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So, for plot purposes, I have an encounter that I'm designing that the players won't be able to win the fight. It's an assassin who ambushes them and captures them alive before an imperial inquisitor shows up. Later on, and not much later on, the party will be able to really fight the assassin. With this in mind, should I keep the players from fighting the assassin the first time, and just make it a roleplayed fight as the assassin launches his ambush and disables them quickly? As a player, would you prefer to have the chance to fight if you're not going to win, or would you feel cheated?

Players need to feel like they had a chance going into the fight, use legal mechanics to beat them and you'll have less chance of them cutting up rough about it.
e.g. give the assassin a bunch of strong lackies firing high dmg stun weapons with devastating attack to hit them down the condition track, which still giving them the chance to fire back and do damage to the assassin. this way in a fair fight they could out damage the assassin and win, but in this fight the stun condition track attacks are going to take them down before they can take the Assassin down.

also leaves them feeling like they could have won because if they feel like the Assassin can't be killed you won't draw them into a fight with the Assassin next time. They'll either run or find a cheap way to kill the Assassin, like blowing up the ship they're on, or spacing the assassin by venting a ship etc.

The way I envisioned doing it, was making it an unfair fight in the first place. Like he drops into the middle of them from the ceiling while they're doing something else, and stuns them a lot from the midst of them. Not sure if that'll work, but thanks for your perspective, that's certainly another way of thinking through it that may change how I setup the encounter.

If the assassin can set up the ambush ahead of time, then all sorts of dirty options are at your disposal. Could the assassin find out that the heroes are in a conference room? Lock the doors and pump poisonous gas in. Does the assassin know where the heroes sleep? Have a droid drop a few kouhuns in their bedrooms. If the assassin could realistically set up traps and other things to ambush the heroes, do it. It slants the odds in favor of the assassin, and if your heroes are thinking in character, they might wonder how long the assassin was following and watching them. Might make them paranoid about stuff they do in the future.

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Blue/Black

I'm both selfish and rational. I'm scheming, secretive and manipulative; I use knowledge as a tool for personal gain, and in turn obtaining more knowledge. At best, I am mysterious and stealthy; at worst, I am distrustful and opportunistic.

Personally, I hate getting beat by stats.

If I were going into a scenario and the fight was going poorly, I'd be dropping every Destiny Point and Force Point I had to try to do the Underdog come-from-behind win. It's heroic, and the resources are there to do that.

It doesn't matter if the BBEG is +6 levels over me; if I burn every Destiny Point I have I can most certainly take them out with critical hits.

Now, if I find out afterwards that my GM scripted that fight to be a no-win scenario, and ran me and my teammates through it and we burned all those one-time resources on a fight we couldn't win, "pissed" doesn't quite cover my displeasure.

I would much rather the GM describe a scene where we all go into a room and the floor sparks with electricity, shocking us all 5 steps down the condition track or something to that effect. Then I know my GM is railroading the encounter from the beginning, and will likely give us a shot to confront our captors later on.

But that's me. Your player's mileages may vary.

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Current Co-Host of All Wings Report In, the Official Podcast of the Rebel Legion SW costuming club
Order 66 Contributor: Fragments From the Rim - BLOG UPDATED EVERY THURSDAY

I tend to agree with DarthGM. If you actually run a fight, that tells me -- as a player -- that I'm supposed to win, or at least do something special. I'll pull out all the stops, assuming that failure means death and any other outcome, like capture, represents the GM going easy on me when I failed.

If the players are meant to be overcome, put them in a no-win scenario, like the aforementioned knockout gas vent or shocking floor mats. I would suggest not even giving the players a reaction -- "As the door closes, you hear the snap of a mag-lock field activating over it, and vents in the ceiling start to puff a plume pale green gas. As your vision goes hazy..." etc.

Some players may be unhappy with that kind of thing, but it's much, MUCH better than letting them run around while you roll Fortitude attacks each turn and the Jedi starts burning his force points to hit Equilibrium over and over and you have to make up reasons why he can't lightsaber through the floor and the scoundrel can't block up the gas jets and they can't use that device or ability you forgot about to smash the window and make a daring escape.

Players hate being told "No, you can't" and "that doesn't work, I don't care what the rulebook says". They'll call shenanigans on you and they'll be right to do so.

Probably the best way to handle this is as the end of a session. Give the PCs some goal or mission that they do accomplish, so they feel like they had their victory, then in the wrap up narration, you tell them how they fall unconsious, and then the session ends. Next time the game opens on them in prison or what-have-you.

DON'T DO IT!

Did this exact same thing, worst adventure ever. If you must, just have the vlain escape. Make it so he brings down maybe one hero then runs; they can give chase if they must, but he willhave an unfair head start and be able to take them out. Overall, though, NOT a good idea

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Duct tape is like the Force; it has two sides and binds the galaxy together.

This is an excellent idea. Turn it into a cliffhangar plot device, rather than a GM "I Win" button. The players will understand that this was meant to happen when you call for the end of the session, and if they are in the "cinematic" mood that Star Wars affords, they shouldn't be too broken up about it.

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I fully agree with DarthGM and Darth Pseudonym. If you want to do it, then make sure that the players know that it was meant to happen and that it's part of the narration. Think of all the movies you see where the main characters get captured or knocked out. It's quick and decisive and it should be that way in your game as well. I think making it at the end of a session is a great idea, especially since it will get the players excited about where their characters will wake up in the next session.

I can also see some players fighting you on this regardless of how it's done. While I'd like to think that the players would realize it's about the narration, I can see some getting upset that they weren't allowed to make their Perception checks to avoid it or whatnot. So use your best judgment if you plan on doing it out of the blue.

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Thanks for the advice everyone, it's very appreciated and given me a lot of ideas. I don't think I'll be able to arrange this for an end of the encounter, just because of how the plot is laid out, but I definitely agree with the idea of narrating it, now that I've heard from everyone else. Hopefully I can arrange all this in such a way that my players enjoy themselves rather than become frustrated. Appreciate it muchly!

Good luck.

It's a tricky thing to pull off, but if you do it right, your PCs will be talking about it for DECADES.

I still have some of my old WEG players breaking out the war story of how I had them rail-road captured, placed in a Star Destroyer Detention Block, and the antics they pulled to bust out.

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Current Co-Host of All Wings Report In, the Official Podcast of the Rebel Legion SW costuming club
Order 66 Contributor: Fragments From the Rim - BLOG UPDATED EVERY THURSDAY

Great stuff, and I'm glad to see that some people don't nerf their games. Feel free to take my advice or forget it as you wish.

I'm too old school a player and a GM not to think for the purposes of story, that occasionally putting the characters between a rock and a hard place isn't an interesting way to up the danger quotient by a few notches. Still, it's a trick best used sparingly.

Some suggestions I have, as somebody who has done this with several gaming groups over the years, using several different systems:

1. Make sure its clear to players up front, that you are not a touchy-feely, D&D 3rd/4th Ed "every encounter must be perfectly balanced or the PCs world will spin off its axis" style of GM. If they're clear that encounters can be unbalanced (and not always against the players either), it becomes a much richer game. It's OK to scare the fecal matter out of the players. It's also OK to give them a cakewalk once in a while too, just as long as they know both can happen from time to time.

2. Don't be afraid to telegraph that the characters are in an unwinnable fight. If they kill half a dozen super battle droids, but see about 300 more getting ready to come at them in waves, its probably time the PCs consider bugging out.

3. Think waves of enemies, not just a single enemy. It's hard to understate just how much gobs of Destiny Points in the hands of a group of PCs can stack the deck against a single, or even a pair, of much higher level enemies, if they've each got half a dozen Destiny Points to blow. Give me a group of 4 PCs with half a dozen Destiny Points each, and I can take out just about any 20th Level character you can stack them up against. Give them wave after wave of lesser enemies, not a small force of powerful ones.

4. Give the players multiple escape routes. The goal isn't a TPK. The goal is to heighten dramatic tension, to give the sense that the bad guys are playing for keeps. It stands to reason that you want to give the players multiple possible exits so that it doesn't become a TPK.

5. Make it clear to PCs that surrender and retreat are perfectly viable options. Surrender is an escape route. Retreat is an escape route. Dramatic escapes, even prison/jail breaks are as big a part of Star Wars as lightsaber battles and starfighter combat. In fact, one of the major characters is being rescued, or escaping from captivity at some point in all six films, as well as numerous video games, EU novels, etc. If it's good enough for George Lucas, Timothy Zahn, Mike Stackpole, Lawrence Kasdan, and a host of others, it's good enough for your group.

6. Don't draw from the well too often. Unless you've got a group of players who would rather take a TPK than retreat, you can probably go to the well of the unwinnable fight once, maybe twice, in the course of a campaign. Much more than that, and even the most patient of player groups will probably get frustrated.

I encourage you to try it. Just remember to be flexible, and always give your players options.

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Greedo never shot.

Ask your players before the encounter what they want to do. Be clear that they are more than likely not going to prevail, however you want to know if they want cinematic or to roll it out. I have had a few GM's do this before, more times than not we rolled it out and lost(but the point is we were given the choice rather than feel needlessly railroaded).

I've never seen the point of the unwinnable fight.

This goes back to the sort of base concept of the rules: You don't roll if it's not dramatically appropriate. You don't roll to see if you notice a bum on the corner unless the bum is actually an assassin. You don't roll to see if you can drive to the supermarket. You don't roll to break a lamp unless there's some kind of time constraint and penalty for failing.

What's the point of rolling for a fight that you're intending to be unwinnable? You may as well just say to the players: "The door opens to reveal a legion of battle droids. This is cearly not a fight you can win -- what do you do?"

Why beat around the bush and hope the players get the message?


What? The goal IS a TPK (or capture, rather than kill, but -- a wipe one way or the other). "...an assassin who ambushes them and captures them alive before an imperial inquisitor shows up."

I'm going to guess that not a whole lot of Call of Cthulhu games get played at Darth Pseudonym's house. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, of course.



And this is where you and I differ. Sometimes, such a scene, or such an result can be dramatically appropriate.

Let me put it this way. Why would anybody want to watch the second half of Revenge of the Sith? The heroes basically spend the last hour of that film getting their a**es handed to them. Not only that, but the GM (Lucas) basically narrated the outcome of it back in 1977 (or 1976, if you read the novelization), so it's not exactly going to come as a surprise to anyone. I certainly don't understand if someone hates the concept of a good guy losing why they'd ever want to watch the film...unless something else is driving that desire.



You do if the bum witnessed the assassination, and is one eager face in a crowd of a hundred behind a police line. Otherwise, you probably don't even mention the bum in the first place, since he's not dramatically important to the scene. One bum on a street corner with no story responsibility doesn't compare to the dramatic weight of a boatload of battle droids.

Because it may not look unwinnable at the beginning. Because narration of a fight often isn't as dramatically powerful as watching or participating in the fight itself (otherwise, why would anybody buy minis and battlemats?) If I wanted to narrate fights, I might as well write a novel.

I will say, in the instances where I've used this tactic, I usually will hand players back at least most of the resources they've burnt (in Star Wars terms, DP/FPs). The point as a GM isn't to be a jerk, it's to heighten tension. If it doesn't heighten tension or advance the plot in some way, I agree, it's not worth doing.



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EDIT: OK. I see something I missed here. Yes, the stated goal was to capture in the original post. Frankly, I think this makes it even more compelling to play it out as an encounter. If the players are going to be miffed at you for putting them in an unwinnable fight that risks a Total Party Kill, they're going to be doubly miffed at you for reading a paragraph of box text that ends with the words: "you're captured."

I'll leave the rest of the post unedited.
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OK. Definition time. TPK=Total Party Kill. Capture is not a kill. Surrender is not a kill. Fighting your way through enough of the mob to get back to your ship and get out of Dodge City isn't a kill. A heroic escape from the Detention Center that follows the surrender (and advances the plot at the same time with something the characters learn in captivity) certainly isn't a kill.

I'm not saying use it as a tactic a lot (it would get real old, real fast, just like any other plot device). And I sure wouldn't use it more than once in a particular campaign, and certainly not every campaign.

Still, why limit your bag of tricks as a GM? Why do the characters have to win every fight? Why does every encounter have to be balanced? Why not give the characters a cakewalk once in a while as a change up? Why not kick their a**es once in a while to let them know the bad guys are playing for keeps? Why pull punches when dramatically punches shouldn't be pulled?

Certainly, you want the characters to win the LAST fight in a campaign (and indeed, the vast majority of them), but if the PCs are always going to win over the threat du jure, and go into the fight with confidence that they're going to win, then you're back to the bad old days of those gawd-awful post-Zahn, post-Stackpole EU novels from the latter Bantam Spectra days, where you're dealing with the superweapon of the week that never works right, the inept Imperial Moff that can't remember his left foot from his right foot, but is somehow this visceral threat to the New Republic, and oh no, the fracking Solo twins have been kidnapped again. I wouldn't want to read those novels again, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to run one of them as a game.

What it comes down to here, I think, is a difference in GM styles between you and me, Darth Pseudonym. And one isn't any more right or wrong than the other, since the bottom line is what makes the game fun for you and your players (and conversely, me and mine).

The truth is, I run dark, gritty, games. My games tend to be very political, with lots of competing factions, and hidden agendas, and a serious difficulty sometimes in distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys until at least Act III. I run a lot of horror. I run a lot of film-noir inspired stuff (heck, even my Star Wars games have dark sensibilities). If I ran my players through a light, Tolkeinesque fantasy campaign, they'd wonder who had abducted their normal GM and replaced him with his good twin.

To put it bluntly, I haven't worked Yog-Sothoth into a Star Wars game yet, but it's not to say I haven't thought about it (Luke Skywalker and the Dark Young from Shub-Nigguroth, maybe?)

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Greedo never shot.