D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[AnotherGuy]

I agree that there are issues and I agree that a day of time passing often is not a meaningful cost, but I also do not think that any RPG can function if the players do not care about the fiction at all.

The idea is to make that day matter

In a game without clocks and where the DM has narrative control over what monsters/NPCs do behind the scenes it should be an open secret that 24 hour rests increase the difficulty of the quest or result in failure.

It's easier I suspect increasing difficulty or creating NPC action timelines or timed schedule events with published adventures. It may require more effort for homebrew quests when not using a clock.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The idea is to make that day matter

In a game without clocks and where the DM has narrative control over what monsters/NPCs do behind the scenes it should be an open secret that 24 hour rests increase the difficulty of the quest or result in failure.

It's easier I suspect increasing difficulty or creating NPC action timelines or timed schedule events with published adventures. It may require more effort for homebrew quests when not using a clock.

Sure, but one day is not a lot of time and keeping constant time pressure at such a pace becomes contrived. Also, what is the GMing advice in the books for doing this?

 

[Minigiant]

One other thing I believe that is a major change in the culture of D&D today is that many of the players and DMS are gamers from the era when dungeons in video games are different.

Floor clear to rest dungeons.

Basically you come to every floor of the dungeon with full resour.

You travel from the city to the forest fighting the monsters on the way. Before you get to the forest you rest.
You travel through the forest to the cave area fighting all the monsters on the way. Before you go to the cave you rest.
You get to the cave. You kill the goblin guards. You rest
Enter the cave and killed the goblins on the first level of the cave. You rest
You go down to the second level of the cave to find the goblin boss fully rested and you unload on whatever cheesy abilities you have and it has.

And this model you enter every fight with all of your resources.

This is different from the traditional attrition model because you host to fight the entire quest with only 1 reset rest. So you're supposed to be able to fight the goblin boss at 20% power.

A goblin boss designed to be fought at 20% power is different from a goblin boss designed to be fought at 50% power which is different from a goboin boss designed to be fought at 100% power.

Video game pacing is another thing that is piled upon the other aspects session time, character complexity, and character tracking which makes it difficult to run attrition gameplay.

I think the truth issue is that attrition gameplay might require simple characters and monsters which isn't profitable for a large company.

So my hot take is:

Attrition-based dungeon gameplay cannot be a major companies main gameplay Style unless they engage in heavy marketing and rely on alternative streams of profits. Attrition based gunplay is probably best left for the kickstarters and smaller companies who intend to make all their money up front and then invest into another game afterwards

 

[pemerton]

Narrative constraints to contain rules is always problematic, since there is no guarantee the narrative constraints exist or applies.

<snip>

Mechanical reasons for resting do always exist, and the benefits are balanced by narrative constraints that only sometimes exist.

The idea is to make that day matter

In a game without clocks and where the DM has narrative control over what monsters/NPCs do behind the scenes it should be an open secret that 24 hour rests increase the difficulty of the quest or result in failure.

5e D&D doesn't, by default, have techniques like applying a penalty to all rolls to reflect the fact that the passage of time has set back the PCs (because it doesn't use that sort of abstract approach to setting difficulties). It relies on the GM manipulating the fiction - the "narrative control over what monsters/NPCs do behind the scenes" that @AnotherGuy refers to.

This has the possibility to feel like railroading or adversarial GMing: but this is the role that 5e D&D gives to the GM. This is what "GM empowerment" means: the game won't manage its own pacing and recovery cycle simply by dint of applying the mechanics.

 

[Bae'zel]

Interesting. If we were to adjust the dials on encounter creation so that every fight (especially boss fights) assumes the PCs are at 100% power, what should we do differently?

 

[BenjaminPey]

I think the game in itself, in all of its parts, is designed to engage players in the fiction. Not to say that it's a given in all and every games and that idly playing just to push minis around is not valid or something, but it's clearly NOT the core experience the game is aiming for, which is "to create an exciting story of adventurers who confront perils". As such, if some groups need some guidance as to how to play this game without engaging in the fiction at all, they'll have to find some by themselves — and I don't think that's on the game designers, nor that this is complicated to do. After all, if no one cares about the fiction, why would they care about being denied their rests from time to time? "The screen is blinking red. You can't rest here." There, done.

I'll add that the DMGs (plural) do give us some guidance, here. There's an entire section about pacing and tension in the DMG24, with an Urgency and Rest sub-section, the central advice being "You can influence the pace and tension of your adventure by determining where and when the characters can rest", obviously. The section about random encounters also speak about creating urgency. One may find these insufficient, barebones or wishy-washy, of course. But it is there. And it's enough for many groups (the vast majority of which will organically care about the fiction anyway — they don't want the villagers to die because the villagers are their friends, sisters, mothers and fathers).

 

[Eric V]

Probably not if they come at such consistency that it prevents them from getting their long rests in, oh no, the bounty hunters who are out to capture those now-illegal adventurers specifically carry around scrolls of anti-tiny hut dispell magic? It’s the consequences of your inactions!

Campaign is becoming absurd at this point though, and probably not what the GM had in mind as "fun."

 

[BenjaminPey]

Interesting. If we were to adjust the dials on encounter creation so that every fight (especially boss fights) assumes the PCs are at 100% power, what should we do differently?

The 5E24 guidelines is kinda designed around this expectation. With casual players, high difficulty encounters will often threaten the party.

 

[Parmandur]

Probably not if they come at such consistency that it prevents them from getting their long rests in, oh no, the bounty hunters who are out to capture those now-illegal adventurers specifically carry around scrolls of anti-tiny hut dispell magic? It’s the consequences of your inactions!

Shoot, before it came to that I would just stop playing with those people.

 

[Scott Christian]

So the argument is, because the party will approach the BBEG with all abilities ready (e.g. fully rested) they need to be differently designed.

That's one take.

But a likely better one, the DM needs to understand and control the pace of play. There can be many ways to ensure the party can't always rest, certainly not after EVERY combat.

It's interesting, because there is an entire section on this in the 2014 DM's Guide.