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

[DEFCON 1]

No.

 

[Eubani]

Too hard hurts a game but too simple more so because it removes design space and granularity.

 

[overgeeked]

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

Depends entirely on the mood I’m in and what style I want to play next.

Civ on settler can be just as fun as Elden Ring or Darkest Dungeon on Stygian.

 

[Reynard]

For my part, I feel like a sense of desperation enhances the fun. Note that I said "sense." Sometimes all you need is the for the players to feel like they are in trouble, regardless of the actual difficulty of the encounter.

But I also like enough variability or swinginess in the combat system that even during relatively "easy" battles there is the potential for everything to go sideways, and everyone at the table is aware of it. One of the reasons 5E bothers me is that as the PCs level, the potential sidewaysness decreases.

 

[Steampunkette]

D&D should tell a cooperative story. One that everyone has fun in.

Character death, and specifically permadeath, happens... but unless you're telling a grimdark story it shouldn't be lurking around every corner.

Some stories are Grimdark. Some a Heroic Fantasy. Some are Zany Gonzo games. Each game will have it's own tone and it's own level of 'Hard' or not. And there's nothing wrong with that.

To avoid "Overoptimized, easy encounters" you talk to your players. To avoid "Underperforming, TPK" you talk to your players.

Set expectations in advance and go from there. This "Question" presented as a statement is, in the end, meaningless. Because it cannot be answered in a meaningful way.

 

[Reynard]

D&D should tell a cooperative story.

should it?

. This "Question" presented as a statement is, in the end, meaningless. Because it cannot be answered in a meaningful way.

It is a question of preference. You can answer it as meaningfully as you like, or not. But that doesn't make it meaningless.

 

[MGibster]

I prefer character death to be a real possibility. Right now, I find 5th edition to be a little too forgiving and death difficult to attain.

 

[payn]

For my part, I feel like a sense of desperation enhances the fun. Note that I said "sense." Sometimes all you need is the for the players to feel like they are in trouble, regardless of the actual difficulty of the encounter.

But I also like enough variability or swinginess in the combat system that even during relatively "easy" battles there is the potential for everything to go sideways, and everyone at the table is aware of it. One of the reasons 5E bothers me is that as the PCs level, the potential sidewaysness decreases.

I think the swingingness is important to getting that sense of dread. At least for me it is. When the combat is too predictable, I bounce off it. I ran into that with PF2. On the flip side it sucks losing a PC to bad luck on a surprise or die roll that a player had no way to effect. Thats why I also like using hero point systems where a player can save their bacon in such situations. YMMV.

 

[Steampunkette]

should it?

Yes.

It is a question of preference. You can answer it as meaningfully as you like, or not. But that doesn't make it meaningless.

Lemme ask you: What volume do you put your electronics at?

See how silly that question is? Because OBVIOUSLY you're going to change the volume depending on the specific device, circumstances, and preferences of the moment. You don't set everything to 100% and leave it there forever.

It's a question that presumes there's a specific answer that will stay the same. But life and gaming don't work like that. Even if you're asking each person their specific volume setting you're still asking an ultimately meaningless question because it will change based on circumstance.

 

[DammitVictor]

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.