The One Hour D&D Game

KesselZero · Mar 19, 2012

Regarding the discussion between Encounter XP budgets and Adventure XP budgets, I have to chime in that this is a very 4e distinction. In 4e, if I had one 1,000-XP encounter for a party of five first-level characters, they'd have a very tough time with it. But if I threw ten seperate 100-XP encounters at them, they would wipe them up without breaking a sweat.

Why? Encounter powers, encounter healing, and short rests. My experience of 4e has been that anything less than a well-balanced encounter is basically a meaningless cakewalk, because it costs the PCs nothing in resources-- at the end of an easy encounter plus short rest, they have exactly the same resources as at the beginning, with a few more XP. Maybe one or two characters has to spend a healing surge, or maybe not. Imagine your 4e PCs taking on two guards outside the door to the citadel. All they have to do is throw down all their encounter powers on the two poor guards then take a five-minute breather. Aside from concerns about making noise and having an alarm raised, this is basically free XP for them.

I think what Mearls is talking about is a system where you can choose to wage a war of attrition against your PCs, where healing and big powers aren't as easy to come by, so those ten 100-XP encounters would actually use up PC resources to approximately the same extent that one 1,000-XP encounter would. This also means that traps would return to being more meaningful scattered throughout a dungeon as opposed to parts of a set-piece encounter. I strongly support the design ideology that Mearls lays out in the article, and I really hope that 5e follows this in its basic game.

I also think such a game would be much more attractive to new players. On Saturday night I spent a few hours helping four brand-new players through 4e character creation. All we did was race, class, and at-will powers, and it still took a long time since I had to explain every little quirky rule that came up. We barely had time for a very simple "test combat" before bedtime. I just kept wishing for a simpler system so I could have helped them make characters and run through a whole adventure in a couple hours. I can't help but believe that that would be a play experience much more likely to hook them into the game.

Minigiant · Mar 19, 2012

Scribble said:
Well- one man's simple and boring is another mans quick and fun. I think what he's saying is the option needs to be there for those that want it, not that that's how all games will be run.

My point was that I don't see how it could be done. An hour is not a long time and I have barely seen a game close to a hour before even with prewritten fluff, descriptions, and characters.

I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.

I love the goal. I just don't think it is possible as stated.

Alan Shutko · Mar 19, 2012

kitsune9 said:
I want my combats to be fast, scenarios to play out fairly quickly, but I need tension to build up in the mechanics of the game that gives BBEG "staying power" so that they won't blow us out of the water in the first round or for us to do the same.

In my experience, I want a combination of this, too. For me, that means there are a bunch of combats that are quick. But there's still room for big set-piece battles as the climax of an adventure. The difference in time between different combats, the different level of tactical decisioning, makes for variety that spices things up for me.

Li Shenron · Mar 19, 2012

My personal target nowadays is to fit an adventure in an evening, including characters generation. If they can make it happen in an hour then then better! I can take care of adding complexity or just extending the adventure to reach the end of the evening

I'm A Banana · Mar 19, 2012

kitsune9 said:
One on end of the gaming experience, you'll have very fast games, but no sense of tension that builds up

I don't think that necessarily follows. TV shows manage to build and release tension in 20-40 minute bursts on a weekly basis. I don't think it's too much to see that the collective decision-making/rules-referencing portion of the game take about as much or less time than commercial breaks in an hour-long TV drama.

I think the main choice is going to be between speed and verisimilitude or options, not speed and storyline.

Take the OA rules in 4e and 3e: you provoke if you move to a square adjacent to an enemy. Provoking means that, if the monster has the actions available, they can opt to attack you, rolling to hit and dealing damage before your turn resumes.

It's a tactical option that certainly adds verisimilitude (running past a guy isn't usually a safe move!), but that slows down that game to a sudden crawl. That crawl might be worthwhile for groups that want that tactical dimension, or that realistic combat, but it's not always worth it for those who like a more cinematic game.

So the choice for a "fast game" would be to drop them -- they spiral the duration of a turn into the stratosphere. But that does remove some tactical elements, and some realism-based elements from the game. So which do you want? 5e sounds like it might want to give you both. YAY.

kitsune9 · Mar 19, 2012

ExploderWizard said:
This model has worked well for GURPS for a long time. Basic combat, with advanced options there whenever you want to use them.

I like the GURPS model on modularity. It works really well for that system.

Dausuul · Mar 19, 2012

Minigiant said:
My point was that I don't see how it could be done. An hour is not a long time and I have barely seen a game close to a hour before even with prewritten fluff, descriptions, and characters.

I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.

I love the goal. I just don't think it is possible as stated.

Obviously it's possible since Mearls did it. I'm willing to bet I could do it too. I've already had the experience of running a BD&D adventure in 3 hours (including chargen) with people who didn't know the edition, and that was a moderately meaty adventure with mid-Expert-level PCs, eight combats, exploration, and RP. If I had people who knew the system, playing characters in the 1-3 range, and trimmed the number of fights down to 3 or so? I'm pretty sure we could fit an adventure into 1 hour.

In fact, I kind of want to give it a try now. It sounds like fun.

Scribble · Mar 19, 2012

Minigiant said:
My point was that I don't see how it could be done. An hour is not a long time and I have barely seen a game close to a hour before even with prewritten fluff, descriptions, and characters.

I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.

I love the goal. I just don't think it is possible as stated.

Yeah but are you thinking in terms of the basic sub system?

That's what I meant about it not being the whole game striving for 1 hour length adventures. Like if you were playing the game with a bunch of complex options and battles and stuff, I doubt they will make a game that plays the entire thing in 1 hour. (But it seems they will probably pay attention to minimizing "drag" as much as possible even in complex games.)

But the option, for those that want it, to have a stripped down quick running game should be there at the core.

This is something I really like, because it also speaks to the idea that it doesn't have to be binary. Hopefully we won't have to choose either long adventures or short adventures, but we can tailor them to the speed/styles we want.

ExploderWizard · Mar 19, 2012

Minigiant said:
I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.

The game this was accomplished in was B/X D&D. It is my favorite version of the game published and with players who are not total newbs it is completely possible.

Henry · Mar 19, 2012

The main obstacle to running shorter games, in my experience, is ourselves. Most of us (rpg tabletop gamers) get together to "shoot the breeze," relax with friends, and game somewhere in there, so that even during solid gaming time, someone might break up the table with a funny moment in-game, crack a joke about a cinematic move someone did in-game, or (I'm worst for this) making a 20-second aside about how similar some gaming situation is to something from TV, movies, or real life that I saw recently.

Also, if we don't spend much time looking on our character sheets for skill scores, verifying how ability damage has altered four or five stats, or checking the wording of a moderately complex feat, then we can be rather surprised how much gaming we can squeeze in.

Me, I want a D&D option (that says "D&D" on the cover, to quell skittishness) that I can break out to new players who have never played an RPG before, when I say, "Have you ever played D&D before?" and they "no", I can say "would you like to play? It only takes about an hour to show you how. we'll play a game."

When I say, "about four hours" to play anything, people tend to glaze over -- even world of warcraft or poker can be played in an hour's time.