I know, it sounds like a bad idea. Capturing your players is no fun for them and normally they get frustrated if they get put in manacles. But I have a reason why I would want to do this.
My players have had a bad run in which they have pissed off multiple groups within the game world. They are being hunted by a group of bandits, officers of the law and since recently the invading forces of another country. All of this kinda starts building up and they are very frustrated with the fact that they didn't manage to get rid of any of these groups causing them to be on the run from almost everyone they meet.
I am about to introduce a player to the game in who's backstory we wrote a group of slavers that is going after him because of who he is. This is only part of the backstory and the idea would be that the defeat of these slavers would be the thing that brings this person into the group. We made this backstory long before the group managed to piss off all those other people and in one of our latest sessions the group has kind of been split. They were finally heading somewhere where they could have some peace and quiet when they ran into a warband of the invading forces. One of the players decided to release their prisoners while nobody was watching in the middle of the night. The other players disagree because this made the warband immediately distrust them and told them that, if they didn't find the prisoners, they would be killed for it. So they went after these prisoners to try and get them back but they noticed that the prisoners managed to find a tavern to stay in which also hosted a few members of the army that opposed the warband and thus were allies of the prisoners. Not wanting to take any chance they abandoned the attempt to recapture the prisoners and thus accepting their hostile relation with the warband. This made some members of the party extremely angry at the one who released the prisoners.
What I want to do now is use that group of slavers to capture my party. Doing this will hopefully put them in a situation where they are forced to cooperate and go fight a mutual enemy rather than be angry at eachother. This would also hopefully introduce the other player into the group without him stepping in while they are all going at eachothers throats. And lastly I'm hoping that once they do free themselves from these slavers, and they kill them all, they can finally have that feeling of satisfaction of finally having dealt with an enemy and no longer have them hunt them.
What do you guys think? Do you have any other suggestions about what i could do?
Unfortunately, being captured is something that DMs and adventure writers seem to love and think is awesome, and that every group of players I have ever been with, on either side of the GM screen, have universally despised.
To date, I have seen the capture of a PC party occur in one of three ways.
1. The most common is that they "start off the campaign already in chains." The PCs begin, knowing each other beforehand or not, already captives of some force, and the plot of the first adventure is mostly how do they get out. Although this is probably the least annoying of the three, players tend to hate this because the fact that they start off captured gives them no option to avoid it, try to escape, etc. Your character has some ability like stealth or an invisibility spell that would have helped avoid capture? Too bad, so sad; he's captured just like everyone else. Most players will grudgingly agree to go along with this to start off a campaign, because you can warn them ahead of time, and they can (if reluctantly) write their method of capture into their backstory. This gives them a little bit of control over what happens to their PCs (and it is this surrendering of control without the chance to do anything about it that players usually don't like). This is probably the best option for capture in terms of player frustration.
2. The next most common is "you start off the adventure already in chains." This sounds similar to the above, but this happens in some adventure other than the very first one the party has together. In my experience (again on both sides of the screen) this type of adventure start is much more unpopular with players than if it is the very first adventure. First adventure you can kind of deal with it, write it into your backstory, etc. But when it happens mid-campaign, you necessarily are going to a state in which the PCs were free, into which they are captured, without giving the players a chance to do anything about it. This completely robs the players of free will, and they tend not to like that. However, if you are going to capture the party mid-campaign, at least in my experience, it's probably best to do it this way. They all go to sleep in an inn, and when they wake up, they are shackled together on a wagon rolling down the road, driven by slavers. They all have a funny taste in their mouth... insight check shows they were given your campaign's equivalent of chloroform while sleeping. This is something they can't do anything about, but most players will again grudgingly (more grudgingly than #1 above) go along with it, knowing it is a plot point.
3. Probably the least common, and in my experience the most despised, by players is running a battle that they lose. Players hate to lose battles, but will often accept it if they feel the battle was reasonably fair and they just screwed up. But if you are going to put them into a situation in which no matter what they did, they were going to lose the battle, the players will see through that, and they will hate it... Because in this case you have robbed them of free will just as surely as in #2, but instead of admitting it, you are giving them the illusion of free will, and it is a lie. Once they detect the lie, they are going to become frustrated and feel like they have been "played" and they'll be right to feel that way. I have seen this tried in D&D... in Champions... and in Rolemaster. I have both done it (once) and had it done to me (several times, especially by one particular GM in Champions who did this like once per adventure). I have never yet seen it be well-received by any group I've been with. I highly recommend against doing it this way.
Your campaign is already running, so #1 is out. I would recommend against #3. So this leaves you with #2. You're going to have to finesse it so that they don't just get annoyed at the whole thing and just want out.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Happened to me once and the DM handled it really poorly. His campaign needed is to be captured, so we were, with no way out, it was real bad. The ways I can think of that can kind of work are: The enemy shows up with overwhelming force, a fight they know they can not possibly win. It at least gives them the illusion of choice, since they could decide they’re not going to be taken alive. The down side is they may actually decide to do that, so you need to be prepared for it. Another option is, drug them, then show up with overwhelming force. Again, be prepared it won’t go right. Some of them will make their save and not be knocked out by the drugs. But if they are down a few members, they’re less likely to try and fight their way out of it. One other one is throw a really hard fight at them, but don’t make it obvious it’s a losing effort for the PCs. Then part way through announce the enemies have started doing nonlethal damage. Let the players see it coming. They may fight on, or they may try to run. But they need to have a choice. Bottom line: you need to give them a way out of it, even if it’s fighting to the death, and even then it can be really cheesy
One time it did really work, it happened kind of organically. DM gave us too hard of a fight, and it would have been a TPK, instead we woke up in chains. IRL we all knew it was the DM acknowledging he threw too much at us and was trying to put things back together.
I’ve captured my players a couple of times. One time I printed out a note on my printer ahead of time that said, “The bandit pulls his final blow so that it’s a non-lethal blow instead of a lethal blow. Pretend to make death saving throws as normal, but you’re fine, just unconscious.” so it was obvious to the players as they got knocked unconscious that they were meant to be captured and not killed. Then they got ambushed in the “jail cell” that they were imprisoned in and were able to defeat the skeletons who ambushed them and gain some toys that their captors didn’t know about. When they finally defeated their captors I said, “You all recover all of your equipment and money and in addition you find...” so they weren’t penalized by me railroading them into a fight that they couldn’t win.
Only if they have a realistic chance of escaping with the majority of their possessions intact. Putting your PCs in a seemingly hopeless situation is bad for player morale. Having them escape but losing their Vorpal sword can be even worse. Unless of course they have become overly wealthy and magic overloaded.
Some ideas that come to mind.
Being captured and placed in a dungeon with an NPC who already has an escape plan, A sloppy guard misses the thief's dagger or tools hidden in his loin cloth or they are offered a deal by a powerful NPC in exchange for their freedom and possible protection from all these groups that want their heads.
If I were in your situation with the Wanted by every entity out there scenario.
I would have the bandits captured and executed by the invading force. The members of the invading force who have knowledge of your PCs are all killed in the battle that results in the capturing of the bandits.
This leaves the Officers of the Law and the Slavers.
Your PCs are captured or approached under a flag of truce with a deal from the Officers of the Law.
The Deal, capture, defeat or run off the slavers in exchange for a full pardon.
I have captured PCs in games before, but I didn't come in to the situation deciding "okay, now I'm going to capture the PCs", it happened as a result of bad decisions and/or rolls by the PCs. The usual situations is "whoops, this looks like a TPK, perhaps these NPCs are the type to capture the PCs rather than killing them all".
If you do capture the PCs, make sure to have a reasonable scheme for how they can end the imprisonment. Reasonable alternatives to having them plan a great escape include holding them for ransom (hard unless they have allies who would actually pay), giving them a mission (possibly enforced by a geas or something similar), sending them to the arena to fight for the entertainment of the population, etc.
I think BioWizard made a good coverage of your options (since you're actually planning to have the captured without the players being able to do anything about it). Pantagruel and Xalto pointed out the one option when it might work: if a fair battle just goes horrible for the players (or if they decide to do something really stupid like attacking a huge enemy army you thought it was obvious they should not attack). Then throwing them into a cell might work better than just killing them all.
If you want to capture the player in a session, you should actually give them a fair fight where they have a real chance of getting away. Might destroy your plans, but the players won't feel fooled by a pre-rigged combat.
You could perhaps try to give the players some plot reason to allow themselves to be captured as some part of plan (for instance to free someone).
Finally, your real problem seems to me that your players haven't decided which side they are on. You have a lot of cool conflicts, but your players haven't chosen side. That can be problematic, I know by experience. Giving them a mutual enemy, might work and might force them together, but I would have had a talk with the players about which side they want to choose. Conflict within the group can be great and lead to a lot of cool roleplaying, but it has a turning point where it starts to bog down the game, and the PC's doesn't have a reason to say together. A common threat might force them together, but it doesn't necessarily create a bond between the players. As soon the threat is gone, the problem might still be there.
You will be better off TPKing them and have them reroll, then start off captured OotA style, if all you want is for them to be captured.
Trying to blatantly take away player agency results in a TPK (cause the players WILL fight over surrender) or the players losing trust in the DM (cause the DM "forced" capture).
Some real good advice above. I'll add if you don't want to TPK, give them motivation to get out of Dodge, go do something "heroic" like and then come back and see the consequences of their (in)actions and the mess it has created, that they either feel obliged to fix, or simply get blamed for the current chaos in the area.
I’ve been in one adventure where getting captured worked, and that’s because the group purposely got captured to engineer a breakout for a beloved NPC that was imprisoned. But it was very much an “Alcatraz” type situation so it was enjoyable. We also had the time to set things up and hide some things that would help and pay off some specific guards.
I mean if they are going to go up against slavers then have them over hear about how this group is renowned for ambushing adventurers with superior numbers and selling them off to fighting arenas. At least that way they know 2 things, 1 if they get ambushed it will be by a large group and 2 this group wants them alive, because dead they are worthless.
Maybe make it a plot point to get back in the good books of one of the groups they have pissed off, this group has been tasked with investigating the slavers but really can't be bothered so an offer of a truce if the party do it and the group gets the credit! If the party fails the group can take over with a few less slavers to deal with so it's a win win for them.
If they surrender they are captured, if they fight let them kill a fair few of the slavers but have them overwhelmed and later find out that the "slavers" they killed where slaves themselves!
well A dm l have seen on youtube had some PC's get captured by slavers when their players could not show up for a few sessions,so maybe keep getting captured for when a pc will be gone a wile,and always have a way to have the party free them for when the player is able to play again.
Colville has said the million-dollar answer yet again. To paraphrase him, players show up to play D&D. They show up to roll dice and fight bad guys and (usually) be heroes. They don't show up to NOT roll dice, NOT fight, and run away. So the players tend to follow the old line from Galaxy Quest - never give up; never surrender.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Colville has said the million-dollar answer yet again. To paraphrase him, players show up to play D&D. They show up to roll dice and fight bad guys and (usually) be heroes. They don't show up to NOT roll dice, NOT fight, and run away. So the players tend to follow the old line from Galaxy Quest - never give up; never surrender.
There are exceptions, but they usually involve enemies that don't show up on screen. If the party is sneaking up on the Evil General's fortress, they're probably going to avoid picking a fight with the army of a thousand orcs that they can totally sneak past, but if they run into an isolated group, don't be surprised if they ambush it.
I think BioWizard made a good coverage of your options (since you're actually planning to have the captured without the players being able to do anything about it). Pantagruel and Xalto pointed out the one option when it might work: if a fair battle just goes horrible for the players (or if they decide to do something really stupid like attacking a huge enemy army you thought it was obvious they should not attack). Then throwing them into a cell might work better than just killing them all.
If you want to capture the player in a session, you should actually give them a fair fight where they have a real chance of getting away. Might destroy your plans, but the players won't feel fooled by a pre-rigged combat.
You could perhaps try to give the players some plot reason to allow themselves to be captured as some part of plan (for instance to free someone).
Finally, your real problem seems to me that your players haven't decided which side they are on. You have a lot of cool conflicts, but your players haven't chosen side. That can be problematic, I know by experience. Giving them a mutual enemy, might work and might force them together, but I would have had a talk with the players about which side they want to choose. Conflict within the group can be great and lead to a lot of cool roleplaying, but it has a turning point where it starts to bog down the game, and the PC's doesn't have a reason to say together. A common threat might force them together, but it doesn't necessarily create a bond between the players. As soon the threat is gone, the problem might still be there.
My players got captured once. They got into a fight they could not win due to their own bad choices. I tried to give them opportunity to run away from the overwhelming odds. They didn't take it.
They ended up taking a quest from the group that captured them, in return for freedom. They ignored that quest, went to an area they were not ready for yet, and got TPKed, no way to pull "you get captured" shenanigans twice in a row. I think they might have been trying for that in the first fight.
I know that didn't have a lot to do with your situation but, PC prisoners isn't great. Maybe they meet the new PC while they are running away from a few slavers and the party saves the new PC and earns a victory. Bond them through victory rather than defeat.
Dear Dungeonmasters,
I know, it sounds like a bad idea. Capturing your players is no fun for them and normally they get frustrated if they get put in manacles.
But I have a reason why I would want to do this.
My players have had a bad run in which they have pissed off multiple groups within the game world. They are being hunted by a group of bandits, officers of the law and since recently the invading forces of another country.
All of this kinda starts building up and they are very frustrated with the fact that they didn't manage to get rid of any of these groups causing them to be on the run from almost everyone they meet.
I am about to introduce a player to the game in who's backstory we wrote a group of slavers that is going after him because of who he is. This is only part of the backstory and the idea would be that the defeat of these slavers would be the thing that brings this person into the group. We made this backstory long before the group managed to piss off all those other people and in one of our latest sessions the group has kind of been split.
They were finally heading somewhere where they could have some peace and quiet when they ran into a warband of the invading forces. One of the players decided to release their prisoners while nobody was watching in the middle of the night. The other players disagree because this made the warband immediately distrust them and told them that, if they didn't find the prisoners, they would be killed for it.
So they went after these prisoners to try and get them back but they noticed that the prisoners managed to find a tavern to stay in which also hosted a few members of the army that opposed the warband and thus were allies of the prisoners. Not wanting to take any chance they abandoned the attempt to recapture the prisoners and thus accepting their hostile relation with the warband. This made some members of the party extremely angry at the one who released the prisoners.
What I want to do now is use that group of slavers to capture my party. Doing this will hopefully put them in a situation where they are forced to cooperate and go fight a mutual enemy rather than be angry at eachother.
This would also hopefully introduce the other player into the group without him stepping in while they are all going at eachothers throats.
And lastly I'm hoping that once they do free themselves from these slavers, and they kill them all, they can finally have that feeling of satisfaction of finally having dealt with an enemy and no longer have them hunt them.
What do you guys think? Do you have any other suggestions about what i could do?
Thanks, Lucas
Unfortunately, being captured is something that DMs and adventure writers seem to love and think is awesome, and that every group of players I have ever been with, on either side of the GM screen, have universally despised.
To date, I have seen the capture of a PC party occur in one of three ways.
1. The most common is that they "start off the campaign already in chains." The PCs begin, knowing each other beforehand or not, already captives of some force, and the plot of the first adventure is mostly how do they get out. Although this is probably the least annoying of the three, players tend to hate this because the fact that they start off captured gives them no option to avoid it, try to escape, etc. Your character has some ability like stealth or an invisibility spell that would have helped avoid capture? Too bad, so sad; he's captured just like everyone else. Most players will grudgingly agree to go along with this to start off a campaign, because you can warn them ahead of time, and they can (if reluctantly) write their method of capture into their backstory. This gives them a little bit of control over what happens to their PCs (and it is this surrendering of control without the chance to do anything about it that players usually don't like). This is probably the best option for capture in terms of player frustration.
2. The next most common is "you start off the adventure already in chains." This sounds similar to the above, but this happens in some adventure other than the very first one the party has together. In my experience (again on both sides of the screen) this type of adventure start is much more unpopular with players than if it is the very first adventure. First adventure you can kind of deal with it, write it into your backstory, etc. But when it happens mid-campaign, you necessarily are going to a state in which the PCs were free, into which they are captured, without giving the players a chance to do anything about it. This completely robs the players of free will, and they tend not to like that. However, if you are going to capture the party mid-campaign, at least in my experience, it's probably best to do it this way. They all go to sleep in an inn, and when they wake up, they are shackled together on a wagon rolling down the road, driven by slavers. They all have a funny taste in their mouth... insight check shows they were given your campaign's equivalent of chloroform while sleeping. This is something they can't do anything about, but most players will again grudgingly (more grudgingly than #1 above) go along with it, knowing it is a plot point.
3. Probably the least common, and in my experience the most despised, by players is running a battle that they lose. Players hate to lose battles, but will often accept it if they feel the battle was reasonably fair and they just screwed up. But if you are going to put them into a situation in which no matter what they did, they were going to lose the battle, the players will see through that, and they will hate it... Because in this case you have robbed them of free will just as surely as in #2, but instead of admitting it, you are giving them the illusion of free will, and it is a lie. Once they detect the lie, they are going to become frustrated and feel like they have been "played" and they'll be right to feel that way. I have seen this tried in D&D... in Champions... and in Rolemaster. I have both done it (once) and had it done to me (several times, especially by one particular GM in Champions who did this like once per adventure). I have never yet seen it be well-received by any group I've been with. I highly recommend against doing it this way.
Your campaign is already running, so #1 is out. I would recommend against #3. So this leaves you with #2. You're going to have to finesse it so that they don't just get annoyed at the whole thing and just want out.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Happened to me once and the DM handled it really poorly. His campaign needed is to be captured, so we were, with no way out, it was real bad.
The ways I can think of that can kind of work are: The enemy shows up with overwhelming force, a fight they know they can not possibly win. It at least gives them the illusion of choice, since they could decide they’re not going to be taken alive. The down side is they may actually decide to do that, so you need to be prepared for it.
Another option is, drug them, then show up with overwhelming force. Again, be prepared it won’t go right. Some of them will make their save and not be knocked out by the drugs. But if they are down a few members, they’re less likely to try and fight their way out of it.
One other one is throw a really hard fight at them, but don’t make it obvious it’s a losing effort for the PCs. Then part way through announce the enemies have started doing nonlethal damage. Let the players see it coming. They may fight on, or they may try to run. But they need to have a choice.
Bottom line: you need to give them a way out of it, even if it’s fighting to the death, and even then it can be really cheesy
One time it did really work, it happened kind of organically. DM gave us too hard of a fight, and it would have been a TPK, instead we woke up in chains. IRL we all knew it was the DM acknowledging he threw too much at us and was trying to put things back together.
I’ve captured my players a couple of times. One time I printed out a note on my printer ahead of time that said, “The bandit pulls his final blow so that it’s a non-lethal blow instead of a lethal blow. Pretend to make death saving throws as normal, but you’re fine, just unconscious.” so it was obvious to the players as they got knocked unconscious that they were meant to be captured and not killed. Then they got ambushed in the “jail cell” that they were imprisoned in and were able to defeat the skeletons who ambushed them and gain some toys that their captors didn’t know about. When they finally defeated their captors I said, “You all recover all of your equipment and money and in addition you find...” so they weren’t penalized by me railroading them into a fight that they couldn’t win.
Professional computer geek
Should you have players get captured?
Only if they have a realistic chance of escaping with the majority of their possessions intact. Putting your PCs in a seemingly hopeless situation is bad for player morale. Having them escape but losing their Vorpal sword can be even worse. Unless of course they have become overly wealthy and magic overloaded.
Some ideas that come to mind.
Being captured and placed in a dungeon with an NPC who already has an escape plan, A sloppy guard misses the thief's dagger or tools hidden in his loin cloth or they are offered a deal by a powerful NPC in exchange for their freedom and possible protection from all these groups that want their heads.
If I were in your situation with the Wanted by every entity out there scenario.
I would have the bandits captured and executed by the invading force. The members of the invading force who have knowledge of your PCs are all killed in the battle that results in the capturing of the bandits.
This leaves the Officers of the Law and the Slavers.
Your PCs are captured or approached under a flag of truce with a deal from the Officers of the Law.
The Deal, capture, defeat or run off the slavers in exchange for a full pardon.
GOOD LUCK!
I have captured PCs in games before, but I didn't come in to the situation deciding "okay, now I'm going to capture the PCs", it happened as a result of bad decisions and/or rolls by the PCs. The usual situations is "whoops, this looks like a TPK, perhaps these NPCs are the type to capture the PCs rather than killing them all".
If you do capture the PCs, make sure to have a reasonable scheme for how they can end the imprisonment. Reasonable alternatives to having them plan a great escape include holding them for ransom (hard unless they have allies who would actually pay), giving them a mission (possibly enforced by a geas or something similar), sending them to the arena to fight for the entertainment of the population, etc.
I think BioWizard made a good coverage of your options (since you're actually planning to have the captured without the players being able to do anything about it). Pantagruel and Xalto pointed out the one option when it might work: if a fair battle just goes horrible for the players (or if they decide to do something really stupid like attacking a huge enemy army you thought it was obvious they should not attack). Then throwing them into a cell might work better than just killing them all.
If you want to capture the player in a session, you should actually give them a fair fight where they have a real chance of getting away. Might destroy your plans, but the players won't feel fooled by a pre-rigged combat.
You could perhaps try to give the players some plot reason to allow themselves to be captured as some part of plan (for instance to free someone).
Finally, your real problem seems to me that your players haven't decided which side they are on. You have a lot of cool conflicts, but your players haven't chosen side. That can be problematic, I know by experience. Giving them a mutual enemy, might work and might force them together, but I would have had a talk with the players about which side they want to choose. Conflict within the group can be great and lead to a lot of cool roleplaying, but it has a turning point where it starts to bog down the game, and the PC's doesn't have a reason to say together. A common threat might force them together, but it doesn't necessarily create a bond between the players. As soon the threat is gone, the problem might still be there.
Ludo ergo sum!
You will be better off TPKing them and have them reroll, then start off captured OotA style, if all you want is for them to be captured.
Trying to blatantly take away player agency results in a TPK (cause the players WILL fight over surrender) or the players losing trust in the DM (cause the DM "forced" capture).
Some real good advice above. I'll add if you don't want to TPK, give them motivation to get out of Dodge, go do something "heroic" like and then come back and see the consequences of their (in)actions and the mess it has created, that they either feel obliged to fix, or simply get blamed for the current chaos in the area.
No character I know will choose surrender over running away or dying.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Players will almost always stay and fight to the death/unconsciousness rather than run... and definitely they will almost never surrender.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I’ve been in one adventure where getting captured worked, and that’s because the group purposely got captured to engineer a breakout for a beloved NPC that was imprisoned. But it was very much an “Alcatraz” type situation so it was enjoyable. We also had the time to set things up and hide some things that would help and pay off some specific guards.
I mean if they are going to go up against slavers then have them over hear about how this group is renowned for ambushing adventurers with superior numbers and selling them off to fighting arenas. At least that way they know 2 things, 1 if they get ambushed it will be by a large group and 2 this group wants them alive, because dead they are worthless.
Maybe make it a plot point to get back in the good books of one of the groups they have pissed off, this group has been tasked with investigating the slavers but really can't be bothered so an offer of a truce if the party do it and the group gets the credit! If the party fails the group can take over with a few less slavers to deal with so it's a win win for them.
If they surrender they are captured, if they fight let them kill a fair few of the slavers but have them overwhelmed and later find out that the "slavers" they killed where slaves themselves!
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
Matt Colville did a whole video on this topic:
well A dm l have seen on youtube had some PC's get captured by slavers when their players could not show up for a few sessions,so maybe keep getting captured for when a pc will be gone a wile,and always have a way to have the party free them for when the player is able to play again.
Colville has said the million-dollar answer yet again. To paraphrase him, players show up to play D&D. They show up to roll dice and fight bad guys and (usually) be heroes. They don't show up to NOT roll dice, NOT fight, and run away. So the players tend to follow the old line from Galaxy Quest - never give up; never surrender.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Almost any new DM question can be solved by Colville.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
There are exceptions, but they usually involve enemies that don't show up on screen. If the party is sneaking up on the Evil General's fortress, they're probably going to avoid picking a fight with the army of a thousand orcs that they can totally sneak past, but if they run into an isolated group, don't be surprised if they ambush it.
My players got captured once. They got into a fight they could not win due to their own bad choices. I tried to give them opportunity to run away from the overwhelming odds. They didn't take it.
They ended up taking a quest from the group that captured them, in return for freedom. They ignored that quest, went to an area they were not ready for yet, and got TPKed, no way to pull "you get captured" shenanigans twice in a row. I think they might have been trying for that in the first fight.
I know that didn't have a lot to do with your situation but, PC prisoners isn't great. Maybe they meet the new PC while they are running away from a few slavers and the party saves the new PC and earns a victory. Bond them through victory rather than defeat.