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

[iserith]

I'm a guy talking about D&D. DO GUD PLAY THAT MAKES GUD STUFF HAPPEN FOR US vs BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE GUD STORY MMKAY? There no Skilled Play. No Storyteller Imperative.

Thankfully, we don't actually have to sacrifice one for the other.

 

[BookTenTiger]

What a glorious, noncontroversial, straight-forward, haggle-free answer to the lead post.

Well done sir.

As a DM, I don't find it satisfying when the characters trounce the BBEG.

On the other hand, as a player I LOVE it. Especially if it's the result of careful planning, which often involves securing a Long Rest.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think we are very much mostly on the same page, here. The players changed the story by playing the game. From that point you need to run it straight, or I think you end up with a dishonest story.

The game is played forward, the story is apparent looking backward ...

You know I agree with you on this.

However, don't you think that there is a HUGE contingent of people out there that would disagree with your appraisal here of "dishonest story." I mean, I don't even know why I'm saying "don't you think." We KNOW...for a FACT that a huge number of people (a) prioritize BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE GUD STORY MMKAY? over DO GUD PLAY THAT MAKES GUD STUFF HAPPEN FOR US and (b) they wouldn't agree that their net result of play is a "dishonest story."

Further still, don't you think think that their actual play (initiate a block to a player move when a player couldn't have possibly inferred was out there, deus ex machina, changing rules, ignoring rules, ignoring the results of action resolution, when Skilled Play would lead to anticlimax) is supported in the actual rules text for 5e and in the Adventure Paths that 5e designers have put forth?

I'd probably go further and say that it may very well be the majority playstyle in all of D&D (to subordinate PLAY GUD to BUT STORY GUD when push comes to shove)?

 

[Manbearcat]

Thankfully, we don't actually have to sacrifice one for the other.

But it happens all the time. And it has happened in the history of D&D a jillion times. And its certainly happened in the history of 5e at least 447,347 times (and that is just the running tally from 5e).

I'm not looking for the "git gud" GMing response by iserith. I'm looking for folks who have experienced this...in the wild...who have had to prioritize GUD PLAY over GUD STORY or vice versa.

If iserith's 5e play has never experienced this because he's the bestest 5e GM ever...Awesome. Your vote just counts as a "if this thing were to actually ever happen to me BUT IT NEVER WOULD OK but if it did I would prioritize GUD PLAY" hypothetical. I appreciate your input.

 

[iserith]

But it happens all the time. And it has happened in the history of D&D a jillion times. And its certainly happened in the history of 5e at least 447,347 times (and that is just the running tally from 5e).

I'm not looking for the "git gud" GMing response by iserith. I'm looking for folks who have experienced this...in the wild...who have had to prioritize GUD PLAY over GUD STORY or vice versa.

If iserith's 5e play has never experienced this because he's the bestest 5e GM ever. Awesome. Your vote just counts as a "if this thing were to actually ever happen to me BUT IT NEVER WOULD OK but if it did I would prioritize GUD STUFF" hypothetical. I appreciate your input.

It seems to me this is just a problem of perception and understanding the goals of play set forth by the game. Did everyone have a good time? Was the story they created during play memorable? If the answer to both is "Yes," then everybody wins D&D.

So what if the villain got stomped because the PCs were well-rested and well-prepared? Are we pegging our fun for the whole game on how difficult the final challenge is? Is that the benchmark for whether the events that preceded and followed that challenge are memorable? If it is, then maybe some realigning of perceptions and careful consideration of the goals of play are in order.

 

[Manbearcat]

It seems to me this is just a problem of perception and understanding the goals of play set forth by the game. Did everyone have a good time? Was the story they created during play memorable? If the answer to both is "Yes," then everybody wins D&D.

So what if the villain got stomped because the PCs were well-rested and well-prepared? Are we pegging our fun for the whole game on how difficult the final challenge is? Is that the benchmark for whether the events that preceded and followed that challenge are memorable? If it is, then maybe some realigning of perceptions and careful consideration of the goals of play are in order.

Or.

"Fun" is a quality so ephemeral, a metric of evaluation so malleable, that its impossible to say exactly what its constituent parts are...and certainly what they "should be."

You don't get to tell me. I don't get to tell you. (and as far as I can reckon, you and I are similar as it gets in terms of gaming interests/priorities) We don't get to tell table a, b, c > z.

So all we're left with "is it fun for you to prioritize GUD PLAY over GUD STORY when/if push comes to shove" or "<vice versa>"

Which, ironically enough, brings us back to the point of this poll. To see how ENWorld GMs feel about this on the whole. It won't prove anything. It will just resolve my personal curiosity.


EDIT - As of right now, GUD PLAY is lapping the field while GUD STORY hasn't made it out of the first turn.

 

[iserith]

Or.

"Fun" is a quality of ephemeral, a metric of evaluation so malleable, that its impossible to say exactly what its constituent parts are...and certainly what they "should be."

You don't get to tell me. I don't get to tell you. (and as far as I can reckon, you and I are similar as it gets in terms of gaming interests/priorities) We don't get to tell table a, b, c > z.

So all we're left with "is it fun for you to prioritize GUD PLAY over GUD STORY when/if push comes to shove" or "<vice versa>"

Which, ironically enough, brings us back to the point of this poll. To see how ENWorld GMs feel about this on the whole. It won't prove anything. It will just resolve my personal curiosity.

You are right that nobody can tell other people how to have fun. But we're free to question why someone would bother to hinge their fun on things that can end up derailing their good time. The Basic Rules go into this in its own way by pointing out that one can fail at an adventure or even lose a character, but it's still possible - even in the face of these tragedies - to have a good time and create a memorable story. So, for example, if I'm the type of person who chooses to get bent out of shape because we failed to slay the dragon or because I lost my character in a pit of acid or, say, because me and the boys roflstomped Lord Badguy before the end of Round 2, then it's worth doing a little self-examination in my view. A little adoption of personal responsibility and inward thinking perhaps? Or shall we blame it on the game design?

 

[Manbearcat]

You are right that nobody can tell other people how to have fun. But we're free to question why someone would bother to hinge their fun on things that can end up derailing their good time. The Basic Rules go into this in its own way by pointing out that one can fail at an adventure or even lose a character, but it's still possible - even in the face of these tragedies - to have a good time and create a memorable story. So, for example, if I'm the type of person who chooses to get bent out of shape because we failed to slay the dragon or because I lost my character in a pit of acid or, say, because me and the boys roflstomped Lord Badguy before the end of Round 2, then it's worth doing a little self-examination in my view. A little adoption of personal responsibility and inward thinking perhaps? Or shall we blame it on the game design?

You're contrasting "getting bent out of shape" with "not having fun" and then equating them. I'm not going to go into logical fallacy land...but this doesn't help us.

You can "not have fun" while not "getting bent out of shape." Its totally doable.

Most of my friends hate gaming. But we do other things together.

A few of my closest friends are TTRPGers who HATE some of the games I run. They don't play in them.

Its fine. Its no character flaw of those folks which requires "self-examination."

If there are folks who "get bent out of shape" (whatever that looks like...flipping tables...being passive aggressive jerks that make being around them insufferable?) while playing 5e because GUD STORY got prioritized over GUD PLAY (or vice versa)...I don't know them. Never experienced their bentedness or their out-of-shapedness. I'm sure they exist, but you'll have to get a testimonial about these hypothetical folks from someone else.

I don't know them and I'm not talking about them.

 

[iserith]

You're contrasting "getting bent out of shape" with "not having fun" and then equating them. I'm not going to go into logical fallacy land...but this doesn't help us.

You can "not have fun" while not "getting bent out of shape." Its totally doable.

Most of my friends hate gaming. But we do other things together.

A few of my closest friends are TTRPGers who HATE some of the games I run. They don't play in them.

Its fine. Its no character flaw of those folks which requires "self-examination."

If there are folks who "get bent out of shape" (whatever that looks like...flipping tables...being passive aggressive jerks that make being around them insufferable?) while playing 5e because GUD STORY got prioritized over GUD PLAY (or vice versa)...I don't know them. Never experienced their bentedness or their out-of-shapedness. I'm sure they exist, but you'll have to get a testimonial about these hypothetical folks from someone else.

I don't know them and I'm not talking about them.

You can choose to read "get bent out of shape" as "not having fun" in this context as that is how it was intended. Why would someone base their fun or their notion of what constitutes a memorable story on whether a given challenge over the course of an adventure or campaign is not as difficult as it could be?

It's also worth examining in my view why the question you pose seems to suggest that throwing the villain a total beatdown after a long rest is not a good story or not fun. If anything, I think the poll and a lot of the responses so far point to this being perceived as a fine story, even if unintended.

 

[Manbearcat]

You can choose to read "get bent out of shape" as "not having fun" in this context as that is how it was intended. Why would someone base their fun or their notion of what constitutes a memorable story on whether a given challenge over the course of an adventure or campaign is not as difficult as it could be?

It's also worth examining in my view why the question you pose seems to suggest that throwing the villain a total beatdown after a long rest is not a good story or not fun. If anything, I think the poll and a lot of the responses so far point to this being perceived as a fine story, even if unintended.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT REVISED

Are there D&D 5e GMs on the planet earth, posting on ENWorld, who have experienced the following?

A dissatisfying anti-climax (be it the rest of a dungeon crawl or a BBEG encounter or whatever) > which made the story "not particularly memorable" (at least not in a good way) > because the players played (and that includes building their PCs - both individually and synergistically) with sufficient skill that a timely Long Rest recharged all their goodies and a walkover/curbstomp ensued.

Or any configuration of any of this kind of stuff (blocking the Long Rest).

For you 7 out there (ok...5...ok, ok, ok 3), please do two things for me:

1) Feel bad about yourselves because you're a bad person for not having fun.

2) Please vote in my poll.

Thank you.