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Message: <blockquote data-quote="slobster" data-source="post: 7926384" data-attributes="member: 6693711">Coming from the simulationist perspective, I don't think it's that bad, at least in 5E where I currently play. First off, I try to stay away from the sillier limitations you mentioned for preventing excessive resting. My reasons tend to be something like "if you try to rest here, there's a good chance you'll be ambushed" or "You can rest, but the bandits already have a lead and you might not be able to catch up to them before they reach the slave market if you do". Something rooted in the fiction of the world, but also often a situation where they really can rest if they want to, it will just have ramifications in the world if they choose to do so.Another thing I do is I throw fewer, harder fights at them in most games, cutting down the number of fights I expect them to have between rests to about 2 to 4 on average. Sometimes, I would say quite often, the number of fights will be 1.And that's another thing I do to keep on the simulationist side of pacing encounters: I'm fine if they just nova all at once in a fight. Honestly, it does make encounters easier, sometimes it trivializes encounters that would otherwise have been challenging. But my players tend to view that as empowering, and therefore fun, which means it doesn't really bother me. And if they do completely nova, they accept that if there is another encounter (or multiple) that come before they find a way to safely rest, then those encounters will be more difficult and taxing. That risk/reward tradeoff is itself a source of tension, and also leads to what I consider interesting and fun gameplay where the dragon may be slain and the heroes triumphant, but now the fight to prevent his cave giant followers from stealing his horde while your party is trying to rest is just as challenging as the original dragon fight was.So I don't think it ends up being identical to the 13th age model, as there are different emergent outcomes and tradeoffs that the PCs are involved in. They have a layer of resource management to engage with that isn't there in 13th age, and you get game moments that wouldn't have happened or at least would have been baked in and broadcast way ahead of time in 13th age, but which emerged from random chance and player decisions in this method. It's not "superior", because the 13th age method will lead to more even gameplay, a more predictable rhythm of encounters, and have less chance of trivializing an encounter that you meant to be climactic or killing characters/parties as a result of poor planning or plain poor luck. So it really is a matter of taste, but I reject the idea that simulationism is either "the 13th Age model, but adding on a simulationist facade" or iredeemably broken.</blockquote>

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