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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 9087976" data-attributes="member: 7635">That's not really how most modern video games act anymore. Most video games that have a story are built for the player to SEE the story. The idea of a video game so hard few players ever sees the ending is antiquated. Instead, difficulty is measured in side-activities: completing collections, finding rare items, fighting hidden bosses, challenge modes, etc. A video game that is hard is a video game that isn't played except by a small group of dedicated players, and when your goal is to appeal to a wide swath of players (and get their microtransaction money) you build to keep the player interested. The players find their own level of challenge. Of course, some exceptions exist (the Souls series is famed for its brutal difficulty) but they are exceptions. Now, D&D is unique because there are two basic styles of play (with ten thousand variations): open-ended and story driven. Open ended is the classic Gygax "endless dungeon" where you play with your PCs for as long as you can against all challenges that arise. It also includes the hexcrawls or other styles where there is no ending to the campaign until all players are dead (And sometimes not even then). Story driven is the Dragonlance/AP style of a campaign having a story the plays out over the course of several levels and culminates in a finale. You're there for an interactive story and it's akin to most modern "story modes" or "campaign modes" in video games. Basically, open ended is arcade style "play for as long as you can" while story is akin to the console style "interactive storytelling experience". Diablo vs Final Fantasy. Obviously, both playstyles want different challenge levels. Open ended want a steady progression of escalating challenge with a higher chance of failure. Notions like "challenges beyond your capacities" and "smart, tactical play" are key elements to this style. As is harsh penalties for failure, including loss of gear and permanent PC death. Whereas story driven wants some challenge, but they seek a fair challenge because they want to see the end of the story. The journey is just as important as the destination. They may opt for harder challenges, but generally speaking, the goal is to defeat the BBEG and win the adventure. Those types of players favor things like action points to mitigate bad dice rolls or straightforward ways to return dead PCs to life (it's not always as much fun to finish an AP with a different PC than when you started). All that said, I think the game has moved heavily towards the story-driven style of play. Old School Endless play can be fun, but the modern audience wants plots and villains and set pieces. Critical Role didn't get popular being a competitive survival game to see who lasts longest, it got popular due to the stories and characters. And that requires a more nuanced and balanced style of play that provides a challenge, but not ramping difficulty and high lethality. That said, the beauty of D&D is it can still accommodate the latter, with a few tweaks. But as a default style, I think the game has abandoned endless dungeon for story mode.</blockquote>

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