Warhammer FRPG: Fight or Flight?

+Tom Wright ran his Thousand Thrones last Friday and the car worked and I was able to get to the game. Hell, I even brought 312 in a twelve pack and an old friend who I've been gaming with since high school was there. It was great.

The Warhammer game does have some swing to it. The 'Ulric's Fury' means you can inflict some tremendous damage with a lucky roll, especially if you're using a weapon that lets you roll two dice and keep the better of the two.

Our adventure this week was a little rail road as we approached a town and were captured by the local militia who insisted we were outlaws but would verify our story as long as we did them a favor. Not the worst thing to happen as it wasn't like they took our money or branded us and it could have been handled much worse.

But back to how Warhammer can be a little swingy in combat.

I mention this, because unlike say a standard level based game, such as Dungeons and Dragons, you may know necessarily know when you're outclassed.

Can you see where this is going?

During our investigations, we came across a vampire. It's been a long time for me, so I wasn't sure what the power level of the vampires were, but one of my friends was like, "Yeah, we need to go."

But the rest of us were like, "How tough could it be?"

We soon found out and managed to retreat without too many of us spending fate points to make that escape!

When you're running a game, do you provide any cues for players to let them know that, "Yeah, maybe you don't want to fight this." In some games, you can get the baseline depending on how well you know the game. Dungeons and Dragons is a good example here because if you're first level and start running into hill giants and ancient dragons, yeah, might be time to hall off.

If you're playing a game you've never played before? Or one that doesn't use levels at all but something like Call of Cthulhu where it's all % based and advancement isn't necessarily do anything for durability?

For players, do you have any 'warning' signs you've learned to pick up from the other players or the game master? Do you wait until you're at some point in your abilities or health where you decide, "Yeah, might to be time to head out."