"Focus on shorter games"? I'm excited

[Elf Witch]

I am aware that I can as DM slow XP down.

The other reason I am not crazy about this is I am worried that having to plan more encounters per session because they go faster will just add more time for prepping.

I hope that there are tools to mkae that go easier.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I am aware that I can as DM slow XP down.

The other reason I am not crazy about this is I am worried that having to plan more encounters per session because they go faster will just add more time for prepping.

I hope that there are tools to mkae that go easier.

The upside is that if the material is easier and lighter to prep then prepping more of it won't take more tiime.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Someone (I'm too lazy to Google) once said D&D was twenty minutes of fun crammed into four hours of playing. I think the goal is to improve that ratio.

 

[Endur]

As characters become higher level, the game will slow down as combats take longer.

I recently started a 3.5 campaign. Combats at 1st and 2nd level were extremely fast. I expect combats at higher level to take much longer.

 

[Sunseeker]

My concern with a focus on "quicker combats" is that it'll end up putting a far too heavy weight on the rolls of a few die. Not to mention, there's a point when combat becomes so quick, and so simplified, that it loses all purpose and meaning.

I want my combats to be just as important as the rest of the game, I don't want it to feel like the part of the game I'm being pushed to "get over with" so we can do other stuff.

 

[YRUSirius]

There can be deep meaning in even the simplest things.

-YRUSirius

 

[Lanefan]

I want my combats to be just as important as the rest of the game, I don't want it to feel like the part of the game I'm being pushed to "get over with" so we can do other stuff.

Having sat through a few games where everything else got pushed to "get over with" so they could get to the combats, I don't mind if the pendulum swings a little bit the other way for a while.

Lan-"and this is coming from a Fighter"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've been doing Encounters for a while, and the short-game format does work. It's great for casual play and limited time, and you can string things together into a larger 'campaign' to an extent.

I'm even running a continuation campaign with characters from Crystal Cave (8 of them!), and I've retained the Encounters format: 2 hr sessions with one encounter or skill challenge as the sort of center piece of each session, with RP and non-skill-challenge interaction and exploration (and in one case, a non-encounter-worthy combat) wrapped around it.

I don't see the big impetus to speed up an one aspect of the game, if that part of the game is enjoyable. Tactical combat is certainly enjoyable, and I'd hate to see it paired down to a handful of bland die rolls, or the whole game reduced to 'coin toss dungeon' in the name of celerity.

 

[ExploderWizard]

My concern with a focus on "quicker combats" is that it'll end up putting a far too heavy weight on the rolls of a few die. Not to mention, there's a point when combat becomes so quick, and so simplified, that it loses all purpose and meaning.

I want my combats to be just as important as the rest of the game, I don't want it to feel like the part of the game I'm being pushed to "get over with" so we can do other stuff.

A combat does not gain any purpose or meaning from the number of dice rolled, or the amount of real time it takes to resolve.

The meaning from combat comes down to its context within the rest of the game. How important each combat is depends upon the players. If the players think that a particular combat encounter is just a timefiller and resource grinder then it might not have meaning for them at all no matter how much time is spent on it.

An important showdown with a bad guy that has been a pain the PC's collective arses for a long time in the campaign is going to be significant and that doesn't rest on how much time is spent resolving the conflict.

 

[Sunseeker]

Having sat through a few games where everything else got pushed to "get over with" so they could get to the combats, I don't mind if the pendulum swings a little bit the other way for a while.

Lan-"and this is coming from a Fighter"-efan

The importance of combat or non-combat things should depend on the campaign. I DO NOT want to see rules that say "combat should take 5 minutes, exploration should take 20 and social 30." That is the rules telling me how to run my game, and that's not what I'm looking for in well, any game.

A combat does not gain any purpose or meaning from the number of dice rolled, or the amount of real time it takes to resolve.

There are 20 possible numbers to roll on a d20, if you are only given the chance to roll it once, performance becomes highly tied to probability. The law of averages(which D&D relies on significantly) does not apply when there is too little to make an average.

The meaning from combat comes down to its context within the rest of the game. How important each combat is depends upon the players. If the players think that a particular combat encounter is just a timefiller and resource grinder then it might not have meaning for them at all no matter how much time is spent on it.

An important showdown with a bad guy that has been a pain the PC's collective arses for a long time in the campaign is going to be significant and that doesn't rest on how much time is spent resolving the conflict.

I believe this is half true, a showdown with Dr Doom is going to be important no matter what happens, however, as anyone who's ever watched an action movie(which includes most fantasy movies) will tell you, if the showdown with the villain takes all of 5 seconds, it really takes a lot of climax out of the fight. The Villain doesn't get a chance to display his true evil, his brilliant genius, his master plan, he just gets punched in the face and you win. Likewise the hero doesn't get to fight on in spite of serious injuries, he doesn't have to choose between saving the hot heroine or his loyal sidekick, he doesn't get a chance to really do anything, he just runs in, punches the guy in the face and wins.


This is why the idea of "shorter combats" are problematic to me, combats should take exactly as long as they're supposed to. Some should take a long time and be complex tactical battles between skilled opponents. Others should go quickly, the group of lowly bandits who thought your shiny +3 Mithril Plate of Shinyness would make them a quick buck. Sometimes exploration is quick, the players look in the right places at just the right time, sometimes social encounters are quick; do the players have to woo the whole Court or just the King? Is the Court perhaps very particular that the only thing that can be done to gain their favor is killing the King? Maybe the only way to get the King's help is to save his son?

This all plays into the idea of "shorter games" as well, the idea that there should be an hourglass slowly ticking away the amount of time you have to do something in. Time spent doing something should be a campaign decision.

I'm all for making combat more fluid so that it naturally plays faster. I don't want to see this come at the cost of player options mind you. EX: the design of the Slayer makes combat both better and faster IMO, that's great design right there. If something like this could be accomplished with all/most classes in 5e, I do believe that combats would go faster.

But my key point is still that the time involved in combat is a result, not the problem. 2+2=4, always has, always will. Making 2+2=Fish is only going to make things weird, and that's my concern, that Wizards will try to change the outcome without changing the equation.