D&D General D&D without Resource Management

[Micah Sweet]

That has been a long debate. The premise of D&D is, at it's core, pretending to be people who take extreme risks in order to gain incredible rewards.

The rules system itself rewards specialization.

So one would assume that it makes just as much sense for the characters to optimize as their players in order to succeed.

But then you have people who sniff and say "ugh, powergaming munchkins" with as much derision as possible if you actually follow this line of logic to it's conclusion, lol.

----

As for resource attrition itself, I've noticed something in playing 5e. When the resources run low, the game pretty much grinds to a halt, whether you've had 2 encounters or 5. The party looks beat up, the Cleric is low on spells, and even with a short rest, the group consensus is "maybe one more encounter".

So the party looks for ways to rest/retreat, and if none are had, characters start dying.

A lot of people wonder why are they pushing themselves to this extreme in the first place? In the game I'm currently playing, we're slowly clearing out a mega-dungeon. The party has mentioned wanting to tackle side objectives, or head to a major city in the hopes of converting our loot into magic items (lol).

I keep resisting because, to my mind, leaving the dangerous individuals who haunt the dungeon alone will only lead to disaster- note that the DM nor the NPC's have ever mentioned we're on a clock, it just makes logical sense to me in game. And that's the only reason why we keep going back, and as we get deeper in, our ability to tackle encounters starts dropping. The past few sessions, we've had large setpiece battles that eat up a lot of time and resources (primarily because our damage dealers are not optimized) and we had two battles back to back (one with fiends and the other with derro) where I cast very few spells due to magic resistant foes, and by the end of it, even though my tank was still pretty full, everyone else was like "we need a long rest".

So I started talking to the DM (we played 4e together) and I was like "what happened? That Derro encounter was something we used to do back in the day, and be good for three to four more!".

And our consensus is, 5e has two issues. One, it's not well suited for large setpiece battles. It basically wants you to ration out your resources over the course of a half dozen or so encounters, few of which are particularly difficult, somehow cramming a couple of 1 hour naps in there, which isn't very interesting, and somewhat verisimilitude warping to somehow take a siesta in the middle of enemy territory.

Two, the whole reason D&D was a resource intensive game was, back in the day, the farther you could go into a dungeon or wherever, the better the rewards (and you also had to worry about weaker foes waiting for you to come out so they could ambush you)! You got better loot and more xp as you fought more dangerous foes.

But that's not really the case in 5e. You get the same xp per adventuring day fighting a few tough battles vs. a lot of easy ones. The gold and treasure you gain isn't a primary part of the game loop like it was back in AD&D. The only reason you have to push yourselves has to be supplied, usually by the threat of "things will get worse if you don't".

It's not like the old days where you hear about some long lost crypt in the middle of nowhere that's minding it's own business, and simply exists for you to explore it at your leisure, lol.

5e has brought back the need for managing resources over long spans of adventuring time, but took away a big part of the reason why this was necessary to do so.

Which is why I advocate bringing those reasons back.

 

[payn]

As for resource attrition itself, I've noticed something in playing 5e. When the resources run low, the game pretty much grinds to a halt, whether you've had 2 encounters or 5. The party looks beat up, the Cleric is low on spells, and even with a short rest, the group consensus is "maybe one more encounter".

So the party looks for ways to rest/retreat, and if none are had, characters start dying.

I actually find 5E to be too easy to manage the resources, and it is very difficult to reach the point of dying. Short rests and foes that are not as dangerous as past editions makes this possible.

A lot of people wonder why are they pushing themselves to this extreme in the first place? In the game I'm currently playing, we're slowly clearing out a mega-dungeon. The party has mentioned wanting to tackle side objectives, or head to a major city in the hopes of converting our loot into magic items (lol).

I keep resisting because, to my mind, leaving the dangerous individuals who haunt the dungeon alone will only lead to disaster- note that the DM nor the NPC's have ever mentioned we're on a clock, it just makes logical sense to me in game. And that's the only reason why we keep going back, and as we get deeper in, our ability to tackle encounters starts dropping. The past few sessions, we've had large setpiece battles that eat up a lot of time and resources (primarily because our damage dealers are not optimized) and we had two battles back to back (one with fiends and the other with derro) where I cast very few spells due to magic resistant foes, and by the end of it, even though my tank was still pretty full, everyone else was like "we need a long rest".

So I started talking to the DM (we played 4e together) and I was like "what happened? That Derro encounter was something we used to do back in the day, and be good for three to four more!".

And our consensus is, 5e has two issues. One, it's not well suited for large setpiece battles. It basically wants you to ration out your resources over the course of a half dozen or so encounters, few of which are particularly difficult, somehow cramming a couple of 1 hour naps in there, which isn't very interesting, and somewhat verisimilitude warping to somehow take a siesta in the middle of enemy territory.

Set piece battles as in one huge fight that takes all your daily resources? I don't really know an edition that did that well, but I guess what the choir wills say.

Two, the whole reason D&D was a resource intensive game was, back in the day, the farther you could go into a dungeon or wherever, the better the rewards (and you also had to worry about weaker foes waiting for you to come out so they could ambush you)! You got better loot and more xp as you fought more dangerous foes.

Not the way we played. You often wanted to avoid fighting because it was a worse way to earn treasure and complete your goals. Yes, of course, we fought things, but it wasn't a test to see how much blood you could cover yourself in every day before your resources ran out. I actually face more combats as a player now, then I did then.

But that's not really the case in 5e. You get the same xp per adventuring day fighting a few tough battles vs. a lot of easy ones. The gold and treasure you gain isn't a primary part of the game loop like it was back in AD&D. The only reason you have to push yourselves has to be supplied, usually by the threat of "things will get worse if you don't".

It's not like the old days where you hear about some long lost crypt in the middle of nowhere that's minding it's own business, and simply exists for you to explore it at your leisure, lol.

5e has brought back the need for managing resources over long spans of adventuring time, but took away a big part of the reason why this was necessary to do so.

We come from very different places. I will admit, megadungeons has never been my style. They have never really made sense to me. I think of the adventure day as a possible set of obstacles and encounters the PCs can face during that adventure. If your intent is to run the game like an old school simulation, an OSR product is a better choice. I believe the intent of 5E is more suited for modern post--Hickman adventure path style gaming. I believe a lot of your issues are bound in a misperception of that.

 

[Lanefan]

Set piece battles as in one huge fight that takes all your daily resources? I don't really know an edition that did that well, but I guess what the choir wills say.

Despite all its other issues, 4e to its credit did the big set-piece battle quite well (as written in its adventures) in terms of setting up an interesting site or scene with a variety of foes who often had a variety of tactics.

The corollary failing was that those adventures also often seemed to expect the foes to just wait in place until the PCs got there.

I believe the intent of 5E is more suited for modern post--Hickman adventure path style gaming.

This observation is both insightful and sad at the same time.

 

[payn]

This observation is both insightful and sad at the same time.

Only sad if its not your style. Though, there are many products that will suit it including past editions of D&D.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Only sad if its not your style. Though, there are many products that will suit it including past editions of D&D.

Yeah. Anyone claiming that there is a dearth of options for folks who like "old-school" approaches to D&D is simply not paying attention.

Those options often do not have the same "EVERYONE is playing it" thing D&D does. And all I can say to someone bothered by that is: feel free to join the club.

 

[payn]

Yeah. Anyone claiming that there is a dearth of options for folks who like "old-school" approaches to D&D is simply not paying attention.

Those options often do not have the same "EVERYONE is playing it" thing D&D does. And all I can say to someone bothered by that is: feel free to join the club.

First, unfortunately, 5E proved to be successful without any of its planned modularity, which I do think is a bummer. Though the "cant find a game because folks only play 5E" is so vastly exaggerated.

 

[Voadam]

I conflate enjoyable with valued because to me they're pretty much the same thing: the value is the enjoyment, even if that enjoyment might be slightly delayed. In D&D, that means some things you might see as tedious (e.g. careful resource management) are enjoyable due to the enjoyment of the later payoff.

Same is true of "grinding" in a video game - the enjoyment comes from the later payoff.

I am much more in the mode of what I have read about Wayne Gretzky and how he loved hockey, he loved practicing, he loved thinking about it in his down time, he loved playing every game, he loved competing, and he loved winning. He loved a lot more than just being good and winning. Practice and workouts and prep were not tedious hours he endured just to get to the payoff of winning, they were fun in and of themselves. He enjoyed every step of the process.

That seems ideal to me.

In the case of D&D, while the journey can sometimes be enjoyable in itself the real reason for doing it is and remains the payoff at the end.

What do you see as the end payoff of D&D? Gaining xp and advancing in levels? Gaining in game rewards? A satisfying campaign conclusion? A character retiring? Resolving a plot conflict?

For me those are only a minor part of the fun of D&D, the big focus is on the actual adventuring and exploring and roleplaying and fighting and playing in the moment.

 

[Corinnguard]

For me those are only a minor part of the fun of D&D, the big focus is on the actual adventuring and exploring and roleplaying and fighting and playing in the moment.

Adventuring, exploring, role-playing and fighting alongside your fellow players around a game table or on a VTT. Out-of-character you get to know something about your fellow players and they get to know something about you. In-character, you get to see a bunch of strangers coalesce into a team as they strive to deal with a problem fate dropped into their laps. This is also a part of D&D.

 

[Voadam]

Adventuring, exploring, role-playing and fighting alongside your fellow players around a game table or on a VTT. Out-of-character you get to know something about your fellow players and they get to know something about you. In-character, you get to see a bunch of strangers coalesce into a team as they strive to deal with a problem fate dropped into their laps. This is also a part of D&D.

Yes the social aspects and the bad jokes are definitely also part of the fun of D&D.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

First, unfortunately, 5E proved to be successful without any of its planned modularity, which I do think is a bummer.

Believe me, I'm quite familiar with 5e claiming to offer stuff in development stages and then quietly dropping it when the rubber actually hit the road and they had to stop dithering and settle on something.

But of course, many, many people derive the lessons they wish to from 5e's success (oftentimes, asserting something that boils down to "every part of 5e was individually necessary and jointly sufficient for its success, so any change of any kind would destroy that success"). Which usually means that any possibility of "maybe 5e could have done something differently and thus improve" gets completely discounted.

Though the "cant find a game because folks only play 5E" is so vastly exaggerated.

Perhaps. I spent over a year trying, by degrees, to find a 4e game, and then a 4e-alike game, and then a "anything but 5e" game, and then a 5e game that was at least remotely compatible with my interests. I came up empty. "I can't find a game because folks only play (a very specific perspective on) 5e" is painfully real for me, personally.