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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5043959" data-attributes="member: 54707">I'll third that sentiment.This is also a good set of points. To be good at anything you must have a real plan and be well-trained and practiced. Also if your escape and evasion plan involves separation or breaking into small teams then you need a good  communications system, or a good plan with good timing/regrouping elements.With games I think you've got a real point. The built in habit with most games (not just RPGs, but everything from wargames to boardgames to video games) is to either stand your ground, looking for advantage as the conflict evolves, or at best tactical retreat to a defensible position. Because after all nothing is really being lost other than a game.One thing I think you can do is teach your players good Escape and Evasion tactics. For instance in real life I taught my children good Escape/Evasion, and Tracking and Pursuit methods and procedures as part of their natural Security Training. As a component of their overall Security Training Program. So they are fundamentally aware of such techniques and how to employ them and under what circumstances.But in a game exposure to these ideas and training might develop in a very different way, such as "training and practice" one might deceive from an NPC while conducting wargames, a simulated assault, or in being instructed in how to fight a particular enemy prior to a difficult engagement.For instance really good Escape, Avoidance, and Evasion techniques can be successfully recombined with redeployment and reassembly/regrouping techniques (not to mention things like survival techniques) in order to scatter enemy forces, divide, outflank, and ambush them. Seen in this way then Escape and Evasion makes good tactical sense, as well as being a very useful security and survival tool.What I often do, in my games, when it is apparent a player or a group of players does not understand the peculiar advantage of a particular maneuver or type of tactical behavior, is either to get the other players to teach them, or sometimes I will conduct NPC or third party training to demonstrate to them lessons that will augment or improve their repertoire of possible actions. Then again you can let them learn in the field out of necessity (applying so much pressure along certain routes of action that the players are left no other choice but to reconsider their typical responses, or sometimes perish out of stubborn adherence to a narrow range of behaviors. In cases like that I often hold a post-game Lesson's Learned debriefing and discuss with them what some of the possible options they had but refused to consider or undertake, and then I stress to them that they can think and act more flexibly and cleverly in the future. (Yes, I know, how dare anyone suggest that their players aren't being as clever and cunning as possible, but only egotistical idiots have no need to learn something new. Both the wise and experienced survivors are anxious to learn new techniques and capabilities, and are humble, determined, and earnest about it.) I also encourage them to keep <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/245940-tactical-repertoire.html" target="_blank">"Formations" and "Tactics"</a> with ideas on how they might best respond to a particular encounter, situation, or type of enemy. In briefing or setting up for the next adventure or mission you might remind your players that they have a variety of encounter options, that not everything devolves down to, "stand rooted, stab, and be stabbed until someone bleeds out."That's a stupid way to fight in any situation anyways unless absolutely forced to, but it is a common response in games. Only I suspect because most people playing games have never been stabbed, clubbed, shot at, or really threatened with lethal force, or they'd definitely be fighting smarter than that. And killing smarter than that. As a matter of fact they'd just plain be smarter than that all the way around.Anywho, good luck to ya.</blockquote>

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