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

[Vaalingrade]

Which of course leads me to ask how do you know/decide what the most fun will be without their input?

Knowing and playing with these people for years?

EDIT: Your fun is also at stake.

Following years of therapy, I count myself as a friend as well.

EDIT 2: In other words if your friends have taken steps to get to that Long rest... and they actually take it... it would stand to reason they want the effect (easier encounter)... otherwise why do it? To diminish their own fun?

I... no? Was this directed at me? That's the thing I said in the first place, which prompted you to demand whose fun I was thinking of and then accuse me of not thinking my players knew what was good for them for some reason.

I literally said I'd let them take the rest, so I have no idea what you're accusing me of here. Having a sweet 'fro? Because in that case, guilty as charged.

 

[Campbell]

There are always going to be moments of tension where we have to choose one priority over another. It's impossible in any given moment of play to prioritize two divergent things equally.

 

[pemerton]

Schrodinger's Party is right outside the BBEG's door. They're low on resources and badly in need of a rest. They have two primary options:

1.) Rush in. They may have enough gas in the can to win the fight, or they might lose. It is drama. It is the recipe for a good story.

2.) They could retreat and rest. If they decide to do this, they have to worry about what it means. Will the BBEG prepare for them? Or flee? Will it get reinforcements? Will it hunt them while they rest? Will it negotiate with them once it learns that all of the minions that protected it are gone? It is drama. It is the recipe for a good story.

The original argument is inherently flawed because we should not choose between allowing players to play smart or creating a good story. We should create great options for the PCs to explore in a great story, whether they play skillfully, go for the fun over the efficiency (Charge is not always a good answer unless you're playing a Mountain Dwarf barbarian .... having a -1 Deception and lying a lot may not be very efficient, but it can be a lot of fun), or try to play smart but deserve a 'Bless Your Heart' for their tactics.

The PCs navigate your world. You tell a good story around their storytelling choices. There is no conflict between the choices the party makes in terms (in terms of resting or other decisions) and the quality of storytelling. When the moment of rest comes, the quality of story options are not impacted by whether the PCs can or can't rest in that situation.

I don't understand what you are saying.

Are you asserting that an anti-climactic/pushover final encounter nevertheless constitutes a satisfactory story? Always? Sometimes? Most of the time?

Consider a game in which skilled play is the only means of achieving dramatic successes, climaxes, etc. That’s your basic Heist scenario. And it’s absolutely lousy with drama and story and rising and falling action. While if any one part fails, the entire enterprise is at risk.

I don't see how what you are talking about here relates to the skilled play of taking a rest, which is this thread's special case of the more general idea of skilled play as minimising risks and maximising efficiency. The paradigm of that sort of play is Advanced Squad Leader, not any sort of heist drama.

 

[pemerton]

one of the skills a GM will learn over time as they gain experience is being able to mix story with skilled play as a necessity so they compliment each other.

What does this mean? Can you give an example of "mixing story with skilled play"? I mean, @hawkeyefan seems to have given the only concrete example in this thread (I think) and that pretty clearly shows a prioritisation of story over the rewards of skilled play,

 

[Campbell]

I don't understand what you are saying.

Are you asserting that an anti-climactic/pushover final encounter nevertheless constitutes a satisfactory story? Always?

I am mostly of the belief that you can't ruin the story. It's possible to sever our creative connections, but there is almost always an interesting way to move forward regardless of what happens. That's not really congruent with the idea of the GM as a Storyteller or provider of a curated experience though.

 

[pemerton]

I am mostly of the belief that you can't ruin the story. It's possible to sever our creative connections, but there is almost always an interesting way to move forward regardless of what happens. That's not really congruent with the idea of the GM as a Storyteller or provider of a curated experience though.

In the context of this thread, my thought is that it is possible to have RPGing in which skilled play predominates over concerns of pacing, rising action/climax/resolution, etc; and the reverse is also possible.

My Rolemaster play very often took the first shape. In practical terms, one consequence is extended periods of time spent engaging in calculations and planning (eg some of that being in fiction, like how to optimise spell load outs; some of that being a bit more meta, like how to optimise an attack/defence split in a forthcoming combat).

My 4e D&D play very often took the second shape, if the unit of analysis is zoomed out beyond the encounter. That is to say, the pacing of long rests was primarily not a manifestation of skilled play but was rather the outcome of a mixture of tussle and consensus between players and GM about pacing, risk and how cowardly/foolhardy the players wanted to be with their PCs.

I think these are the "natural" shapes for these systems - ie the fairly anticipable emergent outcomes of their mechanical elements and dynamics. I understand part of the point of @Manbearcat's OP is to try and probe this a bit for the case of 5e D&D.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Skilled Play, in this context, would be about 1) finding out how many minions and other resources Strahd had, where they were, what they were; and 2) arranging things so those assets were unavailable to Strahd when it came time to kill him.

To the extent that you decided there were "always more minions," you were eliminating the possibility for this kind of Skilled Play. To the extent the players didn't engage in this kind of Skilled Play, you were playing fair by varying the number of minions/assets.

I think it was a bit of both, in a way. Just going off what the book says, his resources are pretty significant, but are not itemized. My players certainly tried to do a little of that...they eliminated some of Strahd's allies and minions.....but the scope of such a task is probably too large for them to have achieved in full.

So when it came time for Strahd to deploy his defenses, I still had an unspecified number of resources at my disposal. I went with an amount that I thought was reasonable, but more importantly, would make for a challenging encounter.

Given that if the players engage in this kind of Skilled Play, they are changing what the story is about, there is no conflict between this kind of Skilled Play and the importance/value of Story.

You've mentioned several times that the players change what the story is about.....and I get what you're going for, but I don't really think that's an accurate way to phrase it. The players are going to determine how the story goes, absolutely. And I suppose they could change what the story is about if they just decide to walk off and become farmers. But the thrust of the game at that time was the struggle against Strahd. If there's a story, that's what it is. The players can determine if the characters succeed or not, but that's not really the same as changing what the story's about.

I'd argue that it does. I'd argue that setting out to play a published adventure (or Adventure Path) means wanting to see it through to its end. IME, that changes both how players play and how GMs GM.

I suppose it may. But I would also imagine that the same can be said of just about any scenario that is presented to players.

What I think you were trying to balance was how much any sort of Skilled Play could change the experience of seeing the published adventure to its end, including what that end was and how it played, as well as adapting the published adventure to your players' tastes.

I don't like published adventures, and I don't run them, so I don't have anything other than speculation as far as anything about running them goes.

Yeah, I get that you don't like published adventures. I don't think your take is entirely accurate, but it's not without some merit. In this case, I largely incorporated the Curse of Strahd adventuer into my ongoing campaign, and made a lot of changes and so on. I didn't feel the need to explain all that, because the core conflict of the showdown with Strahd was intact, and that was what I was talking about.

I can easily see a similar scenario of an evil lord who has subjugated his people and the PCs are working against him coming up in a game that's entirely homebrewed, so I think perhaps your dislike of published adventures is skewing your view a bit here? Perhaps not, but it doesn't seem to be all that relevant a point to me.

That’s all to say simply that the need to balance various priorities does not imply conflict between those priorities, inherently.

So what does "balance" mean in this bit, then?

Is it trying to achieve some perfect mix of all play priorities so that they are all equal at all times? Or does it mean that you adjust as the situation calls for, and focus on whatever may be most relevant one moment, and then shift to what is most relevant in the next?

Doesn't the very nature of priorities imply some kind of conflict?

 

[Manbearcat]

There are always going to be moments of tension where we have to choose one priority over another. It's impossible in any given moment of play to prioritize two divergent things equally.

And it doesn't have to just be GM side.

Consider the implications of bringing in a Trait or a Relationship which has a d4 rider along with its d6 or d8 into a conflict in Dogs. Consider bringing in a gun and simply placing it on the table in a social conflict (which always has a d4 rider along with its typical d8). What you're saying as a player in that moment is "I know I'm very likely to eat some fallout and its going to erode/change my character long term....but I_want_this_conflict. Its that important to me thematically."

So your long term strategic move is very likely not the optimal one. But in that moment you're expressing who your character is (as a Dog, as a preacher's kid, as someone who will always stand for this tenant of The Faith, as someone trying to overcome your failed past with sorcery, etc).

 

[Manbearcat]

In the context of this thread, my thought is that it is possible to have RPGing in which skilled play predominates over concerns of pacing, rising action/climax/resolution, etc; and the reverse is also possible.

My Rolemaster play very often took the first shape. In practical terms, one consequence is extended periods of time spent engaging in calculations and planning (eg some of that being in fiction, like how to optimise spell load outs; some of that being a bit more meta, like how to optimise an attack/defence split in a forthcoming combat).

My 4e D&D play very often took the second shape, if the unit of analysis is zoomed out beyond the encounter. That is to say, the pacing of long rests was primarily not a manifestation of skilled play but was rather the outcome of a mixture of tussle and consensus between players and GM about pacing, risk and how cowardly/foolhardy the players wanted to be with their PCs.

I think these are the "natural" shapes for these systems - ie the fairly anticipable emergent outcomes of their mechanical elements and dynamics. I understand part of the point of @Manbearcat's OP is to try and probe this a bit for the case of 5e D&D.

I think its also very important to note how sensitive a game like 5e D&D (and 3.x and AD&D) is to a Long Rest recharge of limited-use abilities. Its also important to point out what you did in 4e (that edition's play (a) wasn't even remotely as sensitive to a Long Rest Recharge and (b) there wasn't an interplay of arms race featuring Team PC in this corner and GM (as Setting extrapolater, as fun-ensurer, as lead storyteller) in the other corner.

I can't think of any game on the market (perhaps there is one) where (a) the game is so sensitive to such a Recharge of limited-use abilities and (b) there isn't an encoded structure of play which dictates the recharge. Blades, for example, is very sensitive to the PCs' Stress Pool. However, (i) its not quite as sensitive as 5e is to Long Rest Recharge and (ii) there is a table-facing, encoded structure which dictates Stress recovery and a tightly balanced minigame around that recovery model (only during Downtime, Downtime Actions are limited, you can "overindulge" when you Indulge your Vice to recover stress - causing 1 of 4 bad outcomes which are player choice, indulging isn't binary - you aren't assured to recover x amount of Stress - and its build-relevant, the system interfaces with the Coin economy if you need to spend Coin for extra Downtime Activities because of any aspect of this Stress minigame....there are layers and layers to this...all encoded...all table facing...and the game, again, isn't quite as sensitive to Stress as 5e is to the Long Rest recharge).

Now consider the implications upon play if you did the following with Stress in Blades:

• It was binary (if you get the refresh, you automatically get all your stress).
• Triggering the recovery is no longer encoded, table-facing, and structured (instead its GM-facing + unstructured freeform if you trigger it or not).

The implications on the play loop broadly and individual decision-points of play would be massive.


EDIT - Quick edit. I wonder if a lot of 5e GMs don't feel that the game is particularly sensitive to Long Rests because they haven't spent much time at levels beyond (say) 7ish. For me personally, the overwhelming bulk of my 5e GMing has been endgame. Probably 75 % of the sessions I've GMed are north of level 11. The scaling factor here (on both the x axis in breadth/array of resources and y axis in terms of potency of resources) has a a not insignificant hand to play.

 

[clearstream]

What does this mean? Can you give an example of "mixing story with skilled play"? I mean, @hawkeyefan seems to have given the only concrete example in this thread (I think) and that pretty clearly shows a prioritisation of story over the rewards of skilled play,

For me it means that if the rest would constitute SP, then the story will be delivered from that. We were expecting to find ourselves in a world in which characters with depleted resources faced a difficult fight with the BBEG. Instead we find ourselves in a world where both will have some time to regroup.

Note that we are still working around failings on the mechanics side with 5e. When the mechanics don't offer ideal constraints and affordances, greater expertise (and/or effort) is demanded of a DM. We shouldn't sweep under the rug problems with mechanics as written. An example is the ambiguity some interpret as implying it takes a full hour of combat to disrupt a rest. If rests cannot be interrupted by combat (effectively) it is more taxing (for the mechanic working that way) to drive a story line where the BBEG disrupts the rest.