Victories and No Defeats in D&D

[avin]

In The Hobbit, the party of dwarves seems to lose more fights than it wins.

It's proven that Hobbits/Halflings are just good to put a good party in trouble.

Die, halflings, die!!!

 

[KesselZero]

That's a bit like saying that the choice to eat a four-cheese pasta, or a curry laksa, is bacially the same outside of flavour (both are starches smothered in fat). I mean, it's true (or near enough), but the flavour's a pretty big part of the whole enterprise.

(The reason it's not complletely true is because the two options might involve different elements of the action resolution mechanics - eg a skill challenge one way, a combat the other way - and this is not just a difference of flavour - the players might be better at one than the other, for example.)

There are other dimensions of thoughtfulness beside balancing risks against rewards.

You're right, of course; flavor is important, and thoughtful play isn't just figuring out which challenges won't kill you. I also can see that there are ways to have zones of equal challenge hold different meaning-- perhaps there's a town being attacked by orcs and a cult finishing up an evil ritual, and you've only got time to stop one. That's certainly a meaningful choice even if both adventures are balanced for the party.

Nevertheless, I'm talking specifically about sandbox play, and in such a style the sense of verisimilitude is important, the feeling that the world exists outside the PCs while being influenced by their actions. I believe that a sandbox campaign in which every dungeon, zone, or encounter was balanced to the PCs' abilities would ring suspicious and hurt suspension of disbelief. Similarly, a feeling that the PCs are never really in danger-- which after all is what this thread is all about-- would hurt both the illusion of a real world and the sense of real choice. I definitely get what you're saying about flavor being important, and I really don't mean to be implying that a pirate ship adventure and a volcano adventure would be identical in the players' minds-- sorry about the hyperbole from before. But I do believe that if the players pick up on the fact that whatever they choose, it'll be neatly balanced for them, it'll take away a lot of the power of choice, because then the PCs' lives are much less in the players' hands, and are back to being in mine.

 

[KidSnide]

One of my objections to the way that D&D adventures are normally structured is that I don't buy AT ALL that 99% of all bad guys would fight to the death. If you're a bandit and a band of adventurers are mowing through your crew, are you going to keep fighting and die too or are you going to run? Even dumb animals are likely to take the hint and run away.

By the same token, most players are TERRIBLE about knowing when to retreat or surrender. I see this as related. If DM's provide examples of enemies that will retreat or surrender when things turn against them, then players will be more likely to think to do the same.

I will concede that part of this is down to how the rules are structured. It is REALLY hard to run away if you don't have a movement or concealment-based spell or magic item. It'd almost be MORE realistic to collapse everything down to an "Escape" roll, where if you roll well enough you're able to escape to no further harm...

I agree that there is a rules issue on both sides of retreat. I think the right balance is that retreat should be uncertain, but pursuit should also be dangerous (e.g. the retreating group stages an ambush or the pursuing group runs into another encounter while strung out over several rounds by speed). The GM needs to set up a system where enemies retreat, sometimes get away and often flee for their lives rather than screwing the party. Once the PCs realize that enemies can flee and it's not always worth pursuing them, they will realize that they too can flee and their enemies won't always pursue them either.

A related aspect of this is that, when the PCs are entering an organized hostile location, many of the early battles should be won or lost based on whether the guards / random-hostile-humanoids-met-while-going-about-their-business raise the alarm or not. In this type of scenario, PCs efforts should focus on stealth and quick-quiet-victories. This is another scenario where the PCs can be certain of being able to kill all the opponents (in a given encounter!), and yet have uncertainly as to whether they can "win."

D&D should also have design guidelines for encounters where victory is based on something other than a "to the death" battle.

-KS

 

[Living Legend]

I hate pampering players, but I have always found that having players get captured sucks far worse. However, last weekend my players did not pick up on some obvious clues in our western campaign and walked right into a trap: they were captured by rival opium dealers and escape was pretty much their only option, since drug dealers of the rival variety are not generally forgiving.

I was totally expecting the session (or maybe campaign) to fall apart, but I simply told them "this isn't star wars, you could easily get yourselves killed here" and let them run with it. It turned out to be the highlight of the session.

They played it cautiously, burned through most of their resources, almost got caught, but managed to get their gear back AND kill one of the dealers (brothers), and take the other one hostage. They were totally in character, I never pulled a single punch, and the tension was awesome. When it was all done everyone loved it because it felt like they had really done something awesome. and the best part is the drug dealer they took hostage escaped and now isn't just some enemy in the distance, but a rival with history.

I vote that this kind of thing is presented as more of an option, and published adventures and books help give DM's ideas and methods to deal with such things. BUT, the stakes must be high, death must be possible, otherwise there is no tension and no sense of accomplishment.

 

[Endur]

(And on a side note, I just reread the Hobbit, and man are those dwarves useless).

Gimli in the Lord of the Rings is a major upgrade over the dwarves in the Hobbit.

 

[SensoryThought]

Having players captured depends on your player and their trust in the DM.

I had one capture go particularly badly (as opposed to killing the pc when all the other pcs but him surrendered) with the player eventually dummy spitting and quitting the game.

The other player got captured and lost a hand as the result of decisions he made stealing from a rich/powerful npc and refusing to make amends. But he knew he wouldn't be killed outright, it gave another player a chance to reveal she was secretly magically tracking him at all times, and he ended up making himself a cool warforged hand.

So it is very much down to the player and the group.

 

[GM Dave]

It doesn't help if your GM doesn't accept capture and punishes you for it.

I was playing in a Dark Sun campaign and the GM had us getting pounded by Dark Sun elves that had long bows and were using them in an ambush.

We'd already lost 50% of our force (unconscious and bleeding out in Pathfinder rules) and I realized that I could take one more hit before going down; so, I offered ransom for my surrender.

The GM looked at me stunned as if he had not heard those words before (given the past several years of gaming, I hadn't heard any of the other players surrender either). I expected a fair treatment like Medieval Knights or Runequest.

The GM's treatment of the situation made it worse then if I had simply fought to the death and had the character die.

I learned, don't surrender with that GM. Intelligent play is punished.

PS: I live in a small town; so, there isn't a large variety of GM choices. I'm GMing now so there is hope for some rehabilitation of the players and their methods (though the former GM is playing pretty munchkin and fairly never surrender though I got his character to pull out of a combat last game).

 

[SensoryThought]

Capture and escape has a long storytelling tradition. How else can the enemy monologue his evil plans? (You will not escape mr bond...)

 

[Bedrockgames]

This sound more like a GM/adventure design issue an a game and system issue to me. If you mae surrender or capture realistic options then players wont fight to the death. Monsters and foes also shouldn't fight to the last man. Generally once folks know they are beat, they tend to give in (unless giving in means certain death).

 

[Madeiner]

The GM's treatment of the situation made it worse then if I had simply fought to the death and had the character die.

I learned, don't surrender with that GM. Intelligent play is punished.

I don't know your GM nor your story, but, i wouldn't assume surrendering is a sure way to get a CR-appropriate chance of escape.

Maybe you are lucky and you get one. Maybe you are captured by mindflayers and you get your mind wrecked and you'll never remember who you were, ending your story right there.

Unless your character is especially valuable for the level he is (a king maybe) i don't think npcs would be that willing taking the risk the party might escape, recover their magic items and kill the captors. They ARE PCs, they are able to do that.

It's probably much more convenient to take the PCs magic items and kill them, then to ransom them for less of what their magic items are even worth, risking death by escape, and winning a powerful group of enemies that levels up every few weeks.