Lack of creative prisoner RP options for Surface

[D4wN]

This is something that has been brought up again and again and suggestions made and approved, but nothing really has changed.

In the Underdark when you are a prisoner, there are a lot of creative ways in what you can do with your prisoner:

• Blood sports (let them fight for their freedom and your entertainment)

• Torture

• Enslavement

• Experimentation

• Curses

I'm sure there are a lot more options which I can't think of right now being on a lack of coffee and early morning brain.

But for the Surface (especially as a morally good guy/woman) there are really not all that many (and no real creative) options on what to do with a prisoner be they local criminals or UDers (at least not what I can think of):

• Interrogate

• Leave them sitting in your jail cell

• "Put them in" a stockade and hope they go along with it and not just run off

• Kill

• Let go

Ideas from the past were things like a prisoner collar in which the prisoner could perform tasks like gathering resources, killing rats etc. to work for their release. Little quests so to speak to do community service and work off their sentence. These ideas were well received years ago, but never implemented.

So, without mechanical solutions to this problem (for now), I would actually be really keep to hear what sort of RP you think Surfacers and team "good" could apply to give a more enjoyable experience to baddies when/if they are captured.

[Subtext]

You can do all these things on the surface too. It just might have some...consequences. Then again, it's also a matter of how you swing such nefarious prisoner treatment.

For team good, there isn't really much creative stuff one can do to/with prisoners and criminals and letting folks rot in a prison is just unfun. And sending them to get resources isn't that much better imho. I do like the idea of community work...and at least opens a variety of things even if not quite as broad of a scope as team evil has there.

[Hazard]

Just speaking for myself here, but I love being left in prison cells to rot.
Especially when guards come by to visit/RP with you. That's one of my favourite law vs criminal or good vs bad interactions.
It's something I try to do myself, when ever I notice there are prisoners and I'm on a character that has the ability to play guard, but honestly it has rarely gone the other way. I find it a very rare thing for cells to even be used and often criminal-law conflict boils down to 'comply or die/leave'.

I think just using the cells more and having live prisoners more often might make the whole experience fun. Maybe they log in and actually have other prisoners and guards to interact with, if it becomes an established RP path that sees frequent use.

This would go for UD as much as it would for surface. Would just love to see cells used more often. IMO, it should be the default to imprison an enemy that isn't an immediate violent threat.

One of my favourite memories of Cordor was being hauled off to a cell by Hogdish, and occasionally visited by him. Must have stayed locked up for a RL week before I "paid for my crime" and was let go, but I loved it.

Same for the UD, one of my favourite memories is Myon's best all being kept in the Sharps cells, while the Iron Order of Elven Death RP'd with us, and decided what to do with us. Splitting us up, some for sacrifice, some being sold to various Matrons and groups and what-not, it was all very very awesome and done with the tools we currently have in module. Just need more people to play along.

[D4wN]

Just speaking for myself here, but I love being left in prison cells to rot.
Especially when guards come by to visit/RP with you. That's one of my favourite law vs criminal or good vs bad interactions.
It's something I try to do myself, when ever I notice there are prisoners and I'm on a character that has the ability to play guard, but honestly it has rarely gone the other way. I find it a very rare thing for cells to even be used and often criminal-law conflict boils down to 'comply or die/leave'.

I think just using the cells more and having live prisoners more often might make the whole experience fun. Maybe they log in and actually have other prisoners and guards to interact with, if it becomes an established RP path that sees frequent use.

This would go for UD as much as it would for surface. Would just love to see cells used more often. IMO, it should be the default to imprison an enemy that isn't an immediate violent threat.

One of my favourite memories of Cordor was being hauled off to a cell by Hogdish, and occasionally visited by him. Must have stayed locked up for a RL week before I "paid for my crime" and was let go, but I loved it.

Same for the UD, one of my favourite memories is Myon's best all being kept in the Sharps cells, while the Iron Order of Elven Death RP'd with us, and decided what to do with us. Splitting us up, some for sacrifice, some being sold to various Matrons and groups and what-not, it was all very very awesome and done with the tools we currently have in module. Just need more people to play along.

I agree with you on this. I spent a RL week in jail on Theodor and had a blast. But unless you get consent from the prisoner, it’s against the rules to hold them for long. And it’s also difficult to always have someone to RP with them. But largely I agree that being stuck in jail can be very rewarding and fun for both sides.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

with the use of manacles and some supervision I don't see how you couldn't make people do tasks

[Xarge VI]

Criminal rehabilitation program.
Force the baddies to talk about their feelings.

I don't mind characters being stuck in prison for few days, my baddies have been in prison a lot. You can always play another character when the designated therapist isn't available and with a bit of OOC communication you can schedule regular visits.

[DM Monkey]

So much has been added for this. Ultimately now it comes down to player creativity. Go nuts!

[Aeryeris]

I personally believe the issue is more a matter of perception / server culture. The suggested options are very visible and will get noticed by the characters in settlement where they are taking place. A subsection of the characters then take issue with it and get very loud. I often get the impression this protest stems from real world values slipping into character. I surprise myself at people taking issue with petty criminals spending 30 minutes in the public stocks for example, but who are okay with issuing a 100.000 gold fine or even outright pvping a pickpocket for example.

This backlash makes me hesitant to push forward with more interesting prisoner RP because it often becomes a struggle of arguing with people whose perception of what is normal and acceptable in the setting is very far removed from my own. It's not fun to do.

[The GrumpyCat]

I'll open by saying that I'm not actually against more mechanical style penalties for pcs on the surface.

However.

Keep in mind that with named leader heads- you can set someone to kill a boss and bring you the head as truth
You can also ask them to gather and donate xxx units of whatever and bring you the reciept.
And to a degree you can also do other roleplay options that are more shady, if you want.

The problems are two fold

1) Sadly it relies on trust. You have to trust that the other player will go along with your roleplay. The call for mechanics in this is (partly) due to that lack of trust.
2) We need to be kinder and more thoughtful to each other when trust is given out, or when none mechanical options, or more interesting options are taken.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

I personally believe the issue is more a matter of perception / server culture. The suggested options are very visible and will get noticed by the characters in settlement where they are taking place. A subsection of the characters then take issue with it and get very loud. I often get the impression this protest stems from real world values slipping into character. I surprise myself at people taking issue with petty criminals spending 30 minutes in the public stocks for example, but who are okay with issuing a 100.000 gold fine or even outright pvping a pickpocket for example.

This backlash makes me hesitant to push forward with more interesting prisoner RP because it often becomes a struggle of arguing with people whose perception of what is normal and acceptable in the setting is very far removed from my own. It's not fun to do.

or god forbid you go ALONG with it... why didn't you just let them execute you? you must be doing this because you WANT to...

[Bazelgeuse]

or god forbid you go ALONG with it... why didn't you just let them execute you? you must be doing this because you WANT to...

I think this is one of the biggest hurdles.

Surface has fewer explicit mechanical options for prisoners, and there's fewer roleplayed-out methods of handling prisoners that don't result in a huge uproar. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CUT OFF THE SLAVER'S HAND?!?!?!?!??! THAT'S CRUEL, YOU ARE LITERALLY A TYRANT"

Anything that players willingly go along with - well, that opens up another can of worms. I actually sent a message in to the DM team regarding this recently. There's mentality/sentiments that accepting a slave collar is "oh, you must be into that sort of thing, wink wink" or "since you have to talk to an NPC to accept the collar, your character has willingly accepted slavery" But it's not just slavery, it's... everything, really. Accepting a raise into capture is being a willing victim since you, the player, know who just killed you. Roleplaying with whoever just defeated you instead of -giveup (because you can just respawn, don't ya know?) is treason.

This is less generalized, and more specific to current ingame events, but as of right now the captive-conflict narrative feels extremely one-sided. Players are getting burned out because they'll go along with capture RP, they'll attempt to offer prisoner RP, they'll get involved in lifting curses and helping a freed hostage who was just tortured... but none of it is reciprocated. Their enemies just die and respawn and they're back in 3 hours raiding and killing.

(This is also really difficult to handle IC because it leaves you with the impression that you're facing an army of undefeatable immortals that never seem to feel pain, exhaustion, or injury)

I really think it's a server culture thing. I can only speak for myself, but no matter what side I'm aligned with, I'm always happy to go along with wherever the RP leads. OOC shaming, IC harassment, and feeling like we're just NPCs for others to grind kills off that motivation.

[LurkingShadow]

So much has been added for this. Ultimately now it comes down to player creativity. Go nuts!

Not the same when there is no "Working program" for prisoners when the UD can enslave us all.

[The GrumpyCat]

or god forbid you go ALONG with it... why didn't you just let them execute you? you must be doing this because you WANT to...

I think this is one of the biggest hurdles.

Surface has fewer explicit mechanical options for prisoners, and there's fewer roleplayed-out methods of handling prisoners that don't result in a huge uproar. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CUT OFF THE SLAVER'S HAND?!?!?!?!??! THAT'S CRUEL, YOU ARE LITERALLY A TYRANT"

Anything that players willingly go along with - well, that opens up another can of worms. I actually sent a message in to the DM team regarding this recently. There's mentality/sentiments that accepting a slave collar is "oh, you must be into that sort of thing, wink wink" or "since you have to talk to an NPC to accept the collar, your character has willingly accepted slavery" But it's not just slavery, it's... everything, really. Accepting a raise into capture is being a willing victim since you, the player, know who just killed you. Roleplaying with whoever just defeated you instead of -giveup (because you can just respawn, don't ya know?) is treason.

This is less generalized, and more specific to current ingame events, but as of right now the captive-conflict narrative feels extremely one-sided. Players are getting burned out because they'll go along with capture RP, they'll attempt to offer prisoner RP, they'll get involved in lifting curses and helping a freed hostage who was just tortured... but none of it is reciprocated. Their enemies just die and respawn and they're back in 3 hours raiding and killing.

(This is also really difficult to handle IC because it leaves you with the impression that you're facing an army of undefeatable immortals that never seem to feel pain, exhaustion, or injury)

I really think it's a server culture thing. I can only speak for myself, but no matter what side I'm aligned with, I'm always happy to go along with wherever the RP leads. OOC shaming, IC harassment, and feeling like we're just NPCs for others to grind kills off that motivation.

I pretty much agree. or at least see where it's comeing from, with all of this. It's very true. I'll add that I think there's another small narrative angle to consider here that's a bit of a trap.

Angle McSweetyLoveHeart is captured by Evicerator GrimDoomMurderFace, and is tortured or whatever.
The (presumably goodly) friends of Angel will of course roleplay healing her, being sympathetic, assisting, ect - see all the above. Because that's what 'good' guys do. Part of the very steryotypical 'good' aspect is healing ect. It's generally supportive, sympathetic ect.

Evicterator GromDoomMurderFace gets captured by Angel McSweetLoveHeart who does something to them which they go along with (long term imprisonment, branding, public service ect) Not only do you get the issue you've mentioned above, with some people coming down VERY hard on any any punishment outside of 'Death' but with the typical narrative of Evictorator's no doubtebly also evil palls, the rp typically is less 'Oh you poor thing' and 'Oh you were WEAK! hahaha! Weak little fool! I bet you WANTED to be captured!' - ect ect ect. The failure of the very typical 'team evil' guy isn't treated with sympathy, but is generally treated as a sign of weakness that spirals into doom. At least - this is in terms of tropes.

Whether this is true or not I'm honestly not sure. I have seen very evil pcs roll with punches and show weakness/injury/effects after loosing - this is absolutly a thing that does happen. But I have to admit It's also a lot rarer.

The only 'answer' I can think of us for us to all be more forgiving if a pc wants to rp showing weakness, or to run with things other than 'murder' as effects, in order to continue interesting narrative roleplay.

[Bazelgeuse]

The failure of the very typical 'team evil' guy isn't treated with sympathy, but is generally treated as a sign of weakness that spirals into doom. At least - this is in terms of tropes.

Whether this is true or not I'm honestly not sure. I have seen very evil pcs roll with punches and show weakness/injury/effects after loosing - this is absolutly a thing that does happen. But I have to admit It's also a lot rarer.

The only 'answer' I can think of us for us to all be more forgiving if a pc wants to rp showing weakness, or to run with things other than 'murder' as effects, in order to continue interesting narrative roleplay.

That's all a good point, GC. Hard to imagine drow comforting each other after a defeat, and not trying to pin the blame on another party

This is probably where someone would come in to say, "take permadeath, it's realistic" and I can understand why, but I'm loathe to tell other players to roll their characters. But when death is seen as the easier, more convenient, more optimal option? Of course it's going to become cheap. When "just kill me, my god will bring me back" and "i would rather die than submit" is the go-to option, when death is seen as a better punishment than hard labor for a pickpocket, of course no one will take death seriously.

I'm reminded of an interaction I had some time ago - in which my character was told that surfacers are merciless and cruel and kill every evildoer they catch... whereas the kind, merciful monsters of Andunor were willing to take prisoners and spare lives.

But when the goblin raid you just caught does a synchronized -giveup when you subdue them... when you get reactions like "I WOULD RATHER DIE THAN TAKE OFF MY HELMET AND IDENTIFY MYSELF!"... when the rez is refused and the guy you just killed chooses to respawn...

I don't know. It feels kind of cheap, underhanded, etc, to pull player choice into RP and spin things so that the "good guys" - who are trying their very best to offer prisoner RP and options - wind up looking like monsters who are even worse than the evildoers who fight.

It's baffling. I don't know how to reconcile this in roleplay.

[Xarge VI]

It's baffling. I don't know how to reconcile this in roleplay.

The most memorable stories I've enjoyed in Arelith have always stemmed from that speck of gold amongst sand. We can't change other people's behavior any other way than by setting an example.

So just keep at it in spite and because you don't get the same treatment in return. The positive note is that you automatically draw in better interactions when people see you rping conflict enjoyably.

It might not be the same people you were actively roleplaying with at that time that are touched by this, instead it could be people who's characters weren't in the spotlight at the time.

Ps. Also doing something differently always tends to cause friction among the keepers of status quo- whatever it is at the time.

[Kuma]

I feel like a core issue at the heart of this post is the idea that it's now down to "surface" and "underdark", instead of... alignments, faiths, ideologies, individuals, groups, to decide what is and isn't appropriate in-character, and conflict, bicker, negotiate, and agree among themselves over that as part of an ongoing narrative.

What I'm saying is that Cordor needs to do blood sports with its prisoners. Tempus declares the winner innocent!

[D4wN]

So much has been added for this. Ultimately now it comes down to player creativity. Go nuts!

Thanks. That's not really helpful. I'm saying that for good aligned people there's not many options and I'm asking for ideas. This just comes across as you saying I'm not creative.

[D4wN]

I'll open by saying that I'm not actually against more mechanical style penalties for pcs on the surface.

However.

Keep in mind that with named leader heads- you can set someone to kill a boss and bring you the head as truth
You can also ask them to gather and donate xxx units of whatever and bring you the reciept.
And to a degree you can also do other roleplay options that are more shady, if you want.

The problems are two fold

1) Sadly it relies on trust. You have to trust that the other player will go along with your roleplay. The call for mechanics in this is (partly) due to that lack of trust.
2) We need to be kinder and more thoughtful to each other when trust is given out, or when none mechanical options, or more interesting options are taken.

The problems you stated are indeed very real. Because even when you put manacles on someone, there is nothing stopping them just taking your manacles and going back home not interacting with the attempt to try and make them pay for what they did or reform them. We have a lot of very creative punishments already in Cordor, but all of them rely on the other player playing in good faith. You have no idea the amount of unpaid fines we have. When we issue someone a fine (be it serving at a bar, helping with an event, helping in the almshouse, paying gold or collecting resources), about 90% of players are never seen again or ignore it to just commit the next crime. We do already do all you suggest and more. The issue of trust here is a real limitation unfortunately.

[D4wN]

I feel like a core issue at the heart of this post is the idea that it's now down to "surface" and "underdark", instead of... alignments, faiths, ideologies, individuals, groups, to decide what is and isn't appropriate in-character, and conflict, bicker, negotiate, and agree among themselves over that as part of an ongoing narrative.

What I'm saying is that Cordor needs to do blood sports with its prisoners. Tempus declares the winner innocent!

We already have honour duels in our Legal Codex. But it's people yelling and seething about doing things like blood sports calling your character evil and a tyrant. These things are quite normal in a FR setting and I'd totally be up for doing gladiator games were it not that people then accuse me of being evil when it's not really. I've been spat out on adding 'cutting the hand off from a thief' or putting people up in stockades in the square as a punishment. Everyone having an opinion on how you should act as a good guy and the fear of being forced alignment changes because of the perception of what is good or evil. It's just not fun to deal with for a player.

[Kuma]

I feel like a core issue at the heart of this post is the idea that it's now down to "surface" and "underdark", instead of... alignments, faiths, ideologies, individuals, groups, to decide what is and isn't appropriate in-character, and conflict, bicker, negotiate, and agree among themselves over that as part of an ongoing narrative.

What I'm saying is that Cordor needs to do blood sports with its prisoners. Tempus declares the winner innocent!

We already have honour duels in our Legal Codex. But it's people yelling and seething about doing things like blood sports calling your character evil and a tyrant. These things are quite normal in a FR setting and I'd totally be up for doing gladiator games were it not that people then accuse me of being evil when it's not really. I've been spat out on adding 'cutting the hand off from a thief' or putting people up in stockades in the square as a punishment. Everyone having an opinion on how you should act as a good guy and the fear of being forced alignment changes because of the perception of what is good or evil. It's just not fun to deal with for a player.

I know that's frustrating. I've usually been there on the "actually evil, but trying to pretend to be good" side for introducing these laws which are... honestly not even that controversial in-setting. Like. Yeah dog that's normal. It's just tricky because my dudes usually are evil so it has weight. I can imagine it's more frustrating for non-evils who understand this a bit more.

Honestly I don't know what to say other than do it anyway. We can be the change and encouragement, after all.

An Osirant paladin condemning a prisoner to a month in the fields would actually be letting them off lightly as they have an end-date for their servitude. It's perfectly non-Evil (capital E alignment evil) to have laws we'd consider somewhat barbaric today.

For many years people accused Cordor's (it's always Cordor's, I can't generalise lol) legal systems as too much like "modern law", when honestly it's not, it just used a lot of buzzwords and Law & Order tropes - the systemic server cultural issue at hand is that we players put our modern sensibilities into the game, and (I presume) both you and I both agree that cutting a hand off a thief is insanely barbaric, to say nothing of execution - but that's simply not the case in D&D or the Realms.

If we were to actually respect the rules on death we SHOULD be encouraging people to spend a bit of punishment time in manacles having repercussions done to us. That's the big brain move. But since we players know that we can just hit that big respawn light, it's an uphill battle.

I can only encourage you and others to try to explore those ideas.

[D4wN]

Appreciate that Kuma. It's also why I came here to ask for more ideas and also because I'm genuinely interested in ideas from the other side. To understand what -they- would enjoy as prisoner RP, would allow us to create scenes and stories that are satisfying for both parties.

[Algol]

You could organize a walk of shame, disarm the enemies, pit them in rags or tar and feathers and parade them around

[The GrumpyCat]

Everyone having an opinion on how you should act as a good guy and the fear of being forced alignment changes because of the perception of what is good or evil. It's just not fun to deal with for a player.

This may well be true. So I want to say this:

We as a DM team only very, very rarely do forced alignment changes (at least on the grounds of a characters roleplay), and almost never do these out of nowhere.

Yes, in some extremes (Thomas Castermont steps out one morning, flanked by a Demon and a Zombie, and declairs he's going to round up every single child in Cordor to be vicioiusly tortured to death for the pleasure of Cyric!') when we might make exceptions, but as a rule we tend to at the least give plentiful warnings first.

[Bazelgeuse]

You could organize a walk of shame, disarm the enemies, pit them in rags or tar and feathers and parade them around

All these require OOC input and agreement from the other player. You can't forcefully remove or change their equipment, you can't make them go anywhere unless the player goes along with it.

You could write a detailed emote about Geoffry Guardsman stripping off someone's armor and taking their sword and shoving them towards the stockades, but there's nothing stopping the other player from going "Ha ha fools you will never take me" and sprinting off into the sunset. Of course, you could kill them, but then comes the "OMG SO CRUEL THE GUARD JUST MURDERED HIM" complaints.

[The GrumpyCat]

You could organize a walk of shame, disarm the enemies, pit them in rags or tar and feathers and parade them around

All these require OOC input and agreement from the other player. You can't forcefully remove or change their equipment, you can't make them go anywhere unless the player goes along with it.

You could write a detailed emote about Geoffry Guardsman stripping off someone's armor and taking their sword and shoving them towards the stockades, but there's nothing stopping the other player from going "Ha ha fools you will never take me" and sprinting off into the sunset. Of course, you could kill them, but then comes the "OMG SO CRUEL THE GUARD JUST MURDERED HIM" complaints.

Ultimatly this comes down to trust. You offer the other player the chance to go with something neat. If they go with it? Awsome! Keep it in mind! Respect it. Say thanks to the player ooc. Consider ways you can run with their story later ect ect. Groovy stuff! If they don't? Well - then that player can't entirely blame themselves later future options arn't open.
As for the complaints - well you can always say you offered them ways out, and if they didn't take it - that's on them.

The counter argument against more mechanical punishments (And again, please keep in mind I'm not actually against such, this is just putting up a counter argument to keep in mind) is that it pushes the trust barrier the other way.

Imagine, if you will, that settlment leaders had the power to give any citizen pc they want the 'Wand of Death' tool. This wand, when used at any pc, instantly killed them and deleted their character, if said character was within the settlment.

Would you ever visit any other settlment beyond Cordor? Knowing your pc could just be deleted like that, for any reason?

Now this is an extreme of course, but whilst we do want to give people tools for consequence, we also have to keep in mind how those tools can be abused, how often they might be abused, and the long term effects of the fear of that abuse.