D&D 5E Allow the Long Rest Recharge to Honor Skilled Play or Disallow it to Ensure a Memorable Story

[prabe]

The DM.

For not adding a boatload of additional stuff to that final dramatic encounter in waves to exhaust player power before the BBEG finally gets into the fray, is a powerful force, and either wins or falls to the heroes.

What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander. They wanna bulk up with a long rest right before the fight, have the baddie do it, too.

I think that's reasonable if it's a matter of stupid, blind luck. If it's because the players are being clever ... I think I'd let 'em have the curbstomp--they've earned it.

 

[Manbearcat]

It is becoming clear that people are starting to smuggle in things that people might be reorienting the original hypothetical and then answering that.

That doesn't help us clarify the prioritization of Skilled Play vs Story Imperative here. That is bringing in a new element to the hypothetical (...maybe the players didn’t earn the Long Rest recharge?...maybe there are still questions there to be answered by GM extrapolation/rolling on a table?) and complicating the question. Don’t want to do that for this particular question. Just assume whatever variables are present in the game such that the players earned their Long Rest without punitive consequences to their nonmeta goals. Whatever that looks like, they did it. The issue at hand are the metaconsequences on climax/memorable story. This is not an issue for the players though because their job isn't to juggle that meta issue (their job is to advocate for their PCs, play skillfully, and not be jerks) and they can't even if they wanted to because they're not privy to those dynamics (those dynamics are GM-facing). The meta-concern is exclusively the GM's job to infer/intuit/resolve as they are positioned with the responsibility for “lead storyteller" and they're simultaneously the only table participant with exclusive access to offscreen/backstory/meta elements (eg "what is the encounter budget/BBEG resource dynamics that can be martialed for the upcoming climactic encounter" and the like).

So, again, don't change the hypothetical. The players earned their Long Rest recharge without downstream, nonmeta, punitive consequences. The question is whether the GM prioritizes honoring their efforts to get that Long Rest recharge or disables the recharge (through any number of blocks the GM can erect against the players) due to the metaconcern of the implications of the recharge upon "a memorable story/climactic encounter."

 

[ph0rk]

So, again, don't change the hypothetical. The players earned their Long Rest recharge

They earned the right to attempt one, and the world continues to turn while they do it.

 

[Manbearcat]

They earned the right to attempt one, and the world continues to turn while they do it.

This is still attempting to pull back from the actual recharge to a gamestate prior where its "up for grabs" if they've reaped the gamestate sufficient to get a Long Rest recharge. Don't do that.

Do this for me. Fast forward. Fast forward beyond the "attempt" gamestate. In whatever way they should have arrayed all the elements of the fiction such that the gamestate should now be LONG REST RECHARGE ACTIVATED, get there mentally. They've built their PCs skillfully so they have the relevant tools, played the fiction skillfully, made the appropriate action declarations, resolved those action declarations with sufficient rolls to overcome the obstacles that would stand in their way to prevent the Long Rest recharge.

Do you allow the Long Rest recharge if the metaconsequnces are damaging to "memorable/climactic story imperative" (meaning the subsequent fiction/play is negatively impacted because of the recharge)?

 

[prabe]

This is still attempting to pull back from the actual recharge to a gamestate prior where its "up for grabs" if they've reaped the gamestate sufficient to get a Long Rest recharge. Don't do that.

I don't think it is. If it's established the PCs are Long Resting in a dangerous place, it might be interrupted. If it's established reinforcements are available to the opposition for the final battle, maybe bring them. If neither of those is established or plausible, skip 'em.

Do this for me. Fast forward. Fast forward beyond the "attempt" gamestate. In whatever way they should have arrayed all the elements of the fiction such that the gamestate should now be LONG REST RECHARGE ACTIVATED, get there mentally. They've built their PCs skillfully so they have the relevant tools, played the fiction skillfully, made the appropriate action declarations, resolved those action declarations with sufficient rolls to overcome the obstacles that would stand in their way to prevent the Long Rest recharge.

Do you allow the Long Rest recharge if the metaconsequnces are damaging to "memorable/climactic story imperative" (meaning the subsequent fiction/play is negatively impacted because of the recharge)?

I think in the circumstance you've described, the metaconsequences of denying the long rest are worse than those of allowing it. The players have made the story about something other than the "final battle." So be it.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't think it is. If it's established the PCs are Long Resting in a dangerous place, it might be interrupted. If it's established reinforcements are available to the opposition for the final battle, maybe bring them. If neither of those is established or plausible, skip 'em.

I don't want this to turn into another 5e action resolution/Rulings-Not-Rules/GM extrapolation/decides thread. So I'm trying to move things beyond that so there is no GM extrapolation or whatever procedure that a 5e GM might be erecting to resolve the question of "is there still an obstacle to this Long Rest". Assume that is all done. If its a simple random encounter procedure and its 18-20 on the d20 and a random encounter results...assume either (a) its a 17 or below on the dice or (b) the players have made a move sufficient to ensure that its completely unreasonable for a random encounter to occur (they're in a pocket dimension...whatever).

I'm trying to distill how GMs prioritize Skilled Play Imperative vs Storytelling Imperative (they are responsible for the meta for this in 5e) in a situation where the two are sharply at tension.

I think in the circumstance you've described, the metaconsequences of denying the long rest are worse than those of allowing it. The players have made the story about something other than the "final battle." So be it.

This is where I want everyone to get to exactly. Procedure/extrapolation of the backstory/offscreen/fiction (whatever) to determine if any further obstacles need to be erected between players < > Long Rest recharge is done. Resolved. Over. Long Rest Recharge should be incoming.

The meta implications of their Skilled Play is bad for the "memorable/climactic story" imperative.

What does the GM do?

 

[Shiroiken]

Sigh. There are issues that people tend to forget about Long Rests: you can only do one every 24 hours, and the world doesn't stop because the players take a rest. Most adventuring days are going to be FAR less than the standard 8 hours, and that's not taking into consideration the 8 hours of downtime before the rest begins. If you adventure for a few hours then stop to rest in a hostile location, no matter what measures you take there will be consequences. Even if you retreat back to town/safety, the enemy should be adjusting their tactics and defenses against the party. There is a balancing point between when low resources are more dangerous than allowing the enemy time to regroup.

I experienced a horrible experience based on this in our current campaign. We were invading a beholder's lair in Avernus, having defeating a majority of the defenders in about 7 encounters, we used Leomand's Tiny Hut in what we thought was a secure part of the lair (outside would have been bad too, due to Avernus). We got a long rest and felt great... until after Leomund's Tiny Hut ended and the monsters came out of hiding. About half of the remaining defenders attacked us from two directions, while the beholder used a hidden peephole to hit us with the anti-magic beam. It was rough, with the casters having to get into melee to be able to cast anything, and even then only affecting half the battle (cut off by the beam). In the end we were worse off than we were when we took the rest, and the beholder still remained with minions. If we'd faced those minions in their normal locations without taking the long rest, rather than in the prepared ambush, we would have had more resources for the final battle. We manged to win, but Revivify had to be used (with only 2 rounds left!), along with every useful scroll and healing potion we had.

 

[el-remmen]

The way to deal with that sort of thing is up front in my view, not in the moment. If the rule is "You can long rest, but it can't be in a dungeon..." in the beginning of the game, then the players can take that into account when making their decisions. Perhaps they don't go as deep in a given delve knowing that they have to deal with wandering monsters on the way out and need to conserve. If the DM whips out this rule suddenly, then it can certainly look like the DM is making up excuses or trying to change the rules midstream to affect some kind of outcome the DM wants.

Saying "You can try to long rest in a dungeon, but there is a decent chance it may be interrupted" can also be established upfront.

 

[Manbearcat]

I disagree with your premise, that allowing a Long Rest would interfere with whatever story was emerging. My games are very much about the emergent story, and I don't believe I have ever interfered with a Long Rest because I thought it would make a better story. It's possible that the Gawds of Random have been on the players' side, and nothing has come up on them while they were attempting to Long Rest--but I have nonspecific recollections otherwise.

Then you’re not disagreeing with my premise.

You’re selecting “I’d give them the Long Rest” they earned.

This isn’t some kind of Kafka Trap. It’s just a question of “when you have to prioritize these two play imperatives, which do you prioritize.”

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, if we're going to assume that the rest is 'earned' (whatever that means in a given game) then the other option is that the GMs is being a dick. I don't think there needs to be a lot of discussion about that.

And, well, yeah, if you to Tiny Hut in enemy territory, sometimes you get the sticky end of the wicket. Risk analysis doesn't disappear just because you're out of dailies, or because you have the game in question's Big Red Pause Button memorized.