The Player Psychology of Fleeing Villains

[Agamon]

I always consider if the opponent is willing to die for what he's fighting for. If not, of course he's not going to just sit there and fight to the death. There are honestly very few reasons to fight to the death for any rational being. If things are going badly, escape is possible and escaping is a better option than dying, then why wouldn't one attempt to escape? To coddle the poor players' fragile psyches? lol

 

[Rechan]

Perhaps, I read too much into your post. As a response to the OP and Jack's post it seemed to be advocating a player entitlement stance that I think is damaging to a campaign.

Depends on what you consider "Player entitlement". To take from my words that I don't believe in challenging players, giving them conflicts and setbacks, that I don't get invested in the story, is silly if not insulting. Maybe we disagree on what constitutes challenging.

But clearly I believe in a different kind of social contract and what DMing is about than the majority of the thread.

And since I'm in the minority here, I'll stop threadjacking.

That says more about you and your players than it does the tactics.

You're right, and I'm glad it does.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

After rereading the OP, I don't think it was the fact that the dragon fled, but their condition when the dragon fled that upset them.

If I understood things correctly, when the dragon fled, 3 characters were unconscious with near-death levels of negative hp and the remaining character in the bloodied condition. If this was true, then when the dragon fled it was closer to "DM didn't want a TPK" than "we barely won."

Well, not quite. Several characters had been down, but they managed to pull together with the desperate administration of a healing potion to the cleric, who then could heal the other one who was in dire straits, etc. I think at the end of the fight everyone was conscious with three out of four of them bloodied.

I don't think there would have been a TPK whether the dragon fled or not, though it was looking really close for a while. I think with a couple of better choices earlier in the fight (attacking the dragon instead of the kobold minions, maybe even using magic missile for automatic damage instead of missing with an at-will) they could have killed the dragon before it bailed from the fight.

I wasn't fleeing to avoid a TPK; I had decided before the fight that the dragon's sense of self-preservation (you don't live to be over 100 by never running away from a fight) would have it bail out if down to 30 or 40 hit points left (out of about 250).

 

[Gryph]

Depends on what you consider "Player entitlement". To take from my words that I don't believe in challenging players, giving them conflicts and setbacks, that I don't get invested in the story, is silly if not insulting. Maybe we disagree on what constitutes challenging.

But clearly I believe in a different kind of social contract and what DMing is about than the majority of the thread.

And since I'm in the minority here, I'll stop threadjacking.
You're right, and I'm glad it does.

Why do you edit my post quotes to exclude significant parts of the meaning? The fragment you quoted was an explanation of my thinking followed by an apology if I misunderstood you.

Using a partial quote to accuse me of being insulting is, well, insulting. It is the second time in this thread you have done so. Please stop.

 

[Rechan]

Why do you edit my post quotes to exclude significant parts of the meaning? The fragment you quoted was an explanation of my thinking followed by an apology if I misunderstood you.

Using a partial quote to accuse me of being insulting is, well, insulting. It is the second time in this thread you have done so. Please stop.

You're right; I interpreted you were talking to me, saw "Player entitlement", and overlooked that you were referring to the OP/Jack7's posts. I misread, sorry.

 

[Gryph]

You're right; I interpreted you were talking to me, saw "Player entitlement", and overlooked that you were referring to the OP/Jack7's posts. I misread, sorry.

Fair enough and thank you.

 

[howandwhy99]

Morale Checks. I'm surprised no one's mentioned them yet. They work for all NPCs, both foes and allies.

Games typically set up situations for when these are called for. For example: when a character loses half or more of their hit points. When they lose more than half of their total HP in a single blow (excluding crits). When allies are routed and flee the field. When the under a fear effect. When their commander goes down. Etc.

Morale can be higher or lower for different monsters and specific characters, but if the players are accustomed to seeing their enemies run they might remember that they should run sometimes too.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

At this talk of "use tactics to win at any cost that seems realistic".

The villain poisons the PCs with a strong sleeping drug. He then kills them in their sleep. Or casts a sleep spell on the guard on duty and then murders everyone in their sleep.

Sure it's realistic, effective, and if it works why wouldn't he do that? But I would never think of doing that because the players would feed me my dice.

This is absolutely a legitimate tactic for the bad guys.

I think the key is to avoid scenarios where this would make sense if your players don't enjoy this type of play rather than just having the bad guys foregoing reasonable tactics.

If the players are in a scenario where it's reasonable for the bad guys to do this, they should know it. If a PC dies in his sleep because he didn't take precautions when he knew assassins might come after him, then that's the player's fault, not the DM's.

 

[Janx]

If they got the XP for defeating the dragon, and they got the treasure, I don't see a reason for the players to be upset at you. If the characters want to have a mad on for the dragon, that's up to them.

I concur

mechanically speaking, there is little difference in fighting an orc to the death or fighting an orc that runs away. The next orc you fight could be the same as the first orc, in both cases.

as for the charge of "stealing a kill", a kill is not yours until your blade silences your foe forever.

In nature, most animals do NOT fight to the death. Any animal that dies in a fight simply failed to withdraw fast enough before it was killed.

Humans are apparently stupider than that, notably ones with strong attachments to some ideal. General bad guys, are not so principled, and should run at the first sign of losing the upper hand.

therefore, more NPCs should retreat than actually do.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Morale Checks. I'm surprised no one's mentioned them yet. They work for all NPCs, both foes and allies.

Check post # 26.

I am no one.