Five-Minute Workday Article

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually I see the point and that's why I said "above a certain level". There's a sweet spot (different for each edition) where the game is balanced, wider for 4e and smaller for others.
I don't understand you when you say that AD&D casters will not get to 6th level spells. I played AD&D (2nd edition) for many years and one of our spellcasters (a wizard) reached level 36 (using High Level Campaign rules). Even at 20th level he had a slew of 7th-8th and 9th level spells.

I don't understand why why should limit progression and keep a lot of daily resources when we already have an edition that showed us that we can have balance almost across the whole board, keep the progression, at the cost of sacrificing a part of the daily resources.
This seems to be the way Mike Mearls is heading with his "balancing over the adventure day" idea that I don't like at all. The first problem it creates is that while an encounter is pretty easy to define, an adventuring day changes widely so that now he has to tell us what the average adventuring day length has to be in order to balance the game.
Once again the best way to balance the game is to throw away vancian casting. It seems that WotC is not willing to do that and then the disease will spread all over the game.

You understood me wrong:

of course progression should not be limited. The sweet spot should be extended.

 

[KidSnide]

And time limits are something I hate adding artificially. I find over 50% of adventures don't want or need a time limit. Which limits me to either ONLY running the other 50% of adventures...or finding a kind of contrived reason to add a time limit to the ones that never needed one.

I like the idea of an adventure that says "You found an ancient map to a tomb of a great wizard that's been missing for centuries. It is said to hold a fortune in gold and magic items. Only problem is, can you survive the traps and summoned/created creatures left guarding it?" To then have to add a plot element that says "Oh...after you find the map then you hear there is a magical plague that is going to kill everyone if it isn't stopped in the next 2 days. Rumor has it that the cure is inside the dungeon" just seems kind of silly to me.

I like the idea of adventurers as "making their own destiny" searching for treasure in lost places. But those adventures don't have time limits on them.

This is one of the major points to the 15MAD problem. Some of us (myself included) don't see a lot of 15MAD, because we don't run many adventures with this "lost treasure" style set up. I go years between games with an adventuring location where "rest and return" is a plausible tactic.

But at the same time, a dungeon of lost treasure is a big part of D&D. It's not a universal part of D&D (and I wonder how often it shows up in 1 hour lunch games at WotC), but it plays a large role in the games of a significant number of players. It may be accurate to say that "don't use many adventures without a time limit" is the best way to avoid 15MAD, but it's not helpful advice if looting lost dungeons and tombs is the point of the game.

FWIW, I care about this topic because my games will generally have only opportunity for 4-5 combat rounds in a day, and I want to know how to adjust the rules so the fighters aren't screwed.

-KS

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

If they take the plot item with you, and you need to track them down, it just means you get to fight them all at once the next day when you catch up with them, this time with full spells(and them all close together for AOE spells). It's likely you'll even have the resources to "waste" spells scrying on them and teleporting right beside them to catch them by surprise while they sleep.

Not in my game. If the goblins fled, they would think like goblins. What are the main advantages a goblin has? They are small and stealthy. They would completely void this advantage by travelling as one large group. They're also evil and selfish. My players would have a chance to find the tracks of the dozen and a half goblins, but they'd head off in at least seven different directions.

If the players had good access to scrying (doubtful since the level they would face goblins at would preclude it) they might gain the advantage in scrying for the goblin leader fleeing with the McGuffin depending upon the information they have related to the McGuffin and/or the goblin leader. Otherwise they've got a 1 in 7 chance of tracking down the right goblins. If they're wrong those other trails would grow mighty cold.

I agree with others that a "living world" =/= "screw the players." A living world is about getting into the head of your NPCs to determine how they would react. I would base my decisions on what the goblins do according to their goals and motivations, then make the reaction fit their strengths while considering how their weaknesses might affect their decisions.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The whole argument that a "living world" somehow negates the 15 MAD is flawed. For one, the 15 MAD simply does not add enough time to make any significant difference. For another, since the PC's actually succeeded in their goals, the 15 MAD was a successful tactic.

In order to talk about this in a coherent fashion, we all need to be on the same page about what we're actually talking about.

The "15MAD" problem is a problem wherein the party becomes more effective by resting to recover all their resources before each encounter so that they never have a situation where they run low on resources.

It seems that in [MENTION=11816]Dark Mistress[/MENTION] 's situation, this wasn't actually a problem. She did have a 15MAD, it just wasn't an issue.

This can happen and it is fine.

The idea of the "living world" is that it helps to fix a problem you might have. No problem, no fix necessary.

If, on the other hand, you WANTED the MacGuffin to be harder to get, you could have the goblins take the MacGuffin with them, having a reactive environment preserve the challenge you wanted to achieve.

If you don't mind, you don't have a problem to begin with. You're OK with the occasional non-challenge, or even maybe with a continuous non-challenge. Whatever, it's cool.

So the flaws you've found aren't in the idea of a living world. They're in the idea that 15MAD is always and everywhere a problem. Clearly, not.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Then how is this not a massive PLUS for the 5 minute work day? The players succeeded in their goals and got what they wanted, and didn't have to risk losing their characters in the process.

So, basically, a 5 MAD group actually was more successful than a group that pushes on. After all, the group that pushed on could also have lost PC's, while making minimal gains. After all, all they lost was some "rag tag" goblins. Probably not even worth the trouble right?

Which gets back to my point. The whole argument that a "living world" somehow negates the 15 MAD is flawed. For one, the 15 MAD simply does not add enough time to make any significant difference. For another, since the PC's actually succeeded in their goals, the 15 MAD was a successful tactic.

By what I bolded, means you misunderstood what I wrote. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough or you just missed it. I said the characters had no reason to track the goblins, because they got what they wanted. The players while not upset because they had fun, would have preferred to have killed the goblins and get their loot, so they was a bit sad to miss out.

The reason i gave both examples in my first post was to show, if you make things a living breathing world. One was bad cause they didn't get what they was after, the other was easier cause they did get what they was after. That things can and will happen beyond the players control.

The point of a living breathing world is things happen and the world reacts positively and negatively to what the characters do in it. It shows their is repercussions to the 15 min adventuring day. So if the players want to ensure their best chance to make sure things go down the way they want, they need to give the world as little chance and time to react to what they are doing.

So what I have found it does is, it encourages players to not do the 15 min day thing. It doesn't punish them with rules or force them not to do it, it just encourages them and shows them often it is in their best interest not to do that. Then they get in the habit of it. Once someone is in the habit of it, it becomes second nature and then they rarely do it.

I am not and have never said that works for everyone. I was only showing how and why it worked for myself and the groups I have played in. If you don't understand how that style of play can by fun, fair enough. But I think this thread shows it is a fairly popular style of play.

The reason I and I would imagine others, though I can't speak for them. Are speaking up and posting on the topic, is because if 5E has a forced mechanical fix for this "problem" it removes one style of play the one we enjoy. So if 5E is meant to bring everyone back together that has to be a optional rule then.

That was one of the things I most disliked about 4E, removal of most of the resource management. It was a fine game, it just removed to many elements that I enjoyed for me to really get into it and invest(will to spend money to own the books) in it. So if WotC wants me to invest in 5E then they need to bring back resource management, because for me and I am guessing by some of the other posts on this thread. It is not a problem but a feature that makes DnD stand apart from the other fantasy games and is part of what makes DnD ... well DnD to us.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That makes the 15MAD a good tactic.

The problem is, whether those extra encounters materialize really IS the point. If the PCs never see a second encounter(either because they've run away after one encounter to rest, or because the rest of the encounters leave while they are resting, or just because the DM doesn't feel like running any extra encounters that day) then it's tactically wise to use all your resources in the first fight.

The only time it becomes a bad idea is if you know you are going to fight at least 4 encounters a day. Most combats are balanced around the PCs using about 1/5th of their resources. Which means, even if you use "all" of your resources in the first combat, you'll survive another encounter with not much problem. Most of the time, it's impossible to use ALL of your resources in one combat. Instead, you just use your highest level spells(since you are still limited to one(or two) spells a round, you can't possibly use ALL your spells). This leaves your medium level spells for another encounter, and your low level spells(plus reliance on the fighting classes in your group) for the 3rd encounter. After that, you'll have to rely entirely on your fighting classes, often causing you to lose.

This means that even if you "go nova" during an encounter, the DM needs to throw at least 3 random encounters at you after that before you begin to regret that decision. Plus, that number increases the more spells you have per day. I've seen level 20 groups in 3.5e be able to "go nova" with enough damage to wipe "appropriate" encounters in 1 round for 3 combats in a row before they even think about resting. Then they can survive easily 3-4 more before they regret going nova.

I agree with the general thrust of your whole post, but think there parts of the above that go too far in the other direction. Namely, the key means of creating an illusion of a "living world" and thus reducing 15 MAD is not to always have 4 encounters (or any number) but to vary them. Specifically in a living world, vary them by the opponents acting as the opponents might, but making sure that the opponents have goals, motivations, means, etc. such that they will vary their actions.

Uncertainty in the players is what gives them pause with the nova and rest. If you always have 1 major encounter, they will nova and let the rest happen when they can. If you always have 2 major encounters, they will nova and rest if they think they need it, or it is easy. But if you always have 4 or 6 or whtaever encounters, they will pace themselves--still doing whatever little "mini-nova" they can in each fight. A certain amount of this is even ok in a lot of games. If the players really don't know, for sure, how many encounters they will have, at least some of them will tend to hold some resources in reserve.

Now, what will happen in that situation, if the players are inclined that way, is that they will try to predict whether they will get jumped again or not. If they DM start putting in things that are more external to the game than in it, the players will likely react to that. (For example, no encounters in the last 30 minutes of play so that the session can be wrapped up cleanly.) OTOH, if the players determine that their main opponent has retreated with all of his forces to some isolated location in a wasteland that supports very few other creatures, then maybe a drop in nova is called for! (If it turns out that the wasteland supports very few creatures because the horde of silent ghouls eats them and their prey, well--that's what happens when you work on incomplete information. )

Putting in a wandering monster because the players decided that their characters should rest is merely dicking around with the players. Leaving one out when they are mangled, because they are mangled, is defeating the purpose--such that you might as well take wandering monsters off your list of tools. Putting in some chance of wandering monsters in a given area because that fits what the monsters are doing, then letting the players deal with this however they choose, is likely to discourage 15 MAD. Especially if the players bother to scout a bit and discover that the area is not quiet.

 

[Dark Mistress]

This is one of the major points to the 15MAD problem. Some of us (myself included) don't see a lot of 15MAD, because we don't run many adventures with this "lost treasure" style set up. I go years between games with an adventuring location where "rest and return" is a plausible tactic.

That's true, I don't run a lot of lost treasure adventures either, but I do sometimes obviously . They was just both fairly recent adventures that made my point that I had run and I was going back and doing a journals of the parties earlier travels and was thinking about them. Both where part of a longer deeper plots, the first one involved the Wizard PC's mentor. Who is the person sent them after the first item. The second one involved something about the rogues past from when he as a child(my players tend to give me indepth histories for their PC's and something in his intrigued me). They was both intro adventures to kind get those long term plots off the ground.

 

[TwoSix]

I also don't think a goblin cave is the best illustration of 15WMD. It's a lot more common at higher levels, when teleport becomes an option. In the game I just finished, pretty much every battle we fought from 11th on was buff, then teleport, thanks to 2 wizards in the same party.

 

[KidSnide]

The point of a living breathing world is things happen and the world reacts positively and negatively to what the characters do in it. It shows their is repercussions to the 15 min adventuring day. So if the players want to ensure their best chance to make sure things go down the way they want, they need to give the world as little chance and time to react to what they are doing.

So what I have found it does is, it encourages players to not do the 15 min day thing. It doesn't punish them with rules or force them not to do it, it just encourages them and shows them often it is in their best interest not to do that. Then they get in the habit of it. Once someone is in the habit of it, it becomes second nature and then they rarely do it.

There's one point I think is worth adding about the effect of the "living world" approach, which is that it's not really a punishment or an incentive to employ the 15 min tactic. All it does is ensure that the 15MAD tactic has side effects other than simply leaving the monsters where they were before.

This is key because it doesn't get rid of the 15MAD tactic. It merely changes the costs and benefits so the 15MAD tactic is no longer almost always optimal. The PCs in a living world campaign may sometimes nova and retreat. That's a tactical decision, and it's fine. In a world with resource allocation, it's important that allocating your resources to maximize a single combat is a valid tactic. It just shouldn't be a tactic that is so dominant that the PCs always want to use it.

-------

I also wanted to add one other antidote to the 15MAD that I don't recall seeing in this thread: enemies with daily-focused resources. In most of D&D, the monsters tend to have better at-will resources than the PCs, but the PCs have limited daily resources so they can "reach back" to win, at the cost of eventually exhausting themselves. (That's the dynamic that makes the 15MAD an appealing tactic.)

You can change that by having an enemy with a powerful, regarding, daily power. It's not common, but it can create a certain "reverse Tucker's kobolds" effect. The PCs will get seriously blasted once as they go in, but the NPCs spend the rest of the time trying to avoid getting slaughtered. If the PCs retreat to rest, they have to face the powerful daily effect again. That could be a lethal trap at the entrance, a summon/resurrect once per day guardian, a enemy wizard at the back of the dungeon casting spells through a magic mirror or whatever. Anything that gives the PCs the reason to press on before the bad guy regenerates that power will change the 15MAD dynamic.

-KS

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In order to talk about this in a coherent fashion, we all need to be on the same page about what we're actually talking about.

The "15MAD" problem is a problem wherein the party becomes more effective by resting to recover all their resources before each encounter so that they never have a situation where they run low on resources.

That is _one_ of the problems. The other problem is that only _some_ of the members of that group actually benefit from this type of rest, in the sense that these members will have more imrpessive and more decisive abilties than the other members, making the others feel less required.

What is also bad is that the members with these significant resources also get the best ability to dictate or enable an extended rest. If it wasn't the Wizard but the Fighter that could cast Teleport, Leomund's Secure Shelter and Mind Blank, and the Wizard only got Fireball, Disintegrate and Charm Monster, than things may be different - than at least one side would know they are the true "enablers". But that's not the case - the Wizard has these spells, the Fighter got his "I Attack" routine that's only really needed when the Wizard has to be very conservative with his spells. And even if the player may be dissatisfied that he doesn't get to shine with his lowly melee or ranged attacks, it's not really in the character's interest to not rest - why risk your life if a wizard's spell could save it? Dead adventurers don't get to shine either.