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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7896221" data-attributes="member: 29398">The players, however, have no way of knowing whether any given encounter is going to be easy, hard, or anything else before it's been played through; and appearances can be deceiving.&nbsp; Sure I-as-DM might know, but that's information I have to keep to myself.I'll never just 'narrate&quot; something like that, for two reasons: one, narration precludes anythng dramatic occurring due to dice rolling; and two, narration assumes the players/PCs' approach which IME can unexpectedly change on a dime.For example, they get two rooms onto a six-room dungeon and realize the place seems to be entirely populated by Goblins, which at the PCs' level are a pushover.&nbsp; Now sure, they might just plow through and kill everything in the place...or they might decide to take prisoners and-or release the Goblins into the wild...or (and this has happened IME) they might decide on a whim to take the place over and hire the remaining Goblins as staff!No way of knowing unless you play it through; and sometimes it's nice to throw a too-easy curveball at them to mirror the too-hard ones I throw 'em at other times - in either case whether intentionally or not.It's only as boring as you and the players make it. (of course, if the system you're playing is one that tends to make any combat drag out then that's different - can't help you there <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7896221, member: 29398"] The players, however, have no way of knowing whether any given encounter is going to be easy, hard, or anything else before it's been played through; and appearances can be deceiving. Sure I-as-DM might know, but that's information I have to keep to myself. I'll never just 'narrate" something like that, for two reasons: one, narration precludes anythng dramatic occurring due to dice rolling; and two, narration assumes the players/PCs' approach which IME can unexpectedly change on a dime. For example, they get two rooms onto a six-room dungeon and realize the place seems to be entirely populated by Goblins, which at the PCs' level are a pushover. Now sure, they might just plow through and kill everything in the place...or they might decide to take prisoners and-or release the Goblins into the wild...or (and this has happened IME) they might decide on a whim to take the place over and hire the remaining Goblins as staff! No way of knowing unless you play it through; and sometimes it's nice to throw a too-easy curveball at them to mirror the too-hard ones I throw 'em at other times - in either case whether intentionally or not. It's only as boring as you and the players make it. (of course, if the system you're playing is one that tends to make any combat drag out then that's different - can't help you there :) ) [/QUOTE]

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