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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6838334" data-attributes="member: 12731">Well, it's not "boy those rules don't allow me to do what I want, better go play another game"...It's quite easy (for an experienced DM) to do any number of the following: award levels based on milestones rather than xp, hand out magic items that maintain rather than destroy the balance between long-rest and short-rest PCs, set up clear rules when and where the party can expect to rest, and so on. But that it can be done by a good DM isn't the point. It should have been in the DMG. Just as the DMG contains tips on encounter design or what have you. The DMG is simply presenting a too-rosy picture of the players willingness to "take one more encounter" just to make the game click. The DMG is blissfully ignoring veteran jaded scheming minmaxing players that aren't above gaming the rest mechanism to their advantage. // Just as an example: Witness the "meta contest" behind what the characters are saying in the recent "design a 6-8 encounter adventure" thread. The NPC quest giver tries to shame the players into accepting quite rigid time constraints. The players immediately recognizing this as a way to prevent long rests and try their darndest to worm out of those conditions.At this stage I feel it's important to say noone is right and wrong here. I can certainly empathise with both DM and players. It is the game's fault that everybody lost in that thread! Not C. Not F.In the end: the hard harsh question becomes - will you play by the DMs rules, or by the players rules. Contrast this with how easily the conflict could have been avoided entirely by stating up front "Today you'll be playing a two short-rest no long-rest scenario. You all now sit in a deserted tavern, spending the last of your copper coins on cheap ale. Suddenly a jolt of electricity shudders through the tavern and in a flash and a pop of magical energy, a figure appears as if from nowhere..."Note how this turns the tables around entirely. Now the DM takes responsibility for his adventure, and its ability to challenge and delight, but not wilfully destroy the characters. (Assuming the basic trust is there between player C and dungeomnaster F in this case, which is a fair assumption in general even if possibly not in this particular case <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )The players can ease up on their otherwise strong motivation for making a good deal rest-wise (since getting rests is possibly the single most valuable commodity in 5th Edition), and simply go with the flow, demanding more traditional rewards, the kind that the DM can hand out gladly knowing that they do not work against the game's ability to challenge: gold, halved kingdoms, the hands of princesses, you know the lot. //   Some of it should even have been in the PHB. Partly to help out newbie DMs but mostly to heed of "by the book" players and wotc apologist forumists that reflexively just go "do six to eight and your issues will go away"...I don't want to feel I'm playing the game "off center" when I can't be arsed to continously serve up ever-more tenuous reasons why the PCs should press on instead of taking the logical and prudent rest.Adding a house rule is one thing. Taking away a rule that heavily favors the PCs that is written in stone right in the PHB is another thing entirely. So the rules shouldn't have been written in stone in the first place.Just think of the number of discussions we could have skipped if only the PHB didn't just say "Adventurers can take short rests in the midst of an adventuring day and a long rest to end the day"... Le sighI want the standard RAW to go easy on the DM, and not just put the entire responsibility for keeping the game aspect of the rpg session squarely in her lap. It's lazy and it is offending, the way the DMG "assumes" this 6-8 encounter day without stepping up and making sure that is actually what a vanilla session leads to!</blockquote>

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