How about an idea that takes NPC Factions and takes them one step further?
Hell’s Riders/Hostile Faction already has thugs and people who try to raid and attack you. So what about some thugs noticing if you look weak or low on equipment? You could get kidnapped by them and forced to walk to their main building such as a prison, where you’ll be forced to do work for them. You get food and your own place(cell) to stay in, but you’ll have to spend most of your time doing work for them, such as crafting or collecting resources daily. Sure you’d be safe from most attacks, but it would come at a price, your life and your energy. Then there’s always the possibility you and a couple others could form up a small rebellion and go against the guards and the leader of said faction. It would make quite an interesting play out from the basic hostile factions we have now.
Don’t have a problem with it thematically. I think NPCs aren’t there yet in terms of them being able to support this properly, but I’ve been wrong about that kind of thing before.
Things to keep in mind if you do implement it:
No rape or sexual slavery, I don’t care how realistic it is for the scenario, just no.
Most of moving around the prison, working, etc should be handled by long-term actions so they don’t force the player to enter hundreds of key presses while waiting for their chance to escape. These actions would be triggered by dialog with your captors.
Example:
Wake up, when imprisoned you get an extra, “wait for cell door to open” wait duration, use it or spend time doing things you shouldn’t, like crafting a shiv or tools.
Cell door opens, dialog with guard starts after a turn or so (just in case you want to try and jump them).
If you indicate compliance in the dialog, it triggers a “follow guard to destination” action, plays out you being escorted to workplace (workshop, fields, whatever)
Further dialog option at workplace to comply and work for the day, whatever scripted work action proceeds for most of the day. It might be interrupted with opportunities to talk to other prisoners or guards. You should also be able to cancel the activity and perform a few actions, then resume the work task.
escorted to meal as above
You are issued food and drink, you would have an opportunity to interact with other prisoners.
escorted to cell
Another opportunity to work on things in your cell. At some point you’ll need to go to sleep, or risk exhaustion.
Escaping should be hard but doable, requiring a number of mini-quests to gather materials, perhaps build skills, etc. (think find a lump of metal, craft a chisel, find a hammer, construct an escape tunnel)
Speaking of skills, there should be some solution for handling skill rust, locking someone up for so long their skills rust to nothing is perhaps a fate worse than death for some. If we have our solution in place for having rust just be a penalty instead of impacting actual skill level, that should be sufficient.
The location needs to be robust to getting wrecked somehow, e.g. you shouldn’t be able to find a prison, bust down all the cell doors, then walk out if you’re ever captured.