign world, and I wouldn't use D&D rules (without immense tweaking) to model it.One of the truths of being a DM is that you just can't replicate the dramatic moments of your favourite movies or books. It doesn't work. RPGs have their own sorts of dramatic moments, which are never of the "taken captive" variety. Dramatic moments in RPGs come when the players discover that something they thought was true isn't, or that some mystery is about to be revealed, or whatever.But how else do you capture someone? You have to present them with such overwhelming force that they won't even bother to fight. I can't see any other way.You also have to get them to believe that their chances of survival are improved by their surrendering. If they think the villain means to kill them anyway, why should they surrender?Why? Shouldn't the would-be captors have as much experience with these things as the PCs? Shouldn't they know exactly what it takes to lay their hands on and restrain one of these clowns? If a villain has reason to capture the PCs then they should go to town. Why send a bunch of mooks to grab hold of these heroic types? Why not get a bunch of heroic types of your own and send THEM into the fray?I wonder if you aren't worrying too much about making things "fair". Your villains shouldn't play fair. They should cheat. They should over-estimate the heroes and send five red dragons to confront them. I would. I would send absolutely everything I had. And then I would prepare a quick and fail-safe getaway in case it wasn't enough.Especially in a case where PC death isn't really on the line, I think you could really rev things up. I did this once to my players -- had them round a corner and there was a goddess and her vampiric legions waiting for them. You should have seen my players' faces! They couldn't believe it. They were so certain they were dead.But of course she just wanted to talk. Heh, heh, heh.</blockquote>

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