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

[Imaro]

I don't see how the priorities can never conflict.

Skilled play (whether in resource management and resting, or more generally) is about optimising the prospect of victory at minimal risk.

Stories are almost always more interesting when victory took effort or required luck or came at some sort of cost.

But if the players have "earned" the right to a long rest... I would assume there was effort and luck and perhaps a cost. The problem I'm seeing is this is resting all of that on a single encounter as opposed to the entire adventure.

If we think of stories in terms of war stories - eg the players recounting how their clever play let them beat up Strahd without even needing to use a healing spell during the fight - then I can see that there is no conflict, but I don't think @Manbearcat has those sorts of grognard let me tell you about the time we beat Tomb of Horrors stories in mind. He's talking about the actual story that unfolds via play - the rising action, climax, resolution of the fiction of the game as it unfolds.

Again if we are talking about the story that unfolds via play then we have to take all of it into consideration.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't think Dracula was either (in the book), but it is inconsistent. They definitely imply that if they don't get to Dracula before the sun sets they are in trouble (as he is fleeing back home); however, IIRC, they had previously cornered Dracula in a bedroom(?) in London and forced him to flee by turning into a swarm of rats (I think). It was basically that encounter that started Dracula's retreat to Transylvania.

That encounter took place in the daytime (and there was no transformation, Dracula just jumped out a window and ran). During the daytime, Dracula can't transform, and if he's in his coffin, he can't leave. However, if he isn't in his coffin at sunrise, he can move around and do things, and the sun doesn't physically harm him.

In the final scene, he was in his coffin, so he couldn't leave until sunset. If the heroes had been a few moments later, he could have misted out, then summoned wolves to attack them during the night; or, back on his native soil, he could have fled into hiding where they would never find him, which would have been a death sentence for Mina.

The book leans heavily on the long-term threat of Dracula, that he can use his immortality to wait out his enemies and then return when they're dead or too old to stop him.

 

[pemerton]

But if the players have "earned" the right to a long rest... I would assume there was effort and luck and perhaps a cost. The problem I'm seeing is this is resting all of that on a single encounter as opposed to the entire adventure.

<snip>

Again if we are talking about the story that unfolds via play then we have to take all of it into consideration.

Read @hawkeyefan's posts about his Strahd campaign. The point of the campaign is to confront Strahd. The climax of the campaign is the confrontation with Strahd. If that ends up being an anti-climax then maybe the campaign was fun, and maybe we get some great war stories out of it, but the campaign was not itself an epic story. Any more than the retelling of LotR where the Eagles carry the ring-bearer to Mount Doom is.

 

[prabe]

The point of the campaign is to confront Strahd.

If the players play skillfully enough, the point of the campaign can change from "confront Strahd" to "defeat Strahd." (to the extent the lore will let you defeat Strahd, of course ...) Maybe ... let the players decide what the point of the campaign is, what kind of story they want?

 

[Imaro]

Read @hawkeyefan's posts about his Strahd campaign. The point of the campaign is to confront Strahd. The climax of the campaign is the confrontation with Strahd. If that ends up being an anti-climax then maybe the campaign was fun, and maybe we get some great war stories out of it, but the campaign was not itself an epic story. Any more than the retelling of LotR where the Eagles carry the ring-bearer to Mount Doom is.

You mean the part where the climax in LotR was... tossing (Ok gollum falling with) a ring into the fires of Mt. Doom... . I agree the Eagles carrying the ring-bearer to Mt. Doom would have ruined it because all of the epic stuff is what takes place before that climax in LotR.

 

[Bawylie]

They conflict in this way: a game that places no limits on skilled play, and hence on risk-mitigation and resource-optimisation, is unlikely to evince the phenomena that typify satisfying stories (such as dramatic climaxes, hairs' breadth successes, and the like).

I hate to attack the form of an argument rather than it’s point. So I recognize and accept this is the assertion but I do not see How or Why it must necessarily follow that “skilled play is unlikely to evidence…satisfying stories.”

Consider a game in which skilled play is the only means of achieving dramatic successes, climaxes, etc. That’s your basic Heist scenario. And it’s absolutely lousy with drama and story and rising and falling action. While if any one part fails, the entire enterprise is at risk.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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

I don't have my copy handy, but I'm almost certain there is at least one section that is devoted to how to run Strahd effectively, and that it covers how many resources he has at his disposal. My gut tells me that this is mentioned on more than one occasion throughout, but I'm less sure of that. It's been a few years since I ran it.

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.

Sure, that's a perfectly valid way to see it. I know at times, when my group gets the advantage on an enemy and they shut them down without as much challenge as expected, they're satisfied and feel like they accomplished something.....and that's awesome.

I think that given the nature of Curse of Strahd in particular, and probably for other NPCs/scenarios that have similar elements, that letting that happen would have been anticlimactic for my players, and therefore not fun. I wanted to ensure that they got what was billed as the big showdown over the course of the 15 to 20 sessions we played it.

I don't think Dracula was either (in the book), but it is inconsistent. They definitely imply that if they don't get to Dracula before the sun sets they are in trouble (as he is fleeing back home); however, IIRC, they had previously cornered Dracula in a bedroom(?) in London and forced him to flee by turning into a swarm of rats (I think). It was basically that encounter that started Dracula's retreat to Transylvania.

Please note: I haven't read Dracula in about 30 years so my memory could be off (or conflated with other more recent representations).

It's fairly explicit in that if the sun sets, they're pretty effed. However, since the book consists of journal excerpts, I suppose it could be argued that such a classification could be an error on the part of the character making it. It's been a while for me, too, so I could be off, as well.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

Ugh, this is so unappealing to me. If you feel the need to hide something from your players, it’s a sign they probably wouldn’t want you to do it. If they’re ok with it, they should be ok with it if they know it’s happening. I mean, I’ve heard from people who claim they feel otherwise (as players), but it just doesn’t make any sense to me. Of course, I’m also the person who appreciates magic tricks more when I know how they work, so...

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's why I mentioned both the possibility of adding the minions, and of subtracting them.

Right, this is partly my point. If a GM of 5E D&D does this.....adds or subtracts minions from a battle for considerations of what will be fun as a game, or memorable as a story....is that somehow in conflict with skilled play?

If not, then what did skilled play achieve?

I'd say your priority was to run the published adventure.

Yeah. That's snotty.

I'd say your priority was to run the published adventure in the way/s your players would find most enjoyable and satisfying, probably striking some balance between letting them "win" (so, Skilled Play) and conveying whatever story the adventure is trying to tell.

Published or not doesn't matter.

And yes, I would agree that I was likely trying to strike a balance between promoting skilled play and an engaging experience (I don't want to say story and get punched!)....but I imagine that's something most games do.

And if these things need to be balanced as you suggest, doesn't that imply some conflict between them? At least potentially? So at times, we may need to pick one over the other in some way.

 

[prabe]

Right, this is partly my point. If a GM of 5E D&D does this.....adds or subtracts minions from a battle for considerations of what will be fun as a game, or memorable as a story....is that somehow in conflict with skilled play?

If not, then what did skilled play achieve?

Skilled Play, in this context, would be about 1) finding out how many minions and other resources Strahd had, where they were, what they were; and 2) arranging things so those assets were unavailable to Strahd when it came time to kill him.

To the extent that you decided there were "always more minions," you were eliminating the possibility for this kind of Skilled Play. To the extent the players didn't engage in this kind of Skilled Play, you were playing fair by varying the number of minions/assets.

Given that if the players engage in this kind of Skilled Play, they are changing what the story is about, there is no conflict between this kind of Skilled Play and the importance/value of Story.

Published or not doesn't matter.

I'd argue that it does. I'd argue that setting out to play a published adventure (or Adventure Path) means wanting to see it through to its end. IME, that changes both how players play and how GMs GM.

And yes, I would agree that I was likely trying to strike a balance between promoting skilled play and an engaging experience (I don't want to say story and get punched!)....but I imagine that's something most games do.

And if these things need to be balanced as you suggest, doesn't that imply some conflict between them? At least potentially? So at times, we may need to pick one over the other in some way.

What I think you were trying to balance was how much any sort of Skilled Play could change the experience of seeing the published adventure to its end, including what that end was and how it played, as well as adapting the published adventure to your players' tastes.

I don't like published adventures, and I don't run them, so I don't have anything other than speculation as far as anything about running them goes.