this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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[–] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Do you need a specific game mechanic for that? Surrender, being a type of talking, is a free action.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Sure but the problem is usually that the players fought to the death... Against monsters that think you go good with ketchup.

[–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Do you need a specific game mechanic for that?

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.