Non-urgent Adventures and Campaigns?

[Fanaelialae]

If you remove time frame pc will nova at each fight who look dangerous.
otherwise time strain is needed to feel the thrill of the hunt.

Game were nothing happens can be dull.
You are at the beach on your desert island, the goal of the day is to get water.
Tomorrow the goal will gather be some fresh fruits.
And next day some fishes.
And then water again.....

I think time strain is an essential part of a good challenge.

You can establish small-scale time constraints without imposing larger scale ones.

An example small-scale constraint is that cultists have kidnapped some townsfolk and will sacrifice them three days from now during an eclipse. Whereas a large-scale constraint is the cult that has a world ending long scheme in which the PCs are catapulted from one adventure foiling those plans to the next in rapid succession.

You can establish short-term constraints while also imposing long-term delays. In the case of the world ending cult, the characters might be the sword arm of an organization opposing the cult. When they get a mission, they need to hustle or the cult succeeds in their current objective. But once that's done, they have downtime where they wait for the agents of the organization to dig up intelligence about the cultists next moves.

I've recently been experimenting with using carrots instead of (as well as alongside) the stick of time-constraints. Players earn a small but cumulative bonus (1 to 3% of a level) for each encounter they complete. Short rests reduce the bonus and long rests reset it completely. They've really been enjoying it, and it's strongly encouraged resource management so that they can get through as many encounters per rest as possible.

 

[Unwise]

This is a topic close to my heart, as most of the campaigns I run are slow paced and I can never seem to run prepublished stuff as it all seems so rushed to me.

I find that PCs going from level 1 to 10 in a couple of months bugs me a bit. Likewise the world building of a campaign is really stuffed up by having every single trip down the road being threatened by some monster or bandits. Monster raids, should be a problem about once a year in pretty rough villages. Sure adventurers have more interesting lives than most, but we end up building worlds that no villager could conceivably survive in. We also get the impression that PCs are the only ones in the world that are actually doing anything.

In my current game the PCs are poor, but have an incredible opportunity for profit if they can raise 1000GP (IMC that is a lot). They have no real time limit on this, so sometimes they stop in a village and just work normal jobs for a few months if the pay is good enough. Most of the time the village has no dire threats during that time. They don't want to be poor longer than they have to be, so they do go on adventures, they just pick and choose the sensible and profitable ones.

In another campaign PCs got a lead on a secret treasure map and went on an adventure to get it. Then they needed to raise 5000GP in order to buy a ship and expedition to go find it. Some generic dungeon crawling and heists ensued. Along the way they adventured for rare books about the place, rescue privateers who could crew their ship, find a staff of weather calming, ensure good relations with the headhunter tribes of the islands around the place etc. It was great because they were self-propelling the adventure, they came up with more plot hooks than I did. A self-motivated adventuring team is far more fun to play with than a railroaded group.

 

[hbarsquared]

Something I remember from one of the Manifest Zone podcasts with Keith Baker was one of the preliminary questions he asks playera prior to a one-shot. One of them was something like: you need 200gold. Why?

And the answers people gave ranged from gambling debt to paying for a greater restoration to wanting to open a restaurant. Great roleplaying hooks and self-motivated adventurers.

So, PCs that adventure for a more personal goal, nit neceasarily "saving the world." And that goal is one that takes time to realize, and doesn't require a frenetic pace of one dungeon after another.

 

[Harzel]

Time constraints are great, when used in moderation. If every game has a time constraint, eventually the Players will become apathetic if you are lucky...outright hostile if you aren't. "Oh, great. Let me guess...some evil group is going to summon an evil deity/dragon/demon or other D-word creature who will feast on the souls of men and cause an age of darkness, pain and suffering if we don't put a stop to it by end of next Tuesday? Right?".

The key to defining if a game is "dull/boring" is almost always because of predictability. Beach, water, beach, food, beach, water, beach, food... that's predictable. Save the world, save the world again, save the world again, save the world one more time, save the world yet again... that's predictable. Both are bad for a DM who's trying to keep his campaign entertaining.

As for the whole "nova" thing. You know, almost the ONLY time I've ever seen this is when playing Adventure Paths? Seriously. I think it's because...predictability. It's almost always blatantly obvious that a "big fight" is coming up or is at hand. The players can then feel free to "go nova" because they know that the AP will account for the PC's having spent all their abilities/spells/etc, and will provide a nice, warm safe-space where they can rest and feel good about themselves in comfort. You know what happens when a party "goes nova" in 5e when I'm running an old 1e module, say, The Secret of Bone Hill? TPK's happen...or at least NTPK's (near TPK...all but one PC dies). Why? Because in OSR modules, the adventure isn't written with PC survival being "assumed". Going all nova in the middle of a dungeon if you didn't have to is almost signing your own death warrant. Wandering monsters don't care if your wizard has no spells and your cleric is out of healing, and all your warriors are far below half-HP's.

Wandering monsters are the oldest, most generic, most predictable time constraint in D&D and it sounds like you use it all the time. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it sort of doesn't go along with your "when used in moderation" assertion.

I suppose you could quibble that they just represent time "pressure" not a "constraint", but I don't think people have been making that distinction in this conversation, nor does it seem particularly useful.

 

[TheSword]

I’ve seen story vs setting levelled as a criticism against 5e published campaigns and it always struck me as a very unfair claim. As if these two things were mutually exclusive! Setting is part of the story and the story adds details to the setting. The 5e campaigns “show don’t tell” which to my mind is good writing. Much better than dusty old reams of setting books that detail every town and character (they were great... but they already exist)

The timescales in the 5e campaigns I have dm’d are very flexible and are entirely the choice of the DM...

Curse of Strahd: entirely flexible, the DM chooses what constraints to put on the party.

Princes of the Apocalypse: No fixed timer, only key retaliations.

Out of the Abyss: No fixed timers, the daemon lords are already there - they are a new part of the setting.

Stormking’s Thunder: No fixed time, the giant attacks become part of the setting.

Tomb of Annihilation: Again, resurrection sickness is part of the setting rather than being something specifically on the clock.

The changes to the game world that have arisen out of the story can last for as long as you need them to. They’re isn’t a timer counting down and if you want to add downtime activities to any of the campaigns of course you can.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Examples of scenarios without time pressure? Let me think...

The PCs are sent to retrieve documents from the local DMV. Lots of downtime.

Coax the local oytugh from the sewers for its annual bath.

Transfer all of the grand archmage's spells from his spellbook to his new Eye-pad. (You want to get it done before the new version is released next year, but not pressing).

Take your hirelings on a team building exercise.

Determine who has the BEST prices on armor in town.

Hold a dragon dressing contest.

These aren't that good...

 

[Eltab]

Reverse 'ticking clock':

Team Hero has made itself obnoxious to BBEG. He tells his henchmen / minions to be wary. He also sends an assassin squad.
The assassin squad eventually strikes. Maybe one gets away. He tells BBEG about the hero lying in the middle of the floor and the pool of blood &c &c &c.
The rest of the organization loses its alert edge over time, maybe they think the problem is over.
Eventually things get back to normal ... and Team Hero can resume being obnoxious to BBEG and his organization again.

In this case, Team Hero WANTS to go deal with something else for a while.

 

[Riley37]

If you remove time frame pc will nova at each fight who look dangerous.
otherwise time strain is needed to feel the thrill of the hunt.

Counter example:
A 17th level wizard NPC hires the party to go to the Elemental Plane of Earth. The wizard casts Gate. The wizard will cast Gate again, the next day, at the same location, so that the party can return, bringing back valuable metals and gems. The party goes through the Gate. So far, easy peasy, right? There's no "stop the villain before the villain ends the world" timer.

Shortly after the Gate opens and closes, while the PCs are just starting to pile up some platinum, another Gate opens. Salamanders and fire mephits rush through the Gate. The invading Fire mephits don't recognize the difference between the PCs and the Earth Plane natives. Also they don't care; the PCs look flammable, and that's enough.

It was an easy mission, but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Why did this happen? Because there's a power struggle between Earth Plane Faction A and Earth Plane Faction B, for control over this region with its abundant mineral resources, and Faction A cut a deal with some Fire allies. Earth elementals from both factions arrive, more and more every hour, and while they mostly fight each other, they assume that the PCs are invaders (the front line soldiers from Faction A don't know about the deal with the Fire Nation).

So if the PCs nova on the first fight, against mere mephits, then they've expended resources, and that makes it a LOT less likely that they'll still be alive when wizard casts Gate for their return.

 

[Riley37]

And next day some fishes.

How u mine 4 fish?

I think time strain is an essential part of a good challenge.

It is one of the tools in the toolbox. It is necessary for some adventures, and not necessary for other adventures. Just as some IKEA kits require hammer or screwdriver, and other IKEA kits do not.