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Originally Posted by Ogo
So how do you do it?
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For the most part, I don't. Some linked reasons:
1) I've been on the receiving end of a few "take all the toys away" adventures. They've mostly felt like something designed to be fun for GMs of a certain mindset but with little or no consideration of what the players might enjoy. I certainly didn't have any fun with any of them, and I doubt my players would either. So be sure that your own motives are pure and that you're not falling for the false logic that "to be interesting, an adventure must be challenging, therefore any challenge must be interesting."
2) When I've been in such adventures, it's also been set up in a blatant, contrived fashion, where the GM imposes strange new limitations without preamble or logic, or simply declares that the PCs are without their stuff. If you, the GM, can't start a story any better than that, I don't see why the part which involves me, the player, should be any more interesting.
3) For most players, there's a strong element of wish fulfillment in their desire to play these games. They like playing PCs who are powerful. I don't necessarily mean that in a munchkin-y way, but simply that they like playing characters who have a range of options and definite ways of making an impact on the world around them. They do not, therefore, usually enjoy situations where that ability is artificially reduced. Even ignoring the power issue, there are questions of being allowed to play out the character concept. I know that if I'm playing a wizard or a mechanic or a swashbuckler, it's because I
like playing a wizard or a mechanic or a swashbuckler. What my character's abilities are, frequently, are a significant part of what makes that character interesting to me. If I'm in a situation where I can't cast spells, fix stuff, or swing from chandeliers, well, that's a pretty dull evening for me.
4) Players also like
stuff. There's a grand tradition in RPGs of acquiring stuff, and sorta using the aquisition of stuff as a marker of progress. Taking stuff away, for many players, is contrary to the point.
5) While we might like, say, watching movies where Bond gets captured and beaten up along the way, those aren't the moments we want to emulate. We want the moments where he's using his gadgets, blowing away the opposition with an array of guns, and getting the girl. Those bloody-and-tied-to-a-chair scenes, with their complete lack of glamor, tend to be less than fun.
The few times I have intentionally set out to put PCs in a situation where they're held captive, deprived of stuff, or what have you, have been in situations where it's appropriate to a genre and puts them in an advantaged position. My most notable success was in a cliffhanger action campaign. Unlike relatively gritty campaigns, where sensible captors would have just shot the prisoners in the head, there's a long tradition in cliffhangers of prisoners being captured and taunted, but then escaping. It's easier to get players to go along with it if they've got assurances that any disabilities you saddle them with are very likely to be temporary. Moreover, in this particular case, where some PCs were captured by evil Nazis and held captive on a submarine, that put the PCs in a situation where, once they escaped from their cell, they were in a very good position where they could sabotage the submarine and foil the Nazis. Capture wasn't just something they could recover from; it ended up putting them in a more effective position.