Game pacing: who should drive difficulty, DMs or players?

[MaxWilson]

This is a fork of this topic: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?583336-AC-and-Role-Tiers-2-3-slightly-white-room&p=23776324#post23776324



There is no simple requirement, because any good DM will change to match the party.

I disagree with this statement, but that's because I have different expectations for what the game is about and therefore what the DM's obligations to the players are.


To each their own. Personally, I've seen situations where one or more characters trivialize combat to the point where combat is just a waste of time. IMO, DMs ought to keep it a challenge, or it becomes pointless. That doesn't necessarily mean use enemies with more + to hit or raise existing monsters, but it does mean have some way to make combat worthwhile. If not, it's faster to just say, "And then character x kills them all," skipping combat altogether. A fight every now and then that is trivial is fine, but if its the norm... I'd probably stop playing at that table.


In those situations I would observe that it looks like the party is ready for tougher challenges, and ask why they haven't moved on to tougher things yet. But I see that as a player responsibility, not the DM's--some players enjoy challenge less than I do, or may have different perceptions of how easy things are currently. Some people hate risking TPK, but for me if TPK isn't a possibility I don't find the adventure interesting.

As I say, you and I have different perceptions of what the game is about and what the DM's responsibilities are.


Interesting. I think I see what you are saying, but don't want to presume. Perhaps you could illuminate your perspective a bit more, although maybe in a different thread, before we derail this one any further. I think there is a greater discussion that could be had on this topic, but don't want to digress too much.

One way to have players choose difficulty is of course the old dungeon crawl/hex crawl, where the deeper or farther out out you go, the tougher the monsters get. Players move on to the next increment of difficulty when they feel they are ready, and of course it may be possible to take shortcuts directly to the deeper levels of the dungeon without fighting your way past Tucker's Kobolds every time. In a hexcrawl, there may even be areas close to home base which are nevertheless anomalously deadly (e.g. a 11th-level dungeon stuck in the middle of a 3rd-level hex), but they are clearly marked in some way as spooker/deadlier/different than what's around them, either by needing some kind of key that is found only in harder areas, or perhaps by a guardian of some sort: if you have to slay the Iron Golem blocking the entrance to the Tomb of the Forbidden King in order to get into the tomb, then a 3rd level party who kills the golem and enters the tomb at least will not be surprised to encounter high-level monsters and challenges inside the tomb, because they had to beat a high-level encounter to get in in the first place. (And they will either die or rapidly level up/gain magic items.)

If instead of a giant megadungeon or hexcrawl, you're instead running episodic adventures within one campaign, you can get the same effect by just advertising in advance the level of the adventure you're got prepped. "I'm running King of Immortal Pain this weekend, and it's for 4 PCs of levels 6-9, so everybody bring a mid-level character." If you want to flip that around and keep the same PCs every week, you can offer players a choice of which adventure to run next, again advertising the theoretical target PC level as well as the plot/potential for XP and treasure gain. If you do this, the end of a session is a good time for have them pick the next adventure, so you can include the adventure hook to the next adventure as part of the denoument, and still have plenty of time to prep the selected adventure before next session.

Some of the benefits of player-driven pacing include:

(1) Maximizing the opportunities for player decisions to matter. If I build some crazy optimized GWM/PAM smiting paladin, that won't just result in the DM hitting me with the nerf bat or doubling monster HP. Instead, it means that I can get into harder monster areas faster, which means faster XP gain and faster advancement and more treasure--maybe it means that I hit 20th level after only ten intensely difficult adventures instead of three years' worth of easy stuff. (Maybe that's what happened to Heracles/Hercules in his Ten Labors! Do something legendary and you quickly become legendary.)

(2) Less work for the DM to prep. Instead of trying to anticipate player builds/choices, the DM just has to figure out what level a theoretical bog-standard party would have to be at, so he can stick an appropriate label on the adventure. It's not even a huge problem if he tends to under- or over-estimate difficulty, because the players will figure out in time.

(3) Magic items don't mess up adventure design or plots. As with #2, the DM doesn't need to figure out how to adjust to a 1st level PC somehow acquiring a Staff of the Magi or a Holy Avenger. He just needs to keep on doing what he does, and the players will adjust organically, either by tackling harder challenges or by getting very paranoid about and protective of their special gear.

In fact it's not just magic items--there are lots of things that could potentially "unbalance" a campaign, if the campaign were balanced by the DM selecting difficulty based on player level, instead of by the players advancing the game when they are ready. Making friends with a triceratops or a Grey Slaad--that could significantly up a party's power level, and then when the Grey Slaad dies it could bump it back down and force the DM to recalculate encounters (which thereby also robs the NPC's death of dramatic impact, because the DM is undoing the consequences). Hiring a dozen guardsmen to shoot crossbows, or turning defeated foes into friends (or at least hirelings). Looting drow sleep poison off the bodies of drow warriors you're just slain, and using it on your own weapons. Finding or researching unusually-powerful spells--Simulacrum comes to mind, but Wall of Force, Antipathy/Sympathy, Tiny Servant, and others also qualify. Players who take advantage of these opportunities should not be punished by having their choices negated, and players who opt not to use them should not be punished by TPKing, and the best way I know of to ensure that all of the players get to play the game at the level they have fun with is to let them choose their own difficulty level, instead of having the DM choose it for them.

[Sigreid]

I do open world sandbox so the players at least initiate the chain of events even though they will lose control of them at some point.

[Man_Over_Game]

All good stuff.

I actually learned the lesson from my wife.

We play video games together, but she was always ticked off that people made fun of her that she'd play hard games on really easy difficulties. And she felt less for it. She didn't like it when people were in the same room when playing, because it just made her self-conscious when she just wanted to goof off.

Up until she found her defense from starting up Shadow Warrior 2, which has a unique description of each difficulty. And on Easy, it said:

"Sometimes, you just want to play a game to relax and feel like a god d*mn super hero".

------------------

I like to be stressed out and to overthink things. My wife does not. They're two different games. Sometimes, the player just wants to collect loot, save damsels and kill goblins. Other times, they want moral ambiguity and complex villains and beholders hiding in a massive pyramid base of vertical shafts ready to shaft you.

I think it's just one of those things you talk about before your start playing.

Personally, I err in the side of the player, so I might fudge things to make sure that they only die during dramatic moments, not during some slightly off-tuned fight in the wilderness that I misgauged.

[PhoenixPhyre]

All good stuff. I actually learned the lesson from my wife.

We play video games together, but she was always ticked off that people made fun of her that she'd play hard games on really easy difficulties. And she felt less for it. She didn't like it when people were in the same room when playing, because it just made her self-conscious when she just wanted to goof off.

Up until she found her defense from starting up Shadow Warrior 2, which has a unique description of each difficulty. And on Easy, it said:

"Sometimes, you just want to play a game to relax and feel like a god d*mn super hero".

------------------

I like to be stressed out and to overthink things. My wife does not. They're two different games. Sometimes, the player just wants to collect loot, save damsels and kill goblins. Other times, they want moral ambiguity and complex villains and beholders hiding in a massive pyramid base of vertical shafts ready to shaft you.

I think it's just one of those things you talk about before your start playing.

Personally, I err in the side of the player, so I might fudge things to make sure that they only die during dramatic moments, not during some slightly off-tuned fight in the wilderness that I misgauged.

I play for story (meaning the sequence of events and seeing where things go/what happens). Difficulty means nothing to me--I gain basically no enjoyment out of overcoming hard challenges. Same goes for my players, on the main. This results in no one going for optimized builds or really worrying about mechanical things. They enjoy taking paths less traveled and creating interesting characters. For most of my players, someone going to zero or even getting close means it was a really hard/risky fight.

So (agreeing with you) I think it varies tremendously between groups. My groups don't worry about pushing difficulty. So I just have them level when they've been at the same level for a while and it feels right, and then figure out how to make that power level make sense with what's going on. Helps that my world is relatively low-powered, so having a "big boss" at the level-10 range is just fine.

I can't and won't do a full sandbox--way too much wasted work on my part and it doesn't fit the players. I run 2 or 3 groups concurrently in a short time-frame (1.5 hours max, once per week). Few of the players have any connection to the material outside of the play time, so that includes level-up time; they leave their sheets with me. This is on top of being a teacher (it's a high-school club), so I'm often trying to answer questions while DM'ing a group.

[Sigreid]

I can't and won't do a full sandbox--way too much wasted work on my part and it doesn't fit the players. I run 2 or 3 groups concurrently in a short time-frame (1.5 hours max, once per week). Few of the players have any connection to the material outside of the play time, so that includes level-up time; they leave their sheets with me. This is on top of being a teacher (it's a high-school club), so I'm often trying to answer questions while DM'ing a group.

My players are well aware of and used to the idea that when I'm DMing there's a good bit of just making crap up as I go along until they have settled on a course. Then I'll put a bit, just a bit; more effort into it.

Meanwhile, another of our merry band was at one time an aspiring writer. When he takes the DM position he puts a lot more into having a specific story. Since he puts a lot of effort into it I do my best to not get caught up in my "squirrel" impulse.

[DMThac0]

I believe responsibility lay on both sides of the screen, how much varies from table to table, but it's a shared responsibility none-the-less.

I like to put a difficulty curve into my games, as they level up, so much the challenges. When the game first starts out, whether I'm playing with veterans or green horns, I always spend the first 3 levels running it like a tutorial. The purpose is to get the players familiar with their characters, to get the table familiar with my DM style, to get comfortable with the player styles, and to set the theme of the game. The encounters will be set up to give them the freedom to choose any method they can think of to resolve the situations. From there, as we hit level 4 and up, I start to use the input I've received and witnessed to start making encounters feel more challenging.

The players make up the framework of how I handle the difficulty of the game; based on how tactical, or not, the party is will change how I handle monsters, puzzles, and traps. If one of my players is a master strategist and the rest of my players always forget to disengage before they run from a threat, I'll have to adjust. If I play with a bunch of people who min/maxed their characters and are doing 30 points of damage each turn by level 3, well, I'll up the ante right along with them. Their approach to the game influences the difficulty of the game, and it's my job to start turning that dial up until the players respond in a way that shows they're having fun, or they want me to dial it back.

Which leads to the final thought: As with almost every aspect of the game, it is important to communicate with your players/DM so that everyone in on the same page working toward a fun and exciting game. The responsibility of difficulty lay in everyone's hands not just the Players or DM.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My players are well aware of and used to the idea that when I'm DMing there's a good bit of just making crap up as I go along until they have settled on a course. Then I'll put a bit, just a bit; more effort into it.

Meanwhile, another of our merry band was at one time an aspiring writer. When he takes the DM position he puts a lot more into having a specific story. Since he puts a lot of effort into it I do my best to not get caught up in my "squirrel" impulse.

I run mostly site-based adventures with an overarching scenario, but not a fixed story. At the beginning of a campaign, I propose a bunch of "seeds" (basically a situation somewhere in the world) and they pick which one to pursue. That's the "main quest", but it usually is just an excuse to go somewhere and get involved. From that start, it goes...somewhere. Based on what they do. This lets me plan "just in time".

For example, one of my groups is in the ruined city of Godsfall. The proposal was about helping a scholar group "explore" (ie loot) the ruins and I had thought it was going to be an out-door dungeon crawl. I had factions of demons, cultists, and undead fighting in this city, plus a big "demon" imprisoned in the center (mainly as a backdrop). But beyond a basic city map and a rough idea of what was there, I had nothing else. I figured they'd have to ally with one of two factions to gain access--either a xenophobic "purity" faction of clerics or a shamanistic orc tribe. They ended up wangling a truce between the groups and the help of both groups. They then forged alliances with a faction of undead and began to retake the city. That season ended with a conference to establish a formal alliance of factions against the cultists and demons. This season they've pushed further, making more allies and enemies. That group is approaching end-game. They just met with the sealed "demon" (it's not what they expected) and are working to push the "real" big bad out. None of this was planned in advance--not even the identity of the big bad. If they'd made different choices, the whole story would have been completely different (and not just "you lost and so the big bad won").

Basically, the world exists in a constrained superposition state until it's explored, and then it's fixed. And the players actions and desires fix exactly what's there. This lets me balance things as it goes, but since challenge isn't the main drive, I can shoot easy and let them feel like heroes.

But I have to agree with the previous poster who said it's both sides' responsibility, and communication is mandatory. It always amazes me (not in a good way) how averse people are to using their words in a social game, expecting the rules or the books to do it for them.

[King of Nowhere]

all that was said is good for a hex crawl where there are different areas with differently leveled enemies, but i really don't like that setup. it's hard to justify in-world (including justifying why the more powerful areas don't conquer the rest, why people from the easier areas don't level up, and so on), it looks arbitrary, and it gives the feeling that leveling up is pointless; you have the same adventures, only in different places.

on the other hand, i prefer to set up a world where i know, at least roughly, the major powers, who have global influence. below them are lesser powers, that will handle things that are not owrthy of the major power's effort.
So, for example, if a powerful monster appears near a city, the city will send the best adventurers it has available to deal with it. if the city cannot handle the problem, they may petition the king, who will send some of the best adventurers available in the kingdom (and who are too expensive to send after every single random monster). if that's still not enough, the king will have contacts to hire some people who are even more powerful. doing that, though, is not only expensive, but it also will make the king look weak; if he cannot muster the resources to defend his kingdom, maybe he's an easy prey.

Anyway, this mechanism creates a stratification of power levels, where every problem is dealt with by someone of the same power level.
In that case, what can be changed is the power level at which the players work. Say, the most powerful adventurers available to a big and powerful kingdom are generally level 15, but since the party was so successful, they can achieve that status at level 12. And they are, of course, expected to do stuff befitting a level 15 party.

So, it's more or less what was proposed by the OP, in a different kind of setting

[MaxWilson]

all that was said is good for a hex crawl where there are different areas with differently leveled enemies, but i really don't like that setup. it's hard to justify in-world (including justifying why the more powerful areas don't conquer the rest, why people from the easier areas don't level up, and so on), it looks arbitrary, and it gives the feeling that leveling up is pointless; you have the same adventures, only in different places.

on the other hand, i prefer to set up a world where i know, at least roughly, the major powers, who have global influence. below them are lesser powers, that will handle things that are not owrthy of the major power's effort.
So, for example, if a powerful monster appears near a city, the city will send the best adventurers it has available to deal with it. if the city cannot handle the problem, they may petition the king, who will send some of the best adventurers available in the kingdom (and who are too expensive to send after every single random monster). if that's still not enough, the king will have contacts to hire some people who are even more powerful. doing that, though, is not only expensive, but it also will make the king look weak; if he cannot muster the resources to defend his kingdom, maybe he's an easy prey.

Anyway, this mechanism creates a stratification of power levels, where every problem is dealt with by someone of the same power level.
In that case, what can be changed is the power level at which the players work. Say, the most powerful adventurers available to a big and powerful kingdom are generally level 15, but since the party was so successful, they can achieve that status at level 12. And they are, of course, expected to do stuff befitting a level 15 party.

So, it's more or less what was proposed by the OP, in a different kind of setting

Sure. There are lots of ways to do it. Another one that could be fun is to create sort of a hybrid of Sim City and 5E: have a model of a kingdom, and then have players take turns rolling up random events that could possibly happen in the kingdom ("[roll] Vampire outbreak in [roll] Cleese! Level 13 adventure") and players can opt to either accept the default outcome(s), which are probably based on a simple d6 roll, or have the DM contrive to involve their PCs in the event resolution.

An entry on the event table might look something like this:

(17-19) Vampire outbreak! Level 13, Hard-Deadly, multi-day adventure, urban.

People have been vanishing at an increasing rate and either turning up as blood-drained corpses or not turning up at all, ever again, and everyone is afraid that Something may be responsible. It seems likely that one of two things will happen if no one helps:

1-3 (Good outcome): The citizens of the town will rally their courage and band together to defeat the scourge, no matter the cost. Many graves will be dug up, corpses will be staked in broad daylight, people will die, and nightmares will be born, but at the end of the day the town still exists.

4-6 (Bad outcome): The town is wiped from the map as citizens scatter to the four winds or die, and Something wicked remains at large and unpunished.


If you roll that adventure up when the PCs are level 2, well, the players probably can't do anything but shrug helplessly and wish that they could help. If you roll it up when they are level 15, they undoubtedly charge right in there and put things aright. If you roll it up when they are level 7... well, now the players have a fun dilemma on their hands, whether or not to intervene.

I don't have time to run that kind of campaign but if someone else were running it I'd probably want to play.

[PhoenixPhyre]

all that was said is good for a hex crawl where there are different areas with differently leveled enemies, but i really don't like that setup. it's hard to justify in-world (including justifying why the more powerful areas don't conquer the rest, why people from the easier areas don't level up, and so on), it looks arbitrary, and it gives the feeling that leveling up is pointless; you have the same adventures, only in different places.

on the other hand, i prefer to set up a world where i know, at least roughly, the major powers, who have global influence. below them are lesser powers, that will handle things that are not owrthy of the major power's effort.
So, for example, if a powerful monster appears near a city, the city will send the best adventurers it has available to deal with it. if the city cannot handle the problem, they may petition the king, who will send some of the best adventurers available in the kingdom (and who are too expensive to send after every single random monster). if that's still not enough, the king will have contacts to hire some people who are even more powerful. doing that, though, is not only expensive, but it also will make the king look weak; if he cannot muster the resources to defend his kingdom, maybe he's an easy prey.

Anyway, this mechanism creates a stratification of power levels, where every problem is dealt with by someone of the same power level.
In that case, what can be changed is the power level at which the players work. Say, the most powerful adventurers available to a big and powerful kingdom are generally level 15, but since the party was so successful, they can achieve that status at level 12. And they are, of course, expected to do stuff befitting a level 15 party.

So, it's more or less what was proposed by the OP, in a different kind of setting

I do something similar--the higher-power adventurers (including but not limited to PCs) take high-power quests. Either because they're assigned them (official adventurers are part of an international organization and have theoretical bosses) or because they're sought out for those quests. Low-risk quests (or those perceived to be low risk) are assigned to weaker teams. Now usually, at least for the PCs, those that were believed to be low risk turn out not to be so simple, but that's a different story. Once on a quest, the PCs are free to do as they please, however. If that means chasing down a lead and ending up exploring an ancient battlefield with things waking up, so be it. The quest is just a place to start. What happens from there is mostly controlled by the PCs, although I have a clear "plot thread" if they choose to follow it. If not, the situation will evolve on its own and may later impinge on the PCs.

I do require that all the PCs be created with a reason to be adventurers. No reluctant heroes here, having to be dragged from their shops or manors each time. Have a reason to be there and with the party.

[Pex]

Nothing in the gameworld exists without the DM's permission and he needs to be aware of what the PCs can do and not do, so I see it as both determine difficulty with the DM having the edge. Players create the characters they want, and the DM responds. The DM sets the events happening, and the players respond. It could mean a DM and player cannot agree, so they don't play together. Their tastes and preferences cannot come to terms. Sometimes tastes and preferences are a perfect match. Other times one or the other accepts the difference and play anyway because the fun of the game is greater than whatever gripe they have.

Sometimes people on the internet forget it's just a game and over psychoanalyze everything. I include myself in that statement and criticize no one.

[Sigreid]

I run mostly site-based adventures with an overarching scenario, but not a fixed story. At the beginning of a campaign, I propose a bunch of "seeds" (basically a situation somewhere in the world) and they pick which one to pursue. That's the "main quest", but it usually is just an excuse to go somewhere and get involved. From that start, it goes...somewhere. Based on what they do. This lets me plan "just in time".

For example, one of my groups is in the ruined city of Godsfall. The proposal was about helping a scholar group "explore" (ie loot) the ruins and I had thought it was going to be an out-door dungeon crawl. I had factions of demons, cultists, and undead fighting in this city, plus a big "demon" imprisoned in the center (mainly as a backdrop). But beyond a basic city map and a rough idea of what was there, I had nothing else. I figured they'd have to ally with one of two factions to gain access--either a xenophobic "purity" faction of clerics or a shamanistic orc tribe. They ended up wangling a truce between the groups and the help of both groups. They then forged alliances with a faction of undead and began to retake the city. That season ended with a conference to establish a formal alliance of factions against the cultists and demons. This season they've pushed further, making more allies and enemies. That group is approaching end-game. They just met with the sealed "demon" (it's not what they expected) and are working to push the "real" big bad out. None of this was planned in advance--not even the identity of the big bad. If they'd made different choices, the whole story would have been completely different (and not just "you lost and so the big bad won").

Basically, the world exists in a constrained superposition state until it's explored, and then it's fixed. And the players actions and desires fix exactly what's there. This lets me balance things as it goes, but since challenge isn't the main drive, I can shoot easy and let them feel like heroes.

But I have to agree with the previous poster who said it's both sides' responsibility, and communication is mandatory. It always amazes me (not in a good way) how averse people are to using their words in a social game, expecting the rules or the books to do it for them.

That all sounds pretty cool. It also sounds like we're not really that far off on what we do. I do generally have an idea what various areas are like and what kinds of forces are at play there, but I don't develop much until the players are there and I find out what gets them going. I rarely have the party offered employment outside of a pretext to get them bonded, such as my current campaign started with them being hired for a couple of gold each to be guards at the local spring festival. Nothing really required of them except to be there and armed if something unexpected should happen. And that's when the fair was attacked by twig blights. They fairly easily put down the plants and then wanted to find where they came from and we started the Sunless Citidal. They didn't have to go looking. They could have done anything they liked and I would have adapted. Some of my table like to see what they can get there characters to be capable of so they would be disappointed if I didn't bloody them up a bit now and then, but they also get to completely roll and encounter now and then. The particularly love it when they figure out how to completely roll an encounter that should have been a real dangerous challenge, and that's pretty great when it happens.

[ImproperJustice]

I go with player preferences.

We all have stressful jobs so sometimes everyone just wants to kick *blank and take names.

But after a while, the group leans in close and whispes to the GM: “C’mon show us what ya got”.

Then it’s time to make some new characters.

It’s like playing XCOM on differing difficulty levels. Sometimes you just wanna save the day, and some days you wanna rage at a tv screen as your panicked rookie shoots your veteran sniper in the back of the head, as half dozen sectopods and mutons come barreling through the door.

[Tetrasodium]

To an extent, it should be a mutual balance....
A GM should adapt their challenges to fit the group so that a group of all/mostly newer players & a group of grognards with years of experience are challenged differently. That sort of thing will avoid a bunch of newbies being helplessly slaughteres & a bunch of grognards being bored out of their skulls stomping yet another hapless exp balloon.


A player is welcome to optimize & all, but should try to optimize to a similar degree as the rest of the table & hold back an ace or two for crunch time instead of going all out all the time. If players fail to do this to at least some degree, a GM will need to crank the dial to match at least partly & the spiral will continue.

[PeteNutButter]

My most recent campaign was a bit of hex crawl, and I used elements of this, but didn't take it that far. Let me so up my thoughts on this style game in simple bullets:

Pros:
-[Those listed in the OP]
-Unique experience.
-Players are empowered. They decide where to go.

Cons:
-Lots of prep work required. If you seed 4 adventures, you need 4 adventures planned. Winging it works, but even still you need to prep at least the potential hooks.
-A good amount of prep work goes to waste as the content is never explored.
-It risks feeling a bit video-gamey as players have to acknowledge their character levels and come up with in-character justifications for not following a hook their character would be interested in if level weren't a factor.
-It can be difficult to seed an actual narrative, with players choosing to go where and when. Either they decide or the story pushes them in a direction. It's hard to be both.
-Player/Party cohesion can be difficult to maintain. Some players enjoy high risks, others just want to show up and not die. In a typically challenged adventure you can ensure its always just challenging enough for the high risk players to feel the pain but not actually kill those focused on RP. If the high risk combat players were to convince the more story driven players to go to a high risk area which resulted in the death of the latter... Things can get salty fast. Everyone needs to know what they are getting into.
-When the players inevitably go to an area/fight they are under leveled for the DM may have to either cheat for them or risk a TPK which usually ends the game.

After looking at these, I think I want to try this again, with a bit more dedication to the whole thing. In order for it to work, I think I'll have to use xp (not milestones) and some sort of respawn punishment in the event of a TPK or character death. A fundamental part of this is players have to recognize they can't just go anywhere, which means they have to be able to die when they push it too far (but not end the game). Perhaps they can always create a new character at that level -1. In order to tie the whole thing together I can keep "hints" to a larger plot hidden in some of the various locations so it can actually build a narrative.

[Yora]

It really comes down to what type of game you play.

If the game is a prewritten script that will play out regardless of what the players do, then the GM must adjust the difficulty or the script would break.

If the players decide what their characters do and things will play out depending on what they do, then it's the GM's job to enable them to judge the difficulty and chose how much they dare.

[Alucard89]

"Sometimes, you just want to play a game to relax and feel like a god d*mn super hero".



I can't upvote this enough. Too many DMs think that D&D is some sort of "Battle simulator" or "Dark Souls on Paper" and throw combat after combat after combat, every time difficult and stressful. Without every asking anyone at table if they find it fun or not. In my opinion if players at table want to play like that- all fun to them! However, many people, myself included, play RPG to relax and feel like super hero, I want to laugh more and smile as enemies fall than have headache what next turn should look like because one party member is already down, 2 have 10 HP left, I am under some spell effect etc. I have enough stress in real life with kids and job, I will pass on having it also in RPG.

But, to answer a question, I have 3 golden rules as DM and I sticked to them for last 10 years in various systems and it's working as intended:

1. I always ask players how they like to play- do they care about combat at all, do they care about challange, do they want more combat, less roleplay, balanced or more roleplay with occasional combat. And I stick to that.
2. Always adjust challange to WEAKEST party memeber. It doesn't matter that party optimized Sorcadin trivialize combat, just always include that one or two enemies that are just for him to go all out and feel like badass and adjust rest enemies to weakest party member level. Why? Because if you adjust to strongest- weakest will probably die all the time or feel like he doesn't contribute. If weakest party member just killed 3 enemies on his CR and at the same time party strongest member killed enememy 3 CR higher than party level- everyone feel like hero after combat. Never ever adjust to strongest. It's a trap.
3. Fun over challange. As DM you are not there to prove anyone anything or to cure your complexes. You are there to have fun. Find group that have fun in simillar way as you. Don't force your style on others. I for example play only with groups that focus mostly on story, roleplay etc. and combat is just for them to feel like heroes and include some epic actions so later at break in the kitchen they are all like "Wow, when you did that XXX- that was cool as hell", "Yeah! This boss was like- I am so strong, I will kill you- and Daniel anihiliated him in one turn- bet he had that face!", "Now everyone in city think we are god dam demi-gods". And I love to hear that more than "God, we barely made it", "Yeah, good for you, I was downed half the time".

It's a matter of question- is difficulty really important for anyone at table? Or you as DM just think that and it's not true at all?

Always ask every group about their preferences and adjust to that. If only one player loves challange in combat- include for him some special enemeis in encounters. If rest really don't care about combat- don't make them care. Just focus on fun.

[Malifice]

DnD is a collaborative social game.

So the answer is C: Everyone, both DM and players.

Ultimately it's in the hands of the DM but you genreally dont want a game that's too difficult (players dropping like flies) or too easy (monty haul campaigs). You want characters playing heroic PCs doing heroic ****, with (at least a percieved) element of risk attached.

Of course, some groups prefer Fantasy Underground Vietnam and all that.