D&D 5E 'daily' Powers/leveling breaking immersion?

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'm having a weird issue playing D&D lately. Our group gets presented with various in-game problems and I, sometimes, say to myself, "I would like to go do 'x' but I don't think we are high enough level, maybe we should do 'Y' instead, first" I think this, even though it makes no sense, in game.

This was never a problem for me in 3.5, even as a spellcaster but - I took a break from D&D for almost a decade and came back to it from games that don't have 'daily' powers. You pick your abilities and you can just do them.

Every time I think, 'oh maybe I should take a short rest to regain my ability' it takes me out of character in an annoying way. "I only have 1 rage left, maybe we shouldn't go and kill those minions in room (a) and, instead fight the boss in room (b) because we don't have time for a Long Rest. The decisions are often metagame decisions and not character decisions. The DM sometimes hints at things being a 'side quest' etc... or 'I wasn't expecting you guys to get here so soon' probably is doing a bit also. I dunno.

Is this an issue with other people? Is there a reason why I'm feeling it now and didn't really have an issue with it in 3.5?

 

[iserith]

What does "immersion" mean to you? How do you define it? What does it mean to "break" it?

It's one of those words like "metagaming" and "railroading" that have a lot of drift when it comes to what people mean.

 

[payn]

Are you with the same group you had during 3.5? This could be a play style issue and less of a mechanics one.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

What does "immersion" mean to you? How do you define it? What does it mean to "break" it?

It's one of those words like "metagaming" and "railroading" that have a lot of drift when it comes to what people mean.

I mean Out of Character issues get in the way of logical 'in character' decisions.

My character thinks, 'we should take the battle to them while they are at a disadvantage'
Player thinks, 'Oh, but we're only 1st level, that would be suicide'

Edit: just to add: the narrative/story doesn't jive with the mechanics.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Are you with the same group you had during 3.5? This could be a play style issue and less of a mechanics one.

It is a different group and it really could be. That's what I came here to find. To see if others find the 'rest' system a little disjointed sometimes. I'm not sure if it's the adventure: Mines of Phandelver, or if it's the group or if it's the system.

I get it that 3.5 had the 15 minute adventuring day. I'm not sure why it didn't bother me back then but now it's jumping out at me.

 

[iserith]

I mean Out of Character issues get in the way of logical 'in character' decisions.

My character thinks, 'we should take the battle to them while they are at a disadvantage'
Player thinks, 'Oh, but we're only 1st level, that would be suicide'

It seems to me that could be changed to "My character thinks 'Despite their disadvantage, I don't think we have what it takes to succeed here.'"

 

[prabe]

It is a different group and it really could be. That's what I came here to find. To see if others find the 'rest' system a little disjointed sometimes. I'm not sure if it's the adventure: Mines of Phandelver, or if it's the group or if it's the system.

I get it that 3.5 had the 15 minute adventuring day. I'm not sure why it didn't bother me back then but now it's jumping out at me.

If people are going nova, then insisting on resting, I think things are more likely to be a little disjointed narratively. My experience kinda went in the direction of things losing narrative impetus rather than anything immersion-breaking, but a large part of that might have been that the DM didn't care one whit about immersion--it was never really a thing in that campaign.

 

[payn]

It is a different group and it really could be. That's what I came here to find. To see if others find the 'rest' system a little disjointed sometimes. I'm not sure if it's the adventure: Mines of Phandelver, or if it's the group or if it's the system.

I get it that 3.5 had the 15 minute adventuring day. I'm not sure why it didn't bother me back then but now it's jumping out at me.

There is only one game where the mechanics really got in the way of my immersion, so I dont play it. Though, I have experienced some meta disruption in just about every system from other players. However, 5E mechanics doesnt really promote what I feel is an immersion breaking experience. That of course is going to be up to the individual tastes.

In 3.5, my players had a bad habit of basing all their decisions on XP and levels. "Thats too high for us, lets stay in the swamp for another level" "Ah, I see this area was designed to feed us XP!" Things like that really got on my nerves. I moved to milestone leveling and it helped resolve the issue. So sometimes the issue is easy to fix. I'd plan a discussion with your gaming group and see how they feel.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Is this an issue with other people?

YES!!! Thank you for putting it this way! Yes, I have a HUGE problem with it and limited resources. It is probably the reason why Rogues are my favorite class since they have (even as subclasses) very few resourced features.

As for a solution? No clue. Sadly.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It seems to me that could be changed to "My character thinks 'Despite their disadvantage, I don't think we have what it takes to succeed here.'"

Based on what in-game information? I mean, we just obliterated 6 people from their gang. We can take them, right?

In the game I'm talking about, after we 'defeated' some gang members, we assaulted a fort but were forced to retreat. So, my character's 'insight' on his own ability was wrong. (which is fair. People sometimes aren't the best judge of how difficult things are) My Out of Character insight on the fact that we were too low level to assault the fort in the first place was correct. The fact that I had to have that conversation in my head before deciding to do what I felt my character would do over what I knew in the 'meta' is what has been bothering me.