D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[Ilbranteloth]

Encounter pacing is crucial to game balance, particularly if you have characters who are using different resource refresh schedules. You can hack things together as you see fit. But I was explicitly talking about the game's defaults, not whether or not it was possible to houserule up a solution in your own game.

Presuming, of course, that such abilities are important to your game. That's where I find this particular discussion interesting. If you have so few encounters/combats in the game, why does the refresh rate matter?

Why should the measure of a challenging day always be hit points and short/long rest ability usage?

See, the reason I always say that balance isn't an issue (and largely not a concern for me) is that I don't measure success via those criteria.

For us, the criteria is all about the characters and their goals. An encounter needs to work whether it's their first encounter of the day and they are at full strength, and when it's their last encounter of the day and they are not. I'm not concerned at all about the adventuring day, and thus the issue of balance is an encounter by encounter concern. Encounters are challenges, or steps along the way.

 

[Lanefan]

It seems like the players in many games you and some others here have run have tended to be more interested in getting their way ...

In my experience this is almost universal.

and maybe it could also be said of them that if you give them an inch they take a mile

Maybe not a mile, but that inch will slowly grow if given any chance at all.

And from earlier in the thread, I think it was [MENTION=54690]outsider[/MENTION] asking why the DM is allowed to be the only one who knows all the rules, or something like that - and the answer is quite simple: many players (including myself) like it that way.

When I'm playing, I don't really want to know what's going on behind the screen. To me, it's just part of the mystery. Just let me roll the dice, then you consult whatever arcane tables you need to consult and tell me what happens. Let me play my character(s) based on what they would do as quasi-real people, and be ready to react to it...and whether that reaction is fully prepared or dreamed up off the cuff matters not, as long as it's consistent and reasonable and fair.

Unfortunately, because I'm also a DM I know far too much of what goes on behind the screen whether I want to or not, which kinda spoils the game somewhat for me as a player. But, c'est la vie.

... I am riding this horse to the finish line ...

Don't worry, we'll flog it dead for you.

Read my signature.

Er...we can't. It doesn't show on your posts.

Lan-"a signature only shows up if you're a subscriber"-efan

 

[Obryn]

Presuming, of course, that such abilities are important to your game. That's where I find this particular discussion interesting. If you have so few encounters/combats in the game, why does the refresh rate matter?

Why should the measure of a challenging day always be hit points and short/long rest ability usage?

Why would you assume I have few encounters/combats? I have plenty, but the thought of cramming them into a 6-8 encounter/day structure is just baffling. I prefer to avoid filler fights, it's true - encounters should contribute towards story development - but challenge is still important.

For us, the criteria is all about the characters and their goals. An encounter needs to work whether it's their first encounter of the day and they are at full strength, and when it's their last encounter of the day and they are not. I'm not concerned at all about the adventuring day, and thus the issue of balance is an encounter by encounter concern. Encounters are challenges, or steps along the way.

IMO, if a combat encounter isn't doing all of that and providing a fun and interesting challenge, I don't know why we should go through the formality of running it.

 

[Lanefan]

Why should the measure of a challenging day always be hit points and short/long rest ability usage?

In the case of a game like [MENTION=54380]shoak1[/MENTION] seems to prefer, it's because the game is (almost) all about combat; which as a direct effect does put resting and refreshing front and centre.

See, the reason I always say that balance isn't an issue (and largely not a concern for me) is that I don't measure success via those criteria.

For us, the criteria is all about the characters and their goals. An encounter needs to work whether it's their first encounter of the day and they are at full strength, and when it's their last encounter of the day and they are not. I'm not concerned at all about the adventuring day, and thus the issue of balance is an encounter by encounter concern. Encounters are challenges, or steps along the way.

Same here, for the most part. If they intentionally decide to rest at every opportunity, it's no skin off my nose. They rest, they recover, they move on.

My measure of success, on a macro level, is did everyone have fun and was there lots of laughter during the evening. If yes, then most other things are close to irrelevant.

Lan-"who is quite pleased to let [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] keep unintentionally speaking for me in this thread, even though I think his and my games are quite different"-efan

 

[discosoc]

This forum needs thread caps.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'll repeat:

Please, try your approach in real life, with a real DM whose game you are going to be a player in. I'm curious to hear how it works out.

I would welcome it.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

That's actually kindof unfortunate. I find that the game runs more smoothly and enjoyably for everybody(including the DM) when the players are ultra dedicated and knowledgeable about the game.

Co-DMs are a thing that should probably be done more, especially in large groups. Have one person handling story, the other handling rules, and they split the monsters in fights and such.

Actually, in terms of mechanics and rules, I'm happy with that. It goes back to the AD&D idea that the DM handles the rules, and the players know enough on how to handle their characters. I love starting new players who haven't read the PHB yet because they have no preconceived ideas on how to play the game.

How should they play the game? In my mind they should focus on their character and the decisions and actions that they would take. I'll let you know what you need to do to do that, if anything. For example, I can't stand questions that start with, "Can I make a skill check to...?" The answer it generally no. Because you're not doing anything. Yes, you can utilize your skills to attempt something, but until you actually attempt it, I can't help you.

I find that players that have played for a while, are often surprised by the newbies, "wait, I can do that?" Sure, why not? You can do that here in this world, why wouldn't your characters be able to do that in their world? Combat is often based on how many squares they have to move, to get into position here, to do this. That's not combat. That's a game.

There are two orcs charging at you with axes, what do you do? "I want to chop off the first one's head." Hey, go for it. It might not be easy, but go right ahead and try.

Because when it comes to non-magical things, anything you could legitimately do in a combat here is fine with me. Of course, I do change my rules to get away from counting 5' squares, etc. But even using the core rules we've been able to do the same thing.

But I would love to be able to sit down with a beer or a single malt and chat about, design, and test other rule ideas and such. I just haven't really been able to find anybody locally that shares that passion with me.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

When I was running for a 12-player table in a 2-hr time slot, I got a co-DM, sometimes un-planned, just 'hey, run the monsters for me,' sometimes by design, and we'd even split the table and run in parallel if it seemed warranted. (A similar tactic at encounters was to split a table if it got too many players to run officially one of the players would just step up, read that one chapter of the module and run it, then return to playing when there were enough DMs available.) I've also had or been a co-DM at convention games.

I love having a co-DM.

...

It's been a good week for me, confirmation bias-wise. First someone else finally remembers the 'caller' concept, now someone else finally remembers old-school 1e pacing the way I always have.

My current campaign is going back specifically to that pacing. Each player with multiple characters, most of which are involved in downtime while another group is adventuring. It's a blend of home and public gaming, with a given "adventure" expected to take 1-3 sessions, so that's all the commitment a specific group of players need to make. They don't have to be consecutive sessions either. So the mix of players and characters will always be changing, all from the same home base. Although I hadn't heard of it, it bears some resemblance to "Western Marches" campaigns, but was really modeled after what I know of Gary Gygax's games in the '70s, and also a big nod to Ed Greenwood and Shadowdale. Kind of those two combined.

But there will be lots of go as deep as you can, then return to town to recover. Assuming you make it back to town. Of course, I've also been tweaking my rules to have more of an AD&D feel, although there's a lot of my own personal preferences in there as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], I think the attribution is off on that nested quote.

That's not combat. That's a game.

Good! (Actual combat is so messy.)

Y'know what else is a game?
D&D.
Y'know how many other RPGs are games?
All of 'em.

My current campaign is going back specifically to that pacing... there will be lots of go as deep as you can, then return to town to recover. Assuming you make it back to town. Of course, I've also been tweaking my rules to have more of an AD&D feel, although there's a lot of my own personal preferences in there as well.

So, slower natural healing, fewer spells/day, counting negative hps (downtime to recover from negative hps, even if magically healed)? Stuff like that?
Some of the old-school pacing came from factors like that, as you mentioned...

 

[shoak1]

Presuming, of course, that such abilities are important to your game. That's where I find this particular discussion interesting. If you have so few encounters/combats in the game, why does the refresh rate matter? Why should the measure of a challenging day always be hit points and short/long rest ability usage? See, the reason I always say that balance isn't an issue (and largely not a concern for me) is that I don't measure success via those criteria. For us, the criteria is all about the characters and their goals. An encounter needs to work whether it's their first encounter of the day and they are at full strength, and when it's their last encounter of the day and they are not. I'm not concerned at all about the adventuring day, and thus the issue of balance is an encounter by encounter concern. Encounters are challenges, or steps along the way.

Great - so I assume then any such changes to official rules or some limited extra guidelines in modules would be unopposed by you since they don't affect you right?