The possibility/ability to Surrender

[Orko]

I always wondered why everyone in games fight till the end. Why does no one try to surrender? Dont't they want to live?

It should be possible that enemys try to surrender to you. Also you should habve the option to offer a truce or to surrender. Ofcours should have these grave consequences for you depending to who you yield, even death.
Success rate should be bound to karma.
So if we get known to be decent guys enemys should try to "wave a white flag" if they notice we are way to powerfull for them. But if we ignore them it cold hurt our reputation.
I thought about that since i saw them in Skyrim to should i surrender and such but it didn't matter there.

I would love to run into way to strong enemy surrender to them and they inprison me. And i get an option like in Pirates (Try escape/sit it out).

But dont make it ovet the top succesfull it should be more like a last option and very low success reate. On the other hand would it be very nice if you get caugt stealing and have that option.

[Jipez]

Only game, that I know of, where you can surrender is Heroes of Might and Magic 3. When you surrendered, you lost an amount of money based on the size of your army and then you could buy your hero and his/her army back.

Maybe in Wasteland 2 it could work the same way. You surrender, you lose some of your money and equipment and get sent to closest place of civilization.

Who knows. Maybe this would work

Edit: However if you raise a fight in a city and surrender, they could kick your sorry ass out and wouldn't let you in anymore There are infinite amount of possibilities!

[RyuVsJaquio]

Mainly because this is post apocalyptic America not the freaking Geneva Convention...

[CommanderJ]

Hnnnhh. Maybe in very specific circumstances. Attempting to surrender to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or to slavers would be relatively pointless.

[Jipez]

Mainly because this is post apocalyptic America not the freaking Geneva Convention...

But bullets are always useful If you see a white flag raising from the ruins you wouldn't say: "Fuck that shit, let's keep firing at them for another hour until we've spent half of our ammunition."

Hnnnhh. Maybe in very specific circumstances. Attempting to surrender to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or to slavers would be relatively pointless.

Of course, there could be some humorous line or two after surrendering to slavers.

[Radicals]

Hnnnhh. Maybe in very specific circumstances. Attempting to surrender to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or to slavers would be relatively pointless.

Imagine this:

2 wandering nomads come across each other, wearing opposing colours/flags/insignia. They start a firefight and are quickly running out of ammo. One of them decides to play a bluff; he holds up a radio and says he has called for his friends to join im (or for the local troopers, or a bounty hunter, etc...) he does this because he is running out of ammo and has 3 bullets left in his .357 rusty old magnum.

The other guy thinks...He is running out of ammo fast too, and is nursing a shoulder wound. He surrenders. He says "Take what you want, I'm just looking for shelter, I don't want any more trouble." Praying the guy will let him live.

The guy with the radio agrees, and says to throw down, and that if he surrenders, he will only take his money and let him go.

I don't know about you, but I can see this happening in real life; sometimes there are better ways to solve problems, and not everyone is an evil bastard!

[Vryheid]

Mainly because this is post apocalyptic America not the freaking Geneva Convention...

So what? If I was robbing someone in an RPG and they offered to give me all their money if I left them without a fight, I know I would definitely consider it. If I submit to a guard, I'd expect to be thrown in jail rather than executed on the spot. Submission/surrender means that there will be more depth to morality than having an entire town try to kill you because you stole somebody's pet rock.

The OP has a great idea and I hope the developers integrate something like this into the game.

[geezer]

I think this is a great idea. It was great fun in Castle Wolfenstein. You could empty their gun of bullets and they couldn't shoot you anymore. It was hilarious. I always wondered why they dropped that mechanic in Wolfenstein 3D and presumably RtCW. It gets a definite thumbs up from me. I'm not sure how it could be implemented though. You'd obviously have to fit it into the existing combat structure somehow. Probably a % chance should be involved with the attempt of getting an enemy to surrender when you've obviously got him dead to rights or if his hit points get sufficiently low. Obviously it would only work with intelligent creatures, humanoid or robot. Getting a robot to surrender to you sounds particularly fun. You might also have some random chance of successfully enslaving them or something like that. Okay. That's probably too complicated, but some simple surrender mechanic does sound intriguing.

[Pharo]

The only game I've played with this mechanic is Lords of Magic. Still I like the idea, surrender if you have no other option and they have their way with you or your inventory or your guys might get a chance to escape. Not sure that I'd ever use the feature since I'm the kill or be killed sort of gamer, but the idea is pretty solid.

[Orko]

This brings so many possibilitys. Think of this situation.

You are tasked to bring down some rapist. You corner him exchange some rounds and the weak shit calls out to you "I surrender"
Since you dont want to waste more ammunition on that worhles beeing you say ok. He comes out of cover and you just shoot him.

Now you have somone in your party that is a very lawful beeing and ojects to you and an argument starts. Whitch maybe even escolates into a shooting in your own group....

The posibilitys to make the world more belivable are endless

cuppled with an good karma system, this situation maybe could have never accurded to somone who always robs and kills.
This could have been a situation of a player who was till than always a upstanding guy who helped everyone.

[infestor]

i like the idea...but it may be hard to implement, maybe?

[Postapo]

Unless were talking about town militia(drop the term "town guards", makes you think of a fantasy setting) or a couple goody-two-shoes npcs, surrendering would mostly mean execution a couple moments later after you're disarmed already. There is no reason to let someone go after he saw your face and could resuply and go after you and his old equipment - that'll be the common reasoning.

Also rape. You think it's realistic for a bunch of degenerates to let a female npc go? Hell, they'd rape the men as well if they had a "purdy mouth".

[Tanglebones]

Unless were talking about town militia(drop the term "town guards", makes you think of a fantasy setting) or a couple goody-two-shoes npcs, surrendering would mostly mean execution a couple moments later after you're disarmed already. There is no reason to let someone go after he saw your face and could resuply and go after you and his old equipment - that'll be the common reasoning.

Also rape. You think it's realistic for a bunch of degenerates to let a female npc go? Hell, they'd rape the men as well if they had a "purdy mouth".

I don't know that surrendering needs to mean disarming. Like, what if you both decide to back away slowly with your weapons pointed at each other. I think it's realistic to sometimes come to a point in a fight where you're like, "Ok, odds are, I kill you, odds are you kill me... let's not test it." Whether it'd be practical to implement or not is another matter, but I think it's a nifty idea if its possible.

I think there's also room for enemies who you would never surrender to, your "bunch of degenerates," and for enemies who would never surrender to you, like robots who're programmed to kill, or drug fiends out of their head on snake squeezins.

[Akira28]

In the Wasteland, if you drop your guns, I'll just pick them up and shoot you with them, to conserve my ammo.

(I don't know about surrendering, but I remember running away from a fight when I had no other options. Otherwise you could have a set where it's an option of an enemy to surrender, but as the Player Character surrendering? I don't really see it.)

[Postapo]

I don't know that surrendering needs to mean disarming. Like, what if you both decide to back away slowly with your weapons pointed at each other. I think it's realistic to sometimes come to a point in a fight where you're like, "Ok, odds are, I kill you, odds are you kill me... let's not test it." Whether it'd be practical to implement or not is another matter, but I think it's a nifty idea if its possible.

I think there's also room for enemies who you would never surrender to, your "bunch of degenerates," and for enemies who would never surrender to you, like robots who're programmed to kill, or drug fiends out of their head on snake squeezins.

In combat situations that's really rare, you don't want the enemy to know you're retreating (and you don't need his permission for it), they'll rush you and shoot your ass off. Generally there's no situation you'll "retreat slowly" while having your enemy at gunpoint, you'll shoot so he won't have the opportunity to change his mind while you're at his mercy as well and the exchange of fire will either end with someone ducking for cover or dieing.

Very specific situations, that don't demand a whole system for it, just some dialogue hp pool triggers for a couple named npcs and/or you while fighting them.

And really, common surrenders will make it look like an ONZ mission and likely destroy the feeling of risk and desperation while immersed.

[tyroie]

I adore this sort of idea - it's something that could happen occasionally that players wouldn't expect, and would really add to the believability of the NPCs. "I don't want to die!" And some very interesting story can sprout from that.

Edit: If you wanted to get fancy... You could try to cover the surrendering opponent with one character while you finish off the rest of the fight with the others. But if you just turned your back on him and assume he doesn't have another weapon hidden away, well...

[talkingcrows]

its a possibility,sure.I could see it,as long as there were consequences.

[Tanglebones]

In combat situations that's really rare, you don't want the enemy to know you're retreating (and you don't need his permission for it), they'll rush you and shoot your ass off. Generally there's no situation you'll "retreat slowly" while having your enemy at gunpoint, you'll shoot so he won't have the opportunity to change his mind while you're at his mercy as well and the exchange of fire will either end with someone ducking for cover or dieing.

Very specific situations, that don't demand a whole system for it, just some dialogue hp pool triggers for a couple named npcs and/or you while fighting them.

And really, common surrenders will make it look like an ONZ mission and likely destroy the feeling of risk and desperation while immersed.

I've been thinking of the really quite good Fallout fan film, Nuka Break, where there's this interesting dynamic that's like "Hey man, I don't want to kill you, do you want to kill me?" With all the psychological sort of games that entails. Like, I mean, the Waste is a dangerous place. Maybe some people's first response is to fire off a shot and dive for cover and be like, "I don't want any trouble man!" And then sometimes they don't want any trouble, and sometimes, they're bluffing and want to mess you up. I think its a mechanic that has the potential to add some realism in that not everyone you meet is going to be willing to fight you to the death, and some added dramatic tension, if it could be done well. And, I guess it also adds the potential to add another layer of moral choice onto the game. Like, what if say, about half the Leather Jerks you fight wind up surrendering to you if you almost kill them, and they say something like, "Just let me go and I'll tell everyone how great the rangers are. I'll reform my ways, I promise!" And then, most of the time, if you let them go, they'd sneak off and try and take pot shots at you from a hiding place. But sometimes, they'd actually leave. You'd have to choose whether to be the white hat and let them surrender, knowing that they're probably going to try to shoot you in the back, or to be the grey hat and just kill them (it's only a grey hat choice, because, let's face it... the Jerk probably has done a thing or two that'd deserve getting shot and left to rot by some rangers).

[dmaar]

I like this idea a lot, but it should work both ways and you (or the enemy) should be able to refuse.

"We surrender!"
"Fuck that!"

[dmazz]

Well the standard negative reply to "I surrender" is to keep on shooting.

In JA2 and Silent Storm, I see it like this. An enemy who surrenders will become non hostile, with no longer any turns, they'll be ignored in combat. They'll drop their weapon and walk up to you with their hands up and get on the ground, face down, you won't have to do anything. Alot of factors will depend on whether an enemy surrenders, getting shot at alot from different locations, actually getting shot and injured, seeing an ally get killed and so on. There needs to be a rudimentary 'morale' system, where npcs with low morale surrender and/or run away more easily than those with high morale. More lieky though enemies will choose to run away rather than surrender, they will only surrender when they can't run away due to being scared they'll be shot in the back.This will speed up combat alot, not to mention just be something cool that happens and makes you feel powerful.

Executing those that surrender is always an option, but something usually reserved when combat with hostiles end. If a surrendering enemy get's shot, they'll try to run away instead.

Overall it's pretty simple system that I'm amazed has never been implemented. All enemies fighting to the death is unrealistic.

As for you yourself surrendering, that is an option in alot of RPG's where you chose not to resist arrest, your jailed and you lose a little bit of stuff. In Fallout I ran away sometimes when outgunned, given the option of surrender and dying I'd choose surrender, so it should appear to be a choice. What would happen is you'd get locked up in jail, probably beaten up, possibly tortured and injured and then your mission would be to escape jail and get back your equipment. A major hassle, but it would prove advantageous if you were trying to infiltrate the group. Female players who surrender would probably get raped though.

Also if surrendering is possible so is begging for ones life. So running away will be the most common, then hiding inside a house for example (where one is in a superior tactical position), then surrendering and lastly begging for ones life. Nice. Also if someone surrenders and your carrying cuffs/rope, you should be able to tie them up during combat. Because as mentioned if you turn your back on them, they'll try to run away instead. And/or possibly try to retrieve their weapon, maybe even getting back into the fight.

If ammo is scarce, then surrendering, hiding and running away will not be uncommon at all. Once you run out of ammo or your running low on ammo, your goose is cooked. This will also motivate you to end combat as fast as possible so you can loot the corpses of their ammo, otherwise they'll shoot all their ammo away. It would also encourage you to 'make an example' out of someone by blowing their head off for example, or blowing them up with explosives. Things that will have a more devastating effect on enemy morale to persuade them to run away, hide or surrender.