A cursory look at the links in my signatures will show that I'm a fan of Grant Howitt and a recent article on his blog struck me as quite useful to both players and DMs. So I'm posting a link to it here.
Some of the major points:
Grant Howitt wrote:
I think it's more complicated. It depends on the situation.
If the PCs are fresh and eager to get on with some combat with a "because that's what this game is about, isn't it?" sort of attitude, then the "combat if you win. combat if you lose" line is good for the game-fun. It's what the players want.
If they are out of arrows, out of spells, down on hit points, out of healing and laden down with loot and basically just want to get out and get home alive, then sneaking past the gate guards on the way out in the hope of avoiding that last combat altogether may be their only hope. In that situation, the "fight if you win, fight if you lose" becomes a kind of gotcha. One more rung on the treadmill. Not fun.
BoldItalic wrote:
An interesting read. I definitely think one needs to match the PC motivations to the challenges. Sure, from time to time monsters and NPCs will have their own motivations and desires to try to kill the PCs. But it’s also important to look at the adventurers’ goals and match the challenges to that.
I’ll admit, I’ve had two occasions where the PCs tried to skip the fight with the big bad for the adventure, and it flummoxed me for a few seconds. Perhaps it was a case of me not matching the challenges properly. Or it was just some of the players wanting to mess with the DM…
My player's goal seems to be to kill sh!t. At first I thought it was because they thought it's the only way to gain XP. I told them that they don't get XP for killing things, but overcoming them. Their reactions told me that was a bit of a revelation. It didn't change their approach, however. I had a session that was a county faire with non-combat XP challenges for a change of pace. Afterwards, I asked how they felt about the session. They said they enjoyed the change of pace, but we're gonna kill things again next time, right?
I set up a scenario where killing the enemy would be counterproductive. They captured the enemies, tortured them, got the info they needed, and then ended up killing 2 of the 3. (The last one managed to get away.) Would you believe that my party of 8 is split evenly with men and women and it was the women who instigated the torture? Mostly, I think it's just a case of I have weapons and/or I have spells, I want to use them.
I'm about to take them through the original Ravenloft. I expect they'll enjoy that.
I DID get hung up on some of the use of the term "punishment."
But I'm gonna leave that aside.
There is an interesting examination of consequences measured against goals and I'm all for that - likewise with the fight on your/their terms.
A couple solid gold nuggets here for anyone.
I think the best part is "never have a fight that you aren’t interested in".
Expanding on that idea... consider what sort of interaction with the obstacle the players are interested in having. Read their actions and let them pursue the kind of interaction that they are aiming for as much as possible.
DM: The guard is just around the corner. He faces away from you into the courtyard and whisles softly to himself. What do you do?
Option 1.
Players: We sneak quietly behind his back.
The players want to sneak past the guard, they are saying "Hey, we don't want to fight this guy, we just want to get by him." So having the failed stealth check mean you have to fight is, perhaps, a bad DM decision. So what are our other options? The author suggests in his inn example saying "you can't go in this way." So in the guard example perhaps the stealth attempt was foiled before it even began. A bird squaked overhead causing the guard to turn around. He still doesn't see you hiding around the corner, but there is no way you can just sneak past now. Maybe success at a cost, so the players get by but the guard heard something and starts investigating, giving the players a chance to escape but they need to act quickly. Either way, the players didn't want to fight and we didn't force them.
Option 2.
Players: We draw our weapons and burst around the corner!
However, the author also says many times that combat is the point! We want combat, at least sometimes. So read your players, if they say we are running up to that guard to cut him down. Then roll initiative my friends! Let's do this. And that's fine too. In that case, maybe the guard has some buddies sitting nearby, a loyal attack dog, a potion of giant's strength handy. Something to make the fight fun and awesome and not just a standard slug fest where 4 PCs easily murder a poor lonely guard. They wanted a fight, give it to them!
Option 3.
Players: We sneak up on the guard and blackjack him.
Here they are saying "Yeah, we'll fight him, but we'd rather get the drop and end it quickly". A failed stealth check in this case shouldn't drag the players into a full combat that they didn't want with several enemies, but maybe a quick one where they cut down a single guard quickly. So we have the option of foiling the check before it began as in the first case, but I think this isn't the best choice. They have indicated that they want to engage with the guard and this prevents that. So maybe here success at a cost is better, you knock him out cold but his sword clangs loudly on the floor.
I'm not sure how close this ended up to the topic at hand, but these are the thoughts that came out of this article for me, and I'm pretty happy with them.
It's another example of freeing yourself as a DM from expectations on the players and metaphorically saying yes to however they want to attack the obstacles presented.
For some reason I'm reminded of basic training, when the drill sergeant would say "PT (physical training) isn't a punishment, it's a reward!"
Was a good read, thanks for sharing.
Cool read. and great advice.
I will say this, you are not entirely correct. Combat can be punishment--> Just try playing Pathfinder with all splats allowed with a well geared party of 6 at 14+ level. Now that's punishment! 
Funny..I had thoughts that resonate with this article just last night. I was playing my Tempest Cleric when some assassins at a road side inn attacked us in the tap room, my cleric blessed some his allies and then ducked behind the bar to get cover and stay out of the fray. After the first round I couldn't stand cowering. I leapt up on the bar, casted healing word on our dying rogue, whipped out my longbow and killed one of the seriously wounded assassins. It felt great.
As I made the decision, I remember thinking to myself, I want my cleric to take some damage. I actually want the visceral feeling of injury and danger. Well, my wish came true when the assassins realized I was a healer and two of them went straight for me. I stood up to them for a round, but then I took two nasty slashes from their extra potent short swords and went down. It was glorious (especially because wrath of the storm harmed my assailant before I took the 2nd blow).
It's weird - if he was talking about gamism and treating your PC like a pawn and fights are like a game of chess - you want a battle to break out - I'd get it and agree with him.
But he's got this hollowed out pawn approach to PC's, but also he thinks he's all about this storygaming stuff & drama stuff.
Why does he think he can have a hollow character, but have climaxes and dramas? Chess isn't dramatic, bro! Not in the sense of literature, anyway (in the sense of a sports game maybe, but that's not how people think of drama)
Does he really think there is any drama from a character who has no motivations and would ignore those motivations even if he attributed them as having motivations? Look at your average soap opera - do they do it that way? NO! They'd be out of business if they did! All their pretendy characters have their own little attitudes and they act and do things in accordance with their motivations and attitudes. And that's fun!
Fights without motivations or without play to win competitiveness are not 'dramatic'. They are completely empty spread sheet interactions of numbers upon numbers.
I dont mind if my character gets into a fight - I just do not want a game where that means it is going to take more then an hour to finish the fight.
So 5e is good for avoiding that.
In past games Combats came to feel like a punishment at higher levels. It became something we desperately avoided because we wanted to get through a meaningful chunk of the story and we knew if we got in too many fights we'd end the game in essentially the same spot we started it. So yeah, depending on the rules combat can be a punishment.
Also depending on the narrative combat can be a punishment. Trying to sneak in somewhere without raising the alarm (as doing so would create a failure condition for the story's objective?). That's a punishment. The trick is to not have failure hinge on a single die roll and allow player skill to offer a significant advantage.