There are so many misconceptions regarding Running in BX and OSE that it’s difficult to determine where to begin explaining a correct RAW understanding. I have flip-flopped a dozen times on this issue myself, and this is my current, and hopefully final understanding.
Stipulations:
1. Encounter movement rates govern all participants during the encounter, including combat. This is what it means to have an encounter movement rate in the first place. The notion that one can move 3x faster than their encounter rate during an encounter requires willful illiteracy.
2. The rules explain running as a foundation for movement during evasion and pursuit, which is understood as a group/side act. There is no other running scenario in the game’s rules. (To be thorough, while exploring through familiar areas, the RAW says PCs may move up to 3x their base rate… not 3x their encounter rate. That is not running. 120′ x 3 is 360′ per turn.)
To the letter, this is a means of avoiding an encounter.
There’s an apparent contradiction, though. If an encounter begins the moment the PCs come across monsters or NPCs, and everyone is instantly governed by their encounter movement rates… how can they run to evade?
My best answer is:
Running is a means of ending the encounter at its inception to avoid it. No one is running within the encounter. They run from the encounter, and this is why it is called evasion.
Personally, I see more opportunities to end an encounter than just at the outset, but let’s explore what avoiding an encounter entails.
OSE
Gavin’s answer to this (per his author’s notes) was that he felt that he had to pick a lane, and decided that it is not possible for PCs to run (evade) once combat has begun. I suspect he believed that he would have to write new rules to clarify the fact that only PCs who are not in melee can evade, which would sacrifice OSE’s 100% BX fidelity claim.
This means that if you’re playing a RAW OSE game, the PCs actually have the option to run as long as an encounter has not turned violent. This actually encompasses more than just the outset of an encounter… it means the PCs can run at 3x from any non-violent encounter.
1. Any wandering monster encounter where the reaction roll is 3 to 12 is not violent… yet. Note that “hostile” does not mean attacking! Only a 2 indicates immediate attack. Otherwise, any encounter reaction 3–12 means the monsters—even if they win the encounter initiative roll—should not attack. That means the PCs can evade at 3x. Monsters only pursue if the reaction is 2–5.
2. Any planned encounter where the monsters or NPCs are already known not to be violent, the PCs may evade at 3x at will.
3. When the PCs have surprise, and use the surprise round to run away.
Conversely, this means any encounter with monsters (wandering or planned) who attack on sight (by nature or by reason) goes directly to combat, no chance to evade. This includes any wandering monster encounters with undead, scorpions, salamanders, as well as kobolds, goblins etc if you have a dwarf or gnome in your party.
This is really why the encounter initiative roll needs to be treated as separate entity from the combat initiative roll, as I’ve discussed here. It doesn’t make a ton of sense that an encounter—short of a surprise-round attack—should be able to spring directly into combat, skipping over spell and movement declarations, often before the reaction roll has even been made.
An alternative understanding
So if we’ve already established that an encounter can’t be avoided before it begins—it can only be ended once it has begun—then that makes drawing a line at combat completely arbitrary. Or at least, a problem exclusively for an author trying to clarify and remain faithful to ambiguous source language.
I think it’s apparent that a rule may not have been necessary to begin with. After all, it’s understood that any PC who is precluded from moving at their running rate for any reason would not be able to evade with the group once combat begins!
- PCs recovering from being raised may only move at half their rate
- PCs affected by a fog or heat can only move at half their rate
- PCs paralyzed or petrified can’t move at all
- PCs in melee can only move backward at half their rate (withdrawal) or in retreat (encounter rate).
- PCs with any other narrative movement impediment can only move at the rate designated by the Referee
So no one needs to write a rule that separates which combatants can evade and which ones can’t… it’s self evident. Only PCs who are able to move at 3x would have the option to evade in the first place. Combat has nothing to do with it. We would just need to understand that PCs engaged in melee would not be able to evade with the rest of the group, and the act would split the party. Each round, some PCs would be evading, some monsters would inevitably split off to pursue them (again, only those not meleed and able to do so) and some PCs would remain fighting.
So, if the full party is not engaged in melee, and everyone is otherwise able to move at 3x their encounter rate, then deciding to evade a combat encounter is just another point after the encounter has begun, not unlike any other moment, wherein the party has decided to end the encounter to avoid it, and engage in evasion instead.
No new rules, no forced division, just playing the rules where they lie.
Thanks for reading. (No one is reading this, who am I kidding. I do this to sort out my own understanding of the game, whatever.)
"You see this." 
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