D&D 5E Spending time [Encounter pacing and Resting restrictions]

[clearstream]

OK - well Angry has refined his time pool idea in his latest post: http://theangrygm.com/exploration-rules/ but he still has a pool rolled for a short rest (with both advanced and simple options for how to handle that). I understand that you're not wanting to utilize that, which is cool, but I'm leaving it here for any others that might be interested in this topic

Gracious, he's bad at explaining his rules! I believe he is not proposing roll on rest but rather roll on accumulating 6 tokens... which happens automatically if you short rest but can happen at other times. In any event, one has to think about the resultant behaviour here. If we always roll when players rest, then our players can say "If we rest, we are likely to get a complication so let's prepare for that." In fact, they can choose when to clear the pool by choosing when to rest. I dislike the implications of that behaviour.

If on the other hand bad stuff is a product of rest (and other delays) but not tied to the moment any of those things happen, then players know that impending doom is becoming ever more impending with every delay, but they have no fiat over when it triggers. I believe that is far better: players shouldn't have any fiat over impending doom! On the other hand, I also feel we must force the trigger at some point while maintaining the DM's iron halo. Hence I suggest triggering on a player's nat. 1. They know that nat. 1 is a bad thing, and now it is. A bit like the clank concept in Clank.

 

[robus]

Gracious, he's bad at explaining his rules! I believe he is not proposing roll on rest but rather roll on accumulating 6 tokens... which happens automatically if you short rest but can happen at other times. In any event, one has to think about the resultant behaviour here. If we always roll when players rest, then our players can say "If we rest, we are likely to get a complication so let's prepare for that." In fact, they can choose when to clear the pool by choosing when to rest. I dislike the implications of that behaviour.

I don't think it's quite like that. The "rest pool" is independent of the "exploration pool". It's just rolled because an hour of time has elapsed during the short rest and something bad has a possibility of occurring just because time has passed. This is just like the usual "every hour in the dungeon roll on the random encounter table" every adventure describes. Except now it's tied into an actual easy to use time keeping mechanic.

 

[robus]

And as Angry says, I believe, the complication doesn't have to trigger immediately. If a "1" is rolled, the DM can just come up with some plan and emit an "uh-oh" to the players So the complication for a short rest doesn't need to fire right away. The time used could have caused some future difficulty for the players that they will encounter a few rooms ahead.

 

[robus]

And finally, generally he's pretty good at explaining his ideas. But I agree that this one in particular seems to be giving him some trouble!

 

[Kalshane]

Yeah, the "simple" method is to leave the time pool alone, mark off an hour and roll 6 dice any time the party takes a short rest. So every rest has a chance of triggering a complication, but the effects of the party's previous actions are still hanging out there, waiting for the PCs to fill the pool or do something noisy.

I do like the simplified "Dice size is always based on the current threat level of the location" with loud or hasty actions just causing the existing pool to be rolled. The old method of different dice in the same pool based on threat level and how obvious the PCs were being was a little too fiddly.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think he started out by thinking about excessive timewasters such as excessively searching for secret doors, looting every last button and scrap item from fallen monsters and the like.

My players already don't do that, and I'm much more concerned with providing a mechanical counterweight to the advantages of resting.

So rolling the dice at the precise point of resting is exactly what you *shouldn't* do.

Otherwise, vonklaude said it.

The point of impending doom is not to encourage groups to be even more defensive and tactical about their rests, the point is to make them take fewer rests in the first place!

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Tony Vargas]

The most vital point is so important I had to start a new post to say it:

Resource allocation in D&D is part of the game, not the story. And discouraging resting is, and should be, part of the game, not the story.

I think you're slightly mis-stating that. Resource allocation in D&D is part of the game, so it can't be kept out of the story. When wizards memorized and forgot spells, that was part of the story, it couldn't /not/ be, because it came up. Now that they're managing more abstract slots, it doesn't hit the story as often or as forcefully, but it's still there, needing to be explained, just with a bit more latitude in fitting the resource-management and story-narrative together. As long as resources must be managed to keep the game balanced, stories must provide narrative pressure to prevent re-charging those resources to easily.

A countervailing 'cost' to re-charging/resting (and/or benefit to pressing on) is a way of doing that.

So are purely story-based sources of time-pressure.

So is taking the timing of recharges completely out of the hands of the players by re-charging based on something other than resting.

And so, unthinkably, is simply balancing the game so it's not dependent upon resource-management in the first place.

Low Fantasy Gaming fixed the "let's long rest before we push on coz there's no reason not to" by making a long rest take 1d6 days (or 1d4 in an inn or similar).

It also uses 5 min (not 1 hr) short rests, where PCs must make checks to get back an expended ability or half damage suffered (limit 3 short rests per day, and there must be a significant* encounter in between [GM decides what counts as signficant]).

To be fair, that's just shifting the issue. It works if the pacing of the campaign makes stopping for 1d6 or 1d4 games a meaningful 'cost,' and doesn't if resting for a week is routinely practical or resting more than a day is rarely so.

Free PDF or print on demand: https://lowfantasygaming.com/

I gotta give you credit for trying.

 

[Psikerlord#]

To be fair, that's just shifting the issue. It works if the pacing of the campaign makes stopping for 1d6 or 1d4 days a meaningful 'cost,' and doesn't if resting for a week is routinely practical or resting more than a day is rarely so.

True, but how often can you risk resting for 1d4 or 1d6 days mid adventure. Pretty rarely ime.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think you're slightly mis-stating that. Resource allocation in D&D is part of the game, so it can't be kept out of the story. When wizards memorized and forgot spells, that was part of the story, it couldn't /not/ be, because it came up. Now that they're managing more abstract slots, it doesn't hit the story as often or as forcefully, but it's still there, needing to be explained, just with a bit more latitude in fitting the resource-management and story-narrative together. As long as resources must be managed to keep the game balanced, stories must provide narrative pressure to prevent re-charging those resources to easily.

A countervailing 'cost' to re-charging/resting (and/or benefit to pressing on) is a way of doing that.

So are purely story-based sources of time-pressure.

So is taking the timing of recharges completely out of the hands of the players by re-charging based on something other than resting.

And so, unthinkably, is simply balancing the game so it's not dependent upon resource-management in the first place.

If all of this is just to make a clarification or widen our understanding or whatever, or even to say story time pressure can still be a thing, I agree.

But if you're saying this to justify the exclusion of any mechanical pressure from the rules, even as an optional tool, for those sick and tired of always having to bear the burden of story based time pressure, I vehemently disagree.

 

[CapnZapp]

I gotta give you credit for trying.

He was just warned for inserting his game into unrelated discussions over at rpg.net, so I don't think so.