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Nov 6, 2012 -- 7:32AM, YagamiFire wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Seriously? That is odd.

That sounds more like the attitude your players are possessed of more than anything else. I haven't run into this problem. Well, let me rephrase that as a question...are your players playing Good characters?

Generally, yes. I try to enforce the "heroic" part of "heroic fantasy," and like to make sure my players are, at the VERY least, not evil.

But this is more a general thought experiment based on personal experience. I don't THINK I'll be taking hostages anytime soon in my home game... But it is a scenario I'm fond of.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 7:17AM, Rood.Inverse wrote:

It's supposed to be good drama and create, even for a little while, some kind of dramatic tension. Or a plot hook to go questing ("...or she dies!") for a bad guy. I can't recall, however, any time on either side of the screen, where players really paid that mind. Big damn heroes have to be big damn heroes and won't stand for hostage taking.

"Supposed to." But according to whom?

Nov 6, 2012 -- 7:17AM, Rood.Inverse wrote:

Any villain worth their salt, or with an int score over 9, knows there's nothing to lose once the players decide to engage him after a hostage is taken. There's no reason NOT to pull the trigger/collapse the bubble/fire the laser/slit their throat. And, since the design of such encounters is what it is (at least in anecdotal experience), the PCs have zero chance to thwart the murder of what is probably their plot goal.

The bottom line is "don't threaten anything you're not willing to destroy." If the DM is going to have a creature or NPC threaten to take an action, it behooves that DM to be willing to accept whatever outcome arises. Never try to bluff the players because, regardless of their characters' alignment, players love calling the DM's bluff. Video games generally don't even give them the choice, because the game scripts generally can't handle significant branching, but in a pen-and-paper game they can do whatever they want and often will.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 7:17AM, Rood.Inverse wrote:

I can't think of a good way to take a hostage, as a DM. It inevitably ends up in innocent blood. At which point, I could have saved the time and trouble on encounter design and just done it in a "cut scene" anyway...

I don't see the issue with the villain spilling innocent blood, except if he was stupid enough to think that would prevent his blood from being lost.

Don't rely on the sentiment of the characters to make the hostage situation interesting. Give yourself something in-game that gives the death some consequence, regardless of the PC feelings. Maybe don't just kill the hostage but turn them into a villain, or make them part of a sacrifice that has world-shaking implications. That way, even if the players pick the relatively boring option of not caring about the hostage, they don't necessarily "win" even if they kill the bad guy.

But really, just avoid hostage situations. They're boring. They're blocks. What are the PCs supposed to do, just let the bad guy escape? Even if the PCs care deeply about the NPC, if the bad guy's plan is allowed to proceed even more people might die, including the original hostage. That's bad math, especially in a universe with a verifiable "heaven."

Edit: Such scenes ARE classic, so if you don't care to dispense with them entirely, then I do recommend handling them narratively and with player collaboration. Find out from them first if they would even find such a scene interesting, and the bad guy convincing who uses such a tactic, and then find out who or what is a hostage that they won't shoot through and that the villain could plausibly threaten.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 10:04AM, Max1867 wrote:

if killing the hostage is a minor action, how can the players stop the villain getting that minor? It provides a lot more challenge than difficulty through sheer brute force. As long as your players are ok with that.

A good point. Taking a load of actions before the enemy has a chance probably wouldn't be that hard for an Epic or even Paragon level group to accomplish. For a 3.5 group it would probably be even easier.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 10:35AM, Max1867 wrote:

Hostages, like so many things, aren't really an issue past heroic tier, but that just means springing a hostage where the players don't really have the tools to deal with it can also be good, as it forces them to adapt and reevaluate. The time limiting aspect of hostages may be good, as it forces players to pull out all of the stops, but hostages can be used in so many other ways as well, so i don't really think hostages should never be used, but rather should only be used to limit your players, in the heroic tier, where they have to avoid area powers and indiscriminate blasting and instead creatively use powers to get the hostage free, or, as in your example, in later tiers, to make the players use their action points and resources to perform well during the one turn.

The point is, though, that hostages don't limit the players. Nor should they, necessarily.