D&D 5E Let's Talk About Chapter 9 of the DMG

[Reynard]

Chapter 9 of the Dungeon master's Guide is the DM's Workshop. It is a collection of optional rules and advice for making D&D more like you and your group want it. I am curious what optional rules from the chapter people have employed, and how it has gone. Let's share our thoughts and experiences with an eye toward positivity, though it is okay to talk about something that just did not work at all.

By the way, I would like to focus this thread on the material in Chapter 9. I know there are a lot of great things elsewhere in the DMG, and in other books, but I think containing this discussion to the core "Dungeon master's Workshop" will help make it relevant to neophyte and veteran 5E DM's alike.

 

[Reynard]

I want to start off by talking about the rest variants, specifically the "Gritty Realism" variant because that is an optional rule I have often considered employing. It isn't so much that I think healing is to easy, it's that I think the game move too fast in a calendar sense. I don't mind the PCs leveling quickly as it relates to encounters (and that can be adjusted). I think the PCs level too fast as it relates to time. Longer rest requirements can stretch the calendar length of adventures so perhaps PCs spend months or years, not mere weeks, reaching higher levels. Does anyone have experience using the Gritty Realism rest variant? How did it go?

 

[Fenris-77]

I've always avoided rests that long because I tend to run games that end up rolling downhill at a breakneck pace.
DM: The kingdom is a stake, the prince has been kidnapped, creatures out of the abyss are breaching the walls. What do you do?
Player: Well, I think I'll start with a refreshing week long nap. Then, to action!

I'm exaggerating of course but I find that even the standard rests can get in the way of a good story sometimes. I'd rather find other ways to adjust leveling intervals personally. I use a lot of milestone XP anyway though, so it's not a huge stretch for me.

 

[jgsugden]

I hate that they call that option gritty realism.

If you stop treating hp loss as wounds, and instead treat it as things that tax your toughness, things are real gritty. You can have the slugfest battles of Sin City and have people continue to push through the pain... like Sin City ... without requiring weeks of rests.

 

[Reynard]

I hate that they call that option gritty realism.

If you stop treating hp loss as wounds, and instead treat it as things that tax your toughness, things are real gritty. You can have the slugfest battles of Sin City and have people continue to push through the pain... like Sin City ... without requiring weeks of rests.

There is nothing gritty or realistic about Sin City. It's pulp noir.

 

[Fenris-77]

There is nothing gritty or realistic about Sin City. It's pulp noir.

It's drowning in grit, if less so in realism.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Does anyone have experience using the Gritty Realism rest variant? How did it go?

I tried it for a bit, but it didn't go well.

The basic problem is that the rest of the system is designed around the assumption of getting hit on a routine basis, balanced by the fact that healing is easy. If you make healing harder, but don't give characters any way to avoid getting hit, then it's kind of a mess.

A secondary issue is that primary spellcasters are unhappy with the inability to recover spells overnight. If you're used to casting multiple big spells per day, then it's a hard sell to go back to casting one spell every other day. Warlocks become more popular than ever, not only because you have 2-3 times as many short rests per long rests, but also because you recover spell slots at a predictable interval; players are used to budgeting spells on a per-day basis.

The math suggests that it should remain relatively balanced, if you have six encounters in an "adventure week" instead of in an "adventure day"; but there's more to the game than just combat. Spell duration doesn't translate well, in many cases.

My biggest issue is just that it doesn't go far enough toward restoring the old balance. I mean, this is as gritty as the game gets, and you can still go from 1hp to full after sleeping for one night. Granted, you can't do that as frequently as you could under the base rules, but if there was any hint of realism involved then you wouldn't be able to do it at all.

 

[Oofta]

I use the alternate rest rules, they work fine and work better for the pacing of my game. Yeah, spell casters have to consider pacing and resource management, but it's not that big of a deal.
Other than that, I use some of the optional combat rule action options such as overrun, climbing on larger creatures, hitting cover. Little things to make combat a little more fun, but I don't use marks (there's a subclass for that), disarming (annoying).

 

[teitan]

I have been debating on a 1e game but the player buy in for my group is "meh" so far because they like the smoothness of 5e mechanics. Would some of the rules in chapter 9 (havent read it and I am at work so can't reference) be good to emulate some of the 1e style of play?

 

[Don Durito]

There is nothing gritty or realistic about Sin City. It's pulp noir.

"Gritty" and "Realistic" together convey as much genuine information as "abubie doloasi".

ie. none.