Five-Minute Workday Article

[Crazy Jerome]

As DM, I might not have killed the princess. They make good hostages and are often worth a lot in ransom. Of course, that assumes the enemy group wasn't definitely trying to kill off the entire dynasty. If they thought it would be easier to keep the populace in line with a live, hostage princess, they'd have kept her hostage. If the system was fairly patriarchal, they might have forced her into marriage so a male pretender could claim legitimate authority and secure a legal heir. If they wanted to make sure there were no legit claimants to the throne, she's dead meat.

Yes. My rule of thumb when DMing is that the NPCs motivations don't really change, their goals rarely do, but their means and plans change as the situation warrants. So then as soon as the players do something unexpected, I only have to ask, "Well, what would NPC X do about that?"

You do need the confidence in the overall playstyle to pull the trigger on that--even when you know that what X is going to try is probably not going to work, and may even create a bit of a lull in the excitement. But I've found that after players have had dose after dose of "hang onto events by their fingertips," a detour into "we've got this guy's number and won't let up until we win," is welcome enough that it doesn't really seem boring to the players.

 

[Zustiur]

Even when I run the ones that HAVE time limits...I often hate when the PCs go past them. It just isn't fun to have to change the plans for my next adventure because the PCs decided that resting was more important than the objective.

This, and indeed the rest of your post makes you sound like a 'prepare in advance' DM rather than a 'play it by ear' DM. What you're implying is that it isn't fun if the players have any actual control over the story. That's because having to rewrite the story is hard work, and therefore not fun. I'm not having a go at you. I'm definitely not saying that you're having badwrongfun. However, I am suggesting that you're focusing on one type of fun over another. Potentially this means DM fun over player fun, but I'd have to talk to your players to find out if that were the case.

I've been down that 'prepare in advance' road myself, and am now trying to push myself in the direction of 'play it by ear'. It's a long hard change because I need a lot more experience before I can play this way confidently, but I'm finding the experience liberating. No more do I have to spend hours prepping for the next adventure and trying to anticipate what the players might do. In fact, my preparation for the next session is little more than two paragraphs of notes.

To take your example at its word; I would have killed the princess. Why? Because winning all the time without a challenge isn't fun either. Winning all the time can only be fun if there's something to actually beat. If the win is guaranteed, I see no fun in that. The [4E WOTC modules] game that I currently play in holds no 'story' fun for me for exactly these reasons. I have no impact on the story. It's fun in other ways - there's always a danger to the life of my character. The intra-party role play is highly entertaining. But the story is terrible. During more than one module I've asked myself why would my character be here, and there has been no good answer.

I think this behaviour is where the majority of the 15 minute adventuring day groups struggle. The DM is too scared to have the world react to the PCs actions in a sensible way, and thus the 'bad behaviour' is rewarded. DMs who are more comfortable with ad-libbing and having the world react to the PCs are less likely to encounter the 15 minute problem in the first place.

I only started reading this thread today. I've had to skim sections to catch up (and I don't think I missed anything terribly important because it has been quite repetitive). There are a number of issues being discussed, and one of the reasons we aren't finding satisfactory solutions is that we are not identifying the root causes of the problem correctly.

The 15MAD is bad because it highlights and enforces the difference between daily powered characters and at will powered characters. I think most people have agreed with that point. It is also bad because it interferes with the party vs monster/encounter balance. That hasn't been discussed as much, but I think/hope we can all agree with it as a concept.

The 15MAD is not caused by any single thing, be it mechanics or play style/DM ability/whathaveyou. No, it is caused by a combination of things occurring together.

So what are the things that contribute to the 15MAD in the first place?
* Daily powers, in any form
* The ability to 'go nova' with those daily powers
* Resting after every combat being an option
* No consequences for resting after every combat
* Resting after every combat being tactically/strategically beneficial
* Fixed story lines that can't or won't be altered by the behaviour
* Players (and characters) focusing on safety rather than on achieving a goal
* Players (and DMs?) ignoring the practicalities of day time and night time and sleeping patterns.
* Characters not having a problem with boredom. i.e. Characters don't get bored resting for 16 hours then having a single battle then resting for 16 hours.
* No mechanical incentive to make the party continue on (milestones/action points/bonus XP)

I'm sure there are others.

My point here is that no single one of these issues causes the 15MAD. Many of the causes can be attributed to play style rather than mechanics. The AEDU mechanic only addresses the first point and does not address any others. This is why groups like mine we able to produce the 15MAD in 4E, even though we hadn't done so in 3E.

Likewise, removing Vancian entirely only addresses the first point. In fact:
So long as there is any resource management of significant impact, the 15MAD concept will still be possible.

Addressing any single cause listed above will not, and can not, prevent the 15MAD. It may be enough of a trigger to get some groups out of the problem, but it won't be the solution for many others.

On the other hand; I'm inclined to argue that fixing all of them isn't just unnecessary, it's detrimental. We've already seen people say 'that's not DND' to the idea of removing daily powers/spells. I happen to agree with those people. Vancian magic is [to me] intrinsically linked with DND. Removing it causes the game to feel more like Generic Fantasy Role Playing and less like Dungeons and Dragons (again TO ME).

Many of those points can't really be addressed mechanically because they're not caused by mechanics in the first place. Players ignoring the day time/night time cycle isn't a mechanic. It's just players being players. Sure, you could institute some sort of mechanic to fight it, like you CAN'T rest within 12 hours of a previous rest, but that doesn't stop them saying 'ok, we walk around in circles for the next 11 hours and 45 minutes'. No, I say mechanically trying to address those issues is a bad idea. That's where advice in the DMG is the obvious solution. A slightly less obvious solution is to put similar advice in the PHB.

If the players are warned by the book that the world will react to their characters, and the DMs are advised on ways to achieve this, we have a strong solution to a lot of the non-mechanical issues.

The mechanical ones can still be addressed, but the way to do so is not to take a 'knee-jerk' reaction of removing daily powers altogether. It seems to me, that one of the simplest ways to reduce the mechanical problems is to flatten the spell-power curve. Bring high level spellcasters down a notch, while making sure the low level spellcasters don't suck. One of the simplest ways to do that is to stretch out the existing spells across a greater number of class levels. I'm not sure that's the best way, but it is one of the simplest. Compare a 3E level 30 fighter with a 3E level 20 Wizard. Is the imbalance still there? Is it as bad?

Another way is to look at what resting achieves. If resting gives you everything back, then resting is always beneficial. If resting does not necessarily give you everything, then it may not be beneficial. I'm talking about two key things here:
1) No instant overnight heal
2) No instant overnight return of all spells.

To take an extreme example:
1) AD&D natural healing (1hp per night)
2) Spell preparation time of 1 hour, per spell, per spell level. So to get a 9th level spell back takes 8 hours rest + 9 hours preparation/memorization.
(Remember, I said 'extreme example')

Under that system, resting to regain some power is an option, but resting to regain all power would not... or at least, it would take several days/weeks rather than just one night.
Incidentally the reason I picked 'per spell, per spell level' is so that you can opt to memorize a low level spell in a high level slot and thus recover some power more quickly.

To take a less extreme example:
1) Natural healing = 1 HP per level per night's rest
2) Spell preparation time of 10 minutes, per spell, per spell level.
Now it only takes 90 minutes to regain a 9th level spell, but regaining 3 or 4 of them looks prohibitive.

In theory this means that spellcasters will hoard their highest power spells to be used when most beneficial (i.e. fighting the big bad) rather than just thrown out willy-nilly. Also, if they do throw out some high level spells, they can regain some mid level and low level spells to help compensate. I haven't had a chance (or a need) to test this out in practice, so I have no idea what anyone else thinks of it. It's possible that a less linear option would be required, one where it only takes a few minutes for a 3rd level spell, but takes hours for a 9th. I suspect I may also need to look at a system where you compare your spell level to your character level to work out how long it takes to prepare. Thus a 3rd level spell takes a long time to prepare at 5th level, but doesn't at 19th level.

A final twist:
If spell memorization time is significant, do we need to retain the 8 hour rest requirement? Is there a problem with a wizard asking for an hour or so break to regain some low level spells before the party presses on? This would help with allowing wizard players to use spells all the time (no crossbow syndrome). It would help with ensuring that low level wizards 'suck less'. It would mean that spells being reduced in overall power wouldn't necessarily makes wizards useless.



In conclusion:
What other causes of 15MAD can you identify?
What other solutions to the non-mechanical causes can you suggest?
What other solutions to the mechanical causes can you suggest?
And please, remember that fixing one cause won't make the entire problem go away.

 

[tlantl]

[MENTION=1544]Zustiur[/MENTION]

Just as a reminder; in AD&D it took 12 hours of sleep to regain 9th level spells. The memorization times were an hour per spell level per spell. There weren't too many people blowing all the spells they had since it could take a week to re-memorize those spells.

Just another reason those games seldom had casters going nova then stopping to rest.

I don't see this as extreme I see it as one of the limiting factors that was removed which lead to the overpowered casters of 3e.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

@Zustiur

Just as a reminder; in AD&D it took 12 hours of sleep to regain 9th level spells. The memorization times were an hour per spell level per spell. There weren't too many people blowing all the spells they had since it could take a week to re-memorize those spells.

Just another reason those games seldom had casters going nova then stopping to rest.

I don't see this as extreme I see it as one of the limiting factors that was removed which lead to the overpowered casters of 3e.

This may be quite true. Taking an entire week of rest would definitely seem excessive, even for 15 minute adventuring day players like me or the groups I played in.

3E did remove a lot of checks and balances it seems, often because they were complicated or just felt "unfun". As a spellcaster, I would like to cast spells often (they don't all need to be Fireball, Teleport or Disintegrate), but before the "invention" of at-will magic like 3.x Warlocks or Reserve Feats, that wasn't possible. Now it could be.

THere is still some Nova problem left, I think, but in an entire different area - NPCs. That was a problem in 3E as well - playing against spellcasting NPCs often required Novaing to counter their Nova - if it's life or death, and for NPCs it pretty much is when they come in conflict with PCs, there is no reason to hold back. (On the other hand, these NPC casters would have a giant spellbook containing 60 spells and having 30 or so prepared, but realistically would never get more than 3-4 spells off.) It will depend on the NPC creation rules and DM advice whether that will also be a problem in Next. It isn't in 4E since NPCs generally use different rules from PCs.

 

[keterys]

3e npc spellcasters were particularly offensive in that regard because they could blow their entire pyramid for one combat. So, hey, as many buffs as possible that you can get on beforehand. And throw in some quickened spells too, you're not going to live more than a couple rounds, so # of rounds * best spells (+ hasted spells if appropriate) and then Quickened spell per round. To be _extra_ threatening.

 

[Zustiur]

Ah, a new point. NPC spellcasters. While it did take me a while to accept, I think this is one of the things that 4E got right. Don't make NPCs follow the same creation rules as PCs. By all means give them some spells, but don't give them 40. Part of the rational behind this comes down to preparation. Unless the NPC has had a day or two of warning that the PCs are coming, he shouldn't be set up for pure combat, most of his spells are probably the kind of spells that aren't even mentioned in DND. Things like Nullify Latrine Odour, Silence Iritating Neighbour's Loud Music. Not to mention 'Big Bad Evil Ritual' which is probably why the PCs are out to kill him in the first place.

With that said, NPC spell casters should still have to use real spells for their combat spells, and have real spellbooks for the party wizard to gain his spell knowledge from. However, I see no problem with those spells being set up ala 4E monster powers, and no problem with those NPC 'wizards' being the equivalent of elite or solo to have the necessary HP to be a threat.

The only time I'd insist on NPCs using PC generation rules is when the PCs encounter a party of NPCs. Basically; if encountering other adventurers, they should look the same as adventurer PCs. If encountering the Big Bad Wizard in his Evil Wizard Tower, he should be built according to monster creation rules.

 

[Dark Mistress]

For NPC casters what I do. Is I consider them my character for a moment. Living where ever they live and with the NPC's goals. Then I ask myself what would be the spells I would on a average day have. Then those are the ones I give the NPC's. Which is another reason my examples above work on my PC's. They know if they do the 15 adventuring day and let a caster in the adventure know they are coming and prepare for them than the fight will be a lot harder than it otherwise would have been. But that to me goes back to the whole making a living breathing world I mentioned.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While it did take me a while to accept, I think this is one of the things that 4E got right. Don't make NPCs follow the same creation rules as PCs.

You've just hit upon one of the reasons 4Ed will never be my D&D.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Whereas I think the intended usage is more along the lines of "Okay, they're out of the picture for the next eight hours. What's everyone else in the area likely to be doing in the meantime?"

Basically, it shouldn't be viewed as a tool to encourage or discourage certain types of behaviour - it should simply be an aspect of the underlying game world that needs to be taken into account.

See, my problem with this is "what's everyone else doing" is likely the same thing they've been doing for the past 8 hours. I mean, how much did your day change from one day to the next. Most things have a fairly static routine. Now, it could be that the denizens go on alert, but, they probably did that 5 minutes after the first or second encounter. What's going to change? They're likely going to stay on heightened alert for the next day or so.

 

[Mark CMG]

Rather than focus on the encounter, we are now focusing on the adventuring day. That means that during the typical adventure, we expect the average party to defeat X levels worth of monsters over Y rounds of combat. In other words, we're assuming that an adventure includes a certain amount of combat, and this amount is defined in terms of rounds and enemies.

Well. there's your problem, right there.