What to do about the 15-minute work day?

[Campbell]

Problem is, the DM has goals too - be it a story she wants to tell, an adventure module she wants to run, whatever - that might not have much to do with your goal of setting up a teleport network nor the equally-non-adventuring goals of the other players/PCs.

Which, oddly enough, tangentially impacts the topic at hand: not only is there the 15-minute workday in the field, there can also be the 15-minute session at the table. By that, I mean you've got only a short time where everyone is on the same page and actually getting on with some adventuring as opposed to pursuing their own non-adventuring projects.

Why not? It's her campaign too...

This is an area where I feel more communication at the game table would be fruitful. Everyone playing has a responsibility to the rest of the table. If a character goal results in uninteresting play choose a goal that does result in interesting play that fits with what has already been established in play.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't want to experience the DM's story, so I don't play in those games. Adventure modules are okay as long as the outcome isn't pre-planned. That's why I am not interested in Adventure Paths.

Creating a network of teleport circles seems like an adventuring goal: you need XP and GP in order to do it, and that means adventure... eventually to other cities, which is a nice way to add depth to the city campaign.

True, as long as all agree this will be a city-based campaign.

I want my choices to have an influence on how the situation unfolds. If the DM wants the situation to unfold in a certain way - and, I guess, takes steps to ensure that happens - then my choices aren't influencing the situation and there's not much point in me playing. I see that as her campaign instead of our campaign.

This probably needs its own thread...

If I as DM have pre-determined (to use an extreme example) that the campaign world will blow itself up exactly 5 years after the start of the campaign unless the PCs fix it, but would rather not tell the PCs (or the players!) this right away in order to be able to use it to crank up the tension down the road; and I've got a bunch of vaguely-connected adventures in mind that will eventually lead to fixing it but will take close to 5 years to complete, and you as player decide that after you've spent a few months in the field getting rich you're going to spend three years building a tele-net, something's gotta give. Either I have to chuck out the whole rationale behind the campaign (which means I've wasted my time designing it in the first place), or you have to accept the world blowing up not long after your shiny new tele-net opens for business because you've left the adventuring until far too late.

Lan-"my campaign world of Telenet was named as a short form of 'teleport network', a key element of that world"-efan

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Herreman, I really like your idea of letting wizards (or any Vancian Caster for that matter) regain spells after resting for a short while.

But, doesn't that basically make every caster an "encounter" caster? If you are going to go this way, why not go all the way and back to AEDU?

Sort of but not quite; and good question by the way. Some points:

a) A lot of this is dependent upon the number of Vancian slots a caster gets to manage. If you compare this to a 3.x caster, I would compress things so that lower level casters get a little more but higher level casters get quite a bit less.

b) Encounter powers are automatically returned at a short rest. With my idea, you can do the study but you don't have to (you could do the healing thing instead). As well, you might make the fatigued and exhausted conditions a little more a factor with the caster requiring a non-fatigued state to study and prepare. At higher levels, you might not have enough time to get all your slots back and so you have to carefully manage the resources as to what to prepare (the main "feature" of the Vancian system in my opinion).

c) I think you'd need to be careful that the game didn't become a situation of always waiting for the caster. I think the Vancian slots need to be supported by further magic systems be they at-wills, charged items or something else entirely.

d) I've come to the conclusion that going back to a Vancian daily format is going to cause as many issues as it solves. It is also a little contentious in terms of the whole favouring 3e or 4e equilibrium thing for those that worry about whether "their" edition is being fairly represented. If it can be modified so that its still there, but heh there's this lever you can use to get something a little more workable (or discard it if not), then it plays more to the middle unifying ground.

e) Perhaps most of all, it makes sense. Why can a wizard prepare spells at some times but not others? In 3.x you can leave slots open and prepare them later anyway (but not if the slot is used within 6 hours of the main study session). Throw out the convoluted restrictions and do something that works within more natural restrictions: does my wizard have the time? is my wizard fatigued? This works better than 4e's "no you can't" encounter power mentality in that it makes simple sense.

So yeah, arcane encounter powers by stealth but not quite.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Elf Witch]

Funnily enough, I could see this working the other way with my PCs. They smash the dungeon with shock and awe, before retreating back to safety while magically watching the area. A tribe of dungeon denizens seeing that they are "outmatched" organise an evacuation plan over the next couple of days taking the dungeon's McGuffin with them. The PCs now having rested and at full resources scry teleport attack the isolated tribal leader taking his McGuffin with minimal effort before returning to the dungeon to "pick up the coppers".

I suppose my point is, sometimes it does not make sense that a dungeon is going to restock itself within anywhere near the speedy timeframe that the PCs can. Sometimes the measures you take to combat the 5MW are just as contrived as the ones leading to the 5MW in the first place and unfortunately to maintain a believable ecology, you are going to end up encouraging the 5MW as many times as discouraging it.

This is why I would like to see this addressed at a mechanical level, so it is not left to the DM to always have to push and pull the levers.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I am not saying that it should happen all the time. What I am saying is if you vary the game enough so that your players don't know what to expect then it makes for a more interesting game.

If a game is always four encounters and say two random encounters every session that is boring.

As a DM shaking up the routine is something they should strive for. In my current game the players always have a routine they do, they are fighting the same group Tiamat's spawn they don't kill everything sometimes the bad guys get away and report what is going on. The NPCs have the same tools as the PCs. At a higher enough level they can teleport and scry too.

So soon the PCs are going to face an encounter that turns their SOP right back on them.

I am not suggesting finding ways just to screw the players over. But bad guys have some of the same resources use them where it makes sense.

 

[Elf Witch]

Maybe it was a bit heavy-handed, but only thing I could think of on the spur of the moment.


Now now, let's not stray into straw man territory here. Fixing certain problems does not mean the game automatically becomes unplayable. There may be a workable solution that suits a lot of peoples' tastes and playstyles. And this is a problem that merits working on, judging by the amount of discussion it gets.

For what it's worth, I think the solution could be had in both mechanics and advice. As far as mechanics go, I dunno what would be best. Milestones seem like a step in the right direction. But as for advice, the DM's Guide could include exhortations not to put things like dragons magically disguised as kobolds in the dungeon too often, because the players' likely response would be to go nuclear on everything they encounter, because at that point you never know.

I know what you were trying to say but it was so over the top it was hard to take seriously. It is sort of like someone complaining that they are so broke they can't put gas in their car and someone else saying well you want poor look at those people in Somali who only have a donkey.



I don't think it is a strawman though 4E was meant to fix a lot of the issues that people had with 3E and it did for some and for some of us it turned us off and we stopped giving WOTC our support. And here we are 4 years later looking at some of the same issues.

I think there are ways to fix issues without major rule changes one way is giving DMs more advice on how to run and tailor a game and the second is to offer options on how to tailor your game.


Sometimes it feels like the squeaky wheel is the only thing that gets attention.

 

[Elf Witch]

Okay.



I tailor my goal to the campaign. In a city, maybe my goal would be to take over the thieves guild, or to set up a trade route with the help of permanent teleport circles. I'd present the rest of the group with my goal and see if it would work; if not, I'll come up with a new one.

I am not interested in playing through an Adventure Path. Neither am I interested in playing through a DM's pre-plotted campaign - though that's a complicated topic only partially relevant to this discussion. (Not that you were talking about pre-plotted campaigns; I just want to clarify what sort of game I enjoy.) For example, I don't mind a game with a strong initial situation - in fact, I like that, it gives me some guidance in character creation - but I don't want the DM to have any preference as to how the campaign will play out.

Thank you for clarifying. That is really different than how it sounded.

I don't enjoy DM preplots for the most part but that is not what I do. I have an idea and I develop it to the point that I am ready to run the game then I let the PCs lose and adapt the plot to what they are doing. I never have an a plan on how it is going to end.

I have players who could be like I have these goals for my PCs and I don't care what kind of campaign you are running you better work them in. Made me want to slap them into next year.

 

[TwinBahamut]

If I as DM have pre-determined (to use an extreme example) that the campaign world will blow itself up exactly 5 years after the start of the campaign unless the PCs fix it, but would rather not tell the PCs (or the players!) this right away in order to be able to use it to crank up the tension down the road; and I've got a bunch of vaguely-connected adventures in mind that will eventually lead to fixing it but will take close to 5 years to complete, and you as player decide that after you've spent a few months in the field getting rich you're going to spend three years building a tele-net, something's gotta give. Either I have to chuck out the whole rationale behind the campaign (which means I've wasted my time designing it in the first place), or you have to accept the world blowing up not long after your shiny new tele-net opens for business because you've left the adventuring until far too late.

If a DM tried to pull that kind of thing on me I'd walk away from the table and never play a game with him ever again...

Seriously, something like "the world will explode in 5 years" needs to be laid out on the table explicitly from the beginning, before the game even starts. Keeping the central premise of a campaign a secret from the players is a DMing sin. It's unforgivable and utterly despicable. "I'll keep it a secret so I can ramp up the tension later, but it's not my fault if no one learns about it, so I'll just destroy whatever they do enjoy playing out if spite" is simply being a pathetic and petty human being. It breaks every rule of storytelling and the entire premise of the DM/player social contract.

Sorry, but in that example, the thing that needs to give is the DM's ego. Absolutely no question at all. Not even close to being ambiguous.

The DM absolutely needs to make the premise of a campaign clear to the players from the beginning. After all, he's asking them to dedicate a lot of time and energy to the campaign. Who cares if the DM invests "more" time if its built on deception and a disregard for the time and interests of the other players? This is why having the group sit down and talk about what they want to do with the campaign and what they want from it is absolutely essential before the DM even starts planning anything.

 

[Elf Witch]

If a DM tried to pull that kind of thing on me I'd walk away from the table and never play a game with him ever again...

Seriously, something like "the world will explode in 5 years" needs to be laid out on the table explicitly from the beginning, before the game even starts. Keeping the central premise of a campaign a secret from the players is a DMing sin. It's unforgivable and utterly despicable. "I'll keep it a secret so I can ramp up the tension later, but it's not my fault if no one learns about it, so I'll just destroy whatever they do enjoy playing out if spite" is simply being a pathetic and petty human being. It breaks every rule of storytelling and the entire premise of the DM/player social contract.

Sorry, but in that example, the thing that needs to give is the DM's ego. Absolutely no question at all. Not even close to being ambiguous.

The DM absolutely needs to make the premise of a campaign clear to the players from the beginning. After all, he's asking them to dedicate a lot of time and energy to the campaign. Who cares if the DM invests "more" time if its built on deception and a disregard for the time and interests of the other players? This is why having the group sit down and talk about what they want to do with the campaign and what they want from it is absolutely essential before the DM even starts planning anything.

I don't think a DM needs to lay out the world will end in five years if you guys don't stop, it want to play.

Instead he could say that he wants to run a game where an Apocalypse is coming and the PCs have a chance of stopping it.

I don't see why you would lay out when it s going to happen before you even roll up characters. That kind of thing should be slowly found out by the players.

There is nothing wrong with a DM coming up with an idea before even talking to the group. It is pretty simple he tells the group this is what I want to run the players either say yay or nay. If they say nay then the DM can shelve it or look for a group who wants to play it.

I worked on my game for a year before I presented it. It started from reading Races of the Dragon and I ended up building my home brew world. When I felt I was ready to run a game in it. I asked if anyone wanted to play it and I found players who did.

My roommate DMs but she only DMs adventure paths everyone who plays in it knows this and understands that with an adventure path you need to fit your character into one that works with the adventure.

When I am the player I find out what the DM has in mind and I build a character that fits into his game. I may ask is this possible if he says no then I accept it. If the game does not sound fun to me I don't play.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I don't think a DM needs to lay out the world will end in five years if you guys don't stop, it want to play.

Instead he could say that he wants to run a game where an Apocalypse is coming and the PCs have a chance of stopping it.

I don't see why you would lay out when it s going to happen before you even roll up characters. That kind of thing should be slowly found out by the players.

There is nothing wrong with a DM coming up with an idea before even talking to the group. It is pretty simple he tells the group this is what I want to run the players either say yay or nay. If they say nay then the DM can shelve it or look for a group who wants to play it.

I worked on my game for a year before I presented it. It started from reading Races of the Dragon and I ended up building my home brew world. When I felt I was ready to run a game in it. I asked if anyone wanted to play it and I found players who did.

My roommate DMs but she only DMs adventure paths everyone who plays in it knows this and understands that with an adventure path you need to fit your character into one that works with the adventure.

When I am the player I find out what the DM has in mind and I build a character that fits into his game. I may ask is this possible if he says no then I accept it. If the game does not sound fun to me I don't play.

I'm a bit too tired right now to really sort out the minor philosophical differences, but...

As long as the conversation takes place, and the DM and the players are on the same page about whether the game is going to be "stop the apocalypse" or something else, it's all good. Talking things over with the players before serious work begins on the campaign and its setting is my preference, though. The problems appear if that conversation never takes place and the players and the DM inevitably end up completely at odds over what they want the campaign to be.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So yeah, arcane encounter powers by stealth but not quite.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I kinda like it, but I am not sure it solves the problem I see with the "balance" in a 15 minute adventure day. The problem is not just that you need to rest to get powers back, but that when you can rest, your spellcaster just has so much more power than those that don't have such daily resources.

I really wonder how many spells per day over all the spell levels a D&D Next character will have. I think in 3E, it was just too much. There are a lot of low level utility spells that you could slot to be a non-combat power house to have enough to also become a combat power house. You'd be prepared for most situations. You could even intentionally leave a few slots open to prepare for a situation you didn'T expect.

If D&D Next will have casters with maybe 2 spells per level (not counting cantrips), it may be better to balance - the choices would become much more harder - do I prepare a utility spell or a combat spell? And the non-spellcasters may even have daily resources like more hit points and extra actions per day or whatever to match the power of those spells.