I am going to be running a Trial of Skill this weekend for my players (most likely) and I was going to use various tests from one of the source books. However, I thought instead of fighting their master at the end of it why not introduce a no-win scenario and see how or what they would do?

I was thinking about a small submarine-type ship underwater that is being attacked by a Sando Aqua Monster...the PC's have to determine how to get to the vessel and save the occupants with this giant monstrous creature swimming around/attacking it. I was thinking about imposing a time limit because of the ship leaking and no underwater masks are on-board. This would put the PC's in a tight spot because they have to expose themselves to the monster, possibly fight/die, and get the people out in time without help.

It's just a basic idea so far...has anyone else done something like this before?

Just be ready for the players to come up with some off-the-wall suggestion that allows them to "win" the no-win scenario. Now maybe their solution won't be as blatant as NuTrek's Kirk*, but given that players can have moments of insane creativity when you least expect it, be ready for anything.

The problem with doing any sort of "no-win" scenario in an RPG is that you run the risk of getting your players irked at you, especially if they perceive you as the GM "cheating" to specifically counter whatever ideas they come up with to allow them to succeed, and you may well wind up accused of railroading them into a particular outcome.

*fun fact, in the original Trek timeline, Kirk's cheat for the scenario was to simply give himself the sort of reputation that he'd actually wind up earning over the course of his long career, which simply prevented the simulation's Klingons from immediately attacking and giving him a decent bargaining posture. There was still a good chance that the ship would get destroyed, but Orig!Kirk's hack simply made the playing field a bit more level.

I was hoping that presenting them with a "no-win" scenario would inspire creativity and off-the-wall resolutions to the problem. I didn't want to make it too easy so I figured giving them somewhere between 10-30 minutes total to complete the task, and by making it happen underwater I can more easily manipulate the circumstances in case despairs are rolled. I won't be killing them, this is all going to be a shared Force vision lead by their master to work as a team and see what they are made of...so if they "die" in the vision then they would wake up in real life. I didn't want to be "that GM" and put them in a stupid scenario where they will die after investing all the time and effort into their characters.

Not quite what you were looking for, but here's my favorite " Damned if you do, damned if you dont " scenario (which works best if you are in an Old Republic setting). I've mentioned it around here a couple of times before, so I'll give you the TL;DNR version. In short, a loophole in the local planetary laws can allow for sick bastards to pimp out their children. The Jedi, seeing a poor 13 year old kid traumatized by a session, can do the right thing by saving the kid - but will disrupt the delicate planetary negotiations that their masters are in the middle of.

Some good points, very slightly related to this issue.

TL;DW Players want to be heroes, and will never surrender even when faced with impossible odds. Bigger the challenge, larger the potential reward (being hero). Difference in your situation is that (if) you are willing to allow some wacky and weird solutions, and that may make this work.

Personally I would probably speak with players about the situation upfront, to make sure, they have correct mindset for the scenario. (Knowing our group I'd probably separate the planning of escape/victory and implementation. Just throwing PC to to Kobayashi Maru would cause too many problems.) No-win scenario can easily be very frustrating to players. But all this depends on your goal, gamestyle, and relationship with players.

P.S. Please, report what you end up doing, and how it unfolds.

WOW, GM. That sounds like a pretty desperate situation for the passengers and crew of the sub.

Do you have the Next of Kin contact records handy?

I agree with that fellow - to a point. I think with transparency and a good reason, the players can get their asses kicked and have a good time doing so. When we were playing our E1 era Padawan game, our intent was to run parallel to the movies, playing them as the new ones came out. When E3 rolled around and it was Order 66 time, I straight out told them "Look, I'll try and make it interesting and fun, but in this game the odds will be very stacked against you. Play clever and play smart."

And then I did my best to unleash the full might of the Empire upon them.

Everyone had fun, and I think it was down to the clear expectations of the end of the campaign (back when we started that run in 2000, we only knew that the Jedi were exterminated, not the specifics of how - so we all knew that we were dead men walking) and the clear communication when the end of the campaign came. So if you are clear, tell them to play smart, stack the odds fairly against them - I think you can get away with this.

In a literary sense, a "no-win scenario" would generally work best if it's framed in the way that Star Trek II did it, in that it's a training scenario and the players are aware of this going in.

Admittedly, the only reason the film included that scene was because the fact that Spock dies had been leaked fairly early in the script-writing process. So in an attempt to bluff the audience and keep Spock's actual death scene a surprise, was to put Lt. Saavik through a training simulation where the entire bridge crew (Spock included) "dies" and thus fake out audiences so that the dramatic impact of Spock's actual death scene would still carry weight and come as something of a surprise to audiences, who were quite used to main characters being immune to death.

And while they did bring Spock back in the next film, the choice to do that came about towards the end of filming Trek 2, as Nimoy (who had wanted to kill off Spock as badly as Harrison Ford had wanted Han Solo to die) found that he was actually enjoying playing the character and that the franchise was once again "cooking on all four burners" (Nimoy's own words), and wondered if he had made a grave error in logic in pushing for Spock to die.

The way I wanted to end this test was to announce that they are in some kind of Force induced trance/vision...although it feels real and the situation is dangerous, they die if they fail, they may take some strain in real life due to the nature of what is happening, but if they were to die then they would wake up IRL. I figured I would start with that and then brief them on the situation and end with something like Desslok said "but in this game the odds will be very stacked against you. Play clever and play smart."

That way they know that if they die they won't be sacrificing their characters, but at the same time they are being tested so to blindly go in and get yourself killed counts as a failure. Does this sounds like something that you might enjoy or do you think that scrapping this and going with a 1 on 1 fight with their mentor sounds more applicable to a Trial of Skill?

To be honest, a no-win scenario sounds more fitting for a Trial of Flesh and/or Courage rather than Skill.

I don't see why a Skill one has to involve fighting their mentor at the end, especially if the character isn't combat/saber-centric. I'm not sure if you have Disciples of Harmony but there are various skill-testing options described there.

16 minutes ago, Garran said:

To be honest, a no-win scenario sounds more fitting for a Trial of Flesh and/or Courage rather than Skill.

I don't see why a Skill one has to involve fighting their mentor at the end, especially if the character isn't combat/saber-centric. I'm not sure if you have Disciples of Harmony but there are various skill-testing options described there.

I have both the Disciples of Harmony and the Nexus of Power books and the Trial of Skill modular encounter is listed in NoP. At the end it references fighting their master, they aren't necessarily meant to win but it's how they act after they inevitably lose. I figured instead of presenting a battle with their master, I would provide another challenge that could touch into other Trials (courage & flesh like you mentioned) even though they have already completed those trials via other missions they have been part of.

Since I have 1 PC that is not lightsaber/attack focused I wanted to give them a challenge as a group and not make it combat focused. I figured presenting a very difficult scenario like this to them would allow them to try to think outside of the box and still allow them to be safe at the end. Then going forward they would know that they can defeat anything if the Force is on their side ...or if they failed, how they could have done better or made better decisions.

That way it still imparts a lesson of their skills in decision making, leadership, combat, athletics, etc. depending on how they go about trying to rescue the sub and it's crew.

One "potential" issue I foresee: If the players know going in that it is a dream/not real, when **** starts to hit the fan they may just throw up their hands and give up, or more likely, start trying absolutely ludicrous things because in the end it wont matter since "its not real". So I guess just be prepared if those scenarios play out.

So I wanted to follow up on this since I decided to run this scenario this past weekend.

The PC's had just been wrung through the gauntlet during the Trial of Skill from the Nexus of Power and passed (mostly). I had them meditate and rest and told them there was one more challenge to come...

I introduced the scenario as them entering a shared Force vision and set the scene above. They ended up swimming to save the sub, 2 of the 3 were eaten in a single bite by the monster! However before the last PC bit the dust, he managed to roll a double Triumph on his mechanics check to fix the airpump, so I allowed him to figure out how to fix the engine at the same time!

He ended up distracting the creature while they got away and got eaten himself. All in all, they all died but they managed to save the people aboard the submarine...so not too shabby!

I will talk them through some things next session and present rewards, but with them knowing that if they died they wouldn't lose their character did seem to enable them to take more risks than they normally would...so I would say it was a success.