Surrender or Die!

[Oryan77]

I think it has been 50/50 for me. I've had groups that assumed I was railroading and figured they are supposed to get captured, so they surrender. Then I have groups (like my current group) that doesn't know the meaning of "run away or surrender". I don't think it even crosses their minds. They just assume, "Here is an encounter, we're supposed to kill it."

I get dumbfounded when I see players fight to the death when that death would be meaningless. I won't hesitate to run away if I'm a PC (and most of my NPCs run away if they can). If I'm overwhelmed & 'surrender or die' is my only option, I'll surrender every single time. My characters assume they will figure out a way out of it eventually, and if not, at least they tried. So part of the fun & challenge for me is figuring out how I can escape my captors after I surrender. I laugh at the poor fools that fight to the death. My Fated way of thinking proves that they obviously did not deserve their life, which is why they lost it.

What I find worse is when a player will die before handing over their precious magic item. I don't care if it was a family heirloom or whatever; to actually fight to the death over it really irks me. I'd rather hand it over (if I knew I was out matched), live, then try to get it back later and get my revenge. The way I see it, if I know I would die, I would rather he take it from my living body than take it from my dead body.

 

[blargney the second]

I think it's actually cool that people are saying that they need more information before they can decide. If you have players that want to know more about the context their characters are in, that's a very very good thing.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

(e) Reprogram the simulation.

 

[ExploderWizard]

(e) Reprogram the simulation.

Haha! Impossible! You have been captured by the nefarious Captain Narrative and his merry band of plotters!

He wrings his hands with glee while thinking up something to write about you.

 

[Rolflyn]

Depends on the DM. I played with a DM where the party surrendered, and then the PCs were systematically tortured and killed. Next time in the same situation, years later in another campaign and genre, we all fought to the bitter end.

Played with another DM where he made it work, kind of.

But regardless of DM, the players will hate you for it. Some might not say so out loud, but they will hate you for it.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

The question even depends on the player's characters (i.e. same players, different PCs).

Imagine a good group (as in alignment).

Surrender to evil gnolls who will kill them later anyway? HECK NO! We'll at least take a few of em out with us!

Surrender to a town militia? Sure. It's the right thing to do.

Versus:

Imagine an evil group (as in alignment).

Surrender to evil gnolls who will kill them later anyway? Sure! Maybe I can make a deal with the gnolls and lead them to glory! If anything I might be able to rat out my friends and get in good, just myself.

Surrender to the town militia? NO WAY! Those lawful goody-goodies will be sure to bring me to trial and execute me! Bribes won't even work on THEM!

 

[Victim]

Looking for a way to win even against overwhelming odds will sometimes get you killed.

Looking for ways out of tough encounters instead of trying to find ways to win turns those into overwhelming encounters and gets more people killed.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Looking for a way to win even against overwhelming odds will sometimes get you killed.

Looking for ways out of tough encounters instead of trying to find ways to win turns those into overwhelming encounters and gets more people killed.

So the best solution is to die in an average encounter to avoid all the trouble?

 

[Argyle King]

It depends upon what game we're playing. I'm basing this on the handful of groups which I regularly game with.


D&D 3E: I expect a few of the players to surrender; a few to fight until death, and a few to fight for another round or two before finally giving up.


D&D 4E: I expect none of the players to surrender, and I also expect that even the slightest chance of survival will be enough to spur them on to fight and actually defeat the enemy. Unless railroaded into a skill challenge which doesn't allow them to fight and results in them being captured, I expect none of them to surrended or even consider it. At best they may fake a surrender just to get the enemy to drop their guard.


Pathfinder: I haven't played with this group enough yet to know, but I imagine the results would be similar to my D&D 3E answer.


GURPS: I imagine a fair portion of the players will surrender. However, the answer will vary wildly depending upon the motivations and mentalities of the characters.

 

[Lancelot]

I voted "some". A couple of my players would suggest surrendering, but others would prefer to lose their characters instead. They've been playing for many years, and they've done the "escape from prison" scenario dozens of times. And yes, that means all sorts of variations on the "escape from prison" scenario: brainwashed by the bad guys, forced to prove their innocence, exiled to another plane, stripped and released, etc, etc, etc. There are a couple of players who simply can't stand the loss of control (and perhaps items) and would rather terminate the campaign in messy fashion and start afresh.

Unfortunately, the other half of my group are usually quite attached to their characters and comfortable with the classic "escape!" narrative. So, a situation like this would quickly degenerate into a shouting match... until at least one of the PCs snaps and tries to pull off a risky maneuver that gets him killed or bludgeoned unconscious. As soon as the contentious PCs are down, the "sensible" ones immediately surrender. The contentious players roll their eyes and talk about railroads for the next 30 minutes, and grudgingly go along with whatever escape attempt the others start planning. But they're pretty fatalistic about it, and quite happy if the whole thing ends in a TPK.

...yeah. I've been through this before.