D&D General The "Ease of Long Rests" as a metric for describing campaigns / DM styles?

[Scott Christian]

The players have, with usually-very-temporary exceptions due to the specific situation the characters are in in that moment, always had some control of their characters' ability to rest by simply deciding not to go any further that day and-or to retreat to somewhere they (think they) know to be safe. In this I don't think 5e is really any different than the prior editions; and if it's what the characters would do, I'm fine with it.

What is different with 5e is a) that everything comes back on a long rest rather than just some of it, and b) 5e added the short-rest mechanic and designed some classes around it.

The difference in 5e is definitely true. No arguments there.

For a group risking death, risking death purely for someone else's benefit isn't in everyone's playbooks even if that someone else is a good friend.

As for players being invested in their characters: they're invested in their own characters, sure, but not necessarily those of the other players to any great extent. There's nothing saying PCs have to like each other or get along all the time; my investment in another player's character who my character doesn't like might, for example, go no further than hoping said other character will soon find a conveniently high cliff to jump off.

I love how everything you and @tetrasodium insist upon hinges on the fact that the characters know what is coming up. Also, you assume the players do to. Does every group have a crystal ball that lets them know how many or how often combat will happen?

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not trying to convince you about anything. Chill off.

I did recommend Lanefan look at the Exhaustion rules, which are one way of forcing longer rest periods for players because they only lose a single level of exhaustion each long rest. This is a secondary dial that can be used if the players are going to push on forward despite their exhaustion or let the BBEG get a lead on them by resting another day at basecamp.

But again, I'm talking about the campaigns that -I- run and not telling you how to play your game.

That bold bit is the part I was saying that your earlier post was missing. Absent that sort of clarity it leaves the reader to guess what you might be referring to in the exhaustion rules.

 

[Marandahir]

That bold bit is the part I was saying that your earlier post was missing. Absent that sort of clarity it leaves the reader to guess what you might be referring to in the exhaustion rules.

Fair.

 

[Lanefan]

I love how everything you and @tetrasodium insist upon hinges on the fact that the characters know what is coming up. Also, you assume the players do to. Does every group have a crystal ball that lets them know how many or how often combat will happen?

Not at all...though I don't see how this relates to the character-investment piece I was replying to.

They don't know how often combats might happen but can, based on their recent experiences, often hazard a reasonably educated guess. As in, in-character, "Crap, we've been attacked by something every time we opened a door in here! Maybe we should stop opening doors and retreat outside for the night, reload, and come back fresh tomorrow."

 

[tetrasodium]

The difference in 5e is definitely true. No arguments there.

I love how everything you and @tetrasodium insist upon hinges on the fact that the characters know what is coming up. Also, you assume the players do to. Does every group have a crystal ball that lets them know how many or how often combat will happen?

Why would you think so poorly of the average player that there would even be a need to wonder how players could make those sorts of connections?

Spoiler: some terms

There is no single, exclusive term for animals that can discern cause and effect, but in scientific literature, these animals are generally described as exhibiting causal reasoning, inferential reasoning, or complex cognition.
Animals capable of this, such as corvids (crows, ravens), apes, dolphins, and raccoons, are often referred to as possessing higher-order cognitive abilities or demonstrating rational decision-making.
Key Terms in Scientific Literature
Causal Reasoning: The ability to understand the relationship between a cause and its effect, such as realizing that dropping a stone in a tube will raise the water level to reach food.
Rational Decision-Making: A, 2017 study concluded that many animals—including elephants, chimpanzees, and, ravens—are capable of rational, non-instinctive choices.
Tool-Using Animals: Often cited as a key indicator of cause-and-effect understanding, as they must understand that a tool causes a desired change in the environment.
Proto-logical Operations: A term for the basic "if-then" (conditional) reasoning that nonlinguistic animals use to understand causal relationships between actions and outcomes.
Key Behaviors
Animals with this ability are often described as demonstrating:
Tool Use & Modification: Modifying objects to achieve a goal.
Metacognition: "Knowing about knowing," which allows some animals to assess their own knowledge and make better decisions.
Anticipation: Acting based on predicted outcomes rather than immediate stimuli.


Source

That "crystal ball" is simply the fact that most players are human.
Despite all of the tropes & memes that sometimes get tossed around about players, they are typically more capable of engaging in those bolded forms of reasoning than animals. Even anthropic's ai vending machine can hilariously do some of those.

 

[Scott Christian]

Why would you think so poorly of the average player that there would even be a need to wonder how players could make those sorts of connections?

Spoiler: some terms

There is no single, exclusive term for animals that can discern cause and effect, but in scientific literature, these animals are generally described as exhibiting causal reasoning, inferential reasoning, or complex cognition.
Animals capable of this, such as corvids (crows, ravens), apes, dolphins, and raccoons, are often referred to as possessing higher-order cognitive abilities or demonstrating rational decision-making.
Key Terms in Scientific Literature
Causal Reasoning: The ability to understand the relationship between a cause and its effect, such as realizing that dropping a stone in a tube will raise the water level to reach food.
Rational Decision-Making: A, 2017 study concluded that many animals—including elephants, chimpanzees, and, ravens—are capable of rational, non-instinctive choices.
Tool-Using Animals: Often cited as a key indicator of cause-and-effect understanding, as they must understand that a tool causes a desired change in the environment.
Proto-logical Operations: A term for the basic "if-then" (conditional) reasoning that nonlinguistic animals use to understand causal relationships between actions and outcomes.
Key Behaviors
Animals with this ability are often described as demonstrating:
Tool Use & Modification: Modifying objects to achieve a goal.
Metacognition: "Knowing about knowing," which allows some animals to assess their own knowledge and make better decisions.
Anticipation: Acting based on predicted outcomes rather than immediate stimuli.


Source

That "crystal ball" is simply the fact that most players are human.
Despite all of the tropes & memes that sometimes get tossed around about players, they are typically more capable of engaging in those bolded forms of reasoning than animals. Even anthropic's ai vending machine can hilariously do some of those.

What are you even trying to say here? Generally when someone starts using a lot of flavor language, it means their losing ground in their argument.

Your argument does hinge on the fact that the PCs and/or players know when a combat is going to happen. Are there circumstances where they would? Sure. Are there just as many where they wouldn't? Absolutely. Trying to berate me by saying I don't think of players as intelligent is untrue.

You do know that what I said can be true, and at the same time, your claim can also be true, right? Maybe WotC does need another lever for resource management. Maybe your argument does hinge on the PCs/players knowing what is coming up, and in truth, they often don't.

 

[tetrasodium]

What are you even trying to say here? Generally when someone starts using a lot of flavor language, it means their losing ground in their argument.

Your argument does hinge on the fact that the PCs and/or players know when a combat is going to happen. Are there circumstances where they would? Sure. Are there just as many where they wouldn't? Absolutely. Trying to berate me by saying I don't think of players as intelligent is untrue.

You do know that what I said can be true, and at the same time, your claim can also be true, right? Maybe WotC does need another lever for resource management. Maybe your argument does hinge on the PCs/players knowing what is coming up, and in truth, they often don't.

Why would players need to know when a combat will happen? They can simply predict that one is likely to happen eventually and be certain that it doesn't matter given the current rules

It's not hard to grasp what I wrote

Why would you think so poorly of the average player that there would even be a need to wonder how players could make those sorts of connections?

That "crystal ball" is simply the fact that most players are human.
Despite all of the tropes & memes that sometimes get tossed around about players, they are typically more capable of engaging in those bolded forms of reasoning than animals. Even anthropic's ai vending machine can hilariously do some of those.

Seems pretty basic English. Is the problem perhaps that you did not read it after asking how players could know something is likely to come like that sort of prediction was a totally alien incomprehensible skill?