When encountering a hostile force, a group of PCs can:
- Fight
- Avoid
- Flee
- Negotiate
- Trick
- Suborn
- Call Reinforcements
First Thought: When you’re designing a scenario, just give a couple seconds of thought to how a group of NPCs might react to each stratagem. If something particularly clever occurs to you, jot it down and perhaps restructure the scenario to better support it.
Second Thought: When NPCs encounter a hostile force (i.e., the PCs) they can have the same reactions. Think about it.
What exactly do you mean by ‘suborn’?
I’m using it in the sense of suborning a spy: To get them to betray their faction or to even team-up with the PCs.
I was wondering what had happened that you’d close comments on this post.
I wanted to say, can’t some of these options be folded into each other for a more compact list? “Suborn” falls under “negotiate,” according to how I see it, at least — has to, in fact. “Flee” is a specific kind of avoidance, drawing a distinction within the broader category between “before coming face-to-face,” and “after.” (And if you object to subcategories, then you’d have to greatly expand other categories, e.g. “fight” would spawn “snipe,” “ambush” and “charge.”) And especially “call reinforcements” can’t stand on its own. You call reinforcements to aid in a fight, lend weight to your side in negotiations, back you up or provide resources for a trick, etc.
On the other hand, you could also stand to add “intimidate” — present such an obvious threat that the other side tries to accomodate to you. Nu?