TheSword
Legend
So I’ve noticed a disconnect between what happens in tabletop and fiction...
The players are down to single digit hp, any successful attack will likely drop them, one fireball would mean a TPK. The cleric is on 0 hp and there are no more healing words left. More monsters are behind so it’s risky to retreat.
In this situation most players that I see would either fight to the bitter end and TPK, or attempt some extremely risky/unlikely escape with their comrades bodies or attempt to flee leaving a player behind. What I never see is the players say...“we surrender, take us to your leader.”
In fiction this happens all the time, getting captured, and then escaping inside the stronghold, getting captured and negotiating with your enemies, getting captured and discovering something useful from within your cell. Yet in my experience players would rather die than have this happen.
The only time I actually see this happen is when the DM either makes an explicit overture or demand “drop your weapons or I kill the princess.”(They’d still probably try and free the princess with a quickened spell or some other risky strategy). Or if the DM TPKs the party but decides by fiat they were captured instead and didn’t die. That seems a shame. Particularly as in general it is very difficult to capture an entire party without reducing them all to 0 hp.
Ironically as GM I would see this as an absolute gift for RP or a creative break out scene. It seems most dungeons have a set of cells or a secure area for keeping prisoners. Fiction is full of situation where this happens and the disadvantage is reversed so why does it never happen? It isnt as if resourceful PCs would’t have a good chance of breaking out of most cells.
The players are down to single digit hp, any successful attack will likely drop them, one fireball would mean a TPK. The cleric is on 0 hp and there are no more healing words left. More monsters are behind so it’s risky to retreat.
In this situation most players that I see would either fight to the bitter end and TPK, or attempt some extremely risky/unlikely escape with their comrades bodies or attempt to flee leaving a player behind. What I never see is the players say...“we surrender, take us to your leader.”
In fiction this happens all the time, getting captured, and then escaping inside the stronghold, getting captured and negotiating with your enemies, getting captured and discovering something useful from within your cell. Yet in my experience players would rather die than have this happen.
The only time I actually see this happen is when the DM either makes an explicit overture or demand “drop your weapons or I kill the princess.”(They’d still probably try and free the princess with a quickened spell or some other risky strategy). Or if the DM TPKs the party but decides by fiat they were captured instead and didn’t die. That seems a shame. Particularly as in general it is very difficult to capture an entire party without reducing them all to 0 hp.
Ironically as GM I would see this as an absolute gift for RP or a creative break out scene. It seems most dungeons have a set of cells or a secure area for keeping prisoners. Fiction is full of situation where this happens and the disadvantage is reversed so why does it never happen? It isnt as if resourceful PCs would’t have a good chance of breaking out of most cells.
- Do DMs give the impression that surrender would result in death anyway?
- Do players resent the loss of agency?
- Do DMs make cells too strong to the point that escape would seem impossible?
- Do players despise the idea of not having their stuff, even for a short time?