I am really considering having one of my PCs kidnapped to push on my players to go down a path that i can provide more story than sand box.. The specific player i was thinking of having kidnapped is already the anti-social one.. The thought is that it may cause some RP side bonding with a very strange group comp. I am worried that it might backfire and they never go looking for their friend.
Has anyone ever played the kidnapped card with a PC and how did it go over?
Splitting the party is rarely conducive to a good game; while sometimes it just happens, I would avoid doing it on purpose, particularly if you already have some concerns about group dynamics.
I've personally used this once and it didn't work so well.
A useful replacement is your party either getting hired to find a kidnapped NPC or having an NPC the party cares about being kidnapped!!! These alternatives worked well for me and a DM friend!!!
Players do not, do not, like having their characters captured. Often they will fight to the death instead of allowing it. And it kind of begs the question of how you would do it. Every character has a suite of abilities, (the monk can outrun the kidnappers, the barbarian will rage and smash through the door, the Druid will turn into a bird and fly away, etc.) why didn’t they get to use their powers? Maybe instead of a character kidnapped, someone close to a character is kidnapped, and that spurs the rescue mission, as someone said above, I now see.
And on another note, is the character anti-social, or the player. If the player is, you may be trying to solve the wrong problem. Some people are just shy and don’t like talking during games. Don’t try and force someone to play differently than they want. I’m not saying they’re right, it could be you have incompatible play styles. Just don’t try and make them into something they are not. If you meant the character is, not the player, then please disregard.
Depending on how detailed the PC's back stories are I would go with something like "The party receives word that a PC's family member has been kidnapped". This is a good solution to the above problems, and hopefully will generate more buy in from the party then a kidnapped NPC or someone hiring them to rescue someone they don't know or care about. This is a good way to make it personal for the PC's without having to kidnap a PC, which as stated above has a lot of drawbacks.(weakening the party, separating the party, party abandonment).
Has anyone ever played the kidnapped card with a PC and how did it go over?
Somethig similar happened in a game I used to be in.
The result was an entire evening (3 hours realtime!) of the remaining players discussing, in character, whether or not to go rescue the missing character, while the player of the missing character sat bored out of their mind and the GM stewed.
In my games, I try to avoid this situation by setting the expectation right at the beginning. "A requirement for this game is that your characters all know each other, like each other well enough to be an adventuring team. You are all loyal to each other. No loners, no splitters." Its part of the social contract of the game.
"If your character wouldn't go rescue the other PCs if they were kidnapped then make a new character, because your current character is not appropriate for this game."
A quest to rescue a kidnapping victim has loads of potential ... if the victim's an NPC.
Making a PC the victim. In the "best case" you're juggling a split party situation, one in which maybe the victim actually escapes on their own, so you're basically running the regular game and a solo side quest ... it's ... unwieldy.
If you've made it impossible for the victim PC to escape by removing all possible agency from the PC, literally put them in The DonJon ... you've de facto suspended a player. Said player would have every right to feel unfairly penalized. I mean, if they're the sort of "armchair audience" player type ... you could exploit it, but I think even there you're still doing the player a disservice by not encouraging the player to actually play. I mean if you've made escape for the PC victim impossible, what are you going to do, subject them to villainous monologues, cruel and unusual conditions of confinement, torture the psychic echoes of which will register in the rescuing PCs dreams? You've turned a PC into a prop or macguffin.
A kidnapping victim is excellent motivation, but a crappy experience if its only applied to one PC.
I would only kidnap a PC if that PC goes down in combat and the rest of the party is also subdued in combat, using fair combat mechanics. If you kidnap a player and there's nothing they could've done to prevent it, you're going to break the party's immersion by taking them out of the game and putting them in a cutscene, and you'll also make the players feel un-cool and un-heroic, which is the opposite of why they play the game.
So it's not impossible to do and do effectively, it just has to be done in a very certain way.
Pretty much the only time the party should split is downtime, so they can do their individual bits and bobs. The captured PC's player might as well not turn up for the game until they get rescued.
If the player is already kind of anti-social, how do you think selecting them to get captured is going to make them feel? I can assure you they are NOT going to feel special that you chose them to sit out for the whole session while the rest of the party figures out what to do. Depending on the players they might choose to not rescue the PC in a timely manner, or might not do so at all.
You should not capture a lone PC. By extension you cannot force the party to rescue them. Nothing about that is fun.
However subduing the entire party can work. "Out of the Abyss" is one such adventure where the party are prisoners of the Drow.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
So I'm going to offer an alternative opinion to what seems to be the general consensus based on my personal experience.
I once had two of my PCs kidnapped for story reasons. The scenario was, a certain enemy had infiltrated the party while the party were travelling through a dangerous region and attacked them after they had partially exhausted themselves in combat. The party fought back, but were defeated and the PCs kidnapped.
What I had their players do was roll up temporary characters (the kidnapping was the end of the session so they had plenty of time to prepare and as a general rule, I tell my players to have backup characters ready just in case). This went down very well. They players really enjoyed trying out different characters/classes for a few sessions (one of them enjoyed it so much, he considered not reverting to his old character once he had been rescued). As a whole it made for a very fun and exciting quest for the entire group.
I didn't really have any worries that the party wouldn't go rescue their friends, but it helped that one of the PCs had been carrying the item the party were in charge of protecting (this was just a coincidence, but if you're unsure of what the party would do and want to tip the balance in the kidnapped PC's favour, you could provide more incentive than just rescuing their friend - maybe it's a recurring enemy or maybe there's something valuable at the location the PC is being held or ...). The only caveat I would mention is, my players had/have very good group cohesion. We'd been playing together for some time by that occasion and many of us were friends outside the campaign. If you're unsure about the people in your campaign, I would either wait a bit until you each other better or not do it at all.
You could check out either of the below episodes from the dnd streams Critical Role and High Rollers (though these will provide spoilers for both shows even if you are watching or intend to watch either of the series and haven't go this far yet)
Critical Role Campaign 1, ep. 97
High Rollers Campaign 2 Ep 109/110
So in conclusion, I personally don't think it's a bad thing and it can provide a lot of fun if done properly. I would always make sure to keep players active, even if their [primary] character is missing. And, again, if you're not sure the players will go rescue the kidnapped PC, then get certain or don't do it, because otherwise that will be a very quick path to party dissolution, I would imagine.
This has been really helpful, The different points of view are a staggering amount of insight.
The player is RP anti social... and shy about the two new comers to the group. I had not considered how sidelining them for 1 session I hoped could make them feel.
The idea of a different PC's family member being kidnapped would probably rally them faster, thank you for that suggestion. Or the idea of a kidnapping of someone with a valuable item to someone in the party...
Again thanks, I now have options to nudge them off center.
I might suggest that you really reconsider this thought.
All of the players that I can think of, absolutely hatewhen a DM takes away their agency and railroads them down a path they didn't choose and are unwilling to pursue on their own. My own players didn't like the idea that one of their PC party members was being arrested for a crime against the city-state (looking at you Goose-killer!) and nearly TPK'd because of it. Given the choice, PCs might fight to the death more frequently than we actually do in our world currently. I'm going to guess that your players and their PCs aren't much different.
I'm also unsure about the idea of singling out the anti-social player, and forcing them to be the focus of attention. I would think that this might work counter to your idea of the player enjoying the sudden attention and opportunity to bond with the other players in a roleplay fashion. If the player-in-question wanted to do as much, they probably would have on their own.
Drop them a plot hook to save an NPC from kidnappers who actually threaten the NPC with death. And that death will have in game boons or negative consequences for the party. I would lean heavily away from making the party the plot hook that gets kidnapped. What you're suggesting doesn't sound like a fun time for a lot of reasons that violate the DDB TOS.
Good luck and focus on fun!
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I have some concerns. If I'm reading this right you're trying to steer your players into a storyline and away from the open world sandbox play they've been doing. If they're enjoying the way they're playing right now I'd caution that you don't want to do anything that will push them that way. The best approach is to give them something that entices them and makes them want to chase that storyline thread. Oherwise, whether it's a kidnapping plot or whatever, the players are going to know you're putting them on rails and feel the constraints of the non-sandbox storyline you're pushing them toward.
My entire group is currently on a trip through Hell, to recover our Barbarian, who, via Deck of Many Things, found himself here. Player is currently playing a fill in member, Pal-Lock. This was player driven, however, so a little different, I guess. Annoying for all of us, but, sadly, well within what that character would have impulsively done.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
My entire group is currently on a trip through Hell, to recover our Barbarian, who, via Deck of Many Things, found himself here. Player is currently playing a fill in member, Pal-Lock. This was player driven, however, so a little different, I guess. Annoying for all of us, but, sadly, well within what that character would have impulsively done.
Deck of Many Things is a literal "game changer," in this case, making a PC a quest object and the PC's former player changing the party composition.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The problem is player agency. Kidnapping a PC is a great way to give everyone else in the party a big ticking clock to motivate them. But for that one player who is kidnapped, you ostensibly get to spend the next few sessions trapped in a box with nothing to do. Not a good time. This problem can be fixed. A simple solution is to arrange for the kidnapped character to learn something important to the group or to effect their own escape. Experience has taught me not to try for a kidnapping more than once in a campaign. If you play this card, you won't get to play it again. Does the story warrant it?
I had a player voluntarily request to have his player be side-lined. He wanted to pick up Warlock levels and the goal was to take the character out of the picture for a bit to make his pact. So the player picked his spot, had his character go crazy and dive into the ocean. The characters didn't know what happened, tried to search for him, but nothing came of it. It was a great bit of role-playing, and it's going to lead to some interesting story lines down the road. The character has yet to make his return, but I'm plotting how that will happen.
So kind of similar to what you're wanting to do. But there are two things that worked in favor of this scenario:
1. Me and the player worked it out ahead of time, and it was something he wanted. 2. The player has a second character, so he can still play the game while the story works itself out.
If the problem you want to tackle is the anti-social nature of the player than what you should probably do is have a conversation outside the game to find solutions to work it out.
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I am really considering having one of my PCs kidnapped to push on my players to go down a path that i can provide more story than sand box.. The specific player i was thinking of having kidnapped is already the anti-social one.. The thought is that it may cause some RP side bonding with a very strange group comp. I am worried that it might backfire and they never go looking for their friend.
Has anyone ever played the kidnapped card with a PC and how did it go over?
Splitting the party is rarely conducive to a good game; while sometimes it just happens, I would avoid doing it on purpose, particularly if you already have some concerns about group dynamics.
I've personally used this once and it didn't work so well.
A useful replacement is your party either getting hired to find a kidnapped NPC or having an NPC the party cares about being kidnapped!!! These alternatives worked well for me and a DM friend!!!
Hope this helped!!!
Players do not, do not, like having their characters captured.
Often they will fight to the death instead of allowing it. And it kind of begs the question of how you would do it. Every character has a suite of abilities, (the monk can outrun the kidnappers, the barbarian will rage and smash through the door, the Druid will turn into a bird and fly away, etc.) why didn’t they get to use their powers?
Maybe instead of a character kidnapped, someone close to a character is kidnapped, and that spurs the rescue mission, as someone said above, I now see.
And on another note, is the character anti-social, or the player. If the player is, you may be trying to solve the wrong problem. Some people are just shy and don’t like talking during games. Don’t try and force someone to play differently than they want. I’m not saying they’re right, it could be you have incompatible play styles. Just don’t try and make them into something they are not.
If you meant the character is, not the player, then please disregard.
Depending on how detailed the PC's back stories are I would go with something like "The party receives word that a PC's family member has been kidnapped". This is a good solution to the above problems, and hopefully will generate more buy in from the party then a kidnapped NPC or someone hiring them to rescue someone they don't know or care about. This is a good way to make it personal for the PC's without having to kidnap a PC, which as stated above has a lot of drawbacks.(weakening the party, separating the party, party abandonment).
Somethig similar happened in a game I used to be in.
The result was an entire evening (3 hours realtime!) of the remaining players discussing, in character, whether or not to go rescue the missing character, while the player of the missing character sat bored out of their mind and the GM stewed.
In my games, I try to avoid this situation by setting the expectation right at the beginning. "A requirement for this game is that your characters all know each other, like each other well enough to be an adventuring team. You are all loyal to each other. No loners, no splitters." Its part of the social contract of the game.
"If your character wouldn't go rescue the other PCs if they were kidnapped then make a new character, because your current character is not appropriate for this game."
A quest to rescue a kidnapping victim has loads of potential ... if the victim's an NPC.
Making a PC the victim. In the "best case" you're juggling a split party situation, one in which maybe the victim actually escapes on their own, so you're basically running the regular game and a solo side quest ... it's ... unwieldy.
If you've made it impossible for the victim PC to escape by removing all possible agency from the PC, literally put them in The DonJon ... you've de facto suspended a player. Said player would have every right to feel unfairly penalized. I mean, if they're the sort of "armchair audience" player type ... you could exploit it, but I think even there you're still doing the player a disservice by not encouraging the player to actually play. I mean if you've made escape for the PC victim impossible, what are you going to do, subject them to villainous monologues, cruel and unusual conditions of confinement, torture the psychic echoes of which will register in the rescuing PCs dreams? You've turned a PC into a prop or macguffin.
A kidnapping victim is excellent motivation, but a crappy experience if its only applied to one PC.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I would only kidnap a PC if that PC goes down in combat and the rest of the party is also subdued in combat, using fair combat mechanics. If you kidnap a player and there's nothing they could've done to prevent it, you're going to break the party's immersion by taking them out of the game and putting them in a cutscene, and you'll also make the players feel un-cool and un-heroic, which is the opposite of why they play the game.
So it's not impossible to do and do effectively, it just has to be done in a very certain way.
Pretty much the only time the party should split is downtime, so they can do their individual bits and bobs. The captured PC's player might as well not turn up for the game until they get rescued.
Players hate to get captured
Players HATE getting captured.
If the player is already kind of anti-social, how do you think selecting them to get captured is going to make them feel? I can assure you they are NOT going to feel special that you chose them to sit out for the whole session while the rest of the party figures out what to do. Depending on the players they might choose to not rescue the PC in a timely manner, or might not do so at all.
You should not capture a lone PC. By extension you cannot force the party to rescue them. Nothing about that is fun.
However subduing the entire party can work. "Out of the Abyss" is one such adventure where the party are prisoners of the Drow.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
So I'm going to offer an alternative opinion to what seems to be the general consensus based on my personal experience.
I once had two of my PCs kidnapped for story reasons. The scenario was, a certain enemy had infiltrated the party while the party were travelling through a dangerous region and attacked them after they had partially exhausted themselves in combat. The party fought back, but were defeated and the PCs kidnapped.
What I had their players do was roll up temporary characters (the kidnapping was the end of the session so they had plenty of time to prepare and as a general rule, I tell my players to have backup characters ready just in case). This went down very well. They players really enjoyed trying out different characters/classes for a few sessions (one of them enjoyed it so much, he considered not reverting to his old character once he had been rescued). As a whole it made for a very fun and exciting quest for the entire group.
I didn't really have any worries that the party wouldn't go rescue their friends, but it helped that one of the PCs had been carrying the item the party were in charge of protecting (this was just a coincidence, but if you're unsure of what the party would do and want to tip the balance in the kidnapped PC's favour, you could provide more incentive than just rescuing their friend - maybe it's a recurring enemy or maybe there's something valuable at the location the PC is being held or ...). The only caveat I would mention is, my players had/have very good group cohesion. We'd been playing together for some time by that occasion and many of us were friends outside the campaign. If you're unsure about the people in your campaign, I would either wait a bit until you each other better or not do it at all.
You could check out either of the below episodes from the dnd streams Critical Role and High Rollers (though these will provide spoilers for both shows even if you are watching or intend to watch either of the series and haven't go this far yet)
Critical Role Campaign 1, ep. 97
High Rollers Campaign 2 Ep 109/110
So in conclusion, I personally don't think it's a bad thing and it can provide a lot of fun if done properly. I would always make sure to keep players active, even if their [primary] character is missing. And, again, if you're not sure the players will go rescue the kidnapped PC, then get certain or don't do it, because otherwise that will be a very quick path to party dissolution, I would imagine.
I hope this helps.
Thank you all,
This has been really helpful, The different points of view are a staggering amount of insight.
The player is RP anti social... and shy about the two new comers to the group. I had not considered how sidelining them for 1 session I hoped could make them feel.
The idea of a different PC's family member being kidnapped would probably rally them faster, thank you for that suggestion. Or the idea of a kidnapping of someone with a valuable item to someone in the party...
Again thanks, I now have options to nudge them off center.
I might suggest that you really reconsider this thought.
All of the players that I can think of, absolutely hate when a DM takes away their agency and railroads them down a path they didn't choose and are unwilling to pursue on their own. My own players didn't like the idea that one of their PC party members was being arrested for a crime against the city-state (looking at you Goose-killer!) and nearly TPK'd because of it. Given the choice, PCs might fight to the death more frequently than we actually do in our world currently. I'm going to guess that your players and their PCs aren't much different.
I'm also unsure about the idea of singling out the anti-social player, and forcing them to be the focus of attention. I would think that this might work counter to your idea of the player enjoying the sudden attention and opportunity to bond with the other players in a roleplay fashion. If the player-in-question wanted to do as much, they probably would have on their own.
Drop them a plot hook to save an NPC from kidnappers who actually threaten the NPC with death. And that death will have in game boons or negative consequences for the party. I would lean heavily away from making the party the plot hook that gets kidnapped. What you're suggesting doesn't sound like a fun time for a lot of reasons that violate the DDB TOS.
Good luck and focus on fun!
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I have some concerns. If I'm reading this right you're trying to steer your players into a storyline and away from the open world sandbox play they've been doing. If they're enjoying the way they're playing right now I'd caution that you don't want to do anything that will push them that way. The best approach is to give them something that entices them and makes them want to chase that storyline thread. Oherwise, whether it's a kidnapping plot or whatever, the players are going to know you're putting them on rails and feel the constraints of the non-sandbox storyline you're pushing them toward.
My entire group is currently on a trip through Hell, to recover our Barbarian, who, via Deck of Many Things, found himself here. Player is currently playing a fill in member, Pal-Lock. This was player driven, however, so a little different, I guess. Annoying for all of us, but, sadly, well within what that character would have impulsively done.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Deck of Many Things is a literal "game changer," in this case, making a PC a quest object and the PC's former player changing the party composition.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The problem is player agency. Kidnapping a PC is a great way to give everyone else in the party a big ticking clock to motivate them. But for that one player who is kidnapped, you ostensibly get to spend the next few sessions trapped in a box with nothing to do. Not a good time. This problem can be fixed. A simple solution is to arrange for the kidnapped character to learn something important to the group or to effect their own escape. Experience has taught me not to try for a kidnapping more than once in a campaign. If you play this card, you won't get to play it again. Does the story warrant it?
I had a player voluntarily request to have his player be side-lined. He wanted to pick up Warlock levels and the goal was to take the character out of the picture for a bit to make his pact. So the player picked his spot, had his character go crazy and dive into the ocean. The characters didn't know what happened, tried to search for him, but nothing came of it. It was a great bit of role-playing, and it's going to lead to some interesting story lines down the road. The character has yet to make his return, but I'm plotting how that will happen.
So kind of similar to what you're wanting to do. But there are two things that worked in favor of this scenario:
1. Me and the player worked it out ahead of time, and it was something he wanted.
2. The player has a second character, so he can still play the game while the story works itself out.
If the problem you want to tackle is the anti-social nature of the player than what you should probably do is have a conversation outside the game to find solutions to work it out.