As always apologies for English. Respond in Swedish or English as you prefer (or ignore the post if it's actually stupid
)
I feel like most discussions about difficulty, challenge, balance etc. fundamentally come down to two things:
A: People not taking a look at the genre they are playing. (if we're playing superheroes, then the heroes should usually win. If we're playing the French in a 1940 ww2 campaign, it's probably not going so well)
B: People assuming they have to have a bunch of fighting in the game. (Why?)
I am a strong believer in always treating the game world seriously and realistically. If there should be 8 guards here logically, then there's 8. The players will have to find a way of dealing with that.
Conversely, if there logically should only be 1, then there's only 1.
The players can't take on 8 guards? Cool. Now what? Sneak past? Bribe them? Hire some help? Infiltrate the compound in disguise?
Now we're talking. All of those sound really fun.
For that matter why does every fantasy campaign have to have a fight every 17 minutes? They don't. Make a campaign about treasure hunters searching for lost magical artifacts and dealing with rival (but non-murderous) treasure seekers, local authorities, superstitious nutters and the occasional wild animal.
Sounds like a blast actually.
Additionally, examine WHY we're fighting in the campaign. Because we have to? What is being served by this? Most D&D games I've had the misfortune to play in have had 9 out of 10 encounters be pointless garbage where we knew we were going to win, the enemies had no point in being there, they had no motivation and were instantly forgotten when we were done.
They solely existed to make us burn a spell-slot and lose a few HP before the actual fight happened.
Completely pointless, but instead of asking the big question "Why are we fighting these guys" GM's keep assuming that we have to be fighting them and the question becomes "how do we make this battle the exact right amount of boring and pointless?".
(and I realize people do run better D&D games, so if you don't fit this description, I applaud you. You are doing everyone a favor)
* * *
Likewise, I believe in always rolling in plain sight. If the bad guys hit, the players know it. And that brings us to the third thing (out of two? Well, Danes can't do math since we screwed up our school system so):
C: GM's insist on rolling dice for things they dont want to happen.
"Okay, so you guys are going down the trail when you get shot at by an ambush. Okay, rolling to hit. Jim, whats your AC? Okay, wait shit that's a critical. It's 399 damage. How many HP do you have? 7? Oh... shit.. er..... "
yeah, that's lame. You just killed a character without any recourse. The problem here is that you rolled for something (an attack) you didn't actually want to happen (the player dying instantly and unexpectedly).
So as a GM, train yourself not to do that.
IF THE OUTCOME OF THE ROLL WILL BREAK THE GAME DONT ROLL.
"The crossbow bolt flying over your head alerts you to an ambush. What do you do!"
There, now they can react and you can kill them fair and square.
Rolling in plain sight helps enforce this because unlike the "Roll some dice behind the screen and then announce what you wanted to have happen anyways" method, it makes you actually accountable for your actions, which improves you as a GM.
ahem. Soapbox mode disengaged.