Those adventure paths have about 90% too much combat for my taste.
Having never played or used them is that because they are combat heavy or because you hat combat or a mixture of both.
Those adventure paths have about 90% too much combat for my taste.
Having never played or used them is that because they are combat heavy or because you hat combat or a mixture of both.
If one defines the '15-minute adventuring day problem' as always resting for the day after one encounter, then I think I can be pretty safe in saying no one did that.
On the other hand, it's pretty common in 3.x to
- call it a day when the major spellcasters are out of their high-level spells or when buff spells expire
- refuse to go into an 'expected' 'boss fight' without resting unless there's an external time constraint imposed by theDMadventure.
- use scry-buff-teleport and nova tactics (i.e. hitting the bad guy with every powerful spell you've got as quickly as you can) to take on enemies above your level as the only encounter for the day
It's simply false to say that mechanics are irrelevant to this.If anyone ever played in the type of campaigns we run, you would not know what the 15 minute adventuring day was like because I would send a waves of attackers after you and that rope trick garbage would be figured out fairly quickly and dealt with by the BBEG (who would be very familiar with such tactics).
No, 4E hasn't dealt with this problem. It's not a problem that mechanics can deal with. The only way to deal with such a strange way of playing is to teach players that choose such a path that they will not be left alone to regenerate their spells and abilities on a daily basis after every battle.
Teleport is a huge issue, and it means that the BBEG can't retaliate against a retreating party. In my last high-magic RM game, the PCs were members of the most powerful wizards guild in the land, and also were powerful agents of the Emperor. They therefore had accomodation in two virtually-impregnable locations: the Tower of High Sorcery (yes, the concept was stolen from Dragonlance) and the Imperial palace. Teleporting back to such a location prevents retaliation.It's not uncommon for our group, though it doesn't become pronounced until Teleport or something similar is available.
The whole post was excellent, but the above bits are key, I think. In any game system where some players' fun (eg Wizards) depends upon per-day resources (ie Vancian spells) and other players fun (eg Fighters) depends upon a balancing assumption that players in the first group are not always using those resources, and in addition the whole playgroup's fun depends upon the party not dying, near-ineradicable tensions emerge of the sort that Mustrum indicates: encounters become boring, especially for the Wizards who sit on the sidelines (and the Fighters can also tell that the only reason these encounters are challenging them is because the Wizards are holding back - the old "Green Lantern & Green Arrow" problem); or the party dies; or the 15-minute day ensues, to the benefit of Wizards, the detriment of Fighters, and the death (in many cases) of verisimilitude.From a adventure design or pacing point of view, this all leads to some limitations.
- Time Critical adventures are hard to make. Assuming optimum play (use of Wands of Cure Light Wounds, Spellcasting minimized), the entire line of encounters risks not being particularly interesting (especially for spellcasters). In "suboptimal" play, it's very easy to make the time critical mission fail. That might actually be desirable, in a way (we want to reward "good" play), but the problem is that both routes don't lead to a lot of fun. Either the individual encounters are perceived as boring, or the party fails in the end.
- Non time-critical adventures introduce the 15 minute adventure day if the party plays "optimal".
Now, some people might not find watching from the side-lines that uninteresting, and see this just as a sign of good play (and after all, the non-spellcasters kick ass!).
And others might say who cares about 15 minute adventure days? It only matters whether the encounters we have are fun and exciting!
In these cases - just don't worry about it. It's not your problem that others prefer to play differently.
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The 15 minute adventuring day is still possible. (Little can change that).
But the implications if you do not follow a 15 minute adventure day are far less dire - the "gamist fun" of challenging combat does not have to be sacrificed for the parties survival chance, or vice versa.
This is, in effect, a variant form of retaliation against the players: mechanically optimise your play and your PCs will lose ingame. It suffers from the problems Mustrum has pointed out: if the encounters are such as to make a PC win without resting possible, then from the players' point of view they risk being boring encounters.It might be mechanically advantageous to wait 12-18 hours to fully recharge your powers for maximum effectiveness, but not if the cost of your delay is the destruction of the village you were supposed to protect while you were idle. Your delay was not the most effective way to save the village.
In my experience most players want to play, not watch.When I play a wizard, I don't cast a spell for the majority of encounters. I relax in the back watching the fight maybe using my wand on occasion if I get board.
I've never played a campaign in which the passage of ingame time was a limiting factor on PCs' adventuring careers. If they do get old, it is only at high level, when rejuvenation magic becomes available.Well... if a party is spending close to month or more clearing out a dungeon then they're certainly going to earn less during their adventuring careers... at least by my reckonin'.
Obviously I'm agreed, but an extra point: even in non-combat encounters, if they are to be challenging to the Wizards then they will require those Wizards to spend resources (CHA buff spells, Suggestion spells, mind-reading spells etc). My RM games are quite heavy in non-combat encounters, but this does not make the 15-minute workday disappear.If your adventures feature only one or two combat encounters you may never have seen the 15 min day. I ran more typical multi-encounter dungeons and saw it a heck of a lot.
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Now you may say the DM ought to send a revenge squad after the party if they 'cheat' by going to bed early. Often this isn't possible. Many dungeons, tombs and the like, don't have intelligent defenders. Or the monsters may be unable to track, very few have the Track feat after all. Or the PCs may employ magical means to make tracking impossible such as rope trick or dimension door. And from level 9 onwards they can just teleport back to town anyway.
It's only retaliatory (and therefore quasi-punitive) if the goal of the particular game is to succeed only in the most mechanically optimal way. That's a fair standard to hold some games to, but not roleplaying games. The cooperative storytelling aspect of a roleplaying game cannot be so easily disregarded in the debate. It's reasonable to hold roleplaying games to their more nuanced, historical standard. The goal of a roleplaying game isn't merely to succeed mechanically, but to succeed mechanically in the service of a cooperative story.pemerton said:This is, in effect, a variant form of retaliation against the players: mechanically optimise your play and your PCs will lose ingame. It suffers from the problems Mustrum has pointed out: if the encounters are such as to make a PC win without resting possible, then from the players' point of view they risk being boring encounters.
Furthermore, I think it is an indictment of a roleplaying system that, if it is played in a mechanically optimal fashion, then the story is compromised. In the best RPGs the mechanics facilitate the story, they don't push against it (eg by encouraging the 15-minute workday).
I'm becoming more and more convinced that modern RPG designers, who are using mechanics to facilitate the production of story rather than letting it sometimes be an obstacle, are on the right track.It's only retaliatory (and therefore quasi-punitive) if the goal of the particular game is to succeed only in the most mechanically optimal way. That's a fair standard to hold some games to, but not roleplaying games. The cooperative storytelling aspect of a roleplaying game cannot be so easily disregarded in the debate. It's reasonable to hold roleplaying games to their more nuanced, historical standard. The goal of a roleplaying game isn't merely to succeed mechanically, but to succeed mechanically in the service of a cooperative story.
This issue has come up in this thread. I think that a game should be designed so as to reduce the burden on the GM in this respect, rather than increase it.As for Mustrum's problem, I don't think that it's sufficiently nuanced as a criticism. The outcome and tension of any set of encounters is highly dependent on a DM's skill. It's certainly possible to craft a set of encounters that can be defeated without rest that aren't inherently boring. If nothing else, the fickle d20 can see to that.
May I suggest looking into WFRP 2E? Works well for that kind of mix.They are too combat heavy for my taste. As I said, the average adventure in my campaign has one or two combats that count, the rest is legwork, social encounters, sneaking around, and similar stuff.
I don't hate combat, but I don't want it to take up too much of a session.