Okay, I think every GM has had this issue - when his team of experienced and well-equipped Acolytes got tied, stripped of all equipment and put helpless into a dungeon.

How did you handle this issue? How did you pack your team in Red Cages? Any chance for some verisimilitude here? Did your players argue too much when experiencing this kind of automatic capture?

Well, my players were really sort of scared and did not really argue. Maybe a little moaning, but not arguing in any way. Anyway, I am not the kind of GM that allows a lot of arguing in the first place for that matter. I also kept it rather fast paced so the players did not have enough time to think about the whole situation. They realized how vital it is to act fast and think about the whole situation (and ask questions) later.

During their trip through the Red Cages the groups Tech Priest (with the Total Recall talent) got some brief flash backs about the last moments he could remember before their abduction (i.e. in my campaign their sky-ship was shot down on the edge of Hive Gloriana on Solomon just after coming from the House of Dust & Ash). The Tech Priest also had a mental trauma becoming more reclusive and withdrawn (due to IP > 10), which fit rather well.

Luthor Harkon said:

How exactly did you start it? Any special intro or just: " Suddenly, you wake up... "?

They'd have to be taken at some point where their location is known, and they are vulnerable and unable to use their superior survivability (lots of dakka, choppa and psyka) to save themselves.

I was thinking of perhaps having the kidnappers take control of, or provide, "public transport" for the Acolytes as they move to or from orbit on an otherwise mundane journey between missions. As they are sitting in the passenger compartment with other fellow passengers, gas is pumped in through the vents. Nowehere to run, nobody to shoot, impossible to hold your breath for a sufficient time, etc etc.

Should they have sufficient equipment or implants to remain concious, the shuttle is re-routed, shot down, or otherwise directed to land/dock in a controlled environement.

egalor said:

Well, I asked my wife beforehand how I should handle it (either simply "you wake up" at the start of a session or playing out a combat situation (i.e. in my case the boarding of the mentioned sky-ship) where the PCs are overwhelmed by force/numbers). She prefered the former and in the end I really think it was the right decision and it was scarier this way for the PCs. My players would have realized rather fast if I had tweaked a combat to be unwinnable and then they would have really moaned (and maybe even tried to argue a little...). They were really shocked waking up more or less naked and without their dear equipment (the assassin player hates me to the day for it...), partly to the degree they were sort of stunned when the first spindlemaws attacked. Before the "you wake up" part though, I read aloud the handout/description from the book regarding their minor flashbacks of hanging above foetid waters as the true intro.

Luthor Harkon said:

Should I add the 'loss of memory' factor too, to veil their exact pattern of capture, and then feed them those flashbacks from the book?

I already can imagine their bulging eyes at the beginning of the session. Hope that wouldn't be too disappointing for them.

It's interesting reading these perspectives. There is another thread on Tattered Fates here: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp that I think is worth checking out, especially Zillaprime's posts regarding the capture of his Acolytes. I think that it very much depends on your players whether they'll feel cheated by "you were captured" or by "you cannot defeat your enemies."

I think for some players, the opportunity to go down fighting might be more appreciated, especially because you can say "Okay, we were captured, but we managed to account for ourselves before doing so." But it really depends on your players.

While I was not doing the Red Cages thing, I did end up with the whole 'you are captured and naked' bit. The way I did it was they up floating freely in space in what amounted to a life raft. I gave them a random time frame and had them work out what they did for survival for that time period. I then had their air supplies start to run out, gave them each a toughness test and the ones that passed had a vague memory of the pod shaking and a bit after that a evil laugh. Then they passed out from fatigue/lack of air and woke up naked and chained. The following game session for me was a Deathwatch mission to rescue them and now this week we will play out the results of their captivity.

I altered the scenario a little and took them each outside the room one at a time and let them make opposed willpower checks against a very powerful sorceror from the Menagerie, they all failed as he was insanely good but he wanted to throw a spanner in the works in the form of the players and make the scenario more interesting. They only met him once at Gabriel Chase where he was wearing a half sun mask and offered them aid in the form of weapons and gear, saying that he represented some of the local "interest groups" that felt the Pilgrims were drawing too much attention to cultist activity. He wanted the players and the Inquisition to think there was huge amounts of Chaos worship going on there and come down hard on the local populace (the Calixian elite and what not) therefore fermenting distrust. Sure enough the players began talking about the whole place needing to be leveled with lance fire however never went back their to clean things up.

Back to my point I used the very powerful sorceror I had hoped to bring back into the campaign if the players took a certain route and made certain choices but this never happened... The players appreciated getting rolls as some kind of warp spell was cast on them. If one of them had beaten the sorceror then the game would have become one of two parts, some of the party on the world and the other group of characters trying to figure out where their friends went...

I think I will begin the first TF session by simply stating: " You find yourself... etc. ", implying the loss of their memories immediately preceding their capture. That will save a lot of time and effort trying to bring them to the Red Cages in an "honest" manner.

The "you wake up unarmed and captured" style reeks of decades old obsolete game design and I hated it when it happened to us - For three sessions or so I was uncertain if I intended to play the game at all after that. It is however a lot better than spending a hour ot two on a useless and predetermined battle.

The "battle ending in capture" just never works right. As a player I like to have some influence due to my decisions and rolls when I am investing several hours of a busy life into a game.

If I did Red Cages as a GM I would d one of the following. Either just have them wake up as the scenario describes, but use a little modern game thinking by giving each PC a Fate Point as a way of saying; "Sorry for being a bastard to you and your chars, here is a little something to help make your escape kickass." Or I would use a style described in a older post here, where the PC set up their own capture as part of a investigation of a series of kidnappings.

The trope is 'Forced Failure'. I know it places everything outside of clean chronological order, but starting with scrubs in Red Cages allows for no where but up.

Mister Zipangu said:

I agree, this is a scenario design fault. It *might* work for a 90s computer game, but not here.

I'm still thinking on how to best introduce them, though. Maybe a set-up kidnapping will work, but I'll first have to figure out the consequences of the fact that they would aware of the kidnapping. Still, not sure.

from france

a friend of me run it that way the inquisitor ask them to go to the show unarmed and to act as the most stupid, naive and weak persons. in clear he told them that he send a previous group with good equipement but they were quickly isolate and shot down. so he think that the enemy won't take risk with a unknow armed group that could work for rivals or authority.

so he send the there with paper of false identity that could make them look like if no one will look after them if missing. something not so much weird in a hive.

he told them that he knows that they were highs risks in doing so. he told them that he asks all his agents only for volunteers and none accept and that he will rewards them.

all players accepted because its was presented as a request from a prowerful figure of authority, for the rewards and because it avoid the "suddently you wake up without nothing" the syndrome of forced situation...... they accepted to be trapped.

hopes it helps

SPOILER:

@ Master Zipangu and Egalor

When we had manged to successfully escape from the cages and make it to the surface, our GM gave us a fate point. When I said to him later to beware of giving out too much stuff to keep us 'happy' (it's his first time GMing) he said that it was in the adventure to do it. So there is a kind of compensation for losing all your stuff built in I suppose, and there is a conveniently located arms market on the surface. We haven't even finished the adventure and I am already better equipped that before (Our Redemptionist Cleric and Battle Sister players return next session - I hope they don't ask too many questions about my lovely new black xenomesh!).

Needless to say, said fate point has since been burnt but that was the psyker's fault. (see killing psykers thread on main DH page if you're interested).

Zakalwe said:

I gave our groups Psyker a single Fate Point after the Red Cages chapter as he burned the remains of Inq Karkalla and said a prayer to the Emperor for his soul. Sometimes good RPing is worth a Fate Point...

Anyway, a few sessions later the Psyker lost two Fate Points at the climax of the adventure when he first rolled a 00 on Perils of the Warp and a little later had to experience a round of melee with the Widower first-hand...

Really, there is only one way i would do this, and that would be if either the entire team got knocked unconscious during a battle, or if everyone burned fate. I would definitely never plan on doing something like this.

I once did make a fight where the intention was that the players would be knocked out and captured, though, and it worked horribly, my players hated it and i've never done it again.