D&D General Run Away!

[Vaalingrade]

The funny thing about the idea of forcing players to run is that one of the seminal Geek Films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail plays the idea of medieval fantasy heroes running away like scared children for comedy like four times.

 

[MarkB]

The funny thing about the idea of forcing players to run is that one of the seminal Geek Films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail plays the idea of medieval fantasy heroes running away like scared children for comedy like four times.

Yeah, but nobody wants to actually be Brave Sir Robin. Especially if there's a bard in the party.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, but nobody wants to actually be Brave Sir Robin. Especially if there's a bard in the party.

Absolutely true.

And that's the thing:

Some people feel that this is something so important and dramatic and meaningful that they will straight up murder characters until they get the desired effect, sort of blissfully unaware that the players are all vaguely hearing 'bravely ran away, away' in the back of their heads whenever it happens.

IF someone asked me why my character didn't run, I'd ask them if they'd like me to soil my armor too.

 

[Charlaquin]

Seems like a cop-out to just drop things when the players all yell, "Run away".
"You all manage to flee to safety and the monster just slithers back to its lair." I guess the DM could narrate some of the fleeing or have the players roleplay some of the escape.

In B/X, monsters explicitly wouldn’t pursue the PCs if they broke line of sight.

 

[tomBitonti]

I've found that mechanics are missing or just not your friend:

• Hostility can break out without the party having any time to assess their foes.
• Spending time to assess yields, what? The game doesn't have good tools for PCs to evaluate relative power levels. Or, doesn't convey aggression levels very well.
• There is usually no posturing phase. A lot of confrontation type combats should start with displays of strength and posturing.
• Unless hurrying is absolutely necessary, a party advancing into an unknown area should be scouting continuously. And many times should react to a confrontation by backing up to a safe position to evaluate their foe. Rushing into combat with unknown foes is very risky.
• The basic encounter loop really works against the careful approach. The basic encounter steps seem to be: Hostiles move into range of each other. Position is determined and initiative is rolled. Combat ensues.
• Often, by design, no assessment is necessary: the opponents are selected to be within a range that the party can handle, plus or minus the encounter being "easy", "normal", or "hard", with success expected almost all of the time, and with a "good" result being few resources being expended and a "poor" result being extra resources were expended.

Tom Bitonti

 

[Charlaquin]

D&D rules, while varying be edition, are pretty antagonistic toward fleeing. Opportunity attacks, slow movement compared to ranged attacks, monsters faster than the slowest in the party - lots of "take lots of damage as you try to retreat, maybe die anyway".

Yeah, this is a significant barrier to flight being a viable tactic. Additionally, it can be very difficult to tell when you’re in a situation where you need to run away. In my experience it’s usually only in retrospect that you realize “we should probably have retreated two rounds ago,” and by that time you’re probably going to get TPKd anyway if you try to retreat. So, might as well keep fighting and hope you get enough lucky rolls and the DM gets enough unlucky ones that you somehow pull through.

 

[payn]

Yeah, this is a significant barrier to flight being a viable tactic. Additionally, it can be very difficult to tell when you’re in a situation where you need to run away. In my experience it’s usually only in retrospect that you realize “we should probably have retreated two rounds ago,” and by that time you’re probably going to get TPKd anyway if you try to retreat. So, might as well keep fighting and hope you get enough lucky rolls and the DM gets enough unlucky ones that you somehow pull through.

I've never thought about it straight up like this, but believe I have had better luck fighting to the death than fleeing. As you suggest, often the point of no return is not too visible. Hard to tell if you can still make it or not. Had a few TPKs, but also had a handful of last man standing with a handful of HPs and won the day.

 

[iserith]

Yeah, this is a significant barrier to flight being a viable tactic. Additionally, it can be very difficult to tell when you’re in a situation where you need to run away. In my experience it’s usually only in retrospect that you realize “we should probably have retreated two rounds ago,” and by that time you’re probably going to get TPKd anyway if you try to retreat. So, might as well keep fighting and hope you get enough lucky rolls and the DM gets enough unlucky ones that you somehow pull through.

And I hate being the guy who says "We need to run away..." and then everyone just doubles down and we manage to survive. Then I have to survive the gauntlet of "I told you so's."

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I've never thought about it straight up like this, but believe I have had better luck fighting to the death than fleeing. As you suggest, often the point of no return is not too visible. Hard to tell if you can still make it or not. Had a few TPKs, but also had a handful of last man standing with a handful of HPs and won the day.

The make running away really a thing there would need morale rules applying to the party. Something along the lines of if party reaches X state then the PCs have 2 turns before they break and run. Organise a withdrawal and activate the disengage mechanics.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The make running away really a thing there would need morale rules applying to the party. Something along the lines of if party reaches X state then the PCs have 2 turns before they break and run. Organise a withdrawal and activate the disengage mechanics.

I mean, making the thing people don't want to do mechanically mandatory is certainly one way to do it.