The One Hour D&D Game

Kamikaze Midget said:

I can watch a complete episode of Adventure Time in eleven minutes with more D&D goodness than I actually get playing D&D for eleven minutes in 4e.

While I don't expect a game involving 6 people to be quite as efficient as a cartoon in delivering the awesome, I need to get much closer than a 45-minute combat will let me get. Ain't got time for that.

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Adventure Time consists almost entirely of minions, and usually only has two PCs and an NPC of the week. It also uses battle montages liberally, in place of actual combats, which are basically skill challenges.

To go through a small adventure like the one Mr. Mearls described in only one hour is a desireable goal in my opinion. If you don't have much time to play you can do something like this and still feel like you have accomplished something.
That is something to build on and is good for attracting new players who want to learn "what rpging feels like" in a short amount of time.

What I find interesting is that he did not say how the game was played. I am sure that I might not like the idea that much if I read the actual gameplay. In what way was tactical movement involved, how did they narrate the exploration of 6 rooms, etc.?

It will be interesting to see if the goal of a "1 hour adventure" can be sustained with some of the modules that they want to introduce to satisfy every kind of player.

So the 1-hour-thing sounds all good, but I am not really sure of what it contains. There is always a price to be paid.

KidSnide said:

I think that's right. With regards to traps, it's about how many resources and how they regenerate. In different ways, 3e and 4e both had problems where healing was sufficiently plentiful to make damage between encounters mostly irrelevant to the PCs. Compare to BECMI / 1e / 2e, where healing resources were limited enough that the players wouldn't shrug off that kind of damage. If D&DN is seeking to gather the best elements of the various editions, I would go back to more limited healing.

(As an aside, 3.x plays fine with respect to healing if your PCs don't make use of CLW wands. For whatever reason, that meme never reached my group and so I only experienced "damage irrelevancy" in Living Greyhawk.)

-KS

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There is really a significant difference between 3e and 4e though. In 3e the CLW wand is, at least for the purposes of the current adventure, effectively an infinite resource. 4e PC's healing surges are NOT infinite. They aren't even close to it. I see PCs down to or below their last surge quite often, pretty much in every adventure. Now, maybe the backrank warlock who put all his resources into being hard to hit and was shadow walking EVERY round for 5 levels didn't suffer from that too often, but just say 'stirge' around him and you'll find out real quick about the times it did. I could have easily beat on him more, but he liked playing that way and most monsters were happy enough to go beat on someone else with weaker defenses most of the time.

My point is I have yet to see 'damage irrelevancy' in 4e. I think its quite possible to reduce the incidence of healing further, and I think moving in that direction would be fine. I just think that you certainly did not have traps being irrelevant as some people would like to make it out as. Losing hit points was not just some incidental thing you brushed off. You might not be panicked because you lost 5 hit points, but you better pay attention or pretty soon you'll be imitating a certain rogue in my game who recently discovered that healing don't work so good when you have 0 surges... (the paladin obliged him, he survived, barely. The party went out of its way to get the paladin a Cloak of the Walking Wounded right after that to make sure she could soak damage all the time, lol).

AbdulAlhazred said:

4e PC's healing surges are NOT infinite. They aren't even close to it. I see PCs down to or below their last surge quite often, pretty much in every adventure.

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What do you do to keep the PCs from taking Extended Rests?

*

edit: Thinking about the "one-hour adventure", a good design goal (in my opinion) would be to go through a resource cycle in an hour. By resource cycle I mean when you get to the point where your resources are low and you need to refresh them somehow - Extended Rest in 4E, a night's rest in 3E, multiple days in AD&D, etc. The reason I think that would be a good goal is because, at that point, you can see the consequences of the choices you've made: "If I hadn't cast Sleep early on we'd be able to keep going", etc.

AbdulAlhazred said:

There is really a significant difference between 3e and 4e though. In 3e the CLW wand is, at least for the purposes of the current adventure, effectively an infinite resource. 4e PC's healing surges are NOT infinite. They aren't even close to it.

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I don't deny that there is a significant difference between the CLW wand and the healing surge. But that depends on game style.

I haven't played or run many 4e games with more than 3-4 encounters in a day. In that context, running out of healing surges is the type of thing that only happens to low-con melee strikers. With slow combats and limited time, stressing PC endurance just isn't in the cards. But if you play 3.x without CLW wands, clerics become worried about running out of spells (spells they would like to cast offensively!) a lot sooner.

-KS

KidSnide said:

I don't deny that there is a significant difference between the CLW wand and the healing surge. But that depends on game style.

I haven't played or run many 4e games with more than 3-4 encounters in a day. In that context, running out of healing surges is the type of thing that only happens to low-con melee strikers. With slow combats and limited time, stressing PC endurance just isn't in the cards. But if you play 3.x without CLW wands, clerics become worried about running out of spells (spells they would like to cast offensively!) a lot sooner.

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I also experience what KS does in terms of the PCs rarely running out of surges. It just does not happen with that much frequency unless I specifically design adventures that do not allow for extended rests. Sometimes, sure, the party goes through a gauntlet and cannot stop... but that by no mean happens all the time (and not that we'd want to do that anyway, because a 'forced march' through like 8+ encounters between every extended rest each and every adventure gets just as boring as any other repetitive thing.)

So a trap encounter or wandering monster encounter that ultimately results in the PCs in the exact same state as they were beforehand except down maybe 2 surges, feels more like just an hour-long delay of the story than any real meaningful event. Because there's a good chance the loss of those 2 surges could have absolutely no impact on them the rest of the day if they get to an eventual extended rest.

I "stop" the party from taking extended rests in two ways:

1. I don't design all encounters to be challenging the PCs to their utmost. No more 3e encounter design. A lot of encounters are just wearing them down a bit. Remember adventures in AD&D?

2. More importantly, extended rests have to make sense in-character. Why doesn't the party take an extended rest in the depths of a dangerous cave complex? Because nobody would do that--it would be foolish. I demand that my players play with a bit of verisimilitude. I don't need artificial time tables (though I occasional use in-story time tables), because the players need to play their characters in a way that makes sense.

Gargoyle said:

I like where Mearls' head is at. Then again, I always have, it's just the execution of his ideas by his team that leaves something to be desired sometimes.

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What a coincidence. With the exception of Book Iron Might's combat maneuver system which I love, I think Mearls has good ideas, but his own execution often leaves something to be desired. I just also happen to feel that way about his team as well.

KidSnide said:

I don't deny that there is a significant difference between the CLW wand and the healing surge. But that depends on game style.

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I think the CLW wand went beyond game style in 3.5E. I played a Shifter Barbarian in Eberron and a single level of Ranger to get tracking (using my already-good Nature skill, IIRC) and the use of CLW wand healing was way, way too good to pass up.

KidSnide said:

I haven't played or run many 4e games with more than 3-4 encounters in a day. In that context, running out of healing surges is the type of thing that only happens to low-con melee strikers. With slow combats and limited time, stressing PC endurance just isn't in the cards. But if you play 3.x without CLW wands, clerics become worried about running out of spells (spells they would like to cast offensively!) a lot sooner.

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Mileage clearly varies. We normally have 3-4 encounters between extended rests and four of the seven characters are regularly low on surges by the time the rest arrives. The Paladin gives away some surges and just about always finishes low, the "Hombre Defender" fighter regularly gets through most or all of his because he acts as a damage soak (deliberately) for the "squishies". The Ranger sometimes keeps a store, but has a habit of getting into trouble and ending with none (or less*). The Warlock has good CON, but still sometimes suffers from making "rescue/strike" missions by teleporting into the midst of the enemies.

The other characters often have surges to spare, but that is partly due to design choices. I haven't used solo traps and minor fights much to drain surges, but I think nabbing a few from the Rogue via traps could work well to keep her on her toes and will certainly be ramping up that sort of thing in the game I DM.

*: ...by which I mean "has been out of HP with zero surges left and saved by the Paladin laying on hands".

Mattachine said:

I "stop" the party from taking extended rests in two ways:

1. I don't design all encounters to be challenging the PCs to their utmost. No more 3e encounter design. A lot of encounters are just wearing them down a bit. Remember adventures in AD&D?

2. More importantly, extended rests have to make sense in-character. Why doesn't the party take an extended rest in the depths of a dangerous cave complex? Because nobody would do that--it would be foolish. I demand that my players play with a bit of verisimilitude. I don't need artificial time tables (though I occasional use in-story time tables), because the players need to play their characters in a way that makes sense.

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1. Like it.

2. I think it would be good if that were part of the game. That is, instead of having to choose between maximum effectiveness (taking an Extended Rest after every encounter - 4E doesn't make time a resource) and playing in-character, there was a line about making sure that it makes sense to take an Extended Rest. Even if it was something simple like "The DM should only allow an Extended Rest when it makes sense to the ongoing story of the campaign." Or they could relate Extended Rests to in-game consequences, e.g. "When you take an Extended Rest, the DM complicates your PC's life."

I say this as someone who feels that Extended Rests are, by far, the worst aspect of 4E.