A Discussion in Game Design: The 15 minute work day.

[napoleonbuff]

I had previously instituted that for every milestone, xp would go up 10% (e.g., after two milestones the players earn +20% xp).

This had very little effect. The players would sometimes consider it, but for the most part it was the loss of their daily powers that would cause them to rest.

Toward that end, this last session I decided to make it that the players would also regain one daily power (attack, utility or item) per milestone, but never the same daily power twice in one day.

This made a big difference, as for once it was healing surges rather than daily powers that finally caused the players to rest (they got in five tough fights against monster's bumped to MM3 type damage). This is exactly as I prefer it, as to me healing surges or story points, not lack of dailies, should be the motivator for resting.

I also let each ritual user use one free ritual per milestone (half cost for creating consumable items).

 

[Bullgrit]

As DMs are coming up with ways to get the PCs to press on in an adventure, how do you avoid pushing them into the "just one more room" mindset that leads to TPKs?

Bullgrit

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I leave that up to them.

 

[napoleonbuff]

As DMs are coming up with ways to get the PCs to press on in an adventure, how do you avoid pushing them into the "just one more room" mindset that leads to TPKs?

Bullgrit

Fortunately, with a cleric, warlord and paladin in a seven-player party, there are plenty of ways for my group to avoid a TPK.

Plus, with the method I instituted, it seems like the players will never be too far down the power curve from where they started the day, so as long as they make sure they have some healing possibilities before going into an encounter, it doesn't seem like they'll be too far off from the first encounter of the day in terms of danger.

For example, this past weekend the warlord was down to just 1 healing surge after the fourth encounter, but the paladin still had both his lay on hands in reserves (and plenty of surges of his own), while the cleric had cure serious wounds (not to mention other surgeless healing).

After the fifth encounter, the warlord was out of healing surges, so even with multiple healing methods available, the party decided to call a halt.

At least with my group, I think the xp bonus and the ability to recover some dailies gives little mechanical incentives to press on, but not so much that they'll tend to being overly reckless.

 

[Ariosto]

I've been playing a PC game called King's Bounty and it has some interesting mechanics - Rage and Mana.

This must be a different game called King's Bounty than the one I remember (New World Computing, 1990). In that one, spells were single-use items like scrolls in OD&D. You could carry only so many at a time, and could buy more at a town that sold a particular spell.

Maintenance of normal and monstrous retainers also cost money week by week. How did you get money? By pressing on to capture villains and turn them in for the king's bounty!

That also scored pieces of a map. The game's victory condition was to locate a magic scepter before the king died -- so dilly-dallying could lose the game.

 

[Dausuul]

This must be a different game called King's Bounty than the one I remember (New World Computing, 1990). In that one, spells were single-use items like scrolls in OD&D. You could carry only so many at a time, and could buy more at a town that sold a particular spell.

Maintenance of normal and monstrous retainers also cost money week by week. How did you get money? By pressing on to capture villains and turn them in for the king's bounty!

That also scored pieces of a map. The game's victory condition was to locate a magic scepter before the king died -- so dilly-dallying could lose the game.

Yeah, I was also thinking of that game when I saw King's Bounty brought up. It was the precursor of the "Heroes of Might and Magic" franchise, as I recall.

 

[karolusb]

The "problem" with the 15-minute work day is that the GM has a mental construct of "how things are supposed to happen" that the players playing smartly and sitting down to rest is disturbing enough that a smart tactical option is considered a "problem."

In other words, narrative desire - the desire to have a "plot" or a "story" - is being impinged upon because the GM desires things to happen in a certain way. We're the GM impartial and relying upon the players to drive the game (as opposed to a "plot") there is no more a feeling of unease or dissatisfaction from the 15-minute work day than one gets from from when the players use any other of their available options to perform better as a group.


joe b.

I think you have it exactly and specifically wrong.

Across all systems here is the overarching problem with the 15 minute workday for me: An infinite resource can't be managed. Players aren't "managing" rests if there is no disincentive to rest. You aren't making a choice to rest, you are forced to rest by the rules.

It makes a bad game (by skewing the rules), a bad narrative (nothing is ever accomplished this way in history literature or the real world, so it feels painfully artificial), and, if you prefer a simulation argument, people who sleep in musty underground tombs 6 days a week die young from nasty lung infections, so it makes a bad simulation as well. (OD&D had a bunch of these effects built into the rules, since newer editions don’t you claim that they are attempts to overwrite the game with narrative, was the 1st ed disease chart a narraivist construct?)

The 15 minute workday affects different games differently: I never saw it in 3. Not sure if it was the rules (buff spells that lasted for hours) or the wide eyed nature of rediscovering d&d after a decade of mocking it.

I have heard horror stories of 3.5. Two friends both joined, at different times, a campaign that had exactly one play style, after a session or two of realizing that the characters they wanted to play didn't fit they had to build characters that did. Every day was haste, fireball+fireball, fireball+fireball, fireball+fireball, sleep. In that game the 15 minute workday would have made it unplayable for me. Everyone in that game was a pure spellcaster, as any other character was completely impotent.

I view it as a verisimilitude problem in 4, a problem with static dungeons, more than mechanics. (In previous editions it didn't take very many rest interruptions with fighters out of thier armor for players to start thinking very, very hard about the value of a rest). Since all players have equal types of powers, the gm can adjust the game if needed, and in reality around the time that frequent rests start to become tempting (once you have 3 daily powers) the game starts to have incentives to push on (items in paragon, especially rings) tend to have powerful milestone effects.

As someone already pointed out every ShadowRun is a different type of 15 minute workday, once you go, you go, turning back is failure, no foot dragging.

Not every game can be a frenzied race against time (and even these also take away the players choice), but some settings work pretty well this way. I really liked the Red Hand of Doom's structure. There was time, but not an infinite amount, cutting today short might mean having to push past your limits tomorrow (or failing to meet a critical objective). Overall I think it is kinda of an ideal format, with competing incentives and disincentives, allowing for meaningful choices.

When I was running a West Marches style 4E game we had a simple rule, rests happen in town. Returning to town ends the game session. By the time you got back to the tomb, perhaps someone else had already plundered it or maybe the residents realizing they were under siege packed up their loot and went home. Never once had a game cut short early, or people complain about rests.

 

[jgbrowning]

I think you have it exactly and specifically wrong.

Across all systems here is the overarching problem with the 15 minute workday for me: An infinite resource can't be managed. Players aren't "managing" rests if there is no disincentive to rest. You aren't making a choice to rest, you are forced to rest by the rules.

I don't think of time as only a resource to be managed because I don't think of role-playing as "a game with resources" - I think of it as "playing pretend" - which is a much larger box. The player characters in a game have just as much time as we here in the real world have, and like the great explorers of history they have the option to rest when they think best or keep moving when they think best.

No one is EVER forced to rest by the rules. Playing when sub-optimal is just as fun as playing when optimal. Time is as much a resource to a PC as it is to me in the real world.

It makes a bad game (by skewing the rules)

The rules are fine. Players can rest when they want to, but should expect, just like in real life, that situations change when time passes. All the reasons why people throughout history didn't rest even if it would have improved their overall ability apply to the PCs as well.

, a bad narrative (nothing is ever accomplished this way in history literature or the real world, so it feels painfully artificial)

History is full of people making decisions to rest for resupply. It's also full of people who wanted to rest for resupply but didn't have the time for it. Time moves. Resting is a good strategy sometimes relative to goals and a bad strategy other times relative to goals.

and, if you prefer a simulation argument, people who sleep in musty underground tombs 6 days a week die young from nasty lung infections, so it makes a bad simulation as well. (OD&D had a bunch of these effects built into the rules, since newer editions don’t you claim that they are attempts to overwrite the game with narrative, was the 1st ed disease chart a narraivist construct?)

Of course its a narrative construct as I use the term - that chart was an attempt to create a narrative - a narrative preferring action over caution.

I don't do the whole GNS thing and my words don't mean what GNS means. I "play pretend" instead.

If one actually "plays pretend" when gaming, the 15 minute workday isn't a problem. All the reasons why some groups of soldiers continue to march when low on supplies while others rest to resupply apply here as well, IMO.

joe b.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

no one is ever forced to rest by the rules.

qft.

 

[LostSoul]

Joe, don't you think the rules have some influence on the decisions the players make?