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

I am always confused when people talk about the 5MWD in 5e since you can only have one long rest per 24 hours. I am sure finding a place to rest or having to wait a whole day before starting a long rest to even be possible can be achieved in occasional adventuring environments (given time considerations and other local dangers) but I can’t wrap my head around it being a common enough option to be a problem.

But anyway the tension between short and long rests is part of the juice of the game for me.

el-remmen said:

I am always confused when people talk about the 5MWD in 5e since you can only have one long rest per 24 hours. I am sure finding a place to rest or having to wait a whole day before starting a long rest to even be possible can be achieved in occasional adventuring environments (given time considerations and other local dangers) but I can’t wrap my head around it being a common enough option to be a problem.

But anyway the tension between short and long rests is part of the juice of the game for me.

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The 5 minute adventuring day is in practice often not a 5 minute adventuring day. It's a one or two combats per day adventuring day. There might still be a lot of traveling/exploration, information gathering and diplomacy the other hours of the day, activities that need very little to no character resources.

And that's pretty much the norm for the kind of games I run. And mind you, I love to run tactical combats. So 75 % of the game session could still be combat! But it's not a series of combats in a single adventuring day.

el-remmen said:

I am always confused when people talk about the 5MWD in 5e since you can only have one long rest per 24 hours. I am sure finding a place to rest or having to wait a whole day before starting a long rest to even be possible can be achieved in occasional adventuring environments (given time considerations and other local dangers) but I can’t wrap my head around it being a common enough option to be a problem.

But anyway the tension between short and long rests is part of the juice of the game for me.

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It should not be confusing at all if you acknowledge the rules and what behavior they incentivize given class design. Critically is that the bold bit has no mechanical reason to occur as the party moves beyond tier1 and lower tierß of play when short rest class resource pools begin to explode and the gm has nothing whatsoever to counter the guidance wotc gives on low level party SR frequency. Absent the players themselves choosing to place themselves in the role of being the jerk who says no for no reason whatsoever it plays out with the party saying "sure" when the tier2/3+ monk warlock and fighter declare that they need another short rest every fight or two because there is no incentive for them to do otherwise and the rules place no meaningful barrier in the way of success. Endless overuse of doom clocks fo not solve the problem because we are talking about d&d rather than half minute hero

tetrasodium said:

It should not be confusing at all if you acknowledge the rules and what behavior they incentivize given class design. Critically is that the bold bit has no mechanical reason to occur as the party moves beyond tier1 and lower tierß of play when short rest class resource pools begin to explode and the gm has nothing whatsoever to counter the guidance wotc gives on low level party SR frequency. Absent the players themselves choosing to place themselves in the role of being the jerk who says no for no reason whatsoever it plays out with the party saying "sure" when the tier2/3+ monk warlock and fighter declare that they need another short rest every fight or two because there is no incentive for them to do otherwise and the rules place no meaningful barrier in the way of success. Endless overuse of doom clocks fo not solve the problem because we are talking about d&d rather than half minute hero

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The point about doom clocks is interesting. I would argue that a broader approach to clocks can be applied. I mean, a character needing to get back before a wedding or they lose their standing in the court, isn't necessarily a "doom clock," but just as good as an incentive. There are so many things that encourage players to keep going, despite dwindling resources.

I will throw these two things out there: pacing and wants.

Pacing: Not all combat needs to be on a razor's edge. In fact, great moments can come when one side is much greater than the other. This is just suspense building. The group making their way to the pyramid, might easily rest after each combat along the way. The giant scorpions weren't much of a problem, and neither was the trapped canyon. The bandits before the canyon even started? We were so much more powerful, that we convinced them they had to watch our camels until we return. But entering the pyramid, pacing, such as finding a way out, not being able to rest due to the mummy's curse, or seeing the hourglass start before the mummy buries the entire pyramid in 100' of sand, can come into play. It is following a natural plot line. Interspersing a "doom clock" (even if it is not doom) with it's okay to rest after each combat, is following the natural flow of a story.

Wants: The wants of the players should also be driving their decisions. The wizard's need to keep finding pages from his mom's lost spell book, or the need of the thief to keep gathering gold to give to the poor, should, in theory, be enough to encourage players to keep exploring. This is a more difficult situation though, because it goes back to trusting your DM.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:

The 5 minute adventuring day is in practice often not a 5 minute adventuring day. It's a one or two combats per day adventuring day. There might still be a lot of traveling/exploration, information gathering and diplomacy the other hours of the day, activities that need very little to no character resources.

And that's pretty much the norm for the kind of games I run. And mind you, I love to run tactical combats. So 75 % of the game session could still be combat! But it's not a series of combats in a single adventuring day.

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Ah. I get you. I basically run my games that way too (I never think about how many combat or other types of encounters the party has in an adventuring day outside of what makes sense for the environment and the situation). And while I was aware that 5MWD did not literally mean "5 minutes," I took it to mean, looking to recoup resources right away after some (or most, or all) are lost regardless of whatever may be going on.

tetrasodium said:

It should not be confusing at all if you acknowledge the rules and what behavior they incentivize given class design.

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I just think the in-game events are A LOT more of an incentive for in-game choices than any generic idea of how classes are meant to be played.

tetrasodium said:

no mechanical reason

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I don't know what you mean by this.

tetrasodium said:

Absent the players themselves choosing to place themselves in the role of being the jerk who says no for no reason whatsoever

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I mean, if you put it that way, sure. But who demands things and behaviors from others for no reason whatsoever. Unless by "no reason whatsoever" you actually mean "no reason I like."

Scott Christian said:

The point about doom clocks is interesting. I would argue that a broader approach to clocks can be applied. I mean, a character needing to get back before a wedding or they lose their standing in the court, isn't necessarily a "doom clock," but just as good as an incentive. There are so many things that encourage players to keep going, despite dwindling resources.

I will throw these two things out there: pacing and wants.

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Are you for real suggesting that a problem caused by a badly incentivized rest system that depends on players choosing to decide they want the be the jerk who says no to their party members not caring about any of that or is this advice for a different edition where PC's need stuff from the world that those NPCs could provide deny or complicate? I quoted the relevant rest rules from 2e &3.5 earlier, they too contain hurdles to clear like bed rest /long term Care that those npcs could have affecting but 5e removed those too so those too depend on the players caring to make it matter rather than proactively adapting to in ways that prevent the original 5mwd loop

Scott Christian said:

Pacing: Not all combat needs to be on a razor's edge. In fact, great moments can come when one side is much greater than the other. This is just suspense building. The group making their way to the pyramid, might easily rest after each combat along the way. The giant scorpions weren't much of a problem, and neither was the trapped canyon. The bandits before the canyon even started? We were so much more powerful, that we convinced them they had to watch our camels until we return. But entering the pyramid, pacing, such as finding a way out, not being able to rest due to the mummy's curse, or seeing the hourglass start before the mummy buries the entire pyramid in 100' of sand, can come into play. It is following a natural plot line. Interspersing a "doom clock" (even if it is not doom) with it's okay to rest after each combat, is following the natural flow of a story.

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Scott Christian said:

Wants: The wants of the players should also be driving their decisions. The wizard's need to keep finding pages from his mom's lost spell book, or the need of the thief to keep gathering gold to give to the poor, should, in theory, be enough to encourage players to keep exploring. This is a more difficult situation though, because it goes back to trusting your DM.

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There's too much missing context but those all fall into one of two problems.



Pretend it's a feature and dump the entire problem on the gm to design endlessly more & more elevated adventures or retcon things into existence through a quantum ogre while hoping that the players never use any skills to assess the state of the world into a into a knowable a state where doing it looks like a very adversarial gm

tetrasodium said:

Are you for real suggesting that a problem caused by a badly incentivized rest system that depends on players choosing to decide they want the be the jerk who says no to their party members not caring about any of that or is this advice for a different edition where PC's need stuff from the world that those NPCs could provide deny or complicate?

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No, my point is it is only badly incentivized for a table that does not care about story. And I would claim: D&D is a story driven game, and has been so for a very long time. If you want rest rules that are not attached to a story, then play a tabletop wargame, not a role playing game.

tetrasodium said:

Pretend it's a feature and dump the entire problem on the gm to design endlessly more & more elevated adventures or retcon things into existence through a quantum ogre while hoping that the players never use any skills to assess the state of the world into a into a knowable a state where doing it looks like a very adversarial gm

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There is no pretending there. That is what a good DM does. They control the pacing of the story.

All of that aside, why not just implement gritty rules yourself. I know I have for other systems.

I find this fascinating and funny because I totally disagree with @tetrasodium’s perspective but also do not look at my D&D games as “a story” like @Scott Christian.

el-remmen said:

I find this fascinating and funny because I totally disagree with @tetrasodium’s perspective but also do not look at my D&D games as “a story” like @Scott Christian.

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As I like to say… D&D is a different game with each DM.

So I’ve played a few different kinds of D&Ds given that I’ve played with various DMs, including myself.

This is totally anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt, but I’ve played at a bunch of tables, including some that had (out-game) drama and conflicts, but resting has never been the cause of these issues…

I’m sure @tetrasodium’s experiences are sincere, but I assume they’re anecdotal, just like my own… and so I’m not sure it’s right to claim that the game is so inherently broken that it inevitably invites drama…

Silam said:

As I like to say… D&D is a different game with each DM.

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I wholeheartedly agree.