The Adventuring Day and You

[John Dallman]

In an ideal world a game master is more like a game slave and brings exactly the experience designed by the game designer to the players . . .

We are never going to agree, so I'm stopping here.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh most of the tactical modern games do this to some degree! 4E, Beacon, 13th age and also PF2 expect players to go with full health into a combat. Some daily ressources may be missing, but its expected for the players to be in almost perfect condition. And these games do give mechanics to do this in the form of healing surges. (Only PF2 makes it more complicated by expecting free healing, but requiring players to find options to allow this)

I'm not running anything more modern than PF 1e. Mostly I think in HERO System terms.

But even in PF 1e I still epxcet players to go all in. I don't do mega dungeons or anything that requires close resource tracking. How hard and fast the players go is usually up to them.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Folks like to ask about the players trying to nova and rest as often as possible and how to deal with that. Often, the question gets asked why the players are allowed to do it in the first place. I think a better question to ask is; Do the players even want to play an adventure day-focused game? Encounter-focused might help everyone out in that situation.

I think an encounter focus works well. Players will (usually) have a good idea of what they're getting into and can judge accordingly. It lets them play the scenario the way they want.

Sometimes players will misjudge a situation and things will go poorly. But that's part of the fun.

e.g. They intend for a stealth mission but alarms get raised and now they're fighting a running battle or just running for their lives.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The core issue with 5e's adventuring day isn't that the math is broken; it’s that the math is deeply dependent on a specific narrative structure that many modern groups don't actually play.

Being dependent on structures that groups don't play by is not an "issue." It's a core principle of D&D; a scared cow if you will. Ever since the days of race as class, gold for exp, adding a dozen modifiers, and minions, players not liking D&Disms is a core aspect of the D&D experience. Frankly, I'm think they need to bring in more of those things! Bring back the Commoner class! Make stats 3d6 in order! More save or dies!