There are two answers to this question, depending on the kind of DM you want to be.

One side says "you should be as evil as the situation warrants. A bunch of knuckleheads are trying to raid a fort by themselves? Is it reasonable to have a hundred warriors defending it? That's what fate points are for."

But this leads to players feeling misled and gunshy, habitually choosing safe options instead of heroic ones.

The other side says "consider how much evil would be required to add threat but not overbear the heroes; it's their story, and its rotten to present something as an adventurous decision only to pull the rug from under them and tell them we're all about sensible conservative decisions now."

But this leads to players feeling invincible and taking the notion that challenges are graded for them for granted.


My rule is to generally introduce obstacles and threats that the players can comfortably handle and feel heroic; occasionally a threat that reminds them they are mortals; and once in a blue moon the kind of threat that will whip them up and down the street if they are not careful and prepared and maybe a little lucky. The more severe it is, the more I signpost it with NPC's reminding the players of how dangerous what they're attempting is; or even alerting players with an appropriate knowledge skill of the wisdom of their actions. The key is you want a player who loses a fate point to feel like they have lost it for a reason they have earned either by taking a silly risk they can appreciate or doing something they knew was worth the sacrifice.

For example, I've lost two fate points on Bertelis this game. That's more than I've lost on any character in WFRP2e. But I lost one as a result of an honor-duel in the dark to a daemonette that I literally asked for, and the other I got shot down by skaven trying madly to free slaves whom we had sworn to protect. Both have been extremely formative for Bertelis and while I miss the rerolls badly, I don't regret either of them.

But there was a moment during one fight where Jasmine rolled a critical fail with her pistol, and you had considered (and elected not to) turning that into shooting Bertelis by accident, which could have killed him and knocked off a fate point. That I would have quietly resented, since lethal friendly fire isn't part of the heroic risk I'd put my character in or something I could anticipate from the rules. So I'm glad that didn't come to pass.




Or, if you weren't asking for a treatise on the ethics of being a hardass DM and were just asking how tough we're feeling...

Well we're all healthy but we're drained of many of our rerolls which is the lifeblood of adventure, so... Like... I would request no harsher than medium evil.