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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8259193" data-attributes="member: 18">I think it is, yes.People often somewhat knee-jerk assume that some broad behaviour is "fine" (because how could anything the DM is doing be "wrong"?!), but when presented with specific examples of it, usually have more nuanced and critical opinions.Also, the "fairness" angle of the OP's post shows he's not really understanding what the complaint he referenced was about. Fairness isn't the issue. Fairness is a red herring.The real issue is whether it's interesting, involving, or makes people want to keep playing that RPG in any way. My experience is that any system which has a good chance of producing a TPK solely because the players rolled low is not a system that tends to be very attractive when there are alternatives with similar characteristics which do not do that.I've seen this extensively over 30+ years of TT RPGs. I felt like I needed to fudge in 2E at low levels because I used to roll the dice in the open, and it often produced results like the OP describes and all it ever did was make multiple different groups either not want to play RPGs generally, or make them not want to play AD&D 2E specifically. And with 2E above about level 3 to 5 it rapidly becomes less of an issue, and you can very directly see the change.I think there's room for it with troupe play and OSR stuff where PCs are very explicitly disposable, and you're throwing them into a meatgrinder, but when a game isn't up-front that that's what it is about, and it produces results where the PCs all die despite showing good tactics and so on, that's not typically enjoyable for anyone involved (including the DM), nor a particularly good reason to play that specific rules-set ever again, given the vast choices we now have.Makes sense. RAW in most editions of D&D, esp. 3E onwards, fleeing is pretty much certain death unless you seriously outnumber the side you're fleeing from (or are like, a dragon or something). PCs will usually be outnumbered when they try to flee and thus by the basic RAW will just all die (if you play fleeing out as round-to-round combat).So fleeing, as much as people love to suggest it, is almost never a practical option w/o DM cooperation or special rules.One thing I really liked from Worlds Without Number (an OSR D&D-relative with some really smart design) is the Instinct score for NPCs (alongside Morale). It's basically "roll not to do something stupid". If they roll under their Instinct on a check, the DM should have them make a dumb tactical move - so trained and experienced soldiers will have a relatively low value, but some overpaid, exuberant mercs who are largely there to loot and plunder might be quite dangerous in a fight, but have a high Instinct and be likely to make tactical errors.</blockquote>

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