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

[Manbearcat]

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.

That is exactly correct.

 

[Manbearcat]

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.

Or, if the game is a mix of the 2 cited play priorities in the DMG page 34 (the ones I outlined in the lead post and just spoke of above) and the GM infers/extrapolates in their "find the fun...find the memorable story" permutation that a Long Rest recharge will wreck the climax and damage the Immersive Storytelling priority ("Strahd's soft! That ending sucked! What an anticlimax! No way he should go down like such a chump!") of pg 34 (where, again, the GM is encouraged to change or ignore the rules for the play priority's needs...right there in the text)...why should that GM feel badly making that inferrence/extrapolation and changing/ignoring the rules in order to make Strahd not be a chump...in order to protect against anticlimax.

I don't see how 5e has a monolithic voice on this at all and the designers absolutely didn't intend for it to.

 

[prabe]

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.

I think I disagree that the DM in 5E is intended to work outside the rules the way you seem to be implying. There is something of a framework they're supposed to work within--the intent is to give the DM flexibility and latitude to decide and move on, not to shift the rules into some Calvinball-esque state that makes fair play impossible.

"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)!

In this case, we're clearly working very much within the Long Rest rules as written.

"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)!

I believe this is intended to be about rules more around the edges, and possibly to allow Rule of Cool stuff. The inclusion of anything like "no you can't Long Rest here, because I say so," had better be established before the rules start changing, like before Session One.

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?

You are constrained by what's been established at the table, both as far as changing the rules, and as far as changing the encounter/scenario. What you do needs to fit into that constraint, and it needs to fit into an understanding of how the players have changed the story by their actions.

 

[jmartkdr2]

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.

A lot of this does depend on details -

- I'm assuming the players were able to establish a scenario where they could reasonably expect to get a whole rest in. They've scouted, pacified, and secured the area to remove the risk of wandering monsters. They've taken into account the fact that the enemy might be aware of them coming and making their own moves. In other words, setting up a lac of interruption is part of "earning" the long rest. If it can be interrupted without violating the established fiction, than that happening isn't violating skilled play or the story.

- one effect of taking a long rest in such a campaign would be "the bad guy also gets an extra 8 hours to prepare." It's a cost/risk of the long rest. This gives the dm a lot of room to adjust the final encounter to dial up the difficulty. A well-written adventure would include tips on how to do this, such as items like a set of braziers of commanding fire elementals which could give him some extra muscle, but only if you give him enough time to get it set up. (Again, ideally, the players should have had a chance to find out about these and factor them in to risk calculations.)

But arguing the example aside - at some point it will come down to "following the rules" or "following the adventure plan" or "doing what seems like it will be the most exciting." It seems that here at least, there's a 4-to-1 preference for the first one.

 

[Manbearcat]

I believe this is intended to be about rules more around the edges, and possibly to allow Rule of Cool stuff. The inclusion of anything like "no you can't Long Rest here, because I say so," had better be established before the rules start changing, like before Session One.

I don't see how that position is supported.

• You've got storyteller mandate.
• You've got find the fun mandate.
• You've got Rulings Not Rules.
• You've got change/ignore the rules in order to fit the needs of the table in several different places in the text (this is straight White Wolf Golden Rule).
• You've got GM-facing, GM-decides action resolution without encoded DCs or procedures to arrive at them.
• You've got Ignoring the Dice section canvassing that no GM is actually neutral and will be prone to cognitive bias.
• You've got the section on fudging dice rolls on 235 (why a GM should do it...when they would...how they should - through illusionism via GM-facing action resolution and doing it deftly and strategically).
• You've got the legacy of this stuff deeply embedded in the D&D zeitgeist from the late 80s onward of AD&D2e, 3.x, Adventure Paths (exactly the sort of players they were working to regain).
• You've got 5e Adventure Paths that don't just support it, but advocate for it in certain places.

I know you and a few others believe this. But I don't see how the totality of the evidence is on your side. Not in the text...not in the macro play culture...not in the testimonials. The evidence is robust. The Immersive Storytelling Style of Play on page 34 is basically cribbed whole hog from White Wolf and the game supports this from many different directions.

And players who play like this shouldn't feel ashamed. They should embrace it. Own it. Openly discuss how to be better at it. It is absolutely a part of D&D's legacy (probably the biggest part at this point) and its fundamentally wired into 5e.

Now 5e can be drifted to not have any of this stuff (everything is table-facing...Skilled Play is the apex priority of play...GMs have made the rules as explicit as possible and they're constantly following those rules to a T)...but its absolutely enabled at every level of design and implementation (from broad ethos, to GMing principles, to GM latitude, to action resolution, to the top down Adventuring Day design vs the Bottom Up balancing at the Encounter level which makes the game less sensitive to a Long Rest recharge).

 

[prabe]

I know you and a few others believe this. But I don't see how the totality of the evidence is on your side. Not in the text...not in the macro play culture...not in the testimonials. The evidence is robust. The Immersive Storytelling Style of Play on page 34 is basically cribbed whole hog from White Wolf and the game supports this from many different directions.

The line about changing or ignoring rules is in the bit about the Immersive Storytelling Play Style--one Play Style described in that section. It's not the only one described there, and I think the fact it's there strongly implies it only applies to the extent you're running in that Play Style..

The DMG also says, before it describes any Play Style:

Consider your players’ tastes, your strengths as a DM, table rules (discussed in part 3), and the type of game you want to run. Describe to the players how you envision the game experience and let them give you input. The game is theirs, too. Lay that groundwork early, so your players can make informed choices and help you maintain the type of game you want to run.

This doesn't just imply that you should make sure your players know how you're running--it says so outright. This doesn't just imply your players should be able to make informed choices based on how you're running the campaign--it says so outright.

That is where I find support for the idea that the DM needs to establish how they're approaching running the game. Right before it talks about running in specific styles.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

By what criteria are they risking their credibility? I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think I would likely view things similarly....but my personal preference aside, I don't think that this kind of stuff is counter to what's offered in the books.

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?


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.

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 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.

Sure, I honestly don't think that honoring skilled play and trying for the most exciting version of events here happen to be at odds. I think we've all acknowledged that these two play priorities aren't always at odds, just that they may be at times.

My recounting of this scenario (prompted by the mention of Strahd) was largely about the fact that in my mind, no matter what they did, this was going to be a difficult encounter. There was a dial, and I was willing and able to adjust it, and do so invisibly.

For example, they had the Sunsword. So Strahd had minions on hand not susceptible to the Sunsword's power, and they swarmed the fighter who wielded it, and tried to take it away from him. I did this to make the encounter more difficult. However, would I have added those minions if the players had not managed to find the Sunsword? Probably not.

Is that kind of encounter design consideration contradictory to anything suggested by the books?

Or, if the game is a mix of the 2 cited play priorities in the DMG page 34 (the ones I outlined in the lead post and just spoke of above) and the GM infers/extrapolates in their "find the fun...find the memorable story" permutation that a Long Rest recharge will wreck the climax and damage the Immersive Storytelling priority ("Strahd's soft! That ending sucked! What an anticlimax! No way he should go down like such a chump!") of pg 34 (where, again, the GM is encouraged to change or ignore the rules for the play priority's needs...right there in the text)...why should that GM feel badly making that inferrence/extrapolation and changing/ignoring the rules in order to make Strahd not be a chump...in order to protect against anticlimax.

I don't see how 5e has a monolithic voice on this at all and the designers absolutely didn't intend for it to.

I don't think it does. I think many folks are answering out of a reflex to not undo player achievement. I think that was a large part of my initial answer. But now that the conversation has gone on and I've given it some thought....I think that was a kind of knee-jerk response.

I think honoring their successes is important. But is it more important than having a fun and immersive experience? I don't know.

If you looked at threads about running Curse of Strahd, you'll see lots of complaints that he's a pushover. Especially if the PCs are armed with some of the artifacts that they set out to use to beat him. I know for a fact in those threads, most of the advice was "if you really want him to be challenging, you need to do X" more so than "if that's the way things go, then you should honor it", although those sentiments were present, as well.

I know that any part I took in those discussions was to offer suggestions on how to play Strahd more effectively. Does this qualify as a focus on "do what's most exciting"?

A lot of this does depend on details -

- I'm assuming the players were able to establish a scenario where they could reasonably expect to get a whole rest in. They've scouted, pacified, and secured the area to remove the risk of wandering monsters. They've taken into account the fact that the enemy might be aware of them coming and making their own moves. In other words, setting up a lac of interruption is part of "earning" the long rest. If it can be interrupted without violating the established fiction, than that happening isn't violating skilled play or the story.

- one effect of taking a long rest in such a campaign would be "the bad guy also gets an extra 8 hours to prepare." It's a cost/risk of the long rest. This gives the dm a lot of room to adjust the final encounter to dial up the difficulty. A well-written adventure would include tips on how to do this, such as items like a set of braziers of commanding fire elementals which could give him some extra muscle, but only if you give him enough time to get it set up. (Again, ideally, the players should have had a chance to find out about these and factor them in to risk calculations.)

But arguing the example aside - at some point it will come down to "following the rules" or "following the adventure plan" or "doing what seems like it will be the most exciting." It seems that here at least, there's a 4-to-1 preference for the first one.

What rules would be broken by "doing what sees like it will be most exciting"? I mean, if we take the rules in their entirety, the DM can basically override any of them.....so this doesn't seem to be about rules so much as about an individual group's preferences and play priorities.

 

[Manbearcat]

This doesn't just imply that you should make sure your players know how you're running--it says so outright. This doesn't just imply your players should be able to make informed choices based on how you're running the campaign--it says so outright.

That is where I find support for the idea that the DM needs to establish how they're approaching running the game. Right before it talks about running in specific styles.

I don't disagree with this at all.

That isn't the position I have here.

I mean...when you sign up to play a White Wolf game...you know what you sign up for. Its no mystery.

Just like if you sign up for a Cortex+ game with a Doom Pool you know what you sign up for...its no mystery.

Same goes for Dread and the Jenga tower.

All of these people are making informed choices. They understand the implications of signing on to play. They understand the implications of the ethos of play on any given action declaration. They're making informed choices.

I think maybe you're extrapolating this further than its intended? Are you meaning it in the vein of:

"informed choices at every moment of action resolution" such that:

• the say yes, so no, roll the dice procedure is explicated.
• the DC is explicated.
• the way the GM arrived at the DC is explicated (genre logic, process logic, factoring, some configuration thereof)
• the dice rolling is all table facing (so no fudging allowed).
• the GM cannot fudge or ignore dice/rules to impose an outcome upon play.
• the GM's procedure for encounter budgeting or encounter augmenting or marshalling resource is explicated.

Is that what you mean by "informed choices"...or something near it? How do you explain the rest of the system then (which doesn't support any of that as a uniform or even orthodox approach to GMing...in fact it contravenes it in multiple places)?

 

[jmartkdr2]

By what criteria are they risking their credibility? I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think I would likely view things similarly....but my personal preference aside, I don't think that this kind of stuff is counter to what's offered in the books.



Sure, I honestly don't think that honoring skilled play and trying for the most exciting version of events here happen to be at odds. I think we've all acknowledged that these two play priorities aren't always at odds, just that they may be.

My recounting of this scenario (prompted by the mention of Strahd) was largely about the fact that in my mind, no matter what they did, this was going to be a difficult encounter. There was a dial, and I was willing and able to adjust it, and do so invisibly.

For example, they had the Sunsword. So Strahd had minions on hand not susceptible to the Sunsword's power, and they swarmed the fighter who wielded it, and tried to take it away from him. I did this to make the encounter more difficult. However, would I have added those minions if the players had not managed to find the Sunsword? Probably not.

Is that kind of encounter design consideration contradictory to anything suggested by the books?



I don't think it does. I think many folks are answering out of a reflex to not undo player achievement. I think that was a large part of my initial answer. But now that the conversation has gone on and I've given it some thought....I think that was a kind of knee-jerk response.

I think honoring their successes is important. But is it more important than having a fun and immersive experience? I don't know.

If you looked at threads about running Curse of Strahd, you'll see lots of complaints that he's a pushover. Especially if the PCs are armed with some of the artifacts that they set out to use to beat him. I know for a fact in those threads, most of the advice was "if you really want him to be challenging, you need to do X" more so than "if that's the way things go, then you should honor it", although those sentiments were present, as well.

I know that any part I took in those discussions was to offer suggestions on how to play Strahd more effectively. Does this qualify as a focus on "do what's most exciting"?



What rules would be broken by "doing what sees like it will be most exciting"? I mean, if we take the rules in their entirety, the DM can basically override any of them.....so this doesn't seem to be about rules so much as about an individual group's preferences and play priorities.

In the example, the rules about long rests. It could be any other game rule, though, and OP's question would still apply.

 

[prabe]

By what criteria are they risking their credibility? I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think I would likely view things similarly....but my personal preference aside, I don't think that this kind of stuff is counter to what's offered in the books.

If the DM violates what's already been established--either in game-facts, or in play-style--they're risking their credibility. If you're leaning hard enough into Skilled Play (as a play style) that the PCs are able to establish an ability to take a Long Rest, you're violating established stuff to prevent them from doing so; if you've established that the PCs know Strahd's capabilities, you're violating established stuff to change them.

Sure, I honestly don't think that honoring skilled play and trying for the most exciting version of events here happen to be at odds. I think we've all acknowledged that these two play priorities aren't always at odds, just that they may be.

My point is that they're very rarely at odds in the way the OP suggests.

For example, they had the Sunsword. So Strahd had minions on hand not susceptible to the Sunsword's power, and they swarmed the fighter who wielded it, and tried to take it away from him. I did this to make the encounter more difficult. However, would I have added those minions if the players had not managed to find the Sunsword? Probably not.

Is that kind of encounter design consideration contradictory to anything suggested by the books?

Nope. So long as you didn't establish that those minions didn't exist. (Or, in principle, if you didn't elide them after establishing they did exist, in the event the PCs never found the Sunsword.)