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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 7121398" data-attributes="member: 6788736">Thanks mate!When I sit down mid week to design adventures for my players I always turn my mind to temporal considerations in addition to just statting up a half dozen encounters. You frame your adventure or quest within a deadline for success/failure.I dont always have time constratints (save the princess by midnight, cure the plague before it wipes out the town, stop the BBEG before he completes the ritual, escape from the dungeon before you get marooned, locate the macguffin before your enemies do etc), but I do use them often.Time constraints on an individual quest provide narrative drive, grant a sense of urgency to the current quest, allow for consequences for quest failure (meaning the PCs actions matter), and allow the DM to more effectively police the adventuring day.'Encounters' in 5E are not designed to be deadly in and of themselves - they are designed to be a smaller piece of a larger challenge (the entire adventuring day of half a dozen encounters). Surviving or overcoming a single encounter isnt how the game is supposed to work; its about overcoming around half a dozen encounters (rationing your resources over that time frame) and succsfully completing the current quest/ mission.My midweek preparation involves designing an adventure contaning several encounters, often placed inside a time-frame for success. Its succeeding in the adventure before the time limit expires that matters; not just overcoming a single encounter.DnD is (mechanically) a resource management game. Hit points, Hit Dice, spell slots, rages, action surges, superiority dice, second winds, Ki points, Sorcery points, channel divinities, luck points, gold pieces, charges etc etc are all resources that the players need to manage within the quests parameters.A DM that just sits back and doesnt turn his mind to managing the resource management side of the game, is failing at his job IMO.That can be anything from time limits on quests, to altering resouce recharge ('gritty realism' rest variant) to implementing milestone resource replenishment.Instead of calling it an 'adventuring day' lets call it a 'long rest resource window'. 5E is balanced around a default of your average party dealing with around half a dozen encounters within that 'long rest resource window' and obtaining around 2 short rests during that window. How you as a DM make that happen is entirely up to you.</blockquote>

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