(TL;DR version at bottom)

I briefly mentioned fleeing and how it affects the flow of the game in another thread, quickly got carried away, and then remembered that the topic of the thread was Astrogation checks. I figured I have enough to say about it that maybe someone out there will care to listen.

Think of how many times in the original Star Wars trilogy that the characters are seen fleeing from something. Fleeing from Mos Eisley Spaceport, fleeing from the the detention block on the Death Star, fleeing from the Death Star itself, fleeing from the wampa's lair, fleeing from Echo Base, fleeing from Cloud City, fleeing from the Pit of Carkoon, fleeing from the exploding Death Star II, etc., etc. Imagine that if instead of fleeing from all these situations, the characters stood around and obliterated every last stormtrooper or thug or whatever and then casually walked around to loot all the bodies.

When I GM, I love putting my players in situations where they simply cannot blast their way to safety. Putting them against opponents that have them beat in both firepower and numbers is much more thrilling, in my opinion, then putting them against a group of enemies with which they are evenly matched. I do put them up against groups that they can defeat. In fact, I probably do this about as often as any other GM. But I love throwing them in situations where they need to flee, allowing them to barely escape with their lives. This conditions the players and alters their way of thinking, forcing them to look at situations for a moment and weigh the odds instead of charging in with swords (or blasters) drawn.

Too many RPGs, whether they be played on the table or on a screen, have fallen into the pattern of placing the player in a situation, requiring the player to completely defeat all challenges the situation creates, and then allowing the player to move forward to repeat the process. This is a staple that I use to see back when I played D&D for a number of different GMs. Every situation required players to completely eradicate any enemies in the area before they could see any progress. This seems to be the recipe for the basic dungeon crawl.

A game like the Star Wars RPG that FFG has created does not need to be played in this way. It can be non-linear and fluid. This requires the GM to have a bit of skill and the ability to adapt, but it allows many more possibilities for the players.

TL;DR/Closing Statement: Don't be afraid to throw players into situations that they cannot overcome by firepower alone. Make things hard, impossible even, and have a plan for when they retreat. If done correctly, they won't complain about not being able to kill every last baddie, but will relish in the fact that they managed to escape unbeatable odds with their lives.

I agree wholeheartedly. However, I have the problem that my players assume that regardless of how impossible the situation, they can battle it out and win. This has been an issue with the group for years, and unfortunately, since we cycle GM-ship around, the other GMs have dealt with it less forcefully, effectively encouraging it.

Short of railroading, what are some tips to get the players to realize their characters should be fleeing? My players really don't consider running, even when they should (and know it). A quick example:

Fair fight: two squads of 3 stormtroopers - players fight

Difficult fight: 3-4 squads of stormtroopers - players fight and get seriously messed up

Impossible fight: 5-6 squads of stormtroopers - players fight, get defeated, GM has to come up with some way they survive

Immersive-breaking: 20 squads of stormtroopers with speeder support, heavy weapons, etc. - players roll their eyes, make choo-choo noises and, reluctantly, decide to flee.

How can I retrain them so I can get them to flee from the "impossible" fight and consider doing so on the difficult one?

I'm blessed to have a group of players who want high stakes adventure rather than grinding out wins. They are regularly pitted against implacable foes and placed in dire situations. The goal is to survive. That's how the characters would really face it, and the players embrace that.

They joke that they spend most of their time running away. I suppose that's true, but when an old enemy kills a friend - you can rest assured they will turn around and charge at the foe. NPC beware when they do!

I agree, Tyrotron, I love having overwhelming odds that sometimes the PCs just need to ESCAPE from.

And like Admiral Terghon said, it's unfortunate but players HATE to have to escape, or to face an encounter they can't defeat.

Just like the PCs getting captured. It happens in every single Star Wars movie and many Star Wars stories, the PCs get captured by the enemy and have to escape. James Bond gets captured in almost literally every single film adventure he has.

It's a lot of fun to have the hero at the mercy of the enemy, to have to escape from a heavily-guarded fortress or prison. But PCs hate getting captured and it seems like most of the time they'd rather die!

If you have a force user perhaps he gets a moment “Run away Luke!!”

Make sure that there are always escape routes in your description, the more the better, because once the players start to see they will lose the combat they may start thinking about running. So make sure you give them a place to run to if they chose that as an option.

If they choose to stand and fight, let them. The combat system is pretty forgiving, you have to repeatedly cause critical injuries, and even then actually killing a character is hard work. It won’t end your campaign or at least it shouldn’t. Provided they survive the shootout then disarm them, take their gear, maybe impound their ship or steal their ride.

Once they escape, you were going to allow them some escape? Then you could consider giving them an obligation. However, for many groups losing their gear will be a pretty big deal and further complications could look punitive. So don’t go too far, though the players should feel some loss.

If you have an after game wrap up the players may comment, and I think here you just stand your ground and ask them why didn’t they run away? You don’t get XP for killin’ monters or looting gold from their bodies. At what point did it seem reasonable for them to fight 20+ bad guys with guns?

I struggle with one of my groups because most of my PC's are very squishy and only deal out an average of 7 hits a round, 10 at most. Then there is the smuggler....who has a ridonculous weapon that has a base damage of 13 (with pierce 3) and he consistently does 18 - 20 damage to an enemy thanks to successes, which would wreck any adversary built and balanced to deal with the other members of the group. Not only that, the player refuses to leave it anywhere, always carries it around openly and if I even SUGGEST the idea of that threat or despair resulting in the weapon getting damaged or god forbid...destroyed. He goes off on one.

This is because according to the player, this is 'what he does'. He doesn't really watch Star Wars and joined up because it was a new RPG he wanted to experience, but this is like him apparently. He plays the big damage dealer, the person with the high damage weapon who just wrecks house in combat.

I like the guy...he's a good guy...but his character really makes it hard to make a challenging combat scenario for everyone. Let alone a scenario that they cannot win.

I like the guy...he's a good guy...but his character really makes it hard to make a challenging combat scenario for everyone. Let alone a scenario that they cannot win.

Have him fight the BBEG alone, who has a bigger weapon and more armor. Have minions fighting everyone else, who are balanced to do so. That’s a fair and balanced fight.

Then throw a hell of a lot more minions in the mix, and have them shooting at the Big Bad Good Guy in the party. All of them. All twenty or thirty of them. Or fifty or hundred. Plus the AT-PTs, AT-STs, and AT-ATs behind them. Sooner or later, he’s going to get the idea that he’s either dead, or they need to run away. Even Anakin could handle only so many “mooks” before they started to become a danger to him.

Have you considered AT-ATs? There is literally nothing short of a vehicle scale weapon that can damage those. Yeah it's overkill but if that doesn't get the point across maybe someone has to take one for the team

The problem is that becomes overly predictable if every combat scenario there is a nemesis there to try and take this guy down. Plus he tries his best to stay at long range. The tactic I want to give a go is have multiple melee experts close the range and start taking swings at him.

I struggle with one of my groups because most of my PC's are very squishy and only deal out an average of 7 hits a round, 10 at most. Then there is the smuggler....who has a ridonculous weapon that has a base damage of 13 (with pierce 3) and he consistently does 18 - 20 damage to an enemy thanks to successes, which would wreck any adversary built and balanced to deal with the other members of the group. Not only that, the player refuses to leave it anywhere, always carries it around openly and if I even SUGGEST the idea of that threat or despair resulting in the weapon getting damaged or god forbid...destroyed. He goes off on one.

This is because according to the player, this is 'what he does'. He doesn't really watch Star Wars and joined up because it was a new RPG he wanted to experience, but this is like him apparently. He plays the big damage dealer, the person with the high damage weapon who just wrecks house in combat.

I like the guy...he's a good guy...but his character really makes it hard to make a challenging combat scenario for everyone. Let alone a scenario that they cannot win.

Oh my goodness, that's exactly the problem my group has had with one of our players in our previous (other genre) games. Between his min-maxed combat builds, slippery math skills, and probability-defying semi-secret die rolls he was basically twice as good as the rest of the party combined in both killing and taking damage. Made building any kind of reasonable encounter virtually impossible. I think everyone else has learned that having someone like that in the party isn't fun and so they don't build characters like that.

But seriously, I would take that weapon away from the Smuggler. Do it reasonably, in the game, but let the player know out of game that it was/is a problem and he's not going to replace it easily, or soon.

and if I do that..the player will just kick off and throw a hissy.

Ebak, it sounds like the issue you have with the player isn't necessarily related to the mechanics. You might need to have a private word with this player about the spirit of the game and what it means.

Having a weapon damaged or rendered unusable every now and then is a basic part of the game, and it's poor sportsmanship to throw a fit if this happens. A player who doesn't understand this might need to think seriously about how they approach their gaming hobby.

Ebak, I know exactly how you feel. The player I mentioned is/was basically the same way. Call him on his probability-defying rolls and he'd get angrily defensive, sulk, and seek to derail the rest of the night. Fortunately or not, that's not a problem for my Star Wars campaign as they've decided that everyone owes him an apology for challenging his rolling and is not playing with us until that (unlikely) time.

Short of that, you need to be clear that the weapon is a problem, explain that you never should have allowed it so sorry! but it has to go. Maybe suggest that there are other things his character can excel at besides one-shotting npcs.

progressions as the right of it. Only you can judge whether that private conversation will yield the outcome you're looking for or not.

and if I do that..the player will just kick off and throw a hissy.

In that case, I’d talk with him outside of the game and tell him that HE is a problem in the game, and he can either change his ways (and lose the weapon), or he can leave the game.

This is clearly a situation where the character is only a problem because the player plays him in such a way as to make him a problem. Which makes the real problem the player and not the character.

I've seen players run when the situation dictates it, knowing not to fight a hopeless battle. I've also seen them recognize when running away isn't really possible. Sometimes surrender is the best option.

and if I do that..the player will just kick off and throw a hissy.

another way is to sharply take the adventure in ways that show up the qualities of the other characters and minimise or avoid combat completely. Obviously I do not know your group make up but stealthy, slicing, talking or vehicle heavy missions mean yes that may be what he does but what he does is not the be all and end all of the game. The nemesis for instance could be a fellow slicer halfway across the city in a secure location, automated defense systems that will smear a player if triggered, or a force user with the deflect power that will just bounce his shots back at him.

and if I do that..the player will just kick off and throw a hissy.

Life is too short to game with people who throw tantrums when you suggest they have a *little* less fun to make sure everyone else has *any fun at all*.

Some methods I've used to help players realize that discretion is the better part of valor: timed mission objectives, an important NPC who cannot hold their own in combat, a choice between staying to fight and going after the Nemesis to stop them from using the McGuffin.

Having a protracted firefight against bad odds (and trust me, I know, "never tell me the odds") takes several minutes, and they're likely several minutes in which the party can be accomplishing something *more useful* than murdering stormtroopers.

One of the problems with running away (and looting) in pen and paper RPGs is that it is the exact opposet of what happens in video games. When was the last time you ran away from a fight in a video game? Off the top of my head, the only examples of running I can think of are games that'll put you in an impossible boss fight (usually at the beginning to show how much new characters suck) and kill you off, but instead of going to "the end" screen it'll go to a cut scene of you running.

To get a lot of players to even think about running you'll have to talk to them. Tell them that there will be fights designed for them to not win. In those fights, as you describe the action, keep mentioning escape paths. "You duck for cover behind a trashcan that's located next to an alley suitable for escape."

Without talking to the players about your expectations, then they might think that the GM might never put them up against a fight they couldn't win. Why run when the game design philosophy is to design encounters that players can win?

I struggle with one of my groups because most of my PC's are very squishy and only deal out an average of 7 hits a round, 10 at most. Then there is the smuggler....who has a ridonculous weapon that has a base damage of 13 (with pierce 3) and he consistently does 18 - 20 damage to an enemy thanks to successes, which would wreck any adversary built and balanced to deal with the other members of the group. Not only that, the player refuses to leave it anywhere, always carries it around openly and if I even SUGGEST the idea of that threat or despair resulting in the weapon getting damaged or god forbid...destroyed. He goes off on one.

This is because according to the player, this is 'what he does'. He doesn't really watch Star Wars and joined up because it was a new RPG he wanted to experience, but this is like him apparently. He plays the big damage dealer, the person with the high damage weapon who just wrecks house in combat.

May I ask what gun the player uses? At a base of 13 damage I'm going to assume it's a rifle of some sort. Play around with the local laws. Make pistols legal to wear and rifles not. Then, if he keeps using the illegal weapon then he can pay the penilties for it. Don't do this all the time, but every once in a while to keep your players on their toes.

Unless he is King Arthur and his weapon is Excalibur, what he does shouldn't be tied to a key peice of equipment. He should be able to be the combat guy with any weapon he uses (that matches is skills).

Question. Is the 18-20 damage before or after you figure in pierce 3? If it's not counting pierce, what are his skills? How is he getting 5 to 7 successes on a single roll? How many dice is he rolling? I'm starting to wonder if some rules aren't being played correctly.

Note: My last character was a Sniper and my design intent was to be able to do 20 damage from long or extreme range. Once I realized my character was over powered for the rest of the group, I offered to retire my character and actually ran the game for a while to let our GM to actually play. Too often people complain and want to change characters when they perceive the character to be too weak. Not enough people are willing to retire a character that is too strong. Having a one major outlier can heavily screw up party and combat dynamics. Just look at all of the high brawn threads that pop up from time to time. Actually, looking at them is probably a good idea. You might pick up ideas on how to handle the high powered offensive character.

How can I retrain them so I can get them to flee from the "impossible" fight and consider doing so on the difficult one?

I have been in your situation before. It defiantly takes a bit of coaching to teach players that fleeing is a viable option. In the beginning, I had to make it apparent to my players that they need to flee by giving them specific cues. Here is an example:

They were leading a Rebel assault on an Imperial compound, and their slicer was trying to prevent a computer from transmitting a distress signal to nearby Imperial forces. They were deep in the heavily-defended, high-walled compound, so escape would mean weaving through the buildings, dodging enemies, and finding an exit. The slicer was unable to stop the signal and reinforcements showed up, threatening to wipe out the entire Rebel force, along with the PCs. I had a TIE bomber fly over head and bombard some of the Rebel forces, fudged the roll, and said that the amount of threat I rolled caused the bomber knock down one of the outer walls. The players then saw this as an escape route.

The players learned that if they had not escaped, they would have been killed like many of the Rebels that didn't make it out. After a few more instances like this, the players started going into situations with escape routes already in mind.

It's all about staging and prompting.

The problem is that becomes overly predictable if every combat scenario there is a nemesis there to try and take this guy down. Plus he tries his best to stay at long range. The tactic I want to give a go is have multiple melee experts close the range and start taking swings at him.

If I were the GM I'd be tempted to throw something they're not equipped to handle at them. Something high-stealth that could ambush this shooty character and force him to fist-cuff range. It could be anything from Hunt-contracted assassin droids that like to drop from the ceiling to terror beetles on a forgotten planet that swarm up when he inadvertently steps on their hidden nest.

Or it could be that his open-carry weapon is a barrier to him joining the party. The players need to negotiate with a minor hutt on Nal Hutta, but he does not permit any kind of weapon in his presence within the palace. If the smuggler refuses to leave it he'll have to wait in the lobby while the rest of the party proceeds forward. Then if fighting happens and he tries to rush to the scene, do things like cut the elevator and have the assassin(s) put demolition charges on the stairs that will trigger the entire stairwell when hit with blasters. Climbing the walls? have some spider droids round blind corners and ambush him. He could either hang on or shoot back while falling to his death.

It could also be something as simple as a magnet roof. All player items and equipment get sucked into it for as long of a time as it takes for the PCs to solve the puzzle and recover their items. Throw adversaries at them while they're trying to work it out.

Bottom line I guess though, is "is the party having fun with this item, or would it be more fun without this item?" Sounds like with this smuggler's gun in play you'd have to do some inventive GMing to come up with solutions to get around the problem.

and if I do that..the player will just kick off and throw a hissy.

Then he is NOT a good guy, he is a bully and you are being bullied.

You are doing exactly what he wants because he threatens to throw a hissy, call him on it, if he throws a hissy ask him if this is going to be an ongoing problem for him if he doesn't get his own way. Then deal with it, don't worry about something that may not happen.

I agree totally with Jamwes; it's very much a videogame mentality, that you see something and are conditioned to fight it to the death.

Whereas most adventure movies - James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc - are full of chases and escapes.

I've found two ways to help encourage this behaviour without making the characters feel less awesome.

One of our EoE games is an explorer's game with one PC and my sole, next-to-useless, GM PC sidekick. They both suck at combat, so their adventures involve lots of running, chases, inventive evasion of bad guys. Most of their opposition is ancient traps, environmental hazards and wild animals, all of which are best evaded than fought.

For the AOR game, the characters are certainly insanely tough - but they usually have a mission to accomplish. To this end, their opponents like to throw lots of foes at them to delay and slow them, to use up time and resources. They are trying to chase down an enemy leader or agent, or rescue an informant, or just beat the Empire to a planet, not chew their way through endless hordes of enemies. They just don't have time to slaughter dozens of mooks - while they are knee-deep in stormtroopers, the clock is ticking. So they frequently have to make fighting withdrawals and race to beat their foes to a prize. They don't feel like cowards, they fully understand why they aren't getting bogged down in needless battles.

And as for the guy with the dmg 13 Breach weapon, I assume it's some kind of disruptor? There's a reason those things are Restricted, and anyone brandishing one in public should attract way too much attention. That's in no way a self-defence weapon.

Well for reference, the weapon is infact not restricted. It is a DH-X Heavy Blaster Rifle:

Damage: 10

Range: Long

Critical: 3

Ranged Heavy

Cumbersome 3, Pierce 2.

It has been modified with a telescopic sight (decrease difficulty of combat checks at long and extreme range by 1.)

and also has a Augmented Spin Barrel (Damage +1), with all 4 mods installed: (Damage +1) x2, (Accurate 1 Mod) and (Pierce +1 Mod)

Making the final stats of the weapon:

Damage: 13

Cumbersome 3, Pierce 3, Accurate 1

and all shots at Long+ range are reduced in difficulty by 1.

Furthermore his talents from the heavy tree add 3 to his damage for a successful hit (Barrage talent x3)

The Cumbersome also does not effect him because he has Burly, so the Cumbersome 3 weapon becomes Cumbersome 1.

His Ranged Heavy Dice Pool is: YYYGG.

So lets do the math....13+3 = 16, if we include pierce in that, that's 19. He needs to get one success to hit, so that's 20 at least, If we assume he gets the most successful result we are looking at 27 damage...24 if we don't include the pierce...

ladies and gentlemen. I believe the term for this is 'min-maxing'.

The guy is a really good guy but generally doesn't roleplay too much, he turns up to roll dice and that is the fun he takes out of all this. I have explained that the game is not combat orientated and he entertains himself through the minimal (but detailed and entertaining) roleplay.

However any attempt to take away the weapon...woe betide you. He doesn't kick off, but he does generally sulk and get a bit ****y about it. If I damage the weapon, it merely gets fixed by the expert (and also min-maxed) mechanic. So I generally need to do significant damage or have the weapon be taken away.

Lets put it this way, I made them run away the other day..but it took having two Nemesis level adversaries to do it (Master Bounty Hunter + Assassin Droid) combined with some Journeyman BHs and Apprentice BHs, and even then he killed the Master Bounty Hunter after round 2...almost singlehanded.

Note: The fluff for the weapon specifically states it has a slower rate of fire...yet there is no mechanical effect for this, maybe it was omitted accidentally?

Throw lots of melee combat monsters at him, where that weapon isn’t very effective.

Or large groups of minions — sure he can kill them quickly, but if the group is large enough then it will take him a long time to trim them down to the size where their skill starts dropping, meanwhile they’re consistently rolling five yellows to hit him.

There’s got to be at least a hundred clankers there, sir! That’s a bit much, even for you!

Or hit him with gas weapons, where there simply isn’t anything for him to fire back at.

Once you know the specific weapon he’s got and what weaknesses he has, it’s a lot easier to come up with ways to offset that.