D&D (2024) Rests should be dropped. Stop conflating survival mechanics with resource recovery.

[Emberashh]

a very flawed one. If the existence of one thing that is unrealistic meant that nothing realistic was important or had meaning, we wouldn't have any realism at all for the game. There would be no trees, no oceans, no humans, no anything resembling reality

Kind of ironic to say ones argument flawed just to immediately employ a slippery slope fallacy, don't you think?

The gameworld is important, realism or not, and removing rests doesn't mean we may as well delete the oceans. Thats a ridiculous argument and Im positive you know it was.

 

[Maxperson]

Kind of ironic to say ones argument flawed just to immediately employ a slippery slope fallacy, don't you think?

Except there was no slippery slope. Nothing I said led to anything worse. If you're going to accuse someone of a fallacy, at least know how it is used.

The gameworld is important, realism or not, and removing rests doesn't mean we may as well delete the oceans. Thats a ridiculous argument and Im positive you know it was.

Cool. That's not the argument I made. The argument I made was that we all have different levels of realism that we like. You may not feel like resting to recover is important to the level of realism that you are comfortable with. Take it out of your game if you don't like it. You don't get to tell us that it's not important enough to keep in the game, though, and should leave. Maybe we do feel like resting is important to the level of realism that WE are comfortable with.

 

[Emberashh]

I said led to anything worse

So...you think not having things like oceans or a gameworld doesn't make for a worse game?

Pretty poor attempt at saving face there ngl. You may not be aware of what you're saying but thats not a reason to double down.

That's not the argument I made.

Its what you literally said:

"If the existence of one thing that is unrealistic meant that nothing realistic was important or had meaning, we wouldn't have any realism at all for the game. There would be no trees, no oceans, no humans, no anything resembling reality"

Again, you may not be aware of what you're actually saying, but that isn't a reason to double down.

You don't get to tell us that it's not important enough to keep in the game, though, and should leave.

Except the realism angle is only one part of the argument, and is in fact merely supportive. The actual core argument is that the rest system is plain bad and interferes with the game mechanically and narratively. That it also introduces issues with survival and verisimilitude just highlights why the system isn't working and hasn't worked.

That, incidentally is also another fallacy. Misplaced emphasis.

If you keep having to argue fallaciously perhaps you should just let the topic be as you're clearly too emotionally compromised by my presentation choice to engage it properly.

 

[Umbran]

...you're clearly too emotionally compromised ...

Mod Note:
Stop. Making. It. Personal.

 

[Irlo]

So...you think not having things like oceans or a gameworld doesn't make for a worse game?

Pretty poor attempt at saving face there ngl. You may not be aware of what you're saying but thats not a reason to double down.



Its what you literally said:

"If the existence of one thing that is unrealistic meant that nothing realistic was important or had meaning, we wouldn't have any realism at all for the game. There would be no trees, no oceans, no humans, no anything resembling reality"

Again, you may not be aware of what you're actually saying, but that isn't a reason to double down.

You're misunderstanding the argument, I think. This is the opposite of a slippery slope.

We DO have unrealistic things in the game. The DOES NOT lead to having no realism at all. No slope, slippery or otherwise.

It's OKAY to have unrealistic things in the game. We can STILL have the realistic things that we want. We don't have to agree on what realistic things we want. And we don't have to agree on whether some particular aspect of the game is realistic enough for our tastes.

Resource recovery on short and long rests works all right for me and others I've played with. As a DM, I've never had an argument or negotiation with players about whether they could take a rest or not. I describe the situation, they decide to try to rest (or not), and I adjudicate the situation. As a player, I've never had disagreements between "short rest" players and "long rest" players about whether to try to rest or not.

Resource recover based on rests doesn't seem silly to me at all. Scavenging ingredients, crafting concoctions, and quaffing potions does seem pretty silly to me, though. I'm not trying to convince you. It's just a matter of taste, not logic.

I'm not dead set on rest as the mechanism for recovery in RPGs, but I'm pretty set on it for recovery in D&D.

 

[Emberashh]

You're misunderstanding the argument, I think.

Nope. He said that removing rests, if we take the realism question as a reason, means we can't have anything else thats "real".

That is the definition of a slippery slope. Doing one thing must automatically lead to all these other things because reasons.

As a DM, I've never had an argument or negotiation with players about whether they could take a rest or not. I describe the situation, they decide to try to rest (or not), and I adjudicate the situation. As a player, I've never had disagreements between "short rest" players and "long rest" players about whether to try to rest or not.

You not being affected by the problem doesn't make it not a problem.

It's just a matter of taste, not logic.

Its also a matter of consistency. Those things already exist in the game. Should we remove health potions, not just a classic part of countless RPGs over the decades but in 5e specifically one of the few things wortb buying?

Obviously the answer is no, so then the question becomes where the "taste" comes in that leads to elaborating on and expanding those already existing game components becomes "silly".

Particularly when compared to the alternative which, as Ive said, seeks to elaborate and expand on both. Making survival fully optional means theres design space to do it much better; when it also has to support the gamist side of the game then the design space is constricted.

You're not able to go very far with survival when it can't interfere with not just the functional needs of the game, but also the expectations of the player base, most of whom are not playing DND as a survival game.

By divorcing survival from the core game, and building up the core as a replacement, then we can have it both ways. Those that want survival can integrate mechanics that have room to be more robust and mechanically interesting, and everyone in turn gets a base game thats better balanced, better functioning, and frankly more fun, which is the entire point.

Ive made this point more than once and people continue to ignore it.

 

[Maxperson]

So...you think not having things like oceans or a gameworld doesn't make for a worse game?

Not having oceans? I played and ran in a great setting like that. It was called Dark Sun. Not having a game world? That would be an issue, but not what I was saying.

Its what you literally said:

"If the existence of one thing that is unrealistic meant that nothing realistic was important or had meaning, we wouldn't have any realism at all for the game. There would be no trees, no oceans, no humans, no anything resembling reality"

I will repeat once again that I was saying was that realism has meaning and you can't dismiss resting just because someone might not track arrows or going to the bathroom.

The actual core argument is that the rest system is plain bad and interferes with the game mechanically and narratively.

You keep stating that like it's fact and not your opinion. If you're going to present it as fact and try to tell me that something that is good for me is in fact bad for me, you need more than just your opinion to back it up. Do you have any facts to present that support your position that the rest system is objectively bad?

That it also introduces issues with survival and verisimilitude just highlights why the system isn't working and hasn't worked.

For you. It has worked for me just fine for 40 years. It's only 5e being balanced around the adventuring day and all those encounters that causes problems when it interacts with the 5e rest system.

 

[Maxperson]

You're misunderstanding the argument, I think. This is the opposite of a slippery slope.

Resource recover based on rests doesn't seem silly to me at all. Scavenging ingredients, crafting concoctions, and quaffing potions does seem pretty silly to me, though. I'm not trying to convince you. It's just a matter of taste, not logic.

Same here. If he had come here and said, "Hey, resting doesn't work for me and I want to go with potion drinking, how can I best do that?" or "Hey, resting doesn't work for me and I want to go with potion drinking, what do you all think?" this discussing would have gone very differently. The issue is his presentation of resting as objectively bad and needing to be removed from D&D that's the issue.

I'm not dead set on rest as the mechanism for recovery in RPGs, but I'm pretty set on it for recovery in D&D.

Same.

 

[Emberashh]

That would be an issue, but not what I was saying.

"There would be no trees, no oceans, no humans, no anything resembling reality"

you can't dismiss resting just because someone might not track arrows or going to the bathroom.

Sure I can, because its again a question of consistency. You and others have not actually justified why rests above all these other components of survival is vital to the game when an alternative system, that allows for better survival mechanics as an option, can be achieved.

Do you have any facts to present that support your position that the rest system is objectively bad?

Do we actually need to relitigate nearly a decade of discourse on rests in 5e or can we skip the rigmarole?

It's only 5e being balanced around the adventuring day and all those encounters that causes problems when it interacts with the 5e rest system.

So your problem is that you consider these issues entirely separate rather than mutually entangled systems that are entirely dysfunctional?

If he had come here and said

If I had come here and said that I wouldn't be writing my own game precisely because 5e and DND in general has stopped working for me and my group.

Important to note that its precisely because Im up to my eyeballs in learning game design that I'm confident in my idea about what would be better for DND.

Having conviction in what I think is not an argument against that idea. To suggest that is just ad hominem. If you don't like how I presented the idea, stop engaging the topic. Simple. To come in and not only ignore the arguments presented time and time again BUT also keep arguing based on ad hominem is just rediculous.

Just let it go.

 

[Maxperson]

You not being affected by the problem doesn't make it not a problem.

Here's the main issue with this thread. Your personal opinion that it is a problem doesn't make it a problem. In all the years here and before this forum on the D&D forum, I don't think I've seen a thread putting forward that resting itself is a problem. This is purely an opinion of yours and not some sort of factual issue.

Now I have seen threads about portions of resting like healing 100% with 8 hours of sleep, but that's not a problem with resting itself.

Should we remove health potions, not just a classic part of countless RPGs over the decades but in 5e specifically one of the few things wortb buying?

Why would we need to remove them? Healing potions work just fine along side the resting mechanics.

By divorcing survival from the core game, and building up the core as a replacement, then we can have it both ways. Those that want survival can integrate mechanics that have room to be more robust and mechanically interesting, and everyone in turn gets a base game thats better balanced, better functioning, and frankly more fun, which is the entire point.

Maybe fight for an optional system in the 5.5e DMG that gets rid of resting in favor of potions. That way you can enact it for your game just like other people enact the gritty resting and other optional rules.