I've always hated automatic difficulty adjustment in videogames, and also GMs adjusting adventure difficulty in GMRPGs to fit their groups, and Ultimate Edition will have none of this abhorrent mechanic because it makes the world feel bullshit. This chapter's "Ultimate Difficulty Adjustment" title is then facetious, as the point I am trying to make is that the ultimate way to adjust difficulty is not to adjust it at all. But let's take it from the beginning.
There is a problem with the random encounter tables in GMRPGs, and this problem is that these tables are made with a party of at least 4 characters in mind, and often in the older versions of the game, even for as many as 6 or more. So how is a lone character to get around the world when most encounters on the road would end up being fatal to him?
Well GMRPGs don't give a shit about this scenario, because they aren't designed to accommodate solo characters without heavy GM adjustment of the source material. But this adjustment is what I am trying like hell to avoid, because it makes no sense in the context of a believable metaverse. Or what? When 4 characters go out, they get 1d4 wild dogs to attack them, but when a lone traveler goes out, he only gets 1 dog? Where did the rest go? They magically disappear because they sensed it's only 1 character instead of the "normal" 4?
This on-the-fly difficulty adjustment may make sense in the context of a single-group game, since... it's only a single group that will be passing by any given area, so the GM can adjust the stats involved and rule that THIS is the reality in HIS version of the world. But in the massively-multiplayer and therefore necessarily multigroup worlds that Ultimate Edition is designed to power, multiple groups of varying power including possible solo characters might pass by the same area in quick succession, and then the illusion collapses if the GM keeps having to alter the danger and stats to perfectly fit the power level of each group or individual.
Therefore, in Ultimate Edition THERE IS NO DIFFICULTY ADJUSTMENT ALLOWED BY THE GMS! Rather, the world should be built with different regions and sections of regions offering different difficulty levels, and the players and groups of players must decide on their own where to head (as opposed to being pulled by the nose by their bad GM as usual), after careful investigation to figure out the threat level beforehand. And there are regions that not even full parties can handle, and require multiparty alliances or even entire player-controlled armies.
As a player, therefore, you've been warned. Investigate and team-up as necessary, or face the consequences.
As a GM, you've also been warned. Adjust tables and encounters from official material, and get kicked out of the game. (The exception being blatantly unbalanced TPK sections about which many GMs are whining in a game's official forum; so you must keep informed of what each game's community thinks about all the material you are running or are about to run, and adjust it accordingly.)
