D&D General How do you feel about Save or Die?

[Tony Vargas]

But that is dying because of a mistake.

In the former I'm controlling at least some of the narrative, even if that means bravely running away retreating.

He who bravely runs away, lives on the songs of minstrels!
(until forced to eat said minstrel)

I've had uninjured high level PCs with triple digit HP die because of one stupid random die roll. There was literally nothing I could of done to prevent it other than not play.

See? Mistake!

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

He who bravely runs away, lives on the songs of minstrels!
(until forced to eat said minstrel)

See? Mistake!

As I said before, only play with awesome people.

 

[CleverNickName]

It baffles me...honestly, completely...how resistant players can be to retreating. The default assumption for some of my players is that anything with hit points should be killable, by them, right now, no matter the circumstance, and if they aren't successful then I'm a terrible DM who doesn't know how to balance encounters.

No matter how much I telegraph the danger to them, no matter how much foreshadowing I use, no matter how many hints I drop, they refuse to retreat. To their ruin. And then they spend the next hour complaining loudly about how unfair the rules are, or how bad I am at math, or how their dice are actually the problem, or the temperature in the room, they will blame literally anything except their poor tactics and stubbornness.

/RANT

Last night's game was soooo frustrating.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It baffles me...honestly, completely...how resistant players can be to retreating.

I have noticed that, yes.
Have you noticed that it's typically fairly hard to retreat successfully in D&D, and kinda always has been?

I mean, just check the movement rates & modes of the monsters in the encounter, vs those of the PCs. Chances are there's at least one slower PC, too. If the monsters aren't all faster than the PCs, they're at least likely to leave one slower PC to die. Not cool. Also, by the time they realize they're not going to win this one, someone may have already dropped, so there's some emergency healing to do, or you have to pick him up.
Then, specific to 5e, there's no way to re-arrange the cyclical initiative order, so if the enemy isn't all going in a group, and the retreat doesn't doesn't start with the PC that goes right after the last enemy, there will, again, be someone left behind to be mobbed.

You'd need to provide a robust - or downright arbitrary - -sub-system, a player-side system that they know about and feel confident in, if you want to start enabling the better part of valor, that way.
It's not like pursuit & evasion sub-systems have never existed, 1e had one, it just didn't often lead to the party getting away, and 5e has one that's not particularly better, AFAICT. 4e had Skill Challenges, but the way they were presented the DM kinda had to plan on one in advance, so you'd more likely have a too-deadly encounter couched as a Skill Challenge to avoid the encounter, up-front, instead.

...

Also, D&D's hit point attrition model lacks death spiral effects, so you actually can turn around an encounter that's going very badly even as you hang on by a few hps - in 5e, for instance, if you can keep the baddies playing whack-a-mole with your front-liners long enough to drop a few of 'em and turn the tide.

 

[CleverNickName]

I have noticed that, yes.
Have you noticed that it's typically fairly hard to retreat successfully in D&D, and kinda always has been?

Not really, no. Retreat is actually quite easy, if you prepare for it. The trouble is that nobody thinks they need to.

I play a hexblade in one gaming group, and I always make sure I have expeditious retreat in my ring of spell storing just in case I have to bug out. The other players in my gaming group mock me relentlessly for "being a coward," but you'd be extra careful too if you sold your soul to the Raven Queen.

And in the D&D group that I am the DM for, my monsters successfully retreat from combat all the time. They make copious use of Disengage and Dash, many of the more organized and intelligent ones have escape hatches, potions of gaseous form, tanglefoot bags, etc.

It seems that the players will put tons of planning into raiding a dungeon: how they will sneak in, what buffs they need, gather information on what they might find inside, etc. But they never make an escape plan. Nobody ever thinks to ask "okay so if things go badly, how do we get back out?" I'm the only one who ever suggests it, and I'm immediately the wet blanket.

 

[iserith]

It baffles me...honestly, completely...how resistant players can be to retreating. The default assumption for some of my players is that anything with hit points should be killable, by them, right now, no matter the circumstance, and if they aren't successful then I'm a terrible DM who doesn't know how to balance encounters.

No matter how much I telegraph the danger to them, no matter how much foreshadowing I use, no matter how many hints I drop, they refuse to retreat. To their ruin. And then they spend the next hour complaining loudly about how unfair the rules are, or how bad I am at math, or how their dice are actually the problem, or the temperature in the room, they will blame literally anything except their poor tactics and stubbornness.

/RANT

Last night's game was soooo frustrating.

Taking personal responsibility is tough for some people. For others, it is empowering.

 

[Oofta]

It baffles me...honestly, completely...how resistant players can be to retreating. The default assumption for some of my players is that anything with hit points should be killable, by them, right now, no matter the circumstance, and if they aren't successful then I'm a terrible DM who doesn't know how to balance encounters.

No matter how much I telegraph the danger to them, no matter how much foreshadowing I use, no matter how many hints I drop, they refuse to retreat. To their ruin. And then they spend the next hour complaining loudly about how unfair the rules are, or how bad I am at math, or how their dice are actually the problem, or the temperature in the room, they will blame literally anything except their poor tactics and stubbornness.

/RANT

Last night's game was soooo frustrating.

I know what you mean. Last night the DM threw an encounter we obvious could not win! Soooo frustrating! I mean, what did they expect? That we would retreat? Bah! Never tell me the odds! Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead!

 

[Garthanos]

It baffles me...honestly, completely...how resistant players can be to retreating. The default assumption for some of my players is that anything with hit points should be killable, by them, right now, no matter the circumstance, and if they aren't successful then I'm a terrible DM who doesn't know how to balance encounters.

No matter how much I telegraph the danger to them, no matter how much foreshadowing I use, no matter how many hints I drop, they refuse to retreat. To their ruin. And then they spend the next hour complaining loudly about how unfair the rules are, or how bad I am at math, or how their dice are actually the problem, or the temperature in the room, they will blame literally anything except their poor tactics and stubbornness.

/RANT

Last night's game was soooo frustrating.

I have been thinking about ways to make escape a more obvious "game supported" option ... including standard bluff options to distract the enemy and prevent opportunity attacks and give pcs a head start.

 

[CleverNickName]

I know what you mean. Last night the DM threw an encounter we obvious could not win! Soooo frustrating! I mean, what did they expect? That we would retreat? Bah! Never tell me the odds! Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead!

I'm not saying you shouldn't play that way. I'm just suggesting that if you do, maybe you shouldn't blame the DM (or the rules, or your dice, or Mercury retrograde) for your swift demise.

 

[Oofta]

On a more serious note, I have difficulty setting up encounters where people should run away and broadcasting that it's an option. I mean, it's great that the monk and the wizard can get away but what about Tanky the dwarf?

But I think this is probably a different thread because I'd like to hear what other people do.