D&D General IS the 5 min work day a feature or a bug?

[Lanefan]

Why are the goblins suicidal? Why the goblins keep sending up five people attack parties once it is evident that such gets slaughtered? If they're brave, the remaining goblins would attack all together (so 30 or so goblins) or if they think the PCs are just too tough to beat why would they wait to be slaughtered rather than flee with their treasure?

The last is a good question, and often answered by their not really having anywhere safe to flee to. Often enough, small weak-ish creatures like Goblins are where they are because they've fled there from somewhere else and found it a safe place to hole up. Until the adventurers roll in, that is.

 

[Lanefan]

Now, if you want to talk about something else, that's fine. But my opinion is that, if you design your game to make players manage limited resources over the span of several encounters, the five-minute-workday is a bug.

Where to me, given the bolded, the five-minute workday is neither bug nor feature but instead merely a predictable and inevitable result based on what the characters would realistically (try to) do in the setting. The problems only arise when (encouraged by the game system itself, sadly) a DM tries to fight this instead of just accepting it as a fact of play and moving on.

Never mind that, in comparison with games like B/X and 1e, 5e has already toned down the resource management piece to a mere whisper in the background.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, the outcome depends on what will be fun to the group. But, if the 5mwd is an issue, then apparently someone isn't having fun with that...

That 'someone' often being the DM, watching her supposedly-balanced-to-the-party encounters get curb-stomped time and again.

Meh - no biggie if I'm the DM. If they carve themselves out a safe place to rest, or set things up such that they can repeatedly hit'n'run, I figure they've earned it.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not imagining players who lack motivation, but ones that are okay with bad things happening. They will certainly attempt to save the princess from Bowser both because that's the plot and they have built up an attachment to the Princess NPC. But if they fail to save her, they roll with the punches because whatever happens next is also consumable plot - either resurrecting her, rebuilding the kingdom after her loss, etc. Heck, they might even think the princess dying is more interesting. They're not playing villains, but the players themselves are eager to see what happens next now that things have taken a turn for the worst.

These type of players - who can roll with whatever happens for better or worse and not only accept the losses with the wins but who will actively look to turn the losses into something that can keep the story and-or game going - are the best!

 

[Minigiant]

Part of the resource management is knowledge and expectations.

Let's say you have a party of 3rd level 5e PCs of the Core Four: So your party has 8 1st level spells, 4 2nd level spells, Channel Divinity, Arcane Recovery, Second Wind, and Action Surge.

First, the rogue provides no resource from class but HP. Second some of the resources are not encounter beaters alone.

Now if you blow all of that in one encounter then your encounter seemed Deadly to the players and 5WD would be expected.
If you blow all of that in two encounters then your encounters seemed Deadly to the players and 5WD would be expected.
If you blow all of that in four encounter then your encounters seemed Deadly to the players and 5WD would be expected.

After every encounter tere is a caculation of the benefits of continuing vs the risks of continuing

The 5 Minute Workday happens when the players, using the info they have, predicts the moment when the risk outweigh the benefits AND that momemnt happens in "five minutes" AND the players decide the risks are too much or the benefits are too little.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

IME, it is absolutely a bug and not a feature. The only people who like it are the ones who tend toward Tippyverse thinking: gonzo optimization in a simulationist frame.

 

[Greg Benage]

Where to me, given the bolded, the five-minute workday is neither bug nor feature but instead merely a predictable and inevitable result based on what the characters would realistically (try to) do in the setting.

That’s fine, until you design some classes that can dump a day’s worth of resources in four rounds alongside others that have no resources to speak of but shine over an extended adventuring day.

I have enough experience as a DM that I can change things up and give everyone their time to shine, but I also play a martial in a published campaign apparently designed by someone who never had occasion to consider the issue.

Bug.

 

[Mort]

Indeed, but - unless there's a spawner or a planar gate to Goblinworld somewhere in there - sooner or later they're gonna run out of Goblins; and that's the party's desired endgame here. Keep nibbling at the edges until those edges meet in the middle.

Sure, and that may be the best strategy. But the point is, the situation is not static.

 

[Ixal]

If you do not want 5 minute work days then make days matter. Have time limits or at least the illusion of them (and flllow through with them in case your players start to question them) or instead of ignoring food and water have the PCs live on limited ressources so they can't camp in front of a dungeon for weeks. (Although that requires some houserules because D&D gives you plenty of ways to ignore supplies despite it being an important aspect of the exploration pillar which we were told is important...)

 

[DND_Reborn]

Meh - no biggie if I'm the DM. If they carve themselves out a safe place to rest, or set things up such that they can repeatedly hit'n'run, I figure they've earned it.

Sure, but the point isn't using the tactic, it is allowing the PCs to get away with it ad nauseum.

When I ran AtG the PCs were able to get away with it a couple times, but the giants eventually found them and the PC had to deal with that. Finding a safe place is easy IME, keeping it safe not so much.