Has any DM thrown a party in jail?  I would like advice on the good, the bad and the ugly of prison!

In short, my party set fire to a powerful merchant's manor last adventure, stole gold from him, and stole his hedge wizard's spellbook, which is a very rare bird in my world.  The merchant has the local lord in his pocket.  In the next session, I think the Duke, under the influence of the merchant, would force the party to restore the stolen property and/or possibly throw them in prison.  Any advice on how to do that?  (ie how would he round up the party, solitary confinement vs group, sentence length, corporal punishment, etc)

I know in real life he would probably just execute them, but that won't work!

What level is the party? Because at some point, they can probably beat a large number of the duke’s soldiers. Show up with 10 guys, and the PCs might just try to right their way out. You need to present truly overwhelming odds — 50 or 100 or something ridiculous. Even then, they’ll likely try to escape. For some reason, many if not most players fear their character’s capture more than death. So just be prepared for that. 

Then, if they are jailed. The simplest is to keep them together, otherwise you end up running 5 mini sessions for individual PCs. And when you run one, everyone else just kind of sits there. So while it would almost always make more sense in-game to separate them, for metagame reasons, it’s usually better to keep them together. 
Then you need to consider how hard you want their escape to be. They live in a world where people misty stepping places is a known possibility. It will be more or less rare depending on the campaign world, but no matter how rare, it’s a thing people can do, and a duke will know about it. So, keep in that in mind and take precautions. A solid room with no cracks at the doors will stop a misty step, but not a dimension door. A 5’ thick wall can be opened by someone with stone shape, so they’ll probably make walls 6’ thick. That kind of thing. Casters could reasonably be gagged and cuffed in a way to stop verbal and somatic gestures, and since practically everyone can cast a spell or two, it seems, that would likely be pretty standard. Focuses and component pouches would be taken along with weapons. People with lots of resources will invest in an anti-magic shell.

Also, decide how much of a stickler you want to be for  when they find their gear and equip it. Heavy armor can take a long time to put on, decide if you’re going to hand wave it, or make them take 10 minutes to put on the full plate. 

My advice is...

Don't arrest them. Do not jail them.

Instead, *attempt* to arrest them. Put a good show on -- 30 guards, a somewhat well planned "trap", that kind of thing. Something that would work if they weren't adventurers.

When they escape, they become wanted, with bounties on their heads.  Putting other adventurers after them, making them Outlaws.

Now, the reasons for this are pretty rough...

In a world with adventurers, they are basically the toughest being around, and so any prison or jail has to have ways to stop them from using features or abilities or casting spells.  It strips them of all the stuff that the players enjoy about their characters, and is generally not considered fun by most players (yours may be different).

There is no way to do it without railroading them, either.

But, mosty, as you already noted, the normal outcome of such a normal course of events (do the crime, get caught, be punished) in a normal situation is they are all going to die and die badly.  You might even want to try the traditional "if you do this thing for me, I will let you live" sort of quest hook up, but you can still do that without them being arrested.

Outlawry strips them of the safety of towns, or villages, and makes them have to do things that are not normal not common. And it puts them in a position where they have to clear their name, make allies whose lives and livelihoods they put in danger, and all that other cool drama stuff.

Arresting them is also not good for reasons of general mood.  You will have to role play jailers, describe horrible conditions, and essentially take away all the things that make the characters special in order to just hold them for a single night. You will put them in the position of killing henchmen -- and unless that's the goal you should think about those poor henchmen and their lives -- they have this crappy ruler to work under who probably treats them poorly, and they still have families to provide for (because otherwise they'd have left or something).

If you are running an evil campaign, then don't worry about it. But if they are supposed to be the good guys, well...

... yes, consequences. harsh ones. BUt outlawry allows you to drive more interesting stories over a longer period of time and in more ways (the old "I am a specialty bounty hunter, I will get them with me special magics and tools and pet monster, and fine, no disintegration Lord Vader") than just rounding them up, and without taking away from them what makes them special.

If you really want to drive home the point they shouldn't be captured (because, well, some parties *want* to be captured), then remind them that they will lose their spell books, their weapons, their armor, their special abilities. They will be in a world of hurt, and the most likely outcome (talked about openly by guards) is death by a painful, vengeful execution.

So, really, it comes down to why you want to arrest them -- does it have to do with the story? Are they planning a jail break? Are they evil characters? Are you going to remove jail as any kind of risk for them (oh, look, we got arrested, and jail is a cakewalk to escape from, so now we can do this again down the road and get away with it after we escape)?

Or, if you want, capture two of them. Then have the rest stage a jail break. I have a plan to get the party from point A in one place to point B in another that involves a possible rescue situation (and they may decide not to help the NPC used if they don't go down that path) -- but there is only one other outcome and that's Outlawry, which means they can't go into a village or town, and so can't stock up and can't do a lot of stuff. Cities they *might* get into, but since news travels fast (magic) they are likely to be blocked there, too.

No spell components, no ammunition, no food, on the run from pursuers.

So, firstly I like the USA's distinction between Jail and Prison. Here in the UK Jail (Gaol) is an old term that isn't really used, so they are all just prisons. In the US though, Jails are short term holding facilities (at least in theory) much like custody suites that a police force might have elsewhere. Somewhere that you are temporarily kept pending charge, trial, and/or bail. A Prison meanwhile would be for actual custodial sentences.

So, in my worlds a prison is a long term, isolated rare place. A Jail is a short term holding cell or similar.


Unless it was an essential part of the story, no I wouldn't throw my characters in prison. I have however thrown them into a jail cell. They burnt down a town so, yeah, jail for them. This actually served as a deus ex machina. Whilst in Jail they were given a way out - complete a quest for someone for no pay. This was a great way to move the story along. In cases where it's been a longer term in a prison, I've narrated it away and explained that their skills have become rusty, so the prisons tend to have anti-magic fields around them, and all their equipment is forfiet and sold to pay their bounty and their board while in jail. Once released (usually narration serves as the sentence) the party all roll at disadvantage until they've gotten the chance to flex their skills once more. Generally speaking though a party have to really set out to destroy entire villages, towns, and cities for that to happen. 

Basically - if you're going to jail or imprison characters, don't make them roleplay the escape or release or time behind bars unless you absolutely need to - narrate it all away. Think og it like in one scene the party are arrested, then we fade to black, then we have our new scene set some time later.

There are DMs out there who will bemoan that jailing or imprisoning characters takes agency away from players. Here's my view on it though - if you're for player choice then the players made the choices that resulted in this. Unless you want your world to be truly absurdist as you contort in ways to try and ensure that you don't have a boring imprisonment sequence...then allow it to be a consequence of player choices.

As to how to capture/arrest the party - overwhelming force is a cheap and easy one. It's not unreasonable to suggest a city watch size of around 250 for town or small city. But I get away with just 25 city watch. That group is comprised of 10 Archer, 10 Drow Elite Warrior, 4 Conjurer Wizard, and led by 1 Champion. This group can of course be skinned however you like (the warriors do not have to be drow). The idea that a town guard is like 1/8 CR is laughable to me, so I tend to follow a World of Warcraft theory - in that game certain settlements were guarded by Lv99 guards. In an important city or region the city watch are all fairly well trained. This particular group will provide a deadly fight even to a Level 20 party of six characters. 

You can also as AEDorsay suggests, run the outlaw line. One of the best tactics would be essentially to make the entire public hostile to the group. Have the reward offered be more coin that the party have on hand. Have the description of their deeds be exaggerated (maybe they are listed as wanted due to a kidnapping, or some other heinous crime). Make the environment something that is almost impossible to survive without detection. If every place they can buy food has descriptions and posters of the wanted criminals, if every inn has their wanted sheets - they aren't going to be able to buy things any more. Then time just ticks away more and more as their resources dwindle and sooner or later they'll either have to surrender or allow themselves to be caught.

Finally, there's always the good old betrayal line. This should be done carefully with highlighting that the figure they are paying off to allow them to hire a room at the inn might betray the party in the night. Foreshadow sideways glances, a worker at the inn being sent off with a note, give the party the option to have someone stand watch overnight so they don't get hoodwinked. But if they ignore all that and still rest their tired heads - well that's too bad - they were arrested while asleep. It's the most risky of the options but still a possibility.

Yes I have best session in my life 

These are good ideas.    Thanks!

I think I will use the Duke to threaten the party and demand restitution, but not jail them or put them in jail for a day, to consider the bleakness of the situation if they don't comply.  That will move the story along just as good as a cold, hard cell.  Also good advice about not letting the party split up and forcing separate mini sessions.  

I don't think I can pull off the outlaw idea.  One guy is a paladin and we play pretty strict regarding alignment.  Running from the law would make him a fallen paladin and he plays lawful good so well and enjoys doing so; I would hate for that to happen.  

As an aside: I don't understand the idea from some that town guards couldn't take down a party.  Shouldn't town guards be commiserate with your world...meaning if you have tons of level 20 PCs with lots of magical items wouldn't the richest entity in the area (i.e. the monarch) have hired similar level 20 adventurers loaded down with magical items???  In my world magic is a scarce and level 10-12 is high level so the guards are lvl 1/2 with a few lvl 5 lieutenants and a level 12 captain with a few magical items.  A group of 10 of these guys led by the captain would annihilate any party.  I like the World of Warcraft analogy as the guards in different areas were usually 10+ levels above the players using that area and were elite, making them much tougher than the vast majority of users.  

Quote from Velstitzen >>

 

As an aside: I don't understand the idea from some that town guards couldn't take down a party.  Shouldn't town guards be commiserate with your world...meaning if you have tons of level 20 PCs with lots of magical items wouldn't the richest entity in the area (i.e. the monarch) have hired similar level 20 adventurers loaded down with magical items???  In my world magic is a scarce and level 10-12 is high level so the guards are lvl 1/2 with a few lvl 5 lieutenants and a level 12 captain with a few magical items.  A group of 10 of these guys led by the captain would annihilate any party.  I like the World of Warcraft analogy as the guards in different areas were usually 10+ levels above the players using that area and were elite, making them much tougher than the vast majority of users.  

 This is going to vary a lot by DM and campaign, but the problem with having threatening city guards is that your party aren't really heroes anymore. Why would they be hired to kill a dragon threatening the city when the captain of the guard could just solo it? Why would they be chosen to do anything truly important if the world was full of people that could do it quicker and better?

This is why the default assumption of most campaigns is that the PCs are exceptional in the world. Not many epic stories have been written about mid-quality mercenaries. You can do something like LotR where the true quality of adventurers is in the quality of their hearts, but if you're expecting them to regularly square off with law enforcement then it's probably not that kind of party.

Anyway, I'd never just jail a party as a result of discussion, but there are plenty of enemies that might want to take the PCs alive if they can defeat them and plenty of campaigns have used that as a safety net in the case of a TPK. My main advice in that situation is not to just tell them they are in jail and then sit back and ask, "so what do you do?" Give them the surroundings, give them cellmates, give them a list of things to interact with that can provide at least one clear route out of there, preferably highlighting the monk who is still deadly with no equipment or the resourceful sorcerer who scrounges up some cobwebs to be able to cast web.

Quote from Velstitzen >>

 

As an aside: I don't understand the idea from some that town guards couldn't take down a party.  Shouldn't town guards be commiserate with your world...meaning if you have tons of level 20 PCs with lots of magical items wouldn't the richest entity in the area (i.e. the monarch) have hired similar level 20 adventurers loaded down with magical items???  In my world magic is a scarce and level 10-12 is high level so the guards are lvl 1/2 with a few lvl 5 lieutenants and a level 12 captain with a few magical items.  A group of 10 of these guys led by the captain would annihilate any party.  I like the World of Warcraft analogy as the guards in different areas were usually 10+ levels above the players using that area and were elite, making them much tougher than the vast majority of users.  

 
So, "heroes" are, by and large, "better", "more", and "above" the average person.  City Watch might have a higher level character, but they don't generally have the experience that allows them to move far beyond the norm (in game terms, literally -- they aren't adventurers, they are towns guardsmen). 

THat said the real reason is that few people will roll up a dozen town guards of assorted levels because it takes time to do, and then you have the standard creatures in the MM (which includes such beings) and the understanding that the "typical person" has scores of 9 to 11 in 5e. Those ability scores stop many people from becoming Paladins or Wizards in older editions (where there was a minimum score requirement), but In 5e, not so much -- so you could genuinely have a town guard that has all sorts of different roles within it.

A Forgotten Realms based world won't, however -- and note that the rules are written to reflect that world and how that world operates. on FR, regular people are pretty much at the mercy for the folks who have tons of power -- and those are the big, important NPCs and the big, important PCs.

In my developing game world, while most people have some inherent magic to them, they aren't capable of storing that magic to be able to perform spells unless they do so in groups -- and when they do that, they can become the equal of a particular 20th level caster who maybe foments a rebellion to take over the world. Even then, though, they need someone who can do the spell properly -- the rest just help to power it.

That's a background basis for how caster's can exist without taking over entire nations (Hi, abdicate your kingdom to me now or I will drop you into this magic jar and take it by force, burning your family to ash).

For guards, I usually have one fairly high level fighter type over seeing a series of rapidly dropping levels of professionals, and then I have the "regular folks" who happen to voluntold to be part of the village watch. Specifically, it is one tier 4, two tier 3, 4 tier 2, and then a bunch of tier ones, corresponding to Major, Captain, Sergeant, and Private. They got their by earning it and fighting in battles and learning their craft. But I also had to essentially homebrew all of it because there is no support directly in the game for that kind of thing.

And, since there is no support for it, most of the answers you got -- including mine -- presume you are running a basically mostly by the book, forgotten realms based campaign.  That's the lowest common denominator, and the only one that most people can say they are familiar with. And, as a result, in most games, the guards couldn't hold back a party because they are, effectively, monsters, and those are the stat blocks folks will use, and a 3rd level fighter can rip through a city guard in under two turns.

In short, it takes a lot of effort to create throw away NPC to arrest a party, so nobody does it, and instead they just use what's int he books and rarely think about it.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

 

In short, it takes a lot of effort to create throw away NPC to arrest a party, so nobody does it, and instead they just use what's int he books and rarely think about it.

 

This is why I have the standardised party that I creatred to minimise exactly this. 

10 Archer
10 Drow Elite Warrior
4 Conjurer Wizard
1 Champion

Will handle up to a party of 6 characters of level 20. It's standardised across the world though I may reskin them, so that the drow might be gnomes, the archers might be tieflings etc. If this party shows up all dressed in city watch garb - the party done goofed. No mess, no fuss, no extra DM workload.

Yeah, I have several stat blocks for different folks myself.

Since I use Tiers pretty strongly in development, I have a tier for each of the major groups for anything (Novice, Yeoman, Adept, Master, Grand Master) that all represent the different social rolls. It is rather funny to watch a Bard try to finagle his way through a bargain with a marketplace merchant who is a Master tier when he's only a Yeoman tier, lol. More than a few items the party has looked at their bard in shock when he comes away having spent more than they planned and bought stuff he didn't intend simply because he was out-persuaded...

So it applies beyond just city watches -- bandits, brigands, pirates, goblins, imps, bugbears, watches, guards, nobles, merchants, sages, blacksmiths...

if it thinks it has the ability to be better or worse at their job, and they are at least as creative as the party is about everything.

However, that's not the norm. And it certainly isn't something in the Books as provided. 

Who hasn't slammed their PC's in the dungeon. Every GM should. You should just never make it a contest. Never make it a fight. Don't have overwhelming forces arrive to arrest them - instead, have two elderly constables arrive at the inn, and politely inform them that they're under arrest. 

Maybe even make sure the players know that PC PARTY vs The Kingdom of Noblia isn't the adventure - rather, that this is an encounter, a chance for their face character to finally actually be center stage. 

Maybe, if need be, point out that if they indeed to chose to take on the kingdom, it will be a brief and ultimately doomed fight for them.