Quote from: Benoist;428196That'll depend heavily on the paradigm of the game being played, won't it?

Running away in AD&D and CoC is kind of a given, if you want to survive to fight another day. Not that it happens all the time, but if you constantly face threats head on in melee combat, sooner or later, your character is going to bite the bullet and die.

Not so in Amber, or Toon, or even Supers games, I would think.

So it depends on the campaign and game we're talking about, specifically.

Yes.

My group always looks at retreat as a viable option. Playing Labyrinth Lord now and it's just as common for them to run from a fight as it was in our long term Star Wars WEG campaign. Run, prepare better, and then return later.  They're not cowards and they love to mix it up, but they like to feel pretty confident going in that they have the upper hand.

Pete

In my current Dark Heresy game, probably about 80% of the time.

Which is the correct thing to do when smart mouthed pc's piss off a force that is clearly their superior.  So you have to make the getting away part the encounter, rather than the combat they are fleeing (which is usually against an with overwhelming power).

Then again, they are facing off against institutions rather than just some dragon or dude with a gang.

Depends on the game.

In D&D 3.5 we do it regularly. It became almost a strategy, because of the way that buffs work. Retreating therefore is a simple way to have the other side loose their advantage.

Quote from: Benoist;428196That'll depend heavily on the paradigm of the game being played, won't it?

Running away in AD&D and CoC is kind of a given, if you want to survive to fight another day. Not that it happens all the time, but if you constantly face threats head on in melee combat, sooner or later, your character is going to bite the bullet and die.

Not so in Amber, or Toon, or even Supers games, I would think.

So it depends on the campaign and game we're talking about, specifically.

Running Necessary Evil (Savage Worlds Supers), I set them up in an ambush...tons of mooks, yeah, but those were no big. It was the unpowered Black Ops squad that had been watching them for the last several weeks.

By the time the PCs realized just how unprepared they were, and that they needed to bug out, they lost an NPC that had been with them since the start of the campaign (he had the Berserker Edge...which has the drawback of being unable to willingly disengage from combat).

Not that the Black Ops team was heavily stacked against them...I just had them using tactics designed to counter the tactics the PCs used in 95% of all fights.

Quote from: dindenver;428213But in D&D4e, I never saw a group retreat, because it was almost always tactically impossible (assuming the BBEGs would pursue).

That's usually the crux of the matter with D&D, isn't it? There aren't any chase rules and if you try something like Teleport, you've got to be able to get the entire party away (not just a single villain). And usually, the monsters have every reason to pursue the party (their food, oppose their plans, et al.).

Seanchai

Quote from: Reckall;428181My players went through the usual "We are 1st level so it is not a dragon but an illusion" delusional phase. Now they are good at avoiding conflict and at trying to evaluate the odds before engaging, but almost never run away once the conflict is engaged.

That's always funny.  If I'm feeling very generous in a situation like that I might have the dragon slaughter some convenient retainer.  But if the party consists of players who should know better, I just fry them.

The thing is, its almost justifiable in-game that they might think it an illusion.  They're all 1st level bumpkins, they've never seen a dragon in their lives, and they can't conceive of its terror.  So they tell themselves it MUST be an illusion.

RPGPundit

Oh yeah, my players can be all about the strategic retreat. However if something or someone forces them to leave the field of battle you can bet they will be back to settle scores. I've seen this crew plot some pretty elaborate pay backs for NPCs or villains who have been too much to handle the first time around.
They can also be pretty devious about it. In one game I ran the players got burned by a high-ranking noble. His prestige and alliances made him pretty much untouchable, so the players bided their time and conducted an elaborate intelligence-gathering campaign against the guy. In the end they were able to place the noble in a position where he would either have to admit his dabbling in dark arts or reveal his treachery against one of his powerful allies. In the end the noble died at the hands of the ecclesiastical courts and the players never had to directly confront him. Though they did show up for his execution. One of the characters carried a flask with him and everyone toasted the soon to be dead noble's health from the stands.

Heh, something about Rolemaster just seems to encourage PCs to "choose their battles carefully."  Okay really it's everything, the time investment in character creation, the perceived lethality of the combat, the magic spell LEAVING...

My long-time players know I'm not kidding in combat.   Thus, they will bug out if they suspect its gonna get bad.   More importantly, they watch the combat carefully to see if escape is still an option.  

They learn that if fights are best when they choose the time, place and opposing force.  Winning against an ambush is dicey.

I like traps...especially the ones where the PCs put themselves deeper and deeper until its not about fighting to win, but fighting to escape.

Quote from: Seanchai;428336That's usually the crux of the matter with D&D, isn't it? There aren't any chase rules and if you try something like Teleport, you've got to be able to get the entire party away (not just a single villain). And usually, the monsters have every reason to pursue the party (their food, oppose their plans, et al.).

Seanchai

Escaping is how I remember us first using molotav cocktails... we'd hoof it into a passge then toss the bottle over the last guy's shoulder and block the passage with our poor man's wall of flame... worked pretty good too. Then we figured out we could use it offensively and it got a little KotDT until the DM pointed out the oil shortage we were going to create if we didn't chill a little

Recently characters in my campaigns have been smarter about engaging lethal enemies. Seen lots of instances of sidestepping conflict or taking a more clever path to victory.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;428775Recently characters in my campaigns have been smarter about engaging lethal enemies. Seen lots of instances of sidestepping conflict or taking a more clever path to victory.

I should note that many of my players are actually quite smart at how they engage lethal enemies.  I don't mean to imply the contrary; only that they tend not to be very prone to running away.

RPGPundit

The groups I game with will decide to run from time to time, but it is usually too late to make any difference in the outcome. By the time the group flees, it is involved in a near TPK with little hope of survival.

Quote from: RPGPundit;428859I should note that many of my players are actually quite smart at how they engage lethal enemies.  I don't mean to imply the contrary; only that they tend not to be very prone to running away.

RPGPundit

Running away isn't always a wise choice; outright running away can easily be disastrous. Planning ahead and working it so that you choose your venue of engagement can make retreat less dangerous, but unless you have a good means of retreat, it can often mean being cut down by pursuers more easily than if you'd risked the fight.

On the NPC side, some enemies might fight to the death on the grounds that retreat seems likely to be deadly and it's more satisfying to go out fighting than to go out fleeing.

I do agree that it takes more strategic thinking to organize a retreat than to just wade into your typical battle.  But it also depends on what you're fighting: many monsters are territorial, demons are bound to a certain space, etc. etc.

RPGPundit