In terms of personality, description, and situation, how do you

> npc holds sword to pc's throat, pc cares
> /thread

>>50364791
Make them funny.

>>50366173
Listen here you pedantic fucker. Do you really remember any of the random bandits you've fought in any game? PCs get swords pointed at them as often as they get asked "How do you do?". Even if they managed to get an ambush set up and actually hold the sword against the throat of a bound PC, once the PCs get out of their sticky situation and kill the bandits, they're not exactly going to feel attached to the memory.

>>50366173

Wrong.

>npc by all means SHOULD be holding a sword to the pc's throat, but instead asks what the hell they want from them, explaining that they have resorted to banditry due to <insert reason here>

Having bandits act like actual humans and not goblins with a human statblock is a good start.

It's simple. You kill the bat man.

I mean, it's simple, you play the role.

If you ever find yourself explaining to players how cool something in the game was because of anything mechanical like build, stats, items... You've already failed at the core of what makes rpgs worthwhile.