Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
Well, yeah, that's the idea. D&D is after all a game. Im not sure where the confusion here lies, actually. Im trying to make defeat as enjoyable (or nearly so) as victory. That means going out of my way to avoid making them unhappy about it.
I'm not confused. I'm indicating that, in my experience, what you're describing as an effort to avoid making them unhappy about it will, instead, make some Players more unhappy about it, because they perceive it as a combination of sugarcoating the garbage-flavored sandwich (rather than being up-front about things) and rubbing their noses in it (by going into "as great detail as possible just how spectacularly my party's ill-conceived plans fail"). If it works for you, great; your experience is not mine. It's a recipe for annoying Players, in my experience.