Supposed to Lose Fight

[zarionofarabel]

Add me to the folks that thinks it should be a cut scene if it is an absolute required thing AND the players are okay with that kind of thing happening within a game. I believe it can be okay to do, but only if the players trust the GM to completely railroad them. If the players aren't okay with being railroaded in such a fashion then it's absolutely something that should not even be considered.

 

[Dalekdad]

Or, maybe, if you need to start thing with the PCs having just lost, start after they've lost, don't play through what you intend (and will doubtless ensure) will be a certain outcome. Just a thought.

This is what I would do. Start the session or scene in media res with a description of what happened and let the players begin in a scene where they do have agency.

You will likely get grumbles, so it better lead to something cool very quickly (an awesome deathtrap, thrilling escape, or being zapped to the Psychoverse).

In a system with meta-currency, it is worth providing something like an extra Fate point or Benny as acknowledgement of heavy-handed GMing/cookie of apology.

 

[djotaku]

I will also point out the book and actual play series from Beadle & Grimm, "Faster Purple Worm, Kill! Kill!"

These are a series of TPK one-shots where players walk in knowing they are all going to die before the session is over! Not everyone's cuppa tea . . . but OMG, the actual play is super fun to watch! I want to run this with my home group, but . . . they don't seem excited about the idea.

"No-win" scenarios are NOT "bad DMing" . . . they are different DMing. Storytelling styles that will work for some groups, and not for others. The important thing is to know your players to make sure there isn't a mismatch!

I've run this 3 times across 2 groups. It was fun AF because players could do gonzo builds knowing it's only for one session. Also, as the DM, I was way more likely to say, "sure, why not?" and rule of cool because it wouldn't have any long-term consequences.

Specifically to Dire Bare - in case you don't yet have the book - each one-shot has a part at the end called "you're saying there's a chance" that has you run lower level baddies so that the players MIGHT win. Alternately, a few of the scenarios (like the one at the bath houses) has circumstances where PLAYERS might not die...but the world is now in a pretty bad place.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would never force the players into a fight they are supposed to lose. That's no bueno. The players can certainly manage to start fights they probably can't win of course, but that's a different kettle of fish.

 

[jdrakeh]

Ooooooooh, boy. I somewhat recently played in a game (not D&D) where the GM routinely set up "no win" combat situations for the PCs. He'd simply override successful dice rolls made on behalf of the players and narrate the outcome of NPC actions without rolling for them. He wouldn't even let the PCs attempt to retreat from combat when the "no win" situation became clear. Because it violated his precious story. His precious NPCs. He didn't want to play a game. He wanted to tell a story. HIS story. Players be damned. The worst part is that, after a night of abusing his power as the GM, he'd openly brag about how great he was, how his story was brilliant, how his characters were superb. He had ZERO self-awareness. There were more bad GM behaviors, but they all boiled down to violating player agency (e.g. he'd take control of PCs and act out scenes with himself controlling both the PC and NPCs). He's easily the worst GM I've had the displeasure to play with.

 

[prabe]

Ooooooooh, boy. I somewhat recently played in a game (not D&D) where the GM routinely set up "no win" combat situations for the PCs. He'd simply override successful dice rolls made on behalf of the players and narrate the outcome of NPC actions without rolling for them. He wouldn't even let the PCs attempt to retreat from combat when the "no win" situation became clear. Because it violated his precious story. His precious NPCs. He didn't want to play a game. He wanted to tell a story. HIS story. Players be damned. The worst part is that, after a night of abusing his power as the GM, he'd openly brag about how great he was, how his story was brilliant, how his characters were superb. He had ZERO self-awareness. There were more bad GM behaviors, but they all boiled down to violating player agency (e.g. he'd take control of PCs and act out scenes with himself controlling both the PC and NPCs). He's easily the worst GM I've had the displeasure to play with.

That sounds very much like a worst-case scenario. Yowch.

 

[jdrakeh]

That sounds very much like a worst-case scenario. Yowch.

It was bad and pretty much all of the players hated it, but were also very good friends with the GM outside of the game and, so, kept silent.

 

[prabe]

It was bad and pretty much all of the players hated it, but were also very good friends with the GM outside of the game and, so, kept silent.

I think the worst GM I've played with was someone I was friends with at the time, the combination is not easy to navigate, there.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think the worst GM I've played with was someone I was friends with at the time, the combination is not easy to navigate, there.

Yeah. I stayed quiet because I was very good friends with all of the other players. But we privately commiserated about how awful the game was.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Back in 2e, I designed an adventure where the party encountered a lot of goblinoids. Way more than the party could deal with. The goblinoids demanded the party surrender. In my head, they were going to surrender and then have to fight whatever monster that they were going to be sacrificed to. They wouldn't have had their weapons or armor, but otherwise that second fight was going to be well within their capabilities to deal with.

I was shocked when the entire party decided death in battle was preferable to surrender. I managed to salvage things with some fast-thinking improv, but it was touch-and-go for a bit. I learned then and there to never design an adventure that expects the PCs to do one specific thing. Especially if it involves surrender.

These days, while I wouldn't throw a fight at the PCs that they have zero chance of winning, if they choose to engage in something I've clearly sign-posted as being too dangerous, then that's on them. If their starting characters wants to go fight that dragon they saw flying in the distance or take on Adam Smasher when he's off murdering people that aren't them, well, they made that choice.

With actual plays, I think it bears discussing that they do not always have a 1-to-1 correlation with, well, actually playing a TTRPG. Stuff gets edited out, people might make different decisions because they are playing to an audience. For all we know before the session the DM had a long talk getting their buy-in for the scene, the hopeless fight. Heck, a player might even have suggested the whole thing, said let's go out in a blaze of glory.