D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[Tony Vargas]

Sure but a classless system still has constraints with say points or whatever mechanism is used to balance characters against each other and the game...

Those aren't constraints on play, which is what you asked about. Quite the opposite, to the extent that they work (which may not be to any great extent, depending on the specific game), such balancing mechanisms reduce constraints on play (because, as I'm sure you realize, imbalances channel players into decisions that leverage them in their favor and discourage sub-optimal choices).

and games that reset after single encounters still have balancing mechanisms around that single encounter such as amount of enemies, strength of enemies, etc.

Not balancing, per se (GMs can always build encounters that are excessively hard or easy), but estimates of difficulty will tend to work better. Thus the GM is /less constrained/ in designing encounters, he can skate closer to the edge of an encounter being an unwanted TPK or pointlessly easy without actually tumbling the party over it unintentionally.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In theory, it should. 6-8 encounters implies an average of 7. If you have a 1-encounter day you could 'balance' that with a 13-encounter day, or two 10-encounter days, three 9-encounter days.

That is, of course, assuming you have flexed your Empowerment and taken responsibility for day lengths, in the first place.

I suppose I have...I'm not sure. I've pretty much jettisoned all encounter related rules and mechanics in favor of my own judgment, so I think that heavily flavors all my views in these discussions. Ultimately, with all of them, my take is to do what works and mix and match until you get the recipe right. Which I think is reasonable....but the more people feel they must adhere to the mechanics, the less useful that advice is, and the crazier I must seem.

Funny you should put it this way, as my original tale of the 100 elites going in and 17 returning was intended as an example of telegraphing that the PCs should in fact NOT go there as it's too bloody dangerous.

Well, since danger is usually contingent upon PC level, it's always hard to gauge without knowing that. I would think without a heavier clue, a group of players might interpret this as a sign of adventure and go investigate. It certainly sounds like an adventure plot.

Fine so far, from a purely gamist sense.

But take a step or two toward the realist side and ask yourself how the average common farmer can possibly survive in such a world? How does she get her goods to market when every road is crawling with Orc patrols, no matter how "weak" those patrols may be? How does a merchant's caravan hope to make it from Waterdeep to Neverwinter without hiring half an army as guards (and what sort of prices will the merchant have to charge to make a profit on the trip!)?

Spin it out beyond the simplistic viewpoint of "it's all about the PCs" and things start to fall apart...unless the game-mechanical encounter expectations get thrown in a lake.

Lanefan

I don't think it's simplistic to view a game being all about the players. I don't think you have to throw immersion out the window to make the game actually play like a game, but I think some allowances are to be expected. I think labeling that awareness as "simplistic" is a bit harsh.

That's like saying that if tweaking the encounter guidelines in the way described in the area in question causes the illusion of the fictional world to break, then the illusion probably wasn't all that strong to begin with. It's a bit of a harsh way to summarize someone's opinion.

I think the missing pieces are the frequency with which this change is made, the area to which it's applied, and the amount of time the PCs spend there. If you have an area that's been established as relatively safe, and the PCs travel there once and come across three deadly encounters....that can be attributed to bad luck or bad timing or just random chance. However, if this is an area that the PCs will visit regularly, and all of a sudden there are epic level threats crawling all over the place....sure, that's an impact. Seems odd to go that route, and I'd say maybe there's a better way to handle it....seems like an active attempt to break immersion, if you ask me.....but if that's the case, then sure, thought needs to go into this and how to handle it.

But most of the time, I expect that the amount of time devoted to an area with a few random encounters would be pretty small as to not disrupt the campaign setting. The impact would be negligible to the point that addressing it would be more disruptive than to simply let it go.

 

[Imaro]

Those aren't constraints on play, which is what you asked about. Quite the opposite, to the extent that they work (which may not be to any great extent, depending on the specific game), such balancing mechanisms reduce constraints on play (because, as I'm sure you realize, imbalances channel players into decisions that leverage them in their favor and discourage sub-optimal choices).

Sure they are... I can't track the orcs because I didn't have enough points to be great in magic and track... I can't be a half-bird man because it's not one of the races listed... I can't be a supreme chef because there's no cooking skill in the game and so on. those are constraint on play...and on the world even thought they aren't specifically class restraints.

Not balancing, per se (GMs can always build encounters that are excessively hard or easy), but estimates of difficulty will tend to work better. Thus the GM is /less constrained/ in designing encounters, he can skate closer to the edge of an encounter being an unwanted TPK or pointlessly easy without actually tumbling the party over it unintentionally.

It's still a balancing mechanism, irregardless of whether you choose to implement it or not. In 5e we can throw it all out the window too but I thought our discussion was within the parameters of following guidelines... not disregarding them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sure they are... I can't track the orcs because I didn't have enough points to be great in magic and track... I can't be a half-bird man because it's not one of the races listed... I can't be a supreme chef because there's no cooking skill in the game and so on. those are constraint on play...

'Balance constraints' are esentially constraints on the player's ability to constrain play for others. Thus, if well-balanced, the range of play is broader than it would be without them. You can't be great in magic and track, so the character who's great at tracking and the character who's great at magic can't be eclipsed by your character who's great at both (to use your hypothetical example - in the point-build systems I'm familiar with, tracking is not that expensive).

I can't be a supreme chef because there's no cooking skill in the game and so on. those are constraint on play...

Ironically, the systems I'm thinking of do have cooking skill (or open-ended skill groups that could be used to pick one, if not more than one such skill....

PS: Cook 17-
KS: Recipes 16-
Science: Chemistry 12-
History: Famous chefs 11-
Lang: French, basic conversation
Fam: Somalier 8-
...

...heck, Steve Long could probably come up with a 50-point package deal to be a world-class chef & restaurateur.

...yeah, that's not high praise...)

It's still a balancing mechanism, irregardless of whether you choose to implement it or not. In 5e we can throw it all out the window too but I thought our discussion was within the parameters of following guidelines... not disregarding them.

Seems to me the original point of the discussion was about the 'need' to follow guidelines, the system stacking the deck against doing so, and the consequences of doing or not doing so. And, most of all, the lack of acknowledgement of the whole issue prevalent within the community - at least, these boards - thus the Elephant in the Room.
I guess it also kinda depends on which part of the elephant the blind man is feeling at the moment (to use a different elephant metaphor). For pages and pages now, we've been looking at one specific issue with trying to follow the guidelines - world-building implications of 'forcing' multi-encounter days. Prettymuch feeling the elephant's toenail and debating what kind of small stone an 'elephant' is. ;P

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can't speak for @Hussar but I'm saying that it's the enforcement of the adventuring day that affects worldbuilding not the switching in or out of number of and frequency since it amounts to the same effect.

You seem to be saying encounters don't impact your world because you choose to build them to fit your world... which has been my stance since the beginning for solving the issue. The thing is fiction just like mechanics can be customized for the encounter so that it better fits the world as well.



Interesting I would say 18 easy encounter orc patrols are because they are coveting too much land... or maybe it's because powerful and combat savvy Orcs travel as loners or in pairs because their nature causes conflict between individually powerful Orcs to arise when in large groups. (increase the CR of the Orcs but lower their number)

while 3 deadly encounters of orc patrols point to weak orcs who travel in ginormous packs that are more dangerous because of their numbers and savagery than any tactical acumen on their part. (Lower the CR of the orcs and increase their number)

See how we took those numbers and created opposite fiction? I reshaped those encounters to fit a world that had different assumptions than the one you assumed it must have (that's why it affects your worldbuilding and not mine).



In what practical way... whether you traverse the Dark Meadow and have 18 easy orc patrol encounters or 3 deadly orc patrol encounters... from the perspective of the common man and the world at large it's a place that is dangerous because of its orcs. Is one more deadly than the other? Not in a mechanical or practical sense and dressing them up differently doesn't really change the deadliness or the effect the orcs have in the Dark Meadow...

So, for the 18 easy encounters orcs are tough, but their greed and individuality means they're spread thin in an attempt to be the orcs that personally expand the tribes territory. In the second, orcs are poor individual warriors that have to travel in large numbers so that they can be a threat.

Yep, no difference in worldbuilding there.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I suppose I have...I'm not sure. I've pretty much jettisoned all encounter related rules and mechanics in favor of my own judgment, so I think that heavily flavors all my views in these discussions. Ultimately, with all of them, my take is to do what works and mix and match until you get the recipe right. Which I think is reasonable....but the more people feel they must adhere to the mechanics, the less useful that advice is, and the crazier I must seem.

Not at all, and, as I said, I largely do this -- various methods as appropriate to what I'm trying to elicit or works at that moment in that place with the story going on. What does make you seem crazy is siding with the posters claiming that dogmatic adherence to a single pacing mechanisms doesn't impact the world as played while advocating for not doing that because it works better for the world if you don't. That's what I don't get.

 

[Ovinomancer]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] in what way do purely narrated events in your game world mirror mechanics? They are 100% arbitrary decisions made in order to make an adventure more interesting for the players.

It isn't about creating believable worlds at all. It's about establishing adventure baselines and dropping hooks for the players to latch onto. Why did 83 knights perish? Because it establishes the adventure. If all 100 came back then thee would not be any reason for the pcs to go there.

All this time and none of you folks have shown the slightest evidence of how encounter mechanics change world building. Since the mechanics aren't ever actually used unless PCs are around, how can they.

The DM is not playing the game when he's writing adventure background.

I violently disagree with this last. The game is asymmetrical across the DM/player boundary. The DM preparing the adventure is very much 'playing the game'. You can tell because if the DM doesn't do it, there's no game (and this works even if you switch to ad-hoc gamemastering -- if the DM isn't inventing/framing the world to be played in, there's no game).

 

[Imaro]

So, for the 18 easy encounters orcs are tough, but their greed and individuality means they're spread thin in an attempt to be the orcs that personally expand the tribes territory. In the second, orcs are poor individual warriors that have to travel in large numbers so that they can be a threat.

Yep, no difference in worldbuilding there.

The point was we came up with different explanations for the same XP amounts... and it wouldn't be difficult to do even more. This is what I mean when I said you seem to be missing the point. If we can both take the same encounters and come up with fiction that is for all intents and purposes the opposite of each other and it fits... well IMO that speaks to it not being that hard to adjust what the encounter is to your particular world.

EDIT: changed multiple to different as there were multiple encounters which we came up with different fiction for.

 

[Imaro]

Not at all, and, as I said, I largely do this -- various methods as appropriate to what I'm trying to elicit or works at that moment in that place with the story going on. What does make you seem crazy is siding with the posters claiming that dogmatic adherence to a single pacing mechanisms doesn't impact the world as played while advocating for not doing that because it works better for the world if you don't. That's what I don't get.

Just so you know I too use and even advocated earlier in the thread for various methods... I just disagree with the idea that encounter design must affect world building as opposed to vice versa, even if the encounters are a set amount and set deadliness. I think many people are inventive and creative enough that using the 3 deadlies has little to no ramifications on their worldbuilding... not everyone but at the very least some and thus I don't believe it's a given.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think it's simplistic to view a game being all about the players.

But it is simplistic to view the game world (or its associated mechanics) as ending at the limit of what the PCs can see, which some here seem to be advocating.

I don't think you have to throw immersion out the window to make the game actually play like a game, but I think some allowances are to be expected. I think labeling that awareness as "simplistic" is a bit harsh.

Perhaps. But immersion comes from believability which comes from realism where such is possible; and from consistency. The game mechanics in effect become part of the game-world realism and thus must be consistent...and that mechanical consistency then needs to extend beyond what the PCs are doing at the moment.

Which means that while the DM is free to simply narrate remote events (100 knights went up the pass, only 17 came back) rather than roll all the dice, that narration has to reflect something that the mechanics could reasonably produce had they in fact been used. (unknown to the locals as of yet, several dozen stone giants have just tunneled to the surface up there, along with assorted pets, and are claiming the territory for their own)

That's like saying that if tweaking the encounter guidelines in the way described in the area in question causes the illusion of the fictional world to break, then the illusion probably wasn't all that strong to begin with.

That's just it - the illusion is only ever as strong as the DM and players make it, thus if the game system is forcing the DM to weaken it that's not helping.

I think the missing pieces are the frequency with which this change is made, the area to which it's applied, and the amount of time the PCs spend there. If you have an area that's been established as relatively safe, and the PCs travel there once and come across three deadly encounters....that can be attributed to bad luck or bad timing or just random chance. However, if this is an area that the PCs will visit regularly, and all of a sudden there are epic level threats crawling all over the place....sure, that's an impact. Seems odd to go that route, and I'd say maybe there's a better way to handle it....seems like an active attempt to break immersion, if you ask me.....but if that's the case, then sure, thought needs to go into this and how to handle it.

The problem isn't "safe" areas, except as you say if said safe areas aren't really safe at all. The problem is "risky" areas (the road to Waterdeep being a fine example), where adventurers face threat and commoners by extension thus face certain death; meaning the encounter guidelines as written almost force a points-of-light type setting and thus absolutely affect worldbuilding in that they are dictating what type of world you can (wth any expectation of realism) build.

Now if there was a great deal less difference in abilities between commoners and mid-level adventurers this wouldn't be an issue at all. But the greater that difference becomes, the more care has to be taken as to how all these threats to adventurers are going to affect the common world - if one cares about consistency, which I do.

But most of the time, I expect that the amount of time devoted to an area with a few random encounters would be pretty small as to not disrupt the campaign setting. The impact would be negligible to the point that addressing it would be more disruptive than to simply let it go.

If it's only one area and it's only met once (or it's only deadly once, for whatever reason), then fine.

But if it's a lot of areas (either by actual PC interaction or by tales and reputation), then simple extrapolation is going to very strongly suggest that those areas are now becoming representative of the game world as a whole, and bang goes your worldbuilding again.

Lan-"and if elite knights are dropping like flies, maybe the 3rd-level adventurers might want to look elsewhere for their fun"-efan