Why don’t players surrender... would we want them too?

[dragoner]

Pretty much, I mean they could have fought them, and if their leader was alive, they might have; then we would have played that out. I GM in an open-ended manner, improv, all that.

 

[Li Shenron]

Can anything be done about this and would we want to?

I would like to see a surrender every now and then, at least for variety.

If my players surrendered, I would certainly not have the enemies kill them anyway.

 

[GMMichael]

I guess what I don’t understand is why capture is seen as dishonorable. . .

I also think it’s very difficult to tell a foe that’s overwhelming - and therefore needs surrendering too. After all while spell level may be easy to recognize, hp, attack bonus, etc aren’t - unless you role openly and players metagame it.

I don't think PCs are seeing dishonor. They're projecting: "well, if I were my enemy, I'd just kill me." So maybe raise the stakes against PC killing, and players will see those same considerations applied to their potential captors.

+1 for the metagame problem. In a game without death spirals, it's hard to tell when fleeing and surrender would actually be a good idea. So you ask about hit points, and look at your own. Then, even if you're low on HP, you can still fight like nobody's business, so you do.

A PC with a broken leg would rule out fleeing. Would a PC with a broken arm rule out fighting?

I give PCs the option to decide their fate when they've taken too much damage. Death is one option, but that means discarding a character that may have some player investment in it. Surrender is another, and looks pretty good since it doesn't involve drawing up a new character.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, fictional stories generally ignore the fact that being taken prisoner means incredible hardships, torture, and frequently, death; they generally ignore reality in every particular. In the history of the USA, for example, the only time being taken prisoner meant even reasonable treatment was in WW1, and in WW2 by the Germans (and even then, hardships abounded and the shooting of POWs did occur).

Few nations had anything resembling humane treatment of prisoners before WW1, and when facing more primitive cultures, being captured simply meant a slow death.

In the US military, being a POW is not highly regarded; the Soviets imprisoned those Red Army troops who were captured by the Germans in WW2 (and who had survived the terrible conditions). The Imperial Japanese heaped great dishonor upon those who surrendered. Chinese and Vietnamese Communist governments imprisoned those of their troops who had been taken as prisoners. And so forth.

Historically, if you're not killed outright, being a prisoner means facing disease, starvation, and maltreatment at best, active torture at worst. In more primitive times, those of noble birth might see ransoms paid, but otherwise, why feed useless mouths?

I don't see why I should feel morally obligated to deliver this sort of "realism" to my players. If I wanted them to experience the true horror of war, then I should also probably rule that if they die, the game is over for them. No rolling for another PC, no second chance, never play this game again with us. Because that's what happens IRL if you don't surrender, right?

 

[Shiroiken]

So, there's another thread around here which discusses prisoners... and in many cases folks are saying that prisoners or folks who surrender are summarily executed, or forcibly questioned for relevant information, and then executed.

So, if the PCs aren't treating prisoners well, we wouldn't expect them to surrender themselves...

It thus follows - if as a GM you are making taking prisoners into a major ethical dilemma, or if prisoners regularly break parole, and so on, then you shouldn't expect taking prisoners to be a thing.

If you want surrender to be a normal option, you probably have to set is as a cultural norm within the lands the PCs inhabit.

Agreeed. The playstyle matters a lot, both from the GM and the players. I believe players honestly never even think of it unless offered, because most RPGs are designed to always give them a chance to win, even against bad odd. This pushes players to never feel they should give up.

The GM can encourage this by periodically having NPCs surrender, but then the player's style comes in. My first campaign had NPCs surrender, provide information/ransom, then either be released or given over to the proper authorities (depending on the terms of surrender). My current campaign has a bloodthirsty trend, where the players are far more likely to kill prisoners after getting what they want.

 

[dragoner]

I don't see why I should feel morally obligated to deliver this sort of "realism" to my players.

I agree, and I'll add is that this reasoning of "military realism" is used by wehraboos to justify doing nasty stuff, or for people to argue every little thing that doesn't work out the way they want it to.

 

[Umbran]

I’ve not played the game, what do you think it is about it that encourages this? Unequal threats?

In CoC, the threats are often otherworldly beings of unimaginable power, the mere sight of which can have you make (and thus perhaps fail) a Sanity check, driving you mad. And those threats are generally unimpressed by bullets.

So, yeah, unequal threats.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think PCs are seeing dishonor. They're projecting: "well, if I were my enemy, I'd just kill me." So maybe raise the stakes against PC killing, and players will see those same considerations applied to their potential captors.

And thus we see why, if you want to see surrender in game, you have to bake that into the world culture or the genre.

I've been watching the new "She Ra", and going back through "Avatar: The Last Airbender". And there's a very obvious point to be made - while there's a war on, and there's this looming threat and what would seem to be lethal force being thrown around... death is very hard to find. At least, there's little death on screen. Characters on both sides of the conflict get captured at various times, but nobody is executed.

This is important. If you want this dynamic, you have to make it clear to players that this is how it will work, and that it won't end your game.

If you are a, "the only way there's excitement for me in the game is if my character is likely to die," player, then this may not work for you.

 

[MGibster]

I’ve not played the game, what do you think it is about it that encourages this? Unequal threats? @Griffon Lore Games seems to be suggesting something similar if that is the case. Or is there something unique to CoC

There are a few reasons I think: There is a mechanical downside to murdering people in cold blood in the form of a Sanity check, which save for the most depraved of individuals, will even apply to cultist. The more important reason, I think, is because there is a different mindset the players have when playing Call of Cthulhu versus Dungeons & Dragons.* The default setting of CoC is the real world during the 1920s, or sometimes our current time, and players are more likely to think in terms of real life complications with law enforcement should they kill someone in cold blood.

*I want to be clear that this isn't a dig at D&D players (of which I am one) or an implication that one game is better than another.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally, I have surrendered if I thought it was something my PC would do. The last time I remember doing so, I was a playing a multiclassed ranger who was scouting and I rolled a 2 on my check to see if I noticed the enemy’s outriders sneaking up on me.

So my character spend some time naked in chains until he could be rescued.

Also did my fair share of surrendering or running away in Paranoia games.