Hostage situation

[Dunkelbrink]

I am LM:ing a short side scenario set in the year 2949 and inspired by an earlier thread in this forum. After the fight with the outlaws in Kinstrife and Dark Tidings Valter the bloody escaped with a handful of men. Beorn is now tired of these outlaws preying on his lands and people and has asked the company to find Valter and bring him to the Carrock for trial (or stop him in some other way). Valter and his band have taken refuge in the woodman fortification Stonehallow with a couple of woodman families. His band is starving and miserable and the prospect of raiding Beorning country has not turned out well at all.

When the heroes finally reach Stonehallow they will find Valter in the caves of the fortification. They will have a hard time sneaking in undiscovered and will probably face Valter and the bandit holding hostages. I am not sure how to handle the hostage situation rules wise. I guess I could run in as an encounter and with good role-play and many successes he could be convinced to release the hostages and meet the PCs in a fair fight or duel instead. Increasing the tolerance might make the desperate outlaws kill the hostages. And to say fire an arrow at one of the bandits holding a woodman hostage would be a shot at TN 18 or 20.

What do you think? Any ideas? Have you played out any hostage situations in your games? How did they work out?

[Deadmanwalking]

I wouldn't expect hostages to be used as human shields (as is implied by the high target numbers you mention) in this cultural milieu and technological level, at least not by any large number of people within a group. Sufficient ranged weapons (and skill with them) to kill an entire group of people before they use melee weapons to slaughter the hostages aren't generally a thing, making their use as shields rather pointless (since anyone willing to shoot you when you have them will be willing to shoot through them).

I mean, skilled archers aren't exactly common, and even in areas where they are, the benefits are outweighed by the dangers, because holding a person makes one basically incapable of fighting with a sword or shooting a bow (it's a lot easier to shoot a gun when holding someone than engage in swordplay...and as for bows, you'd need at least three arms). So it keeps you out of the fight entirely until you kill them, and dying people tend to thrash around and otherwise be troublesome, delaying you further...and probably long enough to get killed. So...that's pretty much not a situation that makes sense.

Hostages certainly still get taken, but they'd probably be tied off over to the side with a couple of people holding knives to some throats while the rest of the hostage takers prepare for actual combat. This makes a somewhat wider set of strategies available to the PCs, and is more realistic, IMO. The strategy that leaps immediately to mind is having everyone but your sneakiest guy and your best archer approach, and the most sociable start talking. This distracts them and buys time for your sneakiest guy to sneak right up to the hostages and those guarding them while your archer takes aim at said guards as well. Then, assuming negotiations fall through, they're well positioned to kill the guards and free the hostages.

[zeomkean]

Just a thought, but if you were to pick a location (hex) for your holding, where would it be? I realize different races offer different locales. I also realize our games can/may be independant of others. My thought was if we accepted other players in "our private Middle Earth" and they had holdings, how wiuld they affect our maps. An interesting twist of a pen & paper rpg bridging a gap with the online mmo rpg's

[Angelalex242]

Well...

In our game, we had a hostage situation with Amfossa.

Classic Hostage for MacGuffin...except the PCs didn't go for it. So Wulf just mortally wounded her, despite the PC's best efforts to keep her alive. PCs all gained a point of automatic shadow, despite my character trying to challenge Wulf to a duel.

Defying TV Tropes has bitter consequences sometimes...

[Amargen]

Have to agree with Deadmanwalking; with bows and hand weapons killing hostages isn't quick or easy. less so when certain death raises it's head and makes the hostages willing to take absurd chances. and anyone involved in trying to kill hostages isn't fighting.

actions by the PC's that result in dead hostages = shadow points. ya rolls the dice and ya takes your chances.

[Angelalex242]

Heh. No, in that case, we just chose poorly. I actually rolled a great success on the roll to convince Wulf to let her go. She got killed anyway, despite my dice. I got my AP though.

[Glorelendil]

She got killed anyway, despite my dice. I got my AP though.

I'm sure that will bring solace to her bereaved kin.

[Angelalex242]

Haven't ya heard?

NPC stands for No Point Crying