Five-Minute Workday Article

[ZombieRoboNinja]

To clarify at least my position, and I think the position of a lot of other people upset with the 5-minute workday thing, these are the lines from the article that drive me nuts:

DMs will have a crystal clear guideline on how many rounds of combat a group should tackle before resting. If the group spends less time in fights, casters grow stronger. If the characters spend more rounds fighting, the fighter and rogue grow stronger.

Like he's describing the laws of physics or something - gasses expand when hot, oppositely charged objects attract, more time in combat makes fighters and rogues "grow stronger."

So here's the issue: maybe I want to change up the pacing of the game, allow for fewer combats per day, WITHOUT making casters (relatively) weaker or stronger.

There are many reasons the DM would want to change up pacing. I played a 3e campaign once that was very combat-light, so we'd usually only have one or two encounters per session. If the fighter and rogue feel underpowered in that campaign, is it the DM's fault for not making us fight 5d6 dire rats before bed every night, so they can have their "moment of glory"?

It would be a major mechanical failing in 5e if the core game couldn't easily be adjusted so that the classes were balanced at various frequencies of combat. And no, I don't mean "balanced" in some weird PVP sense. I mean that each character should be able to contribute meaningfully and not feel like either a lackey meatshield or a magic missile dispenser just because the DM wants to set a pace different from what the DMG assumes as standard.

I've suggested some (potentially kludgy) mechanics to help, and Herreman has made some cool suggestions as well. I'm not saying that these specific solutions work for everyone or are even ideal, but I find it frustrating that WOTC apparently either has given up prodding this hornet's nest, or else genuinely considers it a problem of bad(wrongfun) DMing.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I still can't wrap my head around on the 15 minute adventuring day phenomenon. It's never been the situation in a D&D game where players want to or not(of course they want to), but whether they should or should not(that is the question). There are consequences for doing so, and it might be better for the PCs to press on...

It's the difference between what the characters want and what the players want.

Let's say that normally you don't have this issue. You use wandering monsters and other consequences of resting friviously to discourage it. If the party decides that they need that rest, they work hard to find a way to make it happen, and the game is temporarily about that. It's still a challenge. So presumably this is fun for the group. It is as you say, the characters want to rest but the players will avoid it until necessary.

However, there are a zillion ways that this can get out of sync, with part or most of the group running on past habit, while the rest are starting to feel the disconnect. For example, your long-running group has gotten older, with playtime more scarce, and sessions further apart. One of the natural side effects might be that you really prefer to end sessions in a clear-cut spot. So it's half an hour before time to quit, and the group is pushing to get to that last treasure or event or whatever. The first few times it happens, no problem. Then without anything overt, it starts to nag on a couple of players that, "the DM isn't going to hit us with a wandering mosnter right now, because it will take too long." They might not even say anything. But the thought is in their heads. So they go along, and to everyone else it looks fine--same as it was before. But now those two players are not resting--because the characters want to and the players are pretending that they need to avoid it, when they think this isn't true.

I've played with people for whom this kind of issue never arises. You could flat out state all kinds of parameters such that it was obvious to the worst dimwit roleplayer on the planet that the players have no reason to avoid resting, and they'd press on anyway. For them, resting is boring, and they don't like that. These tend to be the same people that will start a fight in a bad situation when the game drags, too, but you can't have everything.

It's not about the 15 minute work day. It's about the hoops you jump through to pretend that the 15 minute work day wouldn't become an issue if you looked harder at what is going on. (Or the work you do to make sure the ideas aren't pretense, but real.)

 

[GX.Sigma]

Like he's describing the laws of physics or something - gasses expand when hot, oppositely charged objects attract, more time in combat makes fighters and rogues "grow stronger."

So here's the issue: maybe I want to change up the pacing of the game, allow for fewer combats per day, WITHOUT making casters (relatively) weaker or stronger.

The thing is, he says "rounds of combat" and "levels of monsters per day." So you can have an adventuring day with one battle, but if you want it to be balanced, it'll either have a lot of monsters, or very high level monsters. Thus it will take more rounds of combat, so the daily resources will balance out.

Not that that fixes your problem, but it does gives you clear XP-budget guidelines for encounters you're expecting players to nova, which is a level of encounter-building balance even 4e didn't have.

Out of curiosity, can you give me a link to these suggestions of yours and Herremann's?

 

[Hussar]

Something that irks me about this issue is the side that claims that it doesn't exist for them. That's great for you. Fantastic. But, when you start drilling down about HOW it can be worked around, all I ever get are some hand wavey comments about "skilled play" and "Smart play" and that sort of thing.

Hey, even if it works for you, since you cannot actually explain how you do it in a manner that I can replicate, it doesn't matter. "Oh, just use wandering monsters to disrupt sleeping". Ok, fine. But, that doesn't always work. After all, there are a number of ways to mitigate wandering monsters, from the mundane solution of finding a secret place, to magical solutions like Rope Trick and Mord's Mansion.

Or, "Make time matter". But, again, this doesn't wash. Even the slowest group, only facing a single encounter per day, only adds a handful of days to an adventure by and large. Again, it doesn't matter most of the time. Taking three weeks to clear the Caves of Chaos vs one week will not make the slightest difference. Spending five weeks exploring The Isle of Dread vs two weeks again won't make the slightest difference most of the time.

I really get the sense that some DM's pace their game as the fantasy version of 24. Which is fine for them, but, it's certainly not a panacea fix.

Look, you don't have this issue. That's groovy. But, until you can articulate exactly how to avoid the issue without lots and lots of hand waving over other issues that matter to me, it doesn't help me at all.

Now, Mearls is saying they are going to have lots of advice about pacing. Great. But, if it amounts to the same sort of "advice" that the "15 MAD doesn't exist" crowd gives, then it's useless to anyone who actually considers this a problem.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Oh, just use wandering monsters to disrupt sleeping"

Wandering monsters and that kind of thing are used only in moderation, and only when it makes sense.

Or, "Make time matter". But, again, this doesn't wash. Even the slowest group, only facing a single encounter per day, only adds a handful of days to an adventure by and large. Again, it doesn't matter most of the time. Taking three weeks to clear the Caves of Chaos vs one week will not make the slightest difference. Spending five weeks exploring The Isle of Dread vs two weeks again won't make the slightest difference most of the time.

Time should ALWAYS matter.

The consequences of taking too much of it may vary from almost insignificant to incredibly major- and it's up to the DM to make clear where on that bell curve the party is basically on at any point- but in no way should the world simply be on hold while the party adventures.

The best campaign I ever ran, the superheroes were part of an agency that had an internal memo sheet that I updated after every few sessions- roughly once per minor story arc. The memo contained a synopsis of what the PCs had done, other agency news, and little blurbs from around the worlds (kind of like an Internet news page).

Events not acted on by the PCs would be acted upon by NPCs, either resolving or not. After a couple of passes, the situation would resolve, for good or ill.

I never forced the players to speed up or slow down, but I didn't stop the world.

In a campaign in which I was a player, we took our sweet time clearing out a nest of brigands in the hills. No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time. We finally made our way to the main camp, we found a letter detailing how they were under orders to distract and harry the forces in the area until the main force could arrive by ship in a month...a letter we found a week too late.

Our pacing caused us to get involved in a war we could have fended off had we been a bit more...brisk...in our efforts.

 

[billd91]

There are many reasons the DM would want to change up pacing. I played a 3e campaign once that was very combat-light, so we'd usually only have one or two encounters per session. If the fighter and rogue feel underpowered in that campaign, is it the DM's fault for not making us fight 5d6 dire rats before bed every night, so they can have their "moment of glory"?

In a sense, yes. Not because they need to fight 5d6 dire rats each night to get their moment of glory, but because every player at the table needs some attention. It doesn't need to be about combat, though if one player has geared his PC up to be a combat monster with no consideration outside of combat, that kind of tells you what sort of game he would like to play. And the DM should make sure that player has something to do in rough balance with what the other PCs have to do.

 

[Hussar]

But, DannyA, you're comparing apples to oranges by switching genres. For one, in a Supers game (presumably modern time), travel rates and communication times are vastly shorter than in a D&D game.

Look, I've run through the math with you once before, but, let me restate. We'll peg the average adventure to 15 xp awarding events. The fast group goes through 6 events between rest sessions, so, finishes the adventure in 3 days. Ok, fine. The slowest group does 1 event per day and finishes the adventure in 15 days. So, a 12 day difference.

Over 20 levels, the total time difference is 240 days. Max. Less than one year over 20 levels. Travel and down time will absorb any differences. And, let's not forget, our fast group dies more often since it cannot bring full fire power to every encounter, thus cutting the difference down. And, if our slow group is any faster, say 2 encounters, then suddenly the difference is only 4 months.

Time will NEVER matter that much. It simply won't. Not if you are being even remotely believable in campaign pacing. Heck, our 4e Athas game has spent more time than this simply traveling from place to place. Our Savage Tides AP game spent far more time than this between adventuring. I'd suspect that most campaigns won't even notice the difference in time.

Like I said, what difference does it make if you take 3 days or 12 to clear the Caves of Chaos? The Caves don't restock that fast. Things don't change that much in that short of time.

But, DannyA, something I just noticed:

In a campaign in which I was a player, we took our sweet time clearing out a nest of brigands in the hills. No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time. We finally made our way to the main camp, we found a letter detailing how they were under orders to distract and harry the forces in the area until the main force could arrive by ship in a month...a letter we found a week too late.

Weren't you rather adamant that you'd NEVER, ever, in any time you've ever played, ever seen the 15 MAD? That this has never occured in any game you played?

 

[JamesonCourage]

But, DannyA, you're comparing apples to oranges by switching genres. For one, in a Supers game (presumably modern time), travel rates and communication times are vastly shorter than in a D&D game.

His point was "the world keeps moving", which would be even more emphasized in a fantasy game, where travel times are longer and communication slower.

The fast group goes through 6 events between rest sessions, so, finishes the adventure in 3 days. Ok, fine. The slowest group does 1 event per day and finishes the adventure in 15 days. So, a 12 day difference.

Over 20 levels, the total time difference is 240 days. Max. Less than one year over 20 levels.

This has not been the experience in any game I've ever played in or ran. There's just too much traveling, time skipping, and the like for this to be the case. This is another area where there's a disconnect in comparing our experiences.

Time will NEVER matter that much. It simply won't.

Again, vast difference in experience here. The longest campaign I ran went from levels 2 to 27, and it lasted over 70 years in-game. Time mattered quite a bit during that game.

Like I said, what difference does it make if you take 3 days or 12 to clear the Caves of Chaos? The Caves don't restock that fast. Things don't change that much in that short of time.

This is going to depend on how they react, then. Do they wait in their rooms? Team up? Flee? Barricade? Set traps? Fight one another? Surrender? Depending on how long it takes you (3 days or 12 days), they have a lot of time to act. And they certainly would in a game I ran.

But, DannyA, something I just noticed:

Weren't you rather adamant that you'd NEVER, ever, in any time you've ever played, ever seen the 15 MAD? That this has never occured in any game you played?

He said as much in the post your quoted: "No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time." I guess they just weren't in a hurry, or were engaging in other things (gathering food? exploring? a laid back group RP-wise? I don't know). As always, play what you like

 

[billd91]

Like I said, what difference does it make if you take 3 days or 12 to clear the Caves of Chaos? The Caves don't restock that fast. Things don't change that much in that short of time.

To the world outside, away from the caves, it will (probably) matter little whether it's 3 days or 12. For the denizens of the caves themselves, it will matter a lot. The more time the PCs give them, the more time they have to prepare their defenses, the more opportunities they have to counter-raid, the more time they may have to pack up and flee.

It's not just about restocking as much as it is about redistribution of what's there to make their own lives easier while making things harder for an intruder.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Out of curiosity, can you give me a link to these suggestions of yours and Herremann's?

Of course!

Here's mine: http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho...335-idea-keeping-vancian-casters-novaing.html

And I tried to find Herreman's but don't have search privileges. :-/ Sorry!