Is it possible to create a supposed-to-lose fight in an enjoyable way...

Die on a montain of dead enemies is a sweetest thing hero can wish for. Saving someone or something in the process can be cherry on top.

This guy gets it

I see you like images that are guaranteed to provoke reactions. I like images that are guaranteed to provoke reactions myself!

>Breaking formation
>Sword out instead of a spear
>No helmet
>Gap in her armor from TITS

Also dudes in the back manages to cover his body fully despite being taller, meanwhile female barely covers upper hal of her body and also puts her leg is fron of the shield.

Another thing, about dude this time. This one is just painfull to look at. First shield on the right from the girl. He definetly hates his toes and want someone to cut them with his own shield.

Probably new wealthy born officer for whom style is more important than practicality.
Which is not so bad as an officer you must be somewhat recognizable and don't need practicality as your unit is there to protect and assist you.

If you start from assumption that players loses then probably not if you intend to try to force that then certainly no.
If you plan for possibility of them loosing then of course.

>Supposed to lose situation
>"Make it winnable"

I don't think you understand the core concept of what OP wants at all. You're just bitching about a bad DMing trait, ignoring player victories for PLOT purposes, and that is only tangentially related to the subject at hand.

I've found that "strategically unwinnable" situations provide for less butthurt PCs than total loss fights. Basically, instead of having the fight they're in be unwinnable, have it be a decoy from the real evil plot, or something. Don't completely rob the PC's of their victory, just make it pyrrhic.

This is also good to avoid what the user I replied to above is complaining about; Sometimes the PCs will pull a W out of their asses, and you've got to deal with that as the DM. But if they fail outside of the dice rolls of combat, then there's really not a lot they can do to stop it.

Obviously, there's only so much loss one can inflict on a PC party before it becomes demoralizing rather than motivating, so judge your play group, and don't overuse supposed-to-lose situations.

>Probably new wealthy born officer for whom style is more important than practicality.
Shes getting herself killed. If she tries to retreat she kills few man that have to break the formation to let her in.

...

>Implying Best Girl Caesar-chan didn't plan for this
>Implying she's not eliminating the heiress of a rival noble family, ensuring they won't be a problem to him for at least another decade or two

Yare yare daze

How about that spear on the right thrust in her left leg right now?

>break the formation
What if she is doppelsöldner equivalent that is meant to break from formation, strike spear aside, get to spearman and kill him in order to make an opening for rest of the unit?

This or she is bad. Lets call some old monk with a razor to help us decide.

Really depends on your players. How do they take defeat in general? Do they seem to put more value on winning or interesting "story" that emerges from the game?

>Don't completely rob the PC's of their victory, just make it pyrrhic.
This.

Those toenails bother me more than they should..

Dude on the left have some too. Maybe they fighting for a scissors.

This

>-4 str
>not a -4 str thread
surprising twist.

Since when do Roman legionnaries fight with spears?

A good GM can make fights where death isn't the only loss condition. The most boring conflict in the world is "Person A wants to kill Person B who wants to kill Person A." The PCs could be defeated by failing to stop an enemy from achieving their personal victory conditions. Maybe the castle they're protecting gets captured or destroyed. Maybe the person they were protecting gets murdered or the object they wanted gets stolen. It puts the PCs on the back foot without having to wonder why they aren't dead besides GM fiat.

I lost it at
>natural weapons

>play a game where they constantly lose almost every fight
>the only thing keeping them from losing completely is the revenant NPC they've had with them for 2 levels
its pretty easy in mine since they're used to getting fucked

I typically don't like making encounters with the intent of the players having to lose it.

That being said, if you have to, make them face overwhelming odds, or the fight is a unavoidable distraction to the villains real goal, which is completed by the time the fight is over. Also make sure you have a contingency planned in case they do win or foil his plan. Few plans survive first contact with PCs.

And don't do something stupid like
>well you win, but he gets up and kills you all, no save
and then wonder why your group just gets up and leaves. From experience.

You need a pretty strong reason to even be introducing this kind of fight to begin with. Are you railroading your characters into losing a fight they have to retreat from because you want the victory at the end to seem that much sweeter? In my own view, that seems like a pretty boring story to run, if not for your players, then for you, who only gets to see the plot play out exactly as he'd planned it.

Unwinnable fights should come as a consequence of other events. Say they fucked with the BBEG in a way that he knows he has to start taking them seriously now, and they let a spy of his gather intel on where they were going. Provided they're enough of a credible threat to the BBEG, and he has enough resources to spare, there should be a nigh unwinnable encounter in the next area. Maybe they brave danger to do what they originally planned to do and turn it into a stealth mission, or change their plans in an attempt to outmaneuver the BBEG's plans to destroy them, or somehow try and fake their own deaths against this force to get the BBEG off their backs. Just getting crushed and having to flee should be a punishment for facing impossible odds, not a thing you just force upon the players. It's all about the battle before the battle, when there's impossible odds coming to kill you, you flee, or you stay and probably die.

This.

Make the fight itself insanely difficult, but don't require the party to see it through to the very end.
Give them some sort of objective, be it aquiring some Plot-Item, saving NPC's (rescuing someone, evacuating civilians etc.) Or eliminating a small amount of high value targets before making a retreat.
It is okay to stack the odds in combat against them as long as you don't require them to defeat every single foe. It is okay if there are losses, especially if the stakes are high. But give them the chance to accomplish something.

Fights to lose should only happen by circumstance or by the party seriously fucking up. You shouldn't go in ahead of time thinking "I need the party to lose this fight. " Especially if its because they have to lose for your story.

Throwing a javelin or two from the front ranks before closing into meele range and using swords was normal roman combat procedure.
Using them as a mainstay close combat weapon was unusual, but not unheard of.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilum

Hi

Tell your players beforehand.

In my experience, mature and understanding players (aka the only fucking people you should play with) will understand that the narrative CAN function without their character's being all-mighty unfailing power fantasy self-inserts. So, expressing to them that this is something of a freeform cut-scene wherein their characters make a valiant but ultimately doomed stand against their enemies can be a fun experience for all.

Unfortunately, I have no absolutely no idea how this would work with passive-aggressive or butthurt players, as I have the distinct pleasure of playing with a group of friends who actually build off one another fairly well.

The players have to accept that the win condition may not be "make it out alive". Only War is a good system for this, the players are tasked with holding the line while another regiment or the commanding staff bug out with the mcguffin. While the players, a commanding officer and a commissar (The one who dares his troops to reach the enemy lines before he does type, not the one who sits 300 metres behind the lines of fire and takes the head off of anyone who so much as whimpers at the enemy.) taking an enemy to ruins while the last orbit capable ship flies out over their heads, and they take as many of their opponents out as possible knowing their service to the emperor has lead to humanity triumphing, that while they may not live to see the end of this their actions have brought the imperium of man a moments reprieve on one of a million fronts of war it fights upon.

The "boobplate didn't exist" is poppycock.

Supposed to lose fights are doable in different ways and it depends on the situation for how they should be handled. The danger with these is that people will feel railroaded, especially when there are negative consequences, and double especially if they didn't choose this path or had no idea it was coming. Keep that in mind and, if nothing else, at least make them THINK they had a choice or a chance.

You have your standard "Fight as method to put you in a situation". Ie you get stomped by something big and scary and it ends up putting you somewhere else in a different situation, usually one you can't easily get out of. Good example is the stealth sections in wind waker where you get spotted and instantly thrown in the dungeon with no fight. Or bloodborne where being grabbed by an amygdala will bring you to a new area. Generally best to use these as unexpected paths of a sort; ie they open up new areas.

You have your "Fight as a method to build up how dangerous an antagonist is". See Jetstream Sam. These are best handled in such a way where there are no actual consequences to the players and their ability (or indeed requirement) to get the fuck out of the fight is clear. Otherwise most players will fight until half the party is dead and then decide to run. Either "Kill" them all and then have them get revived, or show how outclassed they are and then have something happen that intervenes and separates them.

Then you've got the "Final battle" in which the party will die defending something or just fighting because there's no choice. Or maybe its a suicide mission. Regardless, give them a goal that they can accomplish. Its bitter sweet but if they die accomplishing something important, it will feel worthwhile to them. Just make sure they feel like they chose this course of action or at least made the choices that lead here, not that it was forced on them. Assuming they're not super bitchy "BUT MUH MARY SUE CAN'T DIE!" asshats it will be fine.

...

That's officer armor.

It's not designed to be practical, it's designed to recognize office and look fabulous.

If this guy gets into a fight, something went terribly wrong and odds are good he will just capitulate and be taken prisoner or exchanged for another prisoner/ransomed.

How is arranging a supposed-to-lose fight any different from letting your players take on a challenge so way above their weight class that they cannot realistically expect to win? A good GM would prevent either from ever happening.

Horde of the Dragon Queen did this pretty good with its first adventure
>the party spends the night helping to defend a town from a raid
>they rescue villagers, stop the mill from being burned down, snuck a temples full of villagers out
>they even help fight off a dragon
>at start of first light a warrior from the raiders challenges the villages strongest warrior
>the PC steps up to fight him
>gets one shot and kicked in the face for his troubles
It's like, after all this time the players think, alright, we got this, and then BAM humbled

We hunger for ass and battle.

Try setting up a situation where the players want to be captured, in order to easily infiltrate an enemy base from the inside. It would be easiest to simply turn themselves in, but that might be suspicious, and they could potentially get in some extra shots on the enemy forces before they get imprisoned. It would be a fight where the PCs intend to eventually give up and lose, but they also want to do as much damage to the enemy as possible, while ensuring that they're not just killed or too severely injured to escape from their imprisonment.

Both yes and no. An unwinnable fight is alright, but it's the players who need to decide to fight it and lose. Then it's their fault if they fail to recognize they're getting their asses handed to them and do not retreat.
Just don't train your players to see the fights as sport, where each match is fair and possible to win, I just toss fucking whatever at my players and it's up to them to figure out if they should run or not. This is the key, view combat as war and not a fucking sportsball match.

What is that lime giraffe doing to that poor child?

Can you? Yes

Should you? Depends on your group. I wouldn't. Especially if you plan on it being a fight to lose ahead of time.

It is, there are a couple of ways to do this without pissing off the players (or at least, pissing them off in the right ways)
>heroic last stand at the end of a campaign
The players will know that their character's deaths have meaning
>the players are part of an army that gets crushed in battle
Because battles are huge, complex affairs, this can make the sting of defeat a little less personal for the players. This is also a great way to introduce/demonstrate the power of your BBEG.
>The PCs lose a fight, badly, and their opponent lets them live to send a message, to the players and/or their boss, that they are not to be trifled with.
Also a good way to introduce a villain. Gives the players a strong personal stake in taking that guy out.
>The Uncle Ben scenario; someone close to the PCs gets taken out by a villain while the PCs are busy/distracted with something else. Alternatively, the PCs are forced to watch the villain commit the act as they try their hardest to reach them in time, only to fail.

If the more they do has an appreciable result.
E.g., they're definitely going to die since they're surrounded by an army, but they can take down a couple of the key figures before they die, or achieve some sort of mission like rescuing people or a mcguffin, or destroying a mcguffin before the enemy can get to it.

It might work, MAYBE, if you make it suddenly turn into a chase scene where they can escape and call that a win. Maybe a follower or an escortee takes a telling wound and you need to escort them out, or the opponent starts destroying the arena because they know they'll survive and the party won't.

I'm running HotDQ for two groups at the moment (modified slightly, but I played the start mostly straight) - both my parties reacted pretty similarly but the fight went dramatically different.

For context if you haven't played the adventure and don't care about spoilers - Cyanwrath, a half-dragon, challenges the party after a long night of exhausting battles and trials. He's way stronger than the party and has hostages - he promises to release his last hostage immediately after a duel with someone. An NPC offers to do it (the hostage is his sister and her children) and will die if he goes down there, so another NPC asks the party to step in.

Group 1 -
>Paladin and Monk both dive at the opportunity - the former because paladin oaths and protecting people and the latter because he likes to fight strong guys (but also save the hostages)
>Paladin goes down, rest of the party waits anxiously and prepares for a betrayal of some sort
>Paladin puts up a good fight, pulls every last trick she has and even gets a few blows in but gets knocked down
>Party is ready to jump in to save her when the half-dragon honours his promise and releases his hostages after leaving.
>They later fought him, the monk got his 1v1 (and got his ass handed to him because his character is made of paper)
>The party defeated him after a drawn-out battle and were satisfied after defeating him.

Group 2 -
>Wizard is ready to let the NPC go to his death when the Barbarian offers to go do the fighting (this groups Paladin would have gone but he's fairly inexperienced and wasn't sure what to do)
>Gets ready to fight him, rages
>Gets hit with a crit
>Gets 1-shot
>They fight him later
>Or, the wizard does
>Paladin and Barbarian are tied up in another room fighting some mooks while the Wizard decides to go ahead
>Takes out a massive chunk of his health with a Magic Missile cast at higher level
>They basically destroy him within two rounds.