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

[Manbearcat]

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?

The only thing specific to D&D in there is dice, rules, minis, dungeons, fighting goblins.

NONE OF THAT is captured by "excitement", "memorable", "story", "fun." Which is the entire point of the exchange! In order to actually derive meaning from those other words, you need the other bits for context! The genre. You need to look up the rules. You need to know the roles of the participants. And on and on and on.

With just "excitement", "memorable", "story", "fun", you've narrowed things down to precisely 0 out of infinity.

 

[Bawylie]

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?"

Ok, reframing.

What is the objective of Chess? To checkmate your opponent’s king. It’s a game. You may have fun. You may experience intense emotions that are not fun. But the objective is limited and clear.

What is the objective of playing D&D? To have a fun, memorable, exciting time. There is no win condition or limited objective - just have a good time.

While those words may not move units of whatever, they certainly clarify what you’re supposed to be doing with your time - especially if you don’t actually know or have never played.

It’s not “win poker chips from your friends,” it’s not “bankrupt the other players,” and it’s not “get all your guys from start to home.” It’s “have a good time” for as long as you choose to play.

 

[Imaro]

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.

Wait, what? I'm asking @loverdrive about his/her/their opinion and answers...

 

[iserith]

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.

Your goal is to make the best move that is also fun for everyone and helps create an exciting, memorable story. But there is nothing stopping you from making a poor move that is also fun for everyone and helps create an exciting, memorable story. It's up to you. What we don't want you to do is anything that isn't fun for everyone and hinders the creation of an exciting, memorable story. That said, long resting prior to throwing the campaign villain a 1-round beatdown would likely (1) never happen and (2) if it did happen would be fun, exciting, and memorable to our group.

Since this particular bit of jargon isn't strictly defined to my knowledge, does "skilled play" necessarily mean the player always makes the most optimal move at all times? Or is a move that is good enough to succeed but not optimal still considered "skilled play?" If it's the former, is a novice player who doesn't know what is optimal engaging in "skilled play" if he or she tries and fails to come up with the optimal move?

 

[Ovinomancer]

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)

Okay, so we moved from priorities don't conflict to priorities can rotate depending on what important right now to declaring this argument pointless clothes tearing. Cool. I'm glad that we're aligned that priorities can conflict but can also be swapped around eepending on what you want.

As for the usefulness of the argument, are you really here to tell people that they can't find this topic of interest or of possible use?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Wait, what? I'm asking @loverdrive about his/her/their opinion and answers...

Okay, perhaps I mistook your point. Your use of the words “have to” made it sound like you were saying there’s only one way to do it.

 

[iserith]

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

I don't see anything at odds with these two approaches at all. But that could be due to different conceptions or definitions of what these things are. This is a pretty wanky conversation that looks to me like it escaped from a lab in the TTRPGs General forum and I had abandoned it prior to you summoning me.

 

[Manbearcat]

Ok, reframing.

What is the objective of Chess? To checkmate your opponent’s king. It’s a game. You may have fun. You may experience intense emotions that are not fun. But the objective is limited and clear.

What is the objective of playing D&D? To have a fun, memorable, exciting time. There is no win condition or limited objective - just have a good time.

While those words may not move units of whatever, they certainly clarify what you’re supposed to be doing with your time - especially if you don’t actually know or have never played.

It’s not “win poker chips from your friends,” it’s not “bankrupt the other players,” and it’s not “get all your guys from start to home.” It’s “have a good time” for as long as you choose to play.

No. Just no.

At the broadest, deepest level of zoom, every_game_ever_ is about fun.

I mean, yes, if your position is "degenerate forms of any play/game or people held against their will to play something or people who have an actual affliction but cannot stop playing something" means that the broadest, deepest level of zoom of those games cannot_be_about_fun.

Then sure.

But D&D 5e isn't excused from that. There can be dozens of degenerate, dysfunctional reasons for playing 5e that have nothing to do with fun. I can name hundreds of them the same way you can for Chess or Poker or Basketball.

I mean, just yesterday I went climbing for 1.5 hours exclusively as a technical training session. I didn't do it for fun. So I guess climbing, at the broadest level of zoom, isn't about fun.

Two days ago I played basketball in order to rehab a tweaked ankle and get used to the Florida heat and work on getting a specific brand of fitness up (which I can't get elsewhere). I didn't do it for fun. So I guess basketball, at the broadest level of zoom, isn't about fun.

Or someone doing a thing to escape a bad relationship/situation at home.

Or someone doing a thing (like poker) because they have an affliction.

There are so many examples of this. D&D 5e isn't exempt just because it says "have fun!" on page 3 of the PHB. I mean, the first time I ran it was an utter tutorial to work on my handling of the Social Interaction conflict mechanics and get a feeling for encounter budgeting/CR! It wasn't fun!

 

[clearstream]

Your goal is to make the best move that is also fun for everyone and helps create an exciting, memorable story. But there is nothing stopping you from making a poor move that is also fun for everyone and helps create an exciting, memorable story. It's up to you. What we don't want you to do is anything that isn't fun for everyone and hinders the creation of an exciting, memorable story. That said, long resting prior to throwing the campaign villain a 1-round beatdown would likely (1) never happen and (2) if it did happen would be fun, exciting, and memorable to our group.

Since this particular bit of jargon isn't strictly defined to my knowledge, does "skilled play" necessarily mean the player always makes the most optimal move at all times? Or is a move that is good enough to succeed but not optimal still considered "skilled play?" If it's the former, is a novice player who doesn't know what is optimal engaging in "skilled play" if he or she tries and fails to come up with the optimal move?

When you use the term "fun" is it right to suppose you will include "satisfying", "nerve-wracking", "memorable", "lighthearted", "distracting", "engaging" etc.? I ask because I feel "fun" can lack nuance. A move might serve the goal of satisfying, but not the goal of "fun" (in the simple sense), for example.

 

[iserith]

When you use the term "fun" is it right to suppose you will include "satisfying", "nerve-wracking", "memorable", "lighthearted", "distracting", "engaging" etc.? I ask because I feel "fun" can lack nuance. A move might serve the goal of satisfying, but not the goal of "fun" (in the simple sense), for example.

As I mentioned above, each group will have to define that for themselves. Certainly in our group it can mean many things and the context of the game really matters. I'd wager it does for most groups.