D&D General D&D without Resource Management

[payn]

I don't disagree with you. My problem is, DMs aren't properly taught in the DMG how to do this, and the game doesn't give good advice for how to use skills in creative ways. We DO get advice on using skills. We have xanathars to help with tools. But there isn't enough of a focus on creatively using skills, and because of that, leaving it up to the DM just isn't satisfactory to me.

There are three reasons any rule exists, and even just checking off one of these reasons is good enough to justify existence:

• It makes the game more fun when engaged with
• It draws attention to the different ways you can use the game
• It highlights what the game is about

5E is about being a heroic adventurer. I would like more rules, or at the very least, guidelines, that highlight that. And when I say rules, I'm not speaking in super strict mechanics exclusively. Give me concrete examples, like most games do these days, of mechanics in the game being used to achieve unique things.

And above all of this, class is the most important part of your character mechanically in D&D. I don't see any single flaw other than page space to having a brief section talking about creative uses a barbarian might have for their skills, or a ranger, or a rogue, or a wizard, etc. It's not enough to know that these skills are available to my class. It's not enough to know I can make ability checks. I want the game to highlight for me potential things I can do, and then encourage me to go off and do them.

Yeap, its a rock and a hard place. If they provide examples of potential things your character can do, then suddenly that becomes the list of things your character can do. I have found gamers of two minds on this, those that are flexible narratively, and those that expect rules to be in place for all options. Part of the reason the rule sets have gone from rulings over rules, to rules over rulings, and back again. Maybe someday we will find the goldilocks place between the philosophies.

 

[Shardstone]

Yeap, its a rock and a hard place. If they provide examples of potential things your character can do, then suddenly that becomes the list of things your character can do. I have found gamers of two minds on this, those that are flexible narratively, and those that expect rules to be in place for all options. Part of the reason the rule sets have gone from rulings over rules, to rules over rulings, and back again. Maybe someday we will find the goldilocks place between the philosophies.

I don't accept this assertion. The text needs to clearly state these are just examples, and then talk at length about how you can come up with your own ideas based off this. Countless popular OSR games can do it. Many narrative games can do it. D&D can do it too. Just talk about how these are examples and give highlight that we need to be coming up with our own ideas using these examples as guidelines. Teach people how to play more creatively.

 

[NotAYakk]

I mean, why track resources in combat.

When you hit, do a save: on failure, target dies.

No HP. All damage is an attempt at killing.

Defender rolls HD, treating odd numbers as 0, then adds Con bonus. Attacker rolls damage, with even die rolls exploding. If damage roll exceeds HP roll, target dies.

A bit of work to tweak HD vs Damage and done, no more HP.

 

[Shardstone]

I mean, why track resources in combat.

When you hit, do a save: on failure, target dies.

No HP. All damage is an attempt at killing.

Defender rolls HD, treating odd numbers as 0, then adds Con bonus. Attacker rolls damage, with even die rolls exploding. If damage roll exceeds HP roll, target dies.

A bit of work to tweak HD vs Damage and done, no more HP.

Hp can be engaging. The issue is anything i track needs to produce fun justifying the work. By fun, i mean engagement. Im not looking to just reduce,

 

[Lanefan]

The problem is, this leads directly to poor, un-fun gameplay--demonstrably so. Because people will refuse to make the choice you describe here. They will instead take control of the rest mechanic, which the game permits them to do, and thus have their cake and eat it too.

Thing is, this isn't un-fun play; in that if resting more often is what the characters would logically do then there's no inherent problem with their doing just that. Put another way: there is nothing wrong with the 5-minute workday if-when the characters can pull it off. That said, it's on the DM to allow the enemies to also benefit from this extra time, rather than just have them sit passively waiting for the PCs to finally reach them.

What's un-fun IMO is having those rests restore as much as they do. Resource management should be a longer-term thing, e.g. an overnight rest should get you back just a fraction of your total h.p. rather than all of them.

Further, resource management should include not just hit points, spells, and abilities but also food-water, light sources, wealth, ammunition, and time.

 

[Composer99]

This discussion has me thinking about two video games I've played that have a bit of an "older school" vibe to them:

Darkest Dungeon
I'm playing a lot of this at the moment. For those unfamiliar with it, it's a tactical dungeon-crawler with intricate 2D-positional combat, a dungeon-exploration gameplay layer, and a strategic roster-and-town-management gameplay layer, and the potential for very high lethality. (My first complete playthrough had a 40% mortality rate for my roster.)

In Darkest Dungeon, the characters can have up to 7 combat skills, only 4 of which are accessible at any given time. Most of these skills are usable at will, though some more powerful ones are usable a limited number of times per combat.

Overall, Darkest Dungeon leans almost entirely into at-will abilities, where the restrictions are action economy, positional considerations, and situational considerations, with the few exceptions noted.

The Iron Oath
This was in early access when I played it, so I don't really know how it's updated since.

Anyway, this has very similar combat-dungeon-overworld gameplay, but is a bit different. The characters have a few at-will abilities, but their core combat skills have a limited number of "per-day" uses (really "per dungeon" uses), with, if I recall correctly, one or two chances to recover some uses by resting in the dungeon. I daresay that this game actually handles limited-per-day ability usage better than D&D does, though perhaps in part because it's a video game - though probably also because characters don't get so many ability uses (as D&D spellcasters get spell slots) that they break the resource attrition model, and the abilities aren't so much more powerful than at-will ones that you "feel bad" using them.

It's a bit closer to D&D than is Darkest Dungeon in this respect. Certainly it leans more into limited-use abilities.

I don't know if these musings are at all useful, but maybe!

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think D&D does resource management in a very fun way. I never feel tension when I'm out of spell slots or ki points, I just feel annoyed. And I feel annoyed because the game gets distinctly less fun when you're out of stuff to do, and 5E doesn't do a good job of giving me a framework of heroic or adventurous things to do outside of my resources.

The problem IMO lies in the really medicore equipment and skill rules for 5E. It would be cool if my Wizard, without having to rely on spell slots or cantrips, could do Arcane things via skill checks or equipment. Like, what if my wizard could interfere with a spell the opponent cost with contested Arcane checks? Or really, just let me do something, anything in relation to the game when I'm out of resources.

See, here's where having spells be more easily interrupted (i.e. ANY disturbance and the spell is lost) would help; as your out-of-spells Wizard could still interfere with his opponent's spells simply by walking over and repeatedly punching that caster in the face.

 

[Shardstone]

Thing is, this isn't un-fun play; in that if resting more often is what the characters would logically do then there's no inherent problem with their doing just that. Put another way: there is nothing wrong with the 5-minute workday if-when the characters can pull it off. That said, it's on the DM to allow the enemies to also benefit from this extra time, rather than just have them sit passively waiting for the PCs to finally reach them.

What's un-fun IMO is having those rests restore as much as they do. Resource management should be a longer-term thing, e.g. an overnight rest should get you back just a fraction of your total h.p. rather than all of them.

Further, resource management should include not just hit points, spells, and abilities but also food-water, light sources, wealth, ammunition, and time.

Resource management of food and water isnt fun unless the game focuses on it more. The reason is, what am I tracking it for? Where is the interesting adventure in this?

The implied problem here is that it takes a lot of time to track those things. Tracking these things doesnt involve engaging with another player. Its just math for the sake of math.

Again, torchbearer does it well. They make tracking resources easy and tense. They make the consequences of no resources a big drive in the game.

Counting 5 different piles of beans to no effect sucks. And I have to track item uses, spell slots, and different abilities on different rest paradigms.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't accept this assertion. The text needs to clearly state these are just examples, and then talk at length about how you can come up with your own ideas based off this.

The text could state that in huge letters backed up by a poke to the side of the head and players would still see the listed examples as being the complete list of available options.

Countless popular OSR games can do it. Many narrative games can do it. D&D can do it too. Just talk about how these are examples and give highlight that we need to be coming up with our own ideas using these examples as guidelines. Teach people how to play more creatively.

Unfortunately that endeavour all too often falls under the "you can lead a horse to water..." paradigm.

 

[Shardstone]

See, here's where having spells be more easily interrupted (i.e. ANY disturbance and the spell is lost) would help; as your out-of-spells Wizard could still interfere with his opponent's spells simply by walking over and repeatedly punching that caster in the face.

That doesnt really help, but it almost does