All this planning smacks against the First Law of Player Characters. "No thing nor any group of things will function as intended once interacted with by the PC group." The Second Law being "The PCs are simultaneously incredibly dumb and destructively intelligent."

@RylanEdlin

6 жыл бұрын

Harlan Kempf My group accidentally skipped over a whole act that had been planned out because one of our players managed to figure out the location of the BBEG

@pakidara2000

6 жыл бұрын

I showed a group I used to play with just how devastating a Bard in 3.5 could be. We entered an antechamber of a self-proclaimed "King Gnoll" in a recently taken castle. I soothed it via music so it was only disgruntled (and slightly confused) instead of murderous (he put his weapon away). I calmed it by claiming to worship the same god (passed a few knowledge checks and a bluff check). I distracted it while an evil-cleric PC grabbed some rope out of his pack and started to tie it up (Performance from me, slight-of-hand from Cleric, sense motive and perception from the gnoll). I stunned it once it figured out what was happening and tried to go hostile (previously readied spell) and helped the Cleric finish tying the Gnoll up via brute force. We took the crown and tossed the Gnoll out of the window. He plummeted to his gooey death. He was made to handle 6 PC's in combat by himself XD.

@MiningwithPudding

6 жыл бұрын

My multi-class PC cast an ice-wall through his spider familiar to almost one-shot Strahd. I was going to have Strahd basically go all Gorilla warfare on the party, he didn't see the spider.

@Eruann

7 ай бұрын

😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊 6:35 😊

@Eruann

7 ай бұрын

​@@RylanEdlin😅😊😊😅😊😊😊😊

My cardinal rule: One objective, multiple solutions.

@dvklaveren

6 жыл бұрын

Yup, agreed. Cardinal rule of "One is None. Two is One. Three is Two." Related is the "Comedy of Threes".

@snoote533

Жыл бұрын

Ye

I used the prison escape scenario as an introduction to the game. The PC's are all Lv. 1, no gears, no abilities. The baddies are just your average cannon-fodder with AC12, 12 HP and deals 1d4 damage (zombies, ghouls, orcs, whatever). Have some boxes lying around, some tables, torches, etc. for them to play with.

The reason that Star Wars meme exists is because the troopers were ordered to let them escape, so the heroes can lead the empire to their rebel base.

This is particularly timely, because I need to start planning a heist mission for next week's session. And really, a heist is just a prison break that also includes breaking in, then back out.

This channel is underated. Keep making vids, you've been helping me immensily with my campaign and playing!

I love to start a campaign with a prison break. Gives an obvious objective for the pcs to rally around. Lots of teamwork, lots of options and many interesting variations

@Never_heart

6 жыл бұрын

Tristan Cotton That is actually so true. That has so much potential. I will remember that.

@MW-ty5zw

6 жыл бұрын

Check out the first 1-2 hours of Divinity Original Sin 2 act 1. You can escape in many ways.

@30noir

6 жыл бұрын

The Elder Scrolls school of RP :-)

@thescottishanimeguy9946

6 жыл бұрын

Tristan Cotton I am going to start a dnd campaign with the drow as the evil guys and it will start out with a very short siege

@fhuber7507

5 жыл бұрын

But... the pally won't play prison break... he wants to wait for his trial and is CERTAIN that he will be found INNOCENT!" Similarly other Lawful characters just won't try to escape unless pretty much forced, such as Judge Dread when the transport to prison, after the trial, crashes. He had zero plans to escape before that.

... I *just* finished GMing a prison escape... Fuck...

@alcandersliver

6 жыл бұрын

How'd the session go?

@Q_Tura

6 жыл бұрын

I railroad it a bunch. It was set to make the players meet each others. One of the player said no to escaping without having the entire army chasing them. So I made it a rescue mission by an NPC mercenary that had the job of freeing them(with a logical reason at least). So, it turned into a rescue mission because I understood that the way it was going, they would had been in jail for 3 entire sessions or they would had needed to defeat an entire army. Fleeing was not an option because of how the prison and the entire "Castle" was built. I am still not proud of myself for railroading the events, but it was either that or going back to jail. Brute force was simply not the way to go for escaping this prison. The prison was in a dungeon and to escape the castle above the dungeon, they needed the help of multiple people strong enough to lift a platform and who would willingly stay behind. I mean, they knew that the place was built with incredibly high defense. It went well in the end, but I know this was far from being the best session for any of us.

@Q_Tura

6 жыл бұрын

Also, because of all that railroading I did, it kept the players from working together as a team to escape. But very soon, I will fix that with an intense fight. It will be a 8 VS 30 fight. They are the group of 8. (I added some NPCS to make it more fair for them.) The settings are set for all attacks to be highly damaging and realistic. PC and NPC can all be killed with an arrow to the head. All need to dodge or block to stay alive. So yeah, they will have to work together to succeed. If they do things extraordinarily, they will gain allies to their cause. If they simply succeed, them and the NPC will simply leave on friendly term. If they fail, some NPC will be dead, they would need to run away if they don't wanna die. If they fuck up, they will get captured, all NPC beside one will be dead and that NPC will see the players as responsible for the fuck up. Which will make them more enemies. Unlike for the prison break, I am ready for this fight.

@Q_Tura

6 жыл бұрын

I mean, I really tried to make them escape in a stealth way so they would not have to fight an army to do so but only to stay low and walk really stealthily to an exit. They would had needed to take the sewage system. I even crit rolled for a player to take a set of keys from a guard stealthily. But I rolled for the wrong player... The player unlocked their cell door and attacked the guards. The player was alone in a corridor in a fight against five trained guard that fight like Spartans(they block attacks for each others). But with that set of guards, their was an officer. In other word, if that officer went missing because they got killed by a prisoner. Other soldiers would had search for the officer, noticed that said officer was killed and that a bunch of prisoners escaped. The alarm would had been activated and the place would had been in a "Martial state". Was I cruel for making the place describe as a "Military Powerhouse" to be really hard to escape by brute strength and that they would be really efficient if something like a prison outbreak happened? I mean, the biggest strength of that place is their high defense. Am I a bad GM for railroading them into a path that would not lead to a certain death? Or should I had maid the place that had everything screaming "Don't try to overtake them by yourself." more easy to overtake by themselves? (I'm really asking what's your opinion on this situation, it's not rhetorical(hoping that's the right word.).)

An excellent video, but didn't you say something about a secret weapon for the warden? You mention it and then say you'll get back to it, but then never do. Unless I missed it, which is possible. Anyway, wonderful tips, and I hope I can use them in a campaign I'll be running soon. Thank you, and keep up the superb videos!

A limbless old guide for my escape from a nightmarish science experiment lab is GENIUS

For an amusing after adventure, you could have the PCs bring to justice one of the NPCs that escaped at the same time that they did. Make sure you have said NPC call them out on this ("first you free me, now you're bringing me back! Are you insane or just bored!?")

@kamikazebanzai1005

5 жыл бұрын

Mad* insane is when you do the same thing over and over expecting something to change

I live this! My fiery time as a player in a home brew my character was the prisoner that the party got to break in and sneek out. As a new player I got to watch the game being played for about 60 min And occasionally say what I was doing. It helped me learn the system with very little pressure on my self. When they finally rescued me I had a not that the dm provided to me to hand out. The party was to accompany me back to my homeland as I was a political prisoner and they would be rewarded with gold. It was a great adventure. I like prison breaks and heists.

I love when I see a topic, and figure I'll give it look and realize how many layers I never considered. This is a great video to watch before running Lady Blackbird.

I made a Black Ops 1 game, and the Vorkuta mission went south immediately.

I'd like to tell a story about the last time I played a prison break. Hopefully there are some things both players and GMs can learn from it. It was the first session of a 5th ed. D&D campaign. The four players (including myself) began the session by waking up in adjacent, individual cells, not sure how we got there. The walls between the cells were solid stone, and embedded in one wall of each cell was a large crystal/gem. These gems were "networked" to a control pedestal at the guard post, and the guards could activate any number of them to cause the gems to discharge magical energy in order to incapacitate the occupants of the corresponding cells. The rogue had been placed in the cell closest to the guard post, and was in the only cell the guards had a clear view of most of the time. My character (a Bronze Dragonborn) was placed in the cell furthest down the hall, in order to minimize the threat area of his lightning breath. Two spell casters (can't remember what exactly) were in the cells between us. We learned within the first few moments after waking up that we were scheduled for execution, but that the headsman was a busy man, so the threat wasn't immediate. After learning this, the rogue wasted no time in testing his cell for weaknesses... right in front of the watching guards. They promptly zapped him for his arrogance, and he was knocked out cold for a while. The rest of us began discretely examining our surroundings, but ultimately found nothing particularly useful, although closer visual inspection of the gem in my cell had given me an idea in case the situation should grow desperate enough. After a little while, the rogue came to, and decided to try to disable the gem in his cell... in full view of the guards once again. They just sat and watched as the gem automatically zapped him for daring to touch it, joking amongst themselves as he lost consciousness for the second time. The rest of us decided to sit patiently and wait for an opportunity to act, knowing the DM would eventually give it to us if we weren't stupid about this. The rogue regained consciousness quicker this time, being out for only a few minutes. Upon waking up, he pulled out a lockpick that he had hidden underneath his skin, and set to work picking the lock... while the guards were looking straight at him. Let me be clear about this: both the player and the character were aware the guards were watching him each of these times; he just didn't care, nor did he bother to wait even a few seconds to see if they'd eventually lose interest in him. The guards zapped him again, only this time, they weren't amused. While the rogue was unconscious, they entered his cell and relieved him of his lockpick. Several minutes later, after waking up for the fourth time, the rogue pulled out a file that he had hidden "elsewhere" on his body, and set to work on the cell bars... while the guards who had grown increasingly irritated with him watched. The guards had finally had enough, so they zapped him again, and then called in reinforcements to move us all to the gallows; our executions had just been moved up. Guards armed with crossbows poured into the cell block, and demanded that we submit. The spell casters in the group had the means to deal with them, but not as long as the gems in our cells still functioned; they'd be zapped at the first indication that they were casting a spell. Having determined that the situation had indeed grown desperate, my Dragonborn decided that attempting his earlier idea was better than doing nothing, and so let loose his lightning breath aimed at the gem in his cell, hoping to overload the circuit and disable them all. Caught completely off guard by this action, and liking the way I was thinking, the DM decided to roll a saving throw for the gem at DC20... and rolled a nat20. My lightning breath dispersed harmlessly over the surface of the gem, and not wanting to take anymore chances, the guards zapped us all. The session ended with the three of us who had still been standing losing consciousness. This was the first campaign the DM had ever tried to run, and we never played a second session. Understanding how rough it can be for a new DM, I was prepared to be patient and allow the scenario to develop at his pace. The rogue's player on the other hand couldn't contain his impatience, and complained afterwards that he never got the opportunity to use his rogue skills, even though the rest of us tried to explain to him that he never even tried waiting for one to arise. Not only that, but each failure caused more scrutiny from the guards, making breaking out that much harder for both himself as well as the rest of us. So, lessons to be learned: Players: *_Don't act like a fool while prison guards are watching you._* GMs: Know your players; if someone has to be doing something all the time, try not to make them sit and wait. Even though some people might want to, I can't really fault the DM on the saving throw; he basically set it to "auto-fail" but ended up rolling a critical success in front of all of us. RNGesus is a fickle God.

@DTux5249

5 жыл бұрын

I kinda expected something along the lines of the rogue wanting to be taken to some type of solitary, or rushed to the gallows just so that he could be in someplace that was less secure and had more opportunities... Guess not But yeah, that's sad on the rogues part "Waddaya mean I can't use a blow torch infront of the guards and not be noticed" What did he think, that he was invisible

I tried a similar thing with the players being slaves. The cleric decided to help the enemy army and joined their ranks and the others did nothing really, so I went for option two: someone rescuing them. Like the others are saying, they never do what you expect.

One of the glitches I threw in before was a sphynx guarding the vault that held the players’ equipment and magic items. It was on break when they saw the vault the first time so when they saw the sphynx they had to convince it they were framed, and then also solve its riddle.

Easiest prison break I ever did was as a druid, got locked up by the queen of the city in a fairly basic dungeon. I Transmuted the walls to mud and flew away on a giant bat laughing my ass off. Do like your point about not building an impenetrable super fortress though.

@Not_what_it_used_to_be

3 жыл бұрын

Jed the Bed the DM didn't take your gear? Easy mode.

@lynxfirenze4994

3 жыл бұрын

@@Not_what_it_used_to_be unless the invisibility turban was itself invisible.

@Not_what_it_used_to_be

3 жыл бұрын

Lynx Firenze maybe.. but I'd make them roll sleight of hand while being strip searched

Prison breaks in a fantasy setting can let even low level casters be the stars. Minor illusions and ventriloquism can distract guards, or the illusion of the warden's voice around the corner can command a guard to open the cell. Cantrips like mage hand make it easy to steal the keys. The DM needs to decide how prepared the prison is for this sort of thing. The local gaol might be easy to walk out of with 1 or 2 spells. The Overlord's secret prison might have anti-magic wards in place and trapped glyphs in all passages that injure anyone not carrying an official guard amulet. Cells could be at the bottom of pits so deep the prisoners' spells can't effectively reach anything. Known casters might be awakened and harassed every 1-2 hours to prevent rest & spell recovery. Finding a flaw to exploit could be a challenge in a prison run by a major power, though I'd never plan for there to be just one right answer. Whatever the players can imagine that works will be, in retrospect, the right answer.

@dynamicworlds1

6 жыл бұрын

Jake B for halfway intelligent prisons, confinement for spellcasters starts with binding & perhaps wrapping hands as well as adding a gag and removing all spell focui & components (At least for D&D-like magic systems) Supposing they have some metamagic at their disposal, trying to find things they can alter to cast in such bindings can be a similar challenge to what you describe for lower level characters.

@rogerwilco2

6 жыл бұрын

But in a fantasy setting spellcasters are nearly always the stars anyway, even more so at higher level. Anything that will keep the spellcasters locked up will certainly work for the more mundane characters.

More than half of my group were imprisoned by Cloud Giants in the Air Plane (our DM quickly started calling it the Plane of Air instead, after we all bursted out laughing, and it has been an inside joke ever since). So our resourceful Drow Elf Sorcerer turned itself invisible and snuck in their fortress. There the Sorcerer decided that it's a good idea to make the prison guard (who was a Cloud Giant) fall into the cell doors in the hopes of breaking them. How would our Sorcerer do all that? Well, first thing is an investigation check if the Cloud Giant can knock down the bars. Rolled low and decided it's a master plan that can't fail! When trying to stab the Cloud Giant the Sorcerer rolled critical one and accidentally plunged the sword into their own shoulder. The guard turns around and sees the blood splatter in midair (the Sorcerer still being invisible, although technically the attack should have dispelled it, but it's better this way). The confused guard asks who did that. Our imprisoned Bard quickly tells the guard it was him. Threatening him with a sword many times the Bard's length the guard tells him to do it again. Our Bard tells the guard to push his sword firmly on his throat. The Bard rolls a good pursuasion check and the guard rolls... Critical One! The guard follows our Bard's instructions, puts the blade on his throat and plunges it into his neck! The guard falls to the ground with the blade falling from his grip. Our now recovered Sorcerer picks up the sword, throws a mighty athletics check and completely lops off the guard's head! After that they could easily enough take the guard's keys and open the cell doors =)

I have a campaign where i start the players as slaves in a Prison Camp on a separate plane. I give them right off the bat the map (excluding the internal layout of the buildings slaves aren't allowed in), as well as their daily schedule. Because they are PC's, I give them the ability to have free time so they can plan IC and get to know some of the NPC slaves there as well as. I've yet to have players fail to escape and i've run this campaign opener about five times. That said, i DON'T make it easy. Sometimes it takes up to 5 sessions to finally escape. There are guards with ranged weapons stationed in sniper positions, patrols, and the like. However i'm not dead set on them escaping a certain way. The only constant is that they have to steal an item from the "Warden" and have it in their possession when they leave the compound. This item teleports them back to the Material Plane as long as it's in their possession when they leave. I've had the players "escape" only to realize they were missing the item and be sent back to the slave housing. I've had the players sneak into the Warden's private chamber and steal the item. I've had players bed the Warden and take the item while they slept. I've had players befriend the Warden and have the item gifted to them. I've had players steal guard weapons and mount a full revolt and take the camp over before figuring out how to actually leave. Every time it's great, and every group does something different, even if some of the players have been through it before. Great video. Awesome advice.

Anyone else see that bit of fluff that he expertly removed without missing a best at 1:48? I couldn't have been the only one. :-)

It's remarkable your timing. There have been a few different videos you have put out that fall right as I am starting to plan something and it is the exact subject I need lol. Good stuff.

As usual, your insights are illuminating and immensely helpful! I always come away with a new outlook on gm'ing!

It's no problem if you're a bit sick or sore when you record, I'm just very grateful you continue to make them. Nice episode I've always heard of the classic prison break beginning but never really known how to execute it. Don't overwork yourself and get well soon.

I've dabbled with this a bit but love the detail u give. There was always the idea that if the absolutely wrong decision was made someone was going to die. Luckily noone picked it

Just started viewing the channel today. Quite insightful.

Decades ago set up a prison situation where the characters were arrested. While awaiting trial, my 12 year old daughter asks "Do the guards look like they'd take a bribe to let us go?" Yes, said I, they look very interested when they see your jingling purse." Later, one of the guards accepted a large bribe to let the characters go, and off they went. Known fugitives they were, but they were free. Meanwhile I had planned a violent breakout, a blackmail scenario where the jailkeeper hired them to do a big bad and freed them. Just to say, no plan survives contact with players.

I think a snarky John Cleese just taught me a few things about D&D. This is amazing!

You sir, are my hero of legend.

Really enjoying these informative videos! Keep up the good work, and get well soon man.

Love that art omg

Omg, what a great timing!My player with a NPC got inprisoned and will try to escape today!Gotta watch this

In the rewatch still a fine video

😄😄😄 My heist ended in not escape but capture, so now I'm looking for an exit...

Perfect, just the inspiration I needed for this Sunday's Eberron game (D&D 3.5)! Prison is a good place to introduce their new party member as well 😎

Just last night (going by US EST 'New York' time zoning) I managed to get out of a local jail by breaking out. Back story time! It's short so don't worry. My previous character had died at the hands of gnolls (which the dm and I discussed and agreed to since we wanted to show some of the other players, who are still fairly new to D&D, that character death can be a real thing and felt like a more experienced pc's death would help them enjoy the thought instead of wanting to leave the group), so I made a chaotic neutral elf ranger to join the group. He was a member of The Moon Clan, essentially a group of different races who had been 'blessed' with a werewolf's bite. When we get in the city of Eastwatch to send information to a member of the clan my character goes on a bit of a rage, nearly killing an officer but ends up being arrested again. At that point the DM says "For a CN character, you're really focusing on the evil side. Why don't we go Neutral Evil instead?" I fell in love with the idea. Now that you are caught up, time to explain how I broke out of the jail. It was a fairly small holding area within the precinct/police station, so it wasn't difficult for me to make my plan. Call the guard over to refill my drinking water bucket, when he returns stab him with my spork-like eating utensil, threaten him to let me out. It worked a bit too well. You see, I told the guard that I had set up explosives and that if I wasn't set free he'd have to burn. Natural 20 in my deception and 23 after modifiers for my intimidation. Needless to say, the guard flings the keys in my cell and runs away, arm bleeding like mad, almost crying for dear life. I then make my way to the front desk and get the idea that I want a friend to escape with, so I'm told that I find another set of keys, a few magical batons, a couple muskets, then I run across the inmate records. Money launderer, no. Petty thief, not feeling it. Man convicted of murder on at least 12 occasions. Yes. I go to his cell while the war forged construct is looking away and toss the keys into his cell, telling him that we're breaking out. He and I go upstairs and get a sneak attack on three lowly guards, nearly instantaneously killing them, then make our way to the armory where our belongings are being held. While disguised as the guards we killed, we get the war forged to let us through with a high deception (17 or 18 which is good for a level 4 character with a +2 stat modifier) and proceed to find 15 pounds (I'm not sure how to translate weight proportions, sorry) of GUNPOWDER! I make that a point and get a warforged to set half of it downstairs and trail the rest upstairs, tell it to wait 30 minutes before lighting the fuse, then the serial killer and I make our way through the service shaft and out the jail. Sounds chaotic mainly, but I become neutral evil soon. I promise. The kaboom happens and I make my way to the inn that the rest of the party had purchased rooms at. Nobody is at the inn since it's the middle of the day and they're searching for the contact through a lead they got from the police. I go to the dwarf's room and find some precious stone tablets he carries with him (after 'collecting taxes' from folks on the street while disguised as a guard) and destroy most of them, leaving only the portrait of his mother intact and pay off the help (50 gold from the 'tax collection') to put it in the front room and told her to give a vague description matching the serial killer I just broke out with if anyone asks where she got it from. So the plan went from "shoot the police because I'm bored" to "use the inmate as a way to get the heat off of me, collect a bounty and betray him in the long run while gaining the friendship of the party by being the deceptive little sneak I am." And that's how I broke out of jail and put the town in terror. Also our stone gnome became quite famous during this time and there waa put put golf somewhere in the earlier part of the day. Hope you enjoyed!

In bigger groups that already know each other (the characters know each other), I tend to try to make some hook beforehand that lures one or two players away from the group before imprisoning them, so that their "outside help" are other PC. The difficult thing there is impeding too much metagaming. The trapped group discusses and tries to get out, the outside group discusses and tries to get them out and the characters can't communicate yet the players most probably do. But in general I like this approach because in the end both "escaping" and "getting rescued" feel like "we (as a character group) did it". Obviously does only work with groups let's say 5 PC and above, and only if you are used to and able to handle split up groups (which has a lot of problems to it).

This really helps give me options and ideas for my first campaign.

@VoidplayLP

6 жыл бұрын

Luke Trust depending on your Partys backround you can use a prison Break as a good start

Im planning a one shot which will be the prequel to my main campaign about escaping a prince from the castle as his loyal friend to help him flee a wedding, and he doesnt want anyone to know where hes going. He has another wife and he fears shed be put to death or to be set aside and theres some prophecy shiz that will come later😊

So good!

Option 1.5: rather than making a flawed prison or rescue scenario, you can have the city or ship or w/e come under attack. The cell door may be blown open but they have to deal with explosions and possibly invaders.

@pasdezebra8684

Жыл бұрын

the jack sparrow scenario

My party was in prison for 2 days, then an NPC showed up and offered to break us out of prison to assassinate the king. Only the explosives where already lit, the Fairy Barbarian and the Rogue/Druid realized they could have just squeezed through the bars with Enlarge/Reduce and Wildshape.

One thing that could even be interesting would be a scenario where an npc from the game is trying to break a completely unrelated criminal and the pc's are able to escape in the ensuing riot... only to find out a few quests down the line that the source of all their strife is the guy that the main villain busted out the same day they escaped... so they owe their freedom and current irritation to the same person!

Another thing you can use to break players out or help them break out is political pressure. If the country they are in is at war, they may be conscripted (by either side). Or perhaps there are public concerns over the safety and capacity of the prison, which may force the prison to attempt to transfer them to another facility or even release them if the charges were fairly minor.

An option could be something called a Skill Challenge in 4th Edition. Give each character a chance to use one of the skills or abilities to contribute to the escape. They have to describe how to use the skill they choose. If they are clever, the DM can accept their approach and make them roll a DC check. The players take turns using different abilities. If they achieve, say 5 successes before they have 3 failures, they get to escape. Adjust the DC to make the situation as hard or as easy as you see fit (Easy could be DC 11). This allows the players to use abilities they may not normally use and think in clever ways. It has some of the tension you get in combat, but they are using stealth, athletics, perception, maybe even religion, persuasion, intimidation).

The most believable reason for a prison to be flawed is the human (or humanoid) factor. Your best bet is to have several key personnel who can be befriended, bribed, coerced or charmed and hope the PCs stumble across at least one.

For an idea on detailed low-performance guards, check Stormreach's city guard in Eberron setting.

My campaign I'm DMing is going to start as a prison break for a couple of the players. We've all worked out a pretty cool origin story together. Players 1 and 2 are a hobgoblin and a goblin, part of a sort of shantytown of goblins and the like. Their most recent raid included taking in a few prisoners, players 3 and 4. Now, P1 is sort of the left-hand man of the hobgoblin head honcho, and they butt heads quite often. He's been wanting to overthrow or leave for a while. He's just received word that head honcho plans to execute all the prisoners, which is taking it too far, so P1 and P2 go to release the prisoners, and together with them and other town members on their side, head to overthrow the chair. Conveniently at the same time, P5 has been sent out on a mission to rescue the prisoners, and comes across them just as they are being released. So now they are all on the same side and go to do their thing. It's going to be awesome.

The savior can also not be on the players' side. It can be a natural catastrophe they have to take advantage of, it can be NPCs saving other NPCs in-story, or Orks raiding a remote prison for fun or because the guards once shot dead one of theirs.

Once during one of my SciFi campaigns in my homebrew universe, my players once managed to get captured by station security after a failed attempt to board and overthrow a whole pirate/slaver ship with only 8 people ( in their party, vs around 30 enemies ). They did manage to escape during the court case against them by calling for recess and jumping the guards, then barricading themselves in the courtroom. One of them died/got captured but the rest managed to get away by sneaking through the vents and hiding with the help of their moss-based alien PC groupmate. They are still being hunted by police to this day.

I seem to remember an escape situation which involved meowing like a cat to justify a noise. It worked as well. A campy adventure, in hindsight.

We had a game with a prision break like half a year ago, and it was awful. The cell was a completely blank place, like a mental asylum. The door was full steel with barely any way of seeing what was going outside. We had a couple magic items we could use but if I'm not mistaken there was also a magical kind of seal so most of our resources were cut. So there were not that many clear solutions that, of course, to the DM were pretty clear. Because all solutions are clear once you know how are they supposed to be resolved. In the end there was a sort of deus ex machina because we were lost for like an hour and a half just standing there in our blank uncommunicated cell.

Amazing

another get out of jail free card could be a big siege on the dungeon to break someone else out, but the player can use that as ether a distraction to slip away, help in forcing the dungeon to surrender, or side with the guards with your freedom as payment, because 3 lost prisoners is better then 50.

I Plan to make a mix between rescue and a actuall prison break. Its a floating prison, only escape by airship, i plane some sessions inside the prison with some adventures and then having the "resucuer" dropping them a lockpick / key and a note wich reads kind of "a airship is on dock X for you, it will leave in 2 hours, be there" in to the cell. So they have still to be smart to get out, but they have some help from outside. So i have even a reason why the guards are bad "You can only escape with a airship so no reason to be specialy on guard"

@Q_Tura

6 жыл бұрын

Ah! The video game escape style! The NPS help the PCs by giving them some tools to escape and secure their "escape route". But the PCs must do all the inside work. I think that's the best set to take. Your players have allies but they must act on their own.

I think it would be really cool to some "Grand Escape From Carceri" You know, since teleportation magic doesn't work. It could be part of the campaign or even be a one-shot

This is a really great video. It doesn't quite match my situation- the NPCs are trying to break one of their partners out of prison. I already have all the options for him to break out from the inside, but I need to come up with a way for them to go in and break him out. I hope that I can use some things from this video, but excellent tips.

I seem to remember a tv show about this... Nevermind, took 18 mins but it came up.

Perfect timing! I'm running a prison break aboard a pirate ship this Friday.

How opportune! The next session of Mutants and Masterminds I'm GMing is a prison break! Thanks for the video

Try ginger tea! Real Ginger shredded and steeped for 5 minutes then Honey (to taste but you must have some) and organic lemon juice (not the artificial lemon juice)! Each part of the tea has a role (ha ha ha not meant as a pun but funny none the less) and the tea is GOOD COLD (makes good ice tea and spicy, the ginger)!

Huh, good to know I'm on a good track. The campaign setting I'm working on involves 2 continents. My idea for session 1 is that the player characters are on a ship taking them from their homeland to a colony, and I have several reasons for why. The easy one is they're adventurous types and actually like the idea of going to a colony where things aren't quite so nicely under wraps. One (or several, since there's a number of problems that will lead to this reason) is that they've been exiled. Or as Britain called it at one time, sentenced to transportation. (The continents aren't a plain allegory for Europe/Britain and Australia, but there are some similarities.) Anyway, my solution to the criminal cause for them being on the ship is a pirate attack. The pirates will ram their ship, which causes just enough damage on the rowing deck that they manage to break free. The battle will be obviously in favor of the ship's crew - an extra detachment of marines due to recent piracy problems is a good excuse for that - so, presumably, my players will help the crew. While the crew could have won regardless, they'll be grateful enough to just have them be exiled. Nothing official, mind, they, ah, died in the pirate attack and were buried at sea. Yes, of course, oh well, the work crews have plenty of other prisoners to bolster their numbers. The result will be that they're turned loose with no official status as colonists, but they'll be alive and have their stuff. Formally registered colonists might get some kind of benefits - I'm not sure how much I want to mirror actual colonialism; I know I don't want to get into the messy issues regarding treatment of aboriginals; I've got British and American folks in the group, so if I skirt too close to British Colonialism, I'll probably have either widely varying levels of engagement or touch off the second revolutionary war. I mean....before I actually set up the separatist faction in the colony. Which will be a couple of stories down the road, unless one of the PCs stages a Tea Party or something.

Izack i finally got his comic!

Long time viewer, first time Patreon subscriber. I'm curious as to how the maps will be sent out; Patreon did not ask me for my address. Great video, though. This is going to be of great use when I start my campaign as a prison-break!

That's a whole different kettle of fish all together

I honestly just let my players try anything to escape prison, and i usually let it succeed. Depending on how things go in a future session, they might get rescued

I feel like Black Ops 2 a prison break if the PCs are struggling to think of a way to escape. And by that you can have an NPC in the prison bring a plan of escape forward, especially of they try and fail to escape once or twice.

How do you handle the players losing all equipment? A Prison Break story is unique in that they can't use ANY of their stuff (weapons, armor, thieves tools, 50' of rope, etc....). Also they might escape with their lives but have to leave behind all of their stuff. Higher-level characters might prefer to remain in prison rather than escaping without their valuable stuff (magic weapons, magic items, armor, familiars, treasure, etc.), which they probably rightfully feel has become an integral part of their characters. I have ended up having to allow the PCs to find a room on their way out which contains ALL of their previous inventory. I don't like how stilted it feels to resolve this problem in this way. It is unrealistic that their items haven't been looted/swiped by miscreant guards, etc., and just so that I don't have to do a complete audit of their inventories and tell them you can get *this* back, but *that* probably would have been swiped by one of the guards, or held in a more secure location, taken away for study, broken in transit, etc., royally pissing off the players. Some character classes might do better than others with the idea of starting over with nothing, but that probably will not seem fair to all of the players. For example, magic users reduced to no equipment might still be effective magic users (if the GM allows them to acquire and use spell components), while hardware-based characters such as fighters, might be much less effective characters without their heavy armor and weapons. In time, the fighter's weapons can be easily replaced -- but without all the +1s and +2s. A mage's favorite items, rings, wands, etc., can't usually be so easily replaced. So ideally a GM would strike a balance -- making the players accept leaving behind some of their items in exchange for having been captured and escaping with their lives. But how do you make the agonizing value judgments to decide which ones should be recoverable? The ones that guards and others would be least likely to take? Or the ones that are most integral and important to the character's concepts at their current levels? The characters' most valuable items are the ones most likely to have been stolen.

i saw a roleplay prision brake, in the end they stole the money out of the overseers safe and bribed a guard to get them out

12:00 you know, natural disasters like earthquakes, come in handy for these kind of situations.

the no legs comment got me - lol

Thank you for covering this topic, KZread needs more prison break tips for tabletop RPGs

Recap at 20:40

unrelated can i use a alter self spell then use mislead and make the copy be the new shapechanged version of me or does it have to be what i actually look like

Prison break going to be needed for my players in the next session. Great advice 👍

That intro tho 😂😂

Make sure you introduce your characters to the game "prison architect".

*cat my meaning* Me: darn it, there are cat puns in here >3

Lately I've been chewing on an idea for campaign set in World War II. One of my primary concepts is starting with the pc's interred in a pow camp. Thanks for posting this video. I am curious what the most conducive rule set for the setting might be.

@kjboyce1809

6 жыл бұрын

Hogan Hero's!

@tagabundok1

6 жыл бұрын

Kj Boyce definitely an inspiration

@marsstrider3705

6 жыл бұрын

The Great Escape was a movie very much about this. Instead of 4-5 escapees, they went for 250 in a single night. Epic movie.

2:20 you forgot 4 some or all die. I don't like it but if you can't trick them into believing they could die, you got to be prepared to pull that trigger. IMHO once one character dies, you should pull back a little and hope to avoid a tpk.

Wait a second.... ZA? It's south african are you south african? If so it's awesome to be watching a fellow south african

from my friends campaign: situation- a wizard and warrior are stuck in a prison cell, and the wizard accidentally 1 hit killed the guard, and now they need to escape. (the wizard has a spell to open locks.) what does the wizard decide to do? use prestidigitation to clean the toilet in their cell.

@Delightfully_Bitchy

6 жыл бұрын

You know, I can't help but feel there were a couple parts missing in that story.

Depending on setting guards can be very corruptible...

What do you do to spell casters PC?with the power of magic is way to OP so do you put anti magic field ?but if you do that arent they now useless or not?

@jasonfenton8250

5 жыл бұрын

Off the top of my head, I haven't tried or seen this done, maybe the mage PC is allowed to use magic because the prison wardens want mages for slave labour. So they're free to use magic, but they're under very strict observation. Then the rogue in the party can distract the guards long enough for the mage to plant some sort of magic trap, or the mage can use telekinesis to grab a key during the chaos of a prison brawl started by the party's warrior, you get the idea.

I've toyed with the idea of prison breaks but there are a few snags you don't touch upon here that are hanging me up. The first is how to balance out the characters when you've taken away their gear, some classes are heavily dependent on their items while others have scenario breaking abilities innate to them but if they're imprisoned than they should all be nerfed to an equal level, right? But that seems like it wouldn't be very fun and mostly frustrating for the players. The second is dealing with the campaign after their escape where they should be hunted fugitives for the rest of their days or until they clear their names which really upends the course of traditional play. I can see the fun in DMing a game where the heroes become outlaws but that seems like it would lose its novelty quite quickly.

@lunargamer5261

6 жыл бұрын

Where the PCs are imprisoned is very important. If there are multiple kingdoms/nations in your game, they can be imprisoned in a foreign land and escape to their home country. If the PCs have knowingly committed crimes, they should serve their sentences or be hunted. If being hunted is not working out for the fun of the game, you can have someone with influence offer to absolve them or commute their sentences in exchange for their service in another matter. When you ask about balance are you concerned with player participation or with character effectiveness? Spellcasters can be badly nerfed by losing their wand, spellbook, or pouch of spell components. What does the fighter with 2 trained skills do without a weapon? You're always going to have a PC who excels in certain scenarios, but that is another reason you may not want this scenario to last too long. If it is a bad fit for your party, get them out and back to other adventures. If you really want to run the scenario, despite doubts, there are a few things you can consider. How much do the warden and guards know about the PCs? Do they know who the spellcasters are and do they have countermeasures? Even without special abilities, anyone can talk to NPCs. As the GM, you can determine which character finds the NPC who can help them. Maybe the fighter isn't trained in intimidation, but in that scenario where strength is respect, you give him a bonus. You can let a character with high intelligence or wisdom roll a check to think up an idea or analyse the situation, if the player isn't good at reading your clues. If you need to rein in a player who does all the talking, you could have the guards keep a close eye on that character, so the others have to step up. Is there any other balance issue you were thinking of?

@alexpocci7196

6 жыл бұрын

With character balance, it's more of a fundamental issue with how games are designed. In any game (DnD 5e for me) players always start with some strong and some weak stats and then through leveling up or getting items they prop up their weaknesses and enhance their strengths. When the PC's are imprisoned I'd think there would always be some level of stripping away those improvements so that they'd be easier to control and stop them from escaping, but then the characters your players have spent all of the game improving and refining are now more of less ordinary which doesn't seem like a good balance of fun to challenge for the players. So maybe you take away the spellcasters wands for a start, but some races and classes have innate spell casting available to them which don't require any components, others have abilities like rage or step of the wind that seem to be heavily exploitable for those characters while others would get left behind. There are some skills which really lend themselves to a prison escape scenario but without the foreknowledge of the players that a prison is in their future it seems really unfair and difficult to design a challenging escape what all of the party members are capable of and feel achievement in overcoming.

@VoidplayLP

6 жыл бұрын

Alex Pocci we didnt Play d&d but it was Pretty similar. I had a Party consisting of a rogue a tank a sorcerer and a healer. I Made it so that all of them could fullfill specific roles for the prison Break. The Tank started distracting guards,the rogue started stealing stuff and the healer Well,healed. But the sorcerer was Pretty useless without his Staff so He actually came Up with the Idea to make His own makeshift Staff. So what they did was trying to get into the wardens room to See if there was any jewelry to be had (staffs needed a crystal and some Kind of wood and optionally other Kinds of Magical stuff). The Tank started distracting the guards the rogue got in,stole some necklace and they all got Out with the sorcerer melting the windowbars.

What about the PC's breaking someone else out of Prison? The PC's get contracted by someone to break into a Prison and get an important NPC out to freedom. What advise would you give?

@Arbis44

5 жыл бұрын

You could just make them get caught and thrown into prison with the person they were paid to free. Then all of his advice applies.

I hope no prisons have access to youtube.....

@razputin321

6 жыл бұрын

testing inprisonment

I'm glad you did this Video because I was going to plan a prison escape for my group :D They will get captured and stripped from all of their gear in a very corrupt country. And even if they escape the prison, they have noch chance to get their gear back... yet. Becaus they meet one person, who leads a rebellgroup which wants to overthrow the corrupt government. Whilest this is happening they are gonna do a lot of different quests and can deside on which side they stand (royalist-rebells or "corrupt" democrats) because neither of those a really good ore really bad. In the end they will eventually get their gear back^^

"Meow"

And then there is bribery and magic

Or they could escape like Pablo Escobar, just walk out of prison

One player being a druid and can easily escpe.

Haha I’m here out of force

“They won’t feel like heroes when they’re escaping”. Umm isn’t it prison?! 🤣

Really wish I watched this before the going to prison.... In dnd of course.

I fucking lost my shit when I shaw this in my queue

There needs to be that one guard. You know the type. kzread.info/dash/bejne/ooGYlrVmfM7fp6w.html

I don't approve of these escape-open prisons. However it's mandatory that the GM isn't a power tripping twat. Once when I was playing a star wars edge of the empire campaign, our characters and a few NPCs we knew all got captured by the empire. A security hall with small cells lining both sides. White room, one bed, one toilet and a camera. Small barred window on the door and two guards in the hallway. I was at my wits end. But in the heat of the moment I was angry at myself and as I saw the empire watching my character, I punched the camera. I managed to roll a 20 and (While I didn't expect it) I managed to partially crack the protective glass. My cell was the furthest and we had two physically strong characters opposite each other a door before me. So as they sent guards into my room to check, they grappled them and we then their weapon was tossed to my character and I shot open the keypads which opened the door. Then it went pretty bad but I had no clue it'd happen. You shouldn't make it linear. If they want to escape, they have abilities, they should have innitiative to do so. If you truly want it, you should be able to think of something. As long as the GM isn't railroading and allows stuff which is plausible/possible/logical.

soo trow them in jail for being murder hobo's then have someone free them cause he needs murder hobos as scape goat? :P