What is the 15-minute adventuring day?

[Mercurius]

I haven't read the thread that Danny linked to, but I do think that 4E, by and large, "solved" the problem, at least far more than previous editions. Can PCs throw fireballs and cast healing spells indefinitely? No. But they can use at-wills and minor healings, as well as surges - at least until they become exhausted, which makes sense.

In a similar sense, healing surges (imo, of course) "fix" the problem of hit points by creating a mechanism whereby they become akin to vitality points; a healing surge is a return of vitality, it is not Wolverine-esque magical healing. I like to think of HP as one's energetic and physical reserves; "Bloodied" is when you actually start taking physical damage, but the wounds don't get serious until dropped to 0. Now I think you could make an argument that if you want to be really realistic, that once a PC reaches 0 HP their natural healing should be very slow - maybe a few HP a day - so that only magical healing can bring them up. Or perhaps magical healing is required to get them from 0 to their bloodied value, and then from there healing surges can be used...but I digress.

But my point is, people have been complaining about the 15-minute adventuring day (and the unrealistic nature of hit points) for decades and 4E actually figured out ways to make them at least somewhat believable and workable. I like the fact that you can, say, spend all of your dailies and encounter powers on an attacking undead army and then have run away, fighting them off only with at-wills.

 

[Ranes]

Actually, I always felt it's caused by the players. As a DM the only way to counter it is to _not_ use certain types of adventures. Ideally, every adventure includes some kind of pressing time-limit.

Sure, the players bring about the situation, by burning through their resources too quickly or being too conservative about using them. But if their DM lets them burn and rest like this, then he's the enabler of the 15MWD.

But I'm not really interested in arguing with you.

Ditto.

I'd be more interested about details about the fifteen-minute work day you've seen back in 1979. How did it manifest? What kind of important resources were spent after 15 minutes? And most important: What game have you been playing?

It was 1e AD&D. The PCs were a monk (me) and a wizard, played by someone else. The rest of the party were NPCs and hirelings. We were deep inside an underground temple and surrounding complex. A room containing various treasures was guarded by a bone devil.

The party defeated the bone devil by repeatedly engaging it in combat for short periods, certainly less than fifteen minutes of game time, over the course of several days. The bone devil would not follow us out of the room when we retreated, which was fair enough, given that its job was to guard the treasures beyond. However, our party always returned to its hiding place after one of these brief battles and rested for the rest of the day. I don't think the guards or wandering monsters ever disturbed us.

Don't expect specifics on resources consumed after 32 years.

I'm convinced it's a problem that would best be solved by modifying the rpg system.

Of course, that could be done. Some people would argue it has been. But I would maintain that, just because a system doesn't prevent players from consuming a certain proportion of their resources within a particular period of time, it does not necessarily follow that there is a problem with that system.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm convinced it's a problem that would best be solved by modifying the rpg system. E.g. in 3e if you had a party where all members had classes from the Book of Nine Swords, I doubt, you'd ever see a 15-minute work day.

The only systemic change to an RPG that would solve the 15 minute day would be to make all (or nearly all) of a PCs significant resources renew after each encounter. They would make it play something like a martial arts cobalt game- Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc.- because the party would be able to nova all the time without fear of repercussion.

While that's GREAT for those arcade games, that's not something I'd want formmy RPG experience. I'd much rather have a game with meaningful resource management, concerns about patrols or hidden threats, and so forth, leaving the problem and the solution in the hands of the game's players (on both sides of the screen).

 

[Doug McCrae]

But I would maintain that, just because a system doesn't prevent players from consuming a certain proportion of their resources within a particular period of time, it does not necessarily follow that there is a problem with that system.

The problem is with the particular combination of gaming style and system. System X might be fine for style A, but bad for style B. The question then arises, what should change, the system or the style? If either changes it will fix the problem. But for many people, it's easier to change system than style.

Ofc people don't normally say things like, "This system is a bad fit for my gaming style." Instead they say, "This system sucks."

 

[Doug McCrae]

The only systemic change to an RPG that would solve the 15 minute day would be to make all (or nearly all) of a PCs significant resources renew after each encounter.

Surely there's many other kinds of resource limitation, such as gold piece cost, SAN loss, permanently limited use (such as wands and potions in D&D), functioning in a particular situation only (when there are plants around, underwater, when kryptonite isn't present, etc), per session (like hero points in M&M) or per campaign. All of these avoid the 15-minute day, I think.

I can see how per session resources could lead to another kind of odd PC behaviour, analogous to the 15-minute day, avoiding any serious encounters near the end of a session. One shot resources seem to work well as a limiter.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Surely there's many other kinds of resource limitation, such as gold piece cost, SAN loss, permanently limited use (such as wands and potions in D&D), functioning in a particular situation only (when there are plants around, underwater, when kryptonite isn't present, etc), per session (like hero points in M&M) or per campaign. All of these avoid the 15-minute day, I think.]

GP cost won't because there isn't a direct link between having $$$ and combat efficacy.

SAN loss won't because when you lose it (in most systems), it's not coming back anytime soon. It functions on too slow a timescale: you're not going to go on an adventure, partially finish it, retreat because your PCs are on the verge of going nuts, spend time in therapy to get your SAN back, then go back to the adventure. By that time, the Ineffable Horror has consumed the world.

Things like Wands just give the casters more resources, but it doesn't change their management of those resources. Its as if your car gets 7mpg, so it has limited range, and to solve the issue, you welded a 150 gallon tank to it.

Situationally limited resources are a wash, too. If you have few of them and are often in that situation, you will have frequent, short adventures. If you have lots, but are rarely in the situation, those resources are effectively infinite.

Per session resources? Again, they may or may not be used- as I said upthread, my Starlock hasn't used Daily powers for a couple of recent sessions. What makes players adopt the 15 minute day is being able to regain significant resources after a rest of a length that lets them reload- without consequences.

Per campaign resources are really not a factor at all. Those resources will be hoarded until they must be used; they won't affect wether the party has an advance-nova-retreat-repeat cycle going.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Danny, I'm talking about removing daily powers, AKA Vancian magic, altogether (I should've been clear about that) and replacing the 'X uses per day' with some other kind of limitation. I'm pretty sure that one (and, as you say, not the only) pillar supporting the 15-minute day is that resources return at the end of the day. If they don't, as with wands, then there's no point in resting for 24 hours, it won't recharge your power. What I'm talking about is, instead of the wizard having fireball once per day, he has a wand of fireballs with, say, 7 charges. This would lead to quite different behaviour on the part of the PCs. The wizard could use all 7 fireballs in one day if he wanted, but there's no benefit to firing off one fireball and then resting.

 

[Krensky]

One potential solution is to remove hard and fast time cycles for resource refresh. My game of choice (outside of the combat round) operates almost entirely on a 'nebulous' time scale.

Abilities are per combat, per scene, per adventure, or per session. Some things operate on a 'per day' time cycle, but they're not common and are more consumable resource related. You can only benefit from one food, drink, and potion per day, for instance.

 

[LostSoul]

I think the system can have a big influence on the 15-minute adventuring day. If the system imposes costs for resting, then the players will have to make a choice - rest & replenish & pay the cost, or push on with limited resources? Sometimes that choice will be obvious, sometimes not so much.

 

[Dannager]

Actually, I always felt it's caused by the players. As a DM the only way to counter it is to _not_ use certain types of adventures. Ideally, every adventure includes some kind of pressing time-limit.

It's only caused by players in the same way that fireballing large concentrations of enemies is a problem caused by players; you cannot blame them for taking advantage of a smart option.

And, no, putting a pressing time limit on every adventure puts a requirement on adventure design. I would prefer not to have to limit the scenarios that DMs can reasonably run their players through to only those in which a time limit can be imposed.

The problem is this:

• From a PC's standpoint, resting often is the smart move (unless extraneous circumstances dictate otherwise).
• From a DM's standpoint, you have to actively prevent your party from resting often, or (if they do rest often) adjust encounters to account for their ability to use their daily resources in nearly every encounter.

When you have a game element that encourages a course of action that is not desirable, that game element needs reworking. The only solution I am aware of is to turn daily resources into encounter resources.