D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[Ilbranteloth]

Well, I'm a bit of an outlier here since I play on a Virtual Tabletop. Meaning I can tell you EXACTLY what the die rolls were in their 53rd fight. I have an actual log record of it.

But, in any case, everyone knows because everyone was actually there and dice were rolled and witnessed. That we might not be able to recall the exact specifics later doesn't suddenly mean it never actually happened.

Nope. It just means that my memory isn't as good as it could be. But, you CAN'T know. And that's the difference. There is no log. There is no record. There's NOTHING because IT NEVER HAPPENED. Thus, it's not an encounter.

What risk of failure was there when no random chance was involved? How can XP be awarded without any chance of failure? How can you have an encounter that never actually happened.

How can non-encounters that never happened possibly affect world building?

You do realize that as far as the PCs and NPCs are concerned, they are both fictional and nothing actually happened for either of them. The mechanics you are referring to all happen in this world, not theirs. They represent things that are happening in their world, but that's not the same thing.

The only thing that happens for the PCs are things that we say happens. The fact that there are mechanics to help us remain objective, and provide certain probabilities doesn't change that fact. The same probabilities can be achieved using other means.

To put it a different way. If I'm not playing on a virtual tabletop, then the only people who KNOW that it happened (in this world) are those that were there. So I could have somebody witness me authoring the NPC, and the two of us would know. We could even log it. Even if we didn't throw any dice.

The fact is, there are mechanics for world building. Those mechanics can be as involved or not as you'd like. An encounter in the fiction is the same for everybody within the fiction. The experience of that fiction is what differs when we play out part of it. That doesn't invalidate the rest of the fiction. And if you're concerned about such things, you can ensure that the NPC fiction follows the same rules as the PC fiction, even if you don't actively play out every scene.

Again - it's all about the elephant. So if you meet an NPC near the end of the day in the wilderness, who likely had to defend himself against roving monsters, then it's likely that they will not be at full health. They will have expended some of their ability or spell resources and may not be at full hit points. The probabilities tell me what percentage of NPCs will be in what state.

My PCs encounter lots of creatures and NPCs that aren't at full health. Do yours? Because my NPCs have encounters just like the PCs given the same geographical location and circumstances. That's world building using the rules and probabilities of the rules.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

What's the problem? You are telling me that encounters occur without any dice being rolled, and any actual play occurring, so, why can't I simply tell you that my character had 10 encounters yesterday and survived them all? He's now a level up and has an artifact. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

You keep using the word "strawman". I do not believe it means what you think it means. The actual logical fallacy you are looking for is reductio ad absurdum. But, that is largely my point. You are arguing that "encounters" occur even when no narration is done, and there is no actual chance of failure.

You do realize that those little people that you are imagining in your game world don't actually have separate lives right? They are just fictional constructs.

Provided the circumstances allowed you to tell me that (like your character had gone off on their own adventure for some time, and was returning to the fold), and that the results work within the framework and boundaries of the game world and how it works; Yes.

And it has been done. Most of my campaigns, everybody has multiple characters, and while a lot of the time they are involved in downtime activities, there are times where we know that there is some "adventuring" involved as well. My daughter's druid went from Silverymoon to Evereska and then found her way to someplace near Loudwater before meeting up with another group of PCs (and players). She had a large hand in determining what happened along the way, within the realities of the game world and probabilities and alternate mechanics to address what happened over a longer period of time.

 

[Lanefan]

You keep using that False Equivalence. Fire Fighters get called very quickly to fires. They aren't walking around having lots of fires walk in on them and attack.

Well, let's hope not anyway...

I can come to your table with my PC having gained three levels since the last session and armed with an artifact? After all, he isn't dead, so, he must have succeeded in the encounters. He had them all in my head, so, I can play that at your table right?

To which my response as DM might go something like "OK. You've picked up 3 levels and some new gear...now let's do some dice rolling to see how long that took you (in game-world time); and that's how long your character will be on hold while we play the party through that same stretch of time to catch up.

"In the meantime, you might want to roll up a replacement so you've got something to play for however many sessions that's gonna take..."

Lan-"yes, I'm willing to fight fire with fire"-efan

 

[Hussar]

The mechanics are designed in part to support those probabilities. For example, the death saving throw is set so you have about a 60% chance of survival without any additional help. That 60% probability comes up a lot in 5e.

You don't need to know how many hit points somebody lost in an encounter. If you want to maintain consistency in the world, then you ensure that the probabilities apply the same to the PCs and the NPCs. So if the probabilities mean that 60% of encounters end in success, then they can expect similar results for NPCs.

And this is exactly the point I'm making. Do you throw away 40% of your NPC's? After all, they died according to the "mechanics". So, when you make NPC's, you make three for every two that you use?

Didn't think so.

Yeah, this is going around in ridiculous circles and it's not going anywhere.

 

[Maxperson]

And this is exactly the point I'm making. Do you throw away 40% of your NPC's? After all, they died according to the "mechanics". So, when you make NPC's, you make three for every two that you use?

Didn't think so.

Yeah, this is going around in ridiculous circles and it's not going anywhere.

Of course 40% die. They are dead and buried, though. Sometimes PCs find their remains in dungeons. Sometimes their remains are monsters. The NPCs that the PCs meet, though, are a part of the 60%, at least up until that point.

 

[SkidAce]

This has gotten to the point I want to go get popcorn.

 

[Tony Vargas]

How? Considering that you, as a DM, by and large, use level(ish) balanced encounters for your PC's throughout the campaign, how can it be any more implausible that those encounters come in somewhat larger batches than "one"?

The same DMs having Vtude/world-building issues with 6-8 encounter days may have similar issues with 'level balanced' encounters, as well.

Can you please leave the edition warring crap at the door. This thread has NOTHING to do with edition...

I wish 'edition warring crap' could have been left out, but it hasn't been. That's the point - however twisted, invalid, or nonsensical concerns like these may have seemed, they haven't entirely gone away, and 5e has tried to address them.

From that perspective the elephant is in the room because folks who feel proprietary about the room demand it. It's like a 'third rail' issue, too.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

And this is exactly the point I'm making. Do you throw away 40% of your NPC's? After all, they died according to the "mechanics". So, when you make NPC's, you make three for every two that you use?

Didn't think so.

Yeah, this is going around in ridiculous circles and it's not going anywhere.

Well, yes, actually. I never really know what type or how many NPCs I'll need at a given point, so I have a whole lot that I've made and never used, and never will. But as [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] points out, there are a lot of people that are dead too. And sometimes those dead NPCs are ones that I rolled up and created backgrounds and equipped, etc. So when they find a wizard killed by goblins in a dungeon, I know what spells are in the spellbook. Because that was an NPC that didn't survive. And many NPCs that they meet, they'll find or learn have died after their prior meeting.

Who decides whether the PCs encounter a monster, and what the CR will be? The DM. Maybe with a random table, maybe not. Who decides how frequent those same exact types of encounters affects the other people of the world in the same situation? The DM.

So there's a 60% chance of a CR 5 encounter when the PCs travel between point A and point B. Of the hundred other people that have travelled the same route, 60% of them meet similar encounters, in which 40% on average die. Those are all numbers that can be easily calculated to give a rough idea of what the rumors say, potential remains, or captives, or whatever in the world. You don't need to worry about mechanics, or anything other than the probabilities when designing the world and the events within it. You simply need to know the probabilities, and maintain the same ones for the PCs and everybody else.

It doesn't matter if I have one mechanic to determine which 40% of the NPCs don't survive vs. the game mechanics to determine whether the PCs do or not. The PCs could have heard that their families are among the next group of travelers coming their direction, due to a war breaking out, and have to be concerned about the dangers that their family will face. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the dangers might also be mitigated to some degree, if they are traveling in larger groups than the PCs do.

But the bottom line is, for some of us who try to create a consistent world, the risk to people in a particular region is consistent. In my case I've run public campaigns that occur in the same place as my home campaign, with the public one being a shifting group of players. The risks are the same for each group that enters the same area or dungeon, although if one group eliminates a challenge, that challenge is gone for the others as well. In addition, the world has ongoing activities as well. So if there are rumors of hill giants that have been spotted in a region where they aren't usually seen, but none of the PC groups decide to investigate, then other NPCs groups will. And I'll determine the results of that which will alter the population, the situation with the giants, etc. appropriately. Sometimes I'll just decide what the likely result will be (because the PCs might have been the tipping point, for example), but other times I'll determine randomly to provide a bit of uncertainty and inspiration for the part of the story that I'm authoring. The PCs, of course, author their story by their decisions and actions, with my input limited to what's there and playing the parts of anything/anybody they meet.

Throwing away NPCs doesn't enter the equation. It doesn't have to. It has nothing to do with whether the world is as dangerous for the NPCs of the world as the PCs. Even simply deciding that the 40% of the 60% died is sufficient. Mathematically it serves the same purpose and maintains a reasonable consistent and believable world.

My mechanics also take into account these factors. For example, there are a lot of abilities in 5e that I remove simply because they would have too much of an impact on the world as a whole with the frequency that they would reasonably occur. First and foremost is how easy it is to get to 20th level in 5e. If you're using the 6-8 encounters per adventuring day, and the recommended XP per adventuring day, it takes roughly 33 adventuring days to reach 20th level.

In my case, ability scores limit your maximum level, and the maximum spell level you can achieve. Why? Because it explains why higher level PCs aren't as common. Even with ASIs, the average person can't grow beyond those limitations. And the 3d6 in order system that we use for generation also means that most PCs won't either. Not without finding some other method of raising an ability score. It also takes far more XP to gain levels in my campaign so it takes much longer both in the real world and the game world.

So the mechanics in my campaign are specifically altered to support the creation and maintenance of a consistent world.