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Yep. Do more dungeons. Maybe include some dragons from time to time.

So it's true - players do read the adventure at the table during play!

I wouldn't be able to do that - I'd metagame too hard and make myself angry.

D&D is inherently silly, right to its core, so I submit that CoS is actually better in my view when it's not made serious or horrible. If you give it the Evil Dead treatment, it's actually excellent, and that will play right into the players making jokes and being typical adventurers. Change...

This past Friday. D&D 5e, Planescape. PCs from a past campaign are Together Again For One Last Job - stealing back a god that was stolen from her realm by a demon prince. Currently getting pummeled in Zrintor, the Viper Forest on the 45th layer of the Abyss and about to steal a Ship of Chaos...

Last night. D&D 4e, online. Goliath Strength cleric named Streetwise Hercules. It was glorious.

I'm not a "simulationist" (and don't care for the Forge theory from which that particular waffle is derived). I wouldn't say what I do is confrontational either because I don't see things in terms of beating or being beaten, though I do sometimes like to play the heel for effect. But I don't...

I don't handwave away any hit points either. We go to the bitter end. The players still laugh about (at tonight's session even) the fire bat that Just Wouldn't Die.

My games are lighthearted in tone, generally speaking, but they deal with serious things and last 20 to 30 (packed) four-hour sessions. I don't worry about the "dramatic weight" of an encounter because part of playing is seeing where things go. To that end, I try not to put my thumb on the scale...

I guess what I don't share is why it is necessarily a "disappointing encounter." My experience is that the players never seem to mind that they smashed some villain or another to bits easily.

That's certainly never stopped D&D nerds from cornering me in a gaming store and telling me all about their game while I desperately looked around for a fire alarm to pull so I could get the heck out of there.

The challenge with telegraphing difficulty is that difficulty starts changing the moment the players make meaningful decisions and the dice start rolling. I think it's better to telegraph specific things the enemy can do rather than just say "tough" or "pushover" or whatever. Let the players...

If we end up playing a game, dibs on my Int-5 Sherlock Holmes character.

I would say the main thing is that, if something has already been established, it should not be contradicted by DM (or players).

That oughta learn 'em. What was the encounter?

I don't recommend doing those things either, and personally do not do them. When I see it happening as a player, it feels bad to me. Set the stakes at the start of the challenge - life or death, freedom or capture, or whatever other goals are on the table - and follow through to see how it turns...

I suspect this was a sleight of hand situation like the cups and balls trick, but swapping out for a d20 with one that has 20s on every side.

Great comments. In a D&D 5e context, I've run a few games where death was taken off the table because I didn't think it fit with the theme. One campaign was a very pulpy Eberron serial hero game, and the other was a D&D/supers mashup. So the rule there was that you're just taken out of the scene...

Arguably, the dice are the most fair thing at the table though. They save you or destroy you, or the monsters, in more or less equal measure over time. What I see in your examples is the DM not agreeing to the stakes they themselves created by having rules or situations in play that can result...

I think you may be reading me too literally. I'm not saying you, DEFCON 1, need to do a thing to correct yourself. I'm saying, if "someone" (the universal "you") wants to let the dice decide, all "someone" need do is create stakes the group is happy with whether it's success or failure. Then no...