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<blockquote data-quote="Dave Turner" data-source="post: 4399552" data-attributes="member: 12329">This standard sets the bar far too low and doesn't properly come to grips with my criticism.In the strictest standard, and by extension the lowest standard, players who embrace the 15-minute adventuring day are playing the game.&nbsp; There's no rule that explicitly forbids the 15-minute adventuring day.&nbsp; In that sense, 4e is a failure in preventing the 15-minute day.&nbsp; There is no explicit rule which states, for example, that the DM must triple the difficulty of subsequent encounters if the players adopt this strategy more than twice in a row.&nbsp;&nbsp; As you say:So players are still &quot;playing the game&quot; in the sense that what they're doing is legal within the rules of the game.&nbsp; But that's a threadbare standard to invoke when we talk about playing the game.In chess, there's no rule that states that a player must move his piece within a specified time.&nbsp; Chess games are often timed by common consent of the participants, but there's no official rule in chess about how long a player has to make a move.&nbsp; If I walk away from the game for 50 years, are we still playing chess during that period?&nbsp; If I do not meaningfully engage with the rules and the game during that time, most would agree that I'm not playing chess in anything but the most semantic sense.The 15-minute party is effectively doing the same thing, except that they (hopefully) aren't away from the game table for 50 years.&nbsp; The 15-minute party has no desire to interact with the rules of the game until they are at full strength.&nbsp; They completely isolate themselves (both in-game and in the rules), just like the chess player who steps away from the board.&nbsp; In effect, they want to freeze the game world until they are ready to engage with it again through the rules.&nbsp; When I pause a video game, I'm not playing during that pause except in a frivolous way.&nbsp; When I save my progress in a video game and return to it next week, I haven't been playing the game during the intervening week.For the sake of consistency, I will also say that any party who takes an extended rest after a long series of encounters has also stopped playing the game.&nbsp; If you've exhausted your dailies and surges, in addition to having blown through a few milestones, you're ready to pause the game to refresh the characters.&nbsp; You're stopping play, in a legal way.&nbsp; D&amp;D is unique in the sense that the players have the power to control the flow of play like this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dave Turner, post: 4399552, member: 12329"] This standard sets the bar far too low and doesn't properly come to grips with my criticism. In the strictest standard, and by extension the lowest standard, players who embrace the 15-minute adventuring day are playing the game. There's no rule that explicitly forbids the 15-minute adventuring day. In that sense, 4e is a failure in preventing the 15-minute day. There is no explicit rule which states, for example, that the DM must triple the difficulty of subsequent encounters if the players adopt this strategy more than twice in a row. As you say: So players are still "playing the game" in the sense that what they're doing is legal within the rules of the game. But that's a threadbare standard to invoke when we talk about playing the game. In chess, there's no rule that states that a player must move his piece within a specified time. Chess games are often timed by common consent of the participants, but there's no official rule in chess about how long a player has to make a move. If I walk away from the game for 50 years, are we still playing chess during that period? If I do not meaningfully engage with the rules and the game during that time, most would agree that I'm not playing chess in anything but the most semantic sense. The 15-minute party is effectively doing the same thing, except that they (hopefully) aren't away from the game table for 50 years. The 15-minute party has no desire to interact with the rules of the game until they are at full strength. They completely isolate themselves (both in-game and in the rules), just like the chess player who steps away from the board. In effect, they want to freeze the game world until they are ready to engage with it again through the rules. When I pause a video game, I'm not playing during that pause except in a frivolous way. When I save my progress in a video game and return to it next week, I haven't been playing the game during the intervening week. For the sake of consistency, I will also say that any party who takes an extended rest after a long series of encounters has also stopped playing the game. If you've exhausted your dailies and surges, in addition to having blown through a few milestones, you're ready to pause the game to refresh the characters. You're stopping play, in a legal way. D&D is unique in the sense that the players have the power to control the flow of play like this. [/QUOTE]

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