In the end it all comes down to the question: Who decides when and how often to take a long rest, the DM or the players?
In an ideal world that doesn't make a difference, because the goals of the DM and the players are perfectly aligned, and there is a certain optimum that can be found by experimentation (which depends on party size and composition, so not the same for everybody). In the real world the alignment of goals is less perfect: If the players want to be powerful and survive every combat encounter, their optimum moves towards more frequent rests, with the extreme of a long rest after every encounter. For the DM, who wants class balance and series of challenging encounters that necessitate resource management, the optimum is towards more encounters between long rests.
So if the goals aren't perfectly aligned, both extreme cases of "Players decide when to rest with zero restrictions" and "DM decides when the players can rest" are far from optimal, and can lead to conflict between players and DM. The players feel railroaded, or the DM feels his adventure is getting powergamed.
Thus the search for a mechanical rules solution that doesn't depend on DM fiat. If there are rules that are known from the start which make that a long rest has certain disadvantages for the players, and if these rules are well designed, the goals of DM and players on resting align again.
For my Princes of the Apocalypse campaign I will go with house rules on "environment danger level" (the players can find out or know how dangerous it is to rest in any given place and can thus estimate the consequences of resting) and double xp for encounters after the first of the day (giving an incentive to do more encounters per day, works for PotA because the adventure doesn't normally give enough xp per dungeon). But those are my house rules, and I would have preferred a rules system that doesn't have the problem and doesn't require DM fiat or intervention.
In an ideal world that doesn't make a difference, because the goals of the DM and the players are perfectly aligned, and there is a certain optimum that can be found by experimentation (which depends on party size and composition, so not the same for everybody). In the real world the alignment of goals is less perfect: If the players want to be powerful and survive every combat encounter, their optimum moves towards more frequent rests, with the extreme of a long rest after every encounter. For the DM, who wants class balance and series of challenging encounters that necessitate resource management, the optimum is towards more encounters between long rests.
So if the goals aren't perfectly aligned, both extreme cases of "Players decide when to rest with zero restrictions" and "DM decides when the players can rest" are far from optimal, and can lead to conflict between players and DM. The players feel railroaded, or the DM feels his adventure is getting powergamed.
Thus the search for a mechanical rules solution that doesn't depend on DM fiat. If there are rules that are known from the start which make that a long rest has certain disadvantages for the players, and if these rules are well designed, the goals of DM and players on resting align again.
For my Princes of the Apocalypse campaign I will go with house rules on "environment danger level" (the players can find out or know how dangerous it is to rest in any given place and can thus estimate the consequences of resting) and double xp for encounters after the first of the day (giving an incentive to do more encounters per day, works for PotA because the adventure doesn't normally give enough xp per dungeon). But those are my house rules, and I would have preferred a rules system that doesn't have the problem and doesn't require DM fiat or intervention.
