Victories and No Defeats in D&D

[Endur]

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

The dwarves are taken prisoner by the trolls.
The dwarves flee from the giants in the Misty Mountains.
The dwarves are taken prisoner by the goblins of the Misty Mountains.
The dwarves are treed by a group of worgs and wolves.
The dwarves are trapped in webs by giant spiders.
The dwarves are imprisoned by wood elves.
...

Conan wins fights in his stories, but he also loses quite a few, including some big ones. He is enslaved several times.

We could go on and on regarding fictional heroes and the victories and defeats of their stories.

Yet D&D tends not to have victories and defeats from combat results, only victories. Capture either happens because it was a railroad (you are automatically captured) or you failed and its game over. Part of this is because we're used to modules/organized play that don't list options such as running away from a fight, being captured, etc. because the module assumes that the PCs always win.

 

[Halivar]

I've been captured quite a few times. The thing is that it is possibly more emasculating than just dying. But breaking out, killing your captors, and raising holy hell? Epic.

 

[Sunseeker]

Gotta keep in mind, those "losses" were mostly story points, so sure, in a heavily narrated game it's reasonable to include losses. Likewise it should be taken into consideration the scale of some of those battles, not just in numbers, but in types of enemies and their comparative power-levels to the protagonists.

In The Hobbit the protagonists often lost as a result of going against overwhelming numbers and odds. And remember, noone really died until the very end, which is how most epic adventures go.

In the average D&D game, not every battle is going to be an epic battle against evil and tyranny, sometimes it's just beating up the bandits who tried to jump you in the woods.

But for those epic battles, I do think loss should be a very real possibility. As it was pointed out, I don't favor capture given it's "take the control out of the hands of the players" issues, so the serious battles really will come down to "do or die", but they're the battles that your party will be remembered for.

 

[Minigiant]

But most of those are story losses. The character is railroaded into a protected environment until they can recover or escape.
But in D&D, losses are the end as the loser is not protected. Mama Dire Bear does not take prisoners. Mama Dire Bear mauls faces off then snacks on giant bee honey.

D&D does account for loses through.

Blessed is the Heavenly Revolving Door.

 

[Savage Wombat]

As a DM, I'm always more comfortable with a nasty, overpowered monster if I know what will happen to the campaign should the party lose. I had one villain recently who I knew would want to imprison the party for questioning, and raise them if need be, so unloading on them wasn't an issue.

 

[TwinBahamut]

The problem with D&D is that it doesn't have many good ways to lose without a TPK. If the characters defeat all their enemies, but two characters die, it is still a win. Retreat is generally rather hard and can be a murky area in the rules. Capture is a possibility, but the rules as a whole tend to assume enemies are trying to kill the PCs, so any capture situation runs the risk of it feeling like the DM just went easy on the players. Similarly, it is hard for the enemies to escape, so having the enemies run away when the PCs need to defeat them isn't easy to pull off. The lack of a good gray area between "defeated" and "dead" doesn't help any of these very much...

There is no doubt that a good group can overcome a lot of this through some creativity, but it would help if the rules didn't assume so readily that any given fight will involve both sides fighting until one side is completely defeated. Better rules for disengaging from a fight and widening the gap between "defeated at 0 HP" and "dead" would help a lot.

 

[trancejeremy]

That's one of the differences between a game and a work of fiction - one relies on the actions of the players judged by the DM (and usually random chance), while the other is completely controlled by the author.

With that said, it's perfectly okay for a DM to turn a TPK into simply being captured, IMHO.

And in some cases, like being surrounded by hundreds of elves, it's probably not the best idea to fight (then again, most players don't like being railroaded like that)

 

[kitsune9]

But most of those are story losses. The character is railroaded into a protected environment until they can recover or escape.
But in D&D, losses are the end as the loser is not protected. Mama Dire Bear does not take prisoners. Mama Dire Bear mauls faces off then snacks on giant bee honey.

D&D does account for loses through.

Blessed is the Heavenly Revolving Door.

So true. Many groups will fight to the last man standing rather than admit defeat.

 

[Sunseeker]

So true. Many groups will fight to the last man standing rather than admit defeat.

Admitting you've been bested doesn't necessarily mean you'll live.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

"Run away" is a viable D&D tactic, but it must be taught to gaming groups early and reinforced by the DM regularly.

If your group is the type to think "Oh, he wouldn't have put a red dragon here if he didn't think we could defeat it", it will take at least one TPK to teach them.