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

[Bawylie]

I don't know what "roof of the whole issue" you're imagining here.

There is no assumption of opposition in the post you quoted.

Its merely the inverse of the arrangement of words selected by the 5e designers when writing/editing their PHB. Its the alternative which should demonstrate pretty handily that the sentence is as milquetoast as it gets. Because no one would ever say the alternative. Its not quite the Kafka Trap of articulating an organizing principle of a game...buts its damn near it; "oh you must just prefer lack of excitement or lack of memorable things or lack of fun." No one would say that.

Once again, you’re looking to an opposition (in this case perhaps a theoretical one) instead of the more obvious question a prospective player might have: “what’s the point of playing this game at all? What are we supposed to DO?”

Like it’s taken for granted or doesn’t warrant an explanation to anyone.

 

[Fenris-77]

#makingtheobviousinscrutable

 

[Manbearcat]

Once again, you’re looking to an opposition (in this case perhaps a theoretical one) instead of the more obvious question a prospective player might have: “what’s the point of playing this game at all? What are we supposed to DO?”

Like it’s taken for granted or doesn’t warrant an explanation to anyone.

What?

I know you feel the weight of what you're saying, but I don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Let me put it in as anti-Forge waffle as I can for you:

PERSON 1: HEY LETS PLAY ANY GAME ON EARTH GUYS?

PERSON 2: OK PERSON1 WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?

PERSON 1: I DON'T KNOW, PICK A GAME PERSON2.

PERSON 2: I DON'T KNOW WHAT GAME TO PICK, LETS ASK PERSON3.

PERSON 3: OK GUYS I GOT IT! LETS PLAY A GAME THAT IS EXCITING, MEMORABLE AND FUN!!!!!!!

PERSONS 1 AND 2 TOGETHER: OH SO YOU MEAN ANY GAME EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! GOOD CHOICE! LETS PLAY IT NOW THAT WE'VE NARROWED OUR CHOICES DOWN TO INFINITY!

 

[iserith]

That looks exactly like what I said. And exactly what @Campbell wrote; "Curate your experience." Or "figure out your table, develop your social contract, find your fun."

Where is the disagreement?

You seem to take issue with the statement in the D&D 5e rules which explains the goals of play. That it's not focused enough or sufficiently bold. I think it's sufficiently vague - inclusive even - to attract the widest amount of players with varied interests. You can always go play Dungeon World which has much more tightly focused agenda and principles that will attract some and turn off others. What is Dungeon World's market share anyway?

 

[Bawylie]

What?

I know you feel the weight of what you're saying, but I have a clue what you're talking about.

Let me put it in as anti-Forge waffle as I can for you:

PERSON 1: HEY LETS PLAY ANY GAME ON EARTH GUYS?

PERSON 2: OK PERSON1 WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?

PERSON 1: I DON'T KNOW, PICK A GAME PERSON2.

PERSON 2: I DON'T KNOW WHAT GAME TO PICK, LETS ASK PERSON3.

PERSON 3: OK GUYS I GOT IT! LETS PLAY A GAME THAT IS EXCITING, MEMORABLE AND FUN!!!!!!!

PERSONS 1 AND 2 TOGETHER: OH SO YOU MEAN ANY GAME EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! GOOD CHOICE! LETS PLAY IT NOW THAT WE'VE NARROWED OUR CHOICES DOWN TO INFINITY!

How about:

Hey let’s pretend to be elves?

-Ok, why though?

Funsies. Here’s some dice and some rules and some minis and we’ll run through this dungeon and fight goblins.

-Fine, but like, what’s the objective? How do you win? Kill the goblins?

Yeah but also no. You win if you have fun. Even if the goblins kill you.

—-
Sort of UNlike a lot of other games, isn’t it?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Since the goals of play are that everyone have a good time and create an exciting, memorable story by playing, these are first and foremost in the minds of the players and DM in an ideal group in my view. As a player, all decisions must go through this filter before the player describes what they want to do. As DM, every time I have to narrate the result of the adventurers' actions, again, it must pass through this filter. Any action or narration, any move I as DM have the monsters or NPCs make, must be aligned with the goals of play or they simply cannot be brought into play. To do otherwise risks "losing" at D&D 5e.

Are we, players and DM both, "curating" the story by doing this? Or just playing the game according to the goals the rules set forth?

Weird. This runs entirely opposed to how you describe your set-up, which details skilled play, and instead reverses this to suggest that the right move on both sides of the screen is to tell a goid story. In effect, what you say here requires a GM to choose to change how an action declaration resolves not on tge result of the check alone, but instead based on what the GM thinks makes for a better story. This opposes skilled play because I might be expected, as a player, to declare actions that are obviously detrimental because it makes a better tale. Given you repped and didn't disagree with my earlier description of your play as skilled play, there really needs to be some clarity here:

In your game, as a player, am I expected to make the best move I can to defeat the current challenge or expected to make a move that tells the best story, even if it is detrimental? Let's assume, for this argument, that as a player I see a move that tells a great story but it's opposed to the move that best addresses the challenge.

 

[Manbearcat]

You seem to take issue with the statement in the D&D 5e rules which explains the goals of play. That it's not focused enough or sufficiently bold. I think it's sufficiently vague to attract the widest amount of players with varied interests. You can always go play Dungeon World which has much more tightly focused agenda and principles that will attract some and turn off others. What is Dungeon World's market share anyway?

I don't take any issue with it.

I think its a brilliantly conceived game and brilliantly designed. They set a goal to make exactly the game they created so they would capture lapsed AD&D players and PF players. And it worked. That is as flawless a victory of game design as there is.

Great job guys.

What I'm disputing is that those words "exciting", "memorable", "story", "fun" move units in getting people sorted out how to play. Because they move the exact same units as they do in any_game_ever.

As for the last two sentences go. I guess "you do you?"

 

[Ovinomancer]

And yet my group is also engaged in "skilled play" as @Ovinomancer pointed out. However can this be if these things are necessarily in conflict as some would suggest?

For the record, I see my earlier assessment of your play at serious odds with your followup statement.

 

[clearstream]

On the other hand, skilled play is antithetical to this manipulation by the GM. Here the GM is to be a neutral arbiter of the world, presenting it without making changes. Any reaction is a direct and clear result of specific party actions. This way, the players are always leveraging the rules and their resources to succeed. Any story that arises is incidental to play -- it's a second order result, not the primary reason for play. Instead the primary reason for play is to, well, win -- survive the dungeon, improve the PCs, and do it again.

That need not be true. The primary reason to play can be the experience, and the tedious tropes of linear story-telling may be set aside in favour of non-linear, dynamic, interactive story-telling.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Prioritizing literally puts things in order of importance- it’s right in the root “prior.” To prioritize is to organize the various interests in a hierarchy of importance.

Many things can be important (for example arriving to work, or ensuring ambulances can quickly get to hospitals) simultaneously. By assigning a priority to several important things, we avoid conflict.

urgency can temporarily inflate importance or move something up on a list of priorities. If I’m getting married tomorrow, that’s Very Important. But if there’s a kitchen fire right now, that would demand my immediate attention. The kitchen fire, by virtue of its urgency and danger, would become temporarily a greater priority than the pending wedding.

Everyone on this planet has to make decisions like these all the time. You can’t actually function without doing this. It’s such a routine part of life that you have to do many important things and most of them are never in conflict.

To insist that because a decision must be made regarding importance necessitates some wrought clothes-tearing agony over gamer priorities is nonsensical. It’s a dumb semantics argument.

(edit to remove/revise an extra word)

I think you’re assuming “conflict” as some sort of collision of different priorities, which isn’t exactly what anyone is saying.

The placing of one goal avove another as a priority implies that they are in conflict. By conflict, we mean that they cannot both happen. To use your example, you cannot both allow the ambulance to speed on its way AND make it to work on time.

It’s one or the other.

Prioritizing absolutely is establishing a hierarchy of what is important. The safety of the person in the ambulance is more important than someone else making it to work on time.

Essentially, the person who pulls over for the ambulance is yielding the conflict. They are saying “yes that’s more important, you win”.

Now, to connect this back to gaming, I don’t think that a game must have one priority. I think it is something that likely shifts at goven points, and thise points and what goals take priority will vary by group.