What is the least likely word to come out of an adventurer’s mouth?

[Aust Diamondew]

gfdfg

"We will spare your lives"

My players never spare any one who surrenders they simply kill them.
My party usually doesn't have a problem with retreating.

 

[Maggan]

Least likely word to come from an adventurer

"...please?"

A word rarely heard around the gaming table.



Maggan

 

[Forrester]

I have a couple of suggestions.

"Don't worry, it doesn't matter how much XP we got this session. It was fun, and that's what is important!"

"All these magic items are getting heavy. Do I really need them?"

 

[Grundle]

Make that two votes for "Surrender."

Retreat is viable, but God forbid your PC surrender to the enemy. You might as well throw the whole campaign out the window.

DMing an adventure that requires the PC to surrender is doomed to failure. Every PC I've ever seen in this situation has thought that death was better than surrender!!!!

The thought of playing a character striped naked (no spell books, magic items, etc.) is worse than rolling up a new one.

 

[jmucchiello]

"All these magic items are getting heavy. Do I really need them?"

We say that all the time. Especially when we want to trade up. "The fighter needs an extra 6,000 gp to buy a +3 weapon? I've got a +1 dagger I'm not using. Who else has stuff collecting dust in their packs?" We are very group oriented.

Joe

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

You're not going to get PCs surrendering much, because until you've developed a pretty high level of trust in a gaming group, the players have the sneaking suspicion that the GM is an evil bastard, and that surrendering is equivalent to death, only by some particularly sadstic means instead of in combat.

No, surrendering is worse than death. Much worse.

Unless you get a fast TPK, it is very likely one or two PCs can escape, possibly with a body or two. Your party may not be so bad off in the long run. Having people killed is only a temporary set back.

Surrendering means someone gets all your stuff without a fight and all that cool stuff you own will be used against the party. Better to fight it out and use a few potions along the way.

IMHO, the reason players are so allergic to surrendering has everything to do with how most DMs run their campaigns.

 

[Zog]

Surrendur, indeed, is rare. I started my current campaign by saying 'sometimes you will face things I do not expect you to defeat - sometimes you may have to run, etc.' I think they took that a bit to close to heart - as they are now afraid to confront/attack NPCs because 'they are too high level' - and they have no idea what level these folks actually are. I mean, they walked away a possible chance at the murdering child raping villian who they are going to go swear holy vengence against!

Ah well.

But seriously - the least heard phrase has to be :

'That's the banjo player's porsche!'

 

[Black Omega]

I think surrender is simply a problem every single player has, to some degree. I know even in Champions, where surrender and capture fit the genre, players would rather their characters die than be captured. And by genre bad guys never just shoot the captured character in the head.

Maybe we need to form a support group to help players over this.

 

[Psionicist]

"Cool". Why would any adventurer shout "Man this is so cool!" in the middle of an adventure, say when the player (me) discovers the snacks.

Edit: Said in the middle of an in game conversation.

 

[Psion]

Re: What is the least likely word to come out of an adventurer?s mouth?

How can we as DMs place the fear back into the game?

1) Let them know that if they get in over their heads, you will kill the PCs.
2) Follow up with demonstration.