Do You Think Encounters Should be Difficult?

[Henry]

When my players moan and complain that an encounter is too difficult I always wonder what is there to a game if there is no penalty for losing. If there is no challenge to overcome why play? Is there satisfaction in overcoming nothing and achieving nothing? I understand that players get attached to their characters and don't want to see them go but...Isn't that a compelling part of storytelling? Seeing a beloved character breath his last and feel the emotion that comes with his death?

In my opinion, encounters should offer a range of challenge. There should be challenging, even overwhelming encounters; but there should also be some cakewalk encounters to give the players a sense of how far their characters have become as well. If ALL encounters are life and death matches, it gets quite tiring for players, just as it would be to watch James Bond win Pyrrhic victories only. Every once in a while it's satisfying to stage an encounter where the PCs utterly dominate their foes.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, it just grinds the players down after a while. In an attempt to challenge the power gamers at my table, I killed a campaign by making it too difficult (well, there was more to it than that, but increased difficulty was a contributing factor).

It's okay for the PCs to get to be awesome. But sometimes a really difficult victory is just the thing to make them sweat, and then to feel like they've really earned that victory.

If ALL encounters are life and death matches, it gets quite tiring for players, just as it would be to watch James Bond win Pyrrhic victories only. Every once in a while it's satisfying to stage an encounter where the PCs utterly dominate their foes.

 

[Imaculata]

Encounters should be engaging, and exciting. This could be in the form of difficulty, but also in the form of complexity. In the end, I want my players to feel triumphant, and like heroes. I want them to have epic moments, and close brushes with death. Most importantly, I want them to have fun, and be engaged.

I tend to mix up the difficulty. Some encounters rely more on entertainment, rather than difficulty. Others are not difficult, but have unpredictable outcomes that make them an exciting brain exercise. Occasionally I throw my players an easy encounter, just so they can feel strong.

But when it comes to important battles with important villains, that is when I turn up the difficulty. I think a big battle with an important foe should be dangerous. I want them to incur injuries, and maybe even have some of their characters be reduced to 0 hit points.

It is important to realize that being reduced to 0 hit points is not the same as being killed. There are many ways for players to recover from being 'downed'. And so I often plan by big battles to be enough to down one or two players. This makes it feel like they almost died, even if there are many ways to get back on your feet with a little bit of teamwork.

My encounters can also have other lose conditions, such as an important npc biting the dust, or an important resource being captured or destroyed. If the villains accomplish their goals, the players still lose, even if they don't die.

 

[aramis erak]

Encounters should, IMNSHO, be a mixture of everything from "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES NOW!" hard to "Is that actually worth any XP?" easy. Generally clustered and normed so that most are in the "Death is on the line but not likely"...

 

[Schmoe]

When my players moan and complain that an encounter is too difficult I always wonder what is there to a game if there is no penalty for losing. If there is no challenge to overcome why play? Is there satisfaction in overcoming nothing and achieving nothing? I understand that players get attached to their characters and don't want to see them go but...Isn't that a compelling part of storytelling? Seeing a beloved character breath his last and feel the emotion that comes with his death?

People play the game for a lot of different reasons. For some people, the story is much more important than the randomness of combat, they see combat primarily as a part of the story and a means to advance the story. I don't really play the game that way, so I don't want to speak for that style of play, but I imagine real combat risk is probably not that important to that style, and I wouldn't want to tell people that enjoy that style they should do anything differently.

For me on the other hand, I think that a wide variety of combat challenges is vital to my enjoyment of the game. Real challenges can provide some of the most dramatic moments in the game. On the low end, trivial encounters can help build world continuity, function as exposition, and also give players a chance to show off.