D&D 5E Bravely running away

[Vaalingrade]

2) This is a reward for those who didn't wear heavy armor, no? It's not that hard for the DM to say, "since you're both dashing at speeds of 30, let's get some athletics checks to see who makes more progress."

Yeah, martial heavies have had it too good for too long and the clothies finally get a bone thrown to them.

The player have a choice of either leaving them and surviving or trying to drag them along and risk being killed. This is a feature of a roleplaying game, not a bug.

It's really puzzling that people sometimes bring up arguments like that: "Well, (insert rule) sucks because it forces the players to take decisions which have lasting consequences"

Don't know, maybe it's just my age showing.

Or not showing enough.

I'm at the point where I really don't want my valuable free time wasted getting pretend abandoned by my friends to support the DM's desire to have novel writing things happen in a collaborative game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How do your players flee from attackers? What rules do you use?

Usually the issue is that players don't realize that things are dire until a couple party members have dropped- and then they don't want to abandon their party members. So they'll hang out and... Lose.

That's kinda on them though, right? Presuming the GM is going a good job describing what the PCs experience, the players are making their own choices and should accept the consequences of such.

 

[TiQuinn]

From another thread, the topic of retreat has come up, it sounds like it might be difficult for a couple of reasons:

1. The Cyclical nature of initiative makes it difficult for the party to retreat (Ol' Tim the Timid can still run off on his own though).
2. Movement speeds are largely the same between PCs and NPCs/Monsters, if you run away by dashing, the enemy can mostly keep up.

The only time I can recall players retreating in my game was during a session which was played more narratively rather than with the actual rules, so it doesn't really count (it was a hit and run on an opposing army's baggage train). They did also manage to escape engaging in a combat using a skill challenge, which again doesn't count, and perhaps that's what I'd switch to once the players discuss that they want to retreat, but it'd be interesting to hear what others would do.

So, to other DMs, if in the middle of combat players decide they should retreat, how would you run it?

This is why I’m a fan of maps and, well, dungeons. A pursuing enemy also has to be aware that they too could be running into a bad situation, and changing the terrain can put them at a disadvantage. Knowing that back a few rooms is a defensible area with multiple other exits or a location where they can lose pursuers helps. Starting encounter distance matters, ranged weapons suddenly matter even more. Finding a choke point can really dissuade pursuit. Now from a DMs perspective, if the party is fleeing, I’m generally going to take it a bit easier on the party to start with. I’m looking for justifications why they should get away, not to hunt them down. So any ideas the party has to make that easier to justify, I’m willing to give them.

 

[Distracted DM]

The player have a choice of either leaving them and surviving or trying to drag them along and risk being killed. This is a feature of a roleplaying game, not a bug.

It's really puzzling that people sometimes bring up arguments like that: "Well, (insert rule) sucks because it forces the players to take decisions which have lasting consequences"

Don't know, maybe it's just my age showing.

Since it's usually friends sitting around a table, no one is going to want to be the person to leave their friends for dead. There can be unseen pressure, whether real or imagined, to live or die together.

Few people want to have the argument of "if you had stayed instead of running, our characters would be alive right now" with their friends.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think what we've done in the past is if the patry can all get themselves out of melee and a little ways away (to the edge of the map, or some other distance that feels appropriate) they can retreat automatically if the other side is content to let them go, or if they succeed on an Athletics or cast an appropriate spell or such they get away unless the other side really wants to run them down. In the latter case we'd either just stay in normal combat or switch to chase rules.

With NPCs wanting to flee, there are 2 things I do.

The first is that because combat rounds are short and everything is happening simultaneously, I generally say opponents only decide if they want to flee between rounds.

Sure, at the table it may be obvious that the PCs are completely mowing down that group of goblins and for those goblins that act last continuing to fight is suicide...but in the fiction they can't tell that their allies are all getting mowed down at the point where they are deciding to charge in. They all charged at once and then got mowed down together.

The reason I like doing it that way is that I like monsters to behave with a semblance of believability, but find it unfun if weaker groups always break and run a third of the way through the first round. It's fun for PCs to sometimes use their features to get that bubble wrap experience, which means the monsters have to stay around long enough to let it happen.

At the same time, it isn't uncommon for monsters to retreat. I generally do the same thing as PCs retreating, though I don't necessarily require all monsters to get out of melee. Once it is clear that they are attempting to retreat I ask the players if they want to keep fighting or let them get away.

 

[TiQuinn]

Almost forgot: the old “drop some gold, food or items” trick is a good one. Even just at a meta level, the party is sacrificing something valuable to buy their escape. Works for me.

 

[Distracted DM]

That's kinda on them though, right? Presuming the GM is going a good job describing what the PCs experience, the players are making their own choices and should accept the consequences of such.

A lot can happen in one round. I'm not talking about a fight that the players shouldn't have gotten into, say something the GM telegraphs "this isn't a fight you should stick around for." I'm talking about the usual battles where everyone is kind of wounded but no one is down.. and then a fireball downs one player, another gets critted and down, now it's the fighters turn but the cleric goes next and he could get someone up etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Since it's usually friends sitting around a table, no one is going to want to be the person to leave their friends for dead. There can be unseen pressure, whether real or imagined, to live or die together.

Few people want to have the argument of "if you had stayed instead of running, our characters would be alive right now" with their friends.

It makes logical sense in RL, sure, but it's also undoubtedly a meta-argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A lot can happen in one round. I'm not talking about a fight that the players shouldn't have gotten into, say something the GM telegraphs "this isn't a fight you should stick around for." I'm talking about the usual battles where everyone is kind of wounded but no one is down.. and then a fireball downs one player, another gets critted and down, now it's the fighters turn but the cleric goes next and he could get someone up etc.

I don't see a difference. Those are changing circumstances that the players should take into consideration when making choices for their PCs. Bad luck has to be allowed to happen (on both sides) or why are we rolling dice?

 

[Nefermandias]

Or not showing enough.

I'm at the point where I really don't want my valuable free time wasted getting pretend abandoned by my friends to support the DM's desire to have novel writing things happen in a collaborative game.

Your overly emotional response was uncalled for. There's nothing in my post suggesting my support for "DM's novel writing desires".

On the contrary, I'm a firm believer in the power of emergent storytelling. Unscripted situations are often the most memorable ones.

Now, on the time wasting matter, that's a totally subjective thing, so I will refrain from any further argumentations on that front.