Hi all,

Do any GMs here have any generic prison break or jail scenarios to hand that can be press-ganged into most situations when the players have angered the local enforcers/ruling gangers in the area that they are captured and held in a cell which could later lead to interrogation/punishment or an escape attempt?

My players aren't currently in a situation like this but I can see this sort of thing being useful in the future and I was wondering if anyone here has run anything like that?

Thanks,

Eisenhorn

Hmm... if this happens, I usually would try to improvise on the spot. If the charackters don´t have somebody or something to bail them out, I guess they will need to break out of jail. Unless, their offense comes with only some minor punishment like being flocked in public or being sentenced to 1d5+1 days of imprisonment.

My general picture is that they are first held prison in some enforcer station (think about a sheriff office in the old west). Later on, I would keep them in some dungeon, usally having all of them in one cell together with 0-5 other prisoners (who might know another or not). The prisoners are kept there, looks are electronic and opened with the key cards of the guards. Food is brought into the cells, once a day the characters and inmates form other cells are led into some inner yard where they can move a bout for a couple of hours.

There will be guards near the cells, some of them patroling. They will have keycards, helmets, batons (shock or not). 50% chance that they do NOT have pistols. If so, guns will only be brought to bear in case of a jail break (a security measure: inmates cannot get their hands on guns this way, but the guards cannot kill anybody at leisure).

Add some interrogation room, a servitor operated kitchen area (perhaps with one chef or something) and guards with deadly wepaons in towers, and you have a little 40k prison. Instead of sending them to the yard, send them out in work gangs, ball and chain, to do some stupid , strenous manual labor. Like, cutting wood or shoveling sand into bags or anything llike that. Picking cotton on the fields works fine, too.

These are some really good guidelines to go off, thanks Gregorius! I think in instances when they've been arrested by the local enforcers for being unruly and have to wait for the Inquisitor or a representative to come along to bail them out, this will probably be enough. For anything deeper however, I'd probably have to make a scenario for it (at some point, I really want my players to be captured by Dark Eldar raiders and thrown in prison cells, forced to fight in gladiatorial combat against members of all species whilst trying to escape before it's their turn on the haemonculus' table!

Has anyone else here had to perform/run a jailbreak?

I've done a jailbreak in a game or two; the big thing to consider is DON'T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR PLAYERS. They will come up with some crazy **** and throw your fine-tuned plans out the door.

As far as catching them goes without PC logic turning it into a bloodbath? Use gas, or some kind of trap (or both!). If you can empty their tanks before they can kill a horde of mooks, it means the NPCs can act in a nicer fashion to start out with. My group, for example, has a guy with a meltagun, so trying to pin them in an armored room isn't efficient. They have enough ammo that it becomes an interminable slog without them walking into a literal voidship bulkhead, unless I can get them to leave behind their heavy weapons.

These are some really good guidelines to go off, thanks Gregorius! I think in instances when they've been arrested by the local enforcers for being unruly

"Being unruly"? *grins* I could see that the Enforcers might have the authority to let the characters go if thes show penitence. Claiming penitence meas that the Enforcers will ask the offenders if they want to see a Confessor, which they arrange for within a day. If they don´t, they are clearly not repenting anything. If they do, the Enforcers will release the characters if the Confessors advises them so, "since that they are truly repenting".

The job of the Confessor is of course not to judge if the offenders do. It is to make sure that they do! A niché in the legal system like that makes sure that the Ministorum is happy with the ruler (for giving them authority by letting them act as "advisors"), that the legal system is not bogged down with minor cases and that the populace is less likely to argue about their punishment. After all, it was them who wanted to see a Confessor instead being trialed. Given an option and "being forced" to say yes to something does strange things to the view and mind of people who really never had much of a chance to begin with

[back2Topic]

TheLaughingGod had been requesting ideas for a prison break with a twist. This was about the escape of heretic, but since it was about "getting out of an Arbites Holding Facilities", the general ideas and concepts here might be interesting to you

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/174230-ideas-needed-for-prison-break-with-a-twist/?hl=jail#entry1597102

(...),at some point, I really want my players to be captured by Dark Eldar raiders and thrown in prison cells, forced to fight in gladiatorial combat against members of all species whilst trying to escape before it's their turn on the haemonculus' table!

Plans like those have a few point to take into considerations to avoid "stumbling" over them in a bad way.

#1 If they are taken by xenos, they are on xenos turf and far away from home, no allies around them

With 40k being what it is, it means that everything they have in reach is very likely something they have no idea on how to use it. Getting out of a holding cell, overpowering the guards and then making it to the shuttle bay in order to steal a craft to escape with is a daunting task if one has NOTHING at hand besides a tool one could hide in a palm or under once tongue. it becomes considerably harder if you don´t understand the technology that is locking doors and keys, if you don´t speak a word of the language and thereby cannot fake greetings or "vox calls" and if you have NO idea on how to operate the craft itself. Let´s face it, most 40k characters don´t even know how to fly an IMPERIAL craft. Escpaing through the "webways"...well... if they can pull this off, they will be thought out for there knowledge withing the Inquisition for sure

#2 Fighting is just Fighting

If they are just kept in the cells to be thrown into the pits and then being sewed back to working order to be thrown into the cells so that they can be thrown into the fighting pits again... well, this kind of thing can turn into a dull game unless the GM gives very good descriptions to the cell complex, the homunculi table and a lot of minor events in between the fights. In fact, the fighting is the point that needs the LEAST of GM planing, since fights are rather easy to have. Giving nice roleplay opportunities while the characters have only very limited places to explore and very little contact, that is the challenge here

#3 Prepare for the scars

The game world established the Dark Eldar as one of the most perverted, sick and cruel races in existence. So cruel and sadistic and heartless that the Imperium of Man pales in comparison to it, and the Imperium is depicted as a theocratic state based on principles and politics common in the Third Reich, the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin and the currently reported policies of the so called "Islamic State". "Times 10".

Which means, if your characters end up in their grasps, stay there for more then 48hours and are NOT somehow "scared for life", one needs to wonder if they were incredibelly lucky or what superhumans they are that they do not suffer form it body and soul. To give it the right "taste", the GM should prepare not only the amount of IP they will dish out the session, but rather tailor-made scars (both for mind and body) to give to each character. The trick is to make them horrible enough to serve the mythos build around the DarkEldar, but are not so "play-horrible" that the player behind the character will demand to start with a fresh character "because I am REALLY not going to use THIS one no more! It ruined all I wanted to achieve while giving me no chance to counter it". Some groups are fine with such, so. But I really advise to get a feel for the players views in this before... and to find some thing to dish out that serve the tone of the theme and background while keeping the characters "playable".