How tough are your adventures?

[Mr Baron]

Solid 3

I want to make it challenging, but not impossible. I do feel that most excitement happens when the threat of character death is right around the corner.

 

[aurance]

Good planning + good dice rolls = Total success
Good planning + bad dice rolls = Difficult but success
Dumb planning + good dice rolls = Difficult but success
Dumb planning + bad dice rolls = Death

I really really like this.

 

[Montague68]

3 is the ideal. If I deviate from that I tend to go more towards 4, usually because I have experienced players.

I don't like to throw no-win encounters at the players unless they go looking for trouble (TM).

The greatest satisfaction from being a DM for me is setting up a well-balanced climactic encounter that has the group sweating it out and high-fiving at the end with no fudging and as few deaths as possible.

 

[Asha'man]

My aim when I play with my main group is to be a 4. I derive great fun and some satisfaction from building dangerous monsters and optimized NPCs, and detailing their evil plans. I try to play them as true to their motivations and goals as I can, using their resources to the fullest without regard for whether that means being hard on or seemingly unfair to the PCs. I will create traps and no-win situations for the PCs if the villains have the opportunity and inclination to set them up. (Although, for this reason I try to keep a tight reign on the resources I give the villains in the first place, to avoid the most frustrating effects.) I never fudge rolls (although I roll behind a screen to avoid giving the PCs too much information) and I do the best I can to be a fair adjudicator and not make the game adversarial. Altough my players complain sometimes, the overall response is positive.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

2d2. Depends on the group.

 

[FireLance]

Mostly 3, but I never deliberately use encounters that are too difficult for the party. PC deaths are rare, and are usually the result of a series of poor dice rolls, or me misjudging the difficulty of the encounter.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Voted 3, though sometimes I slide towards 2, if it's about PC death.

If it's about PC failure, I'm in 4.

For me, death is boring, living with their failures and having to clean up their mess is interesting.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Dykstrav]

My games are usually a high 3 or a solid 4. This is because my DMing style is very much "let the dice fall where they may." I rarely cut players a break in terms of fudging die rolls or selectively ignoring the rules, since I like to stick to the rules as written most of the time (sometimes, I might "forget" to have a monster take their action in a round, but that's about as far as I go with handing players a break). I wouldn't dream of fudging die rolls or rules for my monsters to get an advantage, so I don't think it's fair to do it for the characters either.

I also tend to run "status quo" settings, where the APL is not the major determination of what is to be found in the setting. Trolls are common in the Troll Hills because that's where they live, not because the APL is around 9 and that's where the characters happen to be adventuring. If the characters want to venture into the Troll Hills at APL 3, I won't stop them--but I'll certainly regale them with tales they hear in the nearby settlements of horrific troll raids and adventuring parties that went there and never returned. If they still want to go there... Well, they can't say they weren't warned.

My D&D worlds are brutal places where you risk serious consequences for doing risky (or stupid) things. As a DM, I feel like I have a responsibility to impartially adjudicate how the world works, not to allow characters to try anything they want without consequences. If you really want to slap the princess at a royal ball or try to break into the assassin's guild headquarters, I'll let you try it... But there's no "reset button" or "loading from your last save." You're going to have to deal with the consequences.

That being said, I rarely put things into the game that can't be handled multiple ways. Combat is always risky, but I try to make it so that the characters don't have to beat everything to a bloody pulp to advance the plot either.

Character death is actually very rare in my games. I've only had one in my 4E game so far, and it was totally avoidable. I've noticed that players take their actions seriously.

 

[Ander00]

I design encounters as a solid 3, but I guess I might be running them as something closer to 5 a bit too often. Whether published adventure or homebrew, the PCs are constantly challenged, perhaps a little too much. I'm going to try a gentler touch with the new campaign slated to start soon (possibly set after the catastrophic events the party in the previous campaign failed to prevent).


cheers