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

[Imaro]

It's ridiculous to think that the PCs are some sort of mighty cosmic encounter attractors that cause multiple encounters a day to spontaneously happen where they are at the moment. Said encounters somehow don't happen anywhere else in the world. Rather, the PCs encounter so many creatures daily, because there are craptons of creatures all over the world and that's how many they encounter that day.

Strangely enough in almost all of the fiction that D&D is based upon... that's exactly the case. When you read a Conan story or an Elric story... even LotR and the Hobbit the numerous encounters the protagonists are having with fell beasts and monsters are not representative of what is happening to the populace at large. It would be a ridiculous world if it was... and yet the protagonists regularly face everything from ringwraiths and orcs to Chaos gods and primordial proto-people in these stories

That leaves DMs who actually care about consistency to have to figure out how to fix the problem. Since there are so many dangerous creatures all over the world, there would have to be tons of adventurers all over the world to combat them. Of course, that can rub those who like PCs to be super special the wrong way. The only other way I can think of to keep things consistent without upping the adventurer population, is to lower the encounters that happen daily and thereby lower the deadliness around the world.

No they are creating a problem because of how they've chosen to use the encounter rules as worldbuilding mechanics when they are not. The encounter rules are just that... rules to tell you how to roughly balance an encounter for PC's... not a calculator for the number of monsters inhabiting a world.

Again rarely if ever in the fiction that D&D is derived from are there a crapton of monsters decimating civilizations and killing non-adveturers by the droves as opposed to being stragely enough mostly encountered and battled by the protagonists seeking out adventure in the stories...

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's ridiculous to think that the PCs are some sort of mighty cosmic encounter attractors that cause multiple encounters a day to spontaneously happen where they are at the moment. Said encounters somehow don't happen anywhere else in the world.

Technically, that doesn't have to be the case for it to seem to be the case. Random is surprisingly random, even IRL. What's the world's record for being struck by lightning....?

That leaves DMs who actually care about consistency to have to figure out how to fix the problem.

There are several that have been brought up in this thread. Rather than depend on the 6-8 encounter guideline to impose class balance and calibrate encounter difficulty, re-do both. OK, it'd mean re-writing classes and re-calculating CRs but it's a solution. Rather than twist the world out of shape to provide more encounters per day, push out the recovery times for class features - if character classes are rare in the world, that'll have minimal impact on the world. Push out everything too 'gritty realism,' then keep pushing for daily slots and the like. Eventually you find a place where classes balance and encounters are appropriately difficult for you campaign's pacing - as long as that pacing is consistent.
Or, you could just flex that Empowerment and take control of whether rests are possible when, what benefits they provide and how long they take, and keep that consistent with your campaign's pacing, even as it varies...

Technically, deciding which side wins is one of 5e's mechanics. You only roll when the outcome is uncertain.

Mechanics and fluff have to match or there is a disconnect, but beyond that they don't really dictate. If there are so many monsters that the PCs are encountering them even weekly, then then that encounter mechanic informs the DM that the world at large has a ton of monsters roaming about.

That's no dictate at all. Want to use a particular fluff, but not the mechanics, change the mechanics, want to use a particular mechanic, but not the fluff, change the fluff. They still match up, they just fit your campaign better, now.

 

[Maxperson]

Technically, that doesn't have to be the case for it to seem to be the case. Random is surprisingly random, even IRL. What's the world's record for being struck by lightning....?

Yes, but those odds don't repeat themselves daily, weekly or even monthly, the way they do in D&D.

There are several that have been brought up in this thread. Rather than depend on the 6-8 encounter guideline to impose class balance and calibrate encounter difficulty, re-do both. OK, it'd mean re-writing classes and re-calculating CRs but it's a solution. Rather than twist the world out of shape to provide more encounters per day, push out the recovery times for class features - if character classes are rare in the world, that'll have minimal impact on the world. Push out everything too 'gritty realism,' then keep pushing for daily slots and the like. Eventually you find a place where classes balance and encounters are appropriately difficult for you campaign's pacing - as long as that pacing is consistent.
Or, you could just flex that Empowerment and take control of whether rests are possible when, what benefits they provide and how long they take, and keep that consistent with your campaign's pacing, even as it varies...

Yes, I've seen that there are ways to keep things consistent. That still leaves the mechanics and fluff to match, though. The DM is just altering them to better fit his ideals.

That's no dictate at all. Want to use a particular fluff, but not the mechanics, change the mechanics, want to use a particular mechanic, but not the fluff, change the fluff. They still match up, they just fit your campaign better, now.

This does't actually get around what I said. All you're doing with this is making the fluff and mechanics match, but in a different way. That's consistent with what I said about them matching or there being a disconnect.

A medusa turns people to stone with a gaze. If you want, you can alter those so that she turns people to cotton candy with a gaze. That's still fluff and crunch matching. However, if you leave the fluff that she turns people to stone, but alter the mechanic to turn people into cotton candy, you have created a disconnect.

 

[Maxperson]

Strangely enough in almost all of the fiction that D&D is based upon... that's exactly the case. When you read a Conan story or an Elric story... even LotR and the Hobbit the numerous encounters the protagonists are having with fell beasts and monsters are not representative of what is happening to the populace at large. It would be a ridiculous world if it was... and yet the protagonists regularly face everything from ringwraiths and orcs to Chaos gods and primordial proto-people in these stories

Not exactly. Those things are in fact happening to the populace at large in those stories. Orcs attack elves and humans in lord of the rings. So do giant spiders. And they do so at the same rate that they attack the heroes.............rarely. Same with Elric and Conan. None of them come across tons and tons and tons of monsters, which is what creates the situation I'm talking about in D&D.

If the party in D&D only rarely came across monsters, it would be like most written fiction.

 

[Imaro]

Not exactly. Those things are in fact happening to the populace at large in those stories. Orcs attack elves and humans in lord of the rings. So do giant spiders. And they do so at the same rate that they attack the heroes.............rarely. Same with Elric and Conan. None of them come across tons and tons and tons of monsters, which is what creates the situation I'm talking about in D&D.

If the party in D&D only rarely came across monsters, it would be like most written fiction.

Define rarely... in the LotR movies they are usually fighting or running from some enemy or another. Elric fights tons of enemies in his stories slaying them by the dozens with Stormbringer and Conan slaughters numerous enemies (men, beasts, sorcerers and elder gods) as well... I mean I wouldn't use rarely to define the number or frequency of battles these characters have.

Edit - And no these things dont happen to the populace at large.. Bree isnt continuously attacked by Orcs, cave trolls, ringwraiths, tentacles lake monsters, balrogs and so on...

 

[Maxperson]

Define rarely... in the LotR movies they are usually fighting or running from some enemy or another. Elric fights tons of enemies in his stories slaying them by the dozens with Stormbringer and Conan slaughters numerous enemies (men, beasts, sorcerers and elder gods) as well... I mean I wouldn't use rarely to define the number or frequency of battles these characters have.

I didn't say battles. I said monsters. Most of Elric's fights were against men, or rarely various lords or weak gods. Conan was the same. Mostly men. In the Hobbit, there was a fair deal of time in-between their few encounters with orcs, trolls and spiders.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To satisfy the elephant in an adventure where overland travel plays any significant role, this is largely (and sadly) true.

But then why not simply narrate the travel? If establishing that a bunch of encounters happen to the PCs along the road to the capital really breaks verisimilitude, then simply do not have that many encounters. Or simply skip them all and narrate the trip.

So, the PCs spend a week in the Shire and then a week in Mordor. We all know where more encounters will happen. So the question is, if you don't want the Shire to seem like a dangerous place, why have any encounters there at all?

Unless of course, crumpets and elevensies are considered encounters.

Certainly not every single day, just any day they're meant to have a non-trivial encounter, they 'need' to have two (if they're all deadly) or more additional encounters, because: Elephant.

This is a fair point...I don't know if I entirely agree with it, but I get it. This is why I'm saying that such trivial travel should be narrated. Save any and all encounters for areas where more than one per day is likely.

This is of course if you don't want to alter the mechanics in another way to achieve what you want.

Technically, deciding which side wins is one of 5e's mechanics. You only roll when the outcome is uncertain. If you decide that one side or the other wins, the outcome was not uncertain.

I also think you might be taking "mechanics dictate" a bit farther than it's intended. Mechanics and fluff have to match or there is a disconnect, but beyond that they don't really dictate. If there are so many monsters that the PCs are encountering them even weekly, then then that encounter mechanic informs the DM that the world at large has a ton of monsters roaming about.

The DM decides how to use that information like you lay out above. He decides that this time it's orcs attacking a village. He decides whether the outcome is certain and which side wins, or whether the outcome is uncertain and rolls to see which side wins.

I agree I'm taking it too far...we all are.

My point is that the mechanics are meant to support the fiction. So once I establish the fiction for my game, I shouldn't choose to use mechanics that disrupt the fiction. If I do, it's on me...not the mechanics themselves.

But to look at it another way of taking things too far...at what point does verisimilitude take a back seat to the fact that we're playing a game? My players would rather have encounters and roll some dice than to marvel at the believable ecology of the Northlands.

Which is why I said earlier that the impact of encounter frequency on worldbuilding is not as great as many are making it out to be. Or at least, it need not be.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

It's ridiculous to think that the PCs are some sort of mighty cosmic encounter attractors that cause multiple encounters a day to spontaneously happen where they are at the moment. Said encounters somehow don't happen anywhere else in the world. Rather, the PCs encounter so many creatures daily, because there are craptons of creatures all over the world and that's how many they encounter that day.

Or maybe because the PCs are in the wilderness where more monsters live? I don't run into many lions around here, but if I was exploring the Serengeti I think I might see one or two.

That leaves DMs who actually care about consistency to have to figure out how to fix the problem. Since there are so many dangerous creatures all over the world, there would have to be tons of adventurers all over the world to combat them. Of course, that can rub those who like PCs to be super special the wrong way. The only other way I can think of to keep things consistent without upping the adventurer population, is to lower the encounters that happen daily and thereby lower the deadliness around the world.

So it's interesting that you raise the point about consistency since that was my complaint about shifting rest schedules based on whether you were in a dungeon or the wilderness.

But I agree, you should be consistent. That is, if the PCs are wandering along a road between civilized areas, ensure that the number and types of encounters they are having would be the same type as a similar party. Which means, in my world, the PCs are more likely to have an encounter, and it's probably going to be tougher than their regular encounter near a town or city.

I'm sure you'll question that. Here's why:

1) The wilderness is an area that has not only the mundane animals we have, in an abundance we're not accustomed to (check out the animal populations in North America pre-colonial times), but it's also a world where there are monsters and magic. So the wilderness is dangerous, and the farther you are from civilized areas, the more dangerous it is.

2) Because the wilderness is dangerous, the most common way to travel between civilized areas is by caravan. It's slow (no better than a slow walk) because of having to tend to beasts of burdens pulling heavy loads, but also because the people in such a caravan walk. Maybe 10 to 20 miles daily. The numbers are probably 30-60 people plus beasts and wagons. There's safety in numbers, with sellswords hired to protect them during the walk and the nights.

3) Predators and semi- to non-intelligent monsters avoid such large groups unless really desperate. That's the whole point of traveling by caravan, it reduces the risks.

4) Brigands, bandits, and attacks by intelligent monsters are in larger groups. They have to overcome the caravan, after all. But maybe 10-15 of those are combat capable in the caravan, and they realize that a group of 15-20 monsters/bandits is sufficient under the right circumstances.

5) Adventurers tend to travel in small parties. Not a large caravan. They attract predators, non-, semi-, and intelligent monsters and brigands/bandits. Because those encounters may be against creatures that are prepared for attacking caravans, they are larger groups than they would encounter elsewhere. A group of 15-20 monsters/bandits ensures a reasonable amount of success against a caravan. Against 4 PCs it's likely to be a really tough encounter.

So yes, a party of PCs wandering through the wilderness are encounter attractors. And they happen anywhere else in the world 4 to 6 people decide to wander the wilderness that is infested by monsters and other evil things. The fact that PCs often go looking for trouble has an impact as well ("hey, look at that rubble over there, I wonder if there's anything of interest?" "Well, yes, says the DM, some undead..."). All of this is also assuming that the PCs don't have any enemies that might follow them into the wilderness.

To not encounter more creatures, and for them to not be more challenging would be inconsistent to me.

 

[Maxperson]

Edit - And no these things dont happen to the populace at large.. Bree isnt continuously attacked by Orcs, cave trolls, ringwraiths, tentacles lake monsters, balrogs and so on...

Er, Smaug destroyed Laketown, and The Lonely Mountain. There is a story of the Shire being attacked in the Hobbit, oh and it's attacked again at the end of the LotR. Gondor and Rohan are attacked in LotR. And all of that is peanuts compared to all of the populaces that get attacked in the unfinished stories and the Silmarillion.

So yes, yes they do happen to the populace at large.

 

[Maxperson]

But to look at it another way of taking things too far...at what point does verisimilitude take a back seat to the fact that we're playing a game?

That's an easy one. When you decide it does.

We draw the line in different places.