Re: Difficulty Balance

In article <eo0q1f$48p$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Mary K. Kuhner <mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>I have, in the last ten years, heard a lot of complaints about 
>too-hard scenarios.  I have heard an *enormous* number of complaints
>about too-hard scenarios coupled with weak GM play or outright
>fudging.  I don't think I've heard anyone complain that their
>GM is giving them a consistent diet of encounters which, although
>played accurately, are simply too weak to threaten the PCs.
>
>Are we tying ourselves in knots to avoid a problem that really isn't
>all that common, and causing ourselves a lot of grief in the process?

Maybe it's like the video game problem, where the hardcore
gamer market drives the difficulty level of games, such that a
"casual" gamer like me can't even play a lot of the more
popular games?  You author a D&D module and say that it's for a
certain level of characters, but your playtest group is a bunch
who live, breathe and **** D&D, and they chew through your
"balanced" foe groups like cold pizza.  So you crank up the
difficulty level until your all-volunteer group of hardcore
nutjobs is satisfied that it presents a reasonable challenge.
A bunch of equally hardcore D&D wanks at WoTC vetts your work,
and it goes on the market as-is, resulting in the characters of
'normal' people all over the globe getting slaughtered in
heaps.  ;-)

-- 
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
   that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."