"Run away! Run away!" ... what if they don't?

[jasper]

Reread the OP. If one is looking for solutions for what happens when the bad guys win...then there are any number of fairly obvious possibilities that do not involve character death:
1. * Enemies strip the PCs of their valuables, then leave them for dead.
2. * Capture one or more PCs and hold them for ransom. Might accept exchange payment in gold or service from the other PCs.
3.* Enslave the PC and/or sell it to someone else. Can take any number of forms...giant keeps one of the PCs in a cage for entertainment when bored. Evil mage keeps the PC around to experiment on with magic or poisons. The PC's next mission probably becomes how to escape...
4.* Torture the PCs and leave them for dead. Maybe involves levels of permanent madness, scars, or disability. Which might later be addressed with magic or prosthetics for a suitable cost or quest.
5.* Eat the PC's leg(s), then leave the rest behind. May be addressed with magic/prosthetics.
6.* Drags the PCs back to its lair for later consumption....escape mission.
7* Something bizarre. The evil hag steals the victim's voice or physical beauty and then lets them go.

1. whaaaa. You hate us icky nasty dm. I rolling up a new pc.
2. OH MY GAWD. The DM is railroading us again.
3. Hey guys, this just like episode 5,7,9. Boss Hogg is going to put moonshine in our trunk again.
4.whaaaa. You hate us icky nasty dm. I rolling up a new pc. I was attached to Bob two legs. He had a dance background.
5.whaaaa. You hate us icky nasty dm. I rolling up a new pc.
6. Hey guys it the old escape episode. Like Macgiver episode 4,6, 8.
7.whaaaa. You hate us icky nasty dm. I rolling up a new pc. I can't roll play my beauty queen as ugly.

 

[5ekyu]

Here's some stuff I tend to use when I expect the party to run. Everyone makes mistakes - players and GM's - and I would rather my players did stuff and got it wrong than were super cautious

1) have the enemy be not just too powerful but way way way too powerful. So 3 fire giants v a 7th level party they might think it's a winnable fight. They may not be clear as to the power of the enemy. I have used a beholder v a 2nd level party, a lich v a 4th level party.

2) have the bad guys not take the fight seriously or have a goal other than kill the players: the beholder and its Minotaur servant wanted to take an NPC prisoner, the lich wanted an old spellbook. Have one of the fire Giants say loudly in common "I bet you a silver groat you can't hit the fat blue one with your eyes closed" then one of the others throws a rock with disadvantage at the PC wizard while the other two laugh. Have one giant scoop up the most obstreperous PC and toss him into a stream 300 feet away and then shout "nailed it, 3 points" and have another say "My Turn"

3) if the fight has to happen have a couple of bacon saving options. My favourites are
A) a rival adventuring party shows up and saves the party mid fight - they'll hate that.
B) one of the bad guys sees an opportunity to kill his rival and backstabs his ally - they are evil right?
C) a bad guy snatches up an unconscious ally and threatens to twist his head off unless a ransom is paid - making it clear that negotiation is an option
D) a bad guys potion gies wrong polymorphing it into a vicious beast (T-Rex, Bullette whatever) that attacks anything
E) a bigger fish is attracted to the fight and grabs a bad guy snack (Dragon, Titan, Kraken) before flying away.

With number 3 I will tell the players that that was one of their 3 get out of jail encounter modifiers so they know on a metagame level that they got bailed out and that it won't always happen

Yes yes - robust and resilient... Only one thing to add... Do these even in some even encounters or even when the PCs are stronger.

Sprinkle these thru encounters all along... Show the players that its not uncommon for their to be divisions, desires and opportunities other than dead them or dead us all along.

Cannot count the number of times thst minions and #2 trying to cut deals have played significant places in the genre.

 

[5ekyu]

If they don't take reasonable hints, and the situation is clearly very bad, and they know there is no cavalry to save them, then allow the encounter to proceed to character deaths until they run.

CR and Threat Level and all these concepts were introduced by D&D, and many people who have only played D&D seem to think that all encounters must be balanced.

There are so, so many fantasy rpg's (and ones of other genres) where balancing rules are a hand-waive or simply not present at all. They treat the GM like they are competent to create encounters themselves without the handholding.

That said, CR etc. is useful - but it is just one tool in the GM's kit, and should not be taken for granted by players.

A gameworld (not a single dungeon or challenge type game - these do of course need to be balanced) should have lots of dangerous stuff in it characters cannot defeat, and it should not gate them off from those if they want to interact with them. There can be in-game warnings from NPCs, History/Lore checks, local legends sang about by Bards, or just local knowledge that the ruins make mincemeat out of powerful adventurers and are not for the likes of YOU.

In other words plenty of in-game ways for the world to make it clear that 'you shouldn't do the thing'...

As a GM, do yourself a favour and tell your players that your world is more freeform than the CR rules straight-jacket implies, and that whilst most things will be reasonably balanced, there will be times when they are not, and that doing research, scouting, planning, using sound tactics, and when necessary, fleeing, are all VERY good ideas.

Your campaign will be all the better for it.

The rules do noy require the gm to balance encounters by cr.

Having such a system for new gms to use should not be read as requiring or restricting options.

Games without a cr system imo are not treating GMs as more co.petent, they are just providing tools useful for some novice gms less.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I’m kind of surprised at how often TPKs are being condoned. I am all for encounters where combat is a bad idea for the PCs, and all for maintaining danger for the PCs. But I also realize that when I present them with a challenge that is beyond their ability to defeat in combat, I’ve chosen to do so. Everyone seems to site the players’ choice to resort to combat as justification for a TPK....but no one seems to question the DM’s choice to set things up this way.

What if the “clues” that the foe was beyond them wasn’t as obvious as the DM thinks? What if the other conditions present in the fiction override the players’ sense of caution? Perhaps the DM really stressed how horrible the giants’ attacks have been on the nearby community and didn’t realize that he did so. And so on.

What the players do largely depends on what the DM provides to them. I don’t say that to lessen their responsibility...ultimately, their choices are theirs....but t I don’t think we should ignore the DM’s influence over this kind of scenario.

It’s why I’d say that a TPK seems unnecessarily harsh. There’s no reason that a party loss must equal a TPK. Sure, the PCs should face negative consequences for bad decisions....but that doesn’t mean those consequences must be as bad as possible.

 

[jgsugden]

I think this illustrates a difference in play style. To many (such as myself), the PCs do NOT play a role in the story. Not in the way you describe it anyway. You seem to have the story as coming first, then PCs reactions later. For many such as myself, the PCs play a role in the game world. The difference being that the story comes later, based on the PCs actions. They craft the story as they go, and based on what they do...

For me it usn't PCs first or second, it is DM with the players. We tell the story together. The DM creates the world in which the heroes act, but I do not railroad them. And, their decisions clealry have impacts.

There are two extremes in one spectrum of DM style: Complete sandbox and complete railroad. In a complete sandbox, the DM drops challenges in his world and then lets the players wander from one to the next with no guiding elements pointing them from one event to the next. You might say these PCs have all the decision making power once the DM makes the world. In a complete railroad, the PCs are forced to go to a particular encounter at a particular time. The DM controls everything. In my experience, the game works best when you go right in the middle. It allows players and the DM to work together to create the best story.

I do not randomly drop 6 Fire Giants in front of four 5th level PCs. At best, the PCs hide and flee. At worst, they decide there is a reason to engage and we get a TPK. Neither is a great story beat. However, I might put 6 fire giants in front of a party if there is a reason to have them there, but if there is a reason, then I can make it clear to the PCs that engaging is suicide and that there is a good alternate path. They might still engage, but they had other paths and story reasons not to do so. The encounter with the Giants would almost assuredly not be just a brawl in waiting. There would be something else going on that makes them want to put themselves in that much danger, but does not require them to attack the giants. And, in these situations, there is rarely just one path for them to choose.

As you say, there are different play styles. However, PCs often randomly wandering into monsters that are likely to kill them unless they can flee is not a style I've seen work well. It is almost always frustrating to the players.

And one more thing to consider: The DMG suggests easy and medium encounters. Why? After all, they're not intended to threaten the lives of the PCs? Why have a "gimme" encounter? Because you can use these encounters to tell a good story. The challenge for the PCs may not be killing the enemy before the enemy kills them... it might be stopping the goblins before they run off with the farmer's kid. It might be preventing the dryad from wasting tie that the PCs want to spend hunting an enemy. There are a lot of great story moments where the PCs can feel like great heroes - not victims struggling at every turn to survive.

 

[iserith]

I’m kind of surprised at how often TPKs are being condoned. I am all for encounters where combat is a bad idea for the PCs, and all for maintaining danger for the PCs. But I also realize that when I present them with a challenge that is beyond their ability to defeat in combat, I’ve chosen to do so. Everyone seems to site the players’ choice to resort to combat as justification for a TPK....but no one seems to question the DM’s choice to set things up this way.

What if the “clues” that the foe was beyond them wasn’t as obvious as the DM thinks? What if the other conditions present in the fiction override the players’ sense of caution? Perhaps the DM really stressed how horrible the giants’ attacks have been on the nearby community and didn’t realize that he did so. And so on.

What the players do largely depends on what the DM provides to them. I don’t say that to lessen their responsibility...ultimately, their choices are theirs....but t I don’t think we should ignore the DM’s influence over this kind of scenario.

It’s why I’d say that a TPK seems unnecessarily harsh. There’s no reason that a party loss must equal a TPK. Sure, the PCs should face negative consequences for bad decisions....but that doesn’t mean those consequences must be as bad as possible.

I think this just underscores that the DM needs to be clear about the threat that is presented. And that the players need to take steps in-game to assess the threat before engaging. Or perhaps they try to figure out a way to turn the tables or simply avoid the threat.

As an example, I told my players that the random encounters between the town and the dungeon could be anything between a single eagle to a small group of trolls or even a stone giant, based on stories the townsfolk shared. (I'm using the "Hill Encounters" chart from Xanathar's.) At 1st level, they certainly did not want to run into trolls, so they took steps to mitigate their chances of running afoul of a random encounter on the way to the dungeon by going off-road, traveling at a normal pace, and tracking while traveling. This meant that they had fewer random encounter checks than going by road, which were at disadvantage (to the DM) due to successfully tracking, and that if they did encounter something, they wouldn't be at a penalty to passive Perception. We both performed our roles and they achieved a desirable outcome.

 

[pogre]

If I have a big, bad monster way over PC levels it will have a motivation for being there. Yes, even in my sand box settings. It may be as simple as protecting it's territory or lair to hunger to being forced into the situation by magic or other means. It's more interesting if the motives are complicated.

The motivation of the monster determines a lot of the resolution of a situation where a party won't flee. Evil master or blackmailer - capture the PCs for questioning. Protecting the lair - monster communicates to the PC to leave. Hungry - well, you are a mean DM - that means there IS going to be pursuit. You get my drift.

If you have an all-for-one group where if one PC goes down we are going to fight to the death (TPK) to bring that body home - my suggestion is to have the monster chew that dead PC up and swallow large parts of the body messily. IMC, that means they need true res. to get the PC back - therefore, there is no longer a need to stick around to fight for that body, which can save you from a TPK.

I am not afraid to tell a party they are losing and the situation is beyond desperate - it's suicidal.

If that fails - the PCs all die.

It is a bummer, but I'm not really interested in a game of immortals. That could be a cool game, but it is not my game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think this just underscores that the DM needs to be clear about the threat that is presented. And that the players need to take steps in-game to assess the threat before engaging. Or perhaps they try to figure out a way to turn the tables or simply avoid the threat.

As an example, I told my players that the random encounters between the town and the dungeon could be anything between a single eagle to a small group of trolls or even a stone giant, based on stories the townsfolk shared. (I'm using the "Hill Encounters" chart from Xanathar's.) At 1st level, they certainly did not want to run into trolls, so they took steps to mitigate their chances of running afoul of a random encounter on the way to the dungeon by going off-road, traveling at a normal pace, and tracking while traveling. This meant that they had fewer random encounter checks than going by road, which were at disadvantage (to the DM) due to successfully tracking, and that if they did encounter something, they wouldn't be at a penalty to passive Perception. We both performed our roles and they achieved a desirable outcome.

Sure, I think that clear communication about these things is necessary. In your example, you provided a list of possible threats, and cautioned the players to take appropriate steps to avoid them. I think that part of your example is great. But there were still rolls that took place, correct? They favored the PCs, but it was still possible for them to randomly encounter the Stone Giant, right?

So how would you have handled it if that had happened? Would you have them see the Goant well ahead of time, so that it was easily avoided? Would you have required Perception checks to see it? And Stealth checks to avoid it? What if those checks just so happened to not go te PCs’ way? They don’t notice the Giant, and he definitely notices them; now combat is a possibility. What do you do?

I think that you largely handled it well from what we know, but I’m curious how you would have handled it if the rolls had gone differently.

 

[Les Moore]

Dead characters learn no lessons.

No, a dead character gets no experience.

However, the player learns a valuable lesson, (only if it's not to push the die button)
and also gains experience.

As per post #39, PC death is the ultimate player meta-game experience/lesson. The knowledge and wisdom
imparted to the player is far more valuable than anything the PC could have gained, in the game. As a more savvy
player, in the future you will handle your PCs more deftly, enabling them to easily surpass their predecessors. Remember
The Fifth Element? A little bit of destruction is a good thing...

 

[iserith]

Sure, I think that clear communication about these things is necessary. In your example, you provided a list of possible threats, and cautioned the players to take appropriate steps to avoid them. I think that part of your example is great. But there were still rolls that took place, correct? They favored the PCs, but it was still possible for them to randomly encounter the Stone Giant, right?

Yes, though at that point, the chances were vanishingly small. Still non-zero.

So how would you have handled it if that had happened? Would you have them see the Goant well ahead of time, so that it was easily avoided? Would you have required Perception checks to see it? And Stealth checks to avoid it? What if those checks just so happened to not go te PCs’ way? They don’t notice the Giant, and he definitely notices them; now combat is a possibility. What do you do?

I think that you largely handled it well from what we know, but I’m curious how you would have handled it if the rolls had gone differently.

I have it set up where encounters occur at a distance of 3d20+30 feet. I don't see stone giants as likely lurkers, so I would not have it try to be stealthy. In this situation, the players chose to have the characters travel at a normal pace, so they are not moving stealthily.

While generally peaceful, stone giants see the world outside their lairs as dreams, so it's possible the giant could be violent since it doesn't need to account for its actions in a dream. I can imagine a scene where each group sees each other and the giant chucks a rock near the PCs on a whim to see what they do. What happens next is up to the players. If they decide to engage in social interaction, I could very quickly spin up a challenge where the stone giant effectively tries to take up a lot of their time. If they decide to fight, well, we have backup characters ready. If they decide to flee, perhaps the stone giant gives chase and we go into the Chase rules to resolve it. Ultimately that would probably come down to the characters being able to hide from the giant, which is a DC 15. If they can't, then perhaps the giant smashes one or more PCs to make a new color that it uses to paint its cave walls.