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Decoupling [healing + resource recovery] from 'resting'
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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 6791505" data-attributes="member: 6683613"><p>You've made a thoughtful proposition, and I like how you're trying to look at it from different angles. Having a basically simulationist approach to D&D myself, that was indeed my first thought as I read your post. I'm not a big fan of <em>ad hoc</em> in-universe explanations for game mechanics. I would much rather see the rules reflect what's happening in the game world than the other way around. So an explanation like this is probably not for me. I can't see anything objectively <em>wrong</em> with it, though.</p><p></p><p>One suggestion I might make, if you're concerned about the opinion of people like me: it may sound paradoxical, but don't try so hard to explain it. The game has a lot of abstractions which we all just accept as abstractions, but which would sound idiotic if the writers bent over backwards giving in-universe reasons for them. Take hit points. They don't really make a lot of sense. But in just presenting the rule with a brief handwave of "These sort of represent how well you're doing in the fight", players can imagine them however they feel best or just ignore them and focus on other parts of the simulation. If they tried to say something like "Hit points represent the strength of a heroic energy field that surrounds you and protects you from real injury", it wouldn't work nearly as well. It would only draw extra attention to the unrealism of the rule.</p><p></p><p>On the mechanical front, I do think there's at least one issue that may or may not sink your proposal, but needs to be considered. And that is that this milestone system takes control of "recharges" out of the hands of players. In standard D&D, there is often a great deal of tension between the option of continuing to explore versus falling back to rest. It's a classic "press-your-luck" mechanic, in board game parlance. With recharges, there's no tension at all, because rests don't do anything; "we press on" is the only option. At worst, you may see players trying to <em>take back</em> some of this control in counterintuitive ways: "We're pretty beat up, so why don't we just leave the dungeon and go 'encounter' bobcats in the forest until we hit our milestone?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 6791505, member: 6683613"] You've made a thoughtful proposition, and I like how you're trying to look at it from different angles. Having a basically simulationist approach to D&D myself, that was indeed my first thought as I read your post. I'm not a big fan of [I]ad hoc[/I] in-universe explanations for game mechanics. I would much rather see the rules reflect what's happening in the game world than the other way around. So an explanation like this is probably not for me. I can't see anything objectively [I]wrong[/I] with it, though. One suggestion I might make, if you're concerned about the opinion of people like me: it may sound paradoxical, but don't try so hard to explain it. The game has a lot of abstractions which we all just accept as abstractions, but which would sound idiotic if the writers bent over backwards giving in-universe reasons for them. Take hit points. They don't really make a lot of sense. But in just presenting the rule with a brief handwave of "These sort of represent how well you're doing in the fight", players can imagine them however they feel best or just ignore them and focus on other parts of the simulation. If they tried to say something like "Hit points represent the strength of a heroic energy field that surrounds you and protects you from real injury", it wouldn't work nearly as well. It would only draw extra attention to the unrealism of the rule. On the mechanical front, I do think there's at least one issue that may or may not sink your proposal, but needs to be considered. And that is that this milestone system takes control of "recharges" out of the hands of players. In standard D&D, there is often a great deal of tension between the option of continuing to explore versus falling back to rest. It's a classic "press-your-luck" mechanic, in board game parlance. With recharges, there's no tension at all, because rests don't do anything; "we press on" is the only option. At worst, you may see players trying to [I]take back[/I] some of this control in counterintuitive ways: "We're pretty beat up, so why don't we just leave the dungeon and go 'encounter' bobcats in the forest until we hit our milestone?" [/QUOTE]
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Decoupling [healing + resource recovery] from 'resting'
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