D&D 5E How viable is 5E to play at high levels?

[Manbearcat]

Evacced to South Carolina after the storm turned late Friday night and they were projecting CAT 3 with 4 and 5 straight up Tampa Bay WELL within projections. This place would be in ruins for months. Got back late last night. Battened down the hatches significantly, but it's a miracle that home is fine (just lots of debris).

Long story short, I have a lot to do these next few days and Im going out of country for a week and a half on Friday. So I won't be able to get to posting my thoughts/responses for a few weeks!

 

[hawkeyefan]

Evacced to South Carolina after the storm turned late Friday night and they were projecting CAT 3 with 4 and 5 straight up Tampa Bay WELL within projections. This place would be in ruins for months. Got back late last night. Battened down the hatches significantly, but it's a miracle that home is fine (just lots of debris).

Long story short, I have a lot to do these next few days and Im going out of country for a week and a half on Friday. So I won't be able to get to posting my thoughts/responses for a few weeks!

Glad to hear you made it through the storm. I have lots of family and friends in Florida who were impacted, but luckily everyone is well.

 

[Erechel]

I think some are confusing "adventuring day" with "gaming session." I.e., how long combat takes, or how long your gaming session is has no impact on the adventuring day in the game world. You can end your gaming session right in the middle of an adventuring day, and still be in the same adventuring day when you play your next session.

Personally, I find the 6-8 to be pretty accurate. Sometimes it's none, or just one encounter (like during interaction or explorations phases). Other times the PCs may have up to a dozen encounters before they have the opportunity for a long rest, especially in a dungeon. After all, the dungeon doesn't go on time out when the players want to do a long rest. The monsters still move around the place, especially if they are aware of the party and are looking for them.

So in average, 6-8 seems about right.

I have to disagree here. There is a simple enough explanation of why it isn't satisfying to have one "adventuring day" longer than a gaming session: dramatic tension. Most groups don't engage in more than 1 session per week, if they are lucky. Specially when you are older and have other compromises, a party sometimes has problems to meet again. Needless to say, one character present in a prior session (During the same adventuring day) may be not present in the next one.

And this has consequences. You can't build dramatic tension if a given session is less than half an adventuring day. You'll have days that last for weeks or months. And you need a simple structure to allow you to resolve a "day" or an small adventure in one session. You can't have a proper climax if you are planning for a "day of adventure" and you stop at noon because there is actually midnight in real time and everyone should go home.

 

[Oofta]

I have to disagree here. There is a simple enough explanation of why it isn't satisfying to have one "adventuring day" longer than a gaming session: dramatic tension. Most groups don't engage in more than 1 session per week, if they are lucky. Specially when you are older and have other compromises, a party sometimes has problems to meet again. Needless to say, one character present in a prior session (During the same adventuring day) may be not present in the next one.

And this has consequences. You can't build dramatic tension if a given session is less than half an adventuring day. You'll have days that last for weeks or months. And you need a simple structure to allow you to resolve a "day" or an small adventure in one session. You can't have a proper climax if you are planning for a "day of adventure" and you stop at noon because there is actually midnight in real time and everyone should go home.

I think I pretty much disagree with everything you just said*. I regularly split up adventure days between game sessions. I often leave things on a cliff hanger which actually helps build the tension.

I also use the alternate rules for resting - a short rest is overnight while a long rest is several days (usually at least a week).

*Which is fine because there is no one true way to play D&D. What works for me and my group may not work for you.

 

[Azzy]

Evacced to South Carolina after the storm turned late Friday night and they were projecting CAT 3 with 4 and 5 straight up Tampa Bay WELL within projections. This place would be in ruins for months. Got back late last night. Battened down the hatches significantly, but it's a miracle that home is fine (just lots of debris).

Good to hear. I was fearing for my home as well. I got very lucky here in North Florida (we didn't have it nearly as bad as in the South, but flooding and damage was still bad). It looks like large swaths of the state are still without power (again, I'm lucky—I was only out for three days, whereas some others in my city are still without).

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have to disagree here. There is a simple enough explanation of why it isn't satisfying to have one "adventuring day" longer than a gaming session: dramatic tension. Most groups don't engage in more than 1 session per week, if they are lucky. Specially when you are older and have other compromises, a party sometimes has problems to meet again. Needless to say, one character present in a prior session (During the same adventuring day) may be not present in the next one.

And this has consequences. You can't build dramatic tension if a given session is less than half an adventuring day. You'll have days that last for weeks or months. And you need a simple structure to allow you to resolve a "day" or an small adventure in one session. You can't have a proper climax if you are planning for a "day of adventure" and you stop at noon because there is actually midnight in real time and everyone should go home.

If that's what works for you, that's fine. But the adventuring day is in no way tied to how much real time your session lasts. It's nowhere in the rules to tie to the two together, and is not the assumed style of play. There's also no way they could design encounter rules around how long people's sessions last--that would be impossible. So they design them around how long an adventuring day in the game lasts. So it is of my opinion, reinforced by some comments here, that a reason why some tables are not getting the 6-8 encounters per day is because they are using their gaming session time as the metric, rather than the in game adventuring day.

Also, on the topic of dramatic tension, nothing drops dramatic tension for me then putting the game world on pause and allowing the PCs to rest whenever they want just because your gaming session is coming to an end. There is no tension if the PCs can just stop and rest after a couple encounters while the rest of the world is on time out. If the PCs are in a dungeon, they might not get a rest in an "adventuring day" for over a dozen encounters, over a couple sessions, if there are monsters around looking for them or aware they are there. The end of the session could very well be, "Ok, you've beaten this encounter and we'll stop here. Next session we'll start from this area." but that is still during the same adventuring day in the game, even if you don't play again for a week or a month.

 

[Helldritch]

An adventuring day can last many sessions, a game year can last but a second.

Sometimes, a year or two can pass between adventures. Yet, this has no bearing on real time. The same holds true for the adventuring day.
Sometimes, the "adventuring day" lasts 3 sessions or more. Sometimes it lasts a lot less. I also tend to end sessions on a cliff hanger. Will the rogue get caught by the guards? Will the Ogre successfully strike the wizard? Often we end in the middle of a combat. This gives a lot to talk about between sessions as many will discuss possible strategies and outcomes. This keeps the game alive outside the game sessions.

 

[Erechel]

If that's what works for you, that's fine. But the adventuring day is in no way tied to how much real time your session lasts. It's nowhere in the rules to tie to the two together, and is not the assumed style of play.

Except it does. One of the main complains in the prior editions was how much the combats last, and how much time resolving seemingly simple things consumed. And there was also the 5-minute adventuring day. This edition assumes that most encounters don't last as much and the resolution time is faster... except it doesn't a great job at this at higher levels, where the options' bloat and bookkeeping becomes more draggy.

There's also no way they could design encounter rules around how long people's sessions last--that would be impossible. So they design them around how long an adventuring day in the game lasts. So it is of my opinion, reinforced by some comments here, that a reason why some tables are not getting the 6-8 encounters per day is because they are using their gaming session time as the metric, rather than the in game adventuring day.

And that becomes a problem by itself. And that's why you are giving reason to me: you need a climax and resolution in a session, or else the game becomes stretched. A boss isn't a boss if you throw it at mid session, where adventurers have most of their resources (and they don't need to expend them all in a fight!! In a single fight a wizard exhausts 6 spells tops unless he is the only fighting!) Why throwing out a construct such as an adventuring day if you aren't going to tie it to some real experience, like the gaming session? And the truth is simple: it's easier to structure and tie one adventuring day bounded to a session. When I write an adventure I even calculate how much time an encounter should ideally last (of course, there is room for variation, I'm not stupid), and how much time it takes to resolve the whole adventure. It helps to build the pace of the adventure*. And the best part is that it works, specially for newbie GMs, as it helps them to have a better pace for their sessions. Adventuring days are a way to structure narrative, nothing else.

Also, on the topic of dramatic tension, nothing drops dramatic tension for me then putting the game world on pause and allowing the PCs to rest whenever they want just because your gaming session is coming to an end. There is no tension if the PCs can just stop and rest after a couple encounters while the rest of the world is on time out. If the PCs are in a dungeon, they might not get a rest in an "adventuring day" for over a dozen encounters, over a couple sessions, if there are monsters around looking for them or aware they are there. The end of the session could very well be, "Ok, you've beaten this encounter and we'll stop here. Next session we'll start from this area." but that is still during the same adventuring day in the game, even if you don't play again for a week or a month.

I think I pretty much disagree with everything you just said*. I regularly split up adventure days between game sessions. I often leave things on a cliff hanger which actually helps build the tension.

I also use the alternate rules for resting - a short rest is overnight while a long rest is several days (usually at least a week).

*Which is fine because there is no one true way to play D&D. What works for me and my group may not work for you.

And that becomes a bookkeeping drag. You have to keep note from the spells you expended in several sessions. This isn't as big as a problem for a fighter or a rogue, but it is for most spellcasters ("How many smites can I do? I don't remember how many spells I had"). Remember that D&D 5TH ED isn't a game of high stakes. It builds tension over the "adventuring day": that's to say, you don't risk everything in a single fight, but over the course of many encounters specially at high levels/I]. Unresolving tension and don't reaching any kind of climax exhaust the players and mess up the pace of a session. And a cliffhanger MUST be prepared in order to be effective. Cliffhangers that doesn't go anywhere ("Will the rogue get caught by the guards?" OF COURSE not. A Rogue is a specialist in infiltration, and guards haven't even a high Perception. Even if they caught the rogue he can kill them with ease) gets tiresome.

I've a long experience in D&D. I've been playing it for more than 15 years. And I pretty much enjoy this edition. I'm not saying that you are wrong, what I say is that both views are complementary. I've prepped adventures with the "adventuring day" in mind (and they usually last several sessions). And I've also prepped them in a session-based structure, and I've found that the latter is much more satisfying (with several days pass in a single session included often).

You cannot keep cliffhangers for everything, and you need to build tension somehow and resolve it somehow. Of course, you could be the exception and never building up tension to be resolved in the same session; that could be strange, because the basics of narrative don't work like that, but if it work for you, great. And I'm not saying that most adventures should be one-shots, but I do see that most GMs prep their sessions with something of a number of encounters per session, and some kind of climatic resolution at the end of the session, and thrive to achieve it. Then they can "add a twist" and left the party in a cliffhanger, but with a session-resolution already made (it's even advised in the DMG).

Ideally, I think that an "adventuring day"-no matter if you measure it in a week under the "gritty realism" structure or in the "superheroic" style- should be about 1 gaming session. Even maybe 2 adventuring days in a single session. This is a base to build on, an ideal measure that will contrast with the reality of the table. You could add some things and consequences (and 5th edition has them, like Exhaustion) that keep up for more than a single adventuring day. I'm not quite fond of, EG, the long rest total recovery. That would lead to more satisfying sessions.

*And I don't think encounters as fights only. I'm aboard the Angry style of narration, where an encounter is a dramatic question to be resolved. A fight isn't an encounter by itself, it's a mean to resolve an encounter.

 

[Oofta]

All I can say is that we've been doing multi-game-day is one in-game "day" for a couple of years now. It works fine, people seem to enjoy the cliff hangers and plot turns and twists. It may not work for you, but it works for us.

 

[Sacrosanct]

All I can say is that we've been doing multi-game-day is one in-game "day" for a couple of years now. It works fine, people seem to enjoy the cliff hangers and plot turns and twists. It may not work for you, but it works for us.

Same here. Except "a couple years" for me is 35 years.

Also Erechel, where does it say in the book that encounters are designed around 6-8 per game session?