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A Discussion in Game Design: The 15 minute work day.
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<blockquote data-quote="karolusb" data-source="post: 5281834" data-attributes="member: 83359"><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">I think you have it exactly and specifically wrong. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Across all systems here is the overarching problem with the 15 minute workday for me: An infinite resource can't be managed. Players aren't "managing" rests if there is no disincentive to rest. You aren't making a choice to rest, you are forced to rest by the rules. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">It makes a bad game (by skewing the rules), a bad narrative (nothing is ever accomplished this way in history literature or the real world, so it feels painfully artificial), and, if you prefer a simulation argument, people who sleep in musty underground tombs 6 days a week die young from nasty lung infections, so it makes a bad simulation as well. (OD&D had a bunch of these effects built into the rules, since newer editions don’t you claim that they are attempts to overwrite the game with narrative, was the 1st ed disease chart a narraivist construct?)</span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The 15 minute workday affects different games differently: I never saw it in 3. Not sure if it was the rules (buff spells that lasted for hours) or the wide eyed nature of rediscovering d&d after a decade of mocking it. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">I have heard horror stories of 3.5. Two friends both joined, at different times, a campaign that had exactly one play style, after a session or two of realizing that the characters they wanted to play didn't fit they had to build characters that did. Every day was haste, fireball+fireball, fireball+fireball, fireball+fireball, sleep. In that game the 15 minute workday would have made it unplayable for me. Everyone in that game was a pure spellcaster, as any other character was completely impotent. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">I view it as a verisimilitude problem in 4, a problem with static dungeons, more than mechanics. (In previous editions it didn't take very many rest interruptions with fighters out of thier armor for players to start thinking very, very hard about the value of a rest). Since all players have equal types of powers, the gm can adjust the game if needed, and in reality around the time that frequent rests start to become tempting (once you have 3 daily powers) the game starts to have incentives to push on (items in paragon, especially rings) tend to have powerful milestone effects. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">As someone already pointed out every ShadowRun is a different type of 15 minute workday, once you go, you go, turning back is failure, no foot dragging. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Not every game can be a frenzied race against time (and even these also take away the players choice), but some settings work pretty well this way. I really liked the Red Hand of Doom's structure. There was time, but not an infinite amount, cutting today short might mean having to push past your limits tomorrow (or failing to meet a critical objective). Overall I think it is kinda of an ideal format, with competing incentives and disincentives, allowing for meaningful choices. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: white"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">When I was running a West Marches style 4E game we had a simple rule, rests happen in town. Returning to town ends the game session. By the time you got back to the tomb, perhaps someone else had already plundered it or maybe the residents realizing they were under siege packed up their loot and went home. Never once had a game cut short early, or people complain about rests. </span></span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="karolusb, post: 5281834, member: 83359"] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]I think you have it exactly and specifically wrong. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]Across all systems here is the overarching problem with the 15 minute workday for me: An infinite resource can't be managed. Players aren't "managing" rests if there is no disincentive to rest. You aren't making a choice to rest, you are forced to rest by the rules. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]It makes a bad game (by skewing the rules), a bad narrative (nothing is ever accomplished this way in history literature or the real world, so it feels painfully artificial), and, if you prefer a simulation argument, people who sleep in musty underground tombs 6 days a week die young from nasty lung infections, so it makes a bad simulation as well. (OD&D had a bunch of these effects built into the rules, since newer editions don’t you claim that they are attempts to overwrite the game with narrative, was the 1st ed disease chart a narraivist construct?)[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]The 15 minute workday affects different games differently: I never saw it in 3. Not sure if it was the rules (buff spells that lasted for hours) or the wide eyed nature of rediscovering d&d after a decade of mocking it. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]I have heard horror stories of 3.5. Two friends both joined, at different times, a campaign that had exactly one play style, after a session or two of realizing that the characters they wanted to play didn't fit they had to build characters that did. Every day was haste, fireball+fireball, fireball+fireball, fireball+fireball, sleep. In that game the 15 minute workday would have made it unplayable for me. Everyone in that game was a pure spellcaster, as any other character was completely impotent. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]I view it as a verisimilitude problem in 4, a problem with static dungeons, more than mechanics. (In previous editions it didn't take very many rest interruptions with fighters out of thier armor for players to start thinking very, very hard about the value of a rest). Since all players have equal types of powers, the gm can adjust the game if needed, and in reality around the time that frequent rests start to become tempting (once you have 3 daily powers) the game starts to have incentives to push on (items in paragon, especially rings) tend to have powerful milestone effects. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]As someone already pointed out every ShadowRun is a different type of 15 minute workday, once you go, you go, turning back is failure, no foot dragging. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]Not every game can be a frenzied race against time (and even these also take away the players choice), but some settings work pretty well this way. I really liked the Red Hand of Doom's structure. There was time, but not an infinite amount, cutting today short might mean having to push past your limits tomorrow (or failing to meet a critical objective). Overall I think it is kinda of an ideal format, with competing incentives and disincentives, allowing for meaningful choices. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [COLOR=white][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]When I was running a West Marches style 4E game we had a simple rule, rests happen in town. Returning to town ends the game session. By the time you got back to the tomb, perhaps someone else had already plundered it or maybe the residents realizing they were under siege packed up their loot and went home. Never once had a game cut short early, or people complain about rests. [/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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