It’s odd that this is so damn annoying in video games because it works really well in tabletop RPG. In fact, MOST tabletop RPGs use a system similar to this, where the Game master designs a challenge specifically with the character’s abilities in mind. However, where the GM has the advantage that the computer does not is that they can distinguish between the creations of power disparity that will make the game more fun, and those that will make it less fun.

Not all players like it. For example the recent “Cars” game was critized because it is very noticable that when you are losing a race all your opponents slow down to let you catch up. A lot of 2 player fighting games and some MMORPGs like City of Heros try to balance combat between players by having special moves that can only be performed when the player is low on health.

Some players prefer to have a fixed difficultly level of “easy, medium, hard” so they have an objective standard to measure their performance against. For games that are about testing the player’s skill rather than immersing them into a story, this is more appropriate.

I think the difference between a computer game and a tabletop game is far more than fudging the dice rolls. Most computer games test skill and are nothing like a roleplaying game. Many video games test strategy and in that respect they are like tabletop wargames, and hence like the combat portion of a roleplaying game. “Roleplaying” computer games incorporate elements of skill and strategy but also attempt to tell a story and simulate a world, goals they share with tabletop roleplaying.

The main difference, in my opinion, is simply that computers cannot yet write stories, and so the story of a computer game is fixed and cannot adapt very much to the players actions. Branches in the story are possible, but each branch doubles the amount of work required to create the game, so they are rare.

There is research being done to enable computers to invent stories, and I have seen one experimental game along these lines.