this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
178 points (99.4% liked)
RPGMemes
15917 readers
380 users here now
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Do you need a specific game mechanic for that? Surrender, being a type of talking, is a free action.
Given how many people post questions about how to handle parties losing conflicts, I'd say yes.
Also it operates at the out-of-chatacter level. It's not the character conceding, it's the player. This allows for solutions like "they shoot me and I fall into the river, where I'll wash up somewhere by evening". It's not always an in-character surrender.
You can't really surrender to all things, too, such as wolves, zombies, or an avalanche.
Sure but the problem is usually that the players fought to the death... Against monsters that think you go good with ketchup.
Not really, I suppose. But having it explicit can help players realize they have the option.
"Concede" is also handy for situations where a player feels that their character winning this particular battle would be out of character.
It's a particularly helpful rule for cases where the player wants their character to do something particularly foolish, maybe to reach a specific story outcome, but still wants some influence on the final outcome.
It can go along the lines of:
Player: My character doesn't have the brains to not start this fight, but even if we roll lucky and win this, it would feel broken. Can I roll an attack and then immediately concede?
GM: Sure. What would that look like?
Player: What if my character is disarmed somehow?
Etc.
I've seen where a few outcomes get discussed, and if the group doesn't have a strong favorite, we just ranked them in order of luck, and then determined the full encounter with a quick single roll.