About once a week I see posts here lamenting how combat is "boring" and a "slog". There are many explanations given, 'it's the action economy", "it's the d20", "there are too many options". I have an alternative explanation: if you suck all the risk out of combat, it's boring.

EVERY TIME the PCs in my game get into a fight they know it could be their last. Certain fights are more dangerous than others, but things can turn on a dime, and they know it. This makes combat visceral, meaningful and fun. It's never a grind as it's always potentially deadly.

And then I remember how DM's are being told to make the game fit the "narrative flow" and how they are told to manipulate things to hit "story beats" and such, and I wonder if the problem is that. It's hard to continually manipulate events like combat to make them "exciting"...

... because it's easy to fall into patterns, particularly when you are running something as complicated as a combat session, with lots to remember and coordinate. Particularly when opponents always "maximize" their tactics and abilities. Things get "samey", the enemy wizard...

... ALWAYS starts with spell X, the enemy fighters always use tactic Y, to make fights "THE MOST DRAMATIC EVER", but instead they are just predictable and boring. Skip the optimization and add more lethality, that might just make it more interesting for everyone.