A game that cannot be Won.

>>54977347
>The game is all about trying to prolong that fight as best you can and make the best of what you have
You can still "win" this game then. Obviously it wouldn't count as a win in real life terms, but you can still give your players a success/failure trigger. Using your Alamo example: you need to hold the fort for at least 24 hours to buy time for the reserves to muster up so they can be ready for the coming counter-attack. The less you hold the the less likely they can be ready before the enemy preemptively strikes. Holding for longer increases the chances of your allies winning even more. PCs still die in the end, but you can still give your players something to be proud about accomplishing and maintain tension since there is more to lose than just your lives which you have already lost in this scenario effectively.

>>54977347
Sooo... rougelike?

>>54977347
Delta Green is like this, although for the long term. Humanity will never truly "win", but your group might be able to...for a moment.

>>54977347
Sounds like an average Only War campaign?
Or DH.

Keep fighting heretics and xenos as long as you can, until it all catches up with you.

So dread?
Or any horror game for that matter?

I'd be up to play a game like that, but it depends entirely how our inevitable lose is presented. If it's just "lol you can try but you're just so doomed you might as well give up now", then no, I'd hate it. There needs to be something to fight for. But if it's "look, you're probably not gonna win, but you sure as hell can go down fighting" than I'm more interested.

I'm imagining protecting a city from a vast, seemingly endless army. Long term defense, each day getting harder and harder. But the victories come in helping your fellow soldiers, getting families out of the city where you can, making someone's inevitable doom just a little bit brighter. That sort of small victory stuff that makes your sacrifice seem worth it.

>>54977347
>2017
>Believing in unwinnable scenarios
ISHYGDDT

>>54977347
Sounds like WoD to me. At least if you ST is running it right.

>>54978659
Not OP, but I almost imagine it like an old unwinable arcade game. Just keep starting new sessions and try to last longer then last time.

We played a campaign where our party was trying to stop an invading army. While that was happening one game our DM told us we would take command on the commanders of a city. We didn't know it but it was an unwinnable fight. It was awesome and culminated in a final stand with the 4 of us holding the last tower in the city before succumbing to numbers.

Next session our party came through the same city. Pretty memorable campaign

File: kobayashi maru.jpg (9KB, 259x194px) Image search: [Google]

9KB, 259x194px

>>54977347

Thread's almost 5 hours old and nobody's mentioned Star Trek or the Kobayashi Maru?

>>54981325

Or even Dwarf Fortress.

>>54977347
I'm trying to do something similar with my group. The short version of it is that something in the realm of ~80% of a continent's orc population is making it's way across the sea to conquer the "old world", and are to be landing in ever increasing waves along a coastline about 70 miles long. This is an invasion horde the likes of which the realms have never seen, with even the lowliest warrior a veteran of an already greater war.

Most of the players only know is that there's gonna be lots of orcs coming in real quick, and it's going to be a very hard fought war to deny them. Only one of my players has any real clue as to whats going down, and thats because he essentially caused it in the first place.

>>54977347
There's a pretty fun rules-lite game called "We're All Going To Die" where all of the players but one will eventually die. Short, easy to run, casual stuff. It's good for introducing players or sessions missing people.