How to make sure players know they should run

[Bannan_mantis]

recently I've run a few encounters for players that were all basically meant to be ones that were put there to make them realise how strong/powerful the enemy they're facing is and then run away...it's the running away part I'm having trouble with.

My players keep fighting, even if I say the attacks barely do anything and the damage they take is very high. Even when it's in a do or die situation instead of running they just keep fighting no matter what. It's not character ideals or anything, a lot of characters who are tactical geniuses or run when they're in a bad situation just keep fighting.

Now I ask how do you tell your players that basically "this guy is way to powerful for you, you shouldn't keep fighting him." The enemy just being more powerful than them isn't working so I'd like extra ideas.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I don't think it's your responsibility to do that.

[Keltest]

Is this a sandbox game or more of a story driven game where they do things Because The Plot Said So? If its the former, just kill them the next time they try and take a lethal fight they have no chance of beating. Repeat as necessary until they decide to do something else. They'll figure it out eventually.

If its the latter, make the hazards environmental or otherwise give them something to worry about beyond faffing around with these encounters. If the castle is falling apart, theyre darn well going to be more worried about leaving than trying to win a glory fight. Likewise, if the princess is going to be executed or something within a certain time frame, theyre incentivized to avoid difficult and time consuming encounters.

You could, of course, also just stop giving them hopeless encounters. Just a thought.

[Kardwill]

I assume you're not playing a system where a party defeat can be interpreted as "captured/routed/incapacitated" ? (like Fate, Mouse Guard, etc...)

A way to have the players witness the danger they're getting into could be the "sacrificial victims". Have them play a bunch of pre-generated characters around the same power level as their PCs (the scouts, another party that beat them to the dungeon...) and play the fight honestly. And THEN have the PCs find the grisly remains of the "scouts" and have them draw the right conclusion about their chance to get out of there alive.

(That technique can be pretty useful for horror games when you want the players to witness the danger of their situation without decimating the party at the beginning of the game)


Problem is that many games have very poor rules for routs and fleeing, especially when combined to initiative. The near certainty they'll get backstabbed kinda trains the players to never flee.

[Kardwill]

If its the latter, make the hazards environmental or otherwise give them something to worry about beyond faffing around with these encounters. If the castle is falling apart, theyre darn well going to be more worried about leaving than trying to win a glory fight. Likewise, if the princess is going to be executed or something within a certain time frame, theyre incentivized to avoid difficult and time consuming encounters.

A fight that is not simply about kinning or be killed (having objectives that can be attained beyond "kill or TPK") could be nice for an asymetrical encounter, you're right. It can allow the players to net a "victory" or a "defeat" without having one of the parties completely slaughtered.

Well, to be fair, it's also always a good idea for symetrical encounters, too. "Kill or be killed" is boring. ^^
"Evacuate the princess while the Royal Guard is holding back the bad guys" or "get to the magic portal first" sounds more fun

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't think it's your responsibility to do that.

I agree.

Players in my group don't even consider retreat until at least one party member has gone down, and unless you're low level that seems to be the right amount of caution. I guess being ridiculously outnumbered by forces that we know are not weaklings would do it, too.

Otherwise, players won't learn that they aren't invincible unless they get killed or have their backsides handed to them, and a DM has to be willing to let that happen.

[MrSandman]

One thing that confuses me: You say that you've put your players in several "do or die" situations against enemies that are more powerful than them and that, although you'd like them to run away, they just keep fighting. Haven't their characters died yet?

[DMThac0]

I have been pleasantly impressed by my party on my Saturday games for the exact reason you're asking about. There have been three fights that have occurred where the players have chosen to avoid combat or run from combat. Each of those situations had a few things about them that make the players' decisions easier to make.

Situation 1: The players were in a contest against another group of NPCs. One of the rules of this contest is that they had a magical insignia on their persons which would lose a mark each time they were hit by a combat attack. It is very much similar to video games where getting hit you lose a heart and when the hearts are gone you're dead. One of the players had been hit and lost a mark, one of the opponents was overwhelmed and lost all their marks, the NPC vanished when the third mark faded. Later the group ran into an Ettin, the group could have easily defeated the Ettin, but they had no way to gauge this, so they chose to avoid the conflict and hide while the Ettin wandered past them.

Situation 2: The party was very obviously overwhelmed by their opponents. The party was level 6 and had been engaged by three level 10 Druids. The fight was definitively going the wrong way, they were not going to be able to beat the opponents. A few of the players chose to aid one of their party in escaping with the plot item that they were protecting. Sacrificing themselves so that this player could run off and keep the bad guys from getting the item. This fight was set up so that the defeated players were captured, the choice to run away made the scenario shift in direction drastically. I had to re-write a lot of the plot line since they didn't stand and fight like most players are wont to do.

Situation 3: The party had very handily wiped out a Hydra, in 3 rounds they downed this thing, it was fantastic...and annoying. There was a Kua-Toa Archpriest present which made things a little trickier, they were also on the shores of a very large lake. A Giant Crocodile and Giant Crab joined the fight, the crab was dead almost immediately. As the Kua-Toa felt threatened, it summoned a Water Elemental which started to harass the party while the Kua-Toa slipped away into the lake to cast from what it felt was relative safety. The fight went well for the party until the Kua-Toa created a whirlpool that exposed a Krake Spawn. When the Krake Spawn started to attack, the party realized they'd expended too many resources in the fight so far and decided a retreat was necessary.

---

In each of those situations there were many factors that helped the players realize that combat was dangerous and could result in a well defined defeat. I have talked with my players on many occasions about the fact that retreat, surrender, and negotiation are very valid and tactical responses to combat. I do not punish them for running away, instead give them a fair chance to run, usually dropping into chase mechanics rather than maintaining combat. They gain XP in relation to how well they did in combat, even if they retreat, usually 50% or more. Everything I can do to make them feel like retreat is not a failure, simply a tactical choice when everything goes south.

I supplement that with how the creatures of my world work in combat too. My creatures will run, hide, surrender, barter, and do anything possible to avoid death. For the more basic creatures, the ones that rely on instinct rather than intellect, they'll usually fight until they're badly hurt then try to run. For the more intellectual creatures, they may run at the first sign of danger, realizing they're not capable of winning. Other creatures will fight to the death because they're given no choice, they're blood-thirsty, or they're too arrogant to realize defeat. The biggest thing is, they are acting like a creature would in real life, showing the players that their ability to run is validated. Startle a rat and it runs, back a rat into a corner and it will fight to the death.

[Man_Over_Game]

One thing that confuses me: You say that you've put your players in several "do or die" situations against enemies that are more powerful than them and that, although you'd like them to run away, they just keep fighting. Haven't their characters died yet?

Agreed on this. People should always be allowed to learn from their mistakes, but they first have to learn what a mistake is. Death, followed by a "freebie" revive (like from a Cleric they were saving, or something) would be a good enough warning.

There are a couple ways you could implement fear into the players, rather than the characters:

• A literal fear aura. The magnitude of the threat reduces the combat prowess of those near it. Being near that dragon is literally making your character shake in their boots.
• A hope-destroying first turn. Turn one, a hit to the Fighter takes out 1/3 of his HP. As they continue to fight, simply increase the quantity of their attacks, so that the players know exactly what's going to happen if things continue in this manner.
• An obvious tactical disadvantage. Maybe the enemy cursed you. Maybe they landed a critical hit right off the bat and crippled the mage. For one reason or another, the players know that they are fighting an uphill battle.

Lastly, make sure that they understand that escape IS an option. Maybe that means dangling safety in front of them, or having an NPC literally say "I can get us out of here, get close to me". Players often don't run away, because they don't realize that they can.

If all of these methods fail, then the last option is to kill the players outright. They might complain, that you railroaded them into a Rocks Fall scenario, so make sure to cover your bases and list off the various options you provided for their escape. At some point, the blame has to be put on them.

[Gallowglass]

recently I've run a few encounters for players that were all basically meant to be ones that were put there to make them realise how strong/powerful the enemy they're facing is and then run away...it's the running away part I'm having trouble with.

My players keep fighting, even if I say the attacks barely do anything and the damage they take is very high. Even when it's in a do or die situation instead of running they just keep fighting no matter what. It's not character ideals or anything, a lot of characters who are tactical geniuses or run when they're in a bad situation just keep fighting.

Now I ask how do you tell your players that basically "this guy is way to powerful for you, you shouldn't keep fighting him." The enemy just being more powerful than them isn't working so I'd like extra ideas.

Perhaps you have players who don't want to be characters in your novel.

No, I'm being serious.

You have a story you want to tell. They want to play a game.

They may be players who prefer to be given level appropriate challenges that, while challenging, are not meant to be non-overcome-able. They assume "there must be a way for us to win this, we just haven't found the trick yet."

Whereas you are "writing a long term story" with them as the "stars" and want to give them a storyline of "no win situation that must be fled until a new power can be found or a non-violent solution can be figured out"

Here's the deal. If this keeps happening over and over your players are telling you "We don't want to play in that story."

So talk to them and see if they even like your game. And if you are ONE DM that they are FIVE players, maybe give in and run the kind of game they want rather than the one you want to run.

[Man_Over_Game]

Perhaps you have players who don't want to be characters in your novel.

No, I'm being serious.

You have a story you want to tell. They want to play a game.

They may be players who prefer to be given level appropriate challenges that, while challenging, are not meant to be non-overcome-able. They assume "there must be a way for us to win this, we just haven't found the trick yet."

Whereas you are "writing a long term story" with them as the "stars" and want to give them a storyline of "no win situation that must be fled until a new power can be found or a non-violent solution can be figured out"

Here's the deal. If this keeps happening over and over your players are telling you "We don't want to play in that story."

So talk to them and see if they even like your game. And if you are ONE DM that they are FIVE players, maybe give in and run the kind of game they want rather than the one you want to run.

So what's the solution if level 1 players want to take on a lich?

Do you scale down the lich? If so, what do you do with all of the other level 1 threats (like wolves or bandits)?

I do agree that the DM should rarely throw those enemies at the players, as it really only leaves the players one optimal solution. However, that's not always realistic, and sometimes it can even be a good narrative tool.

Take, for example, the Curse of Strahd module for 5th edition DnD. It's probably the most popular module in the most popular edition of the most popular TTRPG in the world right now. And yet, the entire module is about trying to stop an enemy that shows up randomly throughout the campaign to torture and antagonize you. You know you cannot stop him, and he loves to remind you of that. On top of that, there is a fog that kills you, and prevents you from ever leaving the demiplane. Railroading can be done right, but there are definitely bad examples of it (Looking at you, Hoard of the Dragon Queen).

So can it be done? Yes. Should it be done? Maybe, but only if it's implemented well.

[JeenLeen]

Now I ask how do you tell your players that basically "this guy is way to powerful for you, you shouldn't keep fighting him." The enemy just being more powerful than them isn't working so I'd like extra ideas.

Out-of-character, tell the players that some enemies are too powerful and the best tactic is to run. I feel like adding "especially if it's a fight they got themselves into," but if you want to play that sometimes they are attacked by way-stronger enemies, I can see that as an acceptable playstyle. Just know make sure your players are aware.

In most RPGs, it is a given that the PCs will fight baddies and that victory is possible. D&D moreso than most. The players have an assumption or expectation that victory is possible; it might not occur to them that it is not. Thus the need for out-of-character conversation. (I remember when my group switched from D&D to World of Darkness. It never occurred to us that we shouldn't use lethal force against some gangsters who attacked us, since we were still thinking in a D&D paradigm.)

[Gallowglass]

So what's the solution if level 1 players want to take on a lich?

Interestingly enough I have an answer for that!

I played in a game with a new (to me) DM. We started at 1st level in a city in Faerun and we were hired to explore an abandoned mansion by a city official who lied to us about his interest in the mansion.

While exploring the mansion, we discovered a bunch of interesting things about the mansion and about its prior owner. We discovered that the last owner was a mad alchemist who made a bunch of low level flesh golems (broken ones), many of whom were still in the mansion and we found out that he killed his own daughter to remake her as a broken one. Her ghost/spirit was still haunting the place. We eventually figured out that the city official -was- the mad alchemist responsible for all of this. And he wanted us to destroy a special seal that was what kept him from retaking his mansion. And the only way to let the ghost rest was for him to face his punishment at the hand of his creations.

So, we dutifully lured him back to the mansion, thinking we'd be able to... you know... actually succeed at the apparent goal given to us.

Once we got him back and he fell into our "trap" we found out he was a 20th level lich who promptly killed us all, took out the broken ones and cleared the map. Oh yeah? that "seal" had no apparent effect on him at all after we'd gone to the effort to try and fool him into thinking it was gone and thought it would do what it was stated to do.

Then raised us up and gloated and sent us on our way.

----

So where did we go wrong? Although there was plenty of evidence that the evil bad guy had some levels on us, we were LED to believe that there was a way for us to deal with him. I guess we should have said "oh well, sorry girl ghost, maybe we'll be back in a couple years when we are 15th level" But we had no idea how powerful he was. There was no evidence we missed, no secrets we failed to uncover.

There was no way for us to win this other than, not to play. We tried to find out from the DM what they intended and there was no real answer. We did what the story asked us to do.

I would argue that its perfectly okay to introduce impossible to beat bad guys as long as you make it clear what their power level is and make it clear that the PCs are supposed to wait and level up before they take on this enemy.

But its not okay to throw them at them with insufficient information then not expect the PCs to be irritated by it.

As a player, I don't want you to throw 20th level liches at me at 1st level. If you do that, well, you suck at story-crafting. Why are you doing that? What possible purpose does it serve?

There are plenty of ways to build stories and challenge us that don't involve throwing epic level foes that we have no ability to deal with or any chance against if we end up forced into action.

I'm not saying "only even give us challenges we can win" but there's a big difference between survivable and ludicrous. a 20th level lich enemy at 1st level is ludicrous.

The players didn't show up at the table and demand "We want to go find a 20th level lich!". You put it there. For no viable reason.

[Aotrs Commander]

So talk to them and see if they even like your game. And if you are ONE DM that they are FIVE players, maybe give in and run the kind of game they want rather than the one you want to run.

Unless you don't want to run that sort of game, in which case you should probably offer one of the other players the DM's screen (metaphorically).

If none of them is interested in DMing at that point, and they don't want to play the game you want to run, and you don't want to run the game they want to play (or think they want to play, in some cases), then you need to have a group discussion on whether if you are the only one that is prepared to DM, whether or not they'd rather meet you half-way at least or not have a game at all.




Myself, I fing having a jolly old laugh as tsking with amusement as thier attacks bounce off (and perhaps stating how trivally their attacks are effecting the thing) usually helps. A good DM, like a good supervillain, is all about presentation, and there is a lot to be said for carrying that through even when you are not actively playing a character. KOing a couple of characters helps, and it's always worth remembering if they have a discussion about "what should we do?" you can always smirk and say "you could always run away?" (You should - REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT YOU MEAN IT - always pretend to be gunning for the characters when you're behind the screen.)

Remember to suggest to the players (outside of the game, i.e. before ot after the session) that retreating is an option they should remember sometimes.

Ultimately, though, if your players don't listen to warnings and have gotten convinced you won't kill their characters (the warning sign is if they will say this to your face), you might have to seriously consider setting up an encounter that they really, really, really obviously can't win (multiple dragons backed up by liches and a small army or something) and they still don't get the message, then calling their bluff. This ought to be a last resort, though, if for some reason the above doesn't work first.

[Quertus]

The GM gets to control everything else - the one thing that the players get to do is control the PCs. Sounds like you're upset about that. Have you considered just writing single author fiction?

OK, now that that extreme stance is out of the way (color blue to taste), let's look at your problem. You are presenting a scenario - intended to a) telegraph the opponents' strength; and b) produce a "flee" response.

-----

A

So, most people would agree that "A" is your good. In fact, some Playgrounders scream bloody murder when the GM doesn't adequately telegraph the exact threat posed by a challenge. I'm not with them, but I won't fault you for trying. Question is, did you succeed? We'll go into more detail about that in a minute, but first…

-----

B

See, wanting a particular response out of your players is bad. It's bad form, it's unlikely to work, it's where people start nudging you towards single author fiction, where you don't have to worry about other people messing up your story.

I mean, I get it. This thing is scary dangerous, no danger person would stand there and fight it. Thing is, no same person would do a lot of the things that your standard PC is expected to do.

-----

So, why aren't the PCs responding like you'd expect? Are you not communicating the threat? Or is there a game style mismatch? If the latter, is it because they *believe* you are running a different style, or because they *want* you to run a different style?

I was going to say a lot more, but, well, that's the cliffs notes version.

[Pleh]

Perhaps you have players who don't want to be characters in your novel.

No, I'm being serious.

You have a story you want to tell. They want to play a game.

They may be players who prefer to be given level appropriate challenges that, while challenging, are not meant to be non-overcome-able. They assume "there must be a way for us to win this, we just haven't found the trick yet."

Whereas you are "writing a long term story" with them as the "stars" and want to give them a storyline of "no win situation that must be fled until a new power can be found or a non-violent solution can be figured out"

Here's the deal. If this keeps happening over and over your players are telling you "We don't want to play in that story."

So talk to them and see if they even like your game. And if you are ONE DM that they are FIVE players, maybe give in and run the kind of game they want rather than the one you want to run.

You presume too much, perhaps.

I ran a very successful and fun encounter once (in SWSE) where the party was chased by a mutant rancor. The trick was first telling them out of game that this was an unfair challenge and that the encounter was meant to be a retreat rather than a fight. Once they were on board, running through the halls made for quite the memorable encounter, with the Rancor's hands tearing through walls trying to grab them (they could fight back against a single hand the Rancor couldn't see as more of a level appropriate challenge). Unexpectedly, they did eventually kill the beast as well, after kiting it into a small space it couldn't move through effectively and one of the PCs it had swallowed managed to disrupt some of its internal cybernetics mutation tanks that they found inside its stomach.

Point being, running away doesn't have to mean quitting or defeat in the adventure. It's unusual enough that you DO need to communicate the game clearly (against this threat, you need to use nonconventional tactics to gain advantage), but if players are whining that they don't want to play the game you've prepared, maybe one of the other players would like to do the work of preparing the game?

[Kaptin Keen]

Players - generally - don't run. If you want them to run, tell them they cannot win. Or tell them that they run. It's railroading either way, but at least if you do it right, it will work.

[Jakinbandw]

Honestly in DnD at least running away is hard. You take opportunity attacks, and even when you run most monsters are faster than you, and even if that isn't the case a ranged attack needs multiple rounds of running before you get out of range. Running also allows spell caster to cast without risk of interruption.

If you want to have players run, you have to either explicitly tell them it is an option, or have a strong monster that it is obvious they can escape from. Say a small cave nearby when a dragon attacks them. Also bring it up during combat to remind them it exists. Maybe have someone or something else flee into the cave for example.

[Faily]

Having been playing in a Broken Lands (Mystara) short campaign lately, with the GM trying to get us to learn the same lesson as well, I think my take on it is: Make running away seem like a viable option. If the enemy has higher movement speed than the party, then it's not viable to run away most of the time. If there's no safe getaway, then chances are that they will make a heroic last stand to see if the dice-gods will be with them than to consider running away.

Most of the time when the GM has expected us to learn to run away, the situations have often not allowed for a successful retreat.


Though I should also put in the disclaimer that there are some hindrances from the player-side to make escape viable. One player is playing with us over voice-chat (since he lives a long distance away) and thus he just tends to default to "can I stab it" in tactics. The two currently playing casters couldn't navigate their way out of a straight hallway most of the time, and very rarely prepare for escape options (such as spells that would hinder the opponent from catching up to us; Web, Obscuring Mist, Grease, etc), despite having had several situations where we've asked if they can cast any of those options and responded with "I didn't prepare it today". Learning experience is often a slow thing there.

[Reversefigure4]

Out-of-character, tell the players that some enemies are too powerful and the best tactic is to run.

And in-character, knowledge checks work as a signifier to the character.

"Your DC20 Knowledge: Arcana check tells you that this foe is heavily resistant to all your spells and weapons. You think you are terribly outmatched, and retreat is the best option."

When the players throw themselves into the fray anyway, clarify with them. "Your character thinks they are outmatched and will be obliterated. Do they want to fight anyway?" If they do, well, you can't take that agency away... and that's about the point where they die.

Secondly, having a concession mechanic of some kind is very useful. In DnD and similar initiative and grid movement games, running away is often both hard and boring. You slowly move back 60ft every round, while the enemy chases you 45ft, until the GM agrees you are out of the combat and have successfully run away. This might take 20 rounds and 30 minutes of real time at the table for the whole party to retreat.

Instead, I've used negotiating out of character. This can be pretty easily applied to any system, and shorthands the tedious and difficult nature of the retreat. The players debate amongst themselves whether they want to flee or not, and then I as the GM negotiate options and costs with them.

"You can flee, but since it's a big wide open field, it'll get 3 attacks off with it's longbow before you're out of range entirely."
"He's much faster than you, so you'll need to distract him in some way. Cast a Wall of Fire, and I'll say you escape successfully."
"You can get away, but you'll need to drop the MacGuffin and the baddies pick it up. You'll need to get it back from them later."
"You dropped your sword on the other side of the battlefield, and you'll need to leave it to escape successfullly."
"Your NPC buddy will fall behind and get captured."

Once you've come to an agreement, play it out quickly.

[KineticDiplomat]

I tend to think player attitudes towards danger and the appropriate reactions have a lot to do with the inherent culture of the system and expectations of the table.

D&D is particularly ill-suited because it’s entire pathos is that at a level appropriate build and pace, you will Save the World. If your opening story is “raiders attack and slaughter your village” then by god the expectation is that the plucky heroes will kill several raiders, lose a token NPC, and perhaps watch the wise instructor duel with the eventual big bad in the distance before he escapes. They don’t expect to be shot down by bowmen as they leave their flaming hall. They don’t think that their surviving barely-trained-bumpkins whose greatest martial success was winning the May fair will be hacked down off handedly by men who, frankly, kill for a living.

It’s not that those are unreasonable outcomes. They are, without the inherent structure of D&D, entirely expected outcomes. We wouldn’t blink twice about hearing how the students of the local wizards guild were cut to ribbons while trying to make small balls of light with their fingers. But once it is PCs, then system encourages us to think it is another chapter in their heroic story, and therefore they should be able to win.

And if the story so far has been a slowly rolling forward string on increasingly nasty monsters in even-ish fights followed by plot progression driven by fighting, they aren’t going to suddenly realize this is the monster they should not fight.

It’s just not D&Ds DNA. Oh, the system allows it. The right players, forewarned and forearmed about the nature of campaign can adjust to it, but the default setting is that you will not meet hideous death for following the plot arc and trying to punch your way through it.

————

Which is all a really long way of saying if it’s D&D you’re playing, there is no reasonable expectation that a player will run or even consider an option other than glorious battle. Not unless you make it a campaign that explicitly doesn’t follow the D&D meat and potatoes of increasingly epic level-appropriate challenges culminating in final victory.

[D+1]

I don't think it's your responsibility to do that.

Absolutely. A good TPK is always preferred. :)

[Inchhighguy]

Now I ask how do you tell your players that basically "this guy is way to powerful for you, you shouldn't keep fighting him." The enemy just being more powerful than them isn't working so I'd like extra ideas.

In general, ''tough" foes won't even bother fighting the characters. They will just laugh and knock the characters down. You can have endless fun with just knock outs and trips and such......but it gets even more fun when a foe can toss out a curse or polymorph or teleport or any such magic.

Also, the tough guys might not even fight...just give them a defense or get away or all the magic ways to do such things.

Of course, you can also run a The Dice Will Fall Where They May type game full of endless, random, maingless Character Death. So IF the players have characetrs that take such actions...just kill the characters. It might take some players several characetrs to ''get it", but they should come around evelntualy.

DM-"The demigod of Dragon kind steps on your first level attacking barbarian Jog-Dar the Twenthy Seventh is dead."

Player-"ok...um, Jog-Dar the Twenthy Eighth..will NOT attack that dragon.."

[Mordaedil]

I don't recommend doing the thing I did, buuut I might as well recap it. I was running a game for a party consisting only of wizards and the idea was that they were a class trying to recover one of their lost class mates from the plane of shadow. They were level 1. They were not completely aware that they had entered another plane, but while I dropped hints, none of the players had made any statements trying to guess at their environment, so I didn't ask for a roll.

As they stepped into the streets, I had them do a spot roll and one of them thought he saw their class mate wandering the streets, so they ran up to her and slapped her on the shoulder turning her around. Well, turned out it was a shadow in the form of their class mate. And all of a sudden a bunch of shadows around them looked upon them and they all took the form of them in turn.

Shadows. Versus level 1 wizards. I don't really recommend doing this. And I went into this well aware of this being a nasty encounter, I decided to establish rules for the fight.

The shadows would discriminate their targets and only pick their counterpart. They would ignore attacks of opportunity against anyone else. If the players ran, they would give up upon losing sight of them, so even entering a building would end the fight for them.

It took them a while, but none of my players fell, albeit they lost a fair bit of their strength score. One of their classmates that I controlled died due to a stupid risk I made him do, but they dispatched his shadow, so I allowed them to "get away" with that.

They also refuse to play D&D with me now on account of them being too scared. They think I should run Call of Cthulhu though, maybe there is something to that.

How do you make your players run? Drain them.

[MeimuHakurei]

I'll be totally blunt here: "Strong monster the party is meant to escape from" is rare in cinema, nearly unheard of in video games (unwinnable bosses in those games are usually getting whopped and then some deus ex machina lets the player party get away) and only works in a tabletop if it's exactly what the players ask for. I do not mind discretion or looking for ways to tip the scales outside of combat - but what I'm seeing here is DMs finding glee in making unwinnable fights that teach players that dealing with a monster through combat shouldn't even be considered an option.

That said, 3.PF actually has a slight edge over 5e in terms of making players run away because the stronger fear effects (including Frightful Presence) directly force players to flee. So that's a way to do this, even though it can also affect appropriately-levelled encounters.

Finally, consider this: A big and common complaint about bad JRPGs is completely overstatted bosses where you're expected to parkour the dungeon back and forth to grind on monsters and have the levels to pull this off. Is this the game experience you're looking for? Then by all means, throw overpowered monsters at your players as you please.

[Tanarii]

I don't think it's your responsibility to do that.

It's a good idea to tell players you don't ensure that they'll face fair fights in your character creation doc or in session zero, verbally at the beginning of the first session, and periodically before sessions begin.

Partially because many modern games have trained players to believe that the game will be set up to give them a solid chance to win any encounter they face.

Partially because many DMs have trained players to believe that character death and TPKs are bad, because story, m'kay?

And lastly because they can't see their characters. It's all abstract and in the imagination. It's hard to feel in danger.

Problem is that many games have very poor rules for routs and fleeing, especially when combined to initiative. The near certainty they'll get backstabbed kinda trains the players to never flee.

Yep. It's a big problem, especially in most editions of D&D. Even if you recognize you're outmatched immediately, if you want to escape you basically need a higher movement, magic, or DM handwavium. There's a reason the technique used to be "distract the enemy into giving up" by dropping food or treasure behind you as you flee.

[Lorsa]

I think this article might actually offer some insights hidden inside the overuse of words:

https://theangrygm.com/ask-angry-run-away/

[jjordan]

Video game thinking. Players can't reach the Boss unless they have proven capable of overcoming lesser obstacles. Any creature you can reach you can, in theory, kill if you just find 'the trick'. In the relatively rare cases that don't work along this line players learn that specific creatures can't be killed by dying and respawning multiple times.

I don't like the idea of putting unwinnable encounters in their path. I'm 100% behind the idea of there being unwinnable encounters. The difference is that they were led to the former by the DM and expected to run away. I call that railroading. And I'm saying that mostly without any pejorative connotations. Nothing wrong with a pre-defined story arc if that's what everyone is on board for. In the second case the players had the option of forcing the encounter at that time and chose to do so. I would feel mild regret at their deaths but would move on.

It sounds like your players aren't on board for the story arc. Have you talked to them about this? Have you explicitly said that not all encounters are winnable?

To specifically address your question with some suggestions:
-Dust a character. In the first round of combat have the creatures go nova on a single character (the most apparent threat) and absolutely destroy it. Character is down and dead? Monsters have more attacks? They murder the body until there is nothing left to attack; it's dust, a smear on the wall.
-End the encounter. Give your boss encounters some means of ending the encounter dismissively. Bah. Walls or doors. Teleportation. Deception (e.g. a sudden call for urgent help elsewhere that turns out to be fake).
-Give the players a reason to leave other than fleeing for their lives. E.G. a victim to get out of there, important information that must be returned to the authorities, a sudden call for urgent help from elsewhere

[Ornithologist]

My favorite scenario regarding showing off a major antagonist in regards to power level, is to have the villian completing a task or aquiring something around the party. Most villians don't need to murder all the witnesses, more so during games in a dungeon or out side of any towns. The villain can waltz in, overpower the party as needed to complete the objective and leave. Maybe butcher the guardian they were fighting? (Actually, think of the Fryon fight that introduced Xykon to Roy's Dad. Thats a pretty good set up too, if not quite like I set up.)

Or you could have a room or two of a total grisley murder scenes before the place where they meet him as he is in the middle of grisley murder scene number 3, where hs is murdering something the players klnow is more powerful than they can deal with. And he is taking no damage.

Your cleric gets several omens to not fight the thing coming up soon? (Durkon vs Miko)

OOC knowledge that this is the introduction of the main villan before hand, and they should have fun with it themselves so they can RP a bit playing up their characters side of it? (I think this is the least elegant way of doing this kind of thing, but it depends on the group. Some groups have I have run with have done several scenarios with some preknowledge of the outcome, and some would just fall apart with that same amount of it.) On a related note, look up Fiasco for an RPG session. You can start a given scene either knowing how the story starts or wether or not you your character comes out with a success or failure. Lots of people new to it focus on getting their characters successes, even though the point of the game is explore the story of how everyone failes horribly.

[Mordaedil]

nearly unheard of in video games (unwinnable bosses in those games are usually getting whopped and then some deus ex machina lets the player party get away)

Literally the first boss in Dark Souls (well, without using black firebombs anyway).