What's your ideal difficulty in an RPG?

What's your ideal difficulty in an RPG?

42

One where failing isn't the end of the world and player are willing to accept failure instead of combing the books for any tiny advantage.

For good parties, an extremely comfy heroic game. I want to know, deep down, that the good guys will win. But there may be some stumbling along the way. The primary difficulties will be working together as a team. Combat may be trying, but it's very rare for characters to die.

For evil parties, I want a grueling fucking slog. I want to be crushed into the mud by unfeeling paladins whose Lawful Goodness sears my soul like a cheap steak. I want minions to die by the wagon load, I want rivals to die, I want innocents to die. And when I finally follow them, it will be with a moment of realization that it never could have ended any other way.

But an evil campaign can and should have comfy moments to break up the grind.[/spoiler.]

The one that makes the game interesting for everyone? It's hard to say, really. Just have to fight what's best for your group. I'm into Battletech and historical wargames, so I like being all tactical, and solving impossible combat situations, while my best friend is an actor, and he likes roleplaying more than anything. Our DM provides a good middle ground for us most of the time.

Punishing, but not necessarily lethal. I might only run one or two combats in a session, so these battles need to be intense. Death, however, should be reserved for when fighting powerful enemies or when making bad decisions.

How can your battles be intense if death is reserved for powerful enemies or bad decisions?

You would have to rely on your players making bad decisions to make combat interesting.

It was more to mean that, as a general rule, you shouldn't die due to bad luck alone. The second point isn't too far off, though. Combat is interesting when there is no good, or at least no ideal, option. Just making everything really deadly leads to a less interesting game because the players can lose arbitrarily even when making reasonable decisions.

I'd only fuck 20

I like the risk of death to be present to varying degrees in combat, and to reward players for good tactics and ability throughout it. But of course, that only goes for systems that support those ideas

I like a bit of a challenge. If the campaign is easy, I might try to pull off something difficult but cool. But I prefer when the game is a bit harder, so the PCs have to truly band together to fight adversity. It's important, though, for the difficulty to stay in-character. It should be story challenges like "in this campaign, you are rebels against a ruthless and efficient evil empire, careful planning and daring deeds will be necessary," rather than "you get attacked by a CR 17 monster in an antimagic zone."

The level of difficulty appropriate for the setting and tone of the game

This, everything else is probably a bad idea

Permadeath, but the only things that should really kill a party are traps, elites or bosses. a trash mob is not going to kill a party member in my book, i fudge the roll appropriately. a ton of trash mobs with the party in a precarious position like at the edge of a cliff or against a wall, maybe.

When in a party of 5 an encounter usually leaves one or two of us downed by the end, and no hand holding for bad decisions. Our Paladin drew from the deck of many things and got turned into a statue, so now we carry his statue in a bag of holding.

>games where you die a horrible death are "difficult"
Only if chargen is complicated.

Different user, but I'm currently running a game where the PC's are a scout force for a major invasion. Each encounter thus far has been incredibly tense, not because they're going to die per se, but because if they fuck up and let someone make it away, or leave behind evidence then the entire invasion could go tits up before it's even started.

Death isn't the only way to make combat intense.

Depends on the setting and tone, as noted.

My game is a NobleDark Sword & Sorcery adventure so it's tough but fair. The PCs can get knocked unconscious in battle but generally aren't in danger of dying unless they're (a) reckless, (b) entering battle wounded, (c) fighting boss-grade monsters, or (d) all of the above. I'm very permissive when allowing the party to evaluate the DC of a task or the challenge presented by a monster. They know the difference between a room with ten 'skeleton minions' and a room with ten swole tomb guardians ready to cut them to ribbons.

The main consequence presented by battle isn't death, it's attrition. Getting wounded means having to choose between spending time binding your wounds, or wasting a healing spell and possibly draining the cleric, or pressing forward and opening yourself up to even worse injuries later on. The clock is always ticking and your enemies are seldom standing still.

>only 20
>not 70
pleb

Encounters should be easy and simple at the start, and gradually get harder and harder relative to the strength of the party as time goes on.

I prefer games that aren't unfair, but still punish stupid mistakes. Challenging and punishing, but by no means impossible.

That said, what my table needs is a high lethality campaign. Too many of my fellow players grow overly attached to their characters. So much so that one sperged out and shut down when his character died due to his own stupidity. Behavior like that needs to be broken.

Players get downed in fights easily enough but only die if they're being retarded. TPKs should never happen, but a character dying to a boss or a stupid big mistake are fully acceptable.
It does also depend on how difficult resurrection is and if we've all made nice models for our characters.