what works in fiction but not rpgs or vice versa?

[Elder-Basilisk]

The dramatic exit can work in D&D; it just requires a little more planning in order to actually be able to disengage. (This is one of the reasons that PCs don't retreat often either--it's hard to get away).

One example: Move action: dramatic monologue; standard action: dimension door.
Another example: swift action: swift invisibility, move out of line of sight, activate hat of disguise. Next round, blend in with other guards "I'll check the gatehouse." Shortly thereafter, apply dust of tracelessness and ride off into the sunset.

Without magic, the dramatic escape is harder to pull off, however, it can be done. Usually, however, the bad guy needs to 1. Be faster than most PCs. 2. Obviously be powerful enough that the one PC who could catch him doesn't relish the thought of fighting him alone. 3. Have some means to obscure line of sight so that the PCs can't target him with a fireball or other long-range effect. 4. Retreat into hostile territory.

It's a lot easier to escape the PCs on a dark and stormy night when you have darkvision and a 40+ movement and the PCs don't have darkvision and most of them have a base move of 20 in their heavy armor. It's even easier if you can run through territory where the PCs know that they're likely to run into random encounter orc warbands if they try to track you down.

But, after a bad guy has pulled that off once, you should expect the PCs to make some preparations and try to ensure that it doesn't happen again. If the wizard teleports or dimension doors away, you can bet that a dimensional anchor or dimensional lock is in the cards next time. If the assassin goes invisible and uses air walk to escape, you can bet that, next time, the cleric is likely to have invisibility purge prepped and may well be ready with that bead of force the party found in the first section of the mod. Etc. (When I played Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, the assassin managed to get away from us after death attacking my cleric in the middle of the moathouse; later, he showed up and tried again in a side adventure added by our DM. He barely managed to escape at about 1hp after making the save against the orb of force and air walking out of the invisibility purge radius. (Fortunately for him, we were too busy with the troglodytes to follow). The third time, however, he didn't even get the chance to make his attack. The wizard decided to cast see invisibility just in case someone was sneaking up on us invisibly. And what do you know, there was the assassin! A glitterdust later, several party members ran through three AoOs and skewered him down to about -40hp before he could get away).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I got a Modern NPC to make his "dramatic escape" once. He didn't pause to say anything, though.

He was standing on a dirt trail, near a bunch of trees. Most of the players were south of him (there were some trees to the south of him and also north of the trail) where he enjoyed cover from them.

One of the players took his van around and drove right at him. It's only because he had Evasion and literally rolled a natural 20 that he got away. He was also slightly faster than the players and ran north into the woods, where the van couldn't follow.

White smoke grenades can also work. But not the last time I used them.

But I generally find that NPCs can't get away in DnD or Modern, so you're better off creating and using powerful henchmen to face the PCs instead. Maybe one or two henchmen can do something nasty while the PCs are busy (burn a village, etc) so the players will hate them even though they haven't actually met. It makes a fair way of introducing them, too, if anyone survived the massacre of the village.

Maybe we make NPCs run too late. Even if they're in full health, but they waited for all of their minions to die, it's too late. At that point, it's too easy for all the heroes to turn their guns/horse-lances/fireballs etc on them and smoke 'em.

 

[LostSoul]

I had a pretty cool encounter in a game I was playing.

A human NPC assassin killed this NPC we were talking to, and then she went Invisible. Being an Elven Ranger with Favoured Enemy: Humans and maxxed out Listen, I was able to pinpoint her square. Next round I threw a vial of ink on her. I figured that was the end for her.

But no! She cast Prestidigitation on herself, cleaned up the ink, and was able to get away.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Some of my observations on things that work well in fiction but don't work well in RPGs...

Party Leaders: In most fantasy books, the party of adventurers usually has a leader. In every single D&D campaign I've played in, whenever somebody tries to establish themself as party leader, the other players shoot them down.

Romance: Romance is common in novels. In RPG campaigns, however, in-character romances usually come across as silly, awkward, or even creepy.

Destiny: In fantasy, it's common for the main character to be the "chosen one" foretold in prophecy to destroy the evil overlord. In RPGs, many players will interpret this as the DM trying to railroad them.

 

[ruleslawyer]

As for monologuing (gotta love The Incredibles!) and dramatic escapes: As far as my players are concerned, these are what wall of force and dimension door/teleport are basically for!

The key to making "chosen" or "destined" PCs work, IMHO, is to use the PC's chosen status to flatter the player, rather than overtly stating that it requires the PC to undertake a particular fixed course of action.

 

[sniffles]

Some of my observations on things that work well in fiction but don't work well in RPGs...

Party Leaders: In most fantasy books, the party of adventurers usually has a leader. In every single D&D campaign I've played in, whenever somebody tries to establish themself as party leader, the other players shoot them down.

Romance: Romance is common in novels. In RPG campaigns, however, in-character romances usually come across as silly, awkward, or even creepy.

Destiny: In fantasy, it's common for the main character to be the "chosen one" foretold in prophecy to destroy the evil overlord. In RPGs, many players will interpret this as the DM trying to railroad them.

The party leader point is a good one, although my experience is quite different: no one in our group wants to be the leader. This means that we tend to be indecisive and disjointed some of the time. Although I have to admit that if someone did choose to play the role of leader, the other players might not always follow the leader's lead.

I've not seen any difficulty roleplaying romance, but it does tend to be downplayed or behind the scenes far more than it would be in fiction. Players don't want to take time away from other aspects of the game by roleplaying their romantic interludes, in addition to the discomfort level that some players may have.

The "chosen one" or primary protagonist is, as others have pointed out, difficult since this puts a lot of the onus on one player and may make the other players feel left out. It also creates a danger of ruining the entire campaign if that character dies unexpectedly or the player becomes unavailable.

As an aside, going back to the romance issue, I just found out that my fiancee's female PC in one of our games is having romantic leanings toward one of the male PCs. My fiancee is male, the other player is male, and the other player's wife is also a player in the campaign. Is this creepy or what?

 

[Black Omega]

The Vlad Taltos novels from Steven Brust are a good example of DnD style raise dead. One of the novels is Jhereg, which was mentioned earlier. In one passage from the books the main character, an assassin, is explaining the levels of assassination. The cheapest is a simple slit throat or knife in the back, something basic that kills the person but takes no precautions against them being raised. Among the Jhereg this can be used as a way of warning someone while saying 'You are annoying enough to be worth 100 gold to have you killed. Keep it up and I'll pay the extra 900 so you can't be brought back next time.' It's a very DnD universe.