A Discussion in Game Design: The 15 minute work day.

[Beginning of the End]

In contrast, gamers of my acquaintance don't have that expectation, so don't play as if they can rest any old time. Instead of "going nova", PC's carefully manage their resources, always maintaining a reserve. For example, going through the 3.5 version of the ToEE, it wasn't uncommon for our party's mage to still have spells to cast after 5+ encounters. Which was a good thing because we (the Party) didn't determine when we got to rest- the campaign environment did...and there were times when we were retreating carrying one or another comrade from the field of battle. Sometimes harried as we went.

With this kind of playstyle, the proposed change reaaaaaally doesn't seem necessary. In fact, it is kind of anticlimactic.

Yup.

Like Justin Alexander says in Death of the Wandering Monster there are only two ways to prevent the 15 minute adventuring day:

(1) Eliminate any advantage from the "1 encounter, then rest" model of play.

(2) Apply meaningful consequences to the decision to rest. (Wandering monster encounters; NPCs trying to hunt them down; or simply NPCs reinforcing their positions, closing up shop, destroying evidence, etc.)

The latter is in the hands of the GM. The former could be solved mechanically, but only at the cost of sacrificing mechanical strategy.

Another way of looking at the problem is this: There are two varieties of the 15-minute adventuring day. The first is the "nova" (the PCs use all of their most powerful abilities in a single encounter and then rest); the second is the "forced rest" (the PCs are out of resources and must rest/retreat to recover them).

These are two different problems.

Fixing the Nova: Mechanically you can fix this by removing all daily powers. Non-mechanically, the nova becomes a valid strategic choice (allowing the PCs to defeat more powerful foes) that isn't always the best strategic choice (if it allows NPCs to regroup, escape, or destroy evidence).

Fixing the Forced Rest: Mechanically you need to remove the hard limits in your system design. At the very least, this means that hit points need to completely regenerate between encounters.

So what would be the absolute worst way to fix the 15-minute adventuring day problem?

(1) Give all classes daily powers (increasing the mechanical incentive for nova strategies).

(2) Create a hard cap on the amount of healing any single character can receive (introducing a hard limit resulting in forced rests that didn't previously exist).

 

[Dausuul]

Isn't the 15 minute day a resource management strategy? The problem is that some want the resource management mini game to be a challenge in and of itself, while others have identified the 15 minute day as a powerful and reliable solution to the game. It's not that resource management is denied, it's that resource management is solved.

Solved or denied, call it what you like. The point is, a game that is solved is no longer a game worth playing (at least not to those who understand and can execute the solution); you're just going through the motions.

If you don't want resource management to be a part of your game, you shouldn't have to deal with the bookkeeping (daily powers, spell prep, and so forth) or with the balance issues introduced by excising it. If you do want it to be a part of your game, it should be a functional game element without a single, "no-brainer" optimum solution.

 

[Dausuul]

Like Justin Alexander says in Death of the Wandering Monster there are only two ways to prevent the 15 minute adventuring day:

(1) Eliminate any advantage from the "1 encounter, then rest" model of play.

(2) Apply meaningful consequences to the decision to rest. (Wandering monster encounters; NPCs trying to hunt them down; or simply NPCs reinforcing their positions, closing up shop, destroying evidence, etc.)

The latter is in the hands of the GM. The former could be solved mechanically, but only at the cost of sacrificing mechanical strategy.

The latter can also be solved mechanically. See for example my proposed solution above: "resting" is redefined from "sleeping" to "R&R," and R&R has a gold piece cost. There are some other solutions in this thread along similar lines (mechanical incentive to push on, or mechanical cost to resting).

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I don't see how requiring the DM to set the pace is any different from having per-[insert non-in-game time unit (with maybe the exception of "session")]. As it is the game has set up so that the DM must follow the "rule of the rest", taking the choice out of their hands and requiring people to advise that they fight against that choice. The "15 minute adventuring day" just sounds like a manifestation of the rule, and so telling someone to discourage it sounds more like working around the real problem rather than confronting the issue directly: are the players or the DM the one who should choose when resources refresh? If the answer is the players than it's a waste to require the DM to come up with ways to fight them. But if it's the DM -- and the advise makes it sound as this is actually the preferred way -- then simply put the choice in the DM's hands.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

The latter can also be solved mechanically. See for example my proposed solution above: "resting" is redefined from "sleeping" to "R&R," and R&R has a gold piece cost. There are some other solutions in this thread along similar lines (mechanical incentive to push on, or mechanical cost to resting).

Perhaps you could also define some other resource that can be spent to earn "R&R". I don't know what that would be, but it does make some vague sense that being allowed to rest isn't always dependent upon having gotten paid.

 

[Beginning of the End]

That D&D requires a large number of fights per day in order to balance casters with non-casters is a serious weakness. Not everyone wants that amount of combat.

This assumes that:

(a) Casters can't do anything useful with their spells except wage combat. (This isn't true.)

(b) That you need to have multiple encounters per day in order for the possibility of having multiple encounters per day shape player behavior patterns. (This also isn't true.)

As it is the game has set up so that the DM must follow the "rule of the rest", taking the choice out of their hands and requiring people to advise that they fight against that choice.

I think the problem here is assuming that a nova strategy is never acceptable. IMO, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

What's required is that the nova strategy have interesting and meaningful consequences. Then the use of the nova strategy becomes an interesting strategic option, but not the only strategic option.

 

[Dausuul]

Perhaps you could also define some other resource that can be spent to earn "R&R". I don't know what that would be, but it does make some vague sense that being allowed to rest isn't always dependent upon having gotten paid.

Quite possibly. One way would be to give everybody a fixed number of "free rests" every level, with additional rests costing money as above.

The important thing is to add a cost to resting, and/or a benefit to not resting, so that there is a meaningful choice. I lean toward the former (cost for resting), because I think it is both easier to write the rules that way and easier to justify in game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This assumes that:

(a) Casters can't do anything useful with their spells except wage combat. (This isn't true.)

I should've said encounter or challenge, rather than fight. The problem's actually worse if one includes non-combat challenges. If there's, say, one non-combat and one combat encounter per day then the wizard will dominate both. At least in the latter the fighter can do something, in the former he's useless. If both had been combat encounters then the fighter would be of some use in both, though still inferior to the wizard.

Vancian resources distributed unequally between classes force the DM to have many challenging encounters each day to balance the classes. I often don't want to have a lot of challenges each day. I seldom use dungeons, and never large ones, nor I think have any of the DMs I've gamed with. They were probably regarded as implausible and boring.

Giving all classes the same amount of Vancian resources solves this aspect of the 15-minute day problem. All can nova to an equal degree.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I should've said encounter or challenge, rather than fight. Vancian resources distributed unequally between classes force the DM to have many challenging encounters each day to balance the classes. I often don't want to have a lot of challenges each day. I seldom use dungeons, and never large ones, nor I think have any of the DMs I've gamed with. They were probably regarded as implausible and boring.

I'm not sure why you feel a dungeon is the only place you can have lots of interesting encounters/challenges. Thinking over recent media I've been consuming:

- Assassin's Creed 2
- Inception
- Sherlock Holmes stories
- Harry Potter
- With a Single Spell
- Leverage
- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
- Die Hard

Of these, only Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog fails to feature multiple interesting encounters/challenges per day. Not every day. But on some days. And that's all you need.

Particularly if the DM doesn't hand the PCs a crystal ball so that they can perfectly anticipate the contents of any given day. Uncertainty is also a factor in balancing classes that need to prep their spell lists. (And, again, you seem to gravitate towards "every day must be like this". But that's not the case. If you occasionally have the unexpected happen -- as it should -- then the PCs can't have certainty even when they might get away with it.)

 

[Doug McCrae]

Particularly if the DM doesn't hand the PCs a crystal ball so that they can perfectly anticipate the contents of any given day. Uncertainty is also a factor in balancing classes that need to prep their spell lists. (And, again, you seem to gravitate towards "every day must be like this". But that's not the case. If you occasionally have the unexpected happen -- as it should -- then the PCs can't have certainty even when they might get away with it.)

I played in a 3e game mostly set in a city. The typical adventure would be, over the course of a day, one serious encounter followed, fairly regularly, by an ambush from a creature that was after us, a lumi paladin from MM3 that kept coming back to life, more powerful, after we killed it. With only two encounters a day the wizard, me, could easily outshine the non-Vancian fighter/rogue in both. The encounters would normally be pretty challenging, requiring the expenditure of a lot of resources. We quite often had to run away in fact. Entirely right that they should have been challenging imo, easy encounters would have been boring, and, with only the lumi ambush to consider I could've still nova-ed, there's no reason not to.

Now you're saying if the pre lumi encounter was fairly easy then I should've let the fighter/rogue handle it, conserved my spells. Well, I didn't, and I don't think I ever suffered for it. I'm a wizard, I cast spells. Every round!

There were times when we faced more than two encounters per day - the occasional dungeon or the time an army of squamous things attacked the town. But on both occasions we could easily see them coming, it wasn't a surprise. I continued to cast spells every round during these adventures. In the dungeon I was reduced to using my wand of magic missiles (5th lvl) at one point - this was our signal to retire. I don't think I ever used a crossbow or dagger, I was always doing something wizard-y (except when I was overcome by a ragewalker's u-go-berserk power).

Bad GMing you say? I think not. This was an excellent game, probably the best D&D campaign I've played in. Good party, good rapport and teamwork between the players, great GM. His prepared material, improv, NPCs and character voices were all first rate. Lots of exciting and challenging encounters and several great moments. That's what I want in a game, not endless small encounters each day to force the Vancian casters to use their x-bows.

Problem is, D&D doesn't work with this approach, not if one values PC balance, and I do.

Like I said upthread the only time I've ever seen D&D work as it's supposed to, with a x-bow wizard, is in the PC game Temple of Elemental Evil. That's because I played it with a great many fights per day, a dozen or more, and the large majority are minor. Only for the big fights does one need the wizard, and in those, I noticed that the wizard spell choice was absolutely key to victory. Problem is that, for me, and most of the people I game with, lots of minor fights don't work in a face-to-face game. They're mostly boring and implausible.