I started to take note of certain boss fights in Dragon Age that would require me to turn the difficulty slider down. Interestingly enough, almost all of the Mage's Tower is easily handled on Normal difficulty for me, but there is one fight with a succubus and what seems like a dozen Templars, that Sloth Demon and then the big baddy up top that just pulverize. One of those moments is bad enough to exhaust my supply of healing items, I don't want to keep dying until I manage to survive by the skin of my teeth.
However, when it comes to optional bosses like the two dragons in the game, I don't make any changes. If I use 90-100% of my potions it is because it's supposed to be a damn hard fight. The only reason I'm going for those bosses is for the sake of saying "I killed the dragon", and putting the game on easy would cheapen that. However, when it comes to the story, a game designer should be able to balance the encounters.
I read on Gamasutra long, long ago an article about balancing difficulty in games. The idea isn't to kill the player but to bring them close to death over and over before giving them more health and ammunition. Games either make the stuff too plentiful or too sparse, though granted this is going to vary from player to player. Still, the idea is that you want the player to feel as if they could die, but somehow always manage to survive. It is thrilling, suspenseful and doesn't rip the player out of the immersive world repeatedly because they keep needing to replay the same confrontation over and over.
One key example used was Half-Life. I hate using Valve as some sort of Messiah of game design since they have plenty of problems on their own (Left 4 Dead 2 needed at least another six months of polish and balancing, if not more), but one strategy used by Half-Life was to decrease the amount of damage enemies dealt as you were lower in health. This is such a good idea that it is shocking it isn't more wide spread. In RPG's you could make small damage modifications but also increase the likelihood that the enemy will miss. One might argue that players will notice such things, but I know I and many others never noticed that Half-Life modifies the damage as you become weaker and weaker.
It provides a thrill for the player and keeps them alive as long as possible. It's much more immersive and thrilling to just barely make it rather than not making it and having to replay over and over.
Of course, what does this have to do with games and narrative? Well, for me, while I love narrative games more than anything, I also believe the gameplay is equally important. If the two can work together to create a mixture of emotions not found anywhere else, then you have an ideal representation of the medium. Unfortunately it feels like developers try and keep the two elements on completely different sides of the room.
My philosophy on game and narrative design is: if you can do it in gameplay (QTE's do NOT count as gameplay and need to be abandoned), then do it in gameplay. If you have a specific vision/idea you want to impress upon the player, then a cut-scene is fine. However, the player will care more about what is happening in that cut-scene if the gameplay allowed them to be prepared for it. Take the nuke scene in Call of Duty 4. By having to go save a downed helicopter's pilot, you feel a sense of accomplishment...until the nuke goes off. Then instead of showing you someone die, they let you play his final moments.
I have a boner for this moment every time I think about how genius the execution is. It's completely rail-roaded, and the nuke isn't interactive, yet every time I replay that moment it still hits me. That is the power of games as a narrative as long as you don't push story and gameplay to completely opposite sides of the room.
