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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6859777" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you've left out option (4): the players think that fighting makes for a more fun game than running. Depending on how the game handles fighting, vs how it handles running; how XP are awarded across each choice; how the GM handles pursuit by ambushers; etc, the players might even be right.There's also option (5): the players know how the GM will adjudicate combat, and so can form a rational combat strategy (even if the odds aren't that good) but don't know how the GM will adjudicate running away, and so can't form any sort of strategy at all.In classic dungeon crawling D&D (OD&D, 1st ed AD&D, B/X), where the rules for running are fairly clear (drop treasure or food and you'll probably get away), the GMing conventions around pursuit are fairly clear (in general, wandering monsters are a once-and-done affair, so if you escape around a corner, and certainly if you escape out of the dungeon, you won't be hunted down), and the reward structure is fairly clear (the XP for fighting wandering monsters aren't very much, because they tend to have little or no treasure), then I think it's not that uncommon to see players who are used to that style running way.In contemporary D&D, though, the rules for running can tend to be very uncertain (sometimes it mightn't be anything more sophisticated than comparing movement rates, and there is nothing comparable to the 1st ed AD&D rule of auto-evade on surprise if desired); the conventions around pursuit are also much less clear, but a greater emphasis on "verisimilitude" plus a greater emphasis on epic plotlines means that being hunted down is more likely to be a real possibility; and the XP rules tend to mean that fighting ambushers is no less XP-rewarding than fighting people you have ambushed. In those circumstances, I'm not surprised that running away is less common.</blockquote>

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