D&D General IS the 5 min work day a feature or a bug?

[GMforPowergamers]

And even if it were only the equivalent of 5 encounters. They would all be at once. This means a sure TPK.

okay... so how does that help? it just ends the game.

Just as the players have resources to find the keep or whatever, so have their foes.

it still seems kind of contrived that they always find them first... and some how got around all the precosions the PCs took. I mean sometimes sure but not always.

So far, this never happened to me.

and this is why it's so hard to show you... you have not seen it.

Might be because you have experienced only adversarial DM that invent threats on the spots. When your DM uses only what was written as it was, you can only blame yourself.

The funny part is from my POV you are the adversarial DM... someone that no one trusts unless you show your notes, someone who is sure the bad guys can beat the main characgters, someone who knows for sure they can stop the rests...no matter what.

I'm sure you don't mean to be... but it is how you are coming off.

I have seen TPKs as you described... but not often. I have also seen 5mwd and people who don't ever use resources and everything between (almost 30ish years gaming) I have seen good DMs, bad DMs... and everything between. I have NEVER seen a TPK turn into "we need to be less tactical or less powerful'

And I have seen 5th level characters do it.

me too. normally it starts to come up around 7th-9th with 4th and 5th level spells... by 13th (7th level spells) it is very common of an issue if it isn't talked about in my experence.

And yet, 5 activations of teleport circle is more than enough.

yeah... 1 into threat, 1 out to rest, 1 to go get supplies (including 4 or 5 more sets of material components) 1 back to rest spot and rinse repeate with a back up... makes sense, just don't see how you run out...

At some point, you have to check which component you will want to have in better quantities and what this amount of component will imply. Will you buy potions of haste, flying, healing or scrolls?

we don;t often (although we do sometimes) allow buying potions other then basics... and even then it is normally the DM generates a number of what is availvul, so we are not often maximizing potion/scroll purchases... although if you are why not buy emergency word fo recall or teleport scrolls?

And if those 95 other shot at teleport circle you bought prevent you to buy the potion that would have helped you then it was a poor choice. When you manage your gold and resources that are in limited quantities, then you have to make choices.

i find that around level 5 money is not very limited... if you use the guidlines and the random distribution it is normall

Look back at what you said... you would TPK a group then show your notes to PROVE you weren't being unfair...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What is LOQ? The link directs me to some company and talks about stock exchange...

what are you talking about? TPK?

 

[tetrasodium]

What is LOQ? The link directs me to some company and talks about stock exchange...

I thought I linked to it in my post earlier. Limit of Quantification. In a nutshell, below LOQ is a point where a substance or odds of something are not high enough to be measured through the noise.

edit: I don't know who you are responding to though since I mentioned LOQ & you quoted Simeone responding to the post where I did that.

 

[Helldritch]

okay... so how does that help? it just ends the game.

Of course. So avoiding doing it makes it so the games continues.

it still seems kind of contrived that they always find them first... and some how got around all the precosions the PCs took. I mean sometimes sure but not always.

Not always. It is a possibility that players should not ignore. In addition, the higher level the adventure is, the higher the chance that it will happen.

and this is why it's so hard to show you... you have not seen it.

Because the case never occured to me. Hundreds of players and yet, when we end a campaign, and players are leaving, it is because they are moving out of our region. Never have I lost a group because I was adversarial.

The funny part is from my POV you are the adversarial DM... someone that no one trusts unless you show your notes, someone who is sure the bad guys can beat the main characgters, someone who knows for sure they can stop the rests...no matter what.

You are totally wrong. I show my notes not because they do not believe me. But to show where they made mistakes. I roll in the open. Right in front of the players and so do they right in front of me.

I'm sure you don't mean to be... but it is how you are coming off.

Simply because you keep reading with your POV and do not try to understand. I have a very democratic approach where I am more of an arbiter of the action than a DM. We all decide together what will be the optional rules we will use. I usually present 3 or 4 possible adventure paths and the players decides. If that is adversarial, then this whole forum is full of adversarial DMs. Including you.

I have seen TPKs as you described... but not often. I have also seen 5mwd and people who don't ever use resources and everything between (almost 30ish years gaming) I have seen good DMs, bad DMs... and everything between. I have NEVER seen a TPK turn into "we need to be less tactical or less powerful'

Me neither. I don't see where you are getting this or at...

me too. normally it starts to come up around 7th-9th with 4th and 5th level spells... by 13th (7th level spells) it is very common of an issue if it isn't talked about in my experence.

Agreed on that.

yeah... 1 into threat, 1 out to rest, 1 to go get supplies (including 4 or 5 more sets of material components) 1 back to rest spot and rinse repeate with a back up... makes sense, just don't see how you run out...

Because gold (and components) can run short. It is as simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less.

we don;t often (although we do sometimes) allow buying potions other then basics... and even then it is normally the DM generates a number of what is availvul, so we are not often maximizing potion/scroll purchases... although if you are why not buy emergency word fo recall or teleport scrolls?

And players will have characters go and "order" what they think they need. They pay in advance and might get the stuff a few days/weeks or even months later. The gold is spent nonetheless. Just like in real life. A friend of mine paid for a pick up truck. He waited 6 weeks for its delivery and paid over half the price in advance with the rest at delivery. The same applies with magical items. You want it? I don't have it but I can make it for you. Pay "x" in advance and you will get what you want in "x" time.

And yes, it means that the players might get robbed of their gold if the person in question can't complete or use the gold for something else. But so far, I did that only once with a shady dealer that the player took despite everyone around him telling him not to deal with that dealer. And even then, I allowed a lot of chances for that dealer to respect his end of the bargain. It prompted a nice adventure though...

i find that around level 5 money is not very limited... if you use the guidlines and the random distribution it is normall

And in mine, money is quite limited because players will save their money for Keeps, temples, guilds, mage's tower and so on. Yes, that is still a thing in my games.

Look back at what you said... you would TPK a group then show your notes to PROVE you weren't being unfair...

And check again. IRL it happened once. And it was at the behest of their DM.
It was in 1ed and their DM had trouble with his players. They were too powerful, a classic case of the Monty Haul campaign with an inexperienced DM. They were bragging that nothing short of gods could kill them and they doubted that any DM could kill them without "cheating". I slew them with a wizard level 12 and 50 ogres in a simple trap room. Nothing they could not overcome but that 20th level group got in and died. I showed them what and how it had happened and they all agreed it was a fair fight.

And yes, If I were to TPK a group and if they had doubts (but they would not, I roll on the open remember?) I would gladly share my notes with them. Not to show them that I was fair. But to help them see where they made mistakes and how they could have avoided them. That later part is much more important to me than the first.

 

[Helldritch]

I thought I linked to it in my post earlier. Limit of Quantification. In a nutshell, below LOQ is a point where a substance or odds of something are not high enough to be measured through the noise.

edit: I don't know who you are responding to though since I mentioned LOQ & you quoted Simeone responding to the post where I did that.

The link works now. I was just trying to understand what you were saying but in quoting your post, it took the one from @GMforPowergamers instead... I do not know what happened. Thanks to my phone and my big thumbs...

 

[Lanefan]

I feel like, as with a lot of these 'how do you fix' DMing questions people are approaching it from the wrong direction.

Punishing the players until the stop is... I'll just say I've never met a player who liked it so much as tolerated it. Players engage in the Five Minute Work Day for a reason. It's a choice they are making in how they approach the game. They aren't looking for the 'challenge' presented by the resource puzzle, so... why are we forcing them to keep participating in it?

It's not a question of whether they're "looking" for the challenge or not, as ideally they're looking to - simply as a part of playing the game - reduce or eliminate any and all challenges as best they can.

It's more a question of they've recognized the specific challenge of resource management, and have - either intentionally or not - found a way of reducing that challenge significantly by employing a nova-rest cycle when they can.

Sounds like good play to me.

If that's how the players want to play, why not talk to them and see what they'd like to see? Maybe the answer is to just let it happen. Maybe there's an approach they would rather see. The answer is likely not that they want monsters vomited at them until they get with the DM's program.

On this I think we agree, though I greatly suspect our rationales for arriving at this conclusion differ widely.

 

[Lanefan]

The 5mwd simply breaks the narrative and the believability of the world.

"The fight was a hard one, the bugbears guarding the secret access were really though but we prevailed.

- Yes but I used a bit more spells than anticipated. Shall we take time to restore my arcane energy?

The priest looks the wizard square in the eyes.
- We're those two lightning truly necessary?

Atkins the rogue just cut the conversation short.
- Who cares? The evil warlord will have to wait for us. Time to rest."

Except if the wizard just let off two lightning bolts stealth has gone out the window; everybody in the neighbourhood knows they're there, and resting probably isn't a viable option any more.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except if the wizard just let off two lightning bolts stealth has gone out the window; everybody in the neighbourhood knows they're there, and resting probably isn't a viable option any more.

Tangent: this reminded me of a scenario in which the party had been successful at being very sneaky for quite a while, and had penetrated deep into the stronghold with minimal resistance. The sneakiest two in the party had gone off to do a bit of scouting when they had some bad luck and encountered a patrol. They were outnumbered and “outgunned”, so they ran for it. The patrol, seeing just a pair of puny invaders decided to not follow protocol- they didn’t raise the alarm, they just set out in pursuit.

The scouts booked it right back to the party. The party not only heard them coming, but successfully identified that what they heard was their buddies being chased, so set up an ambush. When the scouts rounded the corner and entered the room, the ambushers waited until the SECOND pursuer came in to start attacking…and the barbarian rolled a Nat 20 with his Maul of Thundering.

Goodbye guard, goodbye element of surprise.

 

[Lanefan]

I rarely encountered this type of player. The type that simply do not care about the consequences of the actions of their characters. My pick on them was to avoid at all costs a TPK. Make sure that at least one character not belonging to the uncaring player survives and have every players that lost a character make new characters one level lower than the survivors. Ho god could you see the face on the uncaring one! The other players usually knew that I would put treasure to help them out save the uncaring one. Either that player started to "care" and amend for his/her way or that player would leave and the players that got hosed because of the other would quickly rise in level to catch up on the surviving ones. But since the 2ed, I have never encountered this type of player ever again. (Either that or I am instinctively screening these players out of game right before they can even enter my groups.)

Sorry, @Helldritch - I usually agree with you on many things but I just gotta call this one out:

The bolded is a classic example of DM favouritism, which IMO is one of the worst things a DM can do. You're not being fair to the "uncaring one", who like it or not is every bit as much a member of the party (and, on a meta scale, the group) as everyone else. Yes you're enforcing against a playstyle you don't like, but at cost of both trust and agency.

Further, as that uncaring PC has now become one of the party's senior characters, in-character that PC will in theory have more of a say over who gets recruited to join, and thus over the general tone of the party. Likely end result: more uncaring PCs, and a different tone of party and of game. That's how it goes sometimes, and the DM kinda has to roll with it.

 

[Lanefan]

And sure, it certainly requires for the players to care on some level about the world and their characters. Like if the players don't care that the gnolls will sacrifice and/or eat their prisoners if the characters don't rescue them swiftly, and (the absurd example someone actually made) don't even care about TPK because they can just make new characters, then this might not work. But basically if you have that level of disinterest the game is an utter failure anyway so it's just best to give up. Either the players are terrible or the GM is, possibly both.

I disagree that it's necessarily a failure, in that the players and DM might all be very engaged and interested but playing characters who are anything but Good and who they are not all that attached to. (being attached to characters to a point is fine but when it leads to table drama when they die, that's too much)

Myself, as a player I care about TPKs but I accept that individual characters come and go at a random degree of frequency all the time.