D&D General Should D&D Be "Hard"

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My players have explicitly told me that if they aren't rolling death saves in a given adventure, it wasn't as much fun for them. They tend to seek out trouble, though.

 

[Rabbitbait]

Players need to have the fear of death, but it actually be fairly unlikely. Most campaigns of mine will have at least one PC permadeath. Tomb of Annihilation had 7, but they were warned that it would be a meatgrinder.

No deaths and the players get too lazy. Too many deaths and they get too careful. The fun is in the middle ground where the players know that death is a destinct possibility but that they are likely to get through OK.

 

[CreamCloud0]

There's a problem with conflating "difficulty" with "lethality". In video games, lethality is equivalent to difficulty because the game will force you to replay it again, and again-- and again if necessary-- until you get it right. It's difficult but it isn't impactful because the only story the game can tell is the story it's made to tell.

In roleplaying games, with a little advance planning and a permissive DM, you can have your backup character plunging headlong into combat with their brand new best friends before the old character is finished bleeding out on the tavern floor. Death can be frequent, but even without resurrection it isn't much of a consequence.

I like games that are... a little on the lethal side, but unlike videogames or meatgrinders, I want games where failure, in myriad forms, is likely and instead of reloading from a checkpoint or grabbing 4d6, players and player characters have to live with the consequences of their failures and move on. I want games where even the most catastrophic failure doesn't mean the campaign is over... it means the players have to dig themselves out of the hole they dug with their previous characters.

yeah it's like, i remember hearing about how in some children's shows where because the network won't let them use the words death or die or kill and suchlike that the creators have actually had to improvise fates that are arguably far far worse than death because they'd been unable to 'merely' kill them.

death usually means the suffering ends, surviving means you have to continue, now with another burden.

 

[Stormonu]

All I really care about in D&D is if I'm having fun and I don't feel like the characters are hobbled or incompetent. I won't oppose the threat of defeat, but that doesn't necessarily mean death for the characters. On the other hand, I'm not going to save them from their own foolishness.

I do know I hate funnels, and won't play in that sort of game.

 

[Zardnaar]

It probably should be as hard as the players consider after the fact to have been fun. And regardless of difficulty it should be fair.

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It's a ymmv type thing without to much gotcha type traps or whatever.

 

[dave2008]

This is a simple question with a lot of complex possible responses, so I decided to not do a poll.

The question is: should D&D be hard? That is, is D&D better when the chances of success are slimmer, when encounters and puzzles are more difficult, when a bad die roll or a poor decision can end lives, adventures or whole campaigns?

If your tabletop D&D campaign had a video game style difficulty slider, what would you set it at? Why?

And how do different kinds of "hard" interact?

I think the default game should be easy with dials to make it harder. 5e is easy, but it is pretty simple to turn a few dials to make it a bit harder all the way to brutal. I know, we've messed with them and had to dial it back when it got to messy!

 

[dave2008]

There should always be the risk of character death. Permadeath....

D&D currently makes it too easy to recover from zero hp.

Death at 0 is always an option and simple to implement.

 

[dave2008]

.One of the reasons 5E bothers me is that as the PCs level, the potential sidewaysness decreases.

I have heard this before, but that has not really been my experience. My group is 15th level and I can fairly routinely turn things sideways. Now, I agree the potential is less because the PCs have more options. However, that is as it should be IMO. As the DM I feel I can control that (the variability) well if needed.

Question, do you use the DMG tables for damage and difficulty by level? If you do, I think you will see some of the potential sidewaysness come back some. At least that is my experience.

 

[Oofta]

There should always be the risk of character death. Permadeath....

D&D currently makes it too easy to recover from zero hp.

It's not that hard to kill a PC if that's your goal. Once they drop to 0, every attack is at advantage and every hit is a critical if the attacker is within 5 feet. Critical hits cause 2 failed death saves. A lot of monsters can kill a PC in a single turn. Once the PCs get revivify you do need to prevent access to the body to the cleric. Unless you target the cleric first, eat the body, carry it off or otherwise make it unavailable. I came close to killing off a couple of 18th level PCs not long ago with some frost worms.

It's not like death has ever been permanent in D&D if you can recover the body and have access to the appropriate magic.

 

[Shiroiken]

I personally want to play a game that's challenging, even if that means I suffer character deaths along the way. However, I think the game is more popular if the challenges are easier, allowing casual players to succeed. Having built in options to increase the difficulty would be the best way to accommodate multiple styles of play. 5E tried this, to limited success.