The Adventuring Day and You

[John Dallman]

Per-encounter abilities wreck my suspension of disbelief. Per-time-period is Ok, although if they're character abilities I my prefer them to be tied to, or cause, physical fatigue. That's a real thing, which can be thought about and mitigated using experience of the real world, rather than just game rules.

The idea of recovering all your hit points after a long rest is ludicrous; if you have these inhuman levels of durability, you need some effort to recover them quickly.

The concept of a (semi-)standardised number and power of encounters in an adventuring day is a terminal problem for my disbelief-suspenders. Guerrilla warfare just isn't like that. We can easily skip over the boring parts, so why not just do that?

 

[Fenris-77]

If all your system brings to the 'daily' table is spellcasting then the idea of the adventuring day is more business than you need. Honestly, the same goes for HP. I don't need to work toward encounters per day just to satisfy those two checkboxes. IMO 5E didn't make a good choice when it decided to lean into the AD as a framework with long and short rests and all the mechanics associated with them. I think you get very little return for investment there in terms of fun play. Nor do I think that the idea of CR balance is anything I care for in my games. Again, a ton of work for very little actual return at the table (IMO, naturally).

What games do need the adventuring day in some form? Games where resource management is actually a core play loop. BX has this, most OSR games have it, as do more modern OSR-adjacent games like Shadowdark. It's not just spells and HP it's also torches, rations, fatigue, encumbrance and all that other good stuff. 5E pretends it still cares about resource management (like arrows and rations) but it really doesn't. For example, the 5E magic system trivializes the need for rations almost from the get go, as well as torches and other light sources.

HP is always an issue when we talk about 5E and long rests because the system has such massive bags of HP floating around. The other games I mentioned tend to have much smaller HP totals across the board and there it's far less of a stretch to abstractly 'recharge' them overnight.

 

[Thierry-Advent]

If all your system brings to the 'daily' table is spellcasting then the idea of the adventuring day is more business than you need. Honestly, the same goes for HP. I don't need to work toward encounters per day just to satisfy those two checkboxes. IMO 5E didn't make a good choice when it decided to lean into the AD as a framework with long and short rests and all the mechanics associated with them. I think you get very little return for investment there in terms of fun play. Nor do I think that the idea of CR balance is anything I care for in my games. Again, a ton of work for very little actual return at the table (IMO, naturally).

What games do need the adventuring day in some form? Games where resource management is actually a core play loop. BX has this, most OSR games have it, as do more modern OSR-adjacent games like Shadowdark. It's not just spells and HP it's also torches, rations, fatigue, encumbrance and all that other good stuff. 5E pretends it still cares about resource management (like arrows and rations) but it really doesn't. For example, the 5E magic system trivializes the need for rations almost from the get go, as well as torches and other light sources.

HP is always an issue when we talk about 5E and long rests because the system has such massive bags of HP floating around. The other games I mentioned tend to have much smaller HP totals across the board and there it's far less of a stretch to abstractly 'recharge' them overnight.

Correct, I tried to get my ex-5e players to track arrows, torches and food. They grumbled and refused to do it. Even if a few of them played Mentzer Basic. I was told it's a thing of the past no longer necessary. Glad that campaign ended because of Covid.

With my current Dragonbane group, we do all that. It adds to the core experience of the session. 'You have no more arrows, what do you do?' Is a legitimate question to ask.

 

[Reynard]

Most folks will say that the problem with the "adventuring day" is the "five minute workday" where folks nova their abilities then want to rest.

My solution to that is to disentangle "rests" from time periods and instead attach them to important clocks. In 5E parlance, maybe than means that a short rest "costs" one tick of the clock while a long rest costs 3 or 4 ticks. The other side of that clock is a thing that is important and impactful. So in the dungeon, it might be that ever 4 ticks of the clock, reinforcements arrive or the necromantic magic of the place respawns enemies or whatever. In an overland travel scenario, maybe a storm is coming or an army is on the march toward the PCs destination.

 

[Fenris-77]

Most folks will say that the problem with the "adventuring day" is the "five minute workday" where folks nova their abilities then want to rest.

My solution to that is to disentangle "rests" from time periods and instead attach them to important clocks. In 5E parlance, maybe than means that a short rest "costs" one tick of the clock while a long rest costs 3 or 4 ticks. The other side of that clock is a thing that is important and impactful. So in the dungeon, it might be that ever 4 ticks of the clock, reinforcements arrive or the necromantic magic of the place respawns enemies or whatever. In an overland travel scenario, maybe a storm is coming or an army is on the march toward the PCs destination.

That's certainly one problem, and IMO one that's at least somewhat unique to 5E (and maybe a few others (interesting fix btw, I like it). My issues with the idea are far more related to mechanical weight compared to gaming satisfaction.

 

[Reynard]

That's certainly one problem, and IMO one that's at least somewhat unique to 5E (and maybe a few others (interesting fix btw, I like it). My issues with the idea are far more related to mechanical weight compared to gaming satisfaction.

I am not sure I know what you mean by the bolded part. Can you explain?

 

[payn]

Most folks will say that the problem with the "adventuring day" is the "five minute workday" where folks nova their abilities then want to rest.

My solution to that is to disentangle "rests" from time periods and instead attach them to important clocks. In 5E parlance, maybe than means that a short rest "costs" one tick of the clock while a long rest costs 3 or 4 ticks. The other side of that clock is a thing that is important and impactful. So in the dungeon, it might be that ever 4 ticks of the clock, reinforcements arrive or the necromantic magic of the place respawns enemies or whatever. In an overland travel scenario, maybe a storm is coming or an army is on the march toward the PCs destination.

That’s a classic response to nova and rest. I think the retort then is that they don’t want to narratively be on the clock all the time. I think I’ve realized there is no universal answer to this you gotta find out what works for you.

 

[VashVet]

Most folks will say that the problem with the "adventuring day" is the "five minute workday" where folks nova their abilities then want to rest.

My solution to that is to disentangle "rests" from time periods and instead attach them to important clocks. In 5E parlance, maybe than means that a short rest "costs" one tick of the clock while a long rest costs 3 or 4 ticks. The other side of that clock is a thing that is important and impactful. So in the dungeon, it might be that ever 4 ticks of the clock, reinforcements arrive or the necromantic magic of the place respawns enemies or whatever. In an overland travel scenario, maybe a storm is coming or an army is on the march toward the PCs destination.

I agree - in all my time playing D&D 5e, the actual timeframe didn’t really matter. What mattered more in every adventure we played was what was happening in the moment, what pressures the PCs were under. Sometimes that could align with a nice pat 24 hour time span, but if we were playing an urban or overland adventure that spanned multiple days, tying the PCs abilities to a 24 hour clock didn’t make much sense.

 

[Fenris-77]

I am not sure I know what you mean by the bolded part. Can you explain?

How much time I spend faffing with and tracking the mechanic versus how much actual enjoyment or satisfaction it generates in actual play.

 

[Fenris-77]

That’s a classic response to nova and rest. I think the retort then is that they don’t want to narratively be on the clock all the time. I think I’ve realized there is no universal answer to this you gotta find out what works for you.

Nova also a perfectly rational response to the 5E adventuring day bounded by CR and numbers of encounters. It's just also counter to smooth play (or enjoyable play, IMO).

Edit - I think it's a pretty major design flaw with 5E.