Five-Minute Workday Article

[Stormonu]

Part of the problem is that the PCs that partake in the 15-minute workday still make good XP from doing so. Take that away. No XP for monster kills. No XP for traps beaten. No XP for quest objectives. Award XP if, and only if, the PCs recover treasure and return to town with it; determine the GP value of the recovered treasure, and award that in XP to the surviving PCs as a group reward that must be evenly split.

Those goblins? 0 XP. The pit trap? 0 XP. Getting the princess back? 0 XP. Hauling the goblin king's treasure chest back to town? XP awarded.

The result? The PCs now has an incentive to (a) avoid useless encounters and (b) keep moving on instead of wasting resources on things that don't matter.

I've been working on a system where you get XP based on the number of "successes" it takes to overcome an obstacle.

Kill an enemy in with one spell, you get a handful of XP. Teleport from city to city and evade all those encounters and get little to no XP. Engage in an epic struggle that takes lot of attack rolls, healing and whatnot and you'll get tons of XP. Devise and execute a plan where you bribe, bluff, extort or sneak past the king's legion and you'll get a whole lot more.

The hard road becomes more rewarding, the easy road less so.

 

[Dark Mistress]

See, I look at Dark Mistress' example of the goblins above and think that that would likely be the last session I'd sit at that table. Think about it. The goblins get trashes and the PC's fall back. Ok, fine. Couple of hours later, the goblins scout out the area and discover their losses. Ok, again, fine. They are then so well organized that they can evacuate their home in a matter of hours, taking everything of real value with them. Note, they have to be even faster because they're already gone by the time the PC's return

To be clear the PC's traveled several hours back to the lodge I don't recall off the top of my head but I think it was 3-4 hours to a place they knew was safe. Set up camp there, made meals, using healing skill to tends wounds, slept 8 hours, then traveled back. So they was gone 15+ hours. Since a alarm was raised the goblins waited a bit but not hours and hours before sending a scout up after not hearing anything. So they had 13+ hours to pack up and leave before the party returned. Also I stated they took what they could carry not that they took everything. But the goblins where gone along with their most valuable stuff. Which for the dozen or 18 goblins left seemed pretty reasonable. Just FYI since you used my example.

I am fair certain if aliens landed and started busting into peoples houses and killing everyone inside and then left just as they started on my block. I am fair certain that I could gather up all of my most valuable stuff I wanted to keep and could carry/pack in a car and leave in 13+ hours.

But you said you would not enjoy such a game and would not play in such again. Which is fair enough, but for me and my group things like that is what makes the game fun. A living breathing world that changes and mutates based on what the characters do or don't do. Not saying one play style is better or worse, but if 5e has a forced fix to do away with resource management and remove some of the elements my group and I like then 5e wouldn't interest us. Which wouldn't be a issue if 5e's goal wasn't to bring lapsed "DnD" players back, so those of us wanting to see that style of play are expressing ourselves on the matter.

As I said I have no problem with a mechanical fix to the 5 min adventuring day that some people have a problem with as long as it is a option and it is easy for the rest of us to opt not to use it.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

You could always give XP as a percentage of the total hit point damage done to the party over the course of the adventure, with perhaps some special bumps for "save and end up with some condition incurable except by magic".

This will have some perverse effects on munchkins, but I'm not sure that everyone else will get sloppy and take more damage merely to boost their awards a bit.

 

[JamesonCourage]

How?

I said time mattered. That means things progressed in the world, and time played an important factor in that.

At low levels, travel time was a big one. Players could go a month south to deal with Problem A, or they could go two months West and deal with Problem B, but they couldn't do both, because either problem would be dealt with (one way or another) by the time they completed (or failed) in their mission. Do you wait for your ally (but let the bad guy build up), or go in without his specialized help (especially if he has useful knowledge)? Do you wait out the Domination effect (which takes days), or go on and hope that it doesn't interfere too much? Do you go back into the Pit with less spells, or do you wait and let ghosts rampage the surrounding area?

At higher levels, temples needed time to be built, as did convincing large portions of the population in each and every nation to worship the gods again. A nation has to be run, including large troop movements, roads being built, and cities being reworked or built. The council of mages built its own tower, had its own army, and had to build political ties in all the nations.

My first question to the DM, upon realizing that the goblins have fled would be, "Where are the tracks?"

But, I highly suspect that if I asked this question, the tracks would magically not be findable. Because, in my experience, "a living world" is only living if it manages to make things more difficult for the PC's. The goblins fled their home? FREAKING FANTASTIC. They're now easy pickings. Certainly a heck of a lot easier than when they were in their nice, trapped, hidey hole.

They certainly could be easier to take out. And, no offense, but your experience isn't universal, and just because it sucked for you when your GM screwed you, it doesn't mean that it works that way for everyone. I wouldn't do that to my players purposefully, and I'm sorry you've had terrible experiences like this.

Regardless of your terrible experiences, though, they don't apply to me. I don't run things that way; my players don't run things that way when they do run games. A "living world" isn't just out to make things more difficult for the PCs. You don't have to accept that, but you're simply mistaken if you think that it's somehow universal.

However, as I said, I highly suspect that in most "living world" games, tracks would mystically vanish, wandering monsters would only attack the PC's and every opponent is more organized than the best trained modern armies.

Call it a hunch.

I'd call you wrong. But, I can't speak to "most games" any better than you can, really. So, maybe we should "call it a wash" instead? Because sitting here saying "my experience is that players get screwed every time when the world reacts to things" simply won't jive well with me (or other people like me), since it's not representative of my game in the least.

My players use the "living world" to their advantage more often than it screws them. Last session, they took some farms around a city hostage with about 100 people to trick 450 of the town's army out, then surprised the town's army by cutting their route to the city off, and attacking with a hidden force over twice their size. I didn't screw the players; they earned their victory. It was the opening salvo in what's going to be an ongoing conflict, and the other armies probably won't get tricked like that (the enemy army routed, so the players suspect word will get to the remaining areas).

On the other hand, they know that they can't just sit in the city forever and build up a higher resistance for the next few years. They know that the other armies will start to act, and they'll need to respond to it (and prepare for it). This might mean that they get hurt, but it might mean that they can prepare well enough to ready for the counterattack they know is coming (the question now is "when").

I don't know how it'll play out yet. We'll see. That's part of the fun. But, I'll tell you this much: my "living world" isn't meant to screw the players. Time matters. They only have so much time to raise more resistance fighters, move their army (or armies, possibly), craft weapons or armor, travel around themselves, etc. Time matters. It just does. And it's not to screw the players, it's because that's how time works in my game.

It's not just to screw the players. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

But the problem is that isn't the game many of us want to play.

Which is why, in the post you quoted, I said this:

I think it is obvious to everyone that D&Dnext is going to be very different from 4e. But it is equally natural for those who are playing a version of D&D that offers a mechanical solution to the problem Mearls is talking about to be somewhat dissapointed by his failure to acknowledge that he is already publishing a version of the game that solves the problem. And his failure to canvass the range of other solutions that might be available, such as some of the milestone variants that have been mentioned in this and other threads.

There are non-4e ways to deal with the issue. What about a milestone mechanic for unlocking wizard spells, for example?

It does strike me they are genuinely struggling to understand the different groups that play D&D while also working to unite them somehow.

this L&L is not meant to persuade 4e players. 4e players should already be aboard.

I personally haven't seen anything in L&L for a long time that demonstrates understanding of what is attractrive and powerful in 4e's design. And I'm not sure why I should be on board an approach that lacks the tools I currently have.

there will be absolutely nothing preventing you from DM your games just as you do in 4e. The only difference is that rather than design encounters in a vacuum, you have an added reference -- for a party this size, at this XP level, they'll probably need a rest after X rounds of combat. You don't have to plan anything in advance. It's just an extra tool.

Except that he defines deviating from his X rounds of combat per day scenario as throwing balance out the window and letting casters dominate.

As thecasualoblivion says, the difference is that if I depart from the expected XP budget, I will upset the balance between classes in the party.

I disagree that that is what Mearls is saying. He says, "The important thing from an R&D perspective is that both extremes, and all the points in between, are options for DMs." The point is that, just as monster roles and Encounter XP budgets gave the DM finer control over adventure design, so will the adventure day rules give DMs finer control over pacing.

Mearls says expressly that departing from the XP budget will upset intraparty balance. Here are the relevant words (I've bolded some for emphasis):

DMs will have a crystal clear guideline on how many rounds of combat a group should tackle before resting. If the group spends less time in fights, casters grow stronger. If the characters spend more rounds fighting, the fighter and rogue grow stronger.​

I think that's pretty unambigous.

In reality, a 4e DM wouldn't (generally) skew the game in such a way because 4e gives these tools for game design.

<snip>

The adventure day budget is just in that line. It's taking something awesome in 4e and improving on it so that folks who don't care for a game where everyone has the same options to nova can play with it, too.

The comparison that you and KM are making to 4e is inapt, in my view.

In 4e, I can design an encounter at a given XP budget with 1 monster or 20 or more, or anything in between (by mixing solos, elites, standards, and minions of various levels). I can vary their roles so as to change the dynamics of the combat. And I can boost or lower the XP budget while holding the balance of monsters (near-enough to) constant.

So it's no doubt true that I can design encounters, at a given budget, that will favour controllers over melee strikers over ranged strikers, etc. But nothing in the game dictates that I use a certain XP budget to maintain intraparty balance.

So, suppose I'm running a game in which there is one EL+5 encounter per day (maybe the PCs are doing a series of hits on prison cells in Carceri). I can design different encounters, that will have different dynamics and let different PCs shine. The XP budget that I'm using is irrelevant to that.

Suppose that I'm running a game in which there are 7 EL or EL+1 enconters per day (maybe the PCs are fighting their way through a series of outposts on Carceri). I can design encounter that will have different dynamics and let different PCs shine. The XP budget I'm using is irrelevant to that.

Nothing in the (pre-Essentials) 4e PC rules makes the use of any particular XP budget relevant to intraparty balance.

Mearls himself, in the bit I quote above, states that D&Dnext is going to be different in that respect. Increase your daily XP budget, fighters and rogues will shine. Decrease it, and casters will shine. For me, that is a problem. It's a backwards step from what I've got, because it requires me to use a particular XP budget (presumably a level-dependent one) in order to preserve intraparty balance.

I have other concerns also - given the current trajectory, I don't really trust the designers to refrain from giving wizards and clerics spells that let them set the daily XP budget (via teleport, rope trick etc). Whereas (i) 4e doesnt have so many of those spells, and (ii) if the players rather than the GM start setting the XP budget, it doesn't affect intraparty balance (though it can perhaps give rise to other play issues more tangential to this thread).

But even before I get to this further concern, there is the basic fact - stated by Mearls - that intrparty balance of effectiveness is tethered to a particular XP budget.

It doesn't solve the entire issue. The other half of the imbalance problem is that daily powered classes are unbalanced against the encounters themselves if you deviate from the guidelines. If there is only one encounter, they just nuke it with daily powers. You could just have an epic encounter that requires going nova, but maybe you don't want to for story reasons or that it would take longer to resolve than you want.

Daily powers balanced around attrition force that attrition

I agree that this is an issue, but with proper power design I think it is more easily worked around. In Rolemaster, for example, even if the nova-PCs are going to nuke the single weak encounter with their spells, their can still be interesting play in making choices about which spells, and how, etc. I've seen similar play in 4e, where an encounter is foregone but the way it unfolds is still interesting and worth resolving.

But I'll happily concede there is a fine line between what I'm describing, and needless grind. And it does depend on details of the design of action resolution. If the nova just takes the form of "We fireball them", it's quick and non-grindy, but hardly very interesting or satifying to play out.

Call it a hunch.

I'm hesitant to completely buy into your generalisation - there are a lot of different approaches out there! But I do share your frustration at this repeated insistence that what is needed to fix the 15 minute adventuring day, for those who don't like it or its effect on intraparty balance, is better education of the player base.

 

[pemerton]

Part of the problem is that the PCs that partake in the 15-minute workday still make good XP from doing so. Take that away. No XP for monster kills. No XP for traps beaten. No XP for quest objectives. Award XP if, and only if, the PCs recover treasure and return to town with it; determine the GP value of the recovered treasure, and award that in XP to the surviving PCs as a group reward that must be evenly split.

So how else do you motivate players focused on risk-reward for charging headlong into escalating danger?

Escalating Experience Points

I think the same principle that Marty expounded applied to something besides XP might be a better fit in the long run, leaving XP as a character growth pacing mechanism for the default. (Using XP as a reward works well in a subset of playstyles.)

I agree with CJ on this. I think trying to use XP awards to change behaviour is not very likely to work, given the vast range of different approaches that groups have to XP calculation and award. (And the game itself has approached XP very differently in different editions.)

A more fully developed action point currency would be my first candidate.

I agree that something that feeds back into the core of action resolution - action points, unlocking wizard spells, enhacing fighter attacks to make wizards less essential, etc - is the right place to look.

 

[HeinorNY]

Yeah, that's... pretty impressively bad, IMHO. He basically blames the DM for a problem with the system.

Hey, let's try that approach elsewhere!

"We've heard that archers are weak and boring, so we're suggesting that each encounter include at least 25% flying creatures to make them more necessary."

"The knowledge skills in the game seem unnecessarily fractured, so we suggest that every dungeon contain at least one magical riddle that requires a Knowledge check."

"The halfling race is underpowered, so we're suggesting that at least one floor of each dungeon have 4-foot ceilings."

Hmmm... The problem in your examples is that they are absolutes. The Archer IS weak and boring, The knowledge skill IS useless and the hafling IS underpowered.

The 5wd problem is not absolute. Magic users are not always stronger than fighters in encounters, they don't have to always go nova, and the 5WD is not a problem in every group.

You examples are about game designers telling DMs to change their campaigns in order to fix system problems, which is the opposite to what Mearls was talking about. He doesn't want to include rules to fix problems you might not have, but he wants to give the tools to run the campaign the way you want to AND to avoid problems if they come to exist.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Making the encounter more challenging inevitably involved making the encounter take longer to resolve. If the point having less encounters was to spend less time on them, it's not a minor issue. If the plot doesn't call for multiple combats but also doesn't call for a big epic grindfest, it's not a minor issue.

I am not sure what kind of fight do you have in mind here. It could very well be that even a very challenging encounter can be resolved very quick. It doesn't have to be like in 4E. If you want a rich combat with high tactical depth, it will be, but if you can do with less details, you can even have a hard combat very hard.
If not every player has to think whether he still has a minor action somewhere hidden on his sheet, and not everyone constantly evaluates wether any of his free action or immediate interruprts/reactions may be relevant to whatever is going on each turn, and not everyone needs to fine-tune his movement to avoid AoOs and get in the optimal flanking position, combat can be much faster!

 

[Tony Vargas]

If not every player has to think whether he still has a minor action somewhere hidden on his sheet, and not everyone constantly evaluates wether any of his free action or immediate interruprts/reactions may be relevant to whatever is going on each turn, and not everyone needs to fine-tune his movement to avoid AoOs and get in the optimal flanking position, combat can be much faster!

Nod. The only virtue of such a combat would be that you don't have to be bored with it for very long.

 

[erleni]

The more I look at the debates here and on WotC's forum the more I think they should publish 2 different games, like a D&D Classic and a D&D 4.5.
I don't really see a way to bridge the gap that works properly for both factions, except maybe that of making a core with classes that only have at will powers and a very simple healing method (like you regain all your HP at the end of each encounter) and then add everything else as a module.