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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Indaarys" data-source="post: 9016898" data-attributes="member: 7040941">Well yeah because thats not at all what was being said. What was said there is that when survival is divorced from resource restoration, survival can then be made better as it doesn't have to be held back by a core game that can't commit to being a full survival sim. Its both. Ive given up on DND myself but I still have an interest in seeing it be better. Yes. The principle issue is that theres no clear cut way to balance out the rate at which rests are granted to the players. They ostensibly have control, but the DM is as much an arbiter of that as they are, and in fact has a disproportionate ability to deny the benefits. This isn't good, because while negotiation is healthy for table ettiquete, the game wastes a lot of energy on it, especially when its not the only aspect of the game that deals with these dynamics.Attempting to address this issue often leads to safe haven rules, which are a band aid that just swaps the problems around. Safe haven rules break verisimilitude (as getting adequate rest does not require civilization) and, like Gritty Realism, also imposes narrative constraints that aren't always going to mesh with every story or module. And given that, as the game isn't and won't commit to being a true survival game, this results in the rest mechanics, like the rest of the survival mechanics in the game, being pretty lame by requirement. Freeing the mechanics from having to support the core game frees up design space for them to be more in-depth and worthwhile to actually use. Adding new mechanics to restore resources in turn allows the need to negotiate over resources to be eliminated, giving tables more freedom to just play and DMs less of a headache. Why I think this way is because I've seen the benefits of approaching game mechanics like this first hand. Placing more control in the players hands is good, and finding means of sharing that control equitably is even better. Thats why I feel the tension pool is one of the best innovations ever, because by design it allows the DM and Players to share control over when and how complications enter into the narrative, and by its nature it helps immerse the table into that narrative as it asserts the importance of time and the importance of the characters various perspectives. And mind, just using the tension pool is actually pretty solid for resolving rest concerns; just give the players full control over their rests and the tension pool will handle the rest. Where it falls short versus the ideas in this topic is that it doesn't open up many avenues for more mechanics and player facing content. There are however other benefits for all of these beyond just rests; the tension pool is a great tool for restoring exploration to the game, and having more robust gathering and crafting (moreso crafting, but still) is something thats been pretty commonly requested, especially given that in most games the mechanics for these aren't terribly interactive and are the mechanical equivalent of ribbon abilities. And going for a universal resource system (ie mana/stamina) emphasizes the kind of game that main-line DND has drifted toward over the years, which is ultimately good because the designers having to constantly write a game that pretends to be something it isn't is just such a waste. Had the community, at the time, not thrown such a massive naughty word fit over 4e, Id be willing to bet that the game would have eventually moved towards this. Perhaps not by whatever version of 5e would exist in that timeline, but eventually nonetheless. 4es per encounter design can easily be adapted into such a system, and in that context would probably do a better job at bridging between the more overtly gamey design of 4e and the classical resource attrition of older DND than what we ended up with in 5e (which I to this day contend is literally just 4e with the paint stripped and the parts scrambled, which is why people keep reinventing 4e; they stumble into the gaping holes and its easy to rebuild)</blockquote>

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