What to do about the 15-minute work day?

[Campbell]

Nooo. I have no problem, nor have said anything about having a problem with the characters interacting in whatever ways they can with the game world. If your game world has Magi-marts in the big cities or easily available materials for item crafting...the DM doesn't mind (obviously, since they've put it in the game world)...go for it!

That is not the same as the players making demands on or "offering direction" the DM.

Please don't try to pick an argument with me over apples when I talk about oranges.

Is it specifically because we're talking about magic items here? Would you have an issue if a player approached you after the game and asked if his strained relationship with the local thieve's guild could come up more or suggested more opportunities for intrigue in the setting? That sort of communication pretty much defined my early AD&D experience.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think narration rights are what most of us are really discussing in this thread when we talk about the 15-minute work day. The DM wants to narrate the story one way, the players want to narrate the story differently, and sometimes the two are in conflict.

"We need to rest."
"You can't rest."

"You find a spear."
"I wanted a sword."

...sometimes there is a struggle over who gets to tell the story, and/or whether the story is being told to their liking. This can't really be mandated or regulated in rules...

Rules can intrude into the process you describe, though. The topic of this thread is an instance of that. If the game provides too many, too substantial incentives for the PCs to rest frequently, they'll be saying "we need to rest" when they don't /really/ need to, or even want to, from a narrative perspective, but realize the mechanical advantage in doing so is too great to ignore. If the DM realizes that letting the players get that mechanical advantage will mess things up (require beefed up challenges that'll increase exp awards too much, make some characters overshadow others, etc), he'll be "you can't rest" even if it doesn't really matter to him narratively.

The mechanics have intruded into an aspect of the game where they should be more neutral. The DM should be able to space threats out without worrying about throwing off encounter or class balance, and the PCs shouldn't feel obliged to rest at distinctly un-heroic moments for meta-game reasons.

 

[Lanefan]

Please explain - especially when, as I believe you are, you're coming from a 3.XE background where player-generated magic-item wishlists are often turned into player-generated magic items through the relatively easy magic item creation rules.

3e's allowing of PCs to so easily make their own magic items was, IMO, one of its biggest failings.

When I first read the 4e DMG (shortly after it came out) and saw the bit about wish lists my face and palm had a brief meeting. They had a second, longer meeting when I saw the magic item list had been put in the PH.

That said, if a specific character wants to take the party out and try to find a specific item I'm usually cool with it provided the item in question is vaguely reasonable for the game - if nothing else, it's a self-hooking adventure. And there's still no guarantee she'll succeed (says he, having over time watched numerous parties utterly fail to find a key item in an adventure simply because they didn't look hard enough).

Lan-"besides, the easiest way to get more magic items has always been to steal them"-efan

 

[Elf Witch]

The 5MWD? Yes, if you have characters with different resources, only some of which have a mechanical incentive to rest frequently, you'll get conflicts like that, it's part of the problem.

Your anecdotal evidence is noted and weighted according to it's sample size of 1. The problem still exists, in spite of your immunity from it or blindness to it, however.

You an 'feel' however you want, but a mechanical problem remains however you work around it.


When we talk about the 5MWD, we aren't making it up. It happens, it happens a lot, and the reasons it happens are right there in the mechanics of the game in black & white. Disputing it based on anecdotal evidence and rejecting solutions because of imagined consequences will not make it go away. It'll just make a lot of D&D players go away if WotC listens to you.

Thinking 'outside the box' is always an option - the kind of option (like the DM using house rules) that really /can't/ be taken away. You could as easily say that Vancian casting takes away 'outside the box' thinking because rest and re-memorize is always a solution. You'd be just as wrong, but it'd be just as (in)valid.

One of them has, yes. It's ironic that after preaching 'no one right way to play' and 'D&D: Next is going to be for everyone,' he'd go on record with /one right way to play/, necessitated by making D&D: Next exclusively for those who demanded the return of Vancian casting.

Unless the characters all have the same resources and play like a hive mind then there will always be a possibility for this issue to arise. Not all players play the same even at the same table. So even if they have the same number of resources you still have one go nova and the rest hold back.

You realize anything said here is all anecdotal evidence because I doubt anyone has done a a real statistical study of the issue with enough gamers to prove anything.

There is more than one of us saying this is a not an issue in the games we play.

Just because some people have an issue does not always make it a bad design.

I have found that a lot of games that renew resources before every encounter end up playing out the same unless the DM works hard to counter their resources and make them come up with different ideas otherwise you go with the tried and true and what has always worked best. You see this is games that don't renew resources but they have the ability to force the players do try different things if the resource they normally use is not available.

Well listening to the complaints about 3E and the development of 4E made a lot of players go away. So hopefully this time they are listening to a lot of people not just the squeaky wheels.

No one is denying that the 15 day is an issue for some groups. What I am disagreeing with is the idea that it is only caused my mechanics and that is the only way to fix it.

So all of us who love vancian magic should just sit back and shut up because there are people who don't like. Well screw that. If DnD next is supposed to be for all players then vancian magic should be one option available for use in the game.

 

[Elf Witch]

3e's allowing of PCs to so easily make their own magic items was, IMO, one of its biggest failings.

When I first read the 4e DMG (shortly after it came out) and saw the bit about wish lists my face and palm had a brief meeting. They had a second, longer meeting when I saw the magic item list had been put in the PH.

That said, if a specific character wants to take the party out and try to find a specific item I'm usually cool with it provided the item in question is vaguely reasonable for the game - if nothing else, it's a self-hooking adventure. And there's still no guarantee she'll succeed (says he, having over time watched numerous parties utterly fail to find a key item in an adventure simply because they didn't look hard enough).

Lan-"besides, the easiest way to get more magic items has always been to steal them"-efan

This is one my big issues with 3E as well The way I have seen most DM I play with handle it is they keep you so busy you don't get enough time to be churning them out.

I was like WTF when I saw the list in PHB and then went no way when I read the part in the DMG. We all know that magic items are necessary but I really don't like the idea of you have to have a specific item or your character is sub optimal.

 

[billd91]

Your anecdotal evidence is noted and weighted according to it's sample size of 1. The problem still exists, in spite of your immunity from it or blindness to it, however.

And what's the sample size of the anecdotal evidence you're using to prove the problem exists?

 

[Campbell]

It really does no good to keep pushing anecdotes in each other's faces in an attempt to deny the experiences we all have had. Have I seen players choose to play clerics and psychic warriors in 3e when they would rather play fighters? Sure. Do I doubt that setting based constraints have served to balance fighters and wizards effectively in other people's games? No. They're experiences are their own. Can we ever 'educate' each other to the point where the other embraces our play style? I sure hope not. The diversity of the community is a strength - not a weakness. Can't we all agree that some people find the setting based constraints harmful and for others mechanical solutions remove what they see as essential features of the game? The only right answer here is to provide tools for both viewpoints within the base game.

 

[MarkB]

And what's the sample size of the anecdotal evidence you're using to prove the problem exists?

<Scrolls up to poll result> Well over 80 so far, around double the "it's not a problem" numbers. Plus, enough people expressed concern to inspire a WotC article dedicated to the subject.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

<Scrolls up to poll result> Well over 80 so far, around double the "it's not a problem" numbers. Plus, enough people expressed concern to inspire a WotC article dedicated to the subject.

Actually, it's 75 at this point. Which is not as many as those who don't think there should be mechanical solutions baked into the game design (87) which may be an amalgam of people who do not believe it exists and those who believe it exists, but that it is solvable with non-mechanical means.

 

[steeldragons]

Is it specifically because we're talking about magic items here?

It very well may be. Perhaps extending to the whole area of "treasure."

Would you have an issue if a player approached you after the game and asked if his strained relationship with the local thieve's guild could come up more or suggested more opportunities for intrigue in the setting? That sort of communication pretty much defined my early AD&D experience.

Oh mine too! I would have NO trouble with the kind of plot idea/suggestion/desire you pose above.

I think, upon reflection with all of this...it can all be lumped into the issue of "entitlement" that I've seen mentioned and expressed the passed few years.

To my mind/view/enjoyment of the game, the players should not have any inkling of "how the story ends." They have a SAY in whether or not they get there, through their characters' actions. They have a say, even perhaps THE say, in how it ends once they've arrived. That's all part of building the communal story.

And they have the greatest say in the pace and plot of the story itself...Without the players' characters interacting with the game world there would BE no game/story. The DM causes appropriate reactions in the world to those actions and the game/story moves on.

But the idea that the player knows they're getting X amount of treasure at the end of the rainbow...with Y and Z items that they requested (because the books said they should/could)...the expectation that they WILL get to the end of the rainbow, at all, because everything they come up against will be "balanced" or "level appropriate" or should be "designed to be overcome"...that they expect to succeed, practically regardless of their choices, and if they somehow don't the DM is "doing it wrong" or "screwing them" somehow...These things just all elicit a knee-jerk reaction from me of "NUH UH!"

Where's the challenge? Where's the risk? Where's the fun of the adventure? Just give them whatever they ask for. Ok, you're all uber epic lords and masters of your respective classes. We'll spend another hour making you another batch of heroes [or superheroes] without ever having to roll a single die.

If the books are basically telling them, both players AND DMs, that this is how the game is supposed to work then it's difficult to argue anything else...Can be done, certainly (house rules and all of that). But just much more difficult to get certain types of players to agree to it...usually, "cuz the book(s) sez so!" And I don't want to see that in 5e.

But...this seems to all be getting a bit off topic of the 15 minute work day. It's all connected...somehow, hahaha, in my head...but I can't really put it into clearer terms.

The books should not be presenting the game as "you will be able to this and you will receive that for your troubles." You are trying succeed in the game world and situations set before you. You are not entitled or should even necessarily expect to succeed at everything.

Not sure if that clears anything up or muddies the waters further. hahaha. But there it is.

Happy Friday all.
--SD