D&D 5E Allow the Long Rest Recharge to Honor Skilled Play or Disallow it to Ensure a Memorable Story

[prabe]

I'm genuinely surprised that it ISN'T the default assumption for D&D 5e gamers that there's always a possibility of long rests interruptions in dangerous locations.

Is this the general consensus in the gaming hobby? That the world goes on pause during long rests? That meta-mechanics trump the "reality" of the moment? That PCs are "entitled" to completely safe Long rests at regular intervals?

Fascinating (and very weird for me). I guess that I'll start making this explicit.

I think part (most?) of the reason why interrupting long rests doesn't seem to enter into some people's minds is that the rules for doing so can at least be interpreted as saying that you need an hour of combat to do so.

(It seems clear to me that's what they say, but there are people who believe it just as clearly says otherwise, and there are people who believe it's absolutely ambiguous; I'm not setting out to argue that, here.)

 

[BookTenTiger]

If a DM wants to design stories based around the available powers of the characters, then they could easily switch to the house role of "one long rest per six encounters."

The way D&D is designed now, I feel like the rules assume that if the characters want to prioritize resting, then they will rest! Between Survival checks to find shelter, Rope Trick, Tiny Hut, and so on, the rules communicate to the players "you can rest when you need to, it just might take some work."

I try to keep that in mind, and have the "story" of my adventures be agnostic to the power levels of the characters. Because I can't control their power level going into a fight, I don't worry about it. Instead, I make sure the story of the fight is interesting: fun enemies, dynamic environments, or character-driven stakes.

To me, when the characters want to Long Rest before an important battle, it means the players care about the story and want to succeed!

 

[jmartkdr2]

Well, I was pretty sure, yes.

I think there was a lot of GM-facing stuff (systems and advice) published in the 90s and probably early-aughts that prioritized things the way you're describing. I think most people now look at that as something of a nadir; players found it unsatisfying, rules and advice were written differently.

A lot of the people picking apart 5E on these fora seem to me like generals fighting some previous war. Or, possibly, they're proving correct Faulkner's comments about the past.

I do not think that sort of GMing is more-supported in the text of the rules than any other, and I think it's actually deprecated in some of the subtext. The adventures are a different thing, of course, and often published adventures--especially long ones--are really poor examples of what can/should emerge from play; even if a table is playing a long, published adventure, though, I don't think the rules are written in ways to encourage the kind of action-negation you're talking about.

(That said, there's an "Adventure Flowchart" in the new Guide to Ravenloft book that is ... entirely linear, with no branches at all. That ... is not a flowchart, and it's a really crappy example of adventure/scenario design.)

I think the majority playstyle in 5E (if there is one) is the long, published adventures. Given that "PLAY GUD" in that context means "GET TO THE END OF THE ADVENTURE AND BEAT THE BBEG" I'm not sure there's quite the conflict even there that you think there is--I don't really see the appeal, though, and I avoid such games if at all possible, so someone else would have to elaborate on that.

Rambling on form this point -

If the linear adventure has a single overarching clock, it would be possible, through skillful play, for the pc's to get so far ahead of the timer they can take an extra long rest, right before the BBEG, and thus go in to the fight with significantly more resources than originally expected by the designers.

In other words, they could have "earned" an extra long rest, from a certain point of view.

In this case - if the dm cares about challenge at all - the long rest should be granted. They earned it. It might make the last fight less exciting in the oh-no-this-guy's-tough sense, but that's because compared to the party and players, he's not. The adventure, as a whole, was not hard for them, and forcing the last battle to be extra tough by fudging the rules won't change that.

On top of that, such fudging would, if noticed by the players (and the odds of such are pretty good if the players know the rules of the game and knew the risks of long resting), will invalidate the entire challenge, such as it was, up to that point. You make the victory, or defeat, hollow, since you have negated the skill of the players as a factor in how things turn out.

"Yeah, we got so far ahead we were able to long rest in Strahd's own bedroom before we stomped on him!" is a better story than "We were doing great until the dm decided to take away a rest just to make the last fight 'fair' for Strahd."

Ergo, the best decision, IMO, is to let the players take their victory lap. It's fair to them, a good story, and the most fun option.

On the other hand, an adventure path that allows for such an outcome is poorly designed at some level. Either the last run of adventures simply shouldn't allow for long rests (pretty easy to do by setting a Clock when the pc's enter the final dungeon) or should already be tune-able to account for differing levels of player skill (essential to any game of DnD.

My vote has not changed, though I think I'm getting better at articulating why.

 

[prabe]

I agree with pretty much every word of your post.

"Yeah, we got so far ahead we were able to long rest in Strahd's own bedroom before we stomped on him!" is a better story than "We were doing great until the dm decided to take away a rest just to make the last fight 'fair' for Strahd."

This is exactly what I've been talking about, when I've said the players have changed the story. The story (to use your example) is no longer about how nasty a fight Strahd gave the party, but about how thoroughly the party outmaneuvered Strahd.

 

[MarkB]

I'm genuinely surprised that it ISN'T the default assumption for D&D 5e gamers that there's always a possibility of long rests interruptions in dangerous locations.

Is this the general consensus in the gaming hobby? That the world goes on pause during long rests? That meta-mechanics trump the "reality" of the moment? That PCs are "entitled" to completely safe Long rests at regular intervals?

Fascinating (and very weird for me). I guess that I'll start making this explicit.

I don't think that is necessarily a default assumption. As best I can interpret the OP through the jargon, I think what was meant by the players having 'earned' their long rest was that they'd done a really good job of securing a location and taking out anyone who could easily detect or locate them, such that nothing in the scenario as the DM had originally envisioned it was likely to be able to interrupt their rest. And the question was whether, under those circumstances, it was okay to insert some additional complication that the PCs had not already dealt with or accounted for which would prevent that rest.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I agree with pretty much every word of your post.

This is exactly what I've been talking about, when I've said the players have changed the story. The story (to use your example) is no longer about how nasty a fight Strahd gave the party, but about how thoroughly the party outmaneuvered Strahd.

Is it, though? Or perhaps, must it be, though?

I get what you're saying here. But given that the DM has essentially unlimited resources and full understanding of everything that's happening in the game, and given that Strahd is supposed to be a tactical master....couldn't the DM simply come up with something that counters the party's maneuvers? I mean, if their big advantage is that they somehow get to stop and rest before confronting him....that gives him a whole day to prepare as well, no?

So is a DM wrong for having that matter? Should his decision-making be beholden to rewarding the players for skilled play (give them a rest so that they can face Strahd at full strength)? Or should it be to the fidelity of the fiction that's been established (have Strahd proactively prepare for the coming confrontation as a master strategist would)?

The mention of Strahd has me thinking of when I ran Curse of Strahd as part of my 5E campaign. Thinking back on it now, I think my primary goal there was to portray him as a deadly adversary. That no matter how much they prepared or what resources they could obtain (Sunsword, Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, etc.) he would still be dangerous and capable. And that's what I did.....I played that bastard to the hilt, with all the advantages I had as GM.

Rewarding player skill wasn't really a worry for me at that time. I didn't undo things that they acheived; for instance, they had the Sunsword and I let it work the way it was meant to. But I didn't have Strahd try to go toe to toe with the character who had the sword; instead, he sent underlings after him, and they attempted to disarm him. And so on.

I don't know if I'd change my answer to the question being posed, and I don't think that these two GM roles were in opposition at the time of our climactic battle with Strahd, but I have to say that I think at that time, the story was absolutely far more important in my mind than anything else.

Perhaps it's not so clear cut as I originally thought.

 

[ph0rk]

if they've reaped the gamestate sufficient to get a Long Rest recharge.

This is impossible in my games, because NPCs are still capable of doing things while the PCs sleep.

In fact, I might argue that maximizing the chances of safely taking a long rest requires skilled play. Long rests with potential costs (in terms of NPCs doing things they were going to do anyway) or risk of interruption or post-tiny hut bubble ambush is all about prioritizing skilled play. Tiny hut is great, but take a minute or two and find a secluded spot to use it. Fail to detect the trackers following the party? Then even a hut won't save them from the inevitable ambush.

And, of course, one LR per 24 hour period.

 

[iserith]

I'm genuinely surprised that it ISN'T the default assumption for D&D 5e gamers that there's always a possibility of long rests interruptions in dangerous locations.

Is this the general consensus in the gaming hobby? That the world goes on pause during long rests? That meta-mechanics trump the "reality" of the moment? That PCs are "entitled" to completely safe Long rests at regular intervals?

Fascinating (and very weird for me). I guess that I'll start making this explicit.

In my view, one can't be explicit enough with this sort of thing. Up till about September of last year, I was running multiple pickup groups per month through one-shots or short-run games and have been for years. (My pace has slowed lately.) Expectations vary widely, so I always spend a good amount of time before the game and during the first few minutes of the game page-setting.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm genuinely surprised that it ISN'T the default assumption for D&D 5e gamers that there's always a possibility of long rests interruptions in dangerous locations.

Is this the general consensus in the gaming hobby? That the world goes on pause during long rests? That meta-mechanics trump the "reality" of the moment? That PCs are "entitled" to completely safe Long rests at regular intervals?

Fascinating (and very weird for me). I guess that I'll start making this explicit.

I think part (most?) of the reason why interrupting long rests doesn't seem to enter into some people's minds is that the rules for doing so can at least be interpreted as saying that you need an hour of combat to do so.

(It seems clear to me that's what they say, but there are people who believe it just as clearly says otherwise, and there are people who believe it's absolutely ambiguous; I'm not setting out to argue that, here.)

Im not going to comment on what the orthodox position is around Long Rests (and honestly, if there is one, my guess is that would displease WotC), because I don’t know.

However...

prabe is correct.

When you systemitize things as follows:

* 1 hour of interruption is required to impose a reset for a Long Rest.

* The absolute highest rate of Random Encounters outlined in the DMG puts any given Long Rest effort at a 25 % chance of triggering a singular Random Encounter in the 8 hours.

* There is no guarantee that a Random Encounter is going to be a violent one (assuming a GM's Random Encounter table is manned with at least some noncombat encounters).

* This doesn't take into account the abilities that Team PC is able to martial to ensure that they are either (a) undetected or (b) their Long Rest isn't disturbable.

* This doesn't take into account that any given combat is likely to last half of a minute (so...sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightly short of that hour required to interrupt).


So, again, I don't know what the orthodox perception is out there (or if there is one). But...if there is one, the arrow should be pointed firmly in the "if GMs are routinely shutting down Long Rests with any kind of reliability, then something more meta than the rules/5e facts on the ground allows for is happening." And that "meta" (again...back to my initial proposition), is the GM working outside of the orthodox 5e rules framework (as intended...Rulings and that extreme latitude afforded 5e GMs and their GMing principle of "find the fun...find the memorable story") to wrest control of the trajectory of the gamestate (in this case "Recharged") from the players.

"The fun" here and "the memorable story" here might be we curbstomped this dungeon through our skilled play (Hack and Slash Style of Play pg 34 DMG)!

"The fun" here and "the memorable story" here might be what a climactic finish to our delve...we barely made it out alive against the BBEG and their minions/traps (Immersive Storytelling style of Play pg 34 DMG..."feel free to change or ignore rules to meet your players roleplaying needs"...that is White Wolf advice...that advice doesn't play nicely with Hack and Slash/Skilled Play)!

If its Something In Between (pg 34 DMG), then you're likely to run into some part of play (and Long Rest recharge is a good spot for that tension) where the priorities of Hack and Slash (Skilled Play) and Immersive Storytelling (Storytelling Imperative) come into conflict. Who survives contact with "the enemy?" What do you (the GM who runs your table) do when that happens?

By the by...the last few posts do a great job of answering the question!

 

[prabe]

Is it, though? Or perhaps, must it be, though?

I think if it isn't, the DM is unnecessarily risking their credibility. Certainly between the OP and what @jmartkdr2 said, I think it more or less must be, yes.

I get what you're saying here. But given that the DM has essentially unlimited resources and full understanding of everything that's happening in the game, and given that Strahd is supposed to be a tactical master....couldn't the DM simply come up with something that counters the party's maneuvers? I mean, if their big advantage is that they somehow get to stop and rest before confronting him....that gives him a whole day to prepare as well, no?

So, is having Strahd prepare while the PCs are resting negating the long rest? If they've done intelligence-gathering, is his ability to prepare previously established?

So is a DM wrong for having that matter? Should his decision-making be beholden to rewarding the players for skilled play (give them a rest so that they can face Strahd at full strength)? Or should it be to the fidelity of the fiction that's been established (have Strahd proactively prepare for the coming confrontation as a master strategist would)?

It depends on what's been established. Changing the facts out from under the players' feet is kinda dirty pool. Giving Strahd resources the players would have noticed (but didn't) seems like that.

The mention of Strahd has me thinking of when I ran Curse of Strahd as part of my 5E campaign. Thinking back on it now, I think my primary goal there was to portray him as a deadly adversary. That no matter how much they prepared or what resources they could obtain (Sunsword, Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, etc.) he would still be dangerous and capable. And that's what I did.....I played that bastard to the hilt, with all the advantages I had as GM.

Rewarding player skill wasn't really a worry for me at that time. I didn't undo things that they acheived; for instance, they had the Sunsword and I let it work the way it was meant to. But I didn't have Strahd try to go toe to toe with the character who had the sword; instead, he sent underlings after him, and they attempted to disarm him. And so on.

That seems like a reasonable way to run the adventure. Seems as though by not undoing their achievements you were honoring/rewarding player skill, though, whether it was a worry for you or not.

I don't know if I'd change my answer to the question being posed, and I don't think that these two GM roles were in opposition at the time of our climactic battle with Strahd, but I have to say that I think at that time, the story was absolutely far more important in my mind than anything else.

Perhaps it's not so clear cut as I originally thought.

I think the story that was so important to you was the result of how your table had played the game. If you never undid any of their achievements, you were honoring skilled play, as well as the story. My point is that conflict between them isn't necessary--and you managed it even within the confines of a long, published adventure.