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

[Imaro]

Unable to vote 'allow long rest to preserve fun, don't care about skilled play'.

Whose fun?

 

[Dausuul]

The first rule of fudging to make things more exciting is you do not let the players know when you're doing it. Even if they know, in a general sense, that you do it, you never ever want them to realize that it's happening in the moment. It's the difference between knowing that magicians use illusion and misdirection, and seeing the strings on stage. Instead of creating excitement, you kill it dead.

Intervening to deny a long rest, when the party has every reason to believe they can rest safely, fails that requirement hard.

Regarding Strahd in Curse of Strahd:

How did the final fight with Dracula go in Bram Stoker's Dracula? I'm talking about the movie in the 90s, not the book. As I recall, those hunting Dracula were well-prepared for that fight and won handily in the end.

(Edit: Never mind, missed the part where you were talking about the movie instead of the book. In the book, they barely manage to kill Dracula before sunset, and lose a party member in the process.)

 

[Imaro]

Well there's a reasonable amount of gray area about the resources at Strahd's disposal to the point that the GM can deploy any number of options. That's why I mentioned the "dial" being invisible. I could add or take away minions as needed to match the party's strength.

I'm curious whether this is or isn't explicitly stated in the AP?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Regarding Strahd in Curse of Strahd:

How did the final fight with Dracula go in Bram Stoker's Dracula? I'm talking about the movie in the 90s, not the book. As I recall, those hunting Dracula were well-prepared for that fight and won handily in the end.

Yes, they did. In the book, Dracula’s underlings were actually more of a threat because it was daylight and they were racing him against the setting sun.

The idea being that if the sun actually set, they’d be doomed in a fight. This is very clearly established.

That’s the book.

The movie has the sun set just as the heroes arrive and Dracula bursts from his coffin and basically manhandles them and is only defeated because of his love for Mina (who was his long list love reborn in a very Strahd/Ireena take on the story).

Many cite the ending as anti-climactic. I think it was @dave2008 who did so in the Bespoke thread. I’d agree that it’s anti-climactic to some extent, although I think the movie makes it worse by having Dracula emerge only to get distracted by Mina, and then stabbed (that’s it?!?) before Mina drags him away to cry and then behead him.

But it’s also not a great comparison because in D@D, the vampire is not invulnerable once the sun sets.

 

[iserith]

Yes, they did. In the book, Dracula’s underlings were actually more of a threat because it was daylight and they were racing him against the setting sun.

The idea being that if the sun actually set, they’d be doomed in a fight. This is very clearly established.

That’s the book.

The movie has the sun set just as the heroes arrive and Dracula bursts from his coffin and basically manhandles them and is only defeated because of his love for Mina (who was his long list love reborn in a very Strahd/Ireena take on the story).

Many cite the ending as anti-climactic. I think it was @dave2008 who did so in the Bespoke thread. I’d agree that it’s anti-climactic to some extent, although I think the movie makes it worse by having Dracula emerge only to get distracted by Mina, and then stabbed (that’s it?!?) before Mina drags him away to cry and then behead him.

But it’s also not a great comparison because in D@D, the vampire is not invulnerable once the sun sets.

I think if this was a D&D adventure playing out, the important part in my opinion is not to base one's idea of whether it was fun or memorable on the final scene when there was plenty of fun and memorable stories being told on the lead up to that. Same for Curse of Strahd in my view. Slapping him down in the final fight doesn't really take anything away from all that came before as I see it. The game is still fun and memorable. My expectation is set such that sometimes we will struggle with the villain and sometimes the villain will struggle to even get a turn. That is normal for D&D and thus either outcome is fun to me.

 

[prabe]

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'm not just talking about mechanics. Sure, you don't play Dread if the "mechanic" of the "game" bothers you.

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.

Nothing so cut-and-dried as that. I mean that the players know what the playstyle is. I mean that the GM has credibility to do GM things--in 5E, set DCs, run the world, decide on rulings where there aren't rules. I think the players can make informed decisions if the DCs aren't all player-facing, or if the DM from time to time rolls in secret, or if the DM isn't always explicit about a given encounter's budget (which might not be what you mean--if the DM is intentionally not building encounters with the party's level/s in mind, that should probably be clear) so long as the DM is reasonably consistent.

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)?

I think the system supports it just fine.

 

[el-remmen]

I think if this was a D&D adventure playing out, the important part in my opinion is not to base one's idea of whether it was fun or memorable on the final scene when there was plenty of fun and memorable stories being told on the lead up to that. Same for Curse of Strahd in my view. Slapping him down in the final fight doesn't really take anything away from all that came before as I see it. The game is still fun and memorable. My expectation is set such that sometimes we will struggle with the villain and sometimes the villain will struggle to even get a turn. That is normal for D&D and thus either outcome is fun to me.

This makes me think about all the times I have written about endings being overvalued in how people evaluate texts (using "texts" in the broad way academics use to mean not only books, but film and TV etc. .).

 

[TheSword]

Resting doesn’t stop the next encounter being memorable, or indeed fun. Not everything has to be an uphill slog for players.

If skilled play means the players get the drop on the BBEG have them surrender before being attacked and offer the PCs something they want. Change the dynamic of the encounter if you don’t want a curbstomp. The combat becomes an execution or a negotiation with all the consequences that becomes.

 

[prabe]

But this assumes that you're leaning hard enough into Skilled Play. Yes, I agree, if you're leaning hard into Skilled Play, this would be a GM risking their credibility. But 5e GM's don't have to do that. There are two other Styles of Play cited on page 34. One doesn't lean into Skilled Play. The other is halvsies.

It's just as big a credibility risk to go the other way, though. If you've been running Deep Immersive Storytelling and suddenly drop Hack and Slash and traps galore in, you're wrong-footing the players just as badly.

The same applies if you're picking some middle ground--which is less likely to be in the middle of a bunch of continua that it is to be at varying ends thereof. If you abruptly change up how you're running, you're putting your credibility at risk.

And no matter what the playstyle is, if you start throwing established facts out the window, you're offering the players the opportunity to throw your credibility out with it.

I made my post to address all 5e GMs...not just the ones that are leaning hard enough into Skilled Play. I was curious about how the voting would turn out given how much leaning into the other two play styles cited on page 34 I see in 5e threads.

Looking at the pushback you're getting here, I think you have your answer. Most people don't play 5E as the Calvinball-esque pastiche some people claim it is. As I said above, the DM is putting their credibility at risk if they go against the established playstyle of the campaign, regardless of what that playstyle is.

In fact, I don't even believe this would be a frequent thing (I've GMed 5e for probably 100 Long Rests? At all levels 1-20...I've seen/felt the tension of this maybe a handful of times?).

My question was "when this does happen (even if its only 1 in 50 long rests)...what do you do?"

And I can tell you that in the 120 sessions of 5E I've GMed--and probably at least 50 I've played--it's never happened that there was any tension such as you describe. At all. Ever.

@loverdrive had the most interesting answer (none of the above). "My bad guys, please don't take the Long Rest or it will screw play up" (again, a D&D version of "hold on lightly").

I agree. This is quite possibly the best (at least, most honest) solution, should one be necessary.

 

[prabe]

Man, if people didn’t think 5e was a Rorschach Test before...this thread cements it!

Indeed.