>>96350018
>DM vs player mentality is seperate from game difficulty
The DM controls the difficulty, it's literally one of the main purposes behind there even being a DM. All his encounters are inherently supposed to be against the players. Otherwise it's just "narrative setpieces" where you're guaranteed to win and the encounter exists solely to progress a story, which at that point why even play the game? Just do some theater improv or roleplay chatroom type of thing
>People hate DMs who make unfair challenges solely to kill the players, not properly challenging scenarios
Outside of puzzles, how do you make a challenging encounter that doesn't exist solely to kill the players? The entire point of combat is to threaten the players with death and make them think on their feet on how to handle the encounter to avoid said death. Remember, it is always a valid option to try to flee from combat and not engage with a monster that can easily kill the party.
