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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5151321" data-attributes="member: 2067">I actually think the "15 minute workday" is a symptom of design-for-encounter that going to design-for-dungeon can completely destroy. The 15 minute workday is an effect of designing your game for the encounter, not for the dungeon. 3e encouraged -- rewarded, even -- going nova. 4e takes that into account, and doesn't have a problem with it, though milestones try to address it (IMO, rather awkwardly, but that plays into grind issue and at-the-table session pacing, and is kind of separate anyway). Both games share the essential detail of PC's generally being able to get completely healed in between encounters. I think that's something that dungeon-based-design undoes. If resting becomes an opportunity cost (like healing in combat is), if it consumes something limited, or if the adventure your on gets harder because of it, it becomes something you don't want to do. It becomes a meaningful choice. That's key, because it means that resting is an active choice, not something you just do to recharge, but something with an effect on the adventure you're undertaking. As long as the PC's control the pacing, there is no cost to going nova, no consequence for the rest to get back up to full. Well, in 3e, you might be out the price of a wand of CLW, but it wasn't much. In 4e, the only cost is that you miss out on an Action Point. Ho-hum. And in any game, you could always stick a time limit on it or introduce wandering monsters, but that just passes the buck onto the DM, and limits the kinds of stories you can tell in addition. That's not what we want, I think. I think what we want is to see more resource management at play. We want the party to be treating their most limited abilities like trump cards, like secret tricks, like last-ditch attempts, like the edge-of-your-seat climactic events that they certainly can be. We don't want the players to use them like tools, like another sword to swing, another magic missile to shoot. We don't want them to become use-it-all-the-time mundane. Part of how to do that, like RW pointed out upthread, is to introduce a "charge" mechanic (like Iron Heroes had). Another part of how to do that is to make getting it back cost something.Both approaches mandate that you think beyond the encounter, to the dungeon (adventure) in general. It's not about one combat. It's about all the encounters, events, NPC's, obstacles, and fights you get into between meeting at the inn and beating up the Goblin King, having one big effect. It's about making sure that getting yourself repaired and healed means that the Goblin King has a chance to strike or heal himself as well. The 15 minute adventuring day occurs because adventures are made up of 15 minute increments that are complete. I think we need a game where the increment is more like the entire dungeon, and less like one or two fights with orcs.</blockquote>

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