Do You Think Encounters Should be Difficult?

[The Monster]

All encounters should be:

1) Interesting

2) Meaningful

I don't want to waste any table time on "uninteresting" or "meaningless" encounters.

Oftentimes, "difficult" falls under the classification of either (1) or (2) or both of them. Difficult could be "measure of challenge" or "costly in some non-fungible way (eg you aren't simply trading resources for success)".

Rarely, "difficult" falls under neither of those classifications. If so, find a type of "difficult" that is either/both "interesting/meaningful."

A rule of thumb I've been using for years now is that "players want to do cool stuff." Whether that means raw combat power, special tricks, or other things, it pretty much always includes opportunities to use all those special powers and abilities they have built into their characters. Encounters that are easy can be fun, but rarely call upon any special stunts; it's the ones that push firmly but reasonably against the players, so they have to do a little more work than button-mashing their basic attack/skill, those are the ones that work best in my experience.
Any GM can make a hard encounter; any GM can make an impossible encounter. A good GM can make an interesting encounter.

 

[Jhaelen]

Here's an interesting encounter, one goblin with a slingshot guarding a mountain of gold pieces.

I'm pretty sure my group would refrain from attacking that goblin, suspecting a trap. And after spending an hour or so of unsuccessfully trying to figure out what kind of trap it is, they may either decide to leave it alone or try to have a talk with the goblin.

In other words: Yes, it's an interesting encounter idea. It's _not_ an interesting combat encounter, though.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, it's an interesting encounter idea. It's _not_ an interesting combat encounter, though.

But do difficult encounters have to be confined to combat? I don't think so personally.

 

[KenNYC]

Encounters should be deadly, be it monsters, traps, assassins...what have you. Talking to the local bartender should not be deadly though.

I truly don't understand playing a non-deadly D&D. It makes all battles a giant waste of time because if it isn't deadly you know who will win before the battle starts. Furthermore, because the players know they will win they will play poorly because it doesn't matter what they do since they will win anyway. Let it be deadly, let them die. It doesn't mean the story is over. it just means those characters dying was a part of the story. If they get mad, tell them next time play a little smarter.

 

[5ekyu]

I'm pretty sure my group would refrain from attacking that goblin, suspecting a trap. And after spending an hour or so of unsuccessfully trying to figure out what kind of trap it is, they may either decide to leave it alone or try to have a talk with the goblin.

In other words: Yes, it's an interesting encounter idea. It's _not_ an interesting combat encounter, though.

Absolutely... if it had been my suggestion of scenario it would already be a thread with that one sentence description followed by "make this an encounter you would use" and I betcha there would be a bunch of cool ideas.

 

[5ekyu]

But do difficult encounters have to be confined to combat? I don't think so personally.

Not st sll... nor was that implied. I got at least half dozen ideas how this could be challenging as soon as I saw it.

Heck, just one - from pro-wrestling - it's harder to hold onto the gold than to capture the gold.

 

[pemerton]

I truly don't understand playing a non-deadly D&D. It makes all battles a giant waste of time because if it isn't deadly you know who will win before the battle starts. Furthermore, because the players know they will win they will play poorly because it doesn't matter what they do since they will win anyway.

This thread is in General, not just D&D.

Recently my group has been playing a mostly non-deadly RPG: Prince Valiant. In our session on Sunday there were 6 combats, all jousts, none deadly. No one knew who would win before the fight started, though they could pick a favourite by the relative size of the dice pools. The stakes in most of the jousts were no more than honour - defeating an irritating rival NPC knight, and jousting with a French knigh who was expressing doubts about the quality of British chivalry. One PC ended up in the championship joust of the tournament against him and lost, despite having the bigger pool. That was a bit galling to him.

The final joust was over an accusation - one of the PCs had (accurately) accused a NPC knight of treachery. But his champion - another PC - lost the joust between the two of them, and had to concede the NPC's innocence (he wasn't willing to fight to the death over the issue). The result was that the treacherous knight was unconstrained, and able to murder his brother and take command of the fortress that had passed down from their father.

Fights can be non-deadly let challenging both mechanically/mathematically and emotionally/thematically without having to be deadly. This goes back to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s categories of interesting and meaningful.

 

[MNblockhead]

Session 0 or, you know, just talk to your players. I've been DMing 5e for about 4 years now.

My first campaign was homebrew and I found that past the first couple levels, I always overestimated the difficulty of combat. This was largely because my players were very experienced and I could throw a lot more at them then I thought was appropriate. Nobody died in two years. But they kept showing up. I think think what made it fun what that I was struggling to make appropriate combats, but I was pretty good at puzzles, mystery, and multiple plot threads they could pick up and make their own in a huge sandboxy world.

My second campaign was Curse of Strahd. Early in the game there was a near TPK and there were encounters that required resurrection. But the final showdown was a bit anticlimatic combat wise. Still, overall, the campaign was a lot of fun, even though it didn't go as expected. It turned out to be more about witches and liches than Vampires. Like my first campaign, it was very story driven, but deadlier, except at the very end.

My current campaign that I'm starting up can be insanely deadly. A wrong turn, getting sloppy with one trap, not properly investigating magic areas and items can lead to quick--even instant death--and TPKs are pretty easy to occur if you are not playing very carefully.

Three very different campaigns, three different levels of combat difficulty, and three different levels of combat focus. Same group of players. In four years they played games where they knew they were almost certain to win any combat, to being afraid of their own shadows. They keep showing up to the games, so they must be enjoying it well enough.

My take away is, yes, know your players. But don't underestimate them. The same player can enjoy different campaign styles. If you want to play an ultra-lethal campaign, let the players know that upfront. In an otherwise "normal" campaign, if you want to throw in some especially deadly encounters, you may want to telegraph that to your players so they are not completely caught off guard. But, occasionally, being caught completely off guard is exciting.

 

[Umbran]

I truly don't understand playing a non-deadly D&D.

That's okay. Understanding may be achievable.

Consider - fights are not the only thing in a D&D game. If a player (or group of players) is really interested in some aspect of the game other than fights, then maybe having the fights be deadly is not leading the players to their fun very well.

 

[KenNYC]

That's okay. Understanding may be achievable.

Consider - fights are not the only thing in a D&D game. If a player (or group of players) is really interested in some aspect of the game other than fights, then maybe having the fights be deadly is not leading the players to their fun very well.

Then don't have fights, have something else that has stakes involved, like traps or puzzles. Sorry, even after your post I still don't understand. It doesn't have to be fights, it could be traps, puzzles, a murder mystery storyline, anything really, but you need to have stakes. What I am seeing here is not a defense of enjoying other aspects of the game, but rather a defense of low to no stakes D&D. You will win every fight, solve every riddle, remove every trap because you enjoy other aspects of the game.

I love most aspects of the game and I prefer to never roll dice and role play my way through every encounter and trap. That said, if a pack of wolves comes my way, they should have the right to rip my throat out.