I find the "You are captured" adventure to be a staple of the Dark Sun campaign setting. It was in Freedom, Merchant House of Amketch, and the Dark Sun Encounters Program. My question is, how do people do it? I guess a big part of it is knowing your group. When I did an adventure to this effect years ago, my PCs howled bloody murder, they wanted to escape every 10 minutes. Any real guard would've killed them as an example to the other slaves, but I can't do that. I remember my own reaction to being captured by halflings in the Encounters game was, "so do they attack my fortitude or what?" The auto-capture really felt cheap, it felt tacked on rather than earned.
So what do others do? Is it just knowing your group? How do you cut the party off from their fancy equipment without cheapening their achievements? How do you earn it?
If they are in captivity, and acting ridiculous by trying to escape in a clearly hopeless situation, you /should/ kill one of them to make an example. You can't create a very believable world if the slavers are afraid to act like slavers. This is Athas, damnit. But like I said, if they're still in the heroic tier, they're still very much mortal, and have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Force them to ask themselves, "if I were in this situation, would I /really/ act like this?" And if they say yes, kill one of them. Poor, illogical, meta play should never be rewarded because you don't want to take off the kid gloves.
edit: Especially in Dark Sun. This place isn't nice to anyone, PC or otherwise. Evil has won for a reason.
That being said, you can only ask them to play nice for so long. They need to be presented with some way to escape or earn their freedom fairly quickly. Now it's your turn to ask yourself, "how much fun are they really having, sitting here tied up and humiliated?" That's not what anyone plays DnD to do.
double edit: Grammar, it helps.
Vastly depends on their levels. If they're paragon or higher, I wouldn't do it. Anything under that, a sufficient enough, believable slaver force can beat them into unconciousness (assuming that you don't think they'll handwave a cut scene to see where it goes).
If they are in captivity, and acting ridiculous by trying to escape in a clearly hopeless situation, you /should/ kill one of them to make an example. You can't create a very believable world if the slavers are afraid to act like slavers. This is Athas, damnit. But like I said, if they're still in the heroic tier, they're still very much mortal, and have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Force them to ask themselves, "if I were in this situation, would I /really/ act like this?" And if they say yes, kill one of them. Poor, illogical, meta play should never be rewarded because you don't want to take off the kid gloves.
edit: Especially in Dark Sun. This place isn't nice to anyone, PC or otherwise. Evil has won for a reason.
That being said, you can only ask them to play nice for so long. They need to be presented with some way to escape or earn their freedom fairly quickly. Now it's your turn to ask yourself, "how much fun are they really having, sitting here tied up and humiliated?" That's not what anyone plays DnD to do.
double edit: Grammar, it helps.
Its easy to catch the PC's. Just use an encounter more than 5 levels above. Once they are all uncoscious problem solved
Another way to curtail their immeidate reaction of wanting to escape is have the slavers catch an NPC trying to escape and make an example of it. Then the PC's are dully informed of the consequences of escape if they are caught. But as Apitch said above, you have to give them an out sooner rather than later, or give them a reason to remain a slave just that little bit longer, like trying to protect a family member.
So the advice to make it an encounter to provide to make it legitimate rather than, "You surrender to the gith. Wow you guys suck." And I have the reason for the capture crystal clear or get them out within 1 encounter. Not just, "I feel like throwing you guys in the arena for awhile."
I'm getting mad Deja Vu writing this so point me in the right direction if this one's been addressed.
I find the "You are captured" adventure to be a staple of the Dark Sun campaign setting. It was in Freedom, Merchant House of Amketch, and the Dark Sun Encounters Program. My question is, how do people do it? I guess a big part of it is knowing your group. When I did an adventure to this effect years ago, my PCs howled bloody murder, they wanted to escape every 10 minutes. Any real guard would've killed them as an example to the other slaves, but I can't do that. I remember my own reaction to being captured by halflings in the Encounters game was, "so do they attack my fortitude or what?" The auto-capture really felt cheap, it felt tacked on rather than earned.
So what do others do? Is it just knowing your group? How do you cut the party off from their fancy equipment without cheapening their achievements? How do you earn it?
In the encounters example I allowed my party to exit the caves and then take a long rest. They awoke to the sight of over a dozen halflings standing over them with spears ready. I had it setup so they could have tried to fight, but it would have started with a surprise round where twelve halfings would have gotten a chance to attack the prone party members.
Slightly cheap perhaps, but it gave them a logical reason to surrender.
I try to stay away from no win fights, but I do occasionaly use auto captures if it fits the story. You also have to remember that in Dark Sun even as the PC you really are at the low end of the Totem pole. This is a world where evil won, the villians rule the world. If you struggle to much at the wrong time your going to be dead before you have a chance to save anything. You really have to run with a different mindset as a PC then you would with any of the other DnD worlds. A more tactical and ruthless one at times.
I've got a lawful good player for instance who I keep throwing moral dilemmas at, and he seems to be really enjoying them and its pulling him deeper into this world. Its also led to some very interesting RP as some of the more ruthless players in the group interact with him and his "strange" behavior.
1. Getting Enslaved: setting up a situation where the players are "automatically" captured (ie, the encounter was designed with that goal in mind) is usually not really a combat but a slaughterfest. As a player and as a DM, these usually aren't fun. Instead of making it a combat, make it 100% obvious that the players will get captured and give them all a round to do something: either stealthfully hiding a weapon, trying to cover the escape of a single party members, sending a last minute message to an ally... Otherwise, if you're playing Dark Sun, you're probably engaging players in some difficult combats. Don't pull your punches if the players do happen to lose a combat, instead enslave them.
2. Preventing Characters from trying to escape: one easy way to shut players up, remove their powers. Martial characters rely on weapons, psionic characters rely on their minds, arcane players rely on their... spellbooks? Remove martial characters' weapons, dull psionic characters' minds, take away the staves of arcane characters. Players usually won't try to escape if they cannot fight. Sneaky characters... well, you can drug them too.
Related point: with the extent of the vast resources at their disposal, the immensely wealthy merchant have probably developped some insanely effective enslavement techniques, the likes of which are effective enough to enslave Braxat, Half Giants, Giants, Mekellots, Gaj, Primal Spirits, etc. Keeping a small group of upstart adventures is probably super easy. Make up some powerful arcane-enchanted slave collars, some psionic domination/hypnosis orbs, primal spirit guards, thought reading psion guards... stop the PCs in their tracks before they even start thinking about escape.
3. Why is enslavement sooo popular in Dark Sun? it has something to do with a "dark age" social ladder. In some ways, climbing the social ladder is seen as an accomplishment unto itself, and can acheived in a variety of ways. It's almost like leveling up. Look at Rikus, Sadira, Neeva... they started on the bottom as slaves and ended up as city rulers... they went from bottom dwellers to kings. Does it even matter that they gained a couple of levels in the meantime?
Also, saying: "King Kalak was killed by a bunch of slaves" and "King Kalak was kiled by a some champions" means something different.
I like to use slavery in the opposite manner: knocking characters down a peg. DnD characters tend to be more 'heroic' than is acceptable. So instead of killing characters (which is very final), I tend to enslave overconfident players - make them feel pathetic for a session at a time. Make sure they don't kill their overlord because he'll make an excellent villain in a future adventure.
For reference, I like to use Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series: when the Aei Sedai are collared by the Seachan. Jordan does a good job portraying the feeling of helplessness the Sorcereresses build. Egwene develops a life-long hatred/fear of the Seachan.
After a few games players choose to talk with an NPC of psionic nature that would help to try and piece together what happened..ala Memento
Should there be a houserule to make it more frightening for an unarmed/unarmored person to fight armed opponents? Maybe when you are unarmed the crit range against you automatically increases to 16-20? Other ideas?
MK
I've been thinking about how to make players feel the vulnerability that their characters should feel when they are unarmored, unarmed, chained, and surrounded by vicious slavers with nasty swords. I think players have a hard time playing the fear their character should feel at the possibility of getting stabbed in the belly with a sword, since it literally (by the rules) *can't* kill them.
Should there be a houserule to make it more frightening for an unarmed/unarmored person to fight armed opponents? Maybe when you are unarmed the crit range against you automatically increases to 16-20? Other ideas?
MK
I wouldn't change the rules too much. While most characters aren't much more vulnerable without armor than with (because few classes depend on heavy armors), the loss of 2 or 3 points of AC is damaging and a loss of 2 or 3 points of Attack (from proficiency) is hindering.
Instead, why not instate rules that don't break the game, such as: slaves are constently beaten to their bloodied health value and cannot heal beyond that until they escape; no encounter powers or dailies; the characters will know the consequences of failure, and that one of their party will be killed if they fail to escape; etc...
You might consider adapting Alphastream1's blog on unarmed brawls. It's excellentand useful.
Should there be a houserule to make it more frightening for an unarmed/unarmored person to fight armed opponents? Maybe when you are unarmed the crit range against you automatically increases to 16-20? Other ideas?
Just treat them as Helpless. Helpless is scary in any Player's mind. The RC claim Helpless usually happen when someone is Unconcious, but the DM might rule that a PC is so firmly bound that it is Helpless.
A DM might as well rule that a PC is so weakened by hunger and ill treatement and being unarmed, unarmored and desparate that it is now Helpless if it feel it should be taken with some desperation.
You might consider adapting Alphastream1's blog on unarmed brawls. It's excellentand useful.
Thanks for saying that! All credit to The Jester for the original article (which is full of alternate attack powers and terrain powers). That's what I would do for a "captured" scenario in 4E. Strip them down to nothing and find a reason to take away most non-racial powers. If you don't do that, the Thri-kreen monk can do everything but the wizard is not able to use a single power. And, with inherent bonuses, even the wizard arguably can work without implements. You need to have a solid "no class powers" at a minimum. Then you give them the new powers.
In my test of The Jester's drunken brawl ideas, I found that it was best to provide powers up front rather than to let players discover them. This is because as soon as someone discovers they can attack with a chair, everyone else tries to do that instead of finding out other methods that may or may not work. Give them a few powers at a time, then others later. You might use skills to unlock a few powers at a time. Perception shows that the chair can be used. Streetwise tells you a bottle can be an effective weapon, more-so once broken. Etc.
Another thing I found is you need to make the information really accessible. Print out power cards for these new powers and have one copy for each PC so they have all they can do right at their fingertips.
Finally, balance the new powers vs. the situation. If the new powers are doing just 1d6 damage, then you really need to knock some HPs off of monsters or they will get creamed.
Thanks for saying that! All credit to The Jester for the original article (which is full of alternate attack powers and terrain powers). That's what I would do for a "captured" scenario in 4E. Strip them down to nothing and find a reason to take away most non-racial powers. If you don't do that, the Thri-kreen monk can do everything but the wizard is not able to use a single power. And, with inherent bonuses, even the wizard arguably can work without implements. You need to have a solid "no class powers" at a minimum. Then you give them the new powers...
I was thinking of removing damage altogether and replacing it by skill checks. In other words, players make a basic melee/ranged attack to hit an enemy, and then roll a skill checks (vs a particular defense: reflex/will/fortitude) to perform some "hero act" or stunt appropriate to the class (and described by the player, of course - bonuses for creativity!). For example, Mr Arena Fighter might trip his opponent and pin him to the group (or perform some other graphically nauseating act while the opponent is prone). My Defiler can grab hold and defile/steal the enemies life force with a successful arcana check. Etc.
Any enemy/player that is hit by two successful checks is down for the count. Using healing surges removes one of these black marks. A critical hit improves the chances to hit with the skill check. Players can choose to use a minor or move action to increase their defense vs 1 type of skill check (monsters can do the same) - thus forcing players and monsters to vary their attacks and be creative.