Game Ideas Un limited: Catch

  The cat caught a mouse last night.  (I won't go into which cat; one of the cats caught a mouse.)  I saw it carrying the pitiable vermin around in its maw.  I learned years ago not to take a mouse from a cat.  One of our cats had a mouse in its mouth, and I, thinking the prey was dead, coaxed the animal to release it.  The mouse was not dead then, and immediately escaped my hand and slipped out of sight.  The cat looked at me like I was a complete imbecile, and I'll admit I did not feel so clever at that moment.

  This mouse, too, was still alive.  The cat would periodically release it and snatch it up again, in a grand game of, well, cat and mouse--not the variety of hide and seek where the one is always chasing the other, but the real version of the game in which the cat constantly catches the mouse and releases it so it can catch it again.  The cat wants the mouse to entertain it.  I've never know a cat to eat a mouse; eventually the carcass will be found somewhere, when the mouse can no longer withstand the cat's sadistic interest.

  If that bothers you terribly, I beg your indulgence.  I'm going somewhere with this; and the next place I'm going is a children's television show that some of you just might have watched as children.  I had the joy of watching it only because I had children.  It would be Jim Henson's television masterpiece, Fraggle Rock.  If you're not familiar with the concept, somewhere, possibly underground but probably in some alternate dimension that happens to be entered through an oversized crack in a wall of some guy's workshop, there are a bunch of little creatures who look like very colorful leprechauns, perhaps, whose entire lives consist of dancing, singing, and having adventures.  When they have real problems, they have to go ask the great all-knowing oracle, the Trash Heap.  Unfortunately, to get to Madame Trash Heap, they have to pass through the Gorgs' garden.  There are three Gorgs, The King of the Universe, The Queen of the Universe, and their son, Junior Gorg, who calls them Ma and Pa.  Ma hates and fears Fraggles, as stereotypical women fear mice, and she generally wants them destroyed.  Junior, however, is always trying to catch them alive.  On one occasion he manages to do so, caging several of the five starring Fraggles we follow from week to week, and leaving the others to try to find a way to free them.

  Why does Junior Gorg catch the Fraggles?  He eventually explains it to them.  He doesn't have any friends, and he wants someone to play with, so he figured if he caught the Fraggles and put them in a cage he could play with them.  O.K., so being the only Gorg Junior has ever known besides his parents, he wasn't terribly well socialized, and didn't understand that you don't make friends with people, or even with Fraggles, by catching them and locking them in a cage.

  It reminded me of a scenario I designed once but never ran.  No one ever got that far in that particular dungeon (I ran it twice from the beginning, but the first group only just reached that area when it dissolved for social reasons, and the second group barely scratched the surface when it, too, fell apart).  The expectation was that the character party would travel through a very large room into a more confined area, where they would probably encounter a seemingly weak contingent of kobolds who were nevertheless numerous and smart enough to recognize when they were overmatched.  These could send a messenger out the back door, which would bring large numbers of considerably more potent creatures in behind the character party, putting them in a box.  Duergar, Ogre Magi, and Fire Giants were among the reinforcements slated to arrive.  The expectation and hope was that the party would be captured alive.

  If the monsters succeeded in capturing the player characters, they would immediately take them to a large hole in the floor and throw them down sixty feet to a lower level, where there were a few dragons wandering around.  What made this particularly interesting was that I was fairly certain when I designed it (and more so as I watched the character party grow and approach that moment) that the players would have enough tricks up their sleeves that they could keep everyone alive as they were thrown down, and that the dragons which were there, fierce and threatening though they were, were no match for our heroes.  In essence, I had designed a situation in which an overwhelming and deadly enemy would take them alive to give them over to a considerably less deadly enemy that the first enemy happened to fear greatly.

  The one uncertainty about that scenario was whether the player characters would in fact surrender.  That game system didn't have too many ways for the player characters to be taken prisoner without their consent; there weren't options for subduing damage, and most techniques for catching people were unusual.  There are some players who inherently believe that the referee would never face them against an enemy or obstacle that they could not overcome, and so would plow into these with full assurance that they could win if they did everything right and the dice weren't too unfavorable.  I have read horror stories from referees who designed overwhelming scenarios expecting player characters to retreat, only to see them go down in flames trying to beat the odds.  It is rather difficult to communicate to players that the best option is to surrender.  You can face them with a hundred aimed crossbows and shout, Lower your weapons and surrender, and we won't kill you, only to hear a rallying cry from a captain ready to go down with the ship.

  Yet there are ways to take them alive, and very interesting possibilities for what to do from there.

  Most player groups assume that if they are in an inn or other civilized sleeping area, they are safe.  If the inn is taken in the night, and the occupants rousted from their beds and gathered in the common room in their night clothes, there's not much that can be done about that.

  I've read of lidded pit traps in modules; these usually only catch the people in front, however, so they're not much use for grabbing an entire party.  Dead ends with dropping portcullises or sliding walls make for a better trap, although there had better be something to reinforce the capture if the party is likely to be able to bend the bars or shift the weights.

  The characters could be lured into some place that is itself the trap.  I envision a floating casino or other traveling entertainment facility which they believe will remain docked for the night, but actually sets sail for a secluded pirate island, the crew perhaps drugging their drinks on the way.

  Enemies that use capture weapons can be effective, if there are enough of them.  Lassos can be cut, perhaps; man catchers are more difficult to escape.  Creatures with tentacles, or sticking threads; sleep magic and knockout gas; non-fatal poison and stunning attacks; all these things can be used to create a high chance that the player characters will be taken alive.

  Once you have them, what do you do with them?

  In some games, they can be questioned.  Even when there would be no reason to expect this, it can be possible.  The heroes may have come out to investigate claims that there are orcs in the caves; the orcs may be planning to attack the local villages, and may take this opportunity to attempt to gain information about the defenses.

  Of course, in the original James Bond film, Goldfinger, there is a moment when Bond is strapped to a table about to be cut to cube steak by a laser, and he says to the villain, "I suppose you expect me to talk."  The answer that comes with a laugh is, "No, Mister Bond.  I expect you to die."  But of course the hero is left unattended, and is able to escape the device.  Thus we have the possibility of the player characters being captured and then ordered to be executed, but having the opportunity to play through an escape and a turning of the tables against the foe.

  My cat and Junior Gorg have something in common that has possibilities.  Neither of them intend any harm to their captives, really.  They are curious; they want to be entertained.  Player characters could be imprisoned by some being that is lonely, that wants company.  The captor could be of a scientific bent, studying strange creatures in captivity.

  It has even happened in fiction that some group has captured a hero because they needed help, and this was the only way they knew to get it.  I remember a Superman story years ago (so long ago it may have been the weekly strip in the Sunday New York Times I read in grade school) in which Clark Kent was covering the discovery of a rock of an unidentified composition and structure, and he became aware that there were tiny people with very high technological abilities inside this stone.  Before he could react to this knowledge, though, they fired some sort of ray at him.  Over the next few days, he shrank until he was their size, and so went to confront them, to find out why they had attacked him.  It was not their intent to attack him.  They needed his help to fix their spaceship (the rock) so they could leave Earth and continue their journey home.  Easily repairing the breach in their hull, he watched them leave as they fired the ray to reverse the process and restore him to normal size.  (O.K., the story is full of holes; but the idea is there.)  This could be particularly useful if the person in need of help is a villain of a sort the player characters would normally kill or capture, but his cause in this case is something quite reasonable which should put them on his side.  Even villains are sometimes in the right, but they don't expect heroes to listen to them if they don't have some way to force the conversation.

  You can't do this all the time.  There's a good chance that if you've taken the party prisoner once by luring them onto a boat, they'll stay off boats from then on; and if you've captured the inn while they're asleep, they'll keep a watch even when they're home thereafter.  Player characters have reason to be paranoid in some games, because if something can go wrong, it will.  But if you don't overdo it, capturing your player characters can be the beginning of some very interesting adventures.

  Next week, something different.

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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.