Run Away!

[bigstipidfighte]

I find there is a common theme here on the forums that players rarely run away from any encounter. A level six party facing down (and defeating) a Balor is probably the best example, but less extreme cases show up all the time.

In my personal experience, this phenomena is unique to D&D, with players (myself included) going into denial/becoming upset when facing a superior foe. Since the forums focus heavily on D&D as well, I'm wondering, has anyone else noticed this mindset creeping in when you sit down to play D&D, but not when playing other systems?

[Craft (Cheese)]

This seems to be a habit that comes more from video games than from D&D: Those few modern games that DO allow running from battles, like Pokemon, only allow running from battles that are so pathetically easy they pose zero threat to you. A battle against something that's actually dangerous you'll be forced to fight no matter what, so there's no point trying to avoid it. It's a pretty tough habit to ditch once it sinks in.

[vartan]

I'm actually pretty dejected about the current campaign I'm in because we didn't walk (or run or paddle) away from an encounter I'm pretty sure the DM hadn't actually drawn up. It's debatable, but basically my party was on the edge of a swamp in which we knew there was a black dragon of indeterminate age (read: no one gave us a straight answer even about the most relevant event of its history wherein it lost its wings). We had totally been sent to the edge of the swamp by plot hook, so why would I assume we weren't supposed to go meet this thing? We even pressed the local lizardmen into our service. After a random encounter and the realization that the poisonous swamp waters drained all physical abilities (wow) we still endured. Basically when the DM declared that a whole boat of lizardmen was breath weaponed without rolling any dice I realized the error. Whether it was his or ours I dunno. We ran away after a stupid bargaining session that pretty much set my character back.

Tl;dr: kobayashi maru scenarios are stupid if they aren't obvious until its too late, and if the party doesn't fail as intended... I woulda rather died.

[Grail]

Definitely an issue. DnD tends to try to force level-appropriate encounters on groups by way of policy. As such, players have this expectation now that any encounter should be able to be defeated, otherwise it wouldn't have been put against them.

It is a terrible blight on the game imo. I as a DM never encourage this thought process and have been known to have characters as low as 2nd level encounter epic level creatures (normally not that high a disproportionate encounter, but occasionally it has been). If the group goes up against them, they get swatted - usually non-lethal or just to within an inch of their life (first time), to teach them that the world is dynamic, it is not about level appropriate encounters.

In RL, sometimes you go spear fishing and there's a great white in the water. Or sometimes you go spear fishing and there's nothing but sardines.

Level dis appropriate swings both ways, so I make sure that I implement this in games. But if players constantly think that everything can be defeated in my games, they usually die because they bite off more than they can chew.

[Lord Tyger]

Part of it, I think, is that a lot of high level threats can't effectively be run from once the combat's started. A Young Red Dragon (Pathfinder) has a 200 ft fly speed, and then a forty-foot ranged attack on top of that. If you run, without favorable terrain or a distraction, you're just wasting actions

[Blind Orc]

Because you don't get exp for running away.

[Anxe]

My players run away from monsters all the time. I thought everyone did this.

[Frenth Alunril]

My players run away from monsters all the time. I thought everyone did this.

Mine too, but to be honest, I play sandboxy, gloves off. My players have run from everything. They got pretty angry with me when they finally caught the level 6 cr druids while their group was 5 level seven characters with npc support and a good strategy with a surprise. They were angry because it was easy.

Then I practically killed them with slaadi, and now they are in love with shopping in the city of brass.

You want you players to think more and stand down, kill one, see what happens then. Suddenly you will have them talking strategy and all kind of things.

[Synovia]

This seems to be a habit that comes more from video games than from D&D: Those few modern games that DO allow running from battles, like Pokemon, only allow running from battles that are so pathetically easy they pose zero threat to you. A battle against something that's actually dangerous you'll be forced to fight no matter what, so there's no point trying to avoid it. It's a pretty tough habit to ditch once it sinks in.

D&D also is very "Rocket-tag" like, and damage greatly outpaces health. Once you engage something, by the time you know you can't kill it, you're in a position where you can't really get away.

Also, trying to run is often more likely to get you killed than staying and fighting. Most of the more dangerous creatures you face move faster than you do.

[Honest Tiefling]

My players run away from monsters all the time. I thought everyone did this.

Going to second this. I tend to be and play with people where the phrases 'parlay is French for the enemy is flat-footed' and 'Run away!' tend to get used a lot.

I wonder if some people feel obligated to stay if the entire party doesn't flee?

[Aron Times]

My Lasombra antitribu died during an encounter with a Lasombra priest that I was supposed to run away from. Basically, the ST had statted out this NPC and given him a significant backstory, but he completely failed to convey the NPC's threat level. I was kind of pissed off when the DM said after the fact that I should have run away, never mind that his first action in the fight was to use Obtenebration 3: Arms of the Abyss, which is like springing Black Tentacles on a low-level D&D character. Oh, and he won initiative, so there really was no way for me to run.

[prufock]

As a player, I am more than willing to run away.

- Bandits have a kid hostage, his mom is pleading with us to help him. We get the kid out of their grasp and skedaddle, not because WE don't want to fight, but because there will probably be collateral damage.

- BBEG Cleric catches us off-guard, teleport/plane shift away. Take a little time to prep, then come back and lay the smack down.

- Hey look, a gate to the Abyss with demons - including a balor - coming through. We get our level 8 butts out of there to go warn the world.

- This wizard is kicking our butts. Teleport!

Discretion, as they say, is the better part of valour. We prefer to call it a "tactical retreat," since we'll usually get out of there in order to prepare and plan. To me, this is part of character immersion. My characters mostly fall on the good side of the moral axis, and aren't above making sacrifices (I had one sorcerer who snuffed it 3 or 4 times over the run of a campaign), but people don't normally fight to the death.

[EccentricCircle]

Dragons show up from time to time in my games. I think so far there have only been two occasions when the characters haven't run away screaming as quietly as possible, simply because it was a dragon. Frequently those dragons were level appropriate challenges, sometimes they weren't, but the players didn't know that. what they did know was that they didn't want to mess with dragons.

This is across at least five different groups, over the course of ten years. in that time, no one has ever willingly fought a dragon. On one occasion, cornered and unable to escape while trying to steal a valuable jewel from beneath the sleeping beast they actually ended up buying the item from the dragon, by giving the dragon every single piece of treasure they currently possessed in exchange.

If you want your players to not charge blindly into any encounter assuming that its been set up so that they can win it, tell them at the start of the game that there will be a vast disparity between their abilities and those of other things they may meet. That way they can't really complain if they do somethign stupid and die horribly.

[Saph]

It's a very D&D mentality, and I think it comes from the idea that the purpose of everything in the Monster Manual is to be killed for gold and XP. There's this attitude a lot of gamers have that if you meet a monster, it MUST be there for you to kill it, otherwise why's it even in the game?

To be fair a lot of modules encourage it. I've played in way too many adventures where monsters just seem to spawn on top of the party at regular intervals with no objective other than "Adventurers! Get 'em!"

I generally explicitly tell new players to my game that not every encounter will be level-appropriate and that sooner or later they WILL run into enemies that they can't defeat in combat. They usually pick up the idea fast.

Also, trying to run is often more likely to get you killed than staying and fighting. Most of the more dangerous creatures you face move faster than you do.

Teleportation magic. If you're too low-level to afford that, invisibility is a decent substitute.

Pretty much all my characters with any resources have at least one get-out-of-jail-free card designed to let them run away. If you've got 36,000 gp worth of gear then you should be willing to drop < 1,000 gp on a retreat item.

[Malak'ai]

I have no problems having my characters hightail it out of danger if they are drastically out matched by the encounter, this sometimes goes against the party dynamic, but hey, it's not my fault if the other party members don't have any sense.

Case in point, I was in a core only epic game when 3.5 first came out, and I was an Elf Ranger 15/Sorcerer 3/Arcane Archer 7 in a party with a Cleric of Hextor 25, a Barbarian 27 and a Wizard 16/Rogue 4/Arcane Trickster 8.
We stumbled in on a Half Dragon Balor and his "friends" (can't exactly remember what they were apart from devils of some kind) being ported into the mortal realm by 2 lvl 21 Wizards. The Barbarian charged straight in to the HDB, the Cleric went nato on the bad Wizards and failed badly (died 3 rounds later after getting hit with 2 Discentigrates and a Finger of Death).
I popped off a few arrows which only just got over the DR of the devils so I bolted.
Our Wizard survived (only just after having to teleport out himself after trying to deal with 5 high level Devils by himself), and the other players went nuts at us because we ran. The Wizard's player ended up telling them that if they hadn't of acted stupid then we might have stuck round to help out, they claimed "We were doing what we would normally do".

[Yukitsu]

My players when I DM run from literally everything. I once ran them against a level 1 warrior when they were all level 2, and they decided to run.

Conversely, I never run from anything. I view any encounter as a challenge to be overcome. I do tactically relocate when I think the area is giving us a disadvantage, but I'm not using it as a euphemism to flee, I really do set up at a better spot and fight it out. If it turns out that I do lose (which happens from time to time) I'll just accept that I needed a better plan. If the DM is shoving things that are by all means "unkillable" by myself or the party, he may as well have just cutscened it, because there was obviously 1 "right" answer, and apparantly my input has no point anymore to what happens beyond "live a coward" or "die a good death". I don't appreciate games where I can only really do variations on 1 thing to continue.

In essence, anything truly dangerous will be able to shut down my ability to flee, just as much as they can shut down my ability to fight back. If I have some kind of mobility advantage, I will more than likely abuse that to harass the enemy into fleeing and being run down or killed than I am to just keep running. Also, I'm fully aware that my DM's view my characters as incredibly dangerous due to my ability to very often hunt down and kill NPCs that were supposed to get away from me. D&D gives most advantages to the chaser, not the one running away. A dangerous enough enemy, you're simply multiplying the advantages they have against you by trying to run.

[HMS Invincible]

I have a different problem with the "run away" encounters. How obvious are you going to be about it? Do you expect your players to know the Monster Manual perfectly? Just the famous monsters? Don't look at it at all?

What about your description of it? Did you give a name? Some knowledge check? Did you show them burning breaking a mountain in half?

In essence, my question to you is how much metagaming do you want?

[jackattack]

I think fighters should be able to make a tactics (INT or WIS) check to judge whether a party can handle a particular encounter. Likewise, various knowledge skills can go a long way to determining whether a party should flee or melee.

That said, I was in a party that encountered two ogres in a room in a very linear dungeon encounter. My druid/ranger got one of them to chase him all the way out of the dungeon, then taunted and dodged so the ogre fell into a rushing river. When he got back to that room, the rest of the party had run past the second ogre and locked the far door; this time, the chase ended with my character and the ogre falling in the river and going over a waterfall! Great fun.

[Anxe]

One of the splat books expanded Sense Motive to include gauging the skill of one's opponent. Sense Motive is a WIS based skill, so that's pretty much what you're going for, jackattack.

[VanBuren]

One of the splat books expanded Sense Motive to include gauging the skill of one's opponent. Sense Motive is a WIS based skill, so that's pretty much what you're going for, jackattack.

Well that makes sense. I wouldn't expect that to be a class skill for the fighter, seeing as how it's all about gauging whether or not you can fight it.

...

Yeah.

[Xefas]

I'm wondering, has anyone else noticed this mindset creeping in when you sit down to play D&D, but not when playing other systems?

It's simply a matter of the D&D systems not supporting or incentivizing that behavior. So, it's possible to shirk that trend, but it's left up to each individual group to figure out their own way to do that. And, you may find a higher degree of people who successfully do that here, on this forum, simply for the fact that those people who actively seek to use their free time to discuss and consider things about D&D in an online D&D-based community are also the most likely to recognize what they do and don't like about the game, and act accordingly.

But, at it's core, D&D has several factors going against it in this regard.

Firstly, information. It's hard to figure out if an encounter is one you should run from, whether or not the encounter was "designed" to be run from. Is that mob of kobolds something your level 10 Fighter can mow through trivially? Are they the secret elite guard of some elder wyrm who have 2 Warrior levels on top of their racial stats? Or are they the secret elite guard of some elder wyrm who all have 15 Warblade levels? They look the same before they murder you. What's a Balor? A big fiery demon? Well, we killed a big fiery demon six levels ago, so this one would be a cake walk.

Yes, there are a few specific abilities here and there, some (all?) outside the Core books, which can allow you to better acquire this information. Not every character is going to have that. Not every player is going to know they exist. Not everyone has every book.

What are some ways other games deal with this? Well, for the majority of systems that I've played, nothing ever becomes completely harmless. D&D has this issue where there comes a point where being stabbed with a sword does nothing if the attacker has (completely-invisible-to-the-players number X) but being stabbed with that same sword is a death sentence if someone with (completely-invisible-to-the-players number X+5) does it.

If I play Burning Wheel, I know that anyone with a sword and nothing to lose is a possible threat to me, even if I have magical chainmail and they're a street urchin. I know that, in Dogs in the Vineyard, anyone with a gun can get angry and lucky and off me. I know that, in Mouse Guard, if I Feint when he Attacks, and he gets a good roll, I'm done. In the Dresden Files, a vanilla mortal with a street-legal handgun can shoot my world-sundering archmage. And then I've been shot. With a gun. And that's bad.

But that's not to say these games are especially gritty. In fact, I'd say they've significantly less gritty than D&D. Because, losing a fight is not instant death. If I get shot in Dresden or Dogs, things are going to be bad. Real bad. Bad stuff is going to happen. Consequences. But not death (or rather, a "loss of agency", since death doesn't mean the same thing in every game), because death is boring. Your death stops the show. Consequences make it interesting, and make you experience your failure in a way death does not.

Secondly, means. It's hard to actually run away from something. Especially if you're already engaged in battle, which is likely (see above). Once the Balor tells you it's a real threat, it's already hit you for twice your max health, eaten your corpse and flown away.

Yes, there are a few specific abilities here and there, that allow you to completely and unstoppably flee from any negative situation. Not every character is going to have that. Not every player is going to know they exist. Not everyone has every book. Not everyone is going to have the opportunity to use such an ability.

What are some ways other games deal with this? Well, different resolution mechanics, for one. If I lose a fight in Mouse Guard, depending on the degree of failure, maybe the game just dictates that I managed to get away, but lost. Or maybe the orphans I was protecting got eaten, but I got away. Or maybe my arm got torn off by a rabid wolverine, but I got away. Something not as binary as D&D. Maybe look at Don't Rest Your Head. Losing doesn't even mean you lose. You might just go a little more insane. Or misery and suffering will permeate your character's existence, or something. An escape mechanism built into the basic mechanics of the game is good.

Alternatively, take a look at a system that has many of the failings of D&D, but not necessarily in this regard. Exalted. Maybe my players piss off some god they've never heard of, and have no way of telling if he's dangerous until they're already in the thick of things. Once I say "He uses his Godspear of All-Searing Noon to automatically hit you, even if you have an ability that allows you to dodge things that automatically hit you, and deals infinity damage", they know he's a threat. And can respond with a fairly low level Charm that lets them dodge anything, even if it automatically hits, even if it automatically ignores abilities that allow you to dodge things even if they automatically hit. And then they can jump a few miles away, or open a gate to hell, or jump off the side of the universe, or whatever.

Third, as a previous poster noted. You don't get stuff! D&D is driven on XP and Gold. And you get that stuff for viciously beating things. You can't beat/maim/murder things if you run away.

What are some ways other games deal with this? The aforementioned Exalted (terrible game, don't play it) just gives you XP per session. Win/lose, you still experienced things. You still got better. Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel don't use XP, but the former requires you to get a few successes and a few failures with a skill before it levels up, and the latter requires you to get a few tests in with a skill that have such a high difficulty it's overwhelmingly likely you'll fail at some point. Just like in real life, failure is a part of learning in those games. InSpectres rewards your XP-alikes for the success of the overall mission, rather than each individual encounter. Even if you got slapped around by a poltergeist a few times, if you saved the world in the end, you still get Stuff. Shadow of Yesterday gives you XP for writing down the important parts of your character, and then actually doing the stuff you wrote down. If that's winning fights, then you get XP for winning fights. If your character is more about, say, improving the lives of the lower class, then you get XP for doing that instead, whether or not you lose a fight at some point.

Hope that helps.

[Agrippa]

Actually Xefas, earlier D&D encourged running away from most fights, certainly at early levels. You typically got more more experience from gold than fighting and killing. Basically you're heavily armed thieves and the monsters, aside from the demon, Lovecraftian nasties, wild animals and undead, are your rivals with dragons and certain giants as your marks. Unless of course the monsters are working as most-likely underpaid security guards. And all this in an attempt to raise your social status by way of wealth and mabye even take over large areas of land. Either that or you plan to blow it on hookers and booze or donate it to your local temple. Of course so do most of the monsters.

[Xefas]

Actually Xefas, earlier D&D encourged running away from most fights, certainly at early levels. You typically got more more experience from gold than fighting and killing. Basically you're heavily armed thieves and the monsters, aside from the demon, Lovecraftian nasties, wild animals and undead, are your rivals with dragons and certain giants as your marks. Unless of course the monsters are working as most-likely underpaid security guards. And all this in an attempt to raise your social status by way of wealth and mabye even take over large areas of land. Either that or you plan to blow it on hookers and booze or donate it to your local temple. Of course so do most of the monsters.

I'll be honest, I haven't played anything before 2nd edition. So, it may very well be different there. I'd actually be interested in what mechanics pre-2nd ed supported or encouraged running away. Gold-as-XP sounds like a pretty neat idea for a dungeon-themed game, if implemented properly of course.

[Driderman]

Lots of people saying "high-threat monsters have ways of catching people that flee".
Yeah, they do, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll bother with it.
I also think it's a tendency prevalent in D&D, but certainly also other systems as well. Its more about pride than anything I think; Players are so used to being the awesome hero that always wins that having to retreat from a battle stings their pride quite a bit.

[molten_dragon]

Another factor that hasn't been mentioned here is that running away sucks. It isn't fun at all. It's much more fun to be awesome and slaughter stuff, so people generally want to do that a lot more than run away.

[Saph]

Another factor that hasn't been mentioned here is that running away sucks. It isn't fun at all.

Citation needed.

Personally, I find zero-challenge fights where we inevitably steamroll our opponents really, really boring. I'd much rather have an encounter where the party nearly TPKs and has to run.

It also kills verisimilitude if every single encounter the party meets is exactly level-appropriate. Are the bad guys queueing up in CR order offscreen, or what?

[Tyndmyr]

I find there is a common theme here on the forums that players rarely run away from any encounter. A level six party facing down (and defeating) a Balor is probably the best example, but less extreme cases show up all the time.

In my personal experience, this phenomena is unique to D&D, with players (myself included) going into denial/becoming upset when facing a superior foe. Since the forums focus heavily on D&D as well, I'm wondering, has anyone else noticed this mindset creeping in when you sit down to play D&D, but not when playing other systems?

Well, often, running isn't an option. For instance, merely running from a Balor just means you're going to die tired.

[Rallicus]

I've had players run away in my campaign when the battle was lost. Granted, they fell in a pool of water that had a sort-of vacuum mechanism at the bottom that nearly caused them to drown, but they still ran.

This reminds me of when I posted a story of the worst campaign I was ever in on another forum. Essentially it went like this: my friends and I made 3.x characters and my friend ran a level 3 module, 4 edition. We had 7 of us fighting a bunch of kobolds, and they were really wrecking us. The mage dropped in the surprise round, but we fought on, up until the point where the DM sort of copped out and caused them all to die in 1 hit.

I was really baffled by how botched the encounter was. I decided the next weekend to look at the module my friend was using, and that's when I discovered it was a 3rd level 4e module.

When I posted this on the other forum, people generally agreed that the DM was clueless and should not have run a campaign, especially with 7 people new and interested to D&D. But one guy chewed me out, claiming I was the bane of D&D's current existence, how in the past people would run when things got tough, how my friends and I were just as much to blame as the DM.

Most people argued with him, citing the level of the module and the fact that we were on two separate editions. But looking at it now, I think he was right. Most players nowadays just don't even consider the idea of running, because running nets no XP and XP is essential to create this MMO-style "planned build" that will make your character the strongest they can be.

So yeah, I think in it's current iteration, back until at least 3e, D&D players generally aren't known for running away. It's just the way the game has become, and especially since DM's so constantly give out pity retcons to avoid death, what's the point of potentially missing out on XP? The DM is most likely going to let your character live, with this "gloves on" approach so prevalent nowadays, so why run?

[jackattack]

Shouldn't tactics be a fighter class skill? Or maybe a Knowledge topic? Sense Motive might tell you if you can take an opponent one-on-one, but it seems tactics would tell you how to deal with large groups, and how to use resources and circumstances to best advantage.

Some campaigns address the "level-appropriate encounters only" issue by simulating a sandbox environment around the survivable/intended path. Players can explore and make decisions about whether to go through the dark forest full of spiders, the valley with the dragon, or the mountain pass full of fuzzy bunnies.

As for mechanics/incentives that reward running away, this harkens to other threads about alternate XP awards. I've had DMs who assign full or partial XP for "dealing with" opponents in any capacity, including stealthing around them, bribing past them, or setting them on each other. The issue becomes how much XP should a party get for running away, or for avoiding an encounter altogether?

[Kurald Galain]

I find there is a common theme here on the forums that players rarely run away from any encounter.

I think this is mostly about D&D, yes. D&D tends to teach the mindset that every problem is to be resolved by fighting something, and that all battle encounters will be level-appropriate for you. Furthermore, the D&D rules ensure that there are never any negative consequences from combat.

Compare this with e.g. Call of Chtulhu or Vampire, which teach you that fighting is something to avoid, and something that has a high change of getting you maimed or killed.