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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joseph Rossow" data-source="post: 4985923" data-attributes="member: 51615">First of all, I'm giving fair warning that my view might be... controversial, so be warned.Anyways, when you want to imprison your player's characters, here's what you say:"The King calls his guards and they throw you the dungeon."That's all you do.  You don't make it a choice.  Now, here's how you get away with it.First, by not giving the player characters any choices, you're implying that it is the only possible outcome of the situation, which this is.  If I'm in a King's castle, and he calls his guards and tells them to throw me into prison, and I'm level 4, I'm getting tossed in prison.  (It should be noted that the guards of a King would include wizards and clerics, some of whom are high level.  Furthermore, a castle might house permanent enchantments to deter aggression or combat means of escape, except for those who know the secrets of doing so.)Now, second, when you refuse to offer a choice, you have to make up for it with a pay-off in the plot.  Once they're in the dungeon, immediately start to provide them with choices.  You could do so like this:"As you sit in the dark cell, wondering how long you'll be there, you hear a large brick slide out of place in the back wall.  A grizzled, bearded man pokes his face through the opening and says 'Well?  Are you coming?'"Make sense?  Let me restate the procedure.You cut the players off by saying: "Okay, what I'm about to describe happens, your characters can't really do anything about it."Then you imprison them, set up the situation, etc.  Then you announce:"Okay, I return control to your characters.  What are they doing in response to this new situation?"The truncation really helps players swallow this.  But I strongly, urge you to try this.  It's a really helpful tool and it's easier than it seems.(edit)CAVEAT:  Again, this assumes that there is no, reasonable way to escape the situation.  If one of the characters had Boots of Teleportation, and you'd already established that the area was not under the effects of a Dimensional Lock, then the characters should be able to use them to escape (assuming they could speak the command word).However, if you don't have anything that might contradict the presence of said Dimensional Lock, once it's introduced in that area, it cannot be removed from the game.  I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it's okay to do something like this, so long as you don't contradict yourself in the process.  Contradicting yourself is what really pisses players off..</blockquote>

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