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I've noticed that in a lot of games I run outside of PFS the PCs have the attitude of "Things are getting ugly/scary, lets run!" whenever things get creepy or vaguely difficult.
Granted sometimes I like to shake things up by having one big monster, or a lot of weak monsters, or monsters with specific weaknesses that seem strong but are actually pushovers if you gang up, AOE, or status effect them respectively.
Or if a social situation seems hairy. Say an evil brain monster is mind-controlling the village. The reaction is to run away and get help.
And if an NPC has anything resembling class levels they will try their best to hide behind it.
When I play I'm often in the lead because I'm often the "Yeah we can take this guy" or the "We must not suffer evil to succeed!" character.
I thought we're playing monster slaying murder hobos, but sometimes it's like GMing or playing with Shaggy and Scooby.
Does anyone else have, play with or are players that run away a lot?
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Does anyone else have, play with or are players that run away a lot?
Have a chat with them about it and assure them you wouldn't set them up against anything that would totally kill them? Ask them why they react this way to get some insight maybe? Usually I have the opposite problem, with the level 3 guy thinking he can take on an ancient gold Wyrm on his own with a toothpick.
Alternatively, play around with difficult terrain, pit traps, moats, and the like to make running away suicidal if talking to them OOC doesn't work. You really should always consider talking with your players the first resort, though.
Does anyone else have, play with or are players that run away a lot?Have a chat with them about it and assure them you wouldn't set them up against anything that would totally kill them? Ask them why they react this way to get some insight maybe? Usually I have the opposite problem, with the level 3 guy thinking he can take on an ancient gold Wyrm on his own with a toothpick.
I started at session zero with, "This campaign has more to deal with narrative than challenges, which means that if push comes to shove I will likely nerf challenges if I see that you are in trouble, and I am more willing to use some kind of Deus Ex Machina to keep you alive rather than kill you if the narrative would be better for it. You are unlikely to need to roll for a new character unless your character runs out of stakes and is no longer relevant to the plot. This is barring situations of supreme stupidity like jumping off of a cliff with no plan or touching the magic item clearly labeled "Do not touch! Skin will come off!""
I repeat this often.
As for why they are cowards, they say that it was a logical course of action when shit hits the fan. To be fair the first time I GMed I was told that I did not make the game emotionally simple.
Okay, looks like it's time to pull out the difficult terrain, pit traps, and ambushes blocking their retreat.
If you don't want them to run away, don't let them. If they keep trying anyway, they'll waste actions and HP until they either stop trying to run or have to roll a new character, at which point the process begins anew.
They'll learn sooner or later.
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Okay, looks like it's time to pull out the difficult terrain, pit traps, and ambushes blocking their retreat.
If you don't want them to run away, don't let them. If they keep trying anyway, they'll waste actions and HP until they either stop trying to run or have to roll a new character, at which point the process begins anew.
They'll learn sooner or later.
That is an option, but its extremely punishing and won't make you friends and probably won't actually teach someone a lesson. Repeatedly killing your players is never a good solution.
Repeatedly killing your players is never a good solution.
In fact, if your players need repeatedly killing to make them stay down, you've got a far bigger problem than anything in-game ;)
Okay, looks like it's time to pull out the difficult terrain, pit traps, and ambushes blocking their retreat.
If you don't want them to run away, don't let them. If they keep trying anyway, they'll waste actions and HP until they either stop trying to run or have to roll a new character, at which point the process begins anew.
They'll learn sooner or later.
Well as I told them I'm less likely to get them killed if they are still relevant to the narrative unless they're practically suicidal.
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Repeatedly killing your players is never a good solution.In fact, if your players need repeatedly killing to make them stay down, you've got a far bigger problem than anything in-game ;)
That's probably the point where you need to be the one running...
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Tell them they're supposed to be playing heroes, not children. If they persist have NPCs start treating them like cowards.
Probably OP's PC's were just used to playing in an environment where they didn't always have to fight fair.
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'course you could always try running Call of Cthulhu. Sounds like it'd be a great fit for that group!
Probably OP's PC's were just used to playing in an environment where they didn't always have to fight fair.
Perhaps. My most cowardly player is the one who is the most experienced.
Usually I have the opposite problem, with the level 3 guy thinking he can take on an ancient gold Wyrm on his own with a toothpick.
That's often me. In a recent session my response to the guy we could only possibly hit if we rolled a 20 was to throw sand in his face, Haste, and attack as much as I could to get crits.
We met the same kind of creature earlier who challenged my character to a one on one fight, which I accepted.
'course you could always try running Call of Cthulhu. Sounds like it'd be a great fit for that group!
I'd hate running that. Every time I put mystery and horror into a Pathfinder game it leads to in-game arguing and out-of-game hurt feelings. I cant do horror mystery with this group.
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Tell them they're supposed to be playing heroes, not children. If they persist have NPCs start treating them like cowards.
Who knows, I had a really terrible GM once who would throw overwhelming challenges at the PC's, browbeat them for not running away because they weren't 'thinking tactically,' and then have all the NPCs treat them like shit for running away. Also he'd get really nasty towards players who tried to optimize.
My point is, OP, the players you're talking about have a perception that the encounters they're running into are likely to kill them. Are you new to this group? Maybe it's got a culture that you're not aware of. Talk to them, and try to change their perceptions.
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Cowardly or smart? Fighting 'fair' means a 50% chance of death. Professional adventurers fight with every possible advantage. Lacking a clear advantage, it's dumb to stand your ground and fight - unless absolutely necessary.
Look, maybe some people like playing the glorious hero who stands against impossible odds. That's great high fantasy, but the nature of the game says that that guy is going to die a lot. Some people roleplay their characters as people who like living to see another dawn. That's more low fantasy, but if you're attached to your PC, by all means run away if it's an option!
There are, of course, consequences. Less loot, less XP, BBEG plans may succeed.
As a GM, encourage the use of Knowledge Skills to pinpoint these 'pushover' monster's weaknesses. Sounds like Knowledge: Tactics would be really helpful to your party.
As an aside, how much access to Raise Dead (and the like) do the players have? If they're constantly strapped for cash, those sorts of things become a problem and so fighting to the death of 1-2 PCs becomes a lot less of an option. In our campaign, there's almost no coming back from death (unless you worship the Evil God of Death, then maybe). We run away a lot and employ ranged/nova strategies, because a bit of bad luck and it's very much over for one or more of us.
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Cowardly or smart? Fighting 'fair' means a 50% chance of death.
This is DnD though. The assumption is that you won't lose 50% of your party in every fight.
Sounds like Knowledge: Tactics would be really helpful to your party.
Umm... That's not a thing.
Maybe they act like chickens because they really do squawk?
If they are scaredy cats they should meow, I think... I'm not an expert on cats, but I'm pretty sure those don't squawk.
Sounds like Knowledge: Tactics would be really helpful to your party.Umm... That's not a thing.
True, :D. However, the Knowledge skills are basically a collection of Knowledge: Tactics against subsets of monsters (White dragons are vulnerable to fire, use silver against demons, etc). An actual K: Tactics to pass out hints to the PCs might be helpful (shoot from cover, use chokepoints, flank, hold back so the wizard can use AOE, etc.).
True, :D. However, the Knowledge skills are basically a collection of Knowledge: Tactics against subsets of monsters (White dragons are vulnerable to fire, use silver against demons, etc). An actual K: Tactics to pass out hints to the PCs might be helpful (shoot from cover, use chokepoints, flank, hold back so the wizard can use AOE, etc.).Sounds like Knowledge: Tactics would be really helpful to your party.Umm... That's not a thing.
I wish it were that easy! I try to drop a point in a few knowledge checks to at least roll on them when I can. Comes up often enough when you ask the GM about it.
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I can understand scaredyness. I generally stand by the idea that if people are emotionally invested in their characters, they dont want to see them die (especially if ressurection is difficult/impossible). Some people are able to divorce their characters from themselves, some not. I will admit, I might have a hard time "rolling up" a new character after a long-time one died. It could completely kill my interest in a campaign.
(Note: I'm a fairly new player, and havent had any of my characters die on me up to now).
Still, a general knowledge: tactics skill could be useful, especially when the GM likes throwing out "new and undiscovered" creatures at the party.
In a game I was playing recently (dragon age rpg, not pathfinder), I was playing a rogue and got ROYALLY thrashed through a combination of horrible attack rolls for me, and excellent attack rolls for the enemy. That really shook me, and I've got to say I know I'm going to have to set myself up better from now on. I dont know the system terribly well and sneaking/backstabbing in combat in that system is not yet obvious to me.
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Opposite: it took years for some of my players to come to the realization that sometimes they ought to run.
I think most players assume whatever they encounter is there to be killed by them, and that this is always a certainty. Some must learn the hard way that this is not always the case.
I tend to get annoyed when people want to stand outside the door whimpering about what may be inside, so then my 6 strength halfling healer tells them he's going and they can follow if they've got the balls... and want healing. That worked out for quite a long time until a Witchfire got mad at me then crit me dead with a damn near max 16d6 fire damage. At least most of the party ended up following me into the next life.
But yeah, I'm fine with running if things are hopeless, but besides that, onward we go. Only have a couple hours to play each week, don't want to waste it on you being a b!%&&. I guess it helps for me because even if I'm attached to a character the loss doesn't hurt too much, as I always have new build ideas that I'm excited to try.
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I usually have the opposite problem. PCs that refuse to run, EVER.
This is DnD though. The assumption is that you won't lose 50% of your party in every fight.
As someone else said... if a fight is actually "fair," then yes they would.
The problem I have with my group is not that they're afraid but they're hyper paranoid. They avoid situations until they know every conceivable variable and how it might influence everything else. Of course I can use their paranoia and over analysis against them sometimes but it can be bothersome.
This is DnD though. The assumption is that you won't lose 50% of your party in every fight.As someone else said... if a fight is actually "fair," then yes they would.
It bothers me you need to correct me. I meant from the players meta perspective they shouldn't have to die 50% of the time and that should influence their decisions, and from a meta-game perspective if fights took half of your group every time your game wouldn't last very long. And Fair for whom? The NPCs aren't people and don't have nearly as high a value as the PCs. If its not fair to your players, its just not fair at all.
Do they enjoy being cowards? If so, let them. If not then you've got a serious problem...
Although, are YOU having fun? That's a problem as well.
It bothers me you need to correct me. I meant from the players meta perspective they shouldn't have to die 50% of the time and that should influence their decisions, and from a meta-game perspective if fights took half of your group every time your game wouldn't last very long. And Fair for whom? The NPCs aren't people and don't have nearly as high a value as the PCs. If its not fair to your players, its just not fair at all.
My point is that in 99% of all fights in DnD, the PC's enjoy a substantial advantage. If the fight was fair, they'd lose half the time.
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It bothers me you need to correct me. I meant from the players meta perspective they shouldn't have to die 50% of the time and that should influence their decisions, and from a meta-game perspective if fights took half of your group every time your game wouldn't last very long. And Fair for whom? The NPCs aren't people and don't have nearly as high a value as the PCs. If its not fair to your players, its just not fair at all.My point is that in 99% of all fights in DnD, the PC's enjoy a substantial advantage. If the fight was fair, they'd lose half the time.
Which has nothing to do with the discussion and won't help Malwing's players. Giving fights a 50% survival rate per fight is giving them a good reason to run, which is the opposite of what's wanted.
This doesn't sound too bad to me. Fear is an emotional response. It's better than no emotional response. If there's no fear, you've either got PCs casually slaughtering all opposition, or PCs who die because they ignore genuine danger. True courage lies in overcoming fear bla bla bla.
Suggestions:
(1) Have enemies who are doing something that needs an urgent response. If the green dragon is advancing upon a young woman tied to a tree, you're not going to feel too good about running away.
(2) "The reaction is to run away and get help." What help? Generally, PCs should feel like they're the only ones who can save the day. They can't just call the police.
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I know of a player who always plays a fighter with full plate and shield, not so he can fight or be the tank, but so he can have a high AC and HP and hide at the rear of the party. One time he didn't show up and the party tied his character up and threw him off a cliff. Normally I would find that abhorrent but he was a useless coward who constantly insulted everyone (in and out of game) so everyone was sick of his nonsense.
I know of a player who always plays a fighter with full plate and shield, not so he can fight or be the tank, but so he can have a high AC and HP and hide at the rear of the party.
I may just be evil, but that character just sounds like it's begging for a pincer attack by shadows.
I have an in-game social intrigue aversion to risk-taking. In the wilderness in kill-or-be-killed? Sure, bluff/disguise/stealth/intimidate all you want.
In town? If the noble catches my bluff, I'll just get thrown out! If I get caught impersonating someone, or sneaking where I shouldn't, it's the jail cell and fines.
Obviously those outcomes veer towards the extreme. Most of the time these infractions, (well, at least lies) will lower someone's opinion of you, but they won't just flat out refuse to deal with you.
But that's what happened in one of my formative gaming experiences, so I still avoid those skills unless murdering the target is an acceptable outcome.
I think it's likely these players run from combat because they've been burned before, perhaps by the above mentioned "fair fights" rather than heroic campaigns.
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I can understand scaredyness. I generally stand by the idea that if people are emotionally invested in their characters, they dont want to see them die (especially if ressurection is difficult/impossible). Some people are able to divorce their characters from themselves, some not. I will admit, I might have a hard time "rolling up" a new character after a long-time one died. It could completely kill my interest in a campaign.
This can be an issue for campaigns where the individual PCs have major plot threads in the works. Just to bring up a couple examples from campaigns I played in or GMed, one game had a PC who was the exiled Rightful Queen, while another player's character was slowly being corrupted by an artifact of doom, until he eventually turned evil and became an NPC, and then the final boss for the campaign.
If either of those PCs died due to a random crit by a troll and resurrection wasn't an option, a whole lot of plot threads and the campaign endgame would've been completely different, and probably not as exciting or satisfying. It's why whenever a PC dies at my table, I give them the option of having the character come back with some kind of plot hook/weirdness instead of just having them tear up their character sheet.
About the only times I tend to enforce perma-death with no possible escape clause is when the character died due to player stupidity/choice, or if the character's death was too awesome to invalidate.
I was pretty jazzed when our characters got lynched by an ancient dragon we were completely ill prepared for that I immediately issued the command to form up for a planeshift and instead the dwarven fighter charged into battle...
We had to come back for him later which burned up all my planeshifts for the day, but it was exiting to watch him scuttle off to certain death. Bravery, clever or not, can be an awesome sight to behold.
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I end up making characters who are dumber then I am so that I avoid my good judgment resulting in this.
Generally, having grown up under some horrible GMs in 2e days (and early 3e) I tend to be..let's say...gunshy around most combat situations. I try to avoid, diplomacize, run or capitulate in most cases to avoid getting my PC's poor useless ass killed or worse.
Why might your PCs be afraid? Well..lets look at a sampling from the Spook list of Terrible Crap that Happens to PCs.
Hit by a meteor for the crime of blacksmithing.
Tainted ale.
Tainted barmaid. Damn succubi barmaids working their way through college.
Tainted seat.
Snakes in the sleeping bag.
Fissures in the earth.
One way door leading to poison spewing 20 foot tall iron golems.
Orcs who are 'mysteriously talented.'
Being soultrapped at level 2.
Elevator in dungeon leads inescapably to submersion in water for half an hour, and is only way in to dungeon (by DM's admission) (level 1).
Not being allowed equipment and having to fight incorporeal ogres with 60hp who dissipate into no-save poison mist, at level 3.
Trapped floor.
Trapped door.
Trapped loot (the mage had a spell that converted magma to gold with a 24 hour time limit. Why he had this, God only knows. Takes 'burning a hole in your pocket to new extremes)
Death during chargen due to 'purchasing a polearm.'
Having to adventure at third level in high gravity environment because DM wanted to see how long until our hearts exploded.
Being shot in the head by a crit from a kobold.
And so many more.
After a while, you either get gunshy and almost paranoid in an urge to protect your character from a world of non-stop arbitrary hazards, or you become innured to death and stop bothering with connecting with your character.
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... or you become innured to death and stop bothering with connecting with your character.
As I understand it, this is the point where people start enjoying call of cthulu.
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Wow my players never run and that's very annoying...
What you can do is have a rival adventuring party that shows them up, and publicly humiliates them.
The Jade Falcons from Savage Tide were so hated by my group that they almost murdered them even though the party was good.
I find this all amusing, because I play with some who for years was adamantly against ever running away, as he beleived that with the CR system no encounter should be unbeatable. I have always beleived that the GM should make most fight beatable, but isn't required to make every one of them so. And then, there are bad dice rolls, and those can tank an encounter too. Daring escapes can be fun too. It has taken years but he is finally willing to run in certain circumstances, and has even advocated it once.
Most of the problem seems to be differences in style and expectation.
Some DMs run sandbox games that include egregiously non-level-appropriate stuff that will kill the PCs with little chance of survival. In those situations, they're smart to run and get help, and really stupid to stand and fight.
In other campaigns, the DM might fudge the dice in order to make sure the PCs "just barely win" every fight. If that's your DM, he'll be really miffed that you keep avoiding his "epic" pre-planned encounters.
In my games, intelligent BBEGs and PCs generally start off evenly-matched, and it's a contest to see who can wear down the other's forces and tilt the odds so that they can come out on top at the end... which means in some specific circumstances it pays to take risks, but over the length of the adventure, caution seems to win out.
These are things that I think it's best to work out together before the situation comes up. If your players want a skulk-around-the-edges-before-getting-their-feet-wet game, and you've planned a rush-in-and-kill-everything-that-moves game, the discord will inhibit all of you from having as much fun as you otherwise might.
If your players are always paranoid and frightened and ready to run, I suggest this:
Let them flat-out 'win' some encounters once in awhile. Give them a pushover battle, or a low-level threat they can handily deal with and feel heroic and cool for defeating so easily. Let them stay in a town where every NPC isn't out to get them and looking for ways to screw them over. Let them play around without worrying whether they're still important enough to the narrative to stay alive for another day.
Confidence is something you have to cultivate, not just expect.
I don't think going to a town where too many NPCs aren't out to get them. They're essentially part of a secret organization of vigilantes founded by Krampus who's being attacked by witches and have been getting foreshadowing that they'll eventually have to fight bodysnatching Nazi robots that feed off Negative Energon Cubes, and what they don't know is that their government is trying to counter the Nazi robots with their own dopplegangers made from ancient aboleth technology.
I had four lvl 8 characters fighting a CR5 and two CR1 sock puppets. I've been nerfing encounters since the first dungeon.
lol wut?
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Players sometimes act cautious. My own ribald history has done this to me, but 1e players used to have a rep with 3e players. The term was 'forensic accountant.'
The ethic of the game has changed. In 1e and early 2e, adventurers went on adventurers for loot. They wanted to go to the place because there was money there, a lot of money.
Players these days tend to not be as loot focused, they hunger for story, or more direct rewards (magc, etc).
And its less 'find a dungeon, kick down door, kill kobolds' and more story focused, with evil barons, kings, wizards, neutral outsiders, plotters, demonic sock-puppets and so on.
The old 1e ethic though sticks around, and it was based on a different concept. It was based on survival.
Gygax was a killer DM. Arbitrary deadly traps, encounters with monsters who weren't 'CR appropriate,' weird spell effects, tracking rations (and their quality). If you want to know what 1e was like? Read Knights of the Dinner Table, Hackmaster is 1e with only a /little/ overemphasis on how goofy and arbitrary it was, with ceaseless insane tables and prices for items that only lunatics or adventurers would care about.
Older players see a room with a bad guy in the center as an incitement trap. Run in, he's an illusion, fall in a pit.
Empty rooms? Suspicious and probably trapped. So out come the 10 foot poles.
1e also instilled the ethic of the 'dungeon ain't going no where,' so time isn't of the essence, and attacking, falling back and skirting around threats is the message of the day.
For a late 2e or 3e player (or pathfinder), the baddies are there to be defeated, you're a hero.
For an early 2e, or 1e player, the baddies are there to kill you, the rooms are there to kill you, and you're some shmuck stupid enough to specialize in this sort of work since ti makes you rich.
You can't be rich if you're dead.
Repeatedly saying "This campaign has more to deal with narrative than challenges, which means that if push comes to shove I will likely nerf challenges if I see that you are in trouble, and I am more willing to use some kind of Deus Ex Machina to keep you alive rather than kill you if the narrative would be better for it. You are unlikely to need to roll for a new character unless your character runs out of stakes and is no longer relevant to the plot. This is barring situations of supreme stupidity like jumping off of a cliff with no plan or touching the magic item clearly labeled "Do not touch! Skin will come off!""
... and reemphasizing it whenever they want to run away from a monster because it looks too scary doesn't seem to be enough.