4. DM: You’ve been traveling for a few days when you encounter Lady Sena and her retinue. She invites you weary travelers to join her and share her dinner.
PCs: “We don’t know Lady Sena, but we’re wary of her. We aren’t eating or drinking anything she offers.”
DM: “After the meal, you all fall asleep.”
PCs: “Wait what? How?”
DM: “The food and beverages were drugged.”
PCs: “Wait: we explicitly said we weren’t eating or drinking what she offered!”
DM: “Well, then her people drugged your food and beverages.”
PCs: “What?”
This is Clumsy DM Railroading at it’s worst.
By the Game Rules for most games it is by default hard to capture the PCs, Most games give lots of advantages to the PCs. And most games balanced encounter rules make it far easier to kill the PC then capture them.
Also most DM would like to just Fast Forward past the Capture the PCs part, as doing it via combat can take a great amount of time. And there is a chance the PCs will get away.
Of course, the easy answer is to simply not capture the PCs ever. A lot of DMs pick this option.
Assuming the game your playing has more then one rulebook, you might be able to find something in a book to use. If you do want to capture the PCs, you might consider going Beyond the Rules to do it. The game rules are unlikely to have what you need, so you will have to Add To The Game. Make whatever you need to capture the PCs.
In general, capturing the PCs will take time. You just need to be willing to take that time.
PCs: “We don’t know Lady Sena, but we’re wary of her. We aren’t eating or drinking anything she offers.”
DM: “After the meal, you all fall asleep.”
PCs: “Wait what? How?”
DM: “The food and beverages were drugged.”
PCs: “Wait: we explicitly said we weren’t eating or drinking what she offered!”
DM: “Well, then her people drugged your food and beverages.”
PCs: “What?”
This is Clumsy DM Railroading at it’s worst.
By the Game Rules for most games it is by default hard to capture the PCs, Most games give lots of advantages to the PCs. And most games balanced encounter rules make it far easier to kill the PC then capture them.
Also most DM would like to just Fast Forward past the Capture the PCs part, as doing it via combat can take a great amount of time. And there is a chance the PCs will get away.
Of course, the easy answer is to simply not capture the PCs ever. A lot of DMs pick this option.
Assuming the game your playing has more then one rulebook, you might be able to find something in a book to use. If you do want to capture the PCs, you might consider going Beyond the Rules to do it. The game rules are unlikely to have what you need, so you will have to Add To The Game. Make whatever you need to capture the PCs.
In general, capturing the PCs will take time. You just need to be willing to take that time.
