Five-Minute Workday Article

[NewJeffCT]

what about a mix - some days, I may want that one big epic/climactic encounter. Other days, I may want 3 or 4 or 5 smaller encounters, or 2/3 smaller encounters followed by a bigger one.

One thing I liked about 4E was that it allowed you to have five encounters in a day that were spaced out. However, I always found it tough over the course of a 2 1/2 year long 4E campaign to actually challenge the PCs with that one big climactic encounter.

 

[WarlockLord]

I remain surprised because they gave me 4E, which is a wonderful and well designed game for me and that did not happen by accident. The people knew what they were doing.

I guess I am just seeing them using their powers for [-]evil[/-] for someone or something else but my issues with D&D and myself.

You know they've fired a lot of the original 4e people like Rob Heinsoo, right?

 

[Stalker0]

I wrote an article on this subject a while ago that I think is very relevant to this discussion.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/286349-discussion-game-design-15-minute-work-day.html

 

[Cadfan]

It seems to me "DM Empowerment" mostly means "the DM has to think about more details than ever before". Maybe that is making the game more flexible and appealing to a larger audience, since the game isn't pre-defining things in ways they don't like.

But it's still more work, and I am a very, very very lazy person. I don't want this type of "empowerement". I'd rather have a system that makes all the pre-defined things I can agree with and takes that workload off. It really doesn't look like this will become a game for me.

There are some philosophers who have argued that the reason the world has to suck is to give us something to do. We'd all go soft if it weren't for things like hunger and leukemia. These things empower us to reach our potential as actualized human beings, by giving us something to use our skill and wit to struggle against. If you see someone starving to death, know that they'd be so much less empowered if they had food, because they wouldn't actualize themselves by scrounging for enough nutrients to live.

I think game design is a poor career choice for people who think that way.

 

[Shadeydm]

Maybe I missed it.
Did they ever mention a module to mitigate 5MWD yet?

For a game based on placing modules on the core, there is little talk of actual modules until after the forums all erupt in lava infused rage.

Well to hear some of its defenders talk 4E already cured the 5MWD (along with cancer if some are to be believed) so a module which supports 4E style play should be all you need

 

[Harlock]

what about a mix - some days, I may want that one big epic/climactic encounter. Other days, I may want 3 or 4 or 5 smaller encounters, or 2/3 smaller encounters followed by a bigger one.

One thing I liked about 4E was that it allowed you to have five encounters in a day that were spaced out. However, I always found it tough over the course of a 2 1/2 year long 4E campaign to actually challenge the PCs with that one big climactic encounter.

My experience was just the opposite. Our DM constantly went after the casters with hard, physical classes and sniping first. Every combat encounter was long, drawn out and deadly. We lost two parties in Keep on the Shadowfell alone.

 

[john112364]

Ok first off a few statements:

1. I'm a die hard 4e player, but I've played every previous edition
2. I am just stating my opinion. It's not meant to be taken as the only way.

In my humble opinion, the 5MWD is indeed a DM/player issue. I've played in 4e games where we press on with no healing surges, no dailies, and low on hit points, because we as roleplayers decided we had to! There was no magical 4e mechanic or rule that said we had to press on. It was simply the situation demanded it (as set up by the DM). Could we have retreated? Certainly. But, there would have been consequences.
And this is how you fix the 5MWD. Make sure there are consequences. Not all the time, but as the situation requires it. This is the DM's responsibility. The DM always does more work than the player. That's the burden of the DM and it always has been.


The solutions have already been stated numerous times by numerous posters:

• Time limits (If you don't get the magical McGuffin in a fortnight the town will be overrun by the Zombie apocalypse)
• If you are not in a safe place, such as a town or other such haven, ther should be a chance for random encounters. You don't even need tables for it. If you are in the orc infested mountains have the players roll a die. On a certain number an orc patrol comes upon the party. Check for surprise. (I sure hope you set a watch!) This will most likely disrupt your rest. And I don't see it as a punishment so much as a consequence.
• Who says everything stays the same because the characters retreated. You can bet the entrance is going to be reinforced even more than before. You should have pushed on!

And so on and so forth.
No amount of rules will eliminate the 5MWD except making everything reset after every encounter. And if that's your idea of fun (it's not mine) nothing is stopping you from doing so right now! Then your players can nova every encounter and never even get winded. Dnd has always been a game of resource management and i really don't believe that should change now.

End of rant.

 

[drothgery]

Possibly true.

Like I have said, my experience with the 15MWD is purely second hand, despite playing in 100+ systems in 30+ years in the hobby across 3 states, 5 cities, and dozens of GMs.

Unless you define a 15MWD to exclude 'crippling first encounter of the day' scenarios and 'sucessful planned nova-ing of the BBEG', I'm not sure how that's possible in non-4e D&D.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Whatever solutions to the 5 minute workday exist or don't exist, one thing that doesn't fix the problem is telling me that my issues with it don't exist. In terms of solving my problem, that does less than nothing. And that is the light in which I find myself reading this article.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I guess you don't see the heart of the problem for us (I'm not saying that you are "wrong", only that we perceive a problem that probably isn't there at all for you).
The point is that as casters can nova and mundane cannot, all the important encounters will be dominated by casters and all the more or less irrelevant mop-up will be done by mundane. This even if the 5 (or 15) minute workday will be avoided. That is exactly my experience in all D&D editions I played (except 4th) above a certain PC level.
Last week I was talking to a friend of mine that used to play 3rd edition with us. He is still playing 3rd edition with another group in a different city and told me that, to avoid "caster domination" spoiling their fun ,they banned wizards, clerics and druids from the game and implemented Tome of Battle classes (so taking out daily-based classes for more or less encounter-based ones).
If you run a game where you have max 1-2 encounters per day, like many "exploration" games do, casters with daily powers will absolutely always dominate under DDN assumptions.

I think you have written down the real solution and didn´t see it:

"... above a certain level."

I can´t say you are wrong. You are exactly spot on. There is a level range, where you can´t see fighter or wizard dominance, however. Usually between 2nd and 7th level, I have never seen any problems caused by the issue in this level range. Up to 10th level it is still more or less balanced. Only from level 11 and above, the real problems arise.

If you look at ADnD tables, you notice, that casters won´t ever get to level 12, where 6th level spells are available. Interesting, that you don´t get them at level 11, like in 3rd edition. HP progression stops at level 9 too.
So ADnD designers were aware of the issues, while 3rd edition designers were not.

So the trick for 5th edition designers is stopping the progression where fighters and wizards are balanced. Daily resources like fighter´s surge may help the fighter over the course of a day too.

And to take 4th editiona s an example: essential, dailyless classes work very well with essential daily less classes. So I honestly believe, it is possible to make this system work very well.