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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4567785" data-attributes="member: 54707">Why can't your party just retreat? (The one you are running as DM.)This is something I have never understood about the unreality of RPGs, especially fantasy RPGs. (I'm not speaking to you personally, but to the whole genre, and the backasswards way so many games go about the idea of killing.)Unless your party walks into a blind ambush with absolutely no avenue of escape, including the one by which they entered, if you're overmatched, you just retreat.Anyone who has ever been in any kinda real fight knows that when the enemy   has the advantage of terrain, numbers, superior firepower, etc. you either redeploy and/or reposition for better advantage, or retreat so that you may kill the enemy later on. Killing is not a joke, it's not a game, it's not something you rely upon dice roll to settle.  You don't stand around waiting to see what might happen if you get lucky. If a fight goes your way, finish it quick. If a fight goes against you, then just signal a retreat and get out.No-one who knows anything at all about real fights is ever reluctant to retreat for advantage.My monsters retreat, my NPCs retreat, and when they need to, the characters I DM retreat. The characters i play retreat. They retreat and they live, and because they retreat they come back and kill later on.There is nothing heroic about standing to fight when you suspect the fight will lead to your own annihilation, or the annihilation of your comrades.The point of a fight is not to see how close you can come to dying, it is to see how fast your can dispatch your enemy while suffering the least amount of harm to yourself and your brothers at arms.But it seems like in RPGs too often the idea is to stand to losing ground til you die. That the idea of a retreat never crosses the mind. That's not heroic, that's just stupid.You kill the enemy, and if you encounter one you can't kill, who is a real danger to you then you retreat out and come back later better prepared and with a better battle plan. One whose purpose is to conclude with a dead enemy, and a safe team of compatriots.If you fight to the death because you are truly forced to, then that's one thing (but just to be honest, it's rare), if you fight to death because you just can't understand the difference between killing the enemy, and letting him kill you - because you just can't conceive of the idea that your legs will move you backwards or sideways as well as forwards then you probably deserve what ya got coming.Retreat out, think about what you just encountered, come back with the proper plan and the right tools and men for the job, and kill the enemy. Dead.Case closed.</blockquote>

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