Ponderings on my DMing style

[Roy]

Because I don't give a fuck how drunk, high, or whatthefuckever you are, hundreds of thousands is never greater than millions.

[RandomCasualty2]

Haven't we been over this? Like at least five fucking times now? Great, so you refuse to allow PCs to die... but you make something far, far worse happen instead. That's not being helpful, that's being a power tripping douchebag. Especially since the only way they're beating a force that took them down at full power while the force was holding back when they are much weaker is with DM cock. Otherwise the worst case scenario with 'you all die' is 'adventure over' and the BEST case scenario with 'prison bitch' is 'adventure over'. And this is an improvement?

So you want to punish failure, and I make it clear that I am punishing failure, and then now you're saying that punishing failure is bad because my punishment is worse than death. Um okay... do you want the PCs to fear losing or not? Make up your damn mind.

And anyway, imprisoning the PCs is always better than TPK because it lets the game go on. And that's always advantageous to just saying "everyone's dead, the story is over."

When you get jailed you may get your items and spellbooks back. When you get TPKed, it's game over, you're never getting anything back. It's fucking gone, including all the relationships you had with NPCs and whatever. All that shit is gone.

[Roy]

Your problem is you claim death is too bad, then do something worse. That's hundreds of thousands > millions logic. So not only are you failing to meet your own goals, you're being a total douchebag by ruining their characters.

Saying that's a good thing because it lets the game go on is like saying being able to live, but with glass shards imbedded in every inch of your body is good because you aren't dead. When most people if given the choice between 'suffer as long as they are there with no recourse' and 'die, get it over with' would choose to die. And since this is a game, you can just make more characters so you don't have to deal with even that much.

When you die, your characters are done, but you can make more.

When you are subjected to fates worse than death like prison bitch your characters are still done, but you can't make more. You're stuck there rotting forever, because you could not defeat the enemy when you had your power and gear, and they were holding back so as to capture and not kill you so you most definitely cannot defeat them when you are far weaker even if they still don't want to kill you. And if they stop holding back, you're screwed even worse because anything that can capture you is strong enough so you have no chance against them.

The only way they're ever getting out is if DM cock saves them, and that again is skullfuckery, as all you're doing is making your game suck a barrel of cocks. At which point you should not be surprised if they all go play Smash Brothers.

[RandomCasualty2]

Your problem is you claim death is too bad, then do something worse. That's hundreds of thousands > millions logic. So not only are you failing to meet your own goals, you're being a total douchebag by ruining their characters.

Saying that's a good thing because it lets the game go on is like saying being able to live, but with glass shards imbedded in every inch of your body is good because you aren't dead. When most people if given the choice between 'suffer as long as they are there with no recourse' and 'die, get it over with' would choose to die. And since this is a game, you can just make more characters so you don't have to deal with even that much.

Honestly, yeah not dying is better. None of the damage you've taken is permanent. You can totally get your stolen items back, and be back to where you were. It's a pain in the ass, but you can do it.

And yeah, you can make new characters, but at that point if you care at all about roleplaying, you've lost a great deal of story. Now maybe you don't care, because you're just a hack and slash machine, but many players do.

Also, some DMs make people start over back at level 1 after TPK, so losing a level 7 character and just abandoning them is a big deal.

While it's true that getting one player killed is better than having his character captured, a TPK is always worse than a total-party capture.

[Roy]

Oh yeah, and another thing. The levels in which you even can be captured at? Yeah, they're low levels. As in you haven't been playing long. So no, you aren't forced to stick with a character that's been perma gimped, and there isn't even much of an attachment yet.

No, you can't get your stuff back. Again, you couldn't beat them WITH your stuff, how can you do so without it? If you can be captured at all you sit there like a little bitch until the end of time* or you suck DM cock. And if you're too high level for that it's a moot point because no one even tries, they just kill you. Which is fortunate actually.

And it wouldn't surprise me at all any DM douchebaggy enough to play the prison bitch card would try to forcibly reboot the party to level 1. Or try to start at level 1 at all for that matter. That doesn't justify it though, it further reinforces that GTFO is the only valid answer.

* - Or until you die.

[Parthenon]

No, Roy has a point here. For the sake of continuity, there has to be a reason that the people who kicked your asses don't do the same again when you try and escape.

If they're tough enough to take you down when you are buffed then you are fucked when you're in chains. And while you can come up with some excuse like the bounty hunters are distracted while raping random villagers or whatever, it will be obvious to the players that you are coddling their escape.

Which can be fine. Once. But if this sort of thing is the normal result of you losing a combat then it quickly becomes pretty stupid to have the same shitty guards fall asleep every single time you get captured. And then finding a whole new set of equipment rapidly also gets stupid since it means there is no real consequence to being captured.

I'm fine with capturing the party if without warning or due to stupidity the PCs fuck up incredibly badly and capturing is the only sensible choice for the enemies to make, and then letting the players have the choice whether or not to try to rescue them. As long as it is unplanned.

But if you are planning to capture the PCs if they fuck up then that is stupid and can't be kept up past the first capture.

[virgil]

The people who are powerful enough to capture you are not always the same ones delegated with guarding you. Nay, I'd say they're almost never the ones to guard you, because those blokes are the ones that need to go out and do shit. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to think your prison guards are weaker than your capturers.

And if you're high level, it's not unbelievable to capture rather than kill, since true resurrection is available.

And Frank has repeatedly pointed out that lost gear is and should be replaceable in order to return you to WBL. The most wrong he is is that the rules are vague one way or the other, which means your stance is equally fvcking wrong to his; more wrong, since you're taking the most asshole interpretation (again, assuming the rules aren't hard-fast but are actually vague).

Now, I only ever use capture when it can be plausibly expected that the antagonist can actually gain something out of not killing the PCs (even if politically), and I err on the side of that logic more than TPK prevention. As a result, it comes up rarely.

[RandomCasualty2]

No, you can't get your stuff back. Again, you couldn't beat them WITH your stuff, how can you do so without it? If you can be captured at all you sit there like a little bitch until the end of time* or you suck DM cock.

Why? The dudes who captured you aren't necessarily going to be your jailers. Batman has to go and stop other crimes while someone else watches the Joker.

I mean that's just the way it works. I don't see why the bag guy would spend all his time watching the PCs' cells. Hell, that dude has to take over the world. Otherwise the best way to stop his evil scheme would be to let yourself get captured and just waste his time.

[Roy]

No, Roy has a point here. For the sake of continuity, there has to be a reason that the people who kicked your asses don't do the same again when you try and escape.

If they're tough enough to take you down when you are buffed then you are fucked when you're in chains. And while you can come up with some excuse like the bounty hunters are distracted while raping random villagers or whatever, it will be obvious to the players that you are coddling their escape.

Which can be fine. Once. But if this sort of thing is the normal result of you losing a combat then it quickly becomes pretty stupid to have the same shitty guards fall asleep every single time you get captured. And then finding a whole new set of equipment rapidly also gets stupid since it means there is no real consequence to being captured.

Thank you for elaborating on exactly why getting out means sucking DM cock. That kinda shit is ok in a video game where no one really has an expectation of competence except your character(s) anyways so if the guards throw you in a cell with an obvious hole in the wall leading right back out without bothering to take any of your equipment no one gets that upset. And chances are you only got thrown in the worst prison ever because of cutscene incimpetence anyways, not because the enemy actually defeated you.

But both of those things are entirely unacceptable in a tabletop game.

The people who are powerful enough to capture you are not always the same ones delegated with guarding you. Nay, I'd say they're almost never the ones to guard you, because those blokes are the ones that need to go out and do shit. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to think your prison guards are weaker than your capturers.

Which is trying and failing to justify it, as that comes back to 'the enemy has to be stupid to put the slackoffs in charge of this'. Yeah, they can't sit around and watch, but that's another reason why capturing fails.

And if you're high level, it's not unbelievable to capture rather than kill, since true resurrection is available.

And long before that people stopped giving a fuckity fuck about bars and chains. So how are you actually holding them? Keep in mind anti magic costs around 200k gold per person and still isn't 100% effective yet is required by level 7 at the latest. If they want to stop people from coming back to life, Trap the Soul and Thinuan weapons are both far cheaper and more practical and also qualify as 'death'. Using Planar Whatthefuckever to get a Barghest to SWALLOW YOUR SOUL is also more cost efficient.

No matter how you spin it, it's just a different flavor of DM cock. And really, if the DM is going to demand I perform oral sex on them, that DM had best be female, hot, and not trying to extort it out of me.

And I loled hard at the Batman reference. Batman has an aversion to killing people, even if they are criminals. So he beats them up and then leaves them for the authorities even though they're incompetent. Whatever.

The EVIL guys kinda don't give a shit if you die. In fact they'd be happy to see it, or even personally see to the matter. They certainly are not going to let you play with their revolving door.

[violence in the media]

You know, prison breaks happen in the real world, they're a literary staple, and they're exciting when they go down. I'll give you all that. What isn't so exciting? The months or years of planning and implementation that gets glossed over. Movies like Shawshank Redemption or The Count of Monte Cristo at least point out that their respective characters have been imprisoned for years. Even if you hand-wave all that and say, "Ok, 13 years after you were captured the time is ripe for your escape..." whatever the PCs were doing before probably doesn't matter anymore.

Even if the guards are less powerful than the PCs, the BBEG isn't just going to turn the jailor's keys over to a retarded orc peasant. Or, at least he shouldn't. Think of it this way, when the PCs capture someone don't they go to ridiculous lengths to make sure they actually stay captured? Don't your PCs ever refuse to turn a prisoner over to local authorities because they know they don't have the capabilities to hold them?

Now, if this were not D&D, and you didn't have all the crazy powers, you could totally do capture/prisoner scenarios. As it is, Roy is right about this.

[virgil]

You don't use 200kgp anti-magic to imprison people, you use geas (lesser or otherwise) and mark of justice. And it's not utterly stupid to use guards less powerful than those who captured the party, because the party is still weaker (how much weaker is variable).

This is all assuming that there are actual reasons for capturing the PCs, and every prison plot you've ever seen in media shows that there can exist reasons. It does mean that capture is likely the goal at the outset, and generally it's the low levels that prisons are used ('cause mid-to-high levels aren't portrayed much in media).

[mean_liar]

I generally wouldn't let the situation progress to the point where you'd capture the entire party. Prison breaks from the BBEG's fortress are generally contrived; I'd rather just have a tough battle where some of the players died short of a TPK.

[Roy]

You know, prison breaks happen in the real world, they're a literary staple, and they're exciting when they go down. I'll give you all that. What isn't so exciting? The months or years of planning and implementation that gets glossed over. Movies like Shawshank Redemption or The Count of Monte Cristo at least point out that their respective characters have been imprisoned for years. Even if you hand-wave all that and say, "Ok, 13 years after you were captured the time is ripe for your escape..." whatever the PCs were doing before probably doesn't matter anymore.

Even if the guards are less powerful than the PCs, the BBEG isn't just going to turn the jailor's keys over to a retarded orc peasant. Or, at least he shouldn't. Think of it this way, when the PCs capture someone don't they go to ridiculous lengths to make sure they actually stay captured? Don't your PCs ever refuse to turn a prisoner over to local authorities because they know they don't have the capabilities to hold them?

Now, if this were not D&D, and you didn't have all the crazy powers, you could totally do capture/prisoner scenarios. As it is, Roy is right about this.

Exactly. Normal people can totally be held by bars and such, and the fact the guards have a gun and they don't is almost always enough to keep them there. But a Dimension Door, or one of the lower level teleportation effects later and they're out. And what stops that? Very high level spell effects only.

Even in the realm of the mundane, it's obvious enough a prison is not going to hold anyone for long, so most don't even bother. Hell, even the campaign settings that actually think things through (Eberron) instead of assuming you can paint the D&D label over generic medieval fantasy land and have that work and make sense (Forgotten Realms) flat out tell you imprisonment is very rare because it rarely actually works, and criminals are punished by other means, the common one for serious offenses being death (they also talk about stealing your shit, but they can't really enforce that).

You don't use 200kgp anti-magic to imprison people, you use geas (lesser or otherwise) and mark of justice. And it's not utterly stupid to use guards less powerful than those who captured the party, because the party is still weaker (how much weaker is variable).

This is all assuming that there are actual reasons for capturing the PCs, and every prison plot you've ever seen in media shows that there can exist reasons. It does mean that capture is likely the goal at the outset, and generally it's the low levels that prisons are used ('cause mid-to-high levels aren't portrayed much in media).

Ok, so now it's less expensive, but you still need high power magic to even attempt it (and it still won't work most of the time, because there's a save). Still in the realm of 'just fucking kill them, and stop your DM wanking already'.

[RandomCasualty2]

Well basically to address the "spellcasters can just teleport out" problem, I basically homebrewed a series of 10 minute casting time 3rd-6th level spells that pretty much prevent people from casting spells until the spell itself gets dispelled.

That lets people actually imprison spellcasters without problems.

[Roy]

Well basically to address the "spellcasters can just teleport out" problem, I basically homebrewed a series of 10 minute casting time 3rd-6th level spells that pretty much prevent people from casting spells until the spell itself gets dispelled.

That lets people actually imprison spellcasters without problems.

Ok, so now it's less expensive, but you still need high power magic to even attempt it (and it still won't work most of the time, because there's a save). Still in the realm of 'just fucking kill them, and stop your DM wanking already'.

Maybe scratch off the bit about the save, but other than that it still holds true.

[RandomCasualty2]

Maybe scratch off the bit about the save, but other than that it still holds true.

Well yeah, there's no save (though it takes 10 min to cast). And the spell lasts 1 day/level for the 3rd level version. So it basically means you can assign a 5th level cleric or whatever to watch over multiple 7th-10th level people, which isn't all that impractical.

Also the 6th level version of the spell is permanent until dispelled, so if you get captured by a high level villain they can just slap that on you and the guards won't have to recast it every 4 days or so.