[RPG] How to make running away interesting/engaging

gm-techniquespathfinder-1e

In many role-playing games, and especially Pathfinder, combat is interesting and engaging because (among other things) players have a lot of options to choose from. When it comes to other aspects of the game, however, it is often reduced to rolling one single skill check, or to keep repeating the same one or two skill checks for as long as the situation lasts.

The chase rules from the core books are interesting, but I find two problems with them: 1) They don't seem to offer a big variety of options. Often it just comes down to choosing the skill with a highest chance of success of the two, unless there is a good chance of overcoming both checks, 2) They imply that both parties will follow roughly the same route and that the chaser knows exactly where the chased are. So I find them lacking to simulate cases in which the party wants to escape someone looking for them who doesn't quite know where they are, for instance.

How can I give players more options during a running away scene in order to make it an interesting scene?

Although Pathfinder is the system I'm working with here, I'm okay with system agnostic answers.

Best Answer

There is a mechanic that you could adapt from Blades in the Dark (at least, I think it was Blades in the Dark, it's been a while). Basically, instead of asking everybody to run Athletics and be done with it, you tell them that they need to achieve a given amount successes in order to escape. The way they achieve them is totally up to the players, but they can't just mindlessly repeat the same action, they need to try different things each time.

For instance, you could tell a group running away from a monster that the monster is really on their heels and they need four successes to escape. You can even draw four squares on a bit of paper and check one off every time they achieve a success.

Probably they are going to start by trying to outrun the monster, they might roll athletics and succeed, then you check one square off and say "alright, you've put some distance between you and the monster, but it's still running after you, what do you want to try now?" Now they might try to hide from the monster, set it on a false trail, or disguise themselves to scary it off. The more things they try, the more crazy ideas they are going to come up with, and you can always ask them to narrate each action if you want some more juice (if they say that they try to appear scary to scare off the monster, ask them to describe how they are doing it, not only roll dice).

This mechanic can, of course, be used for any other kind of challenges, not only running away from scary creatures.

To make it more interesting, a critical success can count for two and a critical failure can set the party one success back.

Active opposition

There are at least three ways you can go if you want to add active opposition to this mechanic.

  • Add a challenge for the opposition. The opposition needs to achieve a given amount of successes, like the party. It can be the same or a different amount, but keep track of it separately from the party's. Whoever achieves all the required successes first, wins the challenge. This works better if both sides are trying to achieve the same goal, like a race or an athletic competition.

  • Make the opposition set the players back. The opposition might do some actions that, if they succeed, add one more success to the amount required by the players. For instance, in the running away example, the monster might trigger an avalanche to cut the player's escape route. Then you would draw one more square in the paper with the amount of successes required for the challenge.

  • Add a time limit. If the party don't overcome them in a given amount of rounds, the opposition wins. The opposition is not really actively preventing the party, but the end result is not too different.

If I recall correctly, the first one is in the rules for Blades in the Dark, but the second one isn't, because the system puts a strong focus on the players driving the action. If you want to use the second option, I recommend to do so sparsely, and in any case I wouldn't make the opposition make actions that may set back the players more than once or twice for challenges that are not already difficult.

Related Topic