Running away from a fight

[mrklin]

Oh gods yes, I've seen this phenomenon, but it wasn't all that uncommon in the good'ol days either. Think my most memorable incident was:

- StarWars : a group of 4 brand spanking new Level 1 characters decide to take on 2 squads of Stormies, needless to say it went poorly, but what scared me more was the amount of 20's the guys rolled, leaving them not so humbled as they should have been, but just as dead.

Although I catch myself on the player side as well being a little too eager. Had just rolled up a new character, deciding to play myself heavily into the role of slicer. In hindsight I knew damned well there was no way in hell I was gonna be able to pull of an electronic bank-heist on the fly as a Level 1 character, but that thought never crossed my mind as I started rolling my checks... provided ample diversion for the rest of the group to perform the mission though (although I forget what that was at the moment)

[Yospeck]

Among the people I GM for (my MMORPG guild) I'm quite notorious for not caring if my players die if they do something particularly stupid or not run when that's clearly what they should do. The danger you face is that sometimes someone will say "My character just wouldn't run away from this....", which is fine and the pig-headedness of the player is generally portrayed in the character. So I have to be mindful otherwise I'm basically creating an encounter that I know this guy is doing to die in.

With the systems I've played the use of Destiny Points has always been handy, and in general people are a little more cautious when they have none. Similarly I'm generally happy to take hands, arms, eyes, etc. instead of outright killing the character and giving them nasty penalties.

I've also told my guys with the new campaign we've started that "there will be times that there are some rooms you just should not go into... or somethings you don't know will kill you until it kills you. If I've written it that way there will always be a way to find out beforehand, but I'm not changing the room of death just because you stumbled into it unknowingly."

This is why I loved playing Dark Heresy, because you characters are pretty much guaranteed to die and people come to terms with it really early on.

[weaselarmor]

I let my players know from the onset that I'm not going to hold back with the consequences of their actions. If you're level 3 DO NOT take on the whole palace guard to access the treasure vault you WILL DIE.

Most players and people in general can tell when things are being dumbed-down for then and don't tend to appreciate it.

[inuroku842]

Personally, I came into the world on AD&D and then moved on up through 3rd, 3.5, and finally pathfinder (all with the same DM) and have never actually experienced an unbalanced fight. I guess that was one of my DM's flaws, otherwise he was great. Since I learned most what I know from him, I've never actually ran an encounter in which players had to run away. I actually seem to base my quests and encounters off of the player's levels, even if it sometimes doesn't make sense to leave out an encounter with a green dragon that jealously guards his forest lair. I'm going to have to remedy that from now on...

I think maybe some of this syndrome may be due to computer RPG'ing, where you are 'quested' into areas with creatures that are compatible with your level (thanks WoW). Thinking back to the OLD FF games, you could easily wander into an area with higher level creatures, not even know it, and your entire party be dead before you get through the first round. I don't so much blame the new onslaught of mainstreamed tabletops, I think they're just following a successful trend in the gaming industry: players want to win, let them win.

[Ardem]

Sat Night I produced an unbalance concept. They were suppose to lose the fight, and I knew they would not back off either. Fortunately RM when the hit point go down it is a knock out not a kill.

There object was to clear a tomb where the object of the mission was to stop gnolls from releasing a powerful demon onto the world. However they entered deeper and deeper and opened up the room where the demon was. 5 Level 2 chars are not match for any demon.

Luckily I knew the demon would see these people as insignificant ants, he used a control spell to make one of them fight another, after giving them a choice to join him. I whispered into the controlled char, don't say anything you now under mind control you must attack a party member. He attacked and the party member though he had done a turn coat on him attack back full force and gained a critical. Broke his arm and smashed tendons putting the controlled char on the floor and out of the fight.

I then controlled the PC char who just laid down the smack and now he knew what had happenned professed an enormous amount of guilt for what he had done. The hurt char now released from control swore like a trooper at him, for being an idiot.

Meaning while the two of PC's focused on the demon but could not hit him as arrows missed and swings missed, he raised two skeletons and march calmly out of the door, he told the female elf archer to move or die, she didn't and missed, he whipped her with a E critical, wher she used a fate point, she was very hurt but did not die. Then the skeleton gave her a D critical and sent her down bleeding out.

He then strode out the door, while the control PC was hammering the halfing cleric.

The rest of the night ended with cries of complaints about opening the door and complaints about why the PC char who broken the other PC's arm and did not use the flat of his sword.

They knew the world was at risk, but they should of run, especially when the NPC name said Demon.

As a GM it was a pleasurable night, I love to mess with the PC's mind on occasion.

[inuroku842]

Haha, that's awesome!

[Doswelk]

One of the things I love about the Savage Worlds setting books is that they always state that the encounter tables are not balanced, they have just put the monsters that should be in that area on the tables.

Not having played D&D since 2nd edition I have read with "horror" about how 3rd and 4th editions have rules for how to balance out the encounters to ensure that each fight uses up X hp and X healing potions/spells etc.

Where's the fun in knowing that the encounter is balanced towards your success (other than bad luck with the dice)?

Mind you in Savage Worlds a kobold can kill a legendary character with a well placed sword thrust (thanks to exploding dice).

I think that players should always have in the back of their mind that ANY encounter might be the one they should not fight and talk/run/trick they way around it.