D&D 5E (2014) Tedium for balance. Should we balance powerful effects with bookkeeping?

[mamba]

• The Arcane Recovery class feature lets you Recharge all of your spell levels once per long rest as an Action.
• All spell slots automatically Recharge after a Long Rest.

is the first one supposed to be a short rest?

 

[Micah Sweet]

IMO, whether you like it or not, their design speaks for itself. I'm not aware of them having claimed that realism is core to 5e, so why do you consider their not outright stating that less than honest? Why would you need them to tell you something you already seem to know? D&D has never been a hard realism game. Admittedly, in the past it had a few more nods to realism (which plenty of groups ignored, often due to tedium), but there are far better games for realism out there than any edition of D&D.

I didn't say is not core, I said does not matter. They certainly haven't said that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If 50% of players dislike the rule and 50% love it, then it's a bad rule for the core ruleset. It would likely be a good optional rule (for the 50% that may love it), but not a core rule (because 50% find it tedious).

Keep in mind that I'm referring to a target audience. If the 50% that dislike it are folks who probably wouldn't play your game even if you removed that rule and dispatched ninjas to make them play, then that's effectively 100% of your target audience being good with it, meaning it's an acceptable (or better) rule.

But WotC's target audience is everyone. That the problem. It skews their design into a bland mass.

 

[mamba]

Would you consider this good game design, or poor game design?

poor design, and you will notice by almost no one using it that this is pretty much a universal feeling

The only successful case of preventing save scamming that I have seen is the game near-continuously saving, so there is nothing to go back to.

 

[Fanaelialae]

No, it just means - given that the work has to be done - one individual gets stuck doing all of it.

One could say that's exactly what's happened to D&D over the editions: tracking resources used to be a key part of the game in the early days and has slowly been whittled away since, as has the whole idea of long-term attrition of other resources e.g. hit points.

Sad.

Have you ever known a group where one person tracks everyone's encumbrance or components? I've never even heard of such a group. That works fine for some aspects, like mapping, but it certainly isn't a panacea for tedium.

It isn't as though they removed spell components from the game, they're just optional (except for costly components). If your group likes tracking components, just rule that component pouches and implements don't remove the need for components. If you like recovering 1d4 HP on a long rest, do that. As long as it's fun for your group, it isn't an issue.

Personally, I do not miss the days when we had to hole up for several rests while the cleric cast cure after cure, just so we could get on with the adventure.

 

[bloodtide]

Yes.

Just the fact that so many voted 'no' does prove it works.

But the question is oddly worded.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, it just means - given that the work has to be done - one individual gets stuck doing all of it.

One could say that's exactly what's happened to D&D over the editions: tracking resources used to be a key part of the game in the early days and has slowly been whittled away since, as has the whole idea of long-term attrition of other resources e.g. hit points.

Sad.

As I said in the encumbrance thread, the ongoing problem here is the design structure. Encumbrance, logistics, materiel...these things very frequently exist solely in what I'll call "punitive" design, as opposed to "rewarding" design. That is, their mechanical contribution is solely that a failure to react correctly causes something undesirable to happen, as opposed to success at doing the correct thing(s) causing something desirable to happen.

Rules that involve a fair amount of work simply to avoid being punished are not going to be popular. There's a pretty strong case that they are, in effect, simply creating impediments to evade. The imposition of an annoyance that must be defused lest it flower into an actual penalty one must endure.

That doesn't mean it is not possible to do things differently. It just hasn't really been done that much with D&D. Instead of lamenting that people don't really like such punitive-only design, I think it would be more productive to look for new methods or mechanics which balance things out. Ways that players are rewarded for doing their due diligence when it comes to logistics and materiel, in addition to being punished for poor choices.

To make up a completely off-the-wall example: in the encumbrance thread, someone showed me an alternate encumbrance rule that used drawn images for carrying capacity, with each player having a maximum of like 24 spaces, and items taking up 1, 2, or 3 spaces at a time (3 for something like a sword or shield, 1 for something like a healing potion or camp supplies.) Perhaps players could get some kind of bonus from keeping inventory spaces empty--meaning "packing light" actually has benefits, rather than merely being a lack of punishment for going over limits.

poor design, and you will notice by almost no one using it that this is pretty much a universal feeling

Sure. That's the point. Tedium used as an attempt to discourage degenerate strategy (=to "balance powerful effects") is a bad design approach. Both this and the previous are examples of this rule of thumb in action.

Yes.

Just the fact that so many voted 'no' does prove it works.

But the question is oddly worded.

Er...what? The fact that people think it's a bad idea means it's a good idea? That's...curious logic, to say the least.

Tedium and RP are both bad tools for discouraging players from using degenerate strategies. Because most players have a pretty high tolerance for tedium, especially if they get rewarded for doing so. Making rules that are annoying and cumbersome to use just means everyone has to wait for those things to finish being done before they get to play. How is that effective game design?

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Yes.

Just the fact that so many voted 'no' does prove it works.

this is comically absurd logic.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I didn't say is not core, I said does not matter. They certainly haven't said that.

Same difference. The core is what the game is about. If it's not core to the design, then it doesn't really matter. Especially with something like realism, how do you implement that without it being core (apart from the occasional head nod, which still exist)?

 

[Tonguez]

Y'know, I'm trying to wrack my brain, but I don't think I've run across any other RPG beyond the AD&D series where spell components are even mentioned. Even really crunchy games like Rolemaster.

Spell Law details Magic Minutiae including Verbal, Somatic, Symbolic and Physical Components, Physical Ingredients give a bonus to spell gain rolls, theres also a couple of pages on Herbs that give various effects (like x3 Power Points etc)

Warhammer also uses ingredients to provide spell grounding