Imprisoning the PCs

[fuzzlewump]

lol! Why am I suddenly thinking "D&D, the Prison Movie..."



Exactly. In my experience, when a DM forces their group into this kind of situation (or if the situation arises through play) players will tolerate it - even enjoy it - so long as it furthers the adventure and remains entertaining.

And, as Mallus said, getting thrown in prison and subsequently escaping, is the basis for a lot of classic adventures (like, the Count of Monte Cristo).

I could, however, see a DM get into trouble when he takes all the player character's stuff away. As long as there's an unspoken guarantee that the items will be returned (like the DM telling them not to erase the information off of their character sheets), which is later carried out, the situation should end up fine.

I agree that a prison break adventure can be fun, but less fun is being forced there. If they fail a challenge or something, then throw them in and have it be fun. But don't just throw them in willy-nilly. The 4E DMG 2 talks about making both success and failure interesting options, but nothing about removing that option all together. Now, if the DM didn't plan anything interesting to happen if they weren't thrown in prison, that's just a problem with the adventure in my opinion.

 

[Dausuul]

IME, the following goes over very poorly:

(PCs roleplay for a while in a normal session, maybe have some fights they win.)
"OK, after mouthing off to the king, armed guards surround you and throw you into the dungeon."

That's railroad. Players have had agency in their actions up until this point, and taking away an option which should be open (that is, resisting arrest) is blocked to them without reason. Cutscenes in the middle of a session don't flow so well.

On the other hand, even though it's very close, this goes over fairly well:

(PCs just finished one adventure, and this session marks the new adventure.)
"You all wake up in this prison cell where you've spent the past three days, and start to wonder where it all went wrong..."


The difference, for my groups at least, is that the time spent between adventures isn't fully detailed; pretty much anything could have happened. My players are open to a narrative back-story. The above is just a little different from, "You've come to the Village of Hommelet in search of adventure..." When we start like this, I haven't shifted gears so dramatically - to the players, it never feels like a situation they should have been in control of; it's rightly regarded as a setup for a new - and hopefully fun - adventure.

-O

Hmm, that's a fair point. Still tricky to manage, mostly because the players will naturally want to know "What the hell are we doing in prison?" and you don't want to give them an answer that conflicts with how they view their characters. But it could be made to work, especially if the DM asks the players to hash out a back story.

I think if I wanted to stage a prison break scenario, I'd do it by creating a challenging and difficult non-prison-break adventure, in which the players would end up in prison if they messed up at any point. They aren't being railroaded, they do have the option to not get imprisoned; but given sufficient opportunity, odds are very good they'll make a mistake eventually.

 

[Janx]

Starting a session "media res" where you've setup a scenario that time has passed, stuff happened, and the players find them selves in prison can be made to work.

Starting a campaign, where the new PCs start in prison can also be made to work.

Planning to capture the party and put them in prison, just so you can have a prison adventure, that's treading on railroad tracks.

Setting up things so the PCs may be motivated to get into the prison is a good tactic. Just make sure that you have an alternate prepared if the PCs don't decided to do it.

Generally, players hate the "you've been captured and forced to escape the mad wizard's Dungeon of Disastrous Doom" plot. They like feeling like it was their choice to enter the dungeon (even if the alternatives simply sucked).

Players hate being captured because it means losing their stuff, if only for the course of the adventure. For some PCs, that means effectively being useless.


I'd use the "imprisoned" plan if you had an encounter go badly, and your choice was kill PCs and derail plot, or knock out PCs and imprison. I'd also eithe have a prison escape adventure ready, or stop the game to make one.

Otherwise, I'd only use a prison if I revealed to the party that something they want is in the prison. Possible plot ideas:
get person out for some reason
get info from person in prison
get item hidden in prison
whack somebody in prison

 

[Raven Crowking]

I rather like the cut scene idea, from a player perspective. It changes the context of the choices I get to make, but doesn't falsely present something as being a choice.

That said, it might be a good idea to speak to the players involved about what is possible within the context of the game beforehand. I.e., the players should know that such a cut scene is possible.....be it thrown in prison, washed up on a beach after a shipwreck, or whatever.

The players should have some idea how often these sorts of cut scenes are likely to occur (IMHO, they should be rare to very rare), and they should always have an option to opt out of a cut scene and play out what happens. They should just be aware that opting out of the cut scene also means that they no longer have the same plot immunity within the scene. Thus, they can accept the "captured" cut scene or play it out to a TPK, or something in between, but the players know what the options are.

They should also know that accepting a cut scene doesn't screw them over in a permanent sense -- it just changes what problems they face. Thus, the PCs should know that losing their gear now means "recovering your gear" becomes an adventure objective that can reasonably succeed. It does not have to automatically succeed, and there can be problems involved with its recovery.

If the players believe that they (even if not their PCs) have agency, and that the GM is going to present a fair and fun scenario, then there should be no problem. If the players don't trust the GM, or feel that their agency as players is brought into question, then there will be problems.



RC

 

[Joseph Rossow]

...the part I hate most about being railroaded is my wasted time. If you know the answer, why did you bother asking for my input? Am I a player here, or not?

Exactly.

I tend to narrate a story for the adventurers when their choices don't have any effect on the outcome (like telling them the King orders them thrown in jail), or if their isn't any other way the situation could reasonably turn out (like skipping a combat between a cave of 10 goblins and a group of 15th level characters).

That being said, narrating a section should represent most reasonable reaction to a given situation. If skills, character abilities, magic items or spells have been introduced, which clearly would prevent this situation from occurring, then the situation should play out differently.

The important thing is to get to the next point where the player's decisions start to matter again. I would look at is similarly to skipping the day-by-day actions of a 3-week trip down the road (unless something that happens on the trip is of pivotal significance to the adventure).

As it might be inferred by kilpatds' post, one of the worst things one can do, as a DM, is give the appearance of there being a decision, when there isn't one. It serves only to frustrate players and waste valuable gaming time, especially when a DM can just dictate the outcome and move on to the next point in the story.

Dausuul, however, reminds me of the importance of players to control their characters. But, I find that I often, as a DM, describe things that the player character's do, from describing how they attack with their flaming greatsword, to their pickup lines at a bar (with a roll of natural 1).

In my experience, after describing their actions in an entertaining fasion for a while, players become more accustomed to allowing the DM to narrate small parts of the story without their direct input, because they believe they'll be entertained by it, and it will reflect their characters appropriately.

Personally (and I understand some advocate this position), I think telling my players that they suddenly wake up in prison is something that a DM could get away with, however that situation must take into account the abilities, magic items and traits of the player characters. If a PC was a WarForged, for example, who doesn't sleep, that might not be so easy for the players to swallow.

Then again, if adventurers suddenly waking up in a dungeon is the most reasonable outcome for a situation the DM has created, then I'd find it perfectly acceptable. In any case, it's one possible way to get the PCs in prison, though I don't find it different from my approach at all.

EDIT: Saw some stuff posted after I started writing

Generally, players hate the "you've been captured and forced to escape the mad wizard's Dungeon of Disastrous Doom" plot.

I don't think that's a good generalization. I would edit that statement say "players hate the 'you've been captured and forced to escape the mad wizar'ds Dungeon of Disastrous Doom' plot, when it's executed poorly."

As for the first two points in your most recent post, Janx, I don't see how they differe from the third point. I view a capture - which is narrated by the DM - as just another bullet point on the plot. On the other hand, if the DM makes an encounter out of the capture, they should plan for the possibility of the players evading said capture.

EDIT 2: In response to RavenCrowking, I'll say that I, for the most part, agree with your post, especially the last to paragraphs.

 

[delericho]

Also, spellcasters get nerfed if imprisoned - no spell components, special defenses (break all their fingers, etc).

The best way for the DM to handle that is... don't break all the Wizard's fingers. D&D doesn't really support that sort of specific injury anyway, and for good reason. (Yes, it's the logical thing to do. IRL, if I were imprisoning a spellcaster, I would make sure to do exactly that. However, it makes for a sucky game experience, and 'fun' really should trump 'logic' in this instance.)

However, you do need some mechanism for getting the Wizard up and running again fairly quickly. I recommend the following (where applicable, I'm using 3e rules):

- The Wizard should start play with at least a subset of his spells already prepared - basically, whatever he had left over from the day before. I'd err on the side of the generous here, as there will be little opportunity for him to prepare new spells. (Unless, of course he has the Spell Mastery feat, or whatever it's called... but then I've never seen anyone take that.)

- Many spells, and particularly low level spells, make use of fairly common components. By grubbing around in their cell, the Wizard should be able to find a bunch of molds, powders, guano, and similar. (This may actually be one scenario where it's actually fun to track these minor components, rather than just abstract it into a "spell component pouch".)

I would also be inclined to allow a Wizard to cast a spell with a 'wrong' component that is nonetheless thematically appropriate (for example, substituting rat droppings for bat guano in a fireball spell) with a Spellcraft check (say, DC 10 + spell level).

I'm not sure how I would handle spells requiring a divine focus. I'm inclined to say that these are blocked (unless the PC can craft a makeshift focus or trade for one, or similar). However, it's been a while since I checked just how devastating that would be - if this knocks out the bulk of Cleric/Paladin spells (or, particularly, blocks the cure spells) then I'd instead be inclined to simply waive the requirement on a temporary basis, on the grounds that the character's patron knows he was set up. (He was set up, right? )

- You still need a mechanism for enabling the Wizard to prepare new spells. There are several possible vectors here. Firstly, there will always be the 'black market' within the prison - there may well be some pages from a spellbook being passed around, or something like that. Secondly, it's entirely possible that some of the other prisoners have put together some notes that they've then hidden, or scrawled the formula for some spell on a wall, or something. And, thirdly, I think I'd be pretty sure to have the PCs come into conflict with a band of guards/other prisoners including at least one other Wizard, and make sure to have that Wizard's spellbook fall into the hands of the PCs.

 

[amerigoV]

The best way for the DM to handle that is... don't break all the Wizard's fingers. D&D doesn't really support that sort of specific injury anyway, and for good reason. (Yes, it's the logical thing to do. IRL, if I were imprisoning a spellcaster, I would make sure to do exactly that. However, it makes for a sucky game experience, and 'fun' really should trump 'logic' in this instance.)

So let me get this straight (I am going to be a bit harsh here)- the King manages to throw all the PCs into prison at a flick of his hand, but the prison guards are too dumb to "disarm" all the prisoners? Are you going let the barbarian sneak his greataxe in too (I'll let the read infer where the barbarian will hide it to get it in). Granted, I'm being harsh here, but I think that will just piss of players even more - "If can still cast fireball, how the hell did I get in here?!?".

In my opinion, this is exactly why this scenario does not work in D&D - PCs are too gear and magic dependant. The rogue and the fighter can still do some stuff, but spellcasters are "realistically" screwed, or you really have to sacrifice verisimilitude to make it work. I think it works fine in other genres - overpowering the guard will get you a pretty good weapon (pistol, rifle, etc).

I am sure you can find a group that would dig this scenario if you gave them a heads up. I just think that it is a bad idea in a D&D game for a vast majority of players.

 

[Mallus]

I don't come to the gaming table to "participate in a story."

Don't get hung up on the word 'story'. I use it to describe what goes on in a campaign, any campaign from a pure sandbox campaign to a heavily-scripted high-fantasy LotR knockoff. A D&D player takes on the role of a fictional characters and perform actions in a fictional setting. By definition they are participating in stories. .

... most DMs are crap storytellers.

"Is that an axe to grind I see here before me?".

One could argue that D&D is different because everyone is participating in creating the story... but if the DM is shoving my character into prison and I get no say in the matter, that's not me participating. That's me listening to the DM tell a story about my character. No thanks.

You get a say in the matter after your character gets shoved into prison. Getting tossed into jail is only the set-up. It's a railroad if the PC's have no meaningful decisions or can take no meaningful actions from that point onward.

I come to the gaming table to a) hang out with friends and b) play a game.

Me too.

And a core requirement of any game is the ability to make significant and interesting decisions. The more railroad the DM puts into the plot, the smaller and less interesting the decisions available to the players become.

This is true. The question is 'does it neccessarily preclude the DM from occasionally fiat-ing the party into specific challenges (like a jailbreak)?'

In my experience, most players really really hate that.

In my experience, when a group trusts one another, the game really opens up to a lot more interesting possibilities.

Look, I'm not denying that fiat-based imprisonment scenarios can't be done wrong. I'm saying it's possible to do them right.

 

[Kraydak]

You get a say in the matter after your character gets shoved into prison. Getting tossed into jail is only the set-up. It's a railroad if the PC's have no meaningful decisions or can take no meaningful actions from that point onward.

Guess what... odds are, the PCs will have no meaningful decisions after getting tossed into jail, either. The reason is very, very simple. You can't escape from a vaguely competently run prison. Either you get farce (the prison is run by bungling fools) or you get railroad (the DM provides you with an escape route). Usually, you get both (the DM provides you with an absurdly improbable escape route).

This is true. The question is 'does it neccessarily preclude the DM from occasionally fiat-ing the party into specific challenges (like a jailbreak)?'

I would say that railroading PCs into a second railroad is very, very questionable from a DMing standpoint. Really, what on earth does the DM stand to gain?

 

[Mallus]

Guess what... odds are, the PCs will have no meaningful decisions after getting tossed into jail, either.

The PC's would if I wrote the scenario.

You can't escape from a vaguely competently run prison.

It's a staple of adventure fiction, film and television. I see absolutely no reason to hold D&D to a higher standard. Besides, they do occur in the real world.

Either you get farce (the prison is run by bungling fools) or you get railroad (the DM provides you with an escape route). Usually, you get both (the DM provides you with an absurdly improbable escape route).

Treasure-laden dungeons aren't a farce? (and a railroad, given your rather loose implicit definition).

I think you might be over-thinking this a little. A jailbreak is no less plausible than many common D&D campaign elements/occurrences.