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Last night the DM whom I respect and admire inflicted one of the most horrid contrivances in all of game-dom on the party: the auto-capture scenario. The party was railroaded into an un-winnable encounter with overkill monsters, laughed at by the BBEG and tortured, and then allowed to easily escape through deus ex machina, minus all our good equipment.

I was so disgusted at this that my character killed himself in confinement and later refused resurrection; it was the last session of the campaign but that event just took all the fun out of it and I wanted to go home. Perhaps not the most mature thing to do, but staying would have been worse for everyone involved.

In any case, I've been thinking about this particular type of scenario, and as a DM myself with many years of experience I can really say that there is no right an wrong way to do an auto-capture; just a wrong and worse way. Perhaps it comes down to play styles; some players trust that no matter how bad it gets the DM will bail them out and prevent disaster; I have much more fun as a PC when I feel my character is master of his own destiny and lives or dies by his own decisions. One might argue that sometimes crap happens to people and there's nothing you can do about it; but D&D isn't about reality, it is a game that is supposed to be fun for everyone. Auto-capture scenarios are rarely fun for anyone.

Before using an auto-capture scenario into your campaign, think long and hard about what you are doing. Are you trying to advance the plot, or are you just trying to go on a DM power trip? Will the BBEG truly have the resources to accomplish the scenario legitimately; if so will the players ever be able to overcome it? Is is worth losing the trust of your players? Could the same plot continue without forcing failure on the players and the feeling of frustration and helplessness that comes with it?

DMs often feel that the point of an auto-capture scenario is to make the players feel anger and hatred towards the villain. However most times it only makes them feel anger and resentment towards the DM. Whatever the DM is trying to accomplish, the chief result of an auto-capture is ruining any sense of a "Players versus the Villain" dynamic and replacing it with a much worse "Players versus the DM" dynamic. Or the DM may be trying to introduce an important NPC or power group to the plot, but usually this can be done just as easily without forcing the group to fail first.

To start the Auto-capture scenario, the PCs first need to get captured (duh). This is usually achieved by one of two ways: cheating or overkill.

With the cheating method, the DM simply breaks the rules in some way and the players get captured. There are various degrees of this, such as blatantly disallowing saving throws against spells/poisons/traps etc. or using mysterious unnamed powers or artifacts against which there is no defense. Expect this method to leave your players feeling extremely frustrated and cheated; they will forever wonder when their abilities will be suspended again with no notice for no reason.

With the overkill method the DM puts the players in an encounter where they are completely outmatched. This method is better than the cheating method because the PCs can't complain when they are unable to resist the spells of a Balor at 10th level. However this can completely ruin any sense of fairness in your campaign and can leave many uncomfortable questions. If the players are captured by very powerful monsters, they will wonder why those same monsters do no prevent their escape or show up later in the game. There are other perils; some or all of the PCs may escape capture, perhaps forcing you to resort to cheating. If you use your BBEG to capture the party, be prepared for the possibility of the party beating them too soon. The players can tell if an opponent has Plot Device Immunity.

Once the players are captured, they are generally 1. Laughed at by the BBEG and 2. Tortured. As I said before, the purpose here is to make the PCs hate the villain and "punish" them for getting captured. But this is unfair since they had no choice but to get captured they didn't really fail. If you do inflict an auto-capture on your players they will generally get the point that they are supposed to be mad at your villain and follow the rest of your plot; don't punish them more by giving them permanent injuries or preventing them from ever recovering their equipment.

Once the taunting and torture are over with it's time for the PCs to escape. There are again two main ways this is accomplished: either the level of security is (inexplicably) reduced in their prison, allowing for an easy escape or the PCs are saved by a third party (deus ex machina).

The first method is a hard sell because when a DM uses frost giants to capture the party it makes no sense that their jailors are goblins. Or if you have been suppressing certain spells or abilities of the players up until now in order to keep them confined, you'd better have a good reason why they are suddenly working again.

With the second method the DM has an NPC or group of NPCs rescue the party, or perhaps some magical form of aid comes to them from some unexpected source. The purpose here is usually to introduce the PCs to some important plot characters and/or to impress them with the "awesomeness" of an NPC. In reality all that is going on here from the party's standpoint is that the DM is playing with himself. A better option is to temporarily grant one of the PCs extraordinary abilities that will allow them to escape; it's still stupid but at least the party will feel some sense of accomplishment.

It's important to stress that the party should never suffer any type of permanent loss after an auto-capture scenario. Anything the DM takes away should be recoverable; any injuries they suffer should be healable. Regardless of how much sense this may make to you, to the players it's no different than if you simply picked up their character sheet and started erasing things for no reason. No one wants to play with a DM who so sadistically maligns his players.

In the end however you will find that auto-capture is rarely, if ever, worth it. There are other ways to accomplish the same things without abusing your players so much. If the purpose of your auto-capture is to impress upon the PCs the evil nature of your BBEG; consider having him inflict those evils on other NPCs. The party will be just as shocked and angered if the villain captures and tortures their friends, and you won't have to worry about any hurt player feelings.

If you're trying to introduce important NPCs, consider having those NPCs get captured instead and having the PCs act as the deus ex machina event which rescues them. This method accomplishes the same thing but works so much better from a gameplay standpoint; the players will feel resourceful and powerful rather than weak and helpless, it will make for a great adventure, and they will gain from it rather than lose.

If you must capture the PCs, don't make it illegal or unfair. Have the villain send constant, increasingly powerful attacks at the group, each designed to capture them. Sooner or later you will probably capture at least one PC, and then it makes perfect sense for the other players to rescue them, and again there are no hurt feelings or sense of mistrust because you played by the rules and didn't go overboard.

Always remember that this game is about having fun, for everyone involved. If the DM is having fun at someone else's expense, everyone loses. As a DM myself, I only enjoy the game when the players do, and try always to make sure that is the case.