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

[clearstream]

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.

I agree with many of your points in this take, and that makes me reflect on what the rules afford. I cannot successfully deliver "gameful narrative" when the rules fail me.

 

[clearstream]

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.

For me this opens an interesting line of thought. Might one say that differing sets of mechanics separate to varying extents authorial concerns from gameful concerns? One hesitation I have here is that SP has been described as advocating less reliance on game mechanics, and more on meeting the author. If that were so, then how could there be a conflict between SP and authorial concerns?!

The OP pits a mechanical concern (benefit mechanically from a rest) against an authorial concern (heightened tension). Some posters describe that SP is supposed to eschew reliance on mechanics (e.g. no relying on Charisma (Persuasion) to elide persuading the Queen). Under that view, it cannot be a conflict between SP and the authorial concern because SP wouldn't rely on the rest mechanic anyway. It's possible (I am not certain at this point) that the dilemma presented is not properly one of SP versus authorial concerns at all.

However, in my view SP allows (or ought to allow) engagement with the mechanics (thus preserving the validity of the OP's dilemma). In that case, there is a reliance of the intent and success of the game design. I think that is implied by what you describe. What do you think?

 

[pemerton]

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.

I think Burning Wheel puts pressure on the GM to manage the passage of time carefully - because various sorts of recovery (from wounds; from Tax that flows from spellcasting) take place on "in game" schedules. A difference from AD&D and 5e, though, is that players have motivations for declaring actions while weakened - because the smaller dice pools make improvements easier to get.

Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP leaves it up to the GM to decide the ratio of Action to Transition scenes. But the system has a lot of self-balancing mechanisms because of the complex way its dice pools are put together and resolved.

One thing I like about Prince Valiant is that it just says the GM gets to decide how long recovery takes. It's a bit like 4e D&D but with much less book-keeping! And like in Cortex+/MHRP there is no scope for skilled play. It's all GM-side decision-making about drama and pacing.

 

[pemerton]

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.

But "regrouping" on the GM side, in this context, is just a way for the GM to "negate" the long rest. Because I don't think there are any constraints, in 4e, on the way in which the GM can change/evolve the fiction during PC "downtime".

 

[loverdrive]

For myself - facepalm, bow to the players, and suggest a board game, 'cause I just got beat in one move.

Although I gotta admit - I've never, in 35-ish years of playing a host of systems with a wide array of players,. seen anything vaguely like that happen. They might be able to skip an encounter, or even a dungeon, but never a whole campaign, with a simple plan that can't possibly go wrong.

The fact that it's unlikely doesn't particularly matter — think of it as "meta-roleplaying". This situation is no less unlikely than meeting a dragon in real life, after all.

Why would you do this? They spent the time, effort and energy to come up with a "perfect" plan, why not let it happen?

Because "ok, you do it, the villain is dead, crisis averted, let's go home" is, to put it mildly, undesirable.

I could also pull another ace out of my sleeve and come up with some kind of twist that keeps the game from ending... But that's also basically invalidating "the perfect plan", so I'd go with the most honest solution and discuss with the group, why their perfect plan isn't going to save the day.

 

[clearstream]

But "regrouping" on the GM side, in this context, is just a way for the GM to "negate" the long rest. Because I don't think there are any constraints, in 4e, on the way in which the GM can change/evolve the fiction during PC "downtime".

That feels like a slippery argument. It might amount to saying that when a player's tactic doesn't prevail, that is because their GM negated it.

I think a DM ought to know their BBEG's motives and resources. Just as a trap might trigger if not first found, a BBEG should act according to their nature. Better still, characters should have found ways to learn about the motives and resources of the BBEG. It would surely be an SP move for them to second-guess their foe! Can we rest now? Will we gain more than our foe does? They ought be anticipating their foe - as part of SP - just as much as anticipating that this curious overlap of walls might contain a secret door, or that the vault floor may well be lethally trapped.

 

[Imaro]

Because "ok, you do it, the villain is dead, crisis averted, let's go home" is, to put it mildly, undesirable.

Undesirable to you or to the players who put in effort to steer the adventure in this direction?

I could also pull another ace out of my sleeve and come up with some kind of twist that keeps the game from ending... But that's also basically invalidating "the perfect plan", so I'd go with the most honest solution and discuss with the group, why their perfect plan isn't going to save the day.

So your games end after a single adventure? Why not see how their plan plays out, instead of dismissing their efforts and desires outright? This seems to place a DM pre-conceived plot over the autonomy of the characters. Given previous posts I've seen of yours it surprises me that you would go this route... and let's be honest here, this isn't a discussion this is you as DM dictating the way this encounter is going to go.

 

[Cadence]

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.

I wouldn't block the long rest as DM. But...

I wonder if I would have thought ahead enough to have already planned the BBEG encounter so that the long rest would give the BBEG time to get re-enforcements unless the players had done some things to disguise their progress or the like. Or if there are certain things I would have laid out in advance that would trigger things to interrupt the rest (did they just let those guards sound the alarm)? I'm certain in some games I've fudged the BBEG on the fly when they got there to make it work better for the story. I'd hope the DM running for my PCs would go the skilled play route. And so I'm sometimes disappointed in my own ability to stick to that when DMing.

 

[loverdrive]

Undesirable to you or to the players who put in effort to steer the adventure in this direction?

I don't think there's anyone who would be happy with scheduling a game night only for it to end in 30 minutes.

So your games end after a single adventure? Why not see how their plan plays out, instead of dismissing their efforts and desires outright? This seems to place a DM pre-conceived plot over the autonomy of the characters. Given previous posts I've seen of yours it surprises me that you would go this route... and let's be honest here, this isn't a discussion this is you as DM dictating the way this encounter is going to go.

I don't think that "tell me, why your plan isn't going to work" is me dictating anything other than the obvious fact (we can't end the damn adventure right after it has started).

Maybe they'll decide that the wizard in whose house they want to sneak in and go nova for ~300 damage before he can react is actually like Koschei the Deathless can't be killed until they find his soul. Or maybe he's blessed by the Stars and doesn't need sleep, at all. Or maybe he's nothing more than a body double.
Or maybe they'll decide that he's innocent and there's an actual bad guy somewhere in the shadows, counting on them doing exactly that.

Or something else.

I don't see any preconceived plot here.

 

[Imaro]

I don't think there's anyone who would be happy with scheduling a game night only for it to end in 30 minutes.

I think at this point the GM would have to improvise or explain to the players that they didn't expect their plan and they may need sometime to come up with something if/when it is implemented. I don't think if I was a player I would want to spend the time, effort and energy coming up with a really good plan in order for the DM to say... NO, you can't succeed, because... reasons.

I don't think that "tell me, why your plan isn't going to work" is me dictating anything other than the obvious fact (we can't end the damn adventure right after it has started).

It's you clearly dictating that a plan, no matter how well thought out or how much the PC's want to enact it... is going to fail if you decide the game would be better (for whatever value we are using) if it didn't succeed.

Maybe they'll decide that the wizard in whose house they want to sneak in and go nova for ~300 damage before he can react is actually like Koschei the Deathless can't be killed until they find his soul. Or maybe he's blessed by the Stars and doesn't need sleep, at all. Or maybe he's nothing more than a body double.
Or maybe they'll decide that he's innocent and there's an actual bad guy somewhere in the shadows, counting on them doing exactly that.

Or something else.

I don't see any preconceived plot here.

Ok well let me ask this question... can they circumvent 10% of the adventure through good planning and strategy? 30%? 50%? In other words how much of your adventure must they approach in the way you have deemed better and how much can they circumvent? Also why do you get to decide this?