The idea is that the additional concessions you'll have to drop on the Baron for having tried to free the mayor and failed aren't going to be amazingly less than the extra concessions you'll have to drop if you try to free the mayor ad fail
and also get captured. Which means that the utility function usually favors pressing on rather than cutting your losses.
The only reason bugging out is favored in D&D's 15 minute workday is because the penalty for pressing on and losing is very high (lose all your equipment and possibly have to make a new character), and the benefits of pressing on and winning are very low (get some more XP and treasure). But since you can just adventure tomorrow for XP ad treasure, or the day after that, it's not even a rational comparison.
Now move the utility function. You've just attacked the dungeons. You are injured and you don't know if you can beat the black knight. Here are your options:
- Leave. Probably escape, but repeating the mission will be more difficult (higher alert status), and you are going to be out a certain amount of concessions for having failed in an attack against them.
- Press on and win: Now the Back Knight owes concessions back to you and you get quest rewards.
- Press on ad Lose: you get taken prisoner and ransomed back, ad you are faced with increased concessions to the Black Knight.
In short: if you don't care whether the mission can be succeeded or not, the "Ah fuck it, let's keep going." option looks pretty good compared to buggering off. Th only time slinking away looks good is if you had a run of bad luck and you think trying again tomorrow against more guards would actually be better than continuing on the present clusterfuck.
In short, if you keep saying "The D&D utility function favors 1 minute workdays!" as if that was any kind of insight, I am going to be forced to openly make fun of you - because that shit doesn't mean anything the very moment you swap the utility function for something else.
The fact that D&D gives you incremental awards for each guard you stab along the way and punishes you with ultimate penalty if and only if you run out of steam - means that yes, it encourages you to start and restart raids over and over again. If on the other hand, you give rewards only for seeing a mission through to the end, and provide penalties that are fairly comparable for retreating and running out of steam - then the encouraged behavior is
of course going to be different.
-Username17