Ok so here's the setup. I've got my players who killed a homemade NPC that was for a laugh Phedora Neckbeard, they called him annoying and attacked him on the spot. So this next weekend the four level 2 players will be staying at the Phandalin inn and when they leave there will be a lvl 5 human fighter with a halberd, lvl 3 human cleric, and a lvl 3 half-orc fighter with a battleaxe, waiting to cuff them and take them to Neverwinter for judgement.
So this battle would pretty much be a TPK so I hope they just assume the position and get hauled off to jail. I'll let this whole situation be a good story telling moment allowing the paladin to take an oath, let one of my players switch out characters. I decided his character will either take the fall or be judge to be the instigator. 
Ok for the question. I was thinking 4 draft horses pulling a crude carriage and supplies for the guards travelling from neverwinter and the carriage pulling a cage. Or should I have an Ox pull the cage alone? I want to keep it just 4 horses so if the players somehow break free and kill the guards they get some horses.
How much weight can an ox pull? Would it be out of the realm of possibility for 4 draft horses to pull a carriage and a cage? I don't think I'll describe the carriage as being light duty and only for sleeping and having a frail man as the driver.
4 horses can carry (not pull) 4 x 540lb =2160lbs
The load would be
Carriage 600
Cage 400(I guess?)
8 characters averaging 175
supplies about 200
total = 2600lbs
Thanks for the inputs!
My advice is: Worry less about how much a horse can carry and worry more about if you are really creating an exciting and enjoyable adventure by forcefully hauling your player characters to jail for killing your pet NPC. Where is the player involvement? Where are the critical decision points? Where is the drama? How do you build up a great story from this? And how do you make your players feel that they are truly part of writing this great story?
kalil wrote:
Four horses will pull the cart much faster than an ox or two. It seems like a waste of horses, honestly. If Neverwinter is in a huge hurry, they'll arrange a teleport. If not, then an ox or two is plenty of draft animal to pull a jail cart and takes fewer resources than four horses over the same distance.
Story-wise, don't reward them with horses for acting Chaotic Evil. Chaotic Evil is its own reward.
onceMoreIntoBreech wrote:
if i was in your game, i'd have killed that NPC and burned down whatever building i found him in,
your players gave you feedback that they thought it was annoying, and your take-away is that they need to have their characters punished?
I'm all for consequences of action and I think you have the core of a good idea, but forced capture is almost always a terrible idea. If it's for killing a NPC that the players found annoying then it is likely to go over about as well as your NPC did.
The problem is that "Get Captured or TPK" is awful. As Kalil alluded to - there is no player involvement, no critical decisions, no player input.
That doesn't mean you need to scrap the idea entirely. Instead, think of it as an encounter obstacle that the players need to overcome - and you guys are going to play to find out what happens. The obstacle is that "people are going to show up and try to arrest them". How can they overcome that? Give them options and figure out interesting results for each option that propel the story forward.
For example, try thinking of it this way instead...
Obstacle: Several high level NPCs are coming to the Phandalin Inn to capture the party for killing Phedora Neckbeard and return them to Neverwinter for judgment. How will the PCs overcome this obstacle?
Complete Success: They are able to talk their way out of it through a clever story. The NPCs even offer to help the party in some minor way related to their story.
Minor Success: The PCs are able to bribe the NPCs into not arresting them. They must pay them some coin and/or perform a favor for the NPCs.
Minor Failure: The PCs are able to escape capture and go on the run, with a powerful group of NPCs now hunting them.
Complete Failure: The PCs are captured by brute force or surrender and are taken to Neverwinter.
You don't have to use those exact options, but you get the point. Then you should have a rough idea how each of those different scenarios continues into more excitement and adventure.
The most important thing is this - people are coming to capture the PCs for their action, and you shouldn't know how that is going to turn out until the players have a chance to get involved, make some tough decisions and have real input into how the adventure turns out.
Ansbach, Thanks for your input, not everyone is quite as constructive. I definitely see what you're saying about giving options. I was going to allow them to appeal to the flaws/ideals of the guards. I'll let the players try anything to get out of any situation really. This is the first event I've decided to be a stickler on. I had just explained to them that killing people in town would bring consequences (they wanted to kill other NPCs for free lodging, haha).
Trebor, they didn't find him annoying they just knew I made him because of the funny name so they attacked because they thought it was funny, which it was.
Is it 'forced' capture?
It depends on whether there actually would be a level 5 and two 3's available for law enforcement?
Besides, ignoring the players murdering people for fun does not lead to great story telling. Most likely they have no interest in such story telling, so it's really moot to worry about loosing something they wont appreciate.
mikelzap wrote:
Tiarn wrote:
Well, how about just talking to your players, asking them what they want or don't want?
Not a brightest idea, but still very rewarding.
My suggestion? Have a group show up to arrest them. Make it a fair-ish encounter (very challenging, sure, but don't custom make PCs like it sounds like you're doing since there IS no CR for a lvl 5 Paladin), and use NPCs or reskinned "monsters" (like Hobgoblins or maybe a single Orc Shaman for a spellcaster). If their way out of THAT jam is to kill everyone (remember, they CAN knock people unconscious instead of killing them) then they need to get out of the city ASAP because now they're cop-killers.
Then lead them to the nearest dungeon where they can go nuts and tell them they don't have to "worry" about getting arrested for slaughtering kobolds by the hundreds.
The NPC cops can always fight the PCs down to HP = 0, then stop hitting them when they fall over unconscious.
The PCs wake up inside the jail cart, on their way back to town for trial.
Now, what is the point of this encounter? Can the PCs escape? Talk their way out of it? Offer to pay weregild (any barbarians in the group)?
It sounds like you are just punishing them for not getting a joke. Poor form.
I really feel like this post got out of scope. the capture/arrest is for story and to lead them to Thundertree. I've learned from my group they want story and then fights or loot. Rinse and repeat. So I give them some story and lead or hint to them where to get the fights and loots. although these friends are new to D&D as am I, I've known them all for years and I know the video games they play, movies they watch, and stories they tell. I'm not trying to punish them for not going my way. I'm giving them a consequence that leads them to more fights (the cultists and green dragon) and loot and maybe a random encounter or two on the way back to Phandalin. I'm not being a douche just to be a douche I'm just trying to find out how many horses or oxen I should write in because the PHB doesn't list oxen in it.
Thanks for the input those of you who added to the ideas and for the others I read it and tried to understand where you're coming from and decided you're not in my group. Further, if this was a group at a game shop and I was the DM there is no way I'd try something like this, but again, for my group this is a good segway.
mikelzap wrote:
What I meant about that you're not in my group is nobody really knows the group, how things went, and how things will probably go. I did want input and the constructive input both for how to handle the situation and the input about horses/oxen and which would be a good idea. It was just kind of frustrating getting jumped on so quickly. Ansbach pointed out the caveats of what I had planned and really helped give me ideas for how to execute them. I want to be a part of this website and get ideas for sandboxing FR after Phandelver but if every idea gets taken as playing the game wrong eventually me and others will stop using this forum as a resource. I really believe we want more D&D players and GMs and to not scare them away.
People are giving you constructive criticism. You just don't like it. When you decided to name an NPC as any variation of a silly name, you were giving your PCs a signal that this was not a game they needed to take seriously, which led to the later situation that occurred.
Yes, a lot of people came to the same advice of "don't name NPCs silly things," and "don't have TPK/capture railroads" and the like. That's because it's good advice. No one is jumping on you. If you want to force your players to do exactly what you want and follow your pre-determined story, then do that. Just don't be surprised when people rebel, because that's what usually happens. If you want to name your NPCs every variation of silly names in history, then do that too. Just don't be surprised when people don't take your game seriously.
What the forum is trying to tell you is that your actions often influence your players' reactions.
No one is going to come banging down your door and being the gaming police. But if you have spent any time on this forum at all you see patterns. One of those patterns is "here is a problem, I don't understand why my players are acting thusly..." and that same poster not realize it started with themselves. The forums point that out.
You also need to remember not to take things personally. None of us know you, or your friends. To us, you are simply text on a screen, describing a situation. We comment on said information. You must learn to distance yourself from that and not get hurt feelings over it. (I am of course not talking about people attacking you, that's just immature.) Forums in general will not "sugar-coat" things. Forums, and the internet in general really, are a blunt place.
Mikelzap, I glanced over this thread again and I don't see anyone who is just trolling and isn't trying to help you. People are always going to express their opinions forcefully on the Internet - the trick is to ignore any abrasiveness and extract the useful information out of what they are trying to say (if there is any).
The summarized advice from this thread is this: focus on giving your players fun, meaningful choices.
I think you got the response you did because to an experienced GM, in your original post you glossed over a big red flag that most players would have a problem with while asking for advice on a very minor detail that most players wouldn't care about. It was clear to us that fun, meaningful choices wasn't your initial focus when you wrote your question.
Getting generic advice to a specific question can be frustrating if there are no examples to go with it. But the great thing about this generic advice is that it addresses the potential 'be captured or die' issue, it answers your horses vs. oxen question and it can be used for future problems as well.
So, for example, your horses vs. oxen question: you already answered the question yourself - if you focus on fun, meaningful choices for your PCs. Four horses for a possible escape gives the PCs an interesting option that oxen don't, right? You instincitvely knew that already and basically said so yourself. That is why you should go with the horses - not because of anything related to how much they can pull vs. how much the cart weighs. And of course providing fun, meaningful choices to your PCs is why you shouldn't just force your players into captivity - but we already beat you over the head with that.
I'm sure you have heard the proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Well, when a guy just asks for a fish on the forums and the response he gets is "instead of giving you a fish, let me take you out on this boat and teach you something cool", it's only natural that his initial response would be frustration at not just being given a fish - especially if some of the fishing lessons are a little on the abrasive side.
I made the first reply to the thread, so I guess I kinda set the abrasive tone for the fishing lessons. I apologize for that.
To be perfectly honest I was almost convined that the original post was a joke. I mean; why do you even describe the purposeful TPK/force capture in such detail? What does it have to do with the "how many pounds of beaten and humiliated adventurer can a work horse haul" question? The first part of the post jumps of the screen honkin' it's horn, waving a giant red flag and jingling all warning bells as a super-classic "DON'T DO THIS" to any experienced DM. Hence my somewhat harsh response.
I warmly recommend reading all the solid advice given in this thread.
Good luck and have fun
Ansbach wrote:
The thing is GM's tend to use 'whatever forces I want' when it comes to capturing PC's. It makes the 'fight' a bad one, because the players can tell the ending is being forced to their capture and so they actively resent rolling.
You've stepped into one of the high difficulty DM skills area, lets put it that way!
Noon wrote:
Tiarn wrote:
mikelzap wrote:
BRJN wrote:
mikelzap wrote: