D&D (2024) Brainstorming 5 minute work day fixes

[Horwath]

I think that 5MWD is a natural behavior for some players in response to DM insisting on hard challenge, harsh consequence and creating a feeling of insecurity.

It's not solely fault of the DM, players also want a challenging fight.

If the fight is not in the deadly(or at least hard+) category, why bother rolling for initiative?

Sure, from time to time it might be fun to roleplay a 10th level fighter that punches a town drunk for throwing an insult to the party, but is that really fun always?

having 6-8 fights per day was a bad idea from the start and it still is.

something like: hard+ fight ->short rest -> hard+ fight ->short rest or long rest depending on "luck", maybe add one more fight if players got really good rolls.

 

[delericho]

Don't give XP for the first encounter in the day.

 

[Horwath]

Don't give XP for the first encounter in the day.

people still give XP?

 

[delericho]

More seriously, the ideal solution would be to give characters a strong incentive to carry on for "one more encounter" - either give them some powers that only charge up over time, or give more XP for later encounters, or have the amount of treasure drop with time, or something.

The idea being that there's a tension: if we rest we get X; if we go on we get Y - and if both X and Y are desirable things, you get an interesting choice. Which is a good thing.

 

[John R Davis]

5th is supposed to be easy IMO ( low peril, low chance death, low triggers, inclusive ) etc, so the PCs can do lots without resorting to the 5MWD.
If you up the challenge and make it more like older editions it just encourages the need for more rest etc.

 

[tetrasodium]

people still give XP?

I go back & forth but currently do because some of my players were abusing the milestone to do things like "I'm going to be late, my order is taking a long time... my order is here but I need to eat" for a game at someone's house with food every game. It also allows me to reward my more active players in ways that milestones do not allow.

 

[delericho]

people still give XP?

Speaking only for myself, yes.

And if the 2024 revision gets rid of it (which wouldn't surprise me), that will be another item on the "reasons not to bother" list.

 

[Blue]

I think that 5MWD is a natural behavior for some players in response to DM insisting on hard challenge, harsh consequence and creating a feeling of insecurity.

My personal beliefs are close to this but a couple of degrees off.

In a game system where "common" character failure can lead to significant amounts of player un-fun, like character death, we see a lot more cautious behavior from players than in a system where character failure just leads to other, interesting and fun, forks of the story. In a superhero genre we never head about 15 minute working days, but superheors are meant to occasionally be captured or lose, and even if they do death is basically off the table except for rather rare and well telegraphed occasions.

So in D&D, a game where one of the frequently expected ways of overcoming challenges, combat, can lead to such a big consequence, the natural inclination is to try to mitigate that risk. It's not a DM specifically being harsh - it's baked into the rules and is a consequence of the DM presented expected level of difficulty.

The funny thing is that while I agree about your statement with it being "natural behavior", it's quite counterproductive. The DM has, as they say, All the dragons. If the party consistently pushes for a single or few encounters per day, the DM will often increase the challenge of those encounters to keep them interesting. Now instead of smaller chunks that after each is a place to short rest and recover and potentially break off for the day, there is a lot less granularity and that means less control for the players and greater atomic peaks of danger for the characters.

 

[payn]

PF2 is a veiled encounters system. Essentially, healing is easy (out of combat) and powers recharge as you rest. There is a tiresome process where the players ask the GM if they have 10 min to rest over and over until they are topped off or interrupted. Though, its expected that the players are not drained of resources in encounters based on how the system works. In my opinion, it just turned 5MWD intot he 5 lunch break work day but...

Im not quite a fan of either the encounters system or the veiled approach to make folks thinks its old time D&D. I prefer the adventuring day with resource management. I think the ideas about short resting up to prof a day is a good measure for 5E. I do wish there was someway to include dials for any type of adventure pacing. Maybe something called a modularity that lets folks change the way the system plays at their own table. That seems like an ideal option to fix 5MWD/5LBWD for everybody. If only...

 

[Xamnam]

If the fight is not in the deadly(or at least hard+) category, why bother rolling for initiative?

If you're in an area like a dungeon or other zone of dense danger, narrative demands it, have non-tactically minded players, or feel like changing the pace of the session up.