This is something I wrote for a friend a couple weeks ago. While I'm planning on doing further posts on "being a good game master," I thought this one should come first since some of the things I'm thinking about build from it. Note: I don't always do all these things, though I should. In fact, I thought of some of them as I wrote. But hey, trying to give good advice makes you think about these things:
One part of running an RPG that a lot of people have trouble with is getting the level of difficulty right.
Particularly, most starting game masters have far too little player character (PC) death and mission failures. These might sound like things you wouldn't want in your game, but they are essential to the players having a good time. This is because they make success and survival meaningful rewards, rather than a given in your game. Of course, regular PC deaths and mission failures are going to get frustrating fast. Fortunately, there is a secret to getting the balance right: it's the perception of danger that is important, not the actual level of danger.
There are several ways that you can go about convincing your players that they are regularly in danger of dying or failing to meet there goals. One way is to develop a reputation with your players that you are a hard GM that might just kill their characters off or let them fail a mission. The way you get this reputation is of course to do just that. The trick is, you only need to have the players actually loose once in a long while. So long as the party keeps thinking back to that fight they lost or mission they blotched, they'll savor each victory they win from you. When they start taking success for granted again, it's time to hit them hard.
Another thing you can do is work to build tension and fear in a game. One of the most memorable scenes from a game I recently played in, was when we busted into a room that we thought was going to have a dozen mafia types playing poker in it; instead it was full of the dismembered limbs of a dozen mafia types. Immediately, we knew we were up against something way worse than we'd been planning on, though we had no idea what it might be. Hence, tension and fear. Oh, and the thing we got hit with a couple scenes later did, in fact, nearly kill us, though I doubt it would have been nearly as memorable without that room of body parts first. Hell of a way to introduce an important new monster type to the game.
This brings me to another topic: leveling down a monster in combat. Leveling down a monster or other opponent basically consists of dropping their stats lower so they are easier to beat. There are times when this is a good idea. Sometimes we, game masters, underestimate how powerful a monster is going to be, and we have to make adjustments. However, in my experience, game masters tend to do this too often. The players get into a fight where it is unclear who is going to win and the game master panics, not wanting to kill the party, and levels down the monster. The problem is that fights, where it's not clear who's going to win, are what the players are really there for. Sure, a fight against some enemy peons that you can work out some pent-up anger on can be fun, but they're going to get old pretty fast. So, when your players are fighting for there lives against some monster and you level it down to let them beat it, what you're doing is stealing from them the satisfaction of winning against a real challenge. Use your judgment, but it is usually best to let the fight play out instead. Most of the time, the players will pull through. Players are a clever lot on the whole; don't underestimate them. And if a PC does die, just make sure it's memorable. PC deaths are part of the game. If there aren't consequences for screwing up, success won't be rewarding.
Here's a trick, if you must level down a monster to avoid a party kill or save a plot line, or even if you just think this approach will be the most fun, try leveling down the monster in increments. Basically, when the players get a good hit on the monster (or tell them they did enough damage to trigger this), give the monster a debilitating injury. For instance, "you score a terrible blow on the abomination, severing one of its pincers right off. Now it can only make one attack per round!" This does two things. First, it avoids stealing victory from the players since the de-leveling is now a direct result of the player's actions. Secondly, now you are dealing out multiple doses of satisfaction to the players rather than one dose at the end of the fight. Hence, twice the fun!
There is, however, one time where a game master should level down opponents and often fails to do so. This is when things are taking too darn long. For instance, the players want to get on to the boss fight and sigh as a group when they run into the boss's elite guards again. The fight with the elite guards is necessitated by the plot line, so you don't want to get rid of it but a little de-leveling can make the fight go a lot faster. When de-leveling this way, you probably want to lower the monster's defenses, rather than offense. If you want to keep the fight a challenge, even if it is going to be a quicker one, you could even add a little more offensive power to the monster. This basically compresses a fight. Really, as far as game mechanics go, a monster's hit points are just a measure of how many rounds it is going to stay up. Another option, if your players are getting tired of combat, is to reduce a fight into a comedy scene, which will give your players a little break.
Anyway, back to the main topic of this post, keeping things challenging:
The goal in combat is never to kill PCs; the goal is to put PCs in danger of dying reasonably often.
There is a balance here between the amount of character death and role-playing. If there is too much character death, people stop taking their character and their character's relationships with other characters seriously. For this reason, consider setting up encounters for your players where the danger is not of being killed but rather failing to reach some goal. Failing to reach this goal should have some mid to long-term consequence, such as not getting a potential ally or resource, or having the villain go on a rampage through the city. Also, whatever the consequence is, it should be obvious to the players, otherwise it will be wasted. This will cut down on character death but keeps the challenge of the game up.
This is also why occasional ability damage is a nice touch in a campaign. It's not character death, but it does suck and thus the exercise of avoiding it adds tension. Ability damage, on the other hand, is annoying for players and limits what there characters can do, so save it for boss fights or situations that can be avoided.
One last thought: while building up tension and fear can do a lot for a game, it shouldn't be constant. It should culminate in some confrontation or other event and then it should be relieved. The players should then get a couple scenes of low stress to enjoy the rewards of victory or pursue loose ends before you start building up the tension again.
Remember, if you run a game with lots of tension, fear and challenges, good chance your players are going to whine. This is because they are afraid and don't think they can do what you're asking of them. Don't make things easier, just grin devilishly. In the end, when the players finally reach their goal, they'll love you for it.
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