D&D 5E Tedium for balance. Should we balance powerful effects with bookkeeping?

[Micah Sweet]

So, I get the question, but I don't think this is a great example of it.

In effect, I think that in the field, this particular restriction wouldn't often get tracked in tedious detail - it'd fall to the GM saying, "Hm, has it been two and a half years yet?" And if you track time strictly, many campaigns (like, most of WotC's published adventures) take less than that in game-time, so it becomes "once per campaign" which isn't all that hard to track. It then becomes a pretty simple rate limit. Heck, at that point I'd probably just replace it with a one-use item for the players to find.

But, to address the underlying question - making players do unfun things is not a suitable balance. If the restriction is entertaining for the player, that's fine. If the restriction is tedium for the player, I'm likely to replace it.

What if it's tedium for one player, but acceptable for others? Does that one player just not have to do it?

 

[nevin]

What if it's tedium for one player, but acceptable for others? Does that one player just not have to do it?

I think you'll find that one player just "won't" do it. even if it means rerolling.

 

[the Jester]

I agree that the poll question is loaded so heavily as to be unvoteable for me.

I don't think things like keeping track of the passage of time, the amount of money the pc has, the purchasing and use of expensive components, or the like are "tedious". To me, tedious would be something like needing 1200 mana points to cast a certain spell and regaining 4d6 per day.

Then again, I was fine with 3e's epic spellcasting system, so make of that what you will.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you'll find that one player just "won't" do it. even if it means rerolling.

Tyranny of the individual, no better than a bad GM.

 

[nevin]

Tyranny of the individual, no better than a bad GM.

no it's not tyranny of the individual when they simply refuse to do unfun stuff. It means they play fighters, or characters that don't have to do that stuff. tyranny of the individual is the Rules lawyer stopping the game to argue every point or the player who thinks they should get to do whatever they want because they are special snowflakes. Just refusing to track stuff doesn't even remotely touch your Tyranny of the individual. It's simply normal human nature when the game is boring.

 

[nevin]

Thing is what i call Tedius naughty word in a game some OCD people call fun. But I'm not doing that tedius stuff so they can have fun. I don't expect them to give up thier pages of notes and lists of names and all the details they find as fun. But i don't care if it upsets them that I don't care.

 

[Asisreo]

From the replies, this could actually be a big problem for OneD&D.

Remember the Create Spell line from the playtest, which was crazy utility for wizards that were already great at it? That also had material components and I think WoTC never intended for that spell to be good outside of being a reward. They may have thought that with material components, it was okay to have such a strong ability.

 

[Fanaelialae]

What if it's tedium for one player, but acceptable for others? Does that one player just not have to do it?

Tyranny of the individual, no better than a bad GM.

What if all but one player finds it tedious? Should they all have to do it because the one prefers it that way? Would that not also be "tyranny of the individual"?

IMO, core rules that are tedious are just bad design, unless maybe your target audience are people who enjoy doing long form taxes by hand. It's better for potentially tedious rules to be optional or easy to ignore without disrupting the system.

For example, IME a lot of people don't care to track encumbrance. In most of my 5e groups, unless we're using a VTT where it's automated, we eyeball it rather than tracking things and to the last tenth of a pound. Fortunately, the 5e encumbrance rules are easy to ignore.

On the other hand, the resource tracking for Five Torches Deep is core to the system. You take that out and you lose a big part of what makes that game what it is. The resource tracking in that game is fairly elegant in its design. If it weren't (imagine if it were more like doing your taxes), it would be a poorly designed game, because those rules are central to what that game is about.

 

[nevin]

This argument has been going on since the beginning. I don't know if the tables I've played at and run are in the majority or minority but I've only played a handful of games where the DM even tried to keep track of components or tried to force the mage to . I can tell you it's really freaking annoying to the other players when the wizard tells them they have to stop thier quest to go find a bat cave and get some guanno or whatever it is they need. And with Video games being the introduction to DND these days I suspect they are swimming upstream on that one. Not even BG3 makes you track spell components and it's being sold as the RPG game with DND rules. Biggest thing is it's not fun. And if players don't track em, DM doesn't have to track em and it all balances out anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What if all but one player finds it tedious? Should they all have to do it because the one prefers it that way? Would that not also be "tyranny of the individual"?

IMO, core rules that are tedious are just bad design, unless maybe your target audience are people who enjoy doing long form taxes by hand. It's better for potentially tedious rules to be optional or easy to ignore without disrupting the system.

For example, IME a lot of people don't care to track encumbrance. In most of my 5e groups, unless we're using a VTT where it's automated, we eyeball it rather than tracking things and to the last tenth of a pound. Fortunately, the 5e encumbrance rules are easy to ignore.

On the other hand, the resource tracking for Five Torches Deep is core to the system. You take that out and you lose a big part of what makes that game what it is. The resource tracking in that game is fairly elegant in its design. If it weren't (imagine if it were more like doing your taxes), it would be a poorly designed game, because those rules are central to what that game is about.

Again, tedium is subjective. Just saying, "tedious rules should be excised" doesn't mean anything on its own.