What do your PCs do with prisoners?

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Problem-solved; bumped in the end of old Charlton Heston cannibal movie Soylent Green yesterday. You get to use every part of the body and it's all in a good cause.

In the real world, this summer saw the Parallax Corporation start to sell a green wafer biscuit, said to contain plankton, under the brand name Soylent Green

To be clear, it is a novelty product, and as they say "For people" not from people. (It can be ordered via thinkgeek.)

Custom-produced in the United States of all-natural ingredients at a small-batch gourmet manufacturing facility, Soylent Green crackers contain real plankton, are colored green and have a nice plant-like undertone. Tastes just like Grandmas.

 

[aco175]

Most of the prisoners end up being minions or lesser beings and not the main monster of the fight. Things like undead and elementals do not surender, but goblins and bandits do. Something surrenders maybe once every 10 fights or so.

The last goblin was tied up and later freed from another goblin fleeing the fight down the road. Another time the pair of goblins tried to join the party instead of wanting to go back to the rest of the goblin army. they had minor skills of cook and teamster and were usefull, if distrusted, for a short time until the party was able to travel out of the desert. The goblins were let go with some captured freight and a wagon. They may turn up again.

Strangely nobody gets brought to authority for hanging or such.

 

[karlindel]

Different groups have handled it differently, and it also depends on the enemy. In general, if they are not a major villain, they may be able to trade useful information for release. Alternately, the PCs will bring them to the nearest local authority when they get the chance, and they may be able to bargain information to get the PCs to put in a good word for them and hope for a lighter sentence. Of course, some enemies will rat out their friends even without a promise of release (although they'll always try to bargain for it), because they're evil and don't see any reason not to rat out their former allies who obviously didn't do much for them. I don't recall ransom coming up in my campaigns so far, but if PCs wanted to ransom an important enemy or exchange prisoners during a war, I would definitely work to arrange it. There was one prisoner captured while the party was travelling to a neighboring Empire who bargained some information in exchange for being given over to the neighboring Empire instead of the kingdom the party was from (his employer was at war with the Empire, which had strict rules about prisoners, and would exchange him as a prisoner of war, while the kingdom would likely have had him executed for attacking their diplomatic envoys).

My PCs rarely accept surrender from major bad guys (and most won't surrender, as they know it will not go well for them). My PCs have always kept the deals they made with surrendered NPCs, so I haven't had to deal with the issue of them lying about it. My PCs have also used rituals to imprison enemies in trees or inanimate objects to make sure they don't return or for pickup to hand over to the authorities later.

 

[haakon1]

In all seriousness, I've never understood people's issues over taking prisoners back to an authority. It's an imaginary game where such things can be hand-waived as, "We take him back and hand him over to the law, and then return to the dungeon," and then continue the adventure. Ooh, five seconds, so much hassle and bother.

Nod, in my campaigns, prisoners are typically handed over to the proper authorities. Their eventual fate varies from being pardoned (happened for some bandits who were coerced) to being hanged to waiting in a dungeon for a prisoner exchange.

My campaign centers around a war with neighboring country, so some opponents are "irregular" forces of the enemy.

With humanoids, on occassion peace treaties have been hammered out (between NPC leaders with the PC's naturally as go-betweens) and lasted for some time, with prisoner exchanges often part of the deal -- in one case, a PC was rescued from the Goblin King in this way.

The significant cases I recall where prisoners were not handed over to the authorities:
-- Meepo was "captured" in the Sunless Citadel and joined the party. When more kobold prisoners of the goblins were rescued, they also joined the party, until the goblins were overcome -- and Meepo became Chieftain of the Kobolds, making a peace deal with the hoo-mans of the surface world.

-- A hobgoblin officer who the PC's fought several time was on the verge of defeat and sued for peace. He asked to be able to depart, with his wounded, females, and young ones. The PC's agreed. Later on, they met him again, in a different dungeon, and said "no quarter", as he well knew would be the case.

-- The PC's captured some orc soldiers at the Mountain Door in the Forge of Fury. In my campaign, these orcs were actually N alignment, worshippers of the Cave Goddess. They asked for a prisoner exchange, and the negotiation eventually turned into a broad deal.

The PC's gave the orcs:

(1) their orcish prisoners (mostly still unconscious the morning after)

(2) two barrels of good stout ale they had on a mule

(3) general agreement to discontinue hostilities

The orcs have the PC's:

(1) their prisoners -- two gnomish prospectors the PC's didn't know were missing

(2) guidance through the orc's lair to the deeper dungeon behind

(3) an outline of all the traps and other monsters deeper in the dungeon that the orcs knew about

(4) general agreement to discontinue hostilities

 

[Holy Bovine]

Depends. In the Kingmaker game I'm running I'd say about 90% of prisoners (former bandits) have been banished from the region for 1 year. One has been executed so far and another one recruited to help map the area. In past games prisoners, depending on how sad and pathetic I make them, have been released, executed or thrown in prison. Never had a PC torture a prisoner.

 

[haakon1]

I don't recall the last time we had a prisoner.

the fight is over when the last enemy is dead or runaway.

Not sure where prisoners come from out of that.

In my campaign, I run 3.5e, and the prisoners mostly come from the rules on dying. Below 0 hp, people bleed 1 hp a round, with a 10% chance of stabilizing themselves each round until they die at -10.

So some prisoners -- like the orcs I talked about above -- as just badly wounded, unconscious survivors.

Sometimes the PC's will coup de grace such folks (usually particularly evil /irredeemable enemies), other times they leave them be or bind them and capture them.

Sometimes the PC's will intentionally save a wounded enemy -- with Cure Minor Wounds or a Heal check -- to intentional do a prisoner snatch for information. Just like in a real war, a talking prisoner can be a lot more valuable than a dead enemy. And treating prisoners with a quantum of dignity is a good way to encourage others not to fight to the death against you. Plus, what goes around comes around, and sometimes PC's get captured too.

 

[Hassassin]

Good/neutral parties usually take prisoners to the authorities or leave them to fend for themselves if far from civilization. I had a LN character who was once just so pissed at an opponent that he fed her to a dragon, but even then he decapitated her first to not cause too much suffering.

I haven't played in evil parties, but when I've GM'd the results have ranged from outright execution to slavery to just letting them run.

In any case, there's usually at least some debate and it's the characters who make the choices. These are too morally significant situations that anyone would want to metagame them.