D&D 5E (2014) The Gritty Realism variant rule seems to solve a lot of problems

[CreamCloud0]

i remember seeing someone's houserule (unfortunately i forget who's) that i really liked, it was called 'dungeon time'

the party usually operates on gritty realism recovery but, upon encountering a pressing threat they may choose to enter 'dungeon time' this puts them on the 'standard' adventuring day timeline meaning they long rest every night, But, when they come out of dungeon time they gain exhaustion levels equal to the number of days/long rests they took.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The only issue I would have as a player using GR is that you can be painted into situations where a group becomes too weakened by a bad or series of bad encounters but the adventure has a timed element that prevents a long rest, thus setting you up for failure regardless. Either you press on to a tpk or you rest and fail the time objective. That's feelsbadsman, and it could cause players to feel they are set up to fail and check out.

This just sounds like failure is not an option. The GM must railroad the PCs into success no matter what. I don't want to play this way.

If the previous encounters went badly, then is should matter. And PCs should have to make hard choices like that. And of course failure is never guaranteed, like I explained earlier, even if the characters are lacking a lot of their resources, they can take other steps and use their ingenuity to improve the odds. This is player agency, this is a good thing.

 

[YouMeetInATavern]

I don't care how others play

Sigh. Yes, we know. You mentioned it once or twice. Other people have different experiences.

I do however object to strawman arguments that never happen and are not issues.

Wait, you're accusing me of lying now? The things I mentioned all happened and were downsides to the alternate rule. "Uncharitable" was used earlier to describe some users here. Maybe have a look at yourself.

I want to make clear that I don't dislike GR on principle.

And I agree with you. It's an option that has certain effects, but is no panacea on its own.

Hopefully Pamphylian (if they haven't given up on the thread yet!) got some useful perspectives.

 

[AlViking]

i remember seeing someone's houserule (unfortunately i forget who's) that i really liked, it was called 'dungeon time'

the party usually operates on gritty realism recovery but, upon encountering a pressing threat they may choose to enter 'dungeon time' this puts them on the 'standard' adventuring day timeline meaning they long rest every night, But, when they come out of dungeon time they gain exhaustion levels equal to the number of days/long rests they took.

On very rare occasions I'll come up with an excuse to grant an emergency long rest. A magical sanctuary, a pocket dimension where time runs differently, a powerful ally that can't aid in their fight directly grants them a long rest.

It doesn't happen often, it has to be something fairly unique like being stuck in a haunted house. Slightly more common but still rare is an NPC casting prayer of healing for them if they don't have the option.

 

[AlViking]

Sigh. Yes, we know. You mentioned it once or twice. Other people have different experiences.


Wait, you're accusing me of lying now? The things I mentioned all happened and were downsides to the alternate rule. "Uncharitable" was used earlier to describe some users here. Maybe have a look at yourself.


And I agree with you. It's an option that has certain effects, but is no panacea on its own.

Hopefully Pamphylian (if they haven't given up on the thread yet!) got some useful perspectives.

Using a logical fallacy is not lying. It's just creating examples of problems that don't exist.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I do believe people are genuine in their reservations, but they just simply come to this from a different angle. The central dividing factor is whether longer lasting consequences that can affect the course of the adventure and even in extreme cases lead to a failure are seen as a bug or a feature.

So before deciding whether to use gritty rests, the GM should decide how they feel about that.

 

[Remathilis]

I do believe people are genuine in their reservations, but they just simply come to this from a different angle. The central dividing factor is whether longer lasting consequences that can affect the course of the adventure and even in extreme cases lead to a failure are seen as a bug or a feature.

So before deciding whether to use gritty rests, the GM should decide how they feel about that.

This is a pretty good summation of my belief overall. For me, it would require a very different structure for my game than we're used to. Not an option to switch lightly and not appropriate for all types of games.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

If I ever run a 5e game again I'll definitely use this. But I think modern D&D stuff, at least up until I quit playing 5e, is largely built around the idea you can plow though most encounters without worrying much about resource management since its so easy to recover. So adventures would need to be set up with the idea that the players will have to use resources sparingly and be able to avoid and get around combat encounters in order to save scarce spells, HP, etc. This approach would probably require a reworking of adventure path stuff, at least the ones I looked at.

 

[Johngernaut]

After a disastrous (on the DM side of the screen) 5e campaign in 2019, I ran a second one using the GR rules and found it was a much better fit for my crew and I. 5e is a well-designed system to play a particular kind of game--high powered high fantasy. I don't think I'll ever run it again, but it is a compliment to the designers that it can be modified and shaped to suit different tastes and styles.

Same, the greatest strength of 5E is its relative simplicity and ability to be modified and homebrewed. If it weren't for that, I would've lost interest in the system years ago.

Of course, whether people appreciate your tinkering and rules changes is another issue.

 

[...m...]

If you play RAW you have far less flexibility. You can't let the players Long rest in the 3 days between this set peice and that set peice.

...if you play RAW the DM absolutely controls the time between setpieces; make it a narrative week if you want the long rest, cut it to a short rest if you want to squeeze the party's recovery...