On Morale, or should enemies run away

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One thing I remember liking about the Riddle of Steel combat was that by far the most effective form of defence was to retreat right out of range, albeit at the cost of not being able to make a follow up attack and therefore not attacking yourself.
 
It's seems that a lot of examples in this thread are based off military engagements, yet PCs are usually in small groups.

How do the PCs do a planned withdrawl?
The principles remain the same: obstruct the enemy's movement, covering fire, delay the enemy's front rank, screen your withdrawal with mobile attackers to harass the enemy's front rank, mask your movement, have a defensible point at which to rally.

I gave some examples upthread - those are all based on actual play experiences - but here's something that often gets overlooked: henchmen, hirelings, cronies, whatever you want to call them, give you more pieces and more options tactically. Frex, when I played AD&D back in the day, I adopted tercio tactics for hired men-at-arms: one rank of spear- or pikemen screening two ranks of heavy crossbowman, alternating fire: it's attacking a pincushion which can shoot deadly pins at you - and by the way, that's a tactic that works really well on grassy plains, if you have enough to make a square. Horse-mounted archers were awesome, because they could stand off and fire, then move before the enemy could close - unless they had their own cavalry or equivalent.

Our rally point would be something like the entrance to the dungeon or some cleared choke-point not far in. At least one magic-user loaded out with defensive magic: affect normal fires, web, phantasmal force, wall of . . . , stone to mud, &c. and at least one cleric loaded out with protection from . . . and hold . . . . Bowmen in the second rank and select magic-users provided covering fire and disrupted enemy spellcasters. When it came time to withdraw, frontline fighters concentrated their attacks on one or two opponents while the bowmen concentrated on another, to create a gap in a rank and allow the bowmen and the frontline to withdraw. Clerics and fighter/magic-users formed a secondary line to screen the retreat, then it was time to gap the enemy's line again and use those barrier spells.

I was a wargamer before I was a roleplayer, and I didn't stop being a tactician just because I became immersed in the inner life of my commander.

Lastly there's a harsh reality to withdrawal: sometimes you lose your rear-guard to save the rest of your force.
 
Dude. I didn't say 'not always being able to retreat', I said 'generally not able to retreat' and added 'because rules'. There's a huge difference.
Yeah, just like I didn’t say my players are stupid. Don’t want people to read into your posts? Maybe try not reading too much into theirs.
You dont need real life or death exerience to know that running away when you're outmatched is a good idea either. People read books and watch movies.
Yeah, and as many have stated, retreats are historically very dangerous and you’re liable to get cut down while running.
I'll be plain. "My players don't know any better" is a shitty excuse. If they don't know any better and you do, why do you think the problem is anything but you? At least to start? If they're to stubborn to learn any better then that's on them, but none of that is the system. Any part that is the system is also completely within your purview. So....
Sometimes, I don’t know if you know this, players play with several different GMs. And when playing different habits get ingrained, as different GMs have different styles and play using different systems. Then you start off the game by talking about the campaign and saying that hey, retreat is often an option, and you should look at using it if necessary. And all the players agree that sounds reasonable. But when you get into a fight in the game that seems beyond the PCs ability to win, they don’t run. So, why is that? Some people were talking about what lies behind that and possible ways to get beyond it, then you decided to come in and say that it’s because the players are stupid, or the GM is bad or whatever. That’s not helping solve the problem, and is exactly as useful as “git gud”. The conversation you say in another post can be had about adjudicating things, as well as a discussion on how to get players to realize retreat is a good option sometimes, to is exactly what was happening before you came in and started saying people were stupid.
 
Stupid players was a general example, and that situation in the case of your players was qualified by the word 'if'.

I said retreats were risky and should have consequences. I don't get your boggle.

If you haven't explained your game, let's call that a session zero item, then it's certainly your fault. I always bring up retreating and the absence of balanced encounters when I run OSR stuff, because the players need to know. Once that's established then it's up to the players to manage. If they aren't sure how to work it then I'll give them a range of options and possibilities, and would do the same in the midst of an encounter should it be necessary. This isn't a 'git gud' situation at all, nor was that my suggestion.

If the players are too stubborn, blinkered, stupid or whatever to figure out when they are overmatched, which I would hope is an edge case, then its their problem. It wasn't me who was trying to explain away why players wouldn't retreat even when they know and have been told that they will sometimes need to. It's like any other part of the game, tell them and explain, after which it's on them. It's not any more complicated than that.
 
Stupid players was a general example, and that situation in the case of your players was qualified by the word 'if'.
Yeah, I don't appreciate it as it seemed very targeted.
I said retreats were risky and should have consequences. I don't get your boggle.
I must have missed that. But that's not a boggle I have anyway. My problem was your idea that because players read and watch movies, they'll know retreat is a good option. Except if they do read about actual combat they'll find that a lot of the time retreating is even more dangerous than staying in the fight and does little good. And if they read fiction there's just as much running away to fight another day" as there is staying in the fight and being saved at the last second.
If you haven't explained your game, let's call that a session zero item, then it's certainly your fault. I always bring up retreating and the absence of balanced encounters when I run OSR stuff, because the players need to know. Once that's established then it's up to the players to manage. If they aren't sure how to work it then I'll give them a range of options and possibilities, and would do the same in the midst of an encounter should it be necessary. This isn't a 'git gud' situation at all, nor was that my suggestion.

Yeah, did you miss the whole bit where I said this?
Then you start off the game by talking about the campaign and saying that hey, retreat is often an option, and you should look at using it if necessary. And all the players agree that sounds reasonable.

This isn't about just having a discussion about retreat being an option or not. Talking to the players should be obvious, I think we both agree on that. But even though it is in no way actual combat, what's agreed on as straightforward and simple at a session zero often gives way to more instinctual, or perhaps I should say routine, thinking and decision making when in the heat of the moment of actual play. And saying "you know you could try retreating" can feel, and be, too much like railroading.

If the players are too stubborn, blinkered, stupid or whatever to figure out when they are overmatched, which I would hope is an edge case, then its their problem. It wasn't me who was trying to explain away why players wouldn't retreat even when they know and have been told that they will sometimes need to. It's like any other part of the game, tell them and explain, after which it's on them. It's not any more complicated than that.
Who it's on, whose fault it is and whose problem it is isn't really interesting to me, or helpful to I think anyone. This isn't a legal case, I don't get any money if it's my players who are wrong and not me. If the game is boring that's a problem for everyone playing, including the GM. That's why discussing how to go about "reconditioning" players who have been conditioned by other systems or playstyles that retreat is usually a bad option is the interesting conundrum here.
 
It's situational, that's why there's a GM. It's not a complicated idea and requires no handwaving. And the rules are within the purview of the GM. This isn't a 'get gud' argument, just a simple statement of fact, the GM can change whatever rule she likes if the outcome at the table is poor. Also, and feel free to read this a couple of times, I didn't say anyone should get to automatically run away. Where you got that notion I have no idea. Risky actions in RPGs should have consequences, and flight or retreat is no different.

Maybe before you ride to the defense of the as-yet-unnamed benighted masses here, who suffer under the whip of my heavy expectations, perhaps you could read a little less into my posts and maybe just read them (those 'z's' of yours are pretty insulting too btw, maybe can that shit). Adjudicating a retreat isn't complicated. You assess risks, assign consequences, and the players make some rolls - in any game. Some games have widgets to use there, other don't, but in neither case is this some kind of high-level GMing skill.

Why does this need to be any different or more head-exploding than any complex action declaration? So if someone then says, hmm, I'm not sure how to adjudicate a complex action resolution, then of course ideas can be proffered and examples discussed. It certainly doesn't need to be some head-scratcher of a special case that requires specially dispensed sage advice.

I never claimed that you said that running away should be automatic (it was just an example), just like I never claimed that people should run the game using rules over rulings, but you still implied it in an earlier post when you started to veer the conversation into a rulings vs. rules issue. It's a forum, sometimes people talk pass each other. But you're doing the same without realizing it. We're talking about how best to handle retreats mechanically and pointing out specific issues, and you're barging in talking about rulings and who's fault is it, like we don't know that GMs have the ability to adjudicate things.

It's like someone trying to paint a portrait, but they're not good at facial expressions and proportions, or at managing a specific medium, so they ask how to get proper placement of facial features right and how to deal with oils vs acrylics or whatever, so you barge in telling them to use Panting Skills instead of measurements, and telling them that they're in control of the canvas, so who's fault is it that they can't get facial features right. Like that addresses the actual issue.
 
The point was not to shade the thread into ruling vs rules at all. I was just pointing out that no one is ever 'forced' by the rules. Even in a game where the RAW makes retreat problematic, you can just tweak it and roll. In the case of games where there's an unfortunate tangle of rules that make it difficult, rather than just one or two, then there's a little more work to do. You have to pull that shizz apart and figure out where the easiest, least downstream-changing place is to make some changes. I mentioned rulings because in most cases that problematic RAW can also just be handled via adjudication and without hacks. I wouldn't freehand that every time mind you, I'd put a process in place and then tell the players what it is, and likely do a walk through the first time it gets used. It needs to be the same every time, not a catch-as-catch-can mess of does the GM remember.

I am addressing the actual issue (mechanically even!), and my main point is that it isn't particularly complicated once you boil off the verbiage. It's a risky action with consequences, and GMs adjudicate those as their core role at the table all the time. Trying to make this different or more complicated is just obfuscating the issue. The fiddly bits are, of course system dependant, but as those bits are usually bits of the combat and movement systems it's not as though the GM won't be familiar with them.
 
As for getting the players on board through threat of character death? Nope. Been there. They died instead, as I outlined above.
The two or three times I had that issue, I pulled out a stack of empty character sheets from my "GMing notes"*, about 10-15 pieces, and put it right next to me when it seemed obvious they were losing and they were still oblivious to the possibility of running:devil:.

Players: "What's this for".
Me: "Your next characters, of course. You seem resolved to losing those".
The message was received in all cases:thumbsup:!

*Which are actually mainly in my head, but I usually have spare paper, pre-prepared enemies, name lists, such things.

Amusingly enough, this approach was inspired by a narrative principle: Show, Don't Tell:grin:!
 
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The issue is, why should players retreat to avoid certain death if treating grants enemies attacks of opportunity, for example, which would only make death even more certain or at least a greater likelihood? Likewise, if the only "safe" option to retread is to move a half movement (like B/X, I believe), why even try it when you won't be able to get away from your enemies if you can only move safely at half speed (full speed grants enemies a bonus to hit), but they can move at full speed to catch up?
Because you delay your action, move at half-speed at the end of the round, then hope you gain initiative next round to retreat first. And then you have 1,5 Move Actions between you and the enemy!
If the moves aren't too disparate, you are now in chase mode. Also, ways to slow the enemy are your friend...like non-flaming oil that makes the terrain slippery, flaming oil that can be spread for a flaming wall, or spreading iron pyramids behind you (similar to bladed-tipped d4s:devil:).

Few of them rely on terrain, either, as you'd notice. As long as there is a known path the enemies must follow, it all works. If not, it's harder, but then you can just drop some valuables behind, if the enemies are rational, or food if they're not.
 
Something being overlooked so far is also surrender, which I also rarely see. It makes sense for some things not to surrender but when players offer no quarter (very common attitude) it is not surprising that they in turn expect none.

The principles remain the same: obstruct the enemy's movement, covering fire, delay the enemy's front rank, screen your withdrawal with mobile attackers to harass the enemy's front rank, mask your movement, have a defensible point at which to rally.

I gave some examples upthread - those are all based on actual play experiences - but here's something that often gets overlooked: henchmen, hirelings, cronies, whatever you want to call them, give you more pieces and more options tactically. Frex, when I played AD&D back in the day, I adopted tercio tactics for hired men-at-arms: one rank of spear- or pikemen screening two ranks of heavy crossbowman, alternating fire: it's attacking a pincushion which can shoot deadly pins at you - and by the way, that's a tactic that works really well on grassy plains, if you have enough to make a square. Horse-mounted archers were awesome, because they could stand off and fire, then move before the enemy could close - unless they had their own cavalry or equivalent.

Our rally point would be something like the entrance to the dungeon or some cleared choke-point not far in. At least one magic-user loaded out with defensive magic: affect normal fires, web, phantasmal force, wall of . . . , stone to mud, &c. and at least one cleric loaded out with protection from . . . and hold . . . . Bowmen in the second rank and select magic-users provided covering fire and disrupted enemy spellcasters. When it came time to withdraw, frontline fighters concentrated their attacks on one or two opponents while the bowmen concentrated on another, to create a gap in a rank and allow the bowmen and the frontline to withdraw. Clerics and fighter/magic-users formed a secondary line to screen the retreat, then it was time to gap the enemy's line again and use those barrier spells.

I was a wargamer before I was a roleplayer, and I didn't stop being a tactician just because I became immersed in the inner life of my commander.

Lastly there's a harsh reality to withdrawal: sometimes you lose your rear-guard to save the rest of your force.

Yeah, if you play with NPC hirelings then morale rules become much more important, because at that point you are moving much more towards the small unit tactical wargame end of the scale.
 
Yeah, if you play with NPC hirelings then morale rules become much more important, because at that point you are moving much more towards the small unit tactical wargame end of the scale.

That's a great point: morale works on both sides of the ball, so you can't afford Charisma as a dump-stat - your character's life may literally hang on how well you can inspire loyalty and courage.
 
That's a great point: morale works on both sides of the ball, so you can't afford Charisma as a dump-stat - your character's life may literally hang on how well you can inspire loyalty and courage.

I couldn't agree more. Retainer loyalty and morale are also excellent components of the B/X (and related) rules that has fallen by the wayside.
 
It's situational, that's why there's a GM. It's not a complicated idea and requires no handwaving. And the rules are within the purview of the GM. This isn't a 'get gud' argument, just a simple statement of fact, the GM can change whatever rule she likes if the outcome at the table is poor. ....
What?! You are going to get excommunicated from the Church of RAW if you keep this up, such apostasy is up there with the foolish notion that the Rules Are Not Complete And Perfect As Written. Please take a segment, beginning on segment 3 of round 2, to contemplate you actions. :smile:
 
That's a great point: morale works on both sides of the ball, so you can't afford Charisma as a dump-stat - your character's life may literally hang on how well you can inspire loyalty and courage.

I never really thought about the fact that Charisma (in some form) has become one of the staple stats regardless of the fact that its main reason for inclusion (control of hirelings) has largely been ignored by most games, it instead just becoming a sort of social skills stat and an often ignored one (aka dump stat).
 
A lot of the time player retreat isn't viable, in some games you try to disengage, the foes get a 'free' attack on you. Or they have better movement and thus can keep up or even overtake the players. This tends to disincentivize running away.
 
A lot of the time player retreat isn't viable, in some games you try to disengage, the foes get a 'free' attack on you. Or they have better movement and thus can keep up or even overtake the players. This tends to disincentivize running away.
Caltrops. Lines of salt against ghosts. Oil, flaming or not.
 
I do feel we need better means of retreat for players who don't think like wargamers.

13th Age takes a stab at it it, but like a lot of it's rules it's kind of lazy and half-baked.

Flee

Fleeing is a party action. On any PC’s turn, any player can propose that all the characters flee the fight. If all players agree, they successfully retreat, carrying any fallen heroes away with them. The party suffers a campaign loss. The point of this rule is to encourage daring attacks and to make retreating interesting on the level of story rather than tactics.
 
That 'fair fight' idea simply isn't a part of OSR play, generally speaking, which is one of the reasons I like it. PCs 'knowing' that encounters are balanced in some way to their level is all kinds of suck for my money. I hates it, precious, I hates it.

While it might not have been hard coded in the old days, it was still vaguely an expectation in most places, for the simple reason if you didn't set up things where it was at least vaguely true, it was all too easy to get a TPK just because things weren't as obvious to the PCs (and players) as it could be, and as noted, how useful running was varied considerably in perception. It might night have been as regularized as in a lot of modern games, but people still expected that if they hadn't gone out of their way to overreach, chances were what they ran into they could handle.
 
Modern tactics advise the use of any cover, right down to 6-inch high kerbs. There are plenty of cases of WWII infantry surviving murderous fire for hours in only foot-deep slit trenches.

Come back when you find many GMs who consider that a useful level of cover mechanically. Its well beyond the resolution level of most systems.

Once you've away from salt flats, or Nebraska, even relatively flat farmland rolls enough over tens of metres to complete hide someone running away. Add in ditches, hedgerows, boulders... and experienced warriors know this.

I'm sorry, but having been in those environments (as a crossbow hunter) that's really situational. I might have briefly lost targets sometimes but not ones that were retreating long enough not to get off not one, but often multiple shots--and note this was with a crossbow (albeit a modern one). After all, the lower dips don't do you much good if you have to come out of them again and its not hard for the attacker to be on the higher ones. Frankly, in the majority of cases you either have a small enough set of opponents where you can cover their attempted retreat with ranged attackers while others pursue, or a large enough number the ones retreating are playing a numbers game anyway, and the fact a few of them can find cover is less relevant than the fact you can only shoot at so many before they're out of effective range.
 
As far as being impossible to retreat due to movement rules, here’s how I handle it. Generally, the battlemat or battlemap or even just the table top is considered the “battle space”. As long as your token or figure is in the battle space, movement is controlled by combat rules.

But once a character leaves the battle space and opposing forces decide to run him to ground, movement is then controlled by chase mechanics.

That's a fair approach, but if you're going to bring most ranged weapons into useful play in the first place, the battlespace has to be relatively big.
 
I mean, "how fast something is" isn't just rules, it is an intrinsic part of how it works in the world.

A wolf doesn't get slower just because you've gotten off the battle map.

To what degree he can and can't conduct evasion can, however, as battle maps are often in insufficient detail to show it properly, or represent the vagueries of chases (how many systems will actually deal with the potential for someone fleeing--or pursuing--to trip for example? Someone catching a tree branch across the face at the wrong moment?)
 
A big problem is that players often don't actually consider running away unless a PC has already gone down, at which point running away means condemming a PC to death.

Or alternatively there's vastly different evasion capability in the group. This could be exceedingly obvious in OD&D with the difference in speed between a lightly armored elf and a heavily armored human, and not all groups took a "devil take the hindmost" view.
 
There's not really any "of course" there at all. Usually you'll want to be at the same distance from your opponent as your weapons effective range, or more and then step in to strike. No reason to be closer, unless your weapon is much better at a closer range than your opponent's. But if say both combatants have equally long swords, and are standing so they can just hit each other, and then one of them just takes off backwards, what great opportunity to attack does this present the other person?

Unless you're in really certain footing "taking off backwards" is a big risk in and of itself. Its far too easy to trip unless you have time to check out your footing. Do that and you're probably done. It might be statistically a good idea, but its not individually one.
 
It's very situational - sometimes you're just screwed, sometimes there's room to escape. You can lose yourself in trees and bushes, or a crowd, very quickly. Dozens of metres can be covered in seconds.

Pursuit in a skirmish setting is inherently risky too - a common Reiver tactic was to leave part of a raiding force in ambush to take down the pursuers. Pursuers may not want to charge after someone without backup, or may just be glad that the fight is over. Even a downed, exhausted combatant can get a lucky hit in - numbers count.

RPG combat tends to be somewhat abstract, and is often slowed down - an encounter that may take a minute in real life is gamed out in detail over hours. It can also be a little "white room".

The problem is that a lot of the situations you see in RPGs don't have a lot of opportunity to set up draw-into-trap situations, and PCs are often better at scouting than opposition is at hiding. So the PCs aren't going to particularly likely to worry about that except in unusually gritty settings/systems.
 
I gave some examples upthread - those are all based on actual play experiences - but here's something that often gets overlooked: henchmen, hirelings, cronies, whatever you want to call them, give you more pieces and more options tactically.

They're also actively discouraged to actively forbidden in a lot of games. The only non-OSR game I know of that is reasonably tolerant of them is Savage Worlds and even there it isn't assumed as a default situation. There can be any number of reasons for this, from systems that have too much time overhead per-character to ones where the power curve is steep enough that routine henchmen become speedbumps relatively quickly.
 
Stupid players was a general example, and that situation in the case of your players was qualified by the word 'if'.

I said retreats were risky and should have consequences. I don't get your boggle.

If you haven't explained your game, let's call that a session zero item, then it's certainly your fault. I always bring up retreating and the absence of balanced encounters when I run OSR stuff, because the players need to know. Once that's established then it's up to the players to manage. If they aren't sure how to work it then I'll give them a range of options and possibilities, and would do the same in the midst of an encounter should it be necessary. This isn't a 'git gud' situation at all, nor was that my suggestion.

If the players are too stubborn, blinkered, stupid or whatever to figure out when they are overmatched, which I would hope is an edge case, then its their problem. It wasn't me who was trying to explain away why players wouldn't retreat even when they know and have been told that they will sometimes need to. It's like any other part of the game, tell them and explain, after which it's on them. It's not any more complicated than that.

Man, I think you're seriously underestimating how much certain instinctive things from past experience gets ingrained in players. No matter what they intellectually know about the differences from campaign to campaign, system to system and GM to GM, it can take a long time, if ever, for them to escape from established habits, especially when under time pressure and/or stress.
 
The two or three times I had that issue, I pulled out a stack of empty character sheets from my "GMing notes"*, about 10-15 pieces, and put it right next to me when it seemed obvious they were losing and they were still oblivious to the possibility of running:devil:.

Players: "What's this for".
Me: "Your next characters, of course. You seem resolved to losing those".
The message was received in all cases:thumbsup:!

*Which are actually mainly in my head, but I usually have spare paper, pre-prepared enemies, name lists, such things.

Amusingly enough, this approach was inspired by a narrative principle: Show, Don't Tell:grin:!

All that'd have done in a lot of groups I've seen is build up a big pile of resentment and perception that you'd now decided you were going to kill them no matter what.
 
Something being overlooked so far is also surrender, which I also rarely see. It makes sense for some things not to surrender but when players offer no quarter (very common attitude) it is not surprising that they in turn expect none.

Its not hard to find yourself against a lot of opponents that you really, really don't want to surrender to in a lot of games. And that's before even getting into the really high level hostility a very large number of players do being captured or imprisoned in the first place.
 
Caltrops. Lines of salt against ghosts. Oil, flaming or not.
And I'm not going to deny that works, but it's rare that players are able to pull it off. And frankly, a lot of the time the bad guys have the means to make things go REALLY badly for players if they try.
 
You don't need a rules system to retreat, just reasonable adjudication. Even in a system where the rules push back against it it's still something the table can make happen without a lot of fuss. Getting the players on board is a different beast, although I find that once they realize that they'll die if they don't retreat when its sensible they get on board pretty quick.

This might be true with groups that are comfortable routinely sidestepping the rules. Not everyone finds doing that regularly a virtue.
 
And I'm not going to deny that works, but it's rare that players are able to pull it off. And frankly, a lot of the time the bad guys have the means to make things go REALLY badly for players if they try.

Timing can be an issue here, too. Who's throwing the counter-pursuit material? How long does it take? Most systems have some kind of activity cost for such things, and the more complicated they are (the flaming oil, for example) the higher that cost is.
 
I do feel we need better means of retreat for players who don't think like wargamers.

13th Age takes a stab at it it, but like a lot of it's rules it's kind of lazy and half-baked.

Warlock!, despite being a lightweight homage to grim and perilous Warhammer, simply lets you run away if you want. No parting shots, no attacks of opportunity. Anyone who wants to flee can do so. Not to say they can't be pursued or peppered with arrows if they are still viable targets after breaking away, but there is no death zone to prevent the move.

Combat in Warlock! is described as fluid, with lots of general moving, shoving, ducking and diving included, so hightailing it out of a fight isn't noticeably hard.
 
If you want it to be a tactically organised retreat then use the tactical combat system I guess.

If you want it to be somewhat more cinematic then don't. Remember that turn based combat is an abstraction and the abstraction can sometimes produce stupid results (I remember getting to an argument with a GM once because he had a bad guy run around the corner once and then told me I couldn't follow him further becauase I didn't know where he went. I argued that that was based off an abstraction and there was no way he would have got in his entire movement before I could begin to run after him, consequently I would have seen which way he went after going around the corner.)

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition actually has a good skill challenge system (I can't remember what they call it exactly). It also has a chase system. So in Savage Worlds you can move smoothly from 1) combat, to 2) retreat using the skill challenge system to 3) Chase using the chase rules.

Use the right tools for the job.
 
A few other things that affect this.

1) Critical existence fail (as I believe it's called in computer games). This mostly affects hit point systems such as D&D but basically if you don't actually lose any effectiveness until you're unconscious then psychologically it's difficult to appreciate the difficulty of the situation that you're in. It's sort of like the double or nothing trap the poker player can fall into. If the first real signal that the situation is bad is a PC going down, then retreat becomes unlikely.
2) Death spirals that make it harder to run away. This is similar to above, but if taking wounds means it's increasingly more dangerous to run away, then the player is incentivised to double down, even as they should be incentivised to retreat.

The solution to this would probably be to make damage or wounds make it harder to attack, but not to defend or retreat. This would encourage the player to realise that retreat is a good idea before it's too late. That's a gameplay solution anyway. Whether it would be worth it in trade off against realism is another question.
 
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Its not hard to find yourself against a lot of opponents that you really, really don't want to surrender to in a lot of games. And that's before even getting into the really high level hostility a very large number of players do being captured or imprisoned in the first place.

Yes but that goes into the whole victory or death thing. If fleeing is hard, and surrender = fate worse than death, then... Sure there are opponents that will literally make a meal of the loser, but ransom and slavery is an economically viable thing and an alternative to a TPK. There have been plenty of published adventures where the PCs begin as captives so it should be an option in game as well, but often isn't seen as one.
 
Yes but that goes into the whole victory or death thing. If fleeing is hard, and surrender = fate worse than death, then... Sure there are opponents that will literally make a meal of the loser, but ransom and slavery is an economically viable thing and an alternative to a TPK. There have been plenty of published adventures where the PCs begin as captives so it should be an option in game as well, but often isn't seen as one.
It's always difficult. The same thing goes for running away and leaving a downed PC. That doesn't necessarily mean a dead PC, but players always treat it as if does.

It's a matter of agency I guess. Even if you surrender and don't get killed, it can feel somewhat arbritrary if you survive when you were expecting to be killed, as if the GM spared you just so the 'story' can continue.

And realistically, who are you surrendering to? For surrendering to be an option certain assumptions have to hold. You need to have some confidence that a surrender will be accepted. If you're a wealthy nobleman who can expect a ransom like in Pendragon or A Game of Thrones then it makes sense. For the typical D&D adventurer battling orcs and Bandits it doesn't really make sense. Most rpgs are morally fairly black and white, and a consequence of that is you don't really expect mercy from the black hats.
 
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And realistically, who are you surrendering to? For surrendering to be an option certain assumptions have to hold. You need to have some confidence that are surrender will be accepted. If you're a wealthy nobleman who can expect a ransom like in Pendragon or A Game of Thrones then it makes sense. For the typical D&D adventurer battling orcs and Bandits it doesn't really make sense. Most rpgs are morally fairly black and white, and a consequence of that is you don't really expect mercy from the black hats.

And that's not even getting into things like Gloranthan chaos, where most cases you'd probably rather have the TPK.
 
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