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<blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 7975585" data-attributes="member: 467">NOTE: Much of this is inspired by rereading The Lord of the Rings, in which things like hunger, exhaustion, fear and trauma have a real impact on even the most stalwart heroes of Tolkien's saga. Tolkien was a soldier in WW1 so he very likely suffered many of the hardships his characters experience and so is able to convey them in the work.One thing that I wish D&amp;D (and most RPGs to be fair) was better at was modeling misery. That is, how the weight of pain, fear, fatigue, hunger, despair and trauma can grind away at you. Overcoming this kind of misery is itself heroic, perhaps even more so than overcoming injury and fear of death, and so it seems like a thing that would add to the heroic storytelling inherent in play.I have tried in the past to use the exhaustion mechanic to this purpose but exhaustion is extremely punishing and difficult to overcome. There's potential there, I think, but as written just a couple levels of exhaustion are a major hindrance and either begin a death spiral or put the brakes on the action as characters hole up and recover.I am wondering if there is a way to build a Misery mechanic, something that&nbsp; tracks hardships and over time bears down on the PCs in a way similar to but less punishing (early on anyway) than exhaustion. Perhaps a more granular approach where you start with -2 to a smaller set of things, rather than disadvantage to a large set, or making healing and other recovery more difficult?How would you go about modeling misery in 5E?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Reynard, post: 7975585, member: 467"] NOTE: Much of this is inspired by rereading The Lord of the Rings, in which things like hunger, exhaustion, fear and trauma have a real impact on even the most stalwart heroes of Tolkien's saga. Tolkien was a soldier in WW1 so he very likely suffered many of the hardships his characters experience and so is able to convey them in the work. One thing that I wish D&D (and most RPGs to be fair) was better at was modeling misery. That is, how the weight of pain, fear, fatigue, hunger, despair and trauma can grind away at you. Overcoming this kind of misery is itself heroic, perhaps even more so than overcoming injury and fear of death, and so it seems like a thing that would add to the heroic storytelling inherent in play. I have tried in the past to use the exhaustion mechanic to this purpose but exhaustion is extremely punishing and difficult to overcome. There's potential there, I think, but as written just a couple levels of exhaustion are a major hindrance and either begin a death spiral or put the brakes on the action as characters hole up and recover. I am wondering if there is a way to build a Misery mechanic, something that tracks hardships and over time bears down on the PCs in a way similar to but less punishing (early on anyway) than exhaustion. Perhaps a more granular approach where you start with -2 to a smaller set of things, rather than disadvantage to a large set, or making healing and other recovery more difficult? How would you go about modeling misery in 5E? [/QUOTE]

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