D&D 5E The 6-battle adventuring day, does it even exist?

[cbwjm]

Very rarely do the players I run a game for reach 6 encounters, the last time they got close they had, I think, 4 or 5 encounters in a row but had no time to short rest. I tend to just allow the players to decide when to rest, or at least when to request a rest. If there is nothing that prevents it then it goes ahead. The "expected" 6-8 encounters/2 short rests is a myth anyway.

 

[Flamestrike]

A D&D campaign is not reliant on fast pacing to generate tension and keep audience engagement the way an action movie is.

That doesn't correlate to 'slow pacing and lack of tension makes an engaging game' though does it?

DnD is a resource management game, so having limits around those resources is important to keep audience engagement and generate tension. With no limits on those resources, it becomes a boring exercise in button mashing.

I don't know about you, but having PCs fall back to long rest in a dungeon or similar is also crazy jarring. If the 5MWD is allowed to happen by the DM its also really boring.

Where is the impetus for the mission at hand if you can just fall back and rest with no consequences?

It just breaks my immersion too. I mean nothing in real life comes without temporal limits. Whether its the time you need to be in at the office, hand in that report, pay your bills, get back from lunch, stretch that pay check or whatever.

Action movies have the 'ticking bomb' for a reason. It builds tension and excitement and sets clear win/lose conditions for the protagonists. It frames the action.

In a game that is based around resource management, it's also important for other reasons.

 

[Asisreo]

DnD is a resource management game, so having limits around those resources is important to keep audience engagement and generate tension. With no limits on those resources, it becomes a boring exercise in button mashing.

I may be the only one that feels this way, but I rarely find resource management tense or exciting or even engaging. Its fun, for me, to manipulate my resources for maximum effect, but the process of running out and the actual state of low resources rarely gives me what I feel like engagement is.

It can be tense in a negative way, for me. I often just feel frustrated when I ever feel that my hand is being forced to use a resource I was saving and I get upset when a resource is wasted and doesn't advance our goals.

What does, however, make me feel tension and engagement is having these sudden realizations that the enemy we're facing might be stronger than all of us. We can't be sure, but they're casting stronger spells, they have high defenses, they have actions outside initiative, and the stakes to losing is clear.

Its not when we fight a vampire spawn and almost lose because we haven't rested for 5 fights that grants tension. Its when we're facing the infamous Strahd and we use our strongest attacks and it barely phases him that we start putting our game faces on. We're putting 100% and we don't know if we'll succeed. That's tense, imo.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

That doesn't correlate to 'slow pacing and lack of tension makes an engaging game' though does it?

DnD is a resource management game, so having limits around those resources is important to keep audience engagement and generate tension. With no limits on those resources, it becomes a boring exercise in button mashing.

I don't know about you, but having PCs fall back to long rest in a dungeon or similar is also crazy jarring. If the 5MWD is allowed to happen by the DM its also really boring.

Where is the impetus for the mission at hand if you can just fall back and rest with no consequences?

It just breaks my immersion too. I mean nothing in real life comes without temporal limits. Whether its the time you need to be in at the office, hand in that report, pay your bills, get back from lunch, stretch that pay check or whatever.

Action movies have the 'ticking bomb' for a reason. It builds tension and excitement and sets clear win/lose conditions for the protagonists. It frames the action.

In a game that is based around resource management, it's also important for other reasons.

Sure, I wasn't actually trying to argue that having to do things on a fast pace without rests doesn't increase tension and challenge and can't be a good thing. I was simply trying to argue that D&D doesn't need action movie pacing to be interesting, exciting, etc. because a D&D campaign is a very different animal than a scripted film, and I was responding to a comment that seemed to treat action movie pacing as the way D&D should be to be engaging. I think trying to D&D campaigns conform to movie pacing is a dangerous and ultimately disappointing road to go down that the game isn't really built for.

I would say that action movie pacing actually tends to make sense sometimes in the final section of a campaign, and resting despite resting making no narrative sense is indeed a bit jarring. But I think trying to enforce such pacing through most of a campaign usually requires too much reliance on narrative conceits, and after letting the players all get used to playing their characters with fairly frequent rests pushing them through an extensive gauntlet of encounters without rests before the final boss feels like it makes the final showdown a surprise pop quiz designed to punish players for not knowing to completely change their resource management strategies on the final sessions of the campaign. I'd rather just let them have a somewhat narratively illogical rest and make the final fight as big as it needs to be to challenge the group at full strength.

 

[abirdcall]

I may be the only one that feels this way, but I rarely find resource management tense or exciting or even engaging. Its fun, for me, to manipulate my resources for maximum effect, but the process of running out and the actual state of low resources rarely gives me what I feel like engagement is.

It can be tense in a negative way, for me. I often just feel frustrated when I ever feel that my hand is being forced to use a resource I was saving and I get upset when a resource is wasted and doesn't advance our goals.

What does, however, make me feel tension and engagement is having these sudden realizations that the enemy we're facing might be stronger than all of us. We can't be sure, but they're casting stronger spells, they have high defenses, they have actions outside initiative, and the stakes to losing is clear.

Its not when we fight a vampire spawn and almost lose because we haven't rested for 5 fights that grants tension. Its when we're facing the infamous Strahd and we use our strongest attacks and it barely phases him that we start putting our game faces on. We're putting 100% and we don't know if we'll succeed. That's tense, imo.

What about walking around Strahd's Castle? Is it tense when the only possible challenge is the final confrontation with Strahd? There are no stakes to the exploration because it's impossible to be meaningfully hurt right?

Ravenloft and gothic horror is a perfect example of where rising tension is critical for the horror to be effective.

I find it fun to be in Strahd's Castle and to worry about what might happen next because I know I want all my strength for Strahd. And I also know that he could be around any corner and he's not going to let us rest. So things are only going to get more tense the deeper we go.

If we can just choose to rest whenever we want then Strahd doesn't seem very powerful as we can just walk around like we own the place.

If I was playing a game and we were all fresh and ready to go and a foe came in and wiped the floor with us I wouldn't think that was tense at all. I'd also be completely checked out at that point as I would imagine my decisions leading up to then wouldn't have really mattered.

If the only source of tension in the game is a few minutes at the very end where we find out if we are high enough level to win then I'm out.

 

[abirdcall]

But I think trying to enforce such pacing through most of a campaign usually requires too much reliance on narrative conceits

What narrative conceits?

Are you talking about the things in stories which create stakes?

A dungeon where the party has unlimited time to scope it out and clear out the rooms 1 by 1 isn't worth of screen time. If that is something that needed to be done for whatever reason in a game I was running I would just narrate 'okay you did it' and then move on to something interesting.

There needs to be some reason this story is interesting to spend time telling it.

Maybe there is a macguffin at the end of the dungeon that must be gotten in time to stop the evil from happening. Or maybe there are rival adventurers who also want the treasure. Or maybe the dungeon has closed behind them and now the PCs are the hunted and must escape.

Something.

Call them 'narrative conceits' if you will but if there is not a narrative what am I doing?

 

[tetrasodium]

I may be the only one that feels this way, but I rarely find resource management tense or exciting or even engaging. Its fun, for me, to manipulate my resources for maximum effect, but the process of running out and the actual state of low resources rarely gives me what I feel like engagement is.

It can be tense in a negative way, for me. I often just feel frustrated when I ever feel that my hand is being forced to use a resource I was saving and I get upset when a resource is wasted and doesn't advance our goals.

What does, however, make me feel tension and engagement is having these sudden realizations that the enemy we're facing might be stronger than all of us. We can't be sure, but they're casting stronger spells, they have high defenses, they have actions outside initiative, and the stakes to losing is clear.

Its not when we fight a vampire spawn and almost lose because we haven't rested for 5 fights that grants tension. Its when we're facing the infamous Strahd and we use our strongest attacks and it barely phases him that we start putting our game faces on. We're putting 100% and we don't know if we'll succeed. That's tense, imo.

Take any FPS game, rarely does the term "resource management" get used to describe them. Play through it with infinite ammo or mod it so ammo drops give you 2-3x the ammo(if not more) and you will have a very different experience. Not only that but the relative value & advantages/disadvantages of the various weapons is going to be thrown out the window in many cases. 5e creates this same situation by erroneously targeting resource allotments to an absurd standard of 6-8 combat encounters that wotc's own adventures themselves don't even pretend they are trying to meet it.

 

[Asisreo]

If we can just choose to rest whenever we want then Strahd doesn't seem very powerful as we can just walk around like we own the place.

This is true especially for the horror genre. I'm not necessarily saying that resting without fear does drive tension, though.

Mainly, its the fear of facing something that may be stronger than you and you can't just back down. Its knowing that they have some tricks up their sleeves and not knowing if what you have will be able to completely handle those tricks.

Take any FPS game, rarely does the term "resource management" get used to describe them. Play through it with infinite ammo or mod it so ammo drops give you 2-3x the ammo(if not more) and you will have a very different experience. Not only that but the relative value & advantages/disadvantages of the various weapons is going to be thrown out the window in many cases. 5e creates this same situation by erroneously targeting resource allotments to an absurd standard of 6-8 combat encounters that wotc's own adventures themselves don't even pretend they are trying to meet it.

Well, this analogy kinda falls flat for me in that FPS games have always been more about skill for me. Sure, ammunition is limited but I definitely don't remember the hardest parts about FPS's being how much ammunition I have. Its usually a balance.

I think a better analogy would be turn-based JRPGs as they're directly related to resource management without timing or skill hurting your overall gameplay.

But, actually, when I play JRPGs, its rare that the tensest moments are when I have low resources going into a fight. Those are usually just random encounters where if I get too close, I'll backtrack to the healing location.

In JRPGs, the hardest fights are boss fights and its never walk into those without full resources, yet a good and balanced JRPG will have me struggle regardless. Why? Because its usually managing turns and buffs/debuffs. Sure, I may run out of MP in the fight a few times but I will have plenty of MP recovery items so that resource in itself is still somewhat plentiful if need be.

I find myself in trouble when I have to do multiple things but only have so few actions. This usually occurs when one or more team members go down. Should I revive or should I press their weaknesses? Should I buff/defend against an incoming attack or try for an ailment to prevent action? Should I debuff or heal? These are the tension driving moments.

If I go to a boss fight without 100% resources, or close to it, I'd be frustrated especially at the random encounters and I'd consider it an overall negative experience. Having my resources drained isn't a fun experience especially since its before a fight where you know you should have as much as you possibly can.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think trying to enforce such pacing through most of a campaign usually requires too much reliance on narrative conceits, and after letting the players all get used to playing their characters with fairly frequent rests pushing them through an extensive gauntlet of encounters without rests before the final boss feels like it makes the final showdown a surprise pop quiz..

But you can have both.

Some days have them on the clock. Some dont. Some might feature environmental or other restrictions on resting. Some days feature 6 (or more) encounters between long rest (and a higher XP budget for that adventuring day than normal); some days its just the one encounter (on a lower budget).

It's not like every single day must be 6-8 encounters, 2-3 short rests, following the 'XP budget per adventuring day' table from the DMG, and enforced via a doom clock or a mechanical contrivance of some nature.

That creates a 'samey' nature and feels very inorganic.

6 or so encounters, and 2 short rests using the XP per adventuring day chart is a good place to start as your default though. Aim for around 50 percent of 'days' to feature this pacing. Enough days at that frequency and the classes balance just fine, and the Players choices start to conform to that expectation (they favor 'at will' abilities over nova options, and naturally pace themselves, even on the shorter days, and conform to the meta).

If I rocked up to a table with zero thought put into the AD by the DM, sure as hell I'm going with 'nova' builds, and taking long rests at every opportunity. Encounters will be steamrolled, classes will go out of balance, and the whole thing will come crashing down.

As DM, its your responsibility to manage that. There are plenty of tools at your disposal to do so.

 

[Flamestrike]

How you (as DM) manage that, alters the choices by your PCs at the table.

A DM that is big on longer AD's (8 or more encounters between long rests, say by pushing the 'Gritty realism' variant on the players) will see a lot of 'builds' that favor 'at will' and short rest recharge abilities.

OTOH a DM that doesnt manage the AD at all, will likely see nova builds (Action surging Sorc-aladins, and full casters) dumping everything they have from round 1, with little to no thought being applied, and then falling back to rest and do it all over again.

Personally I would have prefered a system where virtually all resources are per encounter (think ToB or SWSE), but we got the system we got.

It has advantages (lack of same-ness, ability to move the spotlight, levers to pull and push on, plus a requirement for long term thinking and resource management) but there are some drawbacks as well.

This thread coming up every week or so highlights those disadvantages.