How often do PCs make an orderly retreat?

[Steel_Wind]

The replies here seem reasonably similar in that the essential issue is one where the PCs rarely withdraw unless it is clear they are overmatched - and by that time it is frequently too late to do so.

The Players can't be faulted for this - the nature of a D&D adventure posits that the PCs will be presented with *more or less* level appropriate challenges and the players are supposed to be able to overcome them. That is the essence of D&D adventure design.

So all the metagame information discourages retreat.

There are a few exceptions to this. Some encounters will have contained within them what I term "The Red Button". Generally, The Red Button is a trap, a door, a magical device, or more rarely, something SAID to a high level monster or NPC during a conversation that clearly should not have been said. The point is, The Red Button is touching or otherwise interacting with an encounter in a manner that the PCs were NOT SUPPOSED TO. When they do it anyways, Bad Things Happen. And those Bad Things are not necessarily level appropriate, nor "fair" and the players know it.

The metagame information surrounding a D&D adventure changes quickly when the PCs recognize that they have inadvertently pushed The Red Button. It's at this point the PCs recognize they did something they were not supposed to do and caused the threat in the area to be something other than what the party is supposed to be able to handle. Retreat ("Run!!") is not perceived as a failure when that happens but instead as the "proper" player response and the PCs run with vigor.

Retreat in Red Button situations is not that uncommon.

However, encounters - especially in modules - are not supposed to be designed so that they cannot be defeated. The players know this, so the metagame concerns tend not to point to retreat. My players rarely do it.

That said, the Age of Worms threats are sometimes too powerful for the players to handle and they have come to appreciate this. Last session, a party of 6 (more or less) 9th level characters wasted a lot of resources through the dungeon beneath the great arena in Greyhawk, and by the end of it encountered a CR 14 demon.

The players ultimately decided during that encounter to run (as the demon was using Teleport-No error to bamf about with hit and run spellcasting). However, the time it took to reach this decision was a very lengthy one. Retreat was not something the players wanted to do and it galled them - you could tell.

When they finally decided to run- they ran. But orderly? I don't know about that...

By the time my party members actually decide to run, they tend to look like Han Solo running away from the Shield generator on Endor as it is about to explode. They RUN with a distinct gait that yells "holy crap!!"

 

[Darklone]

Fixed your typo

Hey, I never do that

 

[Set]

I've only retreated once, ever, in 20 years of gaming.

It was G-something-or-other, and there were a dozen giants in the room. The rest of the party had used their Dust of Disappearance two rooms ago, and the Cleric and MU, the only two members of the party who *weren't* invisible and wandering around, stumbled into the great hall, full of giants. The MU threw Confusion, hoping to buy us some time, which of course affected the weakest creatures first, which happened to include the other four party members, all standing around invisible in the room, getting into backstab position, setting up traps, etc. Chaos ensues. I throw up a Blade Barrier to keep them away from myself and the MU in the doorway. After three rounds of bloody slaughter, the MU happily throwing destructive spells around willy-nilly, while assorted giants and PCs run around doing random things, the thief, whose player wants to kill the MU badly, finally rolls 'Attack Caster' and pumps his fist in the air and charges right through the Blade Barrier to get her. Unfortunately, he runs out of move right in front of her, and doesn't get an attack that round. Next round, he rolls 'Wander Away' and turns around and is emulsified by the Blade Barrier. Ick. Halfling puree everywhere.

At this point, half of the giants are dead, and all of the other party members (Thief, Ranger, Paladin and, uh, something else, and yeah, the Paladin was sneaking around invisibly, preparing to attack from ambush, go, go, code of flexible ethics...). The MU and Cleric have begun to take fire from boulders and she's in single-digit hp from the one rock that hit her (wimp), so I use Word of Recall and bring her along.

My one and only retreat, and since we accidentally killed the entire party first, it's not like there were any witnesses.

 

[NewJeffCT]

That about covers it for me, too. They do PLAN orderly retreats, though, so one of these days, it may happen.

I've seen a few orderly retreats, and a few "let's get the <bleep> out of here as fast as we can" that worked ok, and a few more of those that did not.

Most of the time, though, it's a really tough call because it often seems like when we're at the point we should consider it, the bad guys are also in tough shape as well... so, we often attempt to stick it out.

The times we retreat are when we mistakenly stumble upon the BBEG - or his top minions - before we're ready ('ack, we're first level with no magic or silver weapons and we've stumbled upon a pack of lycanthropes...")