this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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I'd re-caption this to be from the DM's point of view, something like when you drop a PC with an unexpected crit and they crit-fail their death saves
Me as a DM critting a player:
Whenever it came down to "your character might die" I'd roll on the table. I don't want anyone to think I'm fudging.
I also really like Fate's "concede" rule. A player (not the character!) can concede at any point in a conflict before dice are rolled. They don't get whatever they wanted out of the conflict, but they get to negotiate where the story goes. Maybe the bandits decide to take you alive for ransom. Maybe they take your stuff and leave you to tell their tale. It's whatever the table thinks is best.
If they instead tough it out and let the dice fall, whoever took them out has the final say in what happens.
Do you need a specific game mechanic for that? Surrender, being a type of talking, is a free action.
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.
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.