Due to few precautions by the players and bad luck on detection and suprise rolls the entire party got ambushed at night and captured, with one player fighting to their death.
Their captors are basicly a different group of adventurers working for a hostile party. They are interested in them for their information and as forced labour. Together with their captors they are still in a an area hostile to both the players and their captors and they are about to enter a dungeon.
I am not entirely sure how to handle the situation especially with one player needing to have a new character introduced.
The few times i had players beeing captive it was either only a portion of the group and one time in their entiriy but with the captors having aligning goals and the whole thing beeing a missunderstanding, that needed resolving(although the resolving resulted in 1 PC death).
Have you had similiar situations and how did u resolve them?
So if I understand this, everyone but one PC is captured, and the one who escaped capture did so by dying ;P?
There’s three ways I’d look into handling this, and it all depends on your setting and your culture and such.
Have the next sessions focus on the PCs breaking out, and have the “new” character be another prisoner the captors found sneaking around
If it makes sense that the PCs would have support back home, have everyone roll up a team hired by their family or community to go discover where they are at the last known venture site.
Do number 1, but instead of the new character getting introduced as a prisoner, let them play the ghost of their deceased character who is holding on for one last go for… reasons relevant to the party.
I do have a table with some ideas that might be useful for Introducing a New PC in Medias Res to handle the replacement Player Character.
But with this set up, there might be a pool of new People to pull from: A Captor with a Change of Heart, a Fellow Prisoner as @jamiltron mentions, etc.
To handle the Scenario itself, it will usually involve the Players having to come up with a Daring Escape Plan. I’d make sure that the Adventurers who are holding them get fleshed out a little bit: Give them Wants/Goals/Needs that might be exploitable, give them and the area that they are being held Weaknesses that can be used by the clever and some potential tools that might aid their Escape, but I wouldn’t define the sole method in Advance really. I like to leave those Creative Plans and that Ingenuity up to the Players.
Perhaps one of their Guards is a bit Sleepy or overly fond of Drink. Perhaps a Rusty Spoon can be scrounged in their Holding Area to help remove any Fetters in some way. If those Guarding them have Routines that are predictable, then that can generally be exploited too: Feigning Illness when the Guard comes to feed them and overpowering them, etc.
Since the area they are being held in is Hostile to both the Party and their Captors there is also that Danger Factor as well: If Monsters appear and create confusion and chaos, that can be the opportunity the Players need to make their Escape.
Another option, if your Players aren’t interested in Playing out the Scenario of being Captured or Escaping is to have them Ransomed. You can begin the next game with them free, but potentially in Debt to whomever has sprung them. Paying off the Debt can be a new motivator for further Adventure, or perhaps the one who Ransomed them might need them to perform some other services to clear the books.