D&D 5E Megadungeon delving as a campaign’s core; is it compatible with modern play?

[Maxperson]

Crafting a CLW wand takes one day. The GM can literally say "While the cleric builds the wand the fighters clean and repair their kit and the ranger and druid go hang out in the Forrest collecting junk for their spells. The next day dawns".

Two sentences, the wand is done, and everyone gets to play the game they showed up at the table to play.

Did your campaign never have in world day where nothing world changing happened?

Sure. And it had days that were busy. I'm not going to switch one for the other just so the wand can be made. If they get lucky and nothing happens, great. If not, not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. And it had days that were busy. I'm not going to switch one for the other just so the wand can be made. If they get lucky and nothing happens, great. If not, not.

So your world is so full of calamities that the PCs are lucky if one day passes without them? Wild.

 

[Maxperson]

So your world is so full of calamities that the PCs are lucky if one day passes without them? Wild.

Who said anything about calamity? Stuff happens pretty much every moment of every day in towns and cities. The caster needs a fairly comfortable, quiet and well lit area, which means that the vast majority of time they are going to be in town, where lots of things happen. Maybe not to them directly, but they are going to hear things. It's up to the PCs whether they go investigate or ignore what they hear, not me.

 

[Lanefan]

Remember, crafting in 3e doesn't ever take a long time. You're talking a day or two at the absolute outside for 99% of magic crafting.

Ah. We ran it that it took a few weeks for anything other than potions or scrolls. Then again, we also used 1e-like training in our 3e game, so downtime was much more a thing than RAW would have it be.

If the rest of the group can't sit still for a day, and insist that the DM let's them carrying on play, that's just douchebaggery on the part of the players. And the DM who allows it is equally a douche.

What kind of player says, "Well, you guys are doing something for a day, so, I'M going to go off and adventure?" and the DM goes along with this?

Like I said, if a player or players pulled this on me, you can guarantee that I'm going to force the DM to play my elf being awake almost all night, in real time. Doesn't matter if I'm standing still and not saying a word. You can't fast forward my role play.

GImme a break.

I agree, just a day is a trivial time to wait and I can't see a problem with that. That said, I don't see the DM as a douche for allowing it, as I see it as the DM's job to neutrally react to whatever the players have their characters do.

But something like researching and inventing a new spell, which even in 3e I think took a fair bit of time, is a different thing. As is overseeing (and funding) construction of a decent home for one's family, which can eat up a few months of game time in a hurry. I-as-character wouldn't expect the rest of the party to sit around and do nothing during that time; ideally they'll have their own downtime things to do but if not, I can't complain if they take to the field again without me.

And as player, it's then on me to either sit out for a while or - much better! - to have on hand, or roll up, a replacement PC.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't disagree. Some people can't be bothered, but I don't see why they get to be the ones to control the flow of time.

One of the bigger arguments I've seen in the last 15 years or so was over just this. We'd been in the field without a break for something like three real-world years (campaign's 15 years and counting) on a string of high-pressure adventures and missions, and as both players and characters most of us had built up a laundry list of downtime things we wanted to get done; some as a party/company and some as individuals. So when we finally got some downtime out came that list...except one player who only wanted to continue adventuring and had no use for any of this downtime stuff the rest of us wanted to get to.

A few sessions later and, kaboom.

Well, I expressed my opinion of that above. You can make an argument that there's a problem when one or two players are tying up a disproportionate amount of time in activities others don't participate in (and this isn't less true when its five different players do it, since it still involves most of the group spending most of their time twiddling their thumbs) but something like spell research or item crafting are not massive real-world time consuming processes.

Indeed, not big real-world time sinks but they are big in-game time sinks. And during all that in-game time, what do the other characters do?

Where I wouldn't hesitate for a moment. "Oh, sit down, we're not running multiple separate games here."

I'd consider myself a poor DM were I to do anything like that. If seven PCs want to go (or by accident end up going) five separate ways then so be it, and that's what I'll be running as best I can.

 

[Hussar]

Again, we get back to time and pacing though.

For you, spending a session or five doing five different things is no big deal. For me, that's a significant portion of an entire campaign. As in probably about 10% of the entire campaign's length. So, yeah, it's going to be viewed very differently. When the baseline assumption for a campaign length is between 50 and 80 sessions, anything longer than a single session is a LOT of time.

 

[iserith]

Regarding downtime and splitting the party, I think it's a very good idea to have a backup character so that if your character dies, you don't have to sit out of the game while making a new one. I want every player at the table engaged with the game as much as possible during session time. The exception is if the DM took character death off the table, in which case you don't really need one.

But, as a player, if someone in my group wants to take some downtime and we're not actually in a hurry, I can't fathom why I wouldn't say "Yes, and..." to that and come up with something for my character to do (even just chillin') while the activity is resolved. There's just no good reason that I can see to force the choice upon someone else to either do the activity they want to do and play another character or keep playing the same character but not do the activity. It's rude in my view. But if the player volunteers to do that - "Doing this thing will take X weeks, so I'll just play my other character during that time so we can keep the pressure on Lord Badguy - then that's fine. It's not a bad idea to level up one's backup character anyway.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd consider myself a poor DM were I to do anything like that. If seven PCs want to go (or by accident end up going) five separate ways then so be it, and that's what I'll be running as best I can.

Your choice, but like I said, I feel no need in a game with any time overhead to have most of the group sitting around while one player is playing, rinse and then repeat. I've seen exactly one campaign in 40+ years where I thought that worked well, and I'm not about to assume I'll see another one.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Regarding downtime and splitting the party, I think it's a very good idea to have a backup character so that if your character dies, you don't have to sit out of the game while making a new one. I want every player at the table engaged with the game as much as possible during session time. The exception is if the DM took character death off the table, in which case you don't really need one.

A lot of that depends on a combination of how long it takes to generate a character and how likely character death is. In the OD&D days someone could generate a new character in minutes; in the PF2e games I've seen character death was uncommon enough there was no reason to worry about the occasion when it happened. There have been other games that landed more in both cases (RQ games years ago for example).

But, as a player, if someone in my group wants to take some downtime and we're not actually in a hurry, I can't fathom why I wouldn't say "Yes, and..." to that and come up with something for my character to do (even just chillin') while the activity is resolved. There's just no good reason that I can see to force the choice upon someone else to either do the activity they want to do and play another character or keep playing the same character but not do the activity. It's rude in my view. But if the player volunteers to do that - "Doing this thing will take X weeks, so I'll just play my other character during that time so we can keep the pressure on Lord Badguy - then that's fine. It's not a bad idea to level up one's backup character anyway.

Yup.

 

[iserith]

A lot of that depends on a combination of how long it takes to generate a character and how likely character death is. In the OD&D days someone could generate a new character in minutes; in the PF2e games I've seen character death was uncommon enough there was no reason to worry about the occasion when it happened. There have been other games that landed more in both cases (RQ games years ago for example).

Sure, more recent versions of the games make character creation much lengthier. But unless the DM takes death off the table, it's always a risk (assuming no fudging) so it's wise in my view to have backups ready to go in the event it does. What I don't want, as a DM or player, is a player sitting at the table effectively not playing due to what I would consider poor readiness.