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

[Ovinomancer]

Look at what you just said... I take my world into account when designing my encounters... exactly, not vice versa. The world informs my encounters (As well as my adventures, available monsters and so on) but the encounters don't inform my worldbuilding. In a real scenario where I am designing for my game the world would be built already and I would creating an adventure, location, situation, etc. for my group in said world.

Wait you're saying that my worldbuilding shouldn't inform what encounters are found but encounters should inform my worldbuilding... now this makes no sense to me. It's like complaining I can't have sharks as an encounter in the middle of these mountains... well yeah, they're mountains... you created that constraint when you designed the world and you should abide by it when you want consistency in your world. Not even sure why this is controversial??

Hang on, let me look... nope didn't say any such thing.

Look, you pick encounters to match your worldbuilding, and that's exactly what should be happening. But you then deny that there are any worldbuilding impacts from that because you limit the possible encounter types so that they delicatedly avoid having any worldbuilding implications. So, you explicitly take worldbuilding into account to deny there are any worldbuilding implications?

Returning to the idea that encounters can be limited to meet the worldbuilding, I don't think this actually works long term. For instance, in the toy example of town and dungeon, you provided a day's worth of deadly encounters for the PCs between town and dungeon, and the reasons no one in town really cares about those encounters (because everyone knows horse sized wolves don't bother anyone, I guess). But that was 1 day. If the PCs need to make 2 trips out to the dungeons to hit level 4, that's 4 days of encounters like that, likely within a single week's time. 4 dire wolves may not be much trouble in your concept, but what about 4x4 dire wolves? Then the party hits 4th level, and still has more dungeon to go, and those are even meaner encounter groups, all within a day of the town. Expanding this into the 7th level group in a city, how many days of those encounters exist before you've run out of high level folks in the city to provide them? How many evil wizards summoning invisible stalkers, how many habitats of dangerous creatures nearby are being encroached, how many mercenary groups of that power? It adds up, so unless you're running a game where the PCs constantly travel, you're running out of overhead to stuff these deadly encounters into. And, while you could declare areas pacified and move forward, it turns out most cities don't have dangerous areas nearby, so you're back to smaller settlements providing the succor for the party on the was to Adventure!(tm).

This isn't to say you can't make it work, but you have to build a world that runs on the premise of very dangerous things being fairly common. The pacing has worldbuilding implications, and 3 deadlies a day is hard to work into a campaign concept that isn't built for it.

And, again, the best way to deal with the pacing issue is to use a variety of techniques and rotate them. Some places 3 deadlies works well, others may yield well to time pressure, still others to DM fiat on availability of suitable resting places. However, using 3 deadly encounters an adventuring day as your exclusive or primary pacing mechanic has implications for worldbuilding. You may not care, because it's beer and pretzels (and excellent way to play), but its still there even if you ignore it, just like the Elephant.

They are still animals... afraid of fire...fall for traps... will go for easier prey when available... etc. I could maybe see this argument for Worgs since they are actively malicious and cruel but Dire wolves are just animals... and 15 fatal attacks in a years time across all of France isn't a large number.

Still...animals. Predators the size of a horse do not act like smaller predators. Does everyone in your world keep burning campfires and punji pits handy? You said that the dires would maybe be a threat to lone travelers, and I'm not claiming that they'd ransack the town in a frontal assault, but in the middle there's a hell of a lot of mayhem caused by four horse sized wolves to farms, livestock, and travelers. Yeah, I guess if you had a tiger pit surrounded campfire you'd be largely safe, but a small caravan of merchants with a half dozen or so guards would be pretty easy pickings for 4 dire wolves. Dire wolves hanging around outside of town would be a big deal -- something to either organize a hunt for or hire adventurers to root out. And that means that the encounter that you provide your players is either from out of the area (which eventually leads to the 'why do all of these dangerous things keep showing up for those heroes to kill' questions) or have been a threat to the town. Even using your method, that means you would have had to have already put into the world the reason that this town isn't at all concerned about 4 dire wolves roaming the nearby countryside.

 

[Imaro]

Look, you pick encounters to match your worldbuilding, and that's exactly what should be happening. But you then deny that there are any worldbuilding impacts from that because you limit the possible encounter types so that they delicatedly avoid having any worldbuilding implications. So, you explicitly take worldbuilding into account to deny there are any worldbuilding implications?

If the world was built beforehand then there is no impact on it from encounters... if anything the encounters are impacted by my worldbuilding, which is exactly how I feel it should be. Yes I limit encounter types... though I'd disagree with your attempt to disparage what I do by using words like delicately, I'd lean more towards...logically. I make sure the encounters I choose fit where they are in the world... don't you? Doesn't everyone take their world into account when designing their encounters?

So yes I explicitly take my world into account when designing my encounters to eliminate absurd worldbuilding implications that can arise when one gives it no consideration while designing encounters. Otherwise as I said before I could end up with sharks atop mountain peaks and dire wolves in the middle of the ocean. What I don't do is let the encounters inform worldbuilding... how do you even do that unless your world doesn't exist beforehand?

Returning to the idea that encounters can be limited to meet the worldbuilding, I don't think this actually works long term.

Well just a few pages ago you seemed to think that doing it period was outright impossible...

For instance, in the toy example of town and dungeon, you provided a day's worth of deadly encounters for the PCs between town and dungeon, and the reasons no one in town really cares about those encounters (because everyone knows horse sized wolves don't bother anyone, I guess). But that was 1 day. If the PCs need to make 2 trips out to the dungeons to hit level 4, that's 4 days of encounters like that, likely within a single week's time. 4 dire wolves may not be much trouble in your concept, but what about 4x4 dire wolves? Then the party hits 4th level, and still has more dungeon to go, and those are even meaner encounter groups, all within a day of the town. Expanding this into the 7th level group in a city, how many days of those encounters exist before you've run out of high level folks in the city to provide them? How many evil wizards summoning invisible stalkers, how many habitats of dangerous creatures nearby are being encroached, how many mercenary groups of that power? It adds up, so unless you're running a game where the PCs constantly travel, you're running out of overhead to stuff these deadly encounters into. And, while you could declare areas pacified and move forward, it turns out most cities don't have dangerous areas nearby, so you're back to smaller settlements providing the succor for the party on the was to Adventure!(tm).

And here's the nitpicking and tearing apart with hypotheticals. Look you gave me two situations, you even defined the first. Now ignoring the fact that it's kind of silly and unnecessary to have a days worth of encounters on the road to a dungeon that's exactly a day away...what was I accomplishing again? (They'll camp near the dungeon and be fully recharged to enter it so why not just narrate their trek and get to the dungeon??)... I took both of your exercises and created the encounters with a minimal effort. Of course now the goalposts shift... as I predicted they would and the examples are invalid... or the animal behavior is wrong... or whatever other excuse can be formulated for why it wouldn't work... culminating in this line of discussion going to the place I originally predicted it would end up.

I also have to ask do your adventurers have downtime? Do you account for those days, weeks or months where they don't have an adventuring day? How do you account for that in a set of world encounters with frequency based solely around the adventuring day. Or do your adventurers go non-stop... day after day of adventuring with no down time between?

This isn't to say you can't make it work, but you have to build a world that runs on the premise of very dangerous things being fairly common. The pacing has worldbuilding implications, and 3 deadlies a day is hard to work into a campaign concept that isn't built for it.

It sure seems that "it can't work" is what you're trying to say. And no, yo don't have to build a world that runs on the premise of very dangerous things being fairly common. The pacing for adventures (the time in which the PC's are actively adventuring) does not have to set the pace for the world. Again there can be days, weeks or even months between adventuring days, they aren't encountering things all the time... for more accurate worldbuilding you'd probably figure out the average encounters over adventuring days + downtime days...

And, again, the best way to deal with the pacing issue is to use a variety of techniques and rotate them. Some places 3 deadlies works well, others may yield well to time pressure, still others to DM fiat on availability of suitable resting places. However, using 3 deadly encounters an adventuring day as your exclusive or primary pacing mechanic has implications for worldbuilding. You may not care, because it's beer and pretzels (and excellent way to play), but its still there even if you ignore it, just like the Elephant.

The best for you maybe but I don't have an issue with the 3 deadly... but then I don't have an issue with using a variety of techniques either if the need or want arises. IMO, The "best" is whatever works for your particular game. For a casual game all those tech iques would be wasted. For someone adept at creating encounters that fit within their world just the 3 deadlies every adventuring day might work.

No... It doesn't have implications on worldbuilding for me and thus it's not a given. You've yet to show that and proclaiming it doesn;t make it anymore true. Downtime is the answer to the pacing mechanic for worldbuilding... unless your adveturers are fighting every single day of their lives... and then I'd agree, yeah you've created a very dangerous world(one where people and monsters do battle continuously) otherwise it doesn't make sense.

Still...animals. Predators the size of a horse do not act like smaller predators. Does everyone in your world keep burning campfires and punji pits handy? You said that the dires would maybe be a threat to lone travelers, and I'm not claiming that they'd ransack the town in a frontal assault, but in the middle there's a hell of a lot of mayhem caused by four horse sized wolves to farms, livestock, and travelers. Yeah, I guess if you had a tiger pit surrounded campfire you'd be largely safe, but a small caravan of merchants with a half dozen or so guards would be pretty easy pickings for 4 dire wolves. Dire wolves hanging around outside of town would be a big deal -- something to either organize a hunt for or hire adventurers to root out. And that means that the encounter that you provide your players is either from out of the area (which eventually leads to the 'why do all of these dangerous things keep showing up for those heroes to kill' questions) or have been a threat to the town. Even using your method, that means you would have had to have already put into the world the reason that this town isn't at all concerned about 4 dire wolves roaming the nearby countryside.

I can't believe I'm having a debate around the behavioral patterns of a non-existent animal... Ok so we're back to the absurd again...

Would a small caravan of merchants with half dozen or so armored and armed guards be pretty easy pickings for four dire wolves? Would they be easier prey, with less risk of being hurt than say hunting a deer or even the boar in the forest? If not why would they go out of their way to attack it? Even large predators such as lions don't tend to actively seek out men as prey. I'm not sayig the dire wolves wouldn't be a possible danger... I am saying that with a 24 mile or more hunting ground with their natural prey present... the threat they would pose wouldn't be this out of proportion thing that sends the town spiraling down a path where it's very construction and nature are a result of dire wolf paranoia. No it would take adequate precautions to dissuade predators in general from attacking livestock but in the same way some men co-exist with lions (and alot more than just 4) this single encounter really wouldn't have implications on worldbuilding beyond those of generic D&D land.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So yes I explicitly take my world into account when designing my encounters to eliminate absurd worldbuilding implications that can arise when one gives it no consideration while designing encounters.

So how is that not in tension with the 'just use 3 deadly encounters' shifting of the 6-8 encounter guideline? What if the world only calls for one encounter, however much you stretch the point?

Otherwise as I said before I could end up with sharks atop mountain peaks

bulette?

and dire wolves in the middle of the ocean

The 1e MM2 features a 'Sea Wolf.'

No, I don't have a point. Just felt compelled to mention 'em.

What I don't do is let the encounters inform worldbuilding... how do you even do that unless your world doesn't exist beforehand?

A world might be 'built' beforehand, but it can't very well be finished - there's too much to a world, for that - and it could still change.

(They'll camp near the dungeon and be fully recharged to enter it so why not just narrate their trek and get to the dungeon??)

Maybe the dungeon's lifted from a module, and you'd rather give them the exp from some 'random' encounters to bump them than re-do the module? 'Meta' I know, but it's the only thing that leaps to mind...

I also have to ask do your adventurers have downtime?

Apply system mastery to the 5e downtime rules?

 

[Imaro]

So how is that not in tension with the 'just use 3 deadly encounters' shifting of the 6-8 encounter guideline? What if the world only calls for one encounter, however much you stretch the point?

Then I'd use one encounter composed of 3 deadly waves each an hour apart

 

[Tony Vargas]

Then I'd use one encounter composed of 3 deadly waves each an hour apart

That's 3 encounters. I guess what you're telling me is that your world would never call for just one encounter? Could that have something to do with having built it for D&D, which has always been something of a multi-encounter-day attrition-based game?

 

[Imaro]

That's 3 encounters. I guess what you're telling me is that your world would never call for just one encounter? Could that have something to do with having built it for D&D, which has always been something of a multi-encounter-day attrition-based game?

Can you give me an example where the design of a world would only allow (outside of preference) for only one encounter in an adventuring day...

EDIT: And to answer your question... it could, I've honestly never thought of it that way but if I'm playing or running D&D I do tend to expect the game world to be a world (for the most part) based on D&D tropes. But I honestly am trying to fathom a world where you can gain the amount of XP necessary to go from levels 1-20 that wouldn't be dangerous... and honestly I'm having a hard time.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, they have encounters. And probably a whole bunch of them you didn't include between the last time you saw the NPC and this time.

Whether an encounter is random or not is pretty irrelevant. Rolling for random encounters in the game provides a measure of surprise for the DM as well as the players. It gives a % that something is going to happen, and sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

For example, I roll randomly for weather in my campaign. Just because I don't roll weather randomly for the NPCs doesn't mean it never rains for them.

Just because I don't roll random encounters for the NPCs doesn't mean they don't have encounters that fit the same probabilities. Although when I design a random encounter table for a given locale, those probabilities apply to any creature that happens to be in that region. And should our focus shift to an NPC, then I might very well roll on the random encounter table for them.

Can you provide an example from in game where you rolled for a random encounter for an NPC? I'm genuinely curious when that might come into play.

And as for the random encounter tables applying across the board....I don't know if it matters. The tables are going to be used for the PCs only in probably 99.99% of cases.

I get the consistency that you and others are talking about....that encounter tables are designed with the world that has been established in mind. I get that. This is why I am saying this is a case of the mechanics (encounter tables) coming from the fiction (the area of the world you want the encounters to represent).

I just did, and as far as the PCs and NPCS, they don't know it either. Only the players do.

Any such comparison is a poor one in this case because the real world isn't just a simulation with people determining its properties. That was my point. Compare all you want....I shouldn't have said you "can't".

No, they don't have to be so. For example, Drizzt, Wulfgar, Cattie-Brie, Regis, and Bruenor are a pretty unusual adventuring party. But it would be wrong to extrapolate that and suggest that the demographics of the world are 20% drow, 20% human barbarian, 20% human, 20% halfling, and 20% dwarven and that they all live in harmony. Any more than we can look at a wizard, a hobbit, and 12 dwarves as representative of their world. Sometimes they are special because they save the world (or inflict upon the world) and such. Even so, until that time, they are just another dwarf, drow, or hobbit, like so many others of their kind.

What happens to them matters more to them, and those of us who are following them. Sometimes they rise above that level, and do something that matters to more people. But most of the time, to Joe the Blacksmith 100 miles away, they don't even exist. Just because we've chosen to look in on the life of these four people or whatever doesn't make them anymore important than the amoeba that happens to be in the drop of water I put under a microscope.

For the first part above, I never said that adventuring parties were typical, or that they were representative of the norm. Not sure of your point here.

And for the second, I can't disagree more. They are the stars of the show. They are certainly more important than any other character in their books. Within their fictional world, perhaps they're average or whatever you want to call it....but they, and PCs in D&D, are special because they are the focus of the book or the game.

I mean....who's more important to your game: any PC or Joe the Blacksmith? We all know the answer.

I'm one of the ones that doesn't like the idea of resting "being impossible" in the wilderness. Explain to me why setting up a camp and sleeping for 8 hours in the wilderness is not restful. Then explain it to the migratory barbarians that are always on a journey in the wilderness.

If 8 hours of rest, sleep, food and water is what is needed to recover hit points, etc., then that's what it takes, wherever you are. It might be a "suitable" game solution, but doesn't work for me as an in-world solution. Moreover, I think that we should be able to come up with a game solution that works for both. Give me good in-world reasons why that 8 hours of rest doesn't work, then I'll consider it.

For me, though, the other question is why does it matter if they can rest in the wilderness. I get that it matters for some people, because they are expecting something different from their game (an attrition system as best I can tell). But to me, it makes perfect sense that if you're in the wilderness, and you don't need to use the special abilities you recover via resting, then you'll have those abilities available. If those abilities are most commonly consumed in combat, and they don't have a combat for two days, then they don't use those abilities.

I honestly don't have a problem with the rest mechanic. I pretty much agree with you...I don't mind the players taking long rests overnight, and short rests where possible along the way. I have tweaked it at times to fit a dynamic I was going for, which I've previously mentioned in the thread....but those were more extreme cases. For example, no long rests in Barovia outside of settlements. Pretty easy.

I proposed this to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] as a possible solution. But ultimately, each group should do what works best for them. My point was more about how the rest mechanic can work differently for Travel Time versus Adventure Time (for lack of a better term). The 5E Middle Earth book has a mechanic designed this way, for example.

That's a pretty big distortion of what Max said (and, note, I don't play the same way Max does, we've hashed that out before). A better comparison would be that you and your friends have the same frequency of encounters as everyone else in the US while you're in the US, and then the same frequency of encounters while in Syria as Syrians do. Nothing Max said implied that encounter types and likelihoods are the same everywhere.

But doesn't it also matter who we're talking about? Adventurers would certainly seem more prone to encounters than say farmers, right? Much like cops in Baltimore may be more prone to encounters than the average citizen.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Can you provide an example from in game where you rolled for a random encounter for an NPC? I'm genuinely curious when that might come into play.

The "NPCs' Random Encounters" are purely hypothetical, no actual NPC has to actually have a random encounter rolled by the DM, in play. For actual play, a random encounter table is a tool for generating random encounters (circular, yet tautological, buy I don't think controversial), but for purposes of world-building, a random encounter table is a set of demographic statistics, painting a picture of what the diversity of the local hungry-for-humanoid-flesh community is like.

So you can look at it and see that adventurers frequenting the Howling Wood are likely to get attacked by wolves. So when the party meets a retired adventurer from the area, he tells them how he lost his leg to a pack of hungry wolves. (And they're left wondering who applied Oil of Sharpness to the wolves' teeth.)

Can you give me an example where the design of a world would only allow (outside of preference) for only one encounter in an adventuring day...

Preference would be enough, but no, it's purely hypothetical. Not a question about the specific world, but about the interaction of world and guideline in general, and you might, as a DM, deal with it.

If the world is a done deal (and I don't see how it could be, if nothing else, the world can change), and that done deal done don't allow for multiple encounters in a certain place on a certain day, but the guidelines do call for multiple encounters, who blinks?

 

[Caliban]

The general conceit is that PC's go to areas where encounters occur, not that encounters occur wherever the PC's are. Or if encounters do occur because the PC's are there, then there is a reason for it (either someone sending monsters/thugs after the PC's, or the PC's attracting attention because of their previous actions or their current quest. Or they have been cursed by the gods and are now monster magnets.).

On a meta level, the encounters are absolutely occurring because the PC's are there. Because a popular and fun aspect of the game is rolling dice and killing stuff, and that doesn't happen unless they have an encounter.

I think for most campaigns the area you travel through has a big impact on the types of random encounters you have.

Going along a well traveled road? Encounters might be bandits that have been causing problems in the area, orcs or hobgoblins (or some other monster) driven out of their normal areas due to a looming threat that the PC's may or may not be aware of, etc.

Going through the wilderness on the way to a dungeon or ruin? Now you get owlbears, dire wolves, goblins, dragons etc. The PC's are entering their territory and are either seen as invaders or a normal source of food.

I really don't think you need to delve into the geopolitical history of the area to explain why a particular creature or creatures are attacking the PC's unless you want to make it a plot point.

 

[Tony Vargas]

if I'm playing or running D&D I do tend to expect the game world to be a world (for the most part) based on D&D tropes. But I honestly am trying to fathom a world where you can gain the amount of XP necessary to go from levels 1-20 that wouldn't be dangerous... and honestly I'm having a hard time.

Yeah 'levels,' alone make it weird. But, since D&D tropes are also rooted in D&D mechanics & tradition (they're certainly, many of them, not rooted in genre!), isn't that already impacting 'world building,' then?

(Wait... which side of the rest-guidelines-do/don't-impact-world-building digression are you on?

... for that matter, which one am I on?)