Running away from a fight

[Ardem]

I discussion that has been raised in the Rolemaster forum, which I am curious if this transend to other gamesets.

I recall growing up (when I was a young whipper snapper to RPG) that sometimes as a party when you faced a monster that was out of your league, where it was GM included or random encounter. You would as a player think running away was an option and you would not be able to win every fight. Especially if you were a lower character.

I will give an example I was playing MERP in the 2nd Age I think, and we were in the Dwarf Hold of kazakdum, we were searching for something in the lower level and the GM did a random encounter. At the time he said it was just a great stone magical door, after much talk with the dwarf leaders they decided to open the door we waited knowing we would get share of the riches on the other side. What happen was the door was opened magically and to our horror a Balrog appeared. "Yes it was a random encounter roll"

We all ran, I die quickly and did not make it, but such is life.

But I would not be suprised if today's player would try and attack it even though it was out of their league and wonder why they could not win or expect the GM to proved challenges they could always beat.

Has other GMs found this and is this a product of Computer RPGing that has jaded us to the most valuable aspect of saving ones skin.

[lachancery]

To unerwünscht: Haha! This one's for you.

[damned]

my low level C&C characters recently bumped into a coupel of hungry ankhegs in the forest en-route to the ruins... they very smartly ran halfway thru the second round of combat

[Trenloe]

my low level C&C characters recently bumped into a coupel of hungry ankhegs in the forest en-route to the ruins... they very smartly ran halfway thru the second round of combat

That was definitely a get out of Dodge - FAST moment... It was refreshing and a reminder that the world can (and will) throw dangerous creatures at you that you may not be able to defeat.

To give my opinion on Ardem's OP, I think some of it has come into RPGing from the EL/CR/etc. statistical matching of encounters that 3.5E, Pathfinder and 4E suggest (4E more than most, I would say). This can lead to the idea that the GM will never give the player's an encounter that they have no chance of winning. In fact, some players will complain "that encounter was too tough for our average-party-level" if encounters are challenging (especially "early" in an adventure"). DM/GM guides often state a scenario designing process of having beginning encounters challenge rating/encounter level roughly equal to the party level, increasing by 1 or 2 and then having the final encounter being 2 or even 3 levels higher than the average party level (APL).

Does this come from computer RPGs/games in general? Having an increasing challenge and a final difficult boss to fight? Perhaps... Or, is it just the way the game has gone... When I DM'd 4e for a bit, I was a little unfamiliar with the new powers, increased HP, etc. and I found the statistical nature of putting an encounter together a useful tool to give me an idea of how challenging it would be for the PCs. Would I have ever thrown an encounter at the PCs that I knew was APL +5 in 4e? Probably not... Would I do it in WFRP, Traveller, WoD, etc. - absolutely!

I read recently in one of the old-school hex-crawl products (either from Frog God Games or NOD, I can't find it now) that the products were designed to take you back to the days where the creatures you meet next might easily kill you and tried to bring the edge-of-your-seat mystery back to encounters where you may die quickly if you stood and fought and very often the players would have to make a split second decision on whether to fight or run like crazy.

So, perhaps some of it has come from computer RPGs, and some from more recent main-stream tabletop RPGs.

I, for one, in future will be making it clear to my players when I run a game that sometimes the gloves will be off and encounters may be too difficult at their current level - they have to use their character's knowledge/appraise skills or gut feel to decide at what point to flee the encounter.

I'd like to see more of:
GM: "Roll for initiative. OK, player 1 - you're up"
Player 1: "I run away."
Player 2: "Err, what? I run away too!"
Player 3: "Come on guys, we can take 'em!"
SQUISH!

[Magnatude]

yeah, I've noticed a trend of Players expecting fully balanced encounters...

Me, I'm one of those DM's that loves to have unbalanced situations. Most of the time the encounter is NOT looking for a fight, but players like to poke things with sticks.
Eventually players start to understand the DM and adapt. My players already expect that encounters may not be just equal to their party CR.
I had one planned encounter where an overpowered Demonic Knight wiped the floor with the players in a matter of several rounds. The players expected a total party kill, but they awoke captured and battered. The encounter was also to help prompt one of the "Fighters" into wanting to some day get even with this bully... after he was left pinned, with a pair of Stilettos, to a tree, alone, to linger on an agonizing death. The Fighter was saved by passers-by, and the deep resentment of the defeat is helping shape the Fighter's personality. The Fighter went on to recover and helped his fellow captive party members escape.

For me, there is always story involved, and some days players need to be clobbered into sobriety, for the sake of an evolving and intriguing storyline.

[damned]

and characters who think that the law cant touch them? whats with that? thumbing your nose at the local nobility/law too often or too hard should see you clapped in irons at best!

[Phystus]

The increasing challenge thing is as old as dungeons themselves. The deeper you go, the tougher the monsters get. But yeah, there does seem to be more emphasis on allowing the party to win. And that grates on my old-school heart.

But I've found an upside to 'challenge ratings' and such. They do give you a fairly accurate guide to determining just how much is really too much. So they let you kill with more precision!

~P

[Karrth]

Both as a player and as a GM I agree that there needs to be encounters that is too hard or require some serious thinking to get past.

But that being said, as a player, I prefer to have a 'fair chance' at either getting away or fighting. Not saying that it should be easy in any way but I'm reminded about last time I played table top gaming where the GM went out of his way to create difficult encounters -by altering the rules on the fly. Some things worked for his creatures while they didn't work for the players.

Still it did create that fear of encountering anything not human

[Valarian]

Sometimes running away, or getting captured, is the best way to go.

For example, if you are playing in a pulp or spy game, at some point it is likely that you will face a dire situation and your character will be captured. You should welcome it, it's likely that you'll find out what the villain has planned through the inevitable monologue and bragging. Play to the tropes of the genre.

If you are faced with a dire situation, don't be afraid to leg it. Follow brave Sir Robin!

[GunnarGreybeard]

Most games I've run at some point have generally included a seriously one sided encounter/situation where players have to run early or they risk getting captured. I don't think I have ever outright killed any PC who opted for surrender or was knocked out and then was captured. Now those who opt for the "I fight to the death" stand, because they want to rather than because its their characters' persona, that's on them.

Being captured can be a part of advancing the storyline and allows for those great escapes of player legend. I tend to GM along the "PC's should always have a chance" theme so that as long as they are not committing suicide or doing extremely stupid things they will stay alive, albeit much poorer and bereft of any nice equipment they may have been carrying at the time.