D&D 5E Is the Default Playstyle of 5E "Monty Haul?"

[Mort]

And if that becomes a problem, a Disjunction is a swift solution.

Not a thing in 5e, though nothing says a DM can't reintroduce it (using a prior edition as guidance).

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not a thing in 5e, though nothing says a DM can't reintroduce it (using a prior edition as guidance).

Ah, Disjunction. The spells that reveals about a dozen gaping flaws in 3e design -- including its own presence.

 

[Thomas Shey]

:: If they all want to heroically die instead of only having one heroically die so the others can esacpe, that's up to them. EDIT to add: And even the one left behind as the slowest runner is still heroically dying...or so the Bards will say later, anyway.

To me, though, survival of the party - as in, that there's at least one survivor such that the same party/story/quest/etc. can continue - is more important than survival of any one character.

That's your choice, but expecting others to share it just because its what you think is reasonable, is not, in fact, reasonable.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's really weird IMO to talk about 'the story continuing' with so much character churn. Okay, one guy lived this time, by next time what's the chances they and any sense of continuity will survive the next?

 

[payn]

It's really weird IMO to talk about 'the story continuing' with so much character churn. Okay, one guy lived this time, by next time what's the chances they and any sense of continuity will survive the next?

"So let me get this straight, you have already lost 13 folks to hazards on this quest? Where do I sign up?"

 

[Vaalingrade]

"So let me get this straight, you have already lost 13 folks to hazards on this quest? Where do I sign up?"

"And you're all continuing the quest where the last person in the group to had accepted it died six years ago? How? Oh. to shreds you say. How's his wife holding up? To shreds you say?"

 

[Redneckomancer]

Maybe part of the problem I'm running into with my 5e group is that we have short sessions. I regularly run for 2-3 hours on a VTT, just to fit everyone's schedules on a weeknight (since weekends aren't possible). That means that if I follow the guidelines for how many encounters in a day I'm supposed to have (according to the RAW), it can take us 4+ sessions to get through a single adventuring day. That severely bogs down play. It spaces out story beats in the campaign. It creates a long time IRL to recharge your character's cool abilities.
So I prefer more intense, concentrated battles than the fights that don't really matter to the campaign overall. A pack of giant rats that can nibble off 10% of the party's HP and other resources is not satisfying because it ends up expending around 50% of the players' time for the weekly session (after you account for placing tokens, putting things on a battlegrid, rolling and ordering Initiative, and managing "cleanup" among the characters after the fight.)
If I were playing weekly for 4-5 hours a session like I did when I was a college student - then yeah, I could run that kind of game. Now, it's more of a chore of meaningless tasks. I'd rather get into the story, exploration, and encounters that challenge the players and their characters while doing the double duty of advancing the plot or enriching their discovery of the campaign world.
So I need something more like an average of 3 fights per day.
Games that focus on resource attrition aren't fun when our real life most precious resource (time) erodes more quickly than the characters' spells, torches, and hit points.

So after 10 pages of people getting tripped in the semantics of incorrect gamer slang and the same "but CAN you retreat tho?" argument that's as old as usenet, we get to the actual issue.
So yeah, 5e is explicitly designed around 5-8 'war of attrition' fights, per day with 2 short rests. Or something like that. If you want a story focused game that still has a big dramatic fight per session and you only get 2~3 hours a session, it is incompatible with your needs.
And you need to let your players know that.
Forget the time wasted on pulling up tokens or whatever, how much precious real human mortality are you wasting tying yourself into a knot every week trying to balance an encounter for 3 hours you aren't even enjoying? Is that really worth it? Probably not!
So just talk o your friends, man. They are your friends, right? So you can just let them know, plainly, "This game is not fun for me, we need to find a new game or a new gm because I am having a Bad Time trying to get 5e to work." Well, maybe not quite so hard an ultimatum, but yeah just talk about it, assert your feelings and boundaries and problems and whatnot.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That's your choice, but expecting others to share it just because its what you think is reasonable, is not, in fact, reasonable.

It's sort of been a pattern that whenever I get insight into how @Lanefan runs games, or believes games should be run, my reaction is, "That's...um....interesting."

What's cool about RPGs is that all ways are valid.

 

[Mort]

What's cool about RPGs is that all ways are valid.

With the, fairly large, caveat that not all ways will work for any given table of players, or even specific players at the table!

I know I've had (mercifully few) times where the DM and everyone else at the table seemed to be having a GREAT time and I wanted to be ANYWHERE else. Made some excuse and fled the game at a run.

I can also think of 2 players (of the top of my head and over decades) who were just not a fit when I was DMing. They disapeared and I wasn't sorry to see them go.

 

[Quartz]

Ah, Disjunction. The spells that reveals about a dozen gaping flaws in 3e design -- including its own presence.

We've had several threads on this. I found it particularly valuable in 3E for getting rid of old gear. Otherwise magic items just accumulated - the Christmas Tree effect. You just need to forewarn players that it will happen and then get them used to it. Any time from 8th level on you could expect the boss (12th level) to have a Disjunction in a Ring of Spell Storing.