Encounter-a-Day

The next time your PCs find themselves captured, whether being held for ransom or awaiting their doom in a James Bond-esque death trap, consider taking a quick break from the main campaign.

Let the players each play a character from a nearby town where the PCs made a good impression, preferably characters previously introduced as NPCs. The players can use these inexperienced characters to try and break their real characters out.

This gives you the chance to break up the campaign a bit and run something a bit more about wits and luck. If the rescuers are successful, then the players have succeeded at rescuing their own characters. If the rescuers fail, however, then they too can be captured and now it’s up to the PCs to not only escape, but break out their would-be heroes as well.