No More 15-Minute Adventuring Day: Campsites

[Primitive Screwhead]

Reactive dungeons for the win. It could be s simple as the monsters go on alert and repopulate the areas the pcs cleared out.

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[Ed_Laprade]

I dunno, this sounds awfully video-gamey to me. It would also tend to discourage player inventiveness, I should think. In any case, any one solution, used all the time, is going to get tedius pretty quick.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Isn't the 15 minute adventuring day a tedious solution used all the time?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There are a lot of assumptions in this, actually. I mean, sure, if the only price is that the bad guys recover their missing hit points too, that's usually a no-brainer win for the pcs. But a proactive dm might not- I'd say should not- always leave it at that.

Raise the price, even a little, and the equation might change.

What if the price is "the bad guys set up a bunch of traps and ambushes for the pcs' return trip"?

What if the price is "the bad guys come a-huntin' for the depleted party"?

What if the price is "the bad guys finish their ritual and open a portal to the Abyss"?

What if the price is "the bad guy flees the dungeon entirely and gets away with the Macguffin the pcs are questing for"?

IMHO the players should be in charge of deciding when and where to rest, but a poorly chosen place and time should have consequences. 3e and 4e, with long combat times and relatively low numbers of encounters-per-level, discourage wandering monsters, but if the pcs rest in an old rat-infested dungeon, there's no reason a rat swarm shouldn't interrupt their rest. In D&D's earliest days, oozes only appeared as treasureless wandering monsters. I remember when pcs would save a few spells to have in case of interrupted rests.

The 15-minute adventuring day is a problem, but intelligent monsters that respond to incursions during the time between assaults help to reward longer forays.

Reactive dungeons for the win. It could be s simple as the monsters go on alert and repopulate the areas the pcs cleared out.

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Yep- things like this are why I've never seen the 15-minute workday in person despite gaming since 1977. I'd never even heard of it until I joined ENWorld.

Nearly every GM in every RPG system I've played in- and me, personally in the GM's chair- has had time pass and the NPCs react logically to PC actions.

Retreat too long, and reinforcements arrive, and are on alert. Camp in a dangerous area and you don't get any rest.

 

[Crothian]

I find it laughable. AS a PC why would there be this one safe room in the dungeon conveniently placed after 3 encounters? It would smell like a trap. If the DM does not like that the players do a 15 minute adventuring day then the DM needs to talk to the players about it. I don't see this as a game problem but as a player problem. It is not something I've ever seen players do.

 

[Crothian]

You're not wrong, but this puts a lot of demands on the DM to come up with interesting and creative consequences each time the party rests

No one said DMing was easy. Not everyone can or should do it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And nobody said that EVERY rest needs interesting consequences...or even consequences at all.

An area guarded by a construct or undead might be cleared and the other denizens might be none the wiser for days or even weeks since those kinds of guards don't need to be relieved or monitored.

A good distraction might get you to a resting place behind enemy lines with no one aware you're even there.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The very thought of the "15 minute adventuring day" boggles my mind. I have played every edition of D&D from Basic to Pathfinder, along with Warhammer, Gurps, Rolemaster, and more that I don't care to count. I have never, as a dm, nor as a player experienced the fmad. Out of healing spells? So what, we'll be cautious and take no unnecessary risks. Mage out of spells? He can pick up his staff or throw daggers - or use his crossbow in 3e. If the fighter was hurt badly, he'd switch to a range weapon or polearm and we'd rearrange the marching order and go on. We'd generally camp only if the entire party had had its ass kicked, or at the end of a game day to avoid penalties for fatigue. I suppose we occasionally knocked a door down and got our ass handed to us and had to retreat and camp early once in a while, but retreating because we were out of spells just never occurred to anyone I've played with.

 

[The Shaman]

No one said DMing was easy. Not everyone can or should do it.

This.

And nobody said that EVERY rest needs interesting consequences...or even consequences at all.

And this.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I find it laughable. AS a PC why would there be this one safe room in the dungeon conveniently placed after 3 encounters?

It might not be. My idea to fit my own playstyle would be to provide rooms in the dungeon-design that the PCs could get to to in order to rest, and just make sure there was 2-3 layers of encounters between them and any resting place.

The dungeon in this version is abstract, so it can be any sort of adventure, really, but it could also be a literal dungeon.

Only somebody really comfortable with a game-heavy style would do a literal "three encounters then a convenient rest."

No one said DMing was easy. Not everyone can or should do it.

Meaning we shouldn't try and make it easier on a DM by providing them with ways in which to defeat common bugaboos?

I mean, if the 15-minute-adventuring-day isn't a problem for you, it's not a big deal, but I think that something is a little lost when the players control their own resource recharging, especially without a built-in cost. The tension of "we might run out of spells/potions/rations/whatever!" is lost, and retreat becomes a good play strategy, rather than a last resort.