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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4986517" data-attributes="member: 58197">Count me in the "railroading the PCs into prison is a horrible plan" camp. It's like the "everybody starts the campaign with amnesia" routine - something that always seems like a brilliant idea in the DM's head, and (almost) always turns out to be a horribly bad idea in play.Players hate having their characters imprisoned and hate losing agency. You're proposing to hit them with both at the same time. At the very least, you need to give them the chance to do something clever.If you really want to imprison them, you can have the guards surround them, then say, "Okay, the guards are about to arrest you and haul you off to prison. They have you heavily outnumbered and will almost certainly beat you in a straight-up fight. Do you have anything you want to try, or shall we skip ahead to the dungeon?"Then if they have any tricky ploys they want to attempt, or if they decide they want to play out the battle despite knowing defeat is almost certain, they can do that.However, odds are that it will still feel like a railroad - because, well, it is a railroad. I would strongly encourage you to look into the "intentional imprisonment" angle where the players get themselves captured on purpose. In general, I feel involuntary imprisonment should only be used as a punishment for losing a battle, failing a noncombat challenge, or doing something dumb.</blockquote>