I am playing at a role-playing club, where we are currently running a long event which is basically a series of dungeon crawls with many players and multiple DMs. Only rule, players need to be back at base by the end of the session. Then the next session can be a different mix of players with a different DM. The format doesn't exactly inspire loyalty and team spirit, but lately I've been more and more running into extreme cases of self-preservation being players biggest concern. e.g. player A moves away from the monster and moves behind player B's character, hoping that the monster is attacking B rather than A; then B does basically the same thing, moving behind A, and player A starts shouting at player B. Today I was a player, playing a barbarian, we got into a fight, and at the end of the first round I found myself alone in the room with all the monsters, every other player in the group had moved out of the room and was hiding behind a corner or something.
Okay, not very nice, but as a player I can still live with that. However I'm going to be DM in that campaign too, and I was wondering how I should handle it as a DM. Should I have the monsters pursue the fleeing characters, as to the monster they sure look weaker than the tank guy in front? Should I have other monsters sneak up from behind? Should I rule differently than my fellow DMs on rogues attacking with advantage from hiding (the rule says it's DM's discretion whether shooting around a corner breaks hiding or not, and I'l inclined to break hiding if the monster knows somebody is behind that corner). How do you handle players that play their characters as extreme cowards rather than heroes? I mean, one player like that could be a fun running gag, but if they all do it, it gets kind of annoying fast.
Okay, not very nice, but as a player I can still live with that. However I'm going to be DM in that campaign too, and I was wondering how I should handle it as a DM. Should I have the monsters pursue the fleeing characters, as to the monster they sure look weaker than the tank guy in front? Should I have other monsters sneak up from behind? Should I rule differently than my fellow DMs on rogues attacking with advantage from hiding (the rule says it's DM's discretion whether shooting around a corner breaks hiding or not, and I'l inclined to break hiding if the monster knows somebody is behind that corner). How do you handle players that play their characters as extreme cowards rather than heroes? I mean, one player like that could be a fun running gag, but if they all do it, it gets kind of annoying fast.