is there any good reason to run encounters against (normal) humanoids and animals as "fight to the death" by default rather than as the exception? Most people do cling to their lives after all, and most animals IRL only keep fighting as long as they think they can win WITHOUT debilitating wounds
Video game logic.
In what way is that video game logic.
It just is.
confrontations ending in murder happen all the time in the real world
but it's usually because guns are a whole other level of lethal escalation than fisticuffs. CERTAIN cultures have forgotten how to resolve a stupid argument without killing eachother, simply because the steps you need to do to kill someone have become simplified into a trigger pull + there is a chance everyone around you could do the same so you have to be quicker about it
not really, the vast, vast majority of confrontations do not end in murder
Because it's simpler than writing a proper morale system which may serve little purpose because the game does not need to distinguish between enemies that have died and those that have fled or surrendered?
you dont even need a morale system to do this. Or do you think you also need an "aggression system" to make fights possible? by default an encounter should consider fleeing when it is unsure whether it can still win at all
>because the game does not need to distinguish between enemies that have died and those that have fled or surrendered?
Do you play rpgs that don't need to distinguish that?
Did you know there are animals, like the boar, that are so goddamn aggressive they will continue to fight even when mortally wounded? There's literally a winged spear with boar in its name, specifically because its shape prevents the boar from charging down the shaft and attacking the wielder.
Humans are harder to make a case for, unless drugs or mind control or indoctrination are invoked.
Fanaticism, drug use, rabies, being more afraid of whatever sent them to fight than dying on the party's swords.
I tried, but players I'd run games with insisted that they rob them then execute them or torture them to find somewhere they can loot then kill everyone and take their stuff. The general consensus is basically "well you put it there to fight us so its obvious we have to kill them".
Captagon
Make players the aggressive side, the enemies the defenders of their home/territory or giving the ones running away time to survive.
Or have the enemies be too mentally moronic to survive (like e.g. pigs willingness to follow food into a meat grinder).
Same reason most encounters will attack the party without an overwhelming advantage: It's obnoxious, unsatisfying, and swingy to do it the other way.
>You're attacked by some bandits
>You crit one and they all run for it immediately
>The fight has lasted half of one round
>You don't get any loot the survivors are carrying
>Unless you spend a bunch of time chasing them down
>Which also drags the game from "fun D&D" to "Uhhhh... what's the morality of hunting men like animals again? Like, if they're bandits?"
>The challenge of the fight was zero, even though it could have been a moderate exchange if they'd fought to the death
>The weardown on the party was also zero
If you're going for ultrarealism or something it can be worth thinking this stuff through, but for standard games it's just not worth the hassle.
Are you fricking stupid? They *should* attack the party with an overwhelming advantage, and then when the players turn the tide (assuming they do), the remaining bandits fleet.
>Same reason most encounters will attack the party without an overwhelming advantage
no, that’s basic survival instinct, ie the reason not to fight to the death
if you won’t attack someone without strong odds towards winning, why would you keep fighting at the point you’re clearly getting slaughtered?
wait, I read that as will not
what the frick kind of games do you play
You're kinda bad at GMing huh?
>Same reason most encounters will attack the party without an overwhelming advantage
They shouldn't though unless they're fanatics or desperate. That being said, it's more important that they think they have an overwhelming advantage than actually have one.
A dozen bandits might think they have an overwhelming advantage over a handful of travelers, even well armed ones.
Generally speaking, no. Most animals should be naturally evasive unless there's good cause for them not to be, and only fight to the death (or even serious wounds) when completely cornered, utterly feral, or under exceptional circumstances.
Most humans (not necessarily humanoids in general, because assuming that all humanoids have the same psychology is idiotic, especially with such high variance even between human population groups) should try to flee or retreat from a "lost" fight, again, bar exceptional circumstance, or when trained specifically not to (soldiers, etc., often suppress the reflex because they have internalized the potential cascade effects of cowardice in a group/command context, i.e. if they flee, they and all their friends will likely die, and not fleeing is often the better option).
There are exceptions, of course, but yes, most normie enemies should not fight to the death.
Running games realistically, it's extremely difficult to handle encounters in which people behave in a sane and sensible fashion. All it takes is one or two runners scampering off to alert the rest of the dungeon and suddenly, the adventure is basically over and the player-characters have to choose between running off or being overwhelmed by a larger force.
Your example can be run well though. Depending on your players they get rewarded for caution and planning by bypassing the fights that an alarm would cause, or you reward players that love to kill everything by making everything come to them. There's so much scope for an alert not to be game over. If it's business as usual in the dungeon, most of the traps will be disabled and the potential enemies will be busy doing whatever they do when they aren't doing armed patrols. The way most dungeons are set up from sourcebooks is as if they were already on high alert.
Outside of cultists, barbarians, and the rare mean fricker, no, not really.
I know what we call those
> https://youtu.be/pj9Hzs-vBLE
Extreme desperation could do it. The man with nothing to lose is most unpredictable, after all.
Cultists and religious fanatics. Extreme desperation, ie the bandits are starving and it's kill you or die.
That or some sort of magical compulsion overriding stuff like desire to live.
>there any good reason to run encounters against (normal) humanoids and animals as "fight to the death" by default rather than as the exception?
People fight to death? I just run away whenever we could.