How do you get your PCs to run away?

[S'mon]

Edit: It also suits my style of game. I like to have the PCs entangled with my plots. Having a walking bundle of plot hooks go away is very upsetting.

Indeed.
It's not that I don't want to retain the threat of death, but 3e is inherently such a lethal system if you run anything other than EL-balanced encounters, and that's not my style. I agree about Raise Dead, I never liked the Raise mechanics & in 3e with the level loss they're a real pain. I'm not using action points or allowing FPs to influence die rolls since I don't want them to alter the balance of play (you can't use them to _beat_ the troll); only to mitigate the effects of failure (you can use them to _not die_ when the troll rends you). Also I found that allowing FPs to be spent in combat just caused some players to spend all their FPs & die in the next fight.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I find that players will run if they know the enemies are tough enough. My players don't think anything is too tough, though.

It depends on the type of players and type of game. For instance, in my game players know that, if they die, they will be brought back to life. No big deal. If they can't be brought back to life, they will make up new characters at a level lower. They actually look forward to this as they get bored of character concepts quickly and want to try new ones.

We are fine with this sort of play. They are meant to be the heroes, they are fighting against forces which will destroy the world and anyone in it if they fail, their lives and their companions lives mean nothing compared to their goal.

However, if you want advice on how to make them run, if that is your goal. You want to make it SO obvious that they will lose that they will have no other choice. Some of the above advice is good. If they are of the rules lawyer variety, you want to throw something with at LEAST 10 CRs above them to make sure they run. Make it something they'll recognize as well. If they are newbies and wouldn't know what the creature is, make sure they see it causing huge amounts of damage. Also, if that doesn't work, step out of your DM chair for a second and say "Alright, you have all heard stories of these creatures, you know that a thousand warriors have fought it and died to a man without scratching one. You don't think you can beat it." They will run.

On the other hand, it sounds more like you are throwing things like a creature with a CR of the average party level+4 against them and thinking "this is impossible", then it's only very hard. The PCs, being the heroes they are, are fighting it hoping their skill and tactics will tips the scale in their favor. And it might. This sort of encounter is NOT undefeatable.

 

[S'mon]

If the battle is not necessary I tend to think smart PCs should be avoiding fights they know are 4 ELs above them (ie 50% chance to win) - really, IRL the smart guys (Special Forces & such) avoid fights with much better odds than that; for a typical group a real EL+2 means about a 20% chance of a TPK - not good odds if you're doing that routinely.

 

[S'mon]

OTOH, of course, some battles have to be fought. Playing Midnight, our group avoided fighting the orcs whenever possible, even at higher levels - Midnight orcs are mean muthas and even with an EL below party level, it wasn't worth the risk. But sometimes you have to fight, and indeed my PC Zana Than was the last survivor from the original party when as a Ftr-6 we assaulted a vital orc-held fort and she fell leading her troops to victory, "Glory" style.

 

[jasper]

smon ...It'll teach them not to identify with their PCs and not to spend time & effort developing the characters' personalities...
Sorry my mileage is avg here. The people who enjoy creating back story and personalities do and the people with disposable pawns play disposable pawns regardless of how much I try to encourage roleplaying. In fact some of the most remember characters are pc with outstanding personalities which got eaten by the monster which also ate Fred.

 

[gizmo33]

Greed for XP, treasure, thinking/hoping that the DM will save them.

If it's "obvious" that you're going to die, then it's only the last one ("DM will save them") that I think is relevant. I've DMed a lot of greedy players IMC, and they all run.

Perhaps the DM does not like repeatedly handing out TPK's to "dumb" players?

That's too hypothetical - my gut feeling tells me you're imagining this rather than experiencing this. I've never seen a situation where the DM *repeatedly* hands out TPKs.

Traps are their own issue. Traps randomly scattered in a room without treasure are the best way of slowing a dungeon crawl to a virtual standstill. I do agree however that consistency from the DM is key. Sometimes though, players simply don't get it.

I only meant traps being an issue of gaming style.
I have NEVER seen a situation where I've killed the same player's character twice IMC and they haven't become extremely paranoid - running even more than I thought necessary (and I never really want players to run or not run, I just make the dungeons) I strongly suspect that you're expecting players to "get it" due to some subjective hinting on your part, and it's not having the desired result. If you're not letting this chips fall, and killing PCs, what are you doing to suggest to them that encounters can be too tough? If they don't die, then there's really no way they have to know that encounters can be too tough - occassionally capturing them or something like that might work, but for the sake of integrity, I only capture characters when it makes sense to the NPCs involved.

What are you doing to get the message across to your players?

 

[Warehouse23]

If for character-building reasons, story reasons, or game-world introducing reasons you need a party of PCs to flee, the only means I have found successful is presenting them with overwhelmingly superior forces and then rewarding those who fled/surrendered rather than perish foolishly.

Now mind you, this is in an SR game where the players actually have a sense of reality.

It's hard to set up a D&D encounter that promotes IC flight/surrender. Some ideas which might help include:

* Overwhelming numbers: The whole "fight the monster, take its loot" mentality makes generating flight difficult. Try throwing a few moderate/high level monsters against a party, rather than just one big bad evil thing. Undead/monstrous legions help, too. Remember-- Han Solo never ran from a single storm trooper (except in the original original version...), but a squad or two of baddies puts PCs to their heels right quick.

* Overwhelming fire-power: Use cinematic, rather than game-mechanic descriptions of enemy effects. Have the PCs see the dragon's breath lay waste to a village in one cough, or the giant hurtle a house down on an unsuspecting constable. Unleashing that kind of damage on your PCs right off the bat does not prompt them to flee-- it prompts them to die.

* Zone of Safety: Always have somewhere for your PCs to run to. If your players are in the middle of an enchanted forest which spans leagues on all sides and is filled with ravenous T-Rexes your PCs will not run from them. They will die. Provide a cave, a keep, a defensible tree fort, a crag in the rocks-- anything where they can hide, lay low, and be safe. This doesn't have to be a "save point" (e.g., perfectly safe)-- afterall, there's a reason the monsters won't follow the PCs into their "safe place," but providing an out is essential to flight. Without an out, PCs will get suicidal and start rolling up new stats, rather than running away to fight another day.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Sometimes the PCs in my games haven't ran away when the needed to and they end up winning other times they ended up nearly getting wiped out or realize that the challenge is too great and escape before they can get killed.
Other times a PC has known if he stays he'll proably die and he decides to stay anyway just because the player feels that's what his character would do.

But yea, sometimes PCs are too stupid to recognize when things are horribly against them. People always want to keep going and do just 'one more room'.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Things you need to do to get your PCs to run away.

1. Do not use a monster that can run very fast, fly or otherwise outmaneuver them. Noone's going to run from a greater demon if they know it can just greater teleport after them.

2. Do not use a grappling monster - PCs hate leaving someone behind

3. Do not use a creature that will kill a PC in a single blow. Again - PCs hate leaving someone behind, even if they're a corpse.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Saev's got some good advice on this topic.

Additionally, do your monsters ever attempt to run away or bargain for their lives? If everything always fights to the death, then PCs probably will, too.