Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
Depends on the type of character I am playing. If I have a sword and water board fighter . . .
What do your PCs do with prisoners?
- Thread starter Rechan
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Depends on the type of character I am playing. If I have a sword and water board fighter . . .
nedjer
Adventurer
In a strange parallel with the real world - stick them in front of Facebook and you're done
Aeolius
Adventurer
That question generally leads to very unpleasant and long threads.
I have done all three in the various games I played in.
Aeolius
Adventurer
I populated the non-aquatic portions of the Jungle of Lost Ships with human castaways and a wayward "prison hulk" that had been used as an orphanage for "dungeon orphans".
AeroDm
First Post
We structure our games to not have this problem as often as not. It just doesn't come up. When it does come up, we try and do something productive with it. Sometimes they kill the prisoner if he looks like he'll be a problem later, but as often as not the prisoner is a mercenary who is now quite convinced that the party is more powerful than he is. If he can escape by giving his word, he isn't going to hunt them down later... he'll steer clear.
I also try and let it work in reverse. At the end of one adventure a rival adventuring group was waiting outside the dungeon and tricked the party out of the treasure they just acquired. As the players drew steel the leader of the other party tossed them a bag of gold. He said something like, "Look, we could battle this out and either side might win, but we'd both lose friends. Someone tipped us off and this time we got the upper hand. Here's a thousand gold. Not as much as we're stealing, I know, but soon enough you might be the one tossing us some gold."
It really softened the blow, made the other group feel more real, and lead to some interesting events--who tipped them off? Why? What will the players do when the tables *are* turned?
I also try and let it work in reverse. At the end of one adventure a rival adventuring group was waiting outside the dungeon and tricked the party out of the treasure they just acquired. As the players drew steel the leader of the other party tossed them a bag of gold. He said something like, "Look, we could battle this out and either side might win, but we'd both lose friends. Someone tipped us off and this time we got the upper hand. Here's a thousand gold. Not as much as we're stealing, I know, but soon enough you might be the one tossing us some gold."
It really softened the blow, made the other group feel more real, and lead to some interesting events--who tipped them off? Why? What will the players do when the tables *are* turned?
Hussar
Legend
It's not that there is any reward for moral behavior, it's that moral behavior is actively punished. If there was no punishment for acting in a moral fashion, then people would probably default to that.
But, if every time you take a prisoner, the prisoner is going to escape/return and hurt you/refuse to give any information of use and become a ginormous time waster, then players will give it up as a bad job.
Zombie survival games are a bit different since that's the primary point of play - how do you behave in this extreme situation. But, most of the time, D&D games are not in that position. The choice to be moral is a valid option, but, not when every time you take it the DM is going to go out of the way to screw you over.
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