Beyond the encounter: rules for pacing and downtime.

[Lanefan]

To avoid the "We take a year off to make money" problem, we could penalise the PCs XP. "You take a year off? Ok, you get a little rusty when you return to your adventuring career, so I say -100 x Lvl xp" or something on those lines.

That seems a bit harsh.

If they decide to take a year off to make money (and you've got a weird economy for a D&D game, if adventuring doesn't make them WAY more money than anything else) then fine, the following things happen:

- you quickly figure out (if not already pre-planned) how the world changes over that year, how plots advance, etc.
- you determine whether or not any dangers come to the PCs - debt collectors, ex-foes seeking revenge, that sort of thing
- you find out what each character is doing to make money
- you roll a few dice and tell each of 'em what they made (or lost)
- a year passes in game time, and back into the field they go.

Shouldn't take more than 30-60 minutes of game time tops, unless you need to spend a lot more time working out what the world does for a year.


On a more general note:

Pacing and downtime are important, both within an adventure and between adventures. If you're running a game where level advancement is reasonably slow (say, never more than one level per adventure) then forced downtime for training is your friend. They have to go back to town now and then and take a week or two off - they can rest and recuperate, train up, and get back at it.

Within an adventure it's in large part up to the adventure itself. Some adventures will have logical break points and-or places to rest, some will be on a very short clock where rest and mission success are mutually incompatible, some will have loads of wandering monsters, others will have none, etc.

But the adventure writers need to make these expectations clear for that adventure in the DM background part, so the DM has an idea what sort of pacing the writer has in mind. Putting a party on a clock, for example, while using an adventure that assumes lots of opportunities to rest up only serves to make that adventure much tougher than designed. Whether this is good, bad, or whatever is up to you as DM and what you think your party can handle - but you need to know the expectations going in.

Lan-"a short rest sounds pretty good right now"-efan

 

[nnms]

As far as in-adventuring-day pacing goes, it might be helpful to look at OD&D. OD&D largely assumed a dungeon type environment and gave suggestions for designing it. Included in that was the suggestion that the majority of the rooms be without monsters. They could have objects of interest, treasure, etc., but they were lulls of time that broke up the fights that occurred when a monster lair was found or when a wandering monster event came up.

This allowed the game to keep a form of pacing with highs and lows and recognizable beats like a piece of music without breaking from the style of play where you describe things continually as you go. The DM describes a room or corridor, you describe what your character does, the DM desribes more and so on.

One of the things that burnt me out of 4E was the harsh game mode changes compared to other RPGs. Many RPGs (like OD&D) never leave the description exchange cycle between the DM and players. 4E, on the other hand, had jarring transitions between exploration, dialogue and encounters. So much so that "encounter" was a system time measurement.

Designing the adventuring environment can provide pacing. If D&DN returns to its roots, we may see that again.

 

[hbarsquared]

Many of the concerns of balance and flavor etc seem to be on the encounter level. It's my contention that this is a somewhat boring level on which to focus in terms of storytelling.

The encounter level is a fragment of the game, and I'd like to see more of a focus on the whole of an experience rather than a collection of fragments piled together.


[MENTION=10021]kamikaze[/MENTION]-midget has several excellent posts on Adventure design over Encounter design. I'd personally like to see more of this from WotC for 5e.

Firstly, I'm glad to see that D&D Next is going in this direction. In essence, "focusing on the adventure as the basic unit of DM design."

Of course, Mearls hasn't gone into too much depth on how they will be accomplishing this when it comes to dailies, rests, crafting, and so on. I think some of the ideas here in this thread are worth looking into.

I do tend to lean toward the "can't really codify it" side of the spectrum. On this issue, I think I'd rather have good, specific DMG advice. Actual rules for extended extended rests should probably only crop up in the module add-ons for "Nobility and Ruling countries" or "Getting a Day Job Between Adventures."

 

[hbarsquared]

With that said, here's an idea. Not necessarily codified rules, but definitely some specific advice the DMG could offer.

Let's say XP is given out per adventure, and the DM populates the entire adventure with a certain XP budget.

The PCs can play through the adventure as designed and receive the designated XP at the end of the adventure.

If they decide to take an "extra" rest in the middle of the adventure, the DM can repopulate portions of the dungeon (an "encounter's worth" amount?) or bring in monster reinforcements, or add prepared traps. The PCs must now defeat/overcome these additions in order to complete the adventure.

Here's the kicker: the reinforcements are not added into the total XP reward. The "Adventure XP Total" remains the same, either way.

So, if PCs want to take extra rests, they're going to expend more of their resources for the same amount of XP!

 

[Lanefan]

Let's say XP is given out per adventure, and the DM populates the entire adventure with a certain XP budget.

The PCs can play through the adventure as designed and receive the designated XP at the end of the adventure.

A good idea, and it works just great until they play through the adventure not as designed, or nibble at it then go off and do something else entirely, or otherwise take a left turn from the plan and go off script.

And how would this interact with a full-on sandbox campaign that doesn't really have easily-defined adventures as such?

I think XP need to be left much more granular, they're more flexible that way for different groups and styles.

Lanefan

 

[Hautamaki]

A good idea, and it works just great until they play through the adventure not as designed, or nibble at it then go off and do something else entirely, or otherwise take a left turn from the plan and go off script.

And how would this interact with a full-on sandbox campaign that doesn't really have easily-defined adventures as such?

I think XP need to be left much more granular, they're more flexible that way for different groups and styles.

Lanefan

Per-Adventure XP is how I started playing this year and I'm loving it. Here's some answers to your objections.

Re Player Nibbling: some adventures lend themselves to nibbling. The classic example would be Keep on the Borderlands. In this case, exp can be awarded per cave cleared/mapped, and you can go old school and give 1 exp per GP looted as well. If the adventurers dabble in a cave but then leave after 1 inconclusive battle, I have no problem ruling that they get 0 exp for their half-an-effort.

Re Sandbox campaigns: KeepotB is already a half-sandbox type campaign; the only way to take it to the next step is to have player-defined goals. This is fine: have the players define their goals (with a nod towards having the players agree on goals as a party to avoid putting themselves into a situation where they have a conflict of interest), and award EXP to the degree that their efforts further their long-term goals. Killing a wandering monster probably doesn't advance any long term goals unless their goal is rid the world of that monster type (which I personally probably would not allow as a DM on the grounds that it's probably too broad and probably doesn't mesh well with the rest of the party).

An example would be that right now my party is attempting to establish themselves as a mercenary company. I therefore award experience on 2 metrics: the GP they bring in (as mercs they are obviously in it for the cash) and by increasing their reputation as a reliable and formidable merc group. The GP experience is awarded on a 1xp per GP basis. The reputation experience is awarded upon completion of a contract.

 

[KidSnide]

With that said, here's an idea. Not necessarily codified rules, but definitely some specific advice the DMG could offer.

Let's say XP is given out per adventure, and the DM populates the entire adventure with a certain XP budget.

This is an excellent (if very old) idea. They key is that XP needs to be rewarded for whatever the goal of the game is. The default goal of AD&D/BECMI was collecting treasure, so XP was awarded for that. Players were rewarded for finding clever ways to get the treasure while avoiding conflict.

The default goal of 3e/4e was (for the most part) slaying monsters. As such, players are rewarded for killing as many monsters as they can, as efficiently as possible. Or, to be more accurate, players are rewarded for killing as many level-appropriate monsters as they can, as efficiently as possible. Unless you're running a campaign that's principally about monster poaching (which could be fun, but isn't quite standard D&D), that creates a bunch of weird misaligned incentives. For example, players who are happy about monster reinforcements because it provides more enemies to kill. 4e, to its credit, provides xp for completing Quests, although -- IMO -- far too much xp goes to the individual encounters as opposed to end goals.

I should also note that xp is a frequently house-ruled aspect of the game, so I suspect there are a great many groups that have found an advancement mechanic that works better with their style.

Since D&DN needs to support a variety of play styles, the question of how xp is provided should be a major DM campaign creation decision, and the rules should provide a number of systems.

-KS

 

[hbarsquared]

A good idea, and it works just great until they play through the adventure not as designed, or nibble at it then go off and do something else entirely, or otherwise take a left turn from the plan and go off script.

And how would this interact with a full-on sandbox campaign that doesn't really have easily-defined adventures as such?

I think XP need to be left much more granular, they're more flexible that way for different groups and styles.

Lanefan

Hautamaki brought up many of the solutions I would consider. It actually gives the DM a lot of freedom to decide what, exactly, is even considered an adventure.

The idea is that the DM would hand out XP for more general accomplishments. "Clearing this dungeon," or "saving the princess."

If the PCs nibble at it over ten levels, fine: they get the XP when they finally accomplish the task.

If the PCs make a left turn, they're abandoning the original adventure's XP (fine), but then start a new one. What actually makes this easier is that the DM can figure out the total XP over a couple sessions, and may not feel crunched to recalculate XP within the hour.

At any rate, part of my point was dealing with the "5-minute workday" and PCs resting between encounters. By giving XP out per adventure, to accomplish tasks (whether PC-driven or DM-driven), they are not rewarded for resting whenever they want, but rewarded for reaching goals.

 

[Tovec]

There is an income system, sort of, on the Craft and the Profession skills...

To avoid the "We take a year off to make money" problem, we could penalise the PCs XP. "You take a year off? Ok, you get a little rusty when you return to your adventuring career, so I say -100 x Lvl xp" or something on those lines.

I've always considered adventuring to be the most dangerous and lucrative way to make money. Would it make sense to say, "I take a year off from work... to make money?"

The penalty is that they are a year older, haven't made any extra coin, have expenses like food, shelter, gear and other upkeep costs... without having more incoming.

If anything, I WANT a game to allow me to run a game where the PCs aren't going full out 24/7/365. I would like them to be able to relax between jobs, or retire, or semi-retire only to be pulled back in by some new threat, called up by the king to do a job, etc.

The problem with a 15 minute adventuring day is the DAY part. I would rather see a system where resources, spells especially, are graded over the course of the mission, as opposed to per encounter or day.
What if the wizard had a pool of magic, vancian spellcasting or other, that they could do between now and X. X being leveling up, or getting some fuel, recharging via lay-lines, accomplishing something, completing the quest, or whatever. Anyway, when they go out and do these heroic deeds they start burning up their resources like an archer might start burning up their arrows. Then after the BBEG (or mini-boss) is defeated, they can restock and recharge and go again.

Sure this would necessitate a change from daily and encounter powers and change it more to a quest/checkpoint/mission completed/new training standpoint, but honestly I think I would prefer to see them at least TRY this method.

I've been toying around with a similar idea I just proposed and so far it seems to be working out well, just to let you know.

 

[Lanefan]

Hautamaki brought up many of the solutions I would consider. It actually gives the DM a lot of freedom to decide what, exactly, is even considered an adventure.

The idea is that the DM would hand out XP for more general accomplishments. "Clearing this dungeon," or "saving the princess."

If the PCs nibble at it over ten levels, fine: they get the XP when they finally accomplish the task.

In addition to the XP they get during the adventure for what they do, I also give out a "dungeon bonus" if they finish an adventure or mission.

If the PCs make a left turn, they're abandoning the original adventure's XP (fine), but then start a new one.

As a player, I'd still rather get XP for what I do, whether it's related to a specific adventure or not.

What actually makes this easier is that the DM can figure out the total XP over a couple sessions, and may not feel crunched to recalculate XP within the hour.

You can do this anyway, unless you're running a game where characters advance every time they sneeze. (yet another point in favour of slower advancement!)

I'll sometimes go several sessions between giving out one batch of XP and the next, unless I know someone's close to bumping.

At any rate, part of my point was dealing with the "5-minute workday" and PCs resting between encounters. By giving XP out per adventure, to accomplish tasks (whether PC-driven or DM-driven), they are not rewarded for resting whenever they want, but rewarded for reaching goals.

That's what wandering monsters and other interruptions are for. That said, sometimes it makes sense to let them rest up; unless you're after a TPK, but there always needs to be the threat of painful interruption even if you have no intention of doing it.

Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from a player, regarding an oft-interrupted rest: "If we rest up here and recuperate long enough we'll all be dead."

Lanefan