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

[Imaro]

Do I even have a voice in such decision, if we have 3 to 5 to 7 sessions left to play? No, I don't. The fact that this plan isn't going to work, or even if does, there's going to be something else to deal with (for no other reason than the old villain being disposed of too quickly) is just obvious.

What I suggest it to let the players decide what will happen after they execute their perfect plan. They tell me that Dark Powers teleport them somewhere else to solve something else? Awesome! They tell me that Strahd is actually immortal and can't be killed? Awesome, too!

So the plan could succeed if they come up with something to do after??

 

[clearstream]

Skilled Play is when the scenario is pre-designed and play is leveraging the rules of the game to navigate the scenario to best effect. Usually additional fiction is generated via random means with clear triggers -- eg, if we spend too much time or make too much noise it will trigger a wandering monster check. In other words, the players leverage the game against the situation.

I don't recall seeing emphasis on "pre-designed" in other discussions of SP. Do you have anything to buttress that claim? Supposing so, will pre-planned serve as well?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't recall seeing emphasis on "pre-designed" in other discussions of SP. Do you have anything to buttress that claim? Supposing so, will pre-planned serve as well?

Yes, the history of D&D, which, in many cases, feature prepared scenario design that players are expected to navigate through careful play and smart use of resources.

You can have skilled play without prepared scenarios, but this requires a tight resolution system and strong constraints on the GM as to how they can introduce fiction. This isn't the case in any edition of D&D (closest in 4e), which puts the GM is the role of primary content producer and rules arbitrator. So, skilled play requires a prepared-prior-to-play scenario so that during play the GM is mostly in the arbiter role. If the GM is creating content, then it's in reaction to player moves, and so loses the primary point of Skilled Play.

 

[tetrasodium]

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,

The stormwind fallacy that (basically) says optimized characters are not at odds with roleplaying while unoptimized ones are not by the simple fact of being unoptimized better at roleplaying. tart out by applying that same logic to skilled play vrs "memorable story" play. 5e does a lot of things to minimize the impact of or need di ever really demonstrate skilled play.

With that said there are a lot of skills a GM will develop over time as they gain skill as a GM and gain familiarity with the system. Here are a few example.

1. Encounters can be adjusted to apply the desired amount of pressure to players. This can range from opponent choices, strategies employed by opponents, the battlefields in place during an encounter, s on & so forth. A GM will get better at these things over time.
   • This allows a GM to manipulate timing & pacing in ways that leave skilled players feeling like they had agency over it or that by doing x&y rather than some less skilled choices hey the PCs altered how the story played out.
   • One common aspect of skilled play is planning ahead for these kinds of situations. Frankly one of the easiest ways to accomplishplanning ahead is to interact with NPCs & the world in order too go in feeling equipped with some level of foreknowledge of what you are getting into. 5e may do everything it can to ensure players never need to bother doing that & to ensure that actually doing it generally results in little more than "kill those exactly like you kill almost everything else"; but that doesn't remove it.
   • This manipulation in 1 can be used to apply more or less pressure to resources Resources extend past x/rest & spell slots to include things like wands scrolls potions & so on. While these can sometimes be purchased, a skilled GM will develop skills that allows them to manipulate encounters to apply pressure to these resources & seven provide slack through interacting with NPCs or the world itself. 5e may do all it can to shatter this link in the chain with self recharging items, a set of math assumptions that break once you add them, & rest options that completely obliviate the need... but it's still a thing.
2. No matter what side of the fence you fall on it would be pretty tough to not admit that players interacting more with NPCs & the world provides a GM of almost any skill more opportunities to add detail & flourish to the world. Part of having a memorable story tends to involve knowing what the heck is going on. Unfortunately the dials & levers needed to push skilled players into doing this have been outright removed or eroded to meaningless nubs that often cause severe problems if used. You can think of it like this:
   • When the players make ten different 2-5 minute interactions with NPCs & the world it allows the gm 20-50 minutes to expand on the world & story in ways the players are invested in discovering & likely to remember. Even better is that each of those 2-5min interactions provides the GM with more chances to correct misconceptions & bad assumptions that the players have
   • When the GM spends a 20-50 minute chunk of time adding to the world/plot/story to captive Payers caught helplessly in the cut scene they tune out & forget. Worse it's easy for players to find them with a large amount of highly detailed bad assumptions

As a GM gains experience they will get better at doing those things & even become comfortable doing things like going off script running things completely on the fly to further 1 &2 as the players interact with NPCs & the world.

 

[Bawylie]

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?

No. Priorities don’t imply conflict. In fact they imply the absence of conflict because where priorities exist, it is established that they have the right of way, if you will.

No matter how late I may be for work, speeding down the road, the ambulance with the sirens on has the priority. I yield, understanding they have the right of way. Even though I want to get to work timely, I recognize the need of the ambulance to go somewhere unhindered is always presumptively greater.

Conflict may occur if I IGNORED the priority. Say if I refused to get out of the way of the siren-blaring-ambulance. But that’s only after I contravene the established order.

 

[Bawylie]

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.

It doesn’t and didn’t try to. What I was talking about was a counter-example to your unsubstantiated assertion that the two desires must necessarily conflict.

Are you suggesting they must necessarily conflict only in the circumstance outlined in the OP? Are there any other cases or perspectives that are valid tests to the hypothesis?

I thought we were discussing perspectives surrounding a “common issue that’s occurred for decades.” Since this is just positioning and trading claims, I respectfully absent myself.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The entire premise of the thread is based around opinion... do I really need to state it every time I say something...

By that token, does @loverdrive ? Or anyone else?

There is specific and clear support in 5E text for curating story. It’s a viable and common approach to play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No. Priorities don’t imply conflict. In fact they imply the absence of conflict because where priorities exist, it is established that they have the right of way, if you will.

No matter how late I may be for work, speeding down the road, the ambulance with the sirens on has the priority. I yield, understanding they have the right of way. Even though I want to get to work timely, I recognize the need of the ambulance to go somewhere unhindered is always presumptively greater.

Conflict may occur if I IGNORED the priority. Say if I refused to get out of the way of the siren-blaring-ambulance. But that’s only after I contravene the established order.

You’re describing a situation where two things are absolutely in conflict. One takes precedence, obviously, and the other’s importance is suborned.

Just like in my Strahd example where I said that the story took precedence. It’s no different.

I think that this shifting focus is just so ingrained in how 5E works that folks don’t even see it.

 

[MarkB]

The Indiana Jones scene is obviously iconic and classic and brilliant in every way.

Now imagine it was the end of the movie. Indy shoots the Nazi leader and roll credits.

It’s just different.

Sure, but it can still work.

 

[loverdrive]

So the plan could succeed if they come up with something to do after??

Sure, why not.