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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 9163628" data-attributes="member: 72555">Oh, feedback!The danger in a single round or in a single encounter produces feedback within the encounter.  PCs have to flee from the actual encounter - which, mechanically, is insanely lethal -- if things don't go their way.  Or the DM has to fudge it.On the other hand, with danger accumulating between encounters, PCs get plenty of feedback that they are in trouble.  Fleeing between encounters tends to be much easier, and the consequences are usually of the form of changes to the shape of the world and story, and not in the form of a PC dead.Ie, if it takes 4 encounters to drain PCs of all of their HP and spells and abilities, and after 2 encounters things are going poorly (they are all at 1/3 HP and 1/3 spells, having used up that much in each of their previous encounters), the Players have a really solid feedback that the next encounter would be possibly fatal unless it is no harder.  And after that encounter, with everyone nearly completely exhausted (even if they kept losses to 1/4 of resources), the next encounter (which is seemingly no easier) should send the PCs panicking.But if it takes 4 rounds for this to happen, after round 2 the PCs are on the ropes (at 1/3 of max HP and having used 2/3 of their abilities), fleeing using a D&D like game engine is likely to just result in a TPK, or at best under 50% of the party escaping (unless they use a magical "get out of doom free" card like a single-action teleport).I see a bunch of anecdotes about DMs feeling they have to pull punches to prevent PCs from being wiped regularly.  And that is going to happen when you try to be challenging with 1 encounter/day and NOT use attrition mechanics.Meanwhile, if you do use attrition mechanics, the PCs (and hence the players) will be making informed decisions to risk everything by pushing on (because of the feedback).Player agency is about providing feedback and meaningful choices.  Attrition based gameplay does exactly that - the stakes (of whatever motivates the PCs to adventure in this situation) vs the risks (which are being played out by attrition of resources).When it is the difficulty of individual encounters, PCs really don't have great resources to measure how hard an encounter is (short of player's metagaming).  Like, "you see 20 half-orcs" - they could be using the stats of CR 1/8 guards, CR 1/2 orcs, or CR 2 berzerkers.  The same game fiction could be a suitable encounter for a group of Level 2-3 PCs, the other is an encounter for a group of level 10-15 PCs.</blockquote>

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