GMs spend a lot of time working with finicky Difficulty Target Numbers. Searching the desk is this difficult, hitting the goblin is this difficult. But in that work is a Meta-thought, "this encounter is a bit easy, let's move those difficulties up a bit".
Yup, as a GM you have probably tweaked an encounter upward in difficulty so your players don't walk easily through it.
One Room DC doesn't bother itself with individual difficulties. Why should they matter? What you really want is to make the entire encounter difficult, or easy, or whatever. So why not just stick with one difficulty for the whole encounter? If someone is good at one of the tasks, they get to roll against the EASY difficulty, 3 less than the average difficulty. It's elegant.
Wait, but he shows the players what the difficulty number is. Now there's no mystery.
There never was, really. Hiding the difficulty number has never added suspense to a roll.
But if the players know the difficulty, they may try to avoid the encounter!
Good! Violence shouldn't be the catch-all solution. The heroes that spot the the trouble inside should have an idea whether or not this is a battle they can handle. The GM shouldn't make every encounter "balanced" to the party's ability. And maybe, maybe they will still try the challenge, but they are going in there with a plan. Making plans and seeing them come together is more fun than rolling to hit a monster whenever your turn comes around.
