These folks have been playing with me for years -- decades in some cases. They know. Yet here we are.
D&D General Run Away!
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
Doc I wrote for the players about a month or so into my current 5 Torches Deep & B/X mashup.
I will probably implement something similar the next time I run a 5E game. I'll require the PCs to declare a general retreat at the top of the round, if I'm otherwise using individual initiative.
I will probably implement something similar the next time I run a 5E game. I'll require the PCs to declare a general retreat at the top of the round, if I'm otherwise using individual initiative.
BookTenTiger
He / Him
It's funny, even being a lifetime DM, when I take a turn as a player I fall into this mindset so easily. I was playing a Dwarf Wizard with mostly utility / nondamaging spells (the rest of the group was an absolute damage powerhouse), and even during random encounters we could easily run from, I'd find myself thinking, "Okay, I guess this will be my character's last stand..."
There's just something about the D&D Genre (or at least its modern interpretation) that doesn't promote fleeing!
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
There has been quite a paradigm shift in expected play over the decades and editions. Earlier on combat wasn't supposed to be gleefully engaged and should be done with utmost caution. The adventure was full of deadliness and using your wits as a player, not character, was how you played the game.
Once the game grew beyond a dungeon delve sim, the characters were expected to rule kingdoms and build fancy towers. Adventures started taking place in all kinds of settings and situations. Furthermore, combat became more and more central to the game. Tons of design space was dedicated to it to make the combat more interesting and expected even more so than in the past.
I bring this stuff up again, because there can be a disconnect between player expectations and the GM. A number of things can contribute to the disconnect, such as, wanting to be a powerful being and not just a capable one and that any fight is a suitable challenge set up by the GM. It may be tough, a PC or two might die, but every encounter should be solvable for the PC's given level.
Since the disconnect has become quite obvious, I try and discuss this during sessions zero. Is the game a sandbox where the PCs can easily get in over their head if not careful? Or is this a kick in the door and take names kind of romp where the fights will all be winnable although still challenging? The group should be on the same page for this.
As a GM, I have and do run several styles of games. So, my role is going to change based on that. If its an adventure path and expected level based challenges are before them, I am going to give the PCs every chance to succeed, and likely more than enough chances to flee and regroup if the challenge proved to be too much. In an open sandbox game I am going to run as an impartial referee and do as the enemy and/or situation dictates, and the PCs need to be prepared for that.
Finally, I do believe signposting is very important for a GM. If the PCs can go left and face a kobold, but go right and face a dragon, then they need some reasonable way to determine that discrepancy in challenge. During a fight, if the enemy is in very good shape, and/or reinforcements are incoming, I try and drop clues about that state of their health. It's still up to the PCs to decide if they want to flee or not. Though, I think its very important for the GM to arm them with reasonable knowledge to make that decision. Some old school GMs believe its up to the PCs to figure this out themselves. If they are not clever enough to get their own scouting recon or whatever, then the characters just walk face first into buzzsaws. Most folks seem to land somewhere in-between the extremes.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Yes, it happens regularly in our games, and just last Wednesday in a game I was running. Two PCs ran away as three of their party were cut down by monsters. This Wednesday, the party goes back into the dungeon with three new PCs.
Although I don't purposefully make situations where the PCs need to run away, sometimes it happens because they've delved a bit too deeply with dwindling resources or the dice favored more dangerous monsters on the random encounter table. To facilitate it, I always have Escape/Chase rules ready to go so that the players understand their options.
Although I don't purposefully make situations where the PCs need to run away, sometimes it happens because they've delved a bit too deeply with dwindling resources or the dice favored more dangerous monsters on the random encounter table. To facilitate it, I always have Escape/Chase rules ready to go so that the players understand their options.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Here's an easy escape rule that works well for grid play:
This can be modified easily for non-grid play (base it on minimum distance from monsters) or can be made into individual checks if one wants to do away with the assumption of the party sticking together and helping each other escape. The DC is also easily modified or set according to some other standard.
When all characters decide to make an orderly retreat and move or are moved off of the map (or into an established location), they must succeed at a DC 13 Constitution group check or suffer a level of exhaustion while running away. Characters with a speed greater than all enemies or who can Dash as a bonus action automatically succeed. Either way, the characters escape their enemies... for now.
This can be modified easily for non-grid play (base it on minimum distance from monsters) or can be made into individual checks if one wants to do away with the assumption of the party sticking together and helping each other escape. The DC is also easily modified or set according to some other standard.
I was not really talking about a chase scene as such but a mechanical way to run a disengage. Or even advise for it in the PHB or player facing material.
Something like a "Covering fire action " for a ranged character(s) that allows the rest of the party to disengage as a bonus action.
It is interesting that a lot of the responses are home brew disengagement rules.
In Combat the players have mechanical support for almost everything they could want to do. There are players that will operate outside that mechanical framework but they are the exceptions and likely to improvise and escape plan anyway.
Put it in there, as a explicit option, to Run Away. It is not obvious, particularly on a map. Then enemy move at the same speed as the party so how does this work then is the obvious question.
I just did a quick scan through the srd and books and you're right -- there is no method for how to escape an encounter. the closest it gets is the Chase rules but those very pointedly don't include options or information on the chase being in the dungeon.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Much like how the DM determines when exactly initiative is rolled for a combat, the DM also decides when a chase begins. (It uses initiative, too.) If the PCs want to run away, for example, and the monsters wish to pursue, then we determine starting distances and off we go. Much like all actions in the game, all that is required is a declaration of goal and approach.
Later on in the section, the rules acknowledge that the Urban and Wilderness complication tables don't pertain to all environments (e.g. dungeons) and the DM is encouraged to come up with their own with the existing tables as inspiration.
Then my advice, pending some official change (doubt we will see one) is come up with something for disengaging.
Talk to the players about it.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
As you say, the overwhelmingly vast majority of players would rather their characters die than run. It’s a function of game design and player training. The game, assuming 5E, is designed for the players to win. So defeat or worse running away are just not in the cards. Players assume every encounter is a fight and that they can win every fight.
I don’t design encounters. Whatever is rolled on the appropriate wandering monster table is what appears or whatever is supposed to be where the PCs are is what’s there. The encounter a warband of 17 orcs, then that’s what happens. They track the warband back to its village, then they have a village of orcs to encounter.
The referee’s role is to play the world. If the monsters would pursue, then they pursue. If the monsters would leave them to run, they do. If it’s a choice between TPK and running, the referee should tell the players if the characters think the monsters will pursue. The best way to make sure a player never decides to run again is to chase them down after fleeing.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
My current Ghosts of Saltmarsh+ group has only ever run away once, and they used big barred double doors to slow down the pursuing force (which they never quite engaged with b/c a PC won initiative and the first thing they did was drop the bar) and then found another way out of the building they were in and then fled to an abandoned farmhouse - allowing for several hours of rest while the authorities (the bad guys in this case) went house to house in the village looking for them.
That said, they have witnessed their surviving foes run away successfully more than once - so I think they understand that they could try running away, if they needed to. It might help that I have grandfathered a version of 3E's ready and delay - which allows for more easily coordinating actions.
That said, they have witnessed their surviving foes run away successfully more than once - so I think they understand that they could try running away, if they needed to. It might help that I have grandfathered a version of 3E's ready and delay - which allows for more easily coordinating actions.
I wasn't expressing frustration that the rules weren't there. I was just confirming that they were not, in fact, present.
I'm more of a
Player: "Oh, crap, we're getting killed! Let's get out of here!"
Me: "Ok, you guys make a break for it." ::rolls dice:: "Bob, you take a last swipe to the back as you flee. 14 points."
Bob: "Oh man, I'm down! Guys?!"
Other Players: "Thank gawd, now the monsters won't chase us. We bail."
type GM.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
A couple of thoughts on retreating.
1. There seems to be a great difference in retreating between campaigns that are not level specific and the players know fights may be unfair, and campaigns where players have been trained that "if it's there, it's a fair fight" either intentionally or unintentionally through actions.
1a. The corollary to this is that in a game where retreats are expected occasionally, both the characters are more prepared to do so in terms of spells/consumables/etc, the players are more prepared to make that call are retreat as a unit, and the DM is more likely to have given reasons why retreat isn't mechanically death (just chasing from nest/younglings, small exit points the foe can't follow through, etc.)
2. Players as a whole are very loathe to leave behind another PC, so often running becomes a non-starter as at least some of the other PCs will also stay behind and at that point if the other PCs run it will be abandoning them to die and might as well try to push forward.
3. D&D rules, while varying be edition, are pretty antagonistic toward fleeing. Opportunity attacks, slow movement compared to ranged attacks, monsters faster than the slowest in the party - lots of "take lots of damage as you try to retreat, maybe die anyway".
3a. Other D&D-like sometimes add in rules to encourage this. For example the D20 game 13th Age allows a full retreat, including the bodies of those fallen/unconscious, at the cost of a campaign setback. These stakes can be hammered out in any gae, but by codifying it the players know they have something to fall back on, and the DM has a direction offered by the rules.
1. There seems to be a great difference in retreating between campaigns that are not level specific and the players know fights may be unfair, and campaigns where players have been trained that "if it's there, it's a fair fight" either intentionally or unintentionally through actions.
1a. The corollary to this is that in a game where retreats are expected occasionally, both the characters are more prepared to do so in terms of spells/consumables/etc, the players are more prepared to make that call are retreat as a unit, and the DM is more likely to have given reasons why retreat isn't mechanically death (just chasing from nest/younglings, small exit points the foe can't follow through, etc.)
2. Players as a whole are very loathe to leave behind another PC, so often running becomes a non-starter as at least some of the other PCs will also stay behind and at that point if the other PCs run it will be abandoning them to die and might as well try to push forward.
3. D&D rules, while varying be edition, are pretty antagonistic toward fleeing. Opportunity attacks, slow movement compared to ranged attacks, monsters faster than the slowest in the party - lots of "take lots of damage as you try to retreat, maybe die anyway".
3a. Other D&D-like sometimes add in rules to encourage this. For example the D20 game 13th Age allows a full retreat, including the bodies of those fallen/unconscious, at the cost of a campaign setback. These stakes can be hammered out in any gae, but by codifying it the players know they have something to fall back on, and the DM has a direction offered by the rules.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Oh and I want to add that I think player mindset is a lot more responsible for "never running away" than any mechanical aspect of the rules. Unless your fight is happening in a large clear field in the middle of the day, a lot of environments will provide opportunity to break line of sight and try to hide or run off in one direction among many possibilities - esp. since it would not take that much to leave the radius of lanterns or darkvision.
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Vaalingrade
Legend
So here's the deal as I see it.
DMs tend to try to be authors at least at some point in our careers. We are always looking to generate conflict and drama. A hopeless battle where the heroes break and flee, and all is lost to us feels moving and romantic and overall like a good moment.
But.
D&D is not a book. It is not experienced like a book. Instead of being moved by the plight of a protagonist we're form a connection to, the player is in that character's shoes. They aren't watching the failure and heartbreak, they're experiencing it by proxy. It feels bad. It feels not fun for a lot of players.
So the expectation is that being put into that state is already a failure state for a lot of players.
Add into that the fact that the game doesn't have a very good means of actually disengaging from a fight and is actually punitive to characters attempting to do so and players will simply throw the whole concept out of their lexicon because it's both something they're not happy to have in the game and something the game doesn't want you to do. The only person who wants this to happen is the DM.
DMs tend to try to be authors at least at some point in our careers. We are always looking to generate conflict and drama. A hopeless battle where the heroes break and flee, and all is lost to us feels moving and romantic and overall like a good moment.
But.
D&D is not a book. It is not experienced like a book. Instead of being moved by the plight of a protagonist we're form a connection to, the player is in that character's shoes. They aren't watching the failure and heartbreak, they're experiencing it by proxy. It feels bad. It feels not fun for a lot of players.
So the expectation is that being put into that state is already a failure state for a lot of players.
Add into that the fact that the game doesn't have a very good means of actually disengaging from a fight and is actually punitive to characters attempting to do so and players will simply throw the whole concept out of their lexicon because it's both something they're not happy to have in the game and something the game doesn't want you to do. The only person who wants this to happen is the DM.
Thank you for articulating that. If you are right (and I think you are sort of right) what is the answer: TPK or softball?
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
I know you asked Vaalingrade this, but in my posting I mentioned that "TPK or Softball" should be determined in session zero and the campaign style pitch. Both styles are still popular enough to have confusion between them. YMMV.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I would say the answer is setting appropriate expectations prior to play rather than risk a TPK nobody thought would ever happen or softballing the monster tactics all of a sudden because things aren't going the PCs' way. Either of those comes with the risk of making the group dissatisfied, so better to address this issue up front. This is discussed in the DMG under Table Rules, specifically, "metagame thinking." The example given is the players believing that the DM would never present them with a challenge they could not beat (and perhaps finding out too late that isn't the case).
