PC "tactics" and reactions to danger

[Legbreaker]

I've noticed over the past couple of years that when faced with a significant opposition (but far from unbeatable) players tend to run away rather than dig in and fight it out as is more likely to happen IRL. Even when armoured support is available and the area quite defendable this seems to happen.

Is it just my perception or have others noticed the same thing?

[sglancy12]

Is it just my perception or have others noticed the same thing?

Hell no. Just the opposite in fact. Most of the time I had players (none of them ex-military) dig in and fight... and then sit there and get out-flanked and shot to pieces. Apparently they were too "young, dum and full of cum" (can I say that on this board?) to break contact. So they'd dig in, point all their firepower in one direction and expect the enemy to walk into their sight picture. The enemy rarely obliged them.

Frankly, when you're out on the raggedy edge with no back up, no support and no options, I don't blame your players one little bit for backing away from any fight that they absolutely didn't have to fight.


A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[kato13]

Apparently they were too "young, dum and full of c*m" (can I say that on this board?) to break contact.

I honestly don't remember if I left the boards automatic censoring system on. I think it really only takes out the biggies so it would not have caught that. My own personal opinion is that you should only say things on a message board if you would be comfortable saying it in front of your mother, but I respect that not everyone feels that way. "*"s also work nicely to take the edge off.

[Marc]

I've noticed over the past couple of years that when faced with a significant opposition (but far from unbeatable) players tend to run away rather than dig in and fight it out as is more likely to happen IRL. Even when armoured support is available and the area quite defendable this seems to happen.

Is it just my perception or have others noticed the same thing?

My opinion is that, probably, you are doing a good work creating the atmosphere previous to the combat and managing the actions of your NPC's. But perhaps your players are not fully aware of all their capabilities.

I'm running the same campaign with two (not, now three!) group of players. One of them have the same behavior described by Sgalcy12. They are all AD&D players. And this is a lasting heritage. They have a tendency to never consider a retreat and to believe that combat only ends with the dead of all their enemies. Some of them have the stubbornly tendency to keep a fixed position while in combat, even if this position is heavily covered by small arms fire. No diversionary actions, no flanking attacks, no prisoners (perhaps they think that Russians are orcs...:p).Well, they have paid their good number of casualties but now they seem to have grasped the Twilight way. After the lost of nearly all the group...

I have another group (let's tell it Group 2). They use concealment, explosives, diversionary actions, flanking attacks, covering fire... They always consider all they have in hand in any defensive or offensive action. If Group 1 accepts a mission with enthusiasm and depart before listening the details of the mission, Group 2 is always trying to carefully plan their actions while tormenting their superiors for more support or material. While in combat they never loss the momentum, though. But what I've observed is that they are more and more careful as their characters grew up. In a past Traveller campaign, after months of play, they recognized that their characters were more "courageous" at the beginning. Mmmmm... the Veteran syndrome???

And perhaps Hollywood shares a part of the responsibility. War films seemed much more heroic and innocuous for the main characters before "Saving Private Ryan", "Blackhawk down", "Band of brothers", "Stalingrad"... ;)

[Targan]

In my campaign the way the PCs and their party fought changed as the campaign progressed. At the start they tended to be very cautious and would happily flee if faced with significant opposition. Later on (pretty much after Major Po became the commanding officer) it went completely the other way and they would stand and fight just about everything. In fact Po tended to go for total overkill, ordering his men to aggressively annihilate any opposition that his definition found to be "armed" (I recall that he once ordered that a civilian be shot for holding a pointy stick in an aggressive manner). I think that the increased aggressiveness of the party was due to several factors:

1: They ended up having a very good track record so morale tended to be high and skill levels were also high.

2: They ended up being very well armed and equipped.

3: The Blanket (those in Po's favour no longer faced permanent impairment or even death assuming most of their body remained after a firefight).

[Marc]

3: The Blanket (those in Po's favour no longer faced permanent impairment or even death assuming most of their body remained after a firefight).

A powerful argument, undoubtedly...

[Legbreaker]

But perhaps your players are not fully aware of all their capabilities.
That I think is part of the problem, aother issue is that there is no respect for chain of command nor faith in their available weapons. As soon as a shot is fired at them they tend to melt away after just a few moments.
The latest instance isn't my game but one I'm playing in. No matter how I try I can't seem to get anyone to stand and fight, flank the enemy, use deception etc. It seems that they'd rather fall back time and time again abandoning vital equipment and lightly damaged vehicles with little real effort to recover them - often starting recovery then giving up and running when just one more minute would complete the task.
It's unspeakably frustrating!

Even though the PC group has more firepower at it's immediate disposal than an entire infantry company back in my time in the army (several AFVs, dedicated mortar support, roughly 50% of characters with GLs, the remainder with automatic rifles and MGs, not to mention nearly every person carrying a LAW or RPG), the PCs have completely lost the initiative and are allowing the enemy to dictate their actions and channel movement.
The enemy admittedly have a number of BTRs and at least one BMP, but the infantry do not appear to be armed with much beyond personal weapons and perhaps the odd hand grenade (although at least one RPG and machinegun team have made an appearance).

[copeab]

The biggest problem here to me is a player with little tactical knowledge running a character who should have a lot of tactical knowledge. It's fairly easy to play a character with less tactical ability than the player (I'm doing so right now in a Star Trek campaign). However, playing a character who is a better tactician than the player is very difficult and T2K makes it even harder without having a Tactics or Strategy skill. The way T2K is set up is that a character is assumed to have the same knowledge of tactics of the player, which I find highly unsatisfactory. Do we determine a characters marksmanship ability by using the player's marksmanship ability? Of course not. We shouldn't do the same with tactics, either.

[Raellus]

My oh, my. It's interesting how two people can perceive the same situation completely differently. I happen to play in the same game as my esteemed colleague and have a totally different take on the situation and how it is being handled by the troops and leadership. What you've failed to mention, sir, is that the squad is up against at least a company of enemy infantry backed by multiple AFVs.

Some of us care about our PCs and don't want to get them killed for nothing. I'm not sure how you can fault players for not wanting to die. In my opinion, a shot-up BTR is not worth my PC's life.

The reason some us are being insubordinate, whiny babies is that our leader seems to care more about gear than about keeping his men alive. AND, he does not seem to listen to input from his men. This has undermined my PC's confidence in him to the point where he is ready to mutiny.

You say tomato, I say tomato.

[kato13]

This thread seems like trouble and I am locking it.