Riffing on @Mannahnin's posts.
I think we can be pretty confident of the following: if having a PC build a castle in classic D&D required the players to write down every instruction to the engineers and mason, or describe where and how every brick is laid, fewer campaigns would involve building castles than they actually have done.
In the same context, when the GM makes a single Loyalty throw for the engineers, to see if they do their job properly, that is not taking away player agency just because the player doesn't get a throw to check if they persuade the engineer, or catch them goofing off, every time. Weeks or months of interaction is being bundled up into a single throw to make the ingame activity viable as an object of resolution at the table.
There is nothing magic about the interpersonal altercations that might result in capture that distinguishes them from the interpersonal dealings that might result in an engineer doing a better or worse job at building a castle. We can set the degree of resolution however we like, at whatever will make the game fun and interesting.
The same when it comes to consequences. Being captured need not, in itself, be a more or less irrevocable outcome than having a castle that is liable to fall down around you because of its shoddy construction. We can choose what method(s) we use to resolve attempt by the players to have their PCs reverse or overcome these sorts of adverse consequences. We're not obliged, just because we're RPGing, to treat capture and escape just the same as D&D did 40+ years ago.
I think we can be pretty confident of the following: if having a PC build a castle in classic D&D required the players to write down every instruction to the engineers and mason, or describe where and how every brick is laid, fewer campaigns would involve building castles than they actually have done.
In the same context, when the GM makes a single Loyalty throw for the engineers, to see if they do their job properly, that is not taking away player agency just because the player doesn't get a throw to check if they persuade the engineer, or catch them goofing off, every time. Weeks or months of interaction is being bundled up into a single throw to make the ingame activity viable as an object of resolution at the table.
There is nothing magic about the interpersonal altercations that might result in capture that distinguishes them from the interpersonal dealings that might result in an engineer doing a better or worse job at building a castle. We can set the degree of resolution however we like, at whatever will make the game fun and interesting.
The same when it comes to consequences. Being captured need not, in itself, be a more or less irrevocable outcome than having a castle that is liable to fall down around you because of its shoddy construction. We can choose what method(s) we use to resolve attempt by the players to have their PCs reverse or overcome these sorts of adverse consequences. We're not obliged, just because we're RPGing, to treat capture and escape just the same as D&D did 40+ years ago.