Feeling cornered, no way out, trapped. It's something that Roleplaying hardly ever can emphasize enough to make it feel real.
I tried. Maybe it worked. ^_^

It's a little hard to follow.. I think that the one problem with creating a sense of 'no way out' is that deep down you know that the GM will never create a situation that is fully impossible to get out of... Otherwise you stop playing with that GM, because they are a prick :D

Oh GAAAWWWWWWWDDDDD do i have "prick" stories for you!!! The last and only DM i ever played with had for a goal to kill us all!!! I lost count of all the freakin' characters i had to create. only one of us ever got to raise her levels cause she always kept rolling 20ies. And since we'd all die next to her, she took all the damn XP!!! He was actually proud of himself for making such impossible quests, the prick! Like if you created a character you AUTOMATICALLY had to take "swimming" as a proficiency or esle you were flat out doomed from the start. And naturally, all the damn creatures lived in the damn water!!! Man... i'm still traumatised from his DMing even after it's been like 10 years!!! The prick didn't know what the hell D&D was! He didn't create "quests", he created freakin' horror movie scenarios!!!

Heh heh...I have to say I agree about the GM sympathy in D&D, but you should see my World of Darkness GM. He's not out to kill us all, but I don't think he thinks of how we could possibly get out of a situation. He just gives us impossible odds and hopes that we're unpredictable enough to get out of it. (we've all been playing together for about a year now, he knows how we work)

What's his name?!?!?!?! He must be stopped!!!!

xP
No need for pitchforks and such, he's actually a pretty fun GM...until you're stuck in a pit and are looking at him, waiting for him to give a description of a door or rope that might lead out...But of course then my character normally just climbs the walls...so I guess we're pretty annoying players too.

It happens a lot... DMs mislead their players, players try and find loopholes... in many aspects it's part of a well-balanced game, isn't it?
I mean, as long as it doesn't disrupt the storytelling the way it does in RPGeneric, lol.