Is it bullshit to put the PCs up against a monster they cannot

>>50726353
I don't think so, but you have to be wary of the temperament of your players. If you have a bunch of potential whiners, it's best to hold off on that sort of thing in case you just piss them off.

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>>50726353
If you plan on doing it, say in a dream or something, make damn sure they will lose. I once played in a game where we were supposed to have a dream of an attack in the camp we were at. We were supposed to lose and then gather forces to prepare for the attack, but being the somewhat power players that most of us were, we were able to single handedly defeat the attackers. Luckily it didn't throw the campaign off too much, but it could have.
Also, some players just can't or refuse to recognize an unwinnable fight and will press on regardless, sometimes to spite the GM, so knowing you players and their tendencies could be key

>>50726353
>I wouldn't use it in an encounter where they could die (unless they did something stupid
Then It's fine. Just make sure your players UNDERSTAND they're not supposed to fight the thing.

>>50726860
What this guy said.

I've done this sort of thing before, but I always went out of my way to make sure that my players understood that running away was a real option here.

>>50726353
It also matters how avoidable the encounter is, and how well it fits into your campaign's story.

Do they players know that there's a seriously powerful monster/villain on the loose, and that this thing might be coming for them? If so, then such an unwinnable encounter can make for a great "oh shit"-moment.

Or if your players are murderhobo dicks who need some trolling, then you can also throw in some avoidable yet very much unwinnable encounters.

I once prepared a session where my players would come across a hybernating black dragon. The whole thing was set up so that they would've had to go out of their way if they wanted to wake the damn thing - but if they *would* have been stupid enough to just that, they really would have ended up facing that dragon. And mind you, this was a level 2 party.

>>50726353

No, but many immature players, (i.e., the majority of all players) will either be too stupid to run or avoid it, or will whine about it.

Players have been based in a town or city. They have a couple of small adventures and level up a couple times from its area. A perfect storm occurs where a cultist wizard uses a high-level spell to put the town to sleep while he goes after his own goals within the town. His plans get cut short when the Tarrasque shows up and is heading straight for him. He nopes out, and his spell gets dropped. The players wake up with the Tarrasque right outside. Boat loads of smaller monsters are popping off of it. Players have to escape the city while fighting the tiny monsters while the Tarrasque stomps through, blocking paths with rubble.

The townspeople create encampments outside the ruins, and are now vulnerable to the roaving monsters and goblins and orcs that live nearby.

Now players have several leads for stories: Who was the wizard and can we kill him? What was the wizard after? Why did the Tarrasque come after them? While players are investigating all this, they must deal with the town's defense and potentially help the rebuilding or relocation. They become community leaders as the best defense and resource the town has left.

Or they can bugger off and chase the Tarrasque. Whatever they want.

Just make it clear there's no way they'll beat the thread.

If your players have been fighting wolves in a forest, make them fight a giant as tall as the highest trees in the forest.

If your players have been fighting dragons, make them fight the fucking Tarrasque.

You have to make it clear that:
1) the monster is far above their "power level"
2) you won't hold their hand or save them if they fuck up

This might come easier if your players are familiar with RPG systems like the Lovecraftian inspired ones.

>>50729916
>threat

My bad.

A lot of players expect to be able to kill anything the GM puts in front of them, and will get upset if their brilliant tactic of "stand directly in front of it and take turns attacking it one at a time" results in a party wipe.

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>>50726353
A lot of gamers are taught by the game, stand and fight.

Because if you try and run? You fucking die. Most PC races, using D&D as an example, have a footspeed of 30ft per round. A lot of shit, and I mean a LOT of shit, has more. There is no escape.

So if you're going to do this, be sure you talk to the players ahead of time, and put emphasis on the fact that they can run from things. You'll reward creativity like that, and won't just mindlessly run them down and gut them.

>>50730180

>Because if you try and run? You fucking die. Most PC races, using D&D as an example, have a footspeed of 30ft per round. A lot of shit, and I mean a LOT of shit, has more. There is no escape.

.t retard

But maybe it's not your fault. Maybe you're used to playing in shitty games where your enemies have 0 motivation other than to try to kill the PCs and provide loot and XP in doing so. And even then, there's all sorts of things the characters can do to facilitate flight, from having mounts, to concealing or speed magic, to actually teleporting or shifting to another plane of existence on the high end of the magical scale in DnD. Unless you're in a featureless flat plain, there's probably some kind of cover to work with or around.

For the rest of us, the enemies that the PCs fight are actually minor characters in their own right, and have motivations. A monster in its lair that hasn't been looking for a fight probably isn't going to chase the intruders who are already fleeing. Same goes for most animals attacking the party.
1/2

>>50730180
>>50730314
If the enemies are attacking out of some sort of financial incentive, bandits and the like, they will probably stop and loot if the PCs drop something valuable. If they're defending a critical point, they probably won't want to leave it unguarded to go chase after PCs (although they might alert their confederates).

You might have a diverse mob of enemies, whose boss doesn't want to let them get away from him and thus need to keep together, not go chasing pell mell after adventurers whom might do something as breathaking as splitting up as they flee.

And there's the fact that most creatures or humanoid people aren't actually looking for fights to the death in search of loot; that's why there aren't that many adventurers in the first place. Just because they have the upper hand and won a round doesn't mean they'll necessarily want to push their luck. They're also not omniscient. They don't know what kind of resources or confederates you guys might have out of sight if they're just random encounter pieces with no actual focus on the PCs.

The possibilities are endless. If you think flight is impossible because the monsters are generally faster than the PCs, you've been playing shitty games.

>>50730314
>Same goes for most animals attacking the party

You've never been chased by wild animals, have you

Well the main dungeon closest to the biggest city in our setting is slightly reworked Tomb of Horrors.

The characters are mostly level 1 shitters with 1d6 hits. It is generally agreed that nothing in the dungeon can be fought.

>>50726353
You don't use these monsters as combat encounters. You use them as bigger problems to solve, and to force them to be creative.

When your answer to everything is to fight it and kill it, what do you do when that isn't an option?

What about the towns and cities that are in threat?

Even if they're selfish and concerned for their own safety, it's not as easy as you might think with other refugees and general landscape destruction as a factor.

There's a pretty deadly system I like to play, and its taught my players that running away is perfectly viable. There are no real levels either. Sometimes strange flora and fauna are just going to kill you. Sometimes it's not worth it to fight to the last man. Sometimes it's just about surviving another day.