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

[Arilyn]

In one of my games I assumed there'd be a big climactic fight between the heroes and this twisted angel that they absolutely hated. This angel was insane and cruel, but had managed to create this little demi plane to avoid falling into hell. He was a tough opponent, or should have been. The dice strongly favoured the players that day. They tore through the angel's minions, repeatedly rolled criticals on their opponents, while I couldn't seem to roll anything above a 5.

I worried that the players might have felt a little let down, but they loved it. They felt that the gods themselves were on their characters' side and that angel was facing karma big time. It became a memorable fight because of the "righteous retribution." Still a favourite story.

 

[clearstream]

There are a few key features that make Moldvay Basic the pinnacle of D&D Skilled Play:

3) There is no "story imperative"/alternative playstyles (and all of the permissible GM moves/latitude around that) in Moldvay Basic that impacts (or can impact) the through line of play. The game is about one thing and focuses on that one thing; map/key/stock a confined obstacle course (the dungeon), create characters to defeat it, and referee the game neutrally to see if the players can and "what their score is" (the treasure they pull out of the dungeon) if they do.

The game did not present to me as that narrow. When I ran B2 Keep on the Borderlands using the Basic rules, I received guidelines like this -

After you have explained the background, allow your players to begin interacting with their characters. Give them time to wander around the KEEP, learning what is there. finding the limits of their freedom, and meeting the other "Inhabitants" of the place. They may quickly establish their base in the Traveler's Inn. purchase their equipment, and then visit the tavern - where they may gather bits of information tor their coming adventures. All of this play, as well as what will come afterwards. requires that the players play the personae (personalities) of the characters that they will have throughout the length of the campaign, much like an actor plays a role In a ploy. You, however, have a far greater challenge and obligation! You not only must order and create the world, you must also play the part of each and every creature that the player characters encounter. You must be gate guard and merchant, innkeeper and ore, oracle and madman as the situation dictates. The role of OM is all-powerful, but it also makes many demands.

And of course the eponymous Keep was detailed, with many statted NPCs to interact with. I suspect what people are thinking more of is simply containing the adventure to the dungeon - a process rule. We might read in Moldvay Basic wordings such as -

The game may be more exciting if miniature lead figures of the characters and monsters are used, but the game can be played without such aids...

and

Anything in this booklet (and other D&D booklets) should be thought of as changeable — anything, that is, that the Dungeon Master or referee thinks should be changed...

But crucially also -

An adventure begins when the party enters a dungeon, and ends when the party has left the dungeon and divided up treasure.

[EDIT] And then again -

If the party chooses to talk (and if the monster will listen), the DM plays the part of the monster. The players can ask questions, make bold statements, and otherwise react to the creature. The encounter may then become peaceful (agreement!), hurried (as the monster or party runs away), or violent (if the talks lead to combat).

How is peaceful agreement decided? It seems to me perhaps that when a process rule applies - confining play to a dungeon sequence - then 5e might offer more avenues for classic SP than Basic. Or at least, not less. You mention that -

4) There is a long and detailed history of discussion about the implications of leaving the dungeon on Skilled Play. When your game's skill paradigm is basically predicated upon testing guile, risk management, and resource management, the constraints of high resolution mapped and keyed obstacle course vs an obstacle course that is neither (refer upthread to @hawkeyefan 's and @loverdrive 's conversation regarding Strahd's lack of itemization of his inventory/resources he can marshal...this is one instance of the problem), at least sufficiently so to govern play at the level that Moldvay Basic does it.

Though surely it is not the dungeon itself as a space that offers just the right constraints, because I might well imagine a dungeon-world, as complex as any imagined world-outside-the-dungeon. It must be something about miniatures and grids... but didn't we just read that - in Moldvay Basic - these might also be eschewed? SP starts to feel like a chimera. I say that not to be vexing: rather as a genuine challenge.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The game did not present to me as that narrow. When I ran B2 Keep on the Borderlands using the Basic rules, I received guidelines like this -


And of course the eponymous Keep was detailed, with many statted NPCs to interact with. I suspect what people are thinking more of is simply containing the adventure to the dungeon - a process rule. We might read in Moldvay Basic wordings such as -

and


But crucially also -


[EDIT] And then again -


How is peaceful agreement decided? It seems to me perhaps that when a process rule applies - confining play to a dungeon sequence - then 5e might offer more avenues for classic SP than Basic. Or at least, not less. You mention that -


Though surely it is not the dungeon itself as a space that offers just the right constraints, because I might well imagine a dungeon-world, as complex as any imagined world-outside-the-dungeon. It must be something about miniatures and grids... but didn't we just read that - in Moldvay Basic - these might also be eschewed? SP starts to feel like a chimera. I say that not to be vexing: rather as a genuine challenge.

Well, you're calling out a moment in B2 that's outside the normal play loop, and so advice is offered. How GM's ran the "safe spaces" and "quest givers" in B/X was very open ended. This part of play, free play if you will, is not really part of the ruleset but something you just do to add some depth and color to the game. It's not part of the designed play loop where skilled play occurs. It's kinda related but also kinda orthogonal.

Blades in the Dark has a similar phase of play, called Free Play, where you do similar things in that system to prep fiction for the score. It's outside the normal play loop, but still important to have, but it's purpose is to feed fiction into the Score play loop. Similarly, the keep in B2 is meant to feed fictional setup into the actual play loop of the dungeon(s).

And, sure, 5e has a few more tools on hand to do social engagement that B/X doesn't have, but this isn't an argument that 5e does skilled play as well as B/X (or better?) because, in a certain case it can be more systemized. Overall, 5e's structure is one that acts to reduce the resource game (5e provides more resources with an easier recharge rate so it's not nearly under as much pressure) and doesn't really integrate many of those resources into the game. Look at spell durations -- 5e is all over the place whereas B/X is tightly tied to the exploration turn lengths. This matters because how much time has passed between encounters in 5e is whatever the GM says -- there's no exploration timing mechanic to track -- and so whether or not your spell is still up is just what the GM says.

This isn't the say that 5e can't do skilled play -- it can. However, the pressure points for skilled play are much softer in 5e than in some other games, so the experience is fuzzier. This is in part due to how 5e puts how everything works in a "ask your GM how this works in their game" paradigm with the rulings not rules approach. A GM can use this to establish clear procedures and enhance skilled play, or diminish it by leaning into the rulings not rules approach and keeping things loose. You can't really do this in B/X without it being immediately apparent that you're dealing with house rules, but it's just normal 5e.

So, sure, you can absolutely do skilled play in 5e, but the way the system is presented it's going to be less tight than in a system that structures play from the ground up in a skilled play paradigm. If you do some work, you can improve this, even without house rules. This isn't a dig against 5e at all. 5e's design goals were to support a wider range of play approaches, which is why it's embraced the rulings not rules as a way for tables to lean the game towards their preferences. 5e can't succeed at this design goal and deliver a game tightly tuned for skilled play. But, because of that design goal, you can very much lean 5e towards skilled play and get a reasonable result.

 

[clearstream]

Well, you're calling out a moment in B2 that's outside the normal play loop, and so advice is offered. How GM's ran the "safe spaces" and "quest givers" in B/X was very open ended. This part of play, free play if you will, is not really part of the ruleset but something you just do to add some depth and color to the game. It's not part of the designed play loop where skilled play occurs. It's kinda related but also kinda orthogonal.

The keep is detailed over 8 pages, the caves are detailed over 12: it's not just a "moment".

And, sure, 5e has a few more tools on hand to do social engagement that B/X doesn't have, but this isn't an argument that 5e does skilled play as well as B/X (or better?)

That was what I was responding to, though. I was specifically questioning a premise that B/X was more suited to SP than 5e.

So, sure, you can absolutely do skilled play in 5e, but the way the system is presented it's going to be less tight than in a system that structures play from the ground up in a skilled play paradigm. If you do some work, you can improve this, even without house rules. This isn't a dig against 5e at all. 5e's design goals were to support a wider range of play approaches, which is why it's embraced the rulings not rules as a way for tables to lean the game towards their preferences. 5e can't succeed at this design goal and deliver a game tightly tuned for skilled play. But, because of that design goal, you can very much lean 5e towards skilled play and get a reasonable result.

The system was never tight. Look at the rest ruling in B/X. All you know is it is 1/5 ten minute turns of movement. Nothing is said about how characters rest, or if it can be interrupted.

"While the material in this booklet is referred to as rules, that is not really correct. Anything in this booklet (and other D&D booklets) should be thought of as changeable — anything, that is, that the Dungeon Master or referee thinks should be changed."

 

[Ovinomancer]

The keep is detailed over 8 pages, the caves are detailed over 12: it's not just a "moment".

It's also outside the normal play loop. I'm not sure what you want, here.

That was what I was responding to, though. I was specifically questioning a premise that B/X was more suited to SP than 5e.


The system was never tight. Look at the rest ruling in B/X. All you know is it is 1/5 ten minute turns of movement. Nothing is said about how characters rest, or if it can be interrupted.

Well, I imagine because the writer didn't feel like "rest" needed many definitional bits. This may be a failure to you, but I'm okay with it. As for being interrupted, of course it can be interrupted, just like everything else -- if a wandering monster check has an encounter, then rest is interrupted. It's not a special call out to a special status condition within the rules -- it operates just like any other move that takes time, like searching a room or searching for traps. It's only in the more recent editions that "rest" needs to be defined and have what interrupts them be explicitly stated.

Regardless, the point being that B/X has many subsystems that interact to create lots of pressure points that can be navigated through skilled play. Time management interacts with the wandering monster check, the rest cycles, spell durations, and even encumbrance due to rations. 5e lacks any of this kind of tight integration, and so lacks the same kinds of pressure points that B/X creates. It's not a terribly hard argument, and, as I said, 5e had design goals that run counter to creating such a tightly integrated system because then it couldn't be as easily leaned into other play approaches.

May I ask you why you think 5e is a tightly designed system that supports skilled play well?

 

[Manbearcat]

The system was never tight. Look at the rest ruling in B/X. All you know is it is 1/5 ten minute turns of movement. Nothing is said about how characters rest, or if it can be interrupted.

@Ovinomancer has addressed some of this.

Its difficult to imagine what is happening here except that maybe you're mapping some kind of AD&D or 3.x or 5e "dungeon as ecology" paradigm onto this vs "dungeon as obstacle course" (which is basically what Moldvay is)? I mean, I don't even know why someone who has played Moldvay Basic would ask "can Rest be interrupted?" Since 1984 I've probably run 600+ dungeons (I never played a module...I've only run my own dungeons) and this has never_ever_ever (did I mention ever) been a thing...and its not clear to me how it would be.

Its simple. You've got 3 clocks you're monitoring, which I used (and still do) dice counters out on the table to represent these:

* Wandering Monsters - check every 2 turns; token or coin

* Rest - 1/6 turns and restart clock (players don't have to rest after turn 5...they can do it after 3...or 4); d6

* Light - 6 turns with torch (d6) or 24 w/ lantern (4d6) or 7-9 with the stupidly rare Light spell because its a 1st level spell so awful RoI and sunk cost (10)


Lets pretend its Turn 6 in the dungeon and the players performed their Rest 3 rounds ago in Turn 3. Order of operations:

* If there is a Stock encounter in this room, we handle the Encounter procedures. If not, the players perform their Exploration Turns. The torchbearer for the group is invariably going to light a new torch because theirs is going out at the beginning of next turn. We'll renew the Torch die at the beginning of the next turn.

* At the end of the turn, I check for Wandering Monsters. Let's say the result is no WM.

* Turn 7. No Wandering Monsters. No Stock Monsters. Move the Torch die and Rest die forward 1. Flip the WM token. The players at this point very likely decide to reset their Rest die because they don't have an Encounter (so no possible -1 to hit/damage for another 6 turns).


Rinse and repeat. The players are monitoring WM, their light, their rest and managing their resources/load-outs/exploration while they do this. And they're managing their treasure accrued in accordance with their Encumbrance, protecting their Porter(s) to extend this, and eschewing Coin for treasure that has a better $:Weight ratio.

Why does 5e not do this loop as well as Moldvay Basic?

* Light is a trivial resource in 5e. Not only is the equipment portion lest cost for significantly greater return, but Light is a Cantrip rather than a 1st level spell (and spells are much more proliferate and Rituals exacerbate this). Light management is a big ole nothingburger in 5e. In Moldvay, its a deal in multiple ways. Basically any spellcaster obviates this concern.

* Encumbrance is a relative nothingburger in 5e compared to Moldvay and the handling of it is made worse because Moldvay's is trivially "Coin Weight." So my guess is most people trying to run 5e as a Dungeon Crawler don't even pay attention to this.

* 5e PCs are massively more capable in Exploration than their counterparts in Moldvay.

* 5e PCs are massively more capable in Combat than their counterparts in Moldvay.

* 5e PCs have access to more prolific social obviation spells/tools that their counterparts in Moldvay.

* HP restoration for 5e PCs is profoundly easier than their counterparts in Moldvay.

* Wandering Monsters + Rest don't exist in 5e. You're going to have to bolt that on and then try to integrate it with all of the rest of the system (duration timers for spells and what not). I mean, if you artificially tacked on the Exhaustion Rules w/o a 10 minute Rest every hour of exploration and then hacked on some Wandering Monsters...would this really be that much of a pressure point for 5e characters? Particularly with the fact that all of the other stuff aren't actual pressure points in this edition? I don't see it. And again, even if someone did get Exhaustion, you can offset that with Help/Advantage or Inspiration or Bard/Cleric. The means that 5e characters have to marshal aren't just a cut above...they're about 5 cuts above at both the individual level and ESPECIALLY at the Team PC synergy level.


Add that all up? Ze game does not remain the same (I think the saying was). In every way possible, the system promotes profoundly more competency at the lowest levels of play and reduces the pressure points to nothingburgers while simultaneously not including the key, integrated Exploration tech of Moldvay Basic.

 

[clearstream]

It's also outside the normal play loop. I'm not sure what you want, here.

It's outside the play loop described in a process rule. The normal loop included adventure outside the dungeon.

Well, I imagine because the writer didn't feel like "rest" needed many definitional bits. This may be a failure to you, but I'm okay with it.

You're conscious of the oceans of pixels spent on the far more defined rests in 5e, right? The B/X rule is incomplete.

As for being interrupted, of course it can be interrupted, just like everything else -- if a wandering monster check has an encounter, then rest is interrupted. It's not a special call out to a special status condition within the rules -- it operates just like any other move that takes time, like searching a room or searching for traps. It's only in the more recent editions that "rest" needs to be defined and have what interrupts them be explicitly stated.

Of course? You can point to the RAW supporting that, right?

Regardless, the point being that B/X has many subsystems that interact to create lots of pressure points that can be navigated through skilled play. Time management interacts with the wandering monster check, the rest cycles, spell durations, and even encumbrance due to rations. 5e lacks any of this kind of tight integration, and so lacks the same kinds of pressure points that B/X creates. It's not a terribly hard argument, and, as I said, 5e had design goals that run counter to creating such a tightly integrated system because then it couldn't be as easily leaned into other play approaches.

So does 5e. If one wants rules, 5e has hundreds of them. Wandering monsters. Rest cycles. Spell durations. Encumbrance. Rations. The linchpin of SP as you put it appears to be that one process rule. This would mean that SP only occurs in the dungeon. Were that true, it would entail that the OP's scenario falls outside SP.

May I ask you why you think 5e is a tightly designed system that supports skilled play well?

I'm not advocating SP for any version of D&D. My position is more on the side that B/X supports SP no better than 5e.

EDIT Concretely, I am denying the line you draw between tightly defined and SP. In part because if that line exists, the OP's question has no pertinence. If SP can only occur in D&D as boardgame, then there can be no tension between story and SP. Those modes inhabit different contexts.

 

[clearstream]

@Ovinomancer has addressed some of this.

Its difficult to imagine what is happening here except that maybe you're mapping some kind of AD&D or 3.x or 5e "dungeon as ecology" paradigm onto this vs "dungeon as obstacle course" (which is basically what Moldvay is)? I mean, I don't even know why someone who has played Moldvay Basic would ask "can Rest be interrupted?" Since 1984 I've probably run 600+ dungeons (I never played a module...I've only run my own dungeons) and this has never_ever_ever (did I mention ever) been a thing...and its not clear to me how it would be.

Think of yourself now, playing rules from back then. When we played, we didn't have such questions: were we constructing an SP experience now, we likely would! Players, as well as games, have evolved.

Back then however, Basic was not limited to the dungeon for us; not least because of all those pages in B2 on interacting with NPCs in the Keep, and then very soon after X1 took us out of the dungeon for extended hexploration.

I've read several posters position SP as addressing D&D as game. If your representation is right, that's not narrow enough: it's addressing D&D as boardgame. For that, 5e using the Fantasy Grounds VTT has been the tightest version that I have experienced. We didn't play D&D as a boardgame back then. No one I knew did.

Its simple. You've got 3 clocks you're monitoring, which I used (and still do) dice counters out on the table to represent these: ...

What we found in the published adventures - and our own interests - moved the rules immediately out of D&D-as-boardgame. I suppose there must have been some niches in which players adopted what they saw as SP and stayed inside the dungeon. Outside of organised tournaments, I never once encountered them.

That doesn't diminish SP as a concept. It does argue against Basic D&D being equivalent to SP. It's silent on Basic D&D having the strongest valency to SP.

* 5e PCs are massively more capable in Exploration than their counterparts in Moldvay.

* 5e PCs are massively more capable in Combat than their counterparts in Moldvay.

* 5e PCs have access to more prolific social obviation spells/tools that their counterparts in Moldvay.

* HP restoration for 5e PCs is profoundly easier than their counterparts in Moldvay.

* Wandering Monsters + Rest don't exist in 5e. You're going to have to bolt that on and then try to integrate it with all of the rest of the system (duration timers for spells and what not). I mean, if you artificially tacked on the Exhaustion Rules w/o a 10 minute Rest every hour of exploration and then hacked on some Wandering Monsters...would this really be that much of a pressure point for 5e characters? Particularly with the fact that all of the other stuff aren't actual pressure points in this edition? I don't see it. And again, even if someone did get Exhaustion, you can offset that with Help/Advantage or Inspiration or Bard/Cleric. The means that 5e characters have to marshal aren't just a cut above...they're about 5 cuts above at both the individual level and ESPECIALLY at the Team PC synergy level.

I follow your line of reasoning. Typically, the fewer and simpler rules in a game the more tightly defined the play can be. What I question though is the premise that tightly defined play == SP. So long as the context is gameful, a more generous rule set creates a greater abundance of opportunity for SP.

You - and maybe @Ovinomancer - seem to be suggesting that fewer rules and tighter process affords greater SP. I believe that more sophisticated rules covering more ground afford greater SP. I suppose that is in part because when I think about an SP-axis of play, I noticed it more in 3rd-edition onward. If I had to pick one version of D&D that most afforded SP, it would be 4e. Have you played much using a structured VTT like FG?

EDIT Further - as I added in my response to @Ovinomancer above - I am denying the line you draw between tightly defined and SP. In part because if that line exists, the opening question has no pertinence. If SP can only occur in D&D as boardgame, then there can be no tension between story and SP. Those modes inhabit different contexts. It is only to the extent that you allow them to share a context that the question in the OP can have any value.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I don't think that have a fun, memorable, exciting time is a meaningful objective for playing D&D. It doesn't distinguish it from other games (as @Manbearcat has said) nor from many other RPGs. And it doesn't tell me what to do at any given point in play.

For instance, suppose I as GM am playing a goblin, and the current scenario is a combat, and I roll for my goblin to hit one of the PCs, and it does, and then I roll the damage, and its a 6! and I know that PC will fall unconscious if s/he takes 6 hp of damage and that will probably precipitate a TPK or at least a rout that abandons the unconscious PC. And suppose I infer, on the basis of both express words and what is implicit in the game situation, that the player of that PC will be upset if such a thing happens. (Much like the intense emotions that are not fun that you mention in relation to chess.) Am I meant to retract or change my move? Introduce some other element into the fiction (say, a beneficent spirit that heals the PC) that will obviate the rout/TPK? (The Prince Valiant RPG has the concept of a rescue as an express GM-side tool to be deployed in this sort of situation.)

I think this is pretty close to the sort of question asked in the OP. I don't think that an answer flows in any obvious way from the stated goal of play.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I don't follow. Are you saying that "skilled play" and "story", as goals, never conflict in the context of 5e? Or sometimes don't conflict? Or something else? And what is the relevance of 5e minimising the impact of or need to demonstrate skilled play? Does this mean that story can be prioritised? Or something else?

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.

The things that you describe here seem to be ways of the GM adjusting the fiction to maintain a desired level of challenge (your 1st and 3rd dot points under 1; and your 1st dot point under 2). I don't really see how "cut scenes" are relevant here.

I really think that I'm not following your posts.