I love hard encounters, if you have a decent group of people to back you up. It makes the encounters memorable and makes you yearn for more. This is all contingent on how well your party dynamic works. The bad thing is that it typically exhausts your resources and then you have to spend a day resting again. So if things are time sensitive in game it makes it frustrating.
It's definitely way more fun when things are challenging.
Who wants to play a cake walk? Some folks maybe, but not me.
That said, I don't think that *every* encounter needs to be really difficult. It is fun to blow through an encounter once in a while, while having other encounters be down to the wire.
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It's definitely way more fun when things are challenging.
Who wants to play a cake walk? Some folks maybe, but not me.
That said, I don't think that *every* encounter needs to be really difficult. It is fun to blow through an encounter once in a while, while having other encounters be down to the wire.
I've been told combat isn't fun if I don't knock at least one PC into negatives..
I think it varies from group to group. Just like in your examples in the original post.
For me personally, I like challenging encounters. It does make me feel like there's actual danger of losing my character. And let's be honest, it takes someone (or multiple someones) losing a character every once in a while for that threat to be real.
That being said, I also love feeling like my character is a total bad-ass. And for that to be the case, sometimes I have to totally mop up a group of opponents who are considered tough or awesome by the people around them. Some of my favorite moments in campaigns have been when my group sauntered into town and beat the piss out of a group of local thugs. It always ends up with us in deeper trouble, but it also makes me feel like I've (at least to some extent) actually become someone to fear.
It's a balance, i guess.
I'll also say that it's just tedious if every fight is a total cliff-hanger. If every time I think everyone in the group is going to die, it gets old fast.
A good tough encounter can be a great way to bond a group together, especially as a first session. It should teach them the value of team work.
I like to give my players a variety of challenges, as they enjoy a quick massacre of goblins that used to be challenging, and they enjoy equal CR challenges that use a few resources without overly taxing them, and they enjoy APL +3 or 4 to really test their skills of combat.
As GM, I enjoy running all of these too.
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I like most encounters to be fairly easy, honestly, with only the "boss battles" so to speak being difficult. Not to say a total cakewalk, but CR appropriate for the most part (and not cheesy-abilitied "how is this a CR X?" ones either, though thankfully most of those seem to have been done away with in PF).
It goes back to what the OP mentioned - having the constant thought of "my character may die at any moment" makes me less attached to her. If she dies doing something truly heroic, that's ok...but getting killed by a couple bad rolls fighting kobolds or orcs? Nah, no thanks.
I like a mix.
Firstly, it feels more like your characters are in a real world, where some enemies are easy, some are hard, and some are simply beyond you.
Secondly, you can experience both the thrill of barely scraping by on a tough fight, and also the satisfaction of showing off as you're stomping all over weaklings.
Thirdly, you're forced to really think against difficult foes, and this gives you new strategies. The easy foes let you play around with experimental strategies or new powers without risking your neck to do so.
I sprinkle slightly-higher-than-party-level encounters into each adventure, but always with an eye as to what the PCs should be equipped with by that point, as well as other factors, like terrain.
Hard encounters can be really fun for some folks, and really frustrating for others. So you have to know your players and their styles and whether a particular hard encounter can be made interesting enough so that the ones who are usually frustrated remain engaged.
The most important thing to remember is that just because an encounter is CR-appropriate, does not make it a "walk-through." When you've done this long enough, you will have seen really bizarre stuff like goblins or kobolds wiping out a party three levels higher than the CR. Why? Dice. Remember the game is played using dice, and they could turn on the party at any time. Bad luck simply IS a factor. A CR-appropriate encounter can become a total party kill in a hurry, depending on player mood, style, and the dice.
I have a long-time player who insists on never backing down. He's run away maybe a couple times over a couple of decades. For a long time, he metagamed, stating that "the GM has no intention of giving us an encounter we would have to run from." You can imagine quite a number of characters died over that time.
I have always been a firm follower of the philosophy 'You cant truly have fun without meaningful conflict' (in a game scenario). It's sort of a corollary to the old adage 'When every day is a vacation, holidays mean nothing'. Without work, holidays are just another day. Without tough challenges and scenarios, fun is just another 10 minutes at the table.
I accomplish this by refusing to 'tailor' encounters to my players (in the specific sense -- 'Oh theyre level 4, the EL needs to be...') and instead letting verisimilitude carry the day and then often weakening (or powering up!) monsters of various individual ability as the party encounters them. One dragon may be CR22, but he's been burnt by adventurers once recently and so 'defeating' him means doing 20 points of damage. Basically, things that make monsters less 'roving stat boxes' and more 'creatures that have bad runs of dice rolls too'.
I don't know about knocking a PC unconcious every battle though, that seems excessive. If EVERY challenge is a 'skin of the teeth' fight, then the PC's constantly feel weak. Sometimes an encounter wherein the bad guys have virtually NO chance is exactly what the party needs (and it lessens the bad feelings when THEY encounter something that simply can not be beat (yet)).
There should always be a risk associated with the game, else there is little that makes you heroes. Now, I love to place a priority on the story line of the game above the combats of the game, but in most cases it is battle that leaves the party with tales to tell. So, when it comes to fun, the parties I run with (one as a player, one as a DM) are a split group that likes their fun to go both ways.
In my experience, risk is important, but, there should be control. For example, it should be extremely rare that a party member gets disabled in the first round and the player just sits there for 3 hours while the encounter plays itself out. By "extremely rare" I mean like maybe once every few years -- maybe.
There should always be some risk that a character will get pasted in any given session, but, not in any given encounter. There ought to be some pretty intense encounters every five or so encounters. But, the intensity doesn't mean a character or two have to drop into the negatives. Exhausting resources, getting all the characters into the "Oh crap, I have to roll a 15 or higher on this roll or I'm going down this round," zone, kidnapping an important NPC, all this kind of stuff has to be available. The players have to pay attention to what their characters are doing.
Players who play well, players who play together well, should be rewarded. Risk should balance against reward.
Dave
Interestingly enough, one of the encounters my group enjoyed the most was when they were a first level party and were fighting a full pack of wolves, i.e. a CR12 encounter. They were panicked, especially when the wolves got the drop on them, but they fought hard, and eventually won the battle with two players down to zero hp and knocked out therefore.
In my experience, risk is important, but, there should be control. For example, it should be extremely rare that a party member gets disabled in the first round and the player just sits there for 3 hours while the encounter plays itself out. By "extremely rare" I mean like maybe once every few years -- maybe.
There should always be some risk that a character will get pasted in any given session, but, not in any given encounter. There ought to be some pretty intense encounters every five or so encounters. But, the intensity doesn't mean a character or two have to drop into the negatives. Exhausting resources, getting all the characters into the "Oh crap, I have to roll a 15 or higher on this roll or I'm going down this round," zone, kidnapping an important NPC, all this kind of stuff has to be available. The players have to pay attention to what their characters are doing.
Players who play well, players who play together well, should be rewarded. Risk should balance against reward.
Dave
This.
It's important to realize how much of a challenge the players want. I've seen dm's talking about how if 'nobody died then there wasn't a challenge enough...'
that's garbage.
There should be the THREAT of death... but they shouldn't be so far behind the eight ball that they HAVE to roll nat 20's or they're doomed to die.
That's in a NORMAL group.
In the OP's group, I would go EXTRA soft on them. First of all your TRYING to make the game accessable to the new guys. If they are starting at level one... they have enough against them already.
If you spank them silly and kill their first character that they probably spent 3-4 hours trying to make, in only a couple of rounds...
THAT... ISN'T.... FUN!
The stubborn ones may make new characters, the casual players will get bored and not play anymore. I learned that the hard way with the Highlander CCG. I got people real excited to play, then beat them so bad they walked away.
I got a lot of cards... but nobody to play with.
You also have to remember that they don't KNOW all the tricks yet. The multitude of spells/feats/gear... the Withdrawing, Aiding another, flanking....
The encounters should be based on the group playing, NOT necessarily the CR of the 'party'. After they get a book or two of an AP under their belts... then raise the stakes a bit.
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I enjoy playing Timesplitters: Future Perfect with 1 star difficulty bots. Running and gunning and killing without end.
I also enjoy playing I Wanna Be The Guy and dying endlessly, over and over.
Difficulty and fun are not related. A fun game is a fun game no matter how easy it is, and an unfun game is an unfun game no matter how hard it is.
My normal group is a pretty heavy story / RP group. A couple of them hate thinking and become angry when their characters take damage.
I just started running for a new group. They are all first level characters going into a PF sandbox with 4 or so active quests at a time. For their first game, they wiped out an orc dungeon.
It is worth pointing out that of the 5 players, two have mild experience and two never played before.
On their way into the cave, they set off an arrow trap that rings a bell. They decided to go in anyway and took on two groups of orcs instead of just one. This fight dropped 4 of 5 PCs and ended in an one on one between the fighter and orc.
Later that game they healed up, mopped up, and took the treasure. They had a ball. Everyone thought it was really fun.
Do you think a certain difficulty is more fun? Do you think PF should be a CR appropriate walk through or do you enjoy fighting even fights or having to run? Does the risk of losing a character make you less invested in the story or does it make it exciting? If you like hard fights, would hard fights every week get old? Do you need an easy mode break from time to time?
I think everyone has their own preferences so I can only speak for myself. I like being put in difficult situations, RP and combat wise. It make the game interesting to me. I get bored when the game is easy and/or I realize the GM will not kill me. I don't like running at all, but that is because I normally associate running with losing. I still enjoy the fight that made me run though. If it happens all the time it gets old, but if it is because of the dice I am more likely to accept than if the GM is only throwing boss level fights at us, at the rate we should be fighting normal to moderately difficult fights.
When I GM I usually run moderate to hard fights. Everyone once in a while I will throw a few easy fights in, just to let the players take advantage of their new powers.
Let me preface my comment by saying that I'm not just talking about combat, I'd talking about all aspects of a campaign.
I've recently discussed this with a number of friends who are experienced roleplayers, GMs and game writers. The terminology I settled on is win/loss percentages. For example, an extremely cautious player who never wants to take damage let alone get knocked down or lose a battle, argument, item, etc. would be a 100/0. Someone who likes things challenging enough that there's a risk of loss, but not much actual loss might be a 95/5 or a 90/10.
In a recent campaign I ran I had a 95/5 and a 50/50 in the same group, which is a bit rough.
100/0 - Extremely loss adverse.
90/10 - Typical gamer. Wants enough real loss to feel the risk, but doesn't really enjoy experiencing the loss.
80/20 - Typical gamer who says, "I like hard games."
70/30 - Hardcore gamer. Characters will occasionally be lost. Someone's gonna die.
60/40 - Likes a hard game, expects to lose a character occasionally. Everyone's gonna die at least once in a campaign, some more than once.
50/50 - Prefers a game that is about loss as much as progress and victory.
49/51 or lower - Masochists!
I like a good mixture from very difficult to very easy. The easier encounter give you feeling of being powerful. The difficult encounters give you the challenge. Having all one or the other is frustrating.
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For me fun is where the players think they will die but dont. That is my sweet spot and obviously things can swing above and bellow that. But as dm I aim for that, and as a player that's what i want.
That said my next campaign is going to be an experiment. In my group we have definately slid toward the 90-10 side of things over the last few years, and I am wondering what the game might be like if things were a bit riskier and a bit more challenging.
Honestly I think any kind of game can be fun, its just a matter of knowing what to expect and running with it.
Fun is...
...an enjoyable group dynamic.
...a DM you trust.
...an engaging story.
...a meaningful challenge.
In any game, trust between the DM, between players, becomes paramount. If the DM takes a character from the game through a story arc or combat, the player should trust that either or both are true:
...it was a fair challenge
...the DM has a plot arc lined up, and has fun in mind
The dynamics of the group are important, too. Different personalities. Just like planning a dinner party, plan a group with some eye towards the overall dyamics when possible. Barring that, have some set and basic expectations of behavior. Talk through issues first.
I'd propose it comes down to a few things: common interests, an acceptance of basic decent, human behavior, and an agreement to come together over the table, as it were.
My belief as a Player and GM is there is
IF THERE IS NO THREAT OF DEATH WHY PLAY?
So Yeah I want to be challenged at least once a night where I have to worry that either I or one of my party mates will die in this combat
The very first thing I do to make sure everyone has fun is that I make sure I enjoy spending time with the players for at least 4 hours at a time every other Sunday.
The next thing I do is make sure that their characters have something to do. Sometimes the easy encounters are fun. Sometimes the harder encounters are fun. The trick is to make sure that no one feels left out while at the same time making sure that no one ends up stealing the spotlight (intentionally or not).
What I do is make sure that encounters have more than one solution. It's all fine and dandy if the party wants to trounce the bad guy, but they have managed to change how things work out if they can talk to him first. There was an encounter with a black dragon alchemist that nearly killed them all. They escaped into some tunnels and went through a portal. In the new dungeon, they encountered a shadow spider sorcerer that was a little insane. They could have killed it. Instead they used Diplomacy to befriend it and then convinced it that the dragon had stolen some of its property. They then went back to fight the dragon with their new ally. This changed the course of the battle. The party managed to debuff the dragon and then had the spider take it to the shadow realm and leave it there. She can still return, with a vengeance, but the party's actions were not something that was accounted for in the adventure.
There was another series of encounters where they had to make nice with a bunch of nobles to gather information. There was virtually no combat during the entire adventure. Instead they mixed and mingled, managed to get information and a couple of potentially romantic encounters. They were never really in any danger. They knew the importance of getting the information though and they had a lot of fun using their skills.
Fun is always relative, but the first thing you have to do is enjoy the company of the rest of the group. Then just make sure that there is always something for the characters to do.
In general: Fun is the happy zone where people are being challenged such that mistakes can kill them, but smart play means they *should* succeed. It's basically a window between "I can win without trying" and "No matter what I do I'm going to lose".
Of course, you want those encounters to be different places within that range -- big "memorable" fights tend to be more at the "We need to be both lucky and good to win this one" area, for example.
Now, a few things -- one, I'm using combat, but this holds true for all types of challenges (replace "kill" above with "ruin").
Two, despite what I said about cakewalks, sometimes it's good (fun) for a party to be able to cut loose and just roll over something -- it's a reward and reminder for how tough they've gotten. [One of the fun ways to do this is to have them face a similar challenge several levels later -- e.g. - the goblins are back in town, raiding -- you wipe out the war-parties and the easy guards on the way in, remembering how tough it was last time when you were level 2 -- and now you find that they've been reunified under something much nastier...]
Let me preface my comment by saying that I'm not just talking about combat, I'd talking about all aspects of a campaign.
100/0 - Extremely loss adverse.
90/10 - Typical gamer. Wants enough real loss to feel the risk, but doesn't really enjoy experiencing the loss.
80/20 - Typical gamer who says, "I like hard games."
70/30 - Hardcore gamer. Characters will occasionally be lost. Someone's gonna die.
60/40 - Likes a hard game, expects to lose a character occasionally. Everyone's gonna die at least once in a campaign, some more than once.
50/50 - Prefers a game that is about loss as much as progress and victory.
49/51 or lower - Masochists!
Using this, I would say that the "most of the time" forgettable encounters should be in the 90/10-80/20 range, that the tough challenges should be in the 70/30 to 60/40 range, and that the truly epic battles and what not should be at or just south of 50. (Which is why you learn about your foes and plan ahead, to bring those odds back up).
Then again, I'm mean.
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According to WotC 70% 'win' at everything (from hitting an enemy to making a skill check to aiming at the potty) is preferable.
Personally I like a variety of challenges. Meat grinders are fun when you're high enough level to have a chance, but I like the occasional cake walk (and not to be killed by GMs breaking the rules in their favor), especially if you're taking a break from saving the world to save a village.
My belief as a Player and GM is there is
IF THERE IS NO THREAT OF DEATH WHY PLAY?So Yeah I want to be challenged at least once a night where I have to worry that either I or one of my party mates will die in this combat
I understand your viewpoint, but I don't agree with it.
We had a great game one time where the party went to a militant local temple in a neighboring kingdom to examine the temple records. As they were there, they noticed a visiting temple official from that country's capitol sparring in the yard, and realized he was cheating.
So one of the party headed on out to the yard for a 'friendly' match with the official, immediately attracting a crowd, including most of the party. Meanwhile, one of the party was able to inspect the records they wished to look at with a lot less supervision than they would have had but moments before.
Nobody died, nobody was even injured, and they eventually had to call it a draw for various reasons.
So where was the thread of death in this? It was a blast for all involved and they discovered something significant about the officials from the kingdom's capitol, but there was never even much of a risk of injury, never mind any threat of death.
Every player wants to feel a badass. Some would cackle with glee at the idea of using an extremely optimized grapple-focused monk against casters. Others would have wet dreams at the idea of grappling a t-rex or an iron golem on equal grounds.
Some players get to "feel badass" by defeating enemies that they percieve as "strong", others do by bullying enemies that they percieve as "weak".
There's one thing that I find to be mind-numbingly annoying, to the point where not only is it not fun for me, but it will generally make me quit a game:
When every fight miraculously ends in the PCs seriously injured (within +/- 10 hp of 0), and the bad guys "just barely" defeated. Happens once? Sure, maybe it was a good balance. Happens 15 times in a row? I'm staying home.
I have fun when blowing through mooks without taking a scratch, or when there's no fighting at all. I have fun realizing I've underestimated the opposition and have to run away.
I have a LOT of fun when I need to spend whole sessions stacking the deck in my favor, so when a fight finally does break out, I don't get snuffed out instantly. In my home game, generally if people charge in mindlessly, they get TPKed. If they set things up correctly and play smart, the bad guy sometimes puts up a fight, but just as often goes down like a chump. Some players hate that. Some have quit over that. But some other players absolutely love it. All a matter of taste.
I much prefer games that err on the side of being too easy rather than erring on the side of being too hard. I find certain things about "hard" games rather distasteful and damaging to a good story. E.g.:
- "revolving door" parties where PCs keep dying and new PCs keep getting shoehorned into the current story.
- "GM pity saves" where the party could easily be defeated, but bad guy suddenly goes on Easy Mode instead
There's one thing that I find to be mind-numbingly annoying, to the point where not only is it not fun for me, but it will generally make me quit a game:
When every fight miraculously ends in the PCs seriously injured (within +/- 10 hp of 0), and the bad guys "just barely" defeated. Happens once? Sure, maybe it was a good balance. Happens 15 times in a row? I'm staying home.
I could not agree more. I played in a 2E campaign that seemingly revolved around this technique. The DM was very creative, but man... :-(
Obstacles & Goals.
If the players have goals, and have to work to get them, most people will have fun. IMO, the obstacles actually have to be obstacles, otherwise there's no tension, so no drama, so no story worth telling.
For some people, overcoming the obstacles IS the goal and they need little variety. The main goal is just an excuse for facing obstacles.
(Fight, fight, fight, Princess?, fight, fight, fight, who's next?)
In these cases it's a matter of 'god mode' vs. 'strategists needed' to how powerful players want the challenge, and variety of difficulty is less necessary. Plot relevance of challenge is secondary, and wandering monsters welcome, 'more fun'.
For others, main goals overshadow the obstacles. The obstacles need to be mixed up and have larger degrees of verisimilitude, as they truly are in the way and these players may use anything to get past them, surprising you/derailing if you aren't equally immersed.
"Wait, we can sneak past this guy." (or bluff/bribe/etc.)
(Fight, sneak, bluff, research, break the dam to flood the orc tunnels, anything is possible...)
In these cases, pivotal scenes should be more challenging than non-pivotal scenes. There will be throwaway scenes, especially as PCs advance relative to the baseline NPC. But there will be TPK scenes too, if they say, pissed off the wrong king/army/dragon. Done well, players will know they earned the TPK confrontation (and avoid it/prep to make it winnable/submit to enslavement/etc.) Plot relevance of challenge is primary and if they work 6 months real time to face a pushover at the end, you may spoil the whole campaign.
Wandering monsters are an annoyance, not 'more fun'. (unless tuned right)
I think a lot of people talk in terms of group A because it's easier to discuss mechanics & combat, and on this lesser scale. But I think most people play in terms of group B (to various degrees) where a challenge's difficulty should match the challenge's importance.
Which, I suppose is my main point.
A CHALLENGE'S DIFFICULTY SHOULD MATCH A CHALLENGE'S IMPORTANCE.
There.
(I ramble...sorry.)
IMC, I seldom if ever hold back in the final scene. It's supposed test their mettle to the utmost. Do or die. Etc.