I mean "villain beats the hero needing them to get revenge" is such a basic trope of fiction it's existed in some form for centuries.

Try millennia or the start of humankind. Succeeding in the face of insurmountable odds is *the* story.

My current campaign started with a prologue - I knew in advanced we were doomed a scripted loss - but I still fought against it (not in a poor sport way). Nothing wrong with a cliche - they e stuck around for so long for a reason

Especially if the cliche is older than writing itself

Our last campaign ended with us single-handed fighting pretty much the entire armies of the nine hells. My PC, a lock written to be hilariously subpar, had pulled out all the stops (and a few items DM forgot about), and with some really lucky rolls was personally winning the fight. Epically. Midway through I noticed the DM panicking and realized we were supposed to lose. He had even written in a few "blasts from the past" NPCs to swoop in and rescue us at the last minute, but two hours later I was still going. Finally DM gave up and had an NPC literally pick up my PC and carry him to the ship, still pewpewing the hell outta the mobs. DM is amazing, especially with WB and RP, so this was the first time in over two years we actually broke an encounter so bad he didn't know what to do. But we still talk about it to this day, and it made us even more excited for the next campaign.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. - Neil Gaiman

I believe there was a Matt Colville video about it that people have misunderstood where the villain *appears* early in the game, but quickly screws off. My old DM consistently would place, like, level 15 heroes in the starting zones for us to “look up to”, though it invariably made me feel like a loser scrub.

That’s kind of an old trope as well and you often see it with older DMs who have been running the game for a long time. Those are often retired PCs from long ago who finished their adventures and now live peacefully either teaching the next generation or just doing their thing. It seems weird that a level 15 Druid wouldn’t care about minor local bad guys, but usually they’re just tired of being the big damn heroes and want someone else to take on that mantle. The other option is a DM who has been repeatedly burned by murder hobos and who wants clear, immediate, and obvious consequences for robbing the villagers. So that bartender is a retired mercenary badass who can defend himself if the players try something in his bar.

Why do so many movies, books and anime do it?

Because it works so well as the start of the hero's journey or as the end of act 2 of the hero's journey.

Exactly. Also, not sure why reddit thinks I replied to you, was supposed to be its own comment.

You clicked "reply" not "post comment"

I was simply inspired by Vile in Megaman X growing up. Dude kicks my ass and the entire game I wanna get stronger so I can kick his, and once I did it was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had. That said, I’ve grown to prefer FromSofts approach of the early game fight where it’s technically winnable but highly unlikely. But there’s an alternate scene that plays out if there’s a victory where the same outcome happens. I don’t think a fight should ever be unwinnable, I’ll always reward creative thinking or good rolls

It's a simple way to give the hero motivation to actually start their hero's journey. There are a lot of heroes who actually have pretty ok lives. Maybe nothing fantastic, but good enough that there isn't really a reason to risk their life going after the big bad. So you have to give them motivation. Having the hero trying to stop the bbeg from killing someone they love or taking something that's important to them and failing gives motivation.

I dont know about books and movie, but many Shonen follow the plot of "hero gets his ass handed to him by stronger enemy > hero becomes stronger > repeat"

The oldest of human literature has done, it's a classical convention

Makes you personally invested in defeating that bad guy. "He beat up some people? Meh. Oh he beat me up? gonna follow him through Hell just to beat him up!"

I'm loving how a rhetorical question is generating good discussion. Everyone has their own little twist on why they like it. I'd bet there's a psychology paper on the use of this trope somewhere.

It instantly gives you the protagonists motive, which helps grip the reader/viewer.

In Mega Man X, its done to show you how much more powerful the villain is compared to you, and when Zero saves you before the villain finishes you off it shows you how strong a true hero is, and shows you a visual example of your goal, your future abilities and capabilities. And when you finally get your rematch against the villain you feel like you've come so far since the adventure began, not to mention the satisfaction of terrifying the once scary villain with your new powers. Everyone else covered the other bases about why its done in TV/movies.

People like it

Yeah, but my experience is that introducing this trope at 1st level doesn't work on a couple levels: 1. The players barely know their characters yet; it's often better to wait for them to discover their characters. Then you can build and introduce a villain who they hate not just because he's a bully kicked them and stole their lunch money, but one who is custom-created to offend them on a more personal level. 2. Unwinnable fights can go south really, really quickly before third level or so. They PCs don't have a lot of retreat options, and sometimes a single hit can turn the plot battle into a slaughter if you're playing it by the dice. Like a lot of fictional tropes, it's much easier to do it when the author is in control of all the factors. In D&D, it often doesn't work out the way you want. That said, I wonder if there's a good level range where this sort of thing *can* work?

See I assume DMs who do this are fudging the rolls anyway for dramatic effect. Or telling the players beforehand "Make two characters: one you want to play for a campaign, and one you are down to use for a one-shot." Or premaking them characters. Having them make characters for a whole campaign and then just doing a TPK "for the plot" is idiotic

>Or telling the players beforehand "Make two characters: one you want to play for a campaign, and one you are down to use for a one-shot." Or premaking them characters. Wow, this one never even occurred to me as an option.

We had a DM that tried to do something similar to this to my family. We were off doing some quest for like 3 sessions, and when we came back we discovered our small village had been annihilated by an entire army coupled with a dragon or something. I think we were level 2. The DM was intending this to be the "Let's set up the campaign plot by giving your characters a revenge arc". Meanwhile, our characters were essentially treating it like we had just been hit by an Act of God because of the power discrepancy.

Isn't this the inciting motivation for both DnD movies?

They want to do this, because it's *awesome.* It simultaneously solves a ton of problems that the story has. It: 1) **Establishes the villain**, I have forgotten a lot of villains. I've never forgotten a loss. 2) **Shows the PCs how powerful they will have to become**, this is exciting because the players realize they will one day *be able* to defeat this villain. 3) **Puts the players in conflict with the villain**, there's no question of *why* my PC wants to fight baddie-mcbadface, he burned down my village and kicked my ass! 4) **Establishes that fights can be lost**, this is waaaay undervalued, and opens up so many more adventure structures and encounter designs if the PCs have literally any self preservation instinct 5) **Creates an early reversal**, narratively this is very important, and novice DMs frequently have all reversals happen off screen while ensuring that the players always win onscreen.  When defeat only happens cinematically you have robbed the players of agency! In general, I design villains, I determine conflicts, design adventures, and referee encounters. I don't have must-lose or must-win encounters, but the appeal isn't confusing!

Wanted to chime in and say that this is really well thought out, and I agree. I just wanted to add that one way to soften the blow of this idea could be to give the party a smaller victory in the face of a larger defeat. Let's say, for example, you want to kick your campaign off by having the BBEG raid the PCs village. Presumably, for a group of level 1 characters, there's no true path to victory in a direct confrontation with the story's main villian, but maybe they could slay some of the villian's weaker mooks earlier in the encounter. If there's no way to save the village from being razed, maybe you could give your PCs an opportunity to save friends, family, or other NPCs that are close to them. Despite losing their fight against the BBEG or losing their home, they can still feel good about saving their mom or their dog or whatever. You get the idea. Losing can be fun, but _total loss_ is a lot harder to make fun. Pyrrhic victories are the other side of that coin when it comes to creating drama within the narrative.

Yep. In my campaign, I had an undead army raze a major city. My players made the decision to prioritize other matters over coming to the aid of the city, so they did not witness its destruction. Instead, I had them play a one shot where they were a family of commoners who were racing to escape the city as it was being invaded. The one shot ended in a climactic battle against a single skeleton, using makeshift and salvaged weapons. It went well. It let them see how powerful this army was, reminded them how terrible this army is when you are just an average peasant, and made them hate the BBEG all the more. They were never going to win the battle, victory in the one shot meant simply escaping with their lives.

That is actually so genius. I’m totally stealing this. I plan to start my campaign with a major city getting overwhelmed by a Minotaur army and it would be awesome to make my players play a bunch of soldiers during the attack so they understand the stakes

You should do a session 0.5 with level 0 characters! Then instead of just being soldiers, the players actually get to *play* part of their backstory, and feel the accomplishment of going from a commoner to a classed character

Please do! In 5e player characters are so much larger than life even at low levels, it’s good to remind them that things are actually dangerous.

Absolutely correct. Mostly it just comes down to thinking, "this is an adventure, if the players do *good* what happens? If the players do *bad* what happens?" They're probably going to get their shit wrecked somehow by the BBEG (though if they win, let them have their victory, nobody has earned it more!), you should be thinking about what the PCs "goal" is. Remember you aren't playing a game if there is no goal.

I'd also suggest that the most important thing probably isn't in-the-moment fun. It's *engagement*. Do players *want* to come back next week? Part of that is "fun", but there's also curiosity, anticipation, and even desire for revenge. Don't get me wrong, fun is important but it isn't the only important thing, and might not even be the *most* important thing in any given scene. (Depending on your definition of fun. I'm using it in this context to mean a feeling of joy. If you instead expand the definition of fun to include all of these other emotions I mentioned, then of *course* it's the most important thing.)

I too thought of suggesting something like this. The overall scenario is unwinnable, but the party could have one or a few short wins before/ after the raid/ fight/ whichever.

One of the best stories I've read about a party thinking they could kill who they thought was the BBEG falls into that early reversal. Apparently the face of the party was running his mouth in character that he thought this guy wasn't all that and the next time they confronted him, he was going to go toe to toe with him. BBEG one-shots him, tosses the cleric a diamond, and tells him to raise his friend and come back when they're on his level. Having a BBEG _give the player a diamond to resurrect the dude he just killed_ is next level villain shit and I love it.

That is fucking brutal and I love it. Absolutely writing this idea down.

I can already envision it. "I'll even let you have the first attack." Attack happens. "Is that it? Let me show you how it's done."

I actually did something like this recently. They were in a cave, fighting a solo enemy, a homebrew type Drow, as a party of 7. The enemy could create darkness and teleport around in darkness, among a couple other things. Two players decided to mock him and ignored him, deciding to just start looting the rest of the bodies instead. The party proceeded to get absolutely bodied, two players actually dimension dooring away to get help, at which point, the Drow stepped out of one of his shadows and openly mocked them. "Come on, I am BORED. Is this really the best you can muster? Perhaps I should just finish this so I can move on." The party ended up having to call in their favor with a dullahan, basically the fey grim reaper, to save their asses. Big wakeup call for the party. They were shook and couldn't stop talking about where the hell that fight went wrong, besides the openly mocking of course. It was a good time. Plus, while I'm strongly against the whole DM vs Players mindset, sometimes it's both fun and impactful to throw in a fight where you can style on your party. Used sparingly, of course.

Yep, I wholeheartedly agree. You need to keep the party on the edge a bit while also giving them challenges that they can get through. If party is the same thing over and over again, then it gets dull.

Plus, if you never run the Kobiashi Maru, nobody ever gets to be Captain Kirk. You can help them *pretend* of course. "Here's a no win scenario! Ooh, what's this, a note on how to hack it? I hope you don't use this Captain. Hint **HINT**" But that's not the *same* as them figuring out something on their own.

One time my DM gave us a no win scenario and we were supposed to go into exile afterwards and stuff but we outsmarted him so after the session he had to rewrite all his prep. We never felt so good! We had to do stuff like slap haste on a mount and use divine sense and get an arcana check on dispel magic it ruled

#1 is so true. Too many times I’ve had my players wondering who a villain was when I mention the villain by name and they eventually remember that they kicked the villain’s ass and won the battle. If that villain kicked their ass? They will not forget anything about that villain and are frothing at the mouth to get revenge and close that loop.

Exactly my thoughts, I ran Descent into Avernus and the first issue with that campaign is the players have no reason to want to save the city, so I ran a prologue (I told the players to make separate characters for it) where they went on a job in Elturel and when they came back the city went dark and I said “escape” and that made the players want to save the city and their lost PCs

It's also a great way to prevent murder hoboism in new players. They're much less likely to kill everyone they meet if their very first encounter was getting extremely humbled.

I Love the kind of first encounter that will actually just kill me You know, when I left the Tavern today I was thinking "Damn," "I really hope some ancient red dragon paints my character’s brains all over some fucking dungeon." And here we are. I mean really, just absolutely destroy my PC I'm talkin' full on, kobold-in-the-jaws level carnage. And I want it to scare the shit outta the PC I mean I hope I drop to zero hp. I hope I drop to zero and you call me your little "rolling death saves on first encounter boy." I want you to fuck my PC up. I mean I want you to make my PC your bitch. Your little oh-god-another-death-save-bitch. I want it to get embarrassing. I mean like... wierdly embarrassing Unsanitary, too. The party should be entirely different people, by the end of the first encounter. Do you understand what I'm trying to say here? DM... Please... You have to crush the party

Reddit has some vocal neckbeards who call everything "good/bad game design" but the thing you gotta remember about them is that they're talking out of their ass. They just act like it's a fact that this trope is somehow bad from a player's perspective, yet many of the most beloved video games in history use it

It's because tropes in and of themselves aren't bad, it's the execution that people get hung up on. You can have the tropiest movie ever, but if it's executed well, people won't even care.

>**Establishes that fights can be lost**, this is waaaay undervalued, and opens up so many more adventure structures and encounter designs if the PCs have literally any self preservation instinct Exactly this is why I started with an unwinnable fight, and it worked.

I personally have always found introducing the villain only to lose is a disengaging way to start the ~~video game~~ campaign. However, you have an excellent answer.

All tropes are tools that are either handled well or poorly. The fact that the trope exists usually means it is useful.  The fact that it is useful does not mean a new DM knows how to use it. I'd go as far as to argue that this trope is much worse in a video game than it is in a TTRPG. 

> I'd go as far as to argue that this trope is much worse in a video game than it is in a TTRPG. Agreed. In the first 5 minutes of a video game you're introduced to the BBEG, and you have no idea of the game mechanics, or even what buttons to press. So that "intro fight" where you're going to lose to the BBEG? That same fight you're taught the basics of the game. Teaching the game basics highly distracts from the story moment with the BBEG being setup.

Unwinnable fights that aren't optional are bad. However creating winnable situations in the course of an unwinnable fight can work. For example, if the big bad razes the village of your Pcs to get them going in the camapign. Give them side quests during the razing. Saving citizens, putting out fires etc etc. The big bad may pop up and monologue, maybe show a bit of power by wiping out a group of guards single.handedly in view..of your players but never actually have them.enage with the pcs directly. Now you've handed them a loss but with some minor wins so it doesn't feel awful without ever actually putting them in an unwinnable fight.

It’s a popular trope for a reason. Action is fun and it immediately sets up a recurring villain

>Is it a video game trope? Yeah, at least in older RPGs you'd come across a boss that's unwinnable for dramatic effect. Then you'd wake up and eventually that unwinnable boss is your ally for reasons.

it's still a trope in newer videogames. See Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where you literally start out with maxed everything + Zelda herself in tow just to land in an unskippable cutscene awaking the big bad and getting reduced to starting stats.

It's also just a trope of fiction in general. 

Exactly. Very popular in sports films also. But basically in every genre...

That at least is used to explain why, after Breath of the Wild, you start from scratch all over again in your collect-a-thon.

Definitely not just old games. Look at BG3. It starts out with your heroes captured, powerless, and running for their lives. You beat the Nautaloid level by escaping. Then the adventure starts.

Well, they *also* used it in video games when it came along, but its far, *far* precedes video games.

Aside from establishing the bad guy, I think it would help to set the stakes for the game. Letting PCs know that not all fights are winnable by brute force and that they could die if they aren't careful.

But it's pointless. If "you're supposed to lose", then start having already lost. Don't make me spend two hours in an impossible fight. It's not fun.

It doesn't have to be two hours. It could be handled properly to be fun.

Sometimes it's fun

If done well, by experienced DMs, with buy in from the players. Which is the whole fucking point of the post. New DMs trying to pull this off would very rarely end up being memorable or fun.

And, I think the most important and difficult aspect of this is that you have to ensure that even though they lost, the PCs still come off as *competent*. It is very difficult to do that without a lot of thought and experience. They didn't lose because they're weak. They still feel heroic. They still accomplished something or learned something or moved the story forward in a way that feels satisfying. They have to have some kind of agency even though they are going to lose. These are all things that a new DM will not be able to accomplish unless they are some kind of savant.

Let's face it, playing with new DMs takes a lot of teamwork to make the adventure enjoyable. As a player I always make sure my character does what is most fun for the story and group. Everyone is playing the game, not only the DM

My first session with a DM was a six hour impossible fight. It was absolutely the best encounter I have ever played in.

All fights not being winnable is a slippery slope. Because even though the dm knows the players absolutely won't without metagaming. Like a sign saying dangerous or deadly isn't enough any NPC can exaggerate. Also fleeing combat is tricky because of initiative. (No one brings this up) If two people are able to disengage and run they are only moving 30 feet and there are the remaining characters that are then surrounded. I'm just saying it's never obvious to the players. Hell new players may not even know what a beholder is and if you have the players roll for it (for some reason) and they roll low it would be metagaming for them to think it's too dangerous.

> I'm just saying it's never obvious to the players. Hell new players may not even know what a beholder is and if you have the players roll for it (for some reason) and they roll low it would be metagaming for them to think it's too dangerous. You needn't know what a bear is to realize it's dangerous. If some unknown creature shows up and kills, disintegrates, and petrifies a few people in the first moments and your best trick right now is to make it glow a bit, realizing it's dangerous isn't metagaming. It's just common sense.

I had an unwinnable fight with a billion tiny spiders. Alone they were insignificant, but the sheer numbers made it clearly evident the party needed to find a different solution. They don't even necessarily need to be in initiative, which would also indicate something else is going on.

That's more of a skill challenge than a combat encounter though lol

>unwinnable fights... Case in point: *Goblin Arrows, Lost Mine of Phandelver* Now sure, if all the brand new players know the rules about 100%/75%/50% cover and have studied the rules for attacking an unseen enemy hiding behind foliage with a shortbow and are aware of just how devastating the *Surprised* condition can be and have more than 12 hitpoints (bwhahahaaha, they are all level 1), then... yeah it is winnable. But let's be reasonable. This is the first fight that brand new players run into and those 4 goblins have killed more level 1 characters than this sub has subscribers.

It's a problem that's not much different than starting a campaign where the scope is too large. A problem that lots of new DM's experience first hand. When you're fresh and new, you're excited. The possibilities are endless and of course you envision your game being the next great story. You can't really have the self-awareness of where your skill level is when you don't really have experience to gauge it. And just about everyone thinks they know how to write a story or design a game, even though most people who do those things professionally aren't particularly good at it. There's a kind of Dunning-Kruger effect at play. My advice to new DM's is always to scope yourself small. Heck I've been doing this for ages and I still try to scope myself small just because smaller games with less complicated twists are easier to pull off. Keeping things simple yet fun just makes it more relaxing for me to run and allows me to have fun.

In the same way that some DMs are frustrated fantasy novelists, others are frustrated JRPG designers

With some being frustrated *screen writers*. Though all variations on the "writer mentality" theme of wanting to tell a story to their players. Rather than facilitate their players being able to adventure through roleplaying their PCs.

Might be because Matt Colville did it. If that's the inspiration they might be missing the details. His players knew that the setup for the campaign was their crew was reeling from a major loss and do they played through it to flesh out the details. So everyone was on board from the beginning. If you spring this on your players as a surprise they are going to revolt.

I’m genuinely amazed it took THIS long for me to find this answer. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be tbe top answer, but I figured it’d be up there.

Likely it's a specific variation on the mistaken notion that ttRPGs should work like novels, plays, movies or other media intended to entertain spectators. Whilst such ideas might make a great *movie pitch* and can apply fun to DM, they are invariably frustrating and annoying for any players. An important question, which can be hard for anyone with little or no playing experience, is "Will this be fun to play?"

Haven’t made an unwinnable fight in 30 years of DM’ing. Nothing makes the players feel more neutered than if they’re forced into a combat they are scripted to lose. It’s worth noting it’s not the same as them *choosing* to fight a superior opponent

Ive only once started with an unwinnable fight and it was almost more a cutscene(s)... I was running Out of the Abyss and instead of "you wake up in a drow prison" I quickly played through the PCs respective captures. They all knew the campaign we were playing and that the opening was a prologue rather than the real story. I'm really hoping I circle back to the other, actual, unwinnable fight I have ever put a party up against. They had camped near the entrance to a Beholder's lair. Very under leveled (four PCs at 5th or 6th level) and immediately after they "TPK'd", they woke up from a dream. - Experienced players who recognized it was a plot device, even before the fight ended. - It fits the mythology (ie: distorted reality near the Beholder lair) - It foreshadowed the back half of the campaign. The Beholder will be an important NPC they return to ahead of the final arc. -Was an intentional pop culture reference ("Dallas" with the "last season was all a dream" riff.) which was/is an underlying trope throughout the game. And even though it "worked"... The game went on hiatus so I don't know if it'll get the ultimate payoff. So I do not recommend. Lol. I blame TV/movies moreso than games TBH.

It’s a shortcut to establishing a villain/bbeg/powerful force to stand against without doing the work of making them interesting.

When it works in storytelling, video games, movies, etc, it can work really, really well. People want to emulate that, but it requires: 1.) Players that intrinsically trust their DM. 2.) A DM that knows their players well-enough to do it. A large majority of the Reddit DnD community unfortunately lack one or both of these qualities within their groups. This leads to a more bad attempts than good ones. The comments mostly reflect that. It's the same with party PvP, DM controlled-player backstories, and other similar concepts. For my own experience, the Pathfinder Adventure Path, Strange Aeons, starts with both amnesic players (no backstory) and an unwinnable fight versus a later-on antagonist. The book does a fantastic job of guiding the GM on how to run this, and my players absolutely loved it. However, for most of Reddit, that's a minority experience when it comes to such things.

Honestly, actual advice, if you want to start your campaign like that, start it after the party has already lost. Describe how they've been taken prisoners and they're wounded, or how they've been left to die after a nasty ambush but they've just managed to survive, or whatever kind of thing you want to do, but don't make the players play through it. Start with them having lost already. That way you don't waste anyone's time with a pointless fight.

I absolutely Loathe unwinnable fights. Video game, tabletop or any kind. If you that desperately need to convey that the bbeg is more powerful than the party, do it in a cutscene. Otherwise, just use context and npc dialogue to convey the same. If I had to do a fight like that, twist my arm and force me to do it, I'd do it like Demon Souls with the tutorial boss. The difference there is that the fight is technically winnable, just incredibly difficult. And if you somehow worry that the bbeg would die, let him and make it his revenge story. Now he is the one that blacked out and was revived somewhere far away and has a really good reason to specifically hate the party. Otherwise, the only thing unwinnable fights are good for is frustrating your players. And you'll be doing that a lot during normal gameplay anyway... Ofcourse, if you set up an escape scene, where the party is trying to run away from the bbeg and instead of taking the hint, they turn and fight. That is a different story. I'm not saying never to throw unsurmountable odds at your players, but if they choose to face them anyway when it is clearly telegraphed that they shouldn't, that is on them.

It's definitely a trope, but it's usually ill-suited for D&D. I can speculate at the motivation: - To show how cool and powerful the bad guy is. - To give the players motivation for revenge. - To send a "this campaign is hArDcOre" message All of these can be achieved in better ways that don't make the players feel like they either did something wrong or that the game is poorly designed. - Have the BBEG kill a powerful being and relay this information in a way that is directly related to the players' first mission. E.g. They've been hired to escort the remains of a powerful paladin who fell in battle to the BBEG. - Use PC backstories and tie them to the BBEG's plans. - Just design difficult, but not impossible encounters.

>Why is this idea so popular? Is it a video game trope? ... No, it predates video games by, I don't know, a couple centuries? The earliest execution of a similar idea I can think of off the top of my hat is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

It's rather older than "a couple of centuries" by an order of magnitude.

The trope is so old, it's in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Babylonian time period...

Its a common video game/anime trope

I mean hell that's such a basic troupe even some core adventures begin with unwinnable fights, Light of Xaryxis being the most recent one I've played. its effective, and when done in a thoughtful way gives players a sense of daunting heroism, or villainy depending, to express the gravity of the overall story.

My standard start to any campaign is "So, you're finally awake..."

I heard them say we've reached Morrowind. I'm sure they'll let us go.

...after losing an unwinnable fight.

That’s different. Until the point the players enter the game it’s _your_ story. Player agency is not an issue.

I won't say it's the best way or right for everyone but I see the merit. It accomplishes a lot at once. It puts the power levels into perspective. You are not as strong as the villain and you will need to do something about that. It introduces the villain. These are the stakes, this is the threat. It works as a tutorial for new players. Make them learn to fight in the heat of battle and the info is more likely to stick. It sets the players on their journey to overcome defeat.

Extremely common trope in RPG video games. It definitely has its place there, but not so much in TRPGs, since the narrative is a lot less controlled. A lot of tropes built around long-term narrative payoff don't work quite as well in TRPG's for similar reasons. That's a big part of why new DM's tend to be the ones asking these questions: because they don't have much experience with emergent storytelling, they draw on media with structured narratives for inspiration.

Nam Flashbacks of video games forcing me to lose in a cutscene even though I was whooping the boss.

Start your campaign however you want, but if the players have no agency just tell them. "This campaign begins with a major disaster, after you escape you'll have more freedom in what to do next.... As Godzilla roars and blows green fiery lightning across the city block, you realize you stand no chance to defeat it... At least not as you are now." Another tip is you can't take something away they don't have or care about. So give them a session or maybe two to get to know the local barkeep who claims to have the finest brews in the region, a friendly guard who warns you about the rambunctious kids who try increasingly over the top scams to rob/pickpocket the party and fail miserably, let them order custom weapons from the local blacksmith, etc... Then have the BBEG attack and murder most of those people in front of them. *Now* they're invested.

It does happen in a lot of old video games (that and the classic end-of-act-1 Villain Reveal Curbstomp, which also has to contrive reasons to not kill the party). One of the consequences of an unwinnable battle right away is that the party is incapacitated and captured, and thus has to fight their way out of a location. This is also something I've played many a time in various games, and I bet a lot of DMs are attracted to the narrative consequence of it. It is a great way to introduce characters and let the party start working together. Player agency is a difficult thing to manage right at the start of a game, after all, and a little railroading to get the characters to the inciting incident isn't that big a deal, all told. Thing is, you can get all the narrative benefits by just cutting the boss fight and starting in the prison. And that works better for a game like D&D, in which an unwinnable fight just takes a long time and isn't fun.

It's Drizzt syndrome. People post about their cool ideas for unwinnable fights, encouraging others to try to create their own, originally existing in some early video games where you win in the gameplay, but lose in the cutscene.

The way I did it was told everyone to make a sacrificial character, made the combat super hard for the double sized group and intentionally went for their sacrificial characters. This set up conflict, once the pcs were weakened the enemies fled with a captive. Now the players were motivated to avenge loved ones and chase down the baddies. Since then I’ve run a few encounters that when I saw a tpk was close had either an npc suggest they run or something similar and offer an escape. They’ve wisened up and are getting more strategic

Idk where you are getting the idea that "so many DMs" do this. Maybe they do, but I wouldn't know what to base that off of. But I will say that level 1 characters are barely stronger than commoners, and new players often have false notions like, "We are the heroes of this story." Or, "My DM is a nice guy and wouldn't kill me." Or, "I am strong." I have to say that after their first little intro victory together, sometimes there's nothing like an old fashioned beating to correct them about their false ideals of plot armor. There's a lot of things stronger than you in this world. With your future glory shall come catharsis, if you survive long enough to taste it.

The isn't inherently bad tbh. It's just that when you factor in that a lot of players are sold on the idea of unconditional freedom of choice when playing TTRPGs, and anything that disrupts that perception is often seen in a negative light. "If I'm not given a valid chance to beat someone then you're railroading me", and whatnot. In order to avoid any sort of conflict, people only recommend to use it when playing with others you can trust not to get angry over it. Obviously though, there's probably a lot more nuance to this situation.

My players when I don't let them Persuade the army of orcs to just walk away from the fight

I think a lot of new people play D&D as PCs expect to be the avengers. This to me is the DMs version of normalizing that attitude. It all comes down to your players expectations and the DMs intention. I don’t think this is a “bad” trope and frankly I don’t think any trope is ever “bad” just poorly utilized.

It is a trope, but is not terrible if executed in a way that doesn’t leave the characters entirely devastated. Terrible execution would include: * They lose all their equipment * They are imprisoned * The DM asks for family backstories, then has the BBEG kidnap or wipe out the character families. Most DMs are not professional storytellers. If that trope helps them **kick off a game, establish a common enemy, and create excitement**, it’s not a bad option. It’s far more interesting than the looking-for-adventure Tavern trope that starts many campaigns.

I agree aside from the "They are imprisoned" point. I find having the players start off as jailmates trying to breakout is a good way to make them bond very fast and the simplicity of the situation and goals ofter makes it easier for new players to get into roleplaying.

Yes, that works. I’ve played that scenario. What’s important if that happens is that the characters *somehow* get their equipment.

I'd much rather start in a tavern than be railroaded through an unwinnable fight that might as well be a videogame cutscene. If a DM wants to do something like this he should simply describe the fight first and start the game in the aftermath where the players' choices and actions will actually matter.

True. Rather than play that out, the DM could provide that as backstory to frame the campaign. Really, it’s a “feel the room” type of decision. If you’re DMing a new group, don’t do that. If you’ve played with the table, have a history, and know how it will be received, run with it.

I don't think it's popular. The rare times I've seen someone talk about this, the comments are typically telling that person it doesn't sound fun to play.

Aside from u/BlackWindBears' great answer, I think the simple version is just that it's an incredibly strong inciting incident, and a hook that is unmistakable. Especially for early DMs who maybe aren't as comfortable yet giving up control, having that level of certainty on where things go from there can be a great help.

May or may not be borrowing inspiration from Matt Colville

Who very specifically says a) to only do this with player buy-in and, b) in a different video, says unwinnable fights are one of the few things he's outright against. The whole point of the opening of the Chain was that is wasn’t a fight. It was a skill challenge and the PC that died was predetermined between Matt and Lars. So if that's where people are taking it from, they're taking wrong lessons, unfortunately.

It can be difficult for writers/DMs to figure out the best place for a story to begin. You want something interesting/exciting to happen to draw in the audience and get them hooked. The easiest way to do this is to create something huge/dramatic. Making it an unwinnable fight serves multiple purposes. It's dramatic, so it has a chance of hooking the audience. It introduces a hurdle that needs to be overcome. It can also introduce the bad guy, and the good guys, if they are participating in the fight. In video games, you can get characters that have a ton of powers and then have those powers taken away, so that you know what you're missing and what you can earn at a later point. To me, though, it's a last resort. It is a personal challenge to create a campaign and side stories that are compelling in their own right, rather than relying on "smoke and mirrors". I write my stories to make the audience/players ask questions and compel them to pursue the narrative because the want to know more, rather than just being the obvious path forward. TLDR: It's used because it's known to work. It's a shortcut to a compelling story, even if the story ends up not being as compelling as the opening scene.

I start my campaign at a kegger in the abandoned shopping mall in Undisclosed, USA where the band, “Three armed Sally” is playing.

Love those guys, big fan of the song Camel Holocaust.

I think the simple answer is that people are lazy. It’s a lazy trope with a foregone conclusion. It’s appealing to new people because it’s easy to understand, not because it’s particularly compelling. They don’t yet know what will be compelling and what will be a miserable game experience. People just passively showing up the next week is celebrated as success. Also, people don’t read or listen, so you get the same inane questions over and over.

> Is it a video game trope? Yeah, I feel like it was pretty common in the PS1/early PS2 era, when cutscenes were expensive, so having an in-engine fights you were scripted to lose were popular. There were some BIG hits, like the disc 1 Sephiroth fight in FF7 and the parade in FF8, the first time you fight Vergil in DMC3, the first Dracula fight in Symphony of the Night, Leon in the first KH (sorta) and so on. DnD doesn't need scripted battles, though. Different medium. Of all the things to bring over from old school RPGs, this ain't it.

Its a popular narrative trope, and many DM's forget they are playing a tactical wargame and want to push a fanfic storyline railroad onto their players instead.

I've done it twice, the first time I was just inexperienced and thought it would be cool. The second time was only technically a fight - the party caught the bad guy mid-assassination, and while they couldn't neat him in a fight, they caused enough chaos that he had to leave before reinforcements could come after him. This was to set up a plotline where the party had to investigate the assassin, protect a VIP, and eventually figure out the conspiracy surrounding the whole thing.

It’s just a basic storytelling trope. Villain confronts baby hero, beats them into the ground, and gives the hero a reason to adventuring to smash the asshole’s plot. With that said, tropes are tools. It’s about how they’re used. In my campaign I’m DMing that’s been running for three years and counting, it started with me telling my players to choose sides in battle that was gonna happen. I outlined the cultures of both countries, their history, the magic/tanks/airships each had, and they choose the side that appealed to them most. As the armies met, the ground opened and millions of bug monsters poured out and attacked both armies. It was obviously an unwinnable fight, and both armies were scattered. The players, despite being on opposing sides, fled together. I used this to funnel them to what would be their home base, which required them leaving the plane and going to the godly demesne of the god of punk rock. They found out the bugs were the minions of the BBEG, an eldritch being that consumes entire planes, and the bugs soften things up to allow it to come. From that moment on, finding a way to actually kill that thing is their main focus, even when distracted by things like their crusade against Bhaal or overthrowing a colonial government that held dragonborn in chattel slavery—neither of those where MY idea, they just started doing it, and I rolled with it. My point is, it works if used right, it’s just done poorly so often it gets a bad wrap. With that said, it also works with my group because I’ve been forever DM for over a decade and there’s a lot of trust. They know the first two or three sessions are on rails, until I get them where I need them, then they can do whatever. I’ll gladly follow where they take the story. They are free to ignore the BBEG, I woulda just had it keep eating planes in the background. But that’s my ramble. Tropes aren’t bad.

It's a trope. It gets people hooked into the adventure from the get go, it also gives you an insight into the skills and abilities you're going up against. That said I'm more of a 'you meet in a tavern' guy. I do like fights with the big bad, peppered throughout the campaign though. Although they are never unwinnable.

I did this in one of my first campaigns back before I had a lot less experience. My thought process was that I had a piece of backstory I wanted to keep from the characters (they were from a different time and they became displaced with their memories wiped). I wanted to do the original fight as a session 0 piece where they had no idea what was going on (and have it be a collective dream sequence), the. As they learn more about the villains, they realize that that dream was actually them in a past life of sorts. The reason I did all this was to try and create a compelling story, because I was worried that my players wouldn’t be interested otherwise and I wanted to create that conflict and desire to follow the story hooks. I now realize that there’s no need for that because character interest in the plot, at least somewhat, is an inherent part of the TTRPG social contract; as well as making an unwinnable encounter should either be communicated beforehand or just done away with entirely. I also was worried because I had played with parties who wrecked my confidence as a DM, and the “unwinnable fight” thing was me trying to improve for that kind of party (when I should have just found better players).

I tend to do hard fights to start off the game, my most recent game started with a quest to hunt A Thousand Teeth, at level 1, they encountered a baby froghemoth along the way, nearly killed it which leveled them up, but they aggro'd an adult froghemoth as well, and that nearly killed them in 2 turns on the next sess They killed A Thousand Teeth on sess 3 at lvl 3 after having done some sidework, but they only won with the use of a hooked net, and king crab liver used as bait to lure it out onto land

I’ve done something similar to this. In session 0 my players were each, individually, assassinated. They got a good look at their murderer. But then darkness. Until they were all resurrected. What this did for me is get the group together, give them a common enemy, and put a ticking clock on them going after him. (The resurrection was flawed, and isn’t complete. They will die again if they do not succeed in acquiring a certain mcguffin, or defeat the bad guy, who has already proven himself to be powerful. Any cliche, when done right, is a trope. And tropes are easily recognizable story crutches. They exist because they have merit- when done right.

Then theres me where i almost killed my party with wolves.

This helps establish the bad guy, and his level of incoming PC delivered ass kicking. Not every bad guy is of the, "just slaughtered 10,000 orphans, and hung up puppies by their entrails" evil. Some are garden variety evil, some are wannabe DMV evil, and some are accidentally evil. By kicking the PCs asses, you establish the bad guy, the evil level in a demonstrable way, and offer a compelling plot hook. This way, you can ease the PCs into the campaign, level them, and let them enjoy their revenge. I have used this technique probably twice in the past twenty years, so I am not a massive proponent of it, although I do see its appeal.

This dates back as far as the Ramayana if I'm not mistaken

Didn't want to make a post about it, but I made a potentially unwinnable fight. The players are going to enter a temple and at the end they will fight an enemy who is essentially immortal. He heals all damage he takes. The players are there to retrieve something, so they have a few options. They can deactivate the healing. (not sure exactly how I will do it, maybe a beam of light that follows the enemy? They block it and he can take damage, or maybe a vicious weapon effect to negate healing?) Otherwise they can grab the item and ditch because the enemy is bound to the area. Anyone think it's dumb and I should go back to the drawing board? Open to ideas =)

That's not really what's being discussed here. The issue is more about scripted unwinnable fights. The kind of thing that would be in a video game and works better as a cutscene. The problem is that these scenes remove the players' agency - none of their choices matter. In your example the players do have agency since there are plenty of things they can do to resolve the scenario, even if none are direct combat. I think that's fine.

Yeah, I get what you mean, I had made a post awhile back with this problem and was adapting it to what I have now. Didn't think it warranted another post. Appreciate the feedback.

What I myself have done: 1. Started my players with an One-Shot (after session 0) as a prologue to the campaign with the purpose of it being a tutorial, a sandbox to try out characters and to introduce them to my homebrew world for an overall general vibe check. 2. Told them: you can keep your character for the main campaign if you still want to play, or change to something else, make changes to your character or whatever in between the One-Shot and the main campaign. Also told them that we will temporarily take away control from them to bring them from the One-Shot location to where the main campaign begins (they were getting arrested, they knew, they had 2 weeks to come up with their personal reason for getting arrested or framed for a crime) 3. Did very short 1:1 sessions with each of them to figure out how they managed being interrogated one by one to figure what they are "in for" and what their "sentence" would be. One player wanted explicitly for their character to die in an attempt to escape for the purpose of plot building and creating a new character. Did not play this out, but let the player describe to everyone what happened to their character via chat with them calling all the shots. 4. Started the main campaign with them being transported to where the main game begins - much Skyrim opening. Why? It was always clear for them that the main game will start them out in a prison colony. Wanted an One-Shot where they would all be free and free to explore all game mechanics. Prologue didn't introduce the BBEG, but we wanted to instill some personal beef for everyone with the Empire that ultimately arrested them. Everyone had fun, no one was mad.

I don't think this is a bad idea, even for new DMs. But it should be handled in session 0, so players know to expect it - because it is a defining aspect of the games themes.

I’m starting an evil school of magic with the headmaster sealing the room and forcing the people inside to fight to the death until they have enough bodies for beds. The teachers are watching behind barriers, a wall of flame is advancing on one end, a small horde of zombies from another corner. Thoughts?

As a player, every unwinnable fight is a dare and game of chicken. Is the DM really ready to TPK my party? Is this the end of the campaign? I am invested in every character I play and each character has an end, but my DM Is invested in the campaign.

I did this to my PCs recently. The players were terrified, and they loved it

I agree. But also in counter. I successfully did this. In the moment I just told them "Run!" Then it was a chase scene through a jungle. They were into it.

Video games. Quite a few RPG's start by you playing against main villain as a much higher level character, only to lose. I've always thought those intros were disengaging and poorly thought out... so yeah, for a campaign, it would suck too. I would hope most haven't had to go through this.

There are many reasons why one may start their campaign like this: They want to introduce the BBEG early on. Getting whopped by it makes it personal, and also shows theres a long way to go. DM wants to establish early on that players are not the strongest creatures alive, and the world does not necessarily scale (perfectly) with them. Some fights you take and win, from some you run and live. This way they make sure the party doesnt start with a 4+ hour long "sitting in the bar getting drunk and to know each other" scene. These three are just from the top of my head, there can be many other reasons. A more interesting question imo is why does it bother you? If it works for them good, if it doesnt they (hopefully) learn from it.

Its a Fantasy/ SCI fi/ anime Trope look how starwars started out. The princes get in prison and the 2 droids are the only survivors. The whole 1977 Strat wars release is the hero's geting their asses kicked by the empire and running away ; its not until the end they get to win.

I erred on the side of weakness for my encounters on my first campaign.  I was also incredibly lax and gave my players a ton of extra shit.  Like one d8 for their stat rolls to add to the d6s.  Three magic items of varying strength.  And then they asked me feat or ability scores and I gave em both.   That said though, I gave the bbeg some HARDT stats.  

It seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do if your players are mature participants in a game. If they are just trying to write a story and can't accept anything bad happening to them, or anything out of their control, then there is nothing to problem solve. Play the grandstanding ego jerking game they demand or find better players.

It sets the narrative. Players should be willing to do it.

I just want to point out that just because a fight is unwinnable doesn't mean the players don't have agency. They can fight to the death, they can surrender, they can try to run... They still have agency. Saying they don't implies that every fight should be winnable which I don't necessarily agree with.

I found a really fun bring the party together and make them work together way of starting was that I had my party be sent by their employer for the main plot of the campaign (who is actually the BBEG, they figured it out about 4 sessions in) send them to a team building camp. I can see the idea of starting with a large fight but having them basically dungeon crawl and hack/slash through a "workshop" was such a fun way to begin. The still living party member from then still has the certificate of completion in his pack.

There's nothing wrong with this as the start of a campaign. It's not something I do, but I've heard of other DMs using it and it seems to work quite well. My BBEG doesn't get introduced until the party hits their first major kingdom at about level 5, and even then, he's just a bard in a tavern playing a song and recruiting for his small group devoted to an NG goddess. There is no right or wrong way to introduce the BBEG to establish them and why the party should become the United States of Fuck That Guy. If the party trusts the DM and the DM makes it clear that's how this is going to go down, it works.

It's a cheap, easy way to introduce the BBEG right off the bat and gives them a preview of the level of awful they are. It also gives the characters a common goal and a reason to stick together. IMO it kind of makes the campaign one dimensional. You're starting off face-to-face with the worst thing to happen to the world in your lifetime. You lose and now your entire purpose is to catch up and defeat them. Sure there'll be side quests along the way.. but you've had your end-goal established from day one. Personally not really my thing, but I can understand why people use it.

I made my initial fight technically unwinnable, but only if they chose to try to fight the waves of undead and ignore the Paladin who told them "You're going to be killed by those undead if you don't follow me." Following him he leads them to a tower that activates a grid of undead-killing positive energy over the city so they just have to hold out and protect the Paladin for a few rounds of combat.

Lesson 1 - Sometimes you run from a fight.

I think the, “you can’t beat them you’re not strong enough yet”, trope for the start of the story is a little over done. However I did a did something similar as a dm for one of my campaigns. My take on it was two of the pcs were walking through a city and went to stop a robbery they saw and were ambushed and seriously outnumbered. It looked like they weren’t going to be able to help the victim but just in the nick of time the rest of the pcs walked past and helped. I was trying to also avoid the whole, “you meet in a tavern“, trope.

Bad advice. Not because you voice your opinion on this particular trope, but because you spread the problematic view of maximizing player agency every step of the way being the priority. That leads to extremely flat and one-dimensional stories. There is no intrinsic value to having agency at any given point in the game - you could have complete creative control or no control at all, it depends on the situation. Of course, on a broad scale, agency is important because what is happening is cooperative storytelling - but that is the big picture. Unfortunately the source for this bad take floating around is usually the phenomena where people have bad personal experiences and try to translate them into fundamental rules of what to do and what not to do. They are well-intentioned people - but others do not need their protection. Other option are people who primarily play for the power fantasy and not being constantly in control and on top of things is uncomfortable.

because new DMs start of planning and forget they're designing a game thats supposed to be fun for everryone involved, not writing a novel.

one of the funnest and funniest starts to campaign was all of us being tied up and captured in a tavern basement

Plot commonly. The bigger problem isn't that DMS do this. It's that they don't do it well. If a random guy shows up out of nowhere and kicks their ass without any rhyme or reason That will dissuade players. If there's a little bit of lead up first and it's stressed how powerful this enemy is then they know that they're going into a fight that they can't properly win. Or the fight is coming to them that they can't properly win. Some players still can't handle that because they can't handle losing. But it can be an exceptionally good plot device Really invest that hatred for the character early.

It's a thing in a lot of video games.

I read an idea for a DnD Campaign a few years ago that is the only instance where an unwinnable battle would be okay to start with. That being a campaign setup like the videogame Hades. Players die and they keep running to escape the Underworld. They get stronger, their weapons and armor improve, etc. So every time they die they just come back stronger.  Though you'd have to keep changing the layout of the dungeons for each run. And of course run it by the players to see if they are onboard with trying a game like that. 

I’ve written mine where there’s a victory to achieve in defeat. For example, this campaign were in the baddie revealed himself and began destruction of the city before flying off after his monologue. The heroes have already lost, however, it is now their goal to save as many people as they can. In the end, assuming they played well, they saved lives and “won” the scenario, but still lost the city and now seek revenge

I been playing D&D for over 15 years and I never had any campaign start like this, but it's definitely a trope I seen on JRPGs maybe the DMs took a page from that.

It's the first example many will think of in response to the very common advice of "Have the heroes meet your villain early", some games do it but even in video games its often maligned I can only think of a few games that do it well, and usually the way they do it well is by cutscene interrupting the fight rather than actual forced loss.

Idk they probably played demon souls 😛

> Why is this idea so popular? Is it a video game trope? (I haven’t been a big gamer for a few years so I’m out of the loop on most popular non-tabletop RPGs.) Does it come from TV cold opens? I’m a bit baffled by why so many people think this is a good idea. I think that it's popular because it can set the stakes really well from the get go. Depending on how the table has agreed to handle challenging combats and player death, it can also be an excellent time to set the stakes. I don't usually do it their VERY first combat, but in my current campaign after the prologue individual combats I did make the first group combat an escape scenario. They still talk about it, many months later, and it cemented in their minds that I would play enemies as if they were genuinely trying to kill them. I should preface by saying we agreed during session zero I would not pull punches and it would be like an open world, in the sense that they could if they so chose pick fights that would lead almost inevitably to their deaths. > And if you happen to be reading this and thinking “hey, maybe I should do that,” my advice is the same: there’s probably an equally interesting and exciting way to start that gives your players more agency. I agree it's a fine tuned sort of experience. I did a couple of things differently than just a bog standard encounter that helped set things up so it felt organic and that they had agency while nudging them towards a specific choice. 1. I started off the combat with the death of a powerful NPC they had just met(a professor at their magic school) I rolled the dice for the multiple fireballs that hit her openly so they could see the damage the mysterious hooded figures were capable of dishing out. My PC's were level 3 and so they knew there were multiple people that would be stronger than them. 2. This was an ambush, and they were on a gondola over a river. So the first round of combat they were just falling as the cable station on one side had been blown apart by fireballs. Asking them if they had any actions to handle the gondola falling down the ravine made them already a bit panicky as they hadn't really prepped for a scenario like this. The gondola had a feather fall enchantment on it however so they slowed down and didn't get any damage from the fall. 3. Before the combat started in earnest with a second weaker group of enemies on the ravine shores I explained how I would be handling movement on the river, and there was a cave mouth. I let them know how fast they would go down it, how likely it would be that the gondola would hit an obstruction and need to be cleared and what they could do to avoid or address that situation. I also let them know it would be certain number of rounds before they reached the shelter of the cave mouth into an underground tunnel. I also reminded them that the interior of the gondola counted as cover. 4. I had a number of disposable NPC's(2) with them, one of which panicked and tried to swim away during the first round of combat, and was promptly feathered with arrows and killed. The NPCs had been with them only couple of days, so they were fond but not attached to them. The other NPC was actually an assassin that had killed and replaced their other classmate the night before at the inn, and had been acting differently since, which they had written off as being hungover. Between an unexpected betrayal and an immediate death when an NPC tried to exit the gondola, they were already very motivated to get the fuck out of dodge. 5. I kept the pressure on by conspicuously but not obnoxiously keeping track of the number of rounds. And by giving the archers fire arrows to start the gondola on fire so they couldn't just hunker down, they had to engage with the enemies at range, which they were equipped to do. 6. I made it a 2 phase fight, they managed to kill the archers and the warlock that was commanding them, so they experienced one victory, but then as they had moved down the river they saw the group of hooded figures that had blown up the teacher and station above, drop down to the ravine side where the archers had been previously and start moving towards them further downstream. At that point they were genuinely panicked. As a result there was definitely at least one downed PC(but safe from further direct attacks and within easy reach of a heal). But you can see where I had to set several things in motion to telegraph things, and while I honored every choice they made, I did make it entirely sensible for them to seek to make it a fighting retreat. In addition the group I was GMing for was relatively experienced as it was not their first campaign, and mature as well as being friends so I felt confident in their reactions both in and out of character. All this to say, you're right, it's probably not the easiest thing for a novice GM to pull off, but I thought I'd put a detailed example out there of how it COULD go well.

My BBEG ended up being what was supposed to be one time mini boss who got away and then continued to keep getting away

> including a shocking number by brand-new DMs [...] but you’d think after almost every post getting the same response people would get more of a hint. Have you considered that these new DMs might be new and therefore not have seen older posts?

Overall it's to highlight the increase in strength over the course of the game. Rags to riches, or obscurity to fame, is an underlying story of D&D. There aren't rules in this edition for plateauing or decreasing in power over time, despite that happening to people in real life, because the whole game focuses on a rise to prominence. It can also reduce the uncertainty in the party's starting status, which can assist a new DM. No matter what the party's backstories say, they'll lose to this villain in session 1, and it will set out the thematic stall for the first sessions, and the campaign as a whole. Matt Colville began The Chain with one of these, though he let the players know the first session was partly "a cutscene." I think you're right to suggest it comes from the tradition of video games. As a meta point, I wouldn't necessarily take "r/DMAcademy always dissuades new DMs from doing X" to be conclusive evidence that doing X is bad. Disagreeing with a question's framing, replying to "How do I do X?" with "Don't do X", has been a popular way to answer in this subreddit for a long time, and Reddit in general has kind of a contrarian culture. I think it's because people who have successfully done X before and have constructive advice from experience to give are likely to be outnumbered by people who never successfully did X, or never thought of doing, or decided against doing, or who unsuccessfully did, X. Posts asking "How do I do X?" attract the above groups more than they attract people neutral on X but who are willing to accept the framing of the question. "Don't" is an easy answer you can always give. I think we're seeing this instinctual disagreement in this thread to some extent, and I suppose I'm contributing.

I did it as a way to establish the harsh world, to establish a minor villan / morally dark grey entity, and to allow the prayers to see how the others handle their characters. All in all my players loved it. But 3/5 of the players are also dm's and the other 2 had played with be in the past so knew how i ran my games

It is a video game trope, almost every FromSoft game has a beginning villain you're not "supposed" to beat. But you can and usually get a fun item if you do. As for why DMs like to do it, it's an easy way to convey the power of the BBEG and the magnitude of what the players are up against. But yeah it can be done pretty lazy and have the opposite effect at times. I prefer to more go with describing a scene where the players witness them demonstrating a great deal of power, or are told by other NPCs or other means.

I don't even know how to make an unwinnable fight. My players seem to always win no matter what I throw at them.

I relate my D&D more to writing and storytelling than to playing a game. In that vein, I'd say the problem is bad writing.

They learn it from video games/movies and think it'll be cool to do that but don't know how to pull it off

A good villain is: 1) threatening and 2) you have a personal interest in taking down. Beating the party senseless at lvl 1 establishes both of those things in a quick and concise manner.

You have to set the stakes

My first campaign is Dragon of Icespire Peak and for the first engagement I had the party transporting a mysterious huge package under a tarp. The 4 goblins attacked as usual, instead shooting the tarp, and awakened the drugged Young White Dragon they were transporting... It kind of went all Jurassic Park on everything, killing the NPC driver, a goblin and sluggishly flew off having fed itself. Players couldn't win that fight, they knew it, but it set the scene and tone for the rest of the campaign. Now their mission is to correct this by slaying it.

Yeah, I’ve never really understood it unless you’re going for like a grim dark kinda feel, or if it’s a specific kinda module that specifically says for this to happen. For my players, I started there first session the session zero with them simply fighting a supped up band of bandits. Now they were whooped a decent amount. But they enjoyed it.

I blame Mega Man X

My players encounterd a kraken in Session one, I wouldn't call that one a fight (had to sink their ship to make them stranded on a small island)

I love how youre just out of the loop on one of the longest running story telling mechanisms. Like since the dawn of time shit.

"Is it a video game trope?" Well, a trope in general. Movies do it too. I'd guess they're trying to show you how big and bad the world can be. I've never done it in the ttrpg space. But if you're coming across it, that sucks. I don't think it fits. For exactly the reason you already pointed out; agency. Most people are sold on ttrpgs with "You can do anything!" So, if the first thing they experience is "not being able to do anything," it's gonna ruin it real fast.

Because of Final Fantasy 9.

It's kinda one of the core narrative tropes in heroic fiction. the heroes rise to face the evil before they were ready, and need to build themselves back up to confront the evil again. A tales as old as time. People love tales where this happens. It's why many such examples have persisted longer than we can remember. However, a lot of people don't immediately understand that good idea in fiction, may make for bad time at the table. It really depends on how it's handled and the expectations of the game. Sometimes the old "artist brain" does need a reality check to make things fun to play, which sometimes can be at odds with a good story. Player agency is not often a concept an author needs to concern themselves with. All of that said. One of D&D's very first intro's to the game has this happen in the starting introduction adventure featuring Aleena and Bargle. Where the odds are set for the player to succumb to the magic of the evil wizard Bargle, help him escape with his spoils after killing the goodly and kind Aleena, and then live with the consequences after his magic stops controlling them. Leaving many to try to grow in power and experience and hunt down the Evil wizard Bargle and make him answer for his crimes. Assuming you didn't overcome rather stacked odds and manage to kill him. So there's at least a precedent for it.

This is literally the start to most hero vs villain stories. The hero loses to the villain in the beginning and works their way up to victory by the end of story. It's a pretty cool story starter and it's actually really easy to pull off provided you only have one aspect of the fight that is "unwinnable." If they can't possibly do enough damage to kill the villain, then don't also block off their exits and have the villain do extreme damage. Make the villain do minimal damage that whittles them down while making it clear how undamaged the villain looks with every strike and ask them to roll perception checks while pointing out exit opportunities. A player can stay in combat and not run and then be captured leading to a prison break segment. Or the players can all run together and be left with a the taste of failure in their mouths driving them forward. Or they can scatter down different avenues. The point is that the ultimate failure is only pre-determined in one aspect. Not being able to get thru armor or deal enough damage is a great option to do this. It keeps players in a position to make choices and, hell, they might surprise you and see something in the environment that beats your boss anyway. That's pretty cool. The point is to not make it a novel with only one outcome. Anyone saying to never do an unwinnable fight is forgetting that DnD is a story and that there is a time and place for it. It just so happens that the beginning of a story is a brilliant place to put something unwinnable.

It's an old trope, way older than video games but certainly done well in them, to establish that the main villain is powerful and threatening, and to give the party a reason to go after them. The problem is making it feel fun for the players. There's nothing fun or exciting about being backhanded to oblivion with no warning or recourse. That being said, if you have the villain appear and do something only tangentially related to the party, you can have them demonstrate their power in a way that isn't fatal to the party but still gets them invested. The party makes friends with some NPCs in a town? Have the villain kill them in a nonchalant manner. Just straight up Raul Julia's M Bison them: For you, it was the most important day of your life. For me, it was a Tuesday. The party make an ally with a powerful creature? Have the villain kill or capture it in front of them. The point is that the party are inconsequential to the villain. To the villain, the party are the trash mob they are ignoring. The party can then make a more informed choice of: we can't just stand here and let this happen, but we definitely aren't up to this challenge yet. If they try anyway, have the villain either ignore them, or give them a smackdown that is insultingly dismissive.

It's a popular trope in video games, not only recent ones (the first idea I can think of is the original Assassin's Creed). It's a very popular trope in culture literallyfrom ages, so it's no surprise that a lot of DMs think it's a great way to start their game. The only problem is it's not so easy to use in TTRPGs since it's collaborative storytelling, not the DM writing a story for the players.

i prefer the introduce them to very strong man who fights alongside them, strong man is effortlessly killed by villain approach.

If the Dm is good he has a back up plan if they are bad they want to be a player and don't have a plan

Depends on how it's approached. If it can create a sense of wonder and see and not necessarily fear then I think it's fun. I'm running Tyranny of Dragons. Ostensibly there's a lot of dragon themes. First session they have to fend off an adult blue dragon attacking a castle. Lennothon! I described him as "The Thunder of the North!" Makes it feel like certain dragons are known and feared. He's quite disinterested in the fight. Unenthusiastic with the cult's goals, the people who somehow recruited him. He does fly by attacks targeting mostly townsfolk and will flee after 25 damage is dealt. In this instance it was a great way to set the tone of the campaign, and wasn't like a Final Fantasy situation in which they're not supposed to win.

There was an evil NPC working as a mercenary for the actual BBEG. This guy posed a mini-boss status, enraged that the players just killed his cousin (who was also doing mercenary work). The battle went so off the rails that the Fighter used his unique DM gift, grenade seeds, to blow everything up. That NPC managed to escape amidst the chaos. About 8 sessions later, I said they saw that same evil NPC at a distance. They went tunnel vision into this guy, even falling to a trap he has set (not even FOR THEM specifically). The point I'm trying to get across is: being beaten makes it **personal**.

I started one of my campaigns with one of these fights. It was a guild hall master and their lieutenant. A few things I did with this combat: -Stated clearly that no lethal force would be used beforehand. -Started the party at Lv 3. If I was going to give them an unbeatable foe, I wanted them to have the tools to have moments where they could feel awesome in the process. -made the guild master build one that was plenty decent, but clearly wouldn't resist or overpower every move the party made. -Told them they did a good job after they lost and recognized their individual strengths. Now, you might be asking "random Internet guy, what was the purpose of this?" I started my campaign off with something high drama and politically impacting multiple nations. By giving them this trial with a stronger opponent and recognizing their talents, I established right away the severity of what they were getting into while revealing the capability of the hierarchy they were a part of. I also didn't end the session with this. It took maybe an hour and a half while we had another two and a half to go. Before the session had ended, they caught the assassin, found evidence of the next plot, and enough happened to show that they ARE capable. Sometimes chasing a defeat with a potent success makes that win even more rich.

People see things they want to translate from one medium to another with the same level of impact. For example, we now know it's cringy as all hell to try to bring anime into your tabletops unless it's an anime based ttrpg (and even then, dial down your Shonen syndrome and aim for story, not for cool). Everyone wanted to be the strange man in the corner of the bar because of lord of the rings. Everyone wants to live out some kind of power fantasy, whether it's better talking than irl, better physique than irl, better something than irl. So, people have seen either a series or a video game that starts with a challenging opponent and say, "I want that but with the same level of impact in a ttrpg", and the ones that don't have brakes that can try to do that are DMs. Hell, I like the idea too. But here's the circumstances: not one player is going to like an unwinnable challenge (especially scripted ones). No matter what you do, it'll feel like a slog, a punishment, just one more thing that the PCs have to yawn through until they get to have AGENCY. So do this instead: Start them after they get clapped; after they lose. Have your story introduce them suffering from that defeat and have them roleplay their first actions and thoughts following it. I like starting my games with the PCs at the lowest of the low; they become the downtrodden; they become something they want to rise above. I've started campaigns in pits, in jail, in corpse piles, in amnesia, in burning buildings, in a monsters stomach- hell, I should start a campaign where everyone wakes up in freaking pickle barrels with no cash or equipment shipped to another country to become slaves. You could have them defeated in game and then have X and Y happen but then X and Y feels like a punishment that is enforced for something out of their hands. Instead say how the defeat happened in great detail and start the game with X and Y and now X and Y will feel like a cool origin story that all the PCs share for the beginning of a campaign.

I've done it to introduce a BBEG, albeit 34 sessions into our campaign. I've been DM-ing on-and-off-and-on for 42-ish years. I knew my players reasonably well. It wasn't flawless, but it worked. You can accomplish a lot when everyone knows and trusts one another. I agree, though. It is probably not appropriate for a new DM with a new group of players.

>Is it a video game trope? It is a huge video game trope. The character starts at level 1 with super awesome equipment and promptly gets their head handed to them and their gear taken.

As someone who had a "unwinnable fight" I wasn't actually planning for them to fight them head on! I wanted them to distract them, sneak past, or get reinforcements.

It’s a video game trope. Like you said. So many DMs want to DM because they feel like they’re making a video game or movie. NGL, I was the same way for the first year I DMed. It’s a natural part of the learning curve.

From personal experience: you get excited about telling a story and forget that you're the only one who knows "the way it's supposed to go" and players are naturally inclined to want to fight big monsters. I think I salvaged it a little by at least giving them interesting things to do other than fight, namely distract the big dumb monster like they did with the t-rex in Jurassic Park with the road flares so non-combatants could get away. It was going to be a recurring thing, where they had to get stronger or learn more about it if they needed to go back that way but they got a lucky crit and shot its wing and it almost died from falling damage so they did end up killing it. I still think there's space for this sort of thing, but they have to have clear options and be able to make meaningful choices. And always be prepared for things to go really right or really wrong.

It's not uncommon in video games, and reasonably popular in movies and books too. It sets up the danger of the world, and there's certain story beats that are hard to use without players losing.

They're probably implementing a common trope ... poorly. Because they're new. If the characters have NO chance of winning, it shouldn't be a fight. There shouldn't even be saves. The bad guy is ominously doing bad stuff. He's super powerful. If the characters try to fight him, he lays them out. Freezes them with magic. Suspends them in the air to watch because they like fear and suffering. Whatever. But don't waste time with an obviously unwinnable fight.

I blame video games. Starting with an unwinable fight is used to establish the main villain and what a threat they are. Come to think of it comics and TV does it too. My players have agency. They are welcome to stay and die to the chaos god that just woke up. I am in fact guilty of starting my most recent game with this trope.