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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Schmoe" data-source="post: 4533386" data-attributes="member: 913">I'll start by saying that I've played with 4 different groups over 20+ years, and I don't remember ever feeling like a 15-minute day was a problem except back in my younger days, when we were just dungeon crawling for the loot and there was nothing else to the adventure.  I tend to believe that the problem is largely a matter of adventure design.  An adventure with closely packed combat encounters, each of which is an "edge-of-your-seat, do-or-die" affair, is going to force parties to retreat and rest frequently, or face death.  This can be prevented, however, in a few different ways:1.  Varying encounter difficulty.  Not all encounters have to be nail biters.  Moderately difficult and easy encounters provide opportunities for the PCs to show their muscle, manipulate opponents to their advantage, and manage strategic options.2.  Varying encounter types.  A role-playing or investigating encounter takes time, can be lots of fun, and generally doesn't compromise the survivability of a group.3.  Varying encounter location.  A short couple of encounters at one location, which lead to some investigation, which lead to some encounters at another location, easily space out the encounters so that players don't feel they've spent 10 minutes fighting and now they're done.4.  Story-based incentive for speed of action.  This speaks for itself.On top of that, I'd venture to say that if the 15-minute work day appears sporadically, it's not usually a problem.  It's only when it becomes the standard operating procedure that people get grumpy.  Here are two different adventure outlines.  One of which would most likely be a "15-minutes and rest" affair, one of which would not.A)  The players have to defeat the wight lord in his lair.  The lair is heavily guarded and trapped.  The lair has 6 encounter locations that must be defeated before the PCs can reach the wight lord, each of which is at least EL = Party Level (PL).  The wight lord is EL = PL+3.B)  The players have to investigate murders in the cemetery.  At one of the murder scenes, they notice a strange tomb.  Investigating reveals the tomb is trapped (EL = PL/2).  After bypassing the trap, they find some wights locked within, one of which carries the grave-digger's watch (EL = PL).  They confront the grave-digger with the evidence and convince him to reveal that he's been approached by a mysterious stranger with a missing left hand.  Asking around on the streets, the PCs discover the stranger has been seen going into an abandoned building on Lantern Street.  On their way over, however, they are targeted by an assassin who's been tipped off (EL = PL).  Finally they reach the building, where they defeat the cultist's guardian (EL = PL) and a trapped room (EL = PL/2) before bearding him in his lair (EL = PL +1).I guarantee that running adventure B would not feel like a 15-minute day.  Plus, if adventure B led to adventure A, where they might have to rest once before defeating the BBEG, the players would probably not be disgruntled about a 15-minute day, because of the overall flow of the campaign.I suppose that one possible problem is that adventure A is easier to write than adventure B, so a lot of published adventures may fall into that category.  If this is the case, I'd say the burden falls on the DM to break up the flow so that the adventure continues in between forays into the dungeon.At any rate, for those who are displeased by the 15-minute work day, I think you might be happier if adventures were designed differently.</blockquote>

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