What is the 15-minute adventuring day?

[Ariosto]

Combat efficacy is the entire point of the 15MWD.

If that is true, then I submit that making combat "the entire point" of adventuring is a root cause.

Agreed. I said as much when I talked about hoarding $$$ to get resources to expend in adventuring.

You wrote what I quoted, and what I wrote directly contradicts that.

Moreover, what Doug McCrae asserted was that certain processes avoid the 15-minute day. You seem to be treating that as an assertion that the inclusion of any such processes automatically negates the influence of all other processes that give incentives for the strategy.

Which is what I was saying about DM complicity in the 15MWD: this can't happen unless the DM lets it happen. That's what I'm talking about when I said the 15MWD arises when the DM is letting them retreat and reload without consequences.

Then we agree on that. Is it not obvious that a predicate is the existence of significantly relevant resources upon which one can reload with opportunity to retreat and return at leisure?

"I'm out of bullets" is beside the point unless shooting is what one aims to undertake. If there is a good chance that shooting may come up, but there are other matters at hand, then one does not go out of one's way to waste ammo and so has a reserve for the contingency. If one is close enough to certain not to need guns, and one has plenty of resources for other enterprises, then doing those sooner tends to have the advantage of reaping whatever worms accrue to early birds.

A bomber has been shot down, the pilot bailed out behind enemy lines. A helicopter comes in, guns and rockets blazing, and drives back the enemy. Then it turns right around and flies away. Why? Because the crew has the "15 minute workday" mentality. The men "went nova" with their weapons, so now they are short on munitions (especially rockets). They care only about that, not about completing the mission today by rescuing the pilot!

SAN mechanics don't affect the 15MWD.

As mentioned above, I think that is no less than what Doug McCrae suggested.

What affects the 15MWD is the dread of its being the Last Day before the inauguration of the reign over Earth of horrors from beyond.

 

[GSHamster]

There is a bit of a difference between time-sensitive story-based games and "dungeon crawls".

Let's say your group is investigating an ancient labyrinth filled with undead.

Where is the time pressure? The tomb has been there for thousands of years. It never used to affect the outside, why would it start to now?

What prevents the PCs from investigating a bit of it, and then retreating back to a safe point for the night? The DM could prevent this by having patrols of undead start coming out, but when that has never happened before, it feels arbitrary, like the DM is doing it just to mess with the party.

 

[gamerprinter]

There is a bit of a difference between time-sensitive story-based games and "dungeon crawls".

Let's say your group is investigating an ancient labyrinth filled with undead.

Where is the time pressure? The tomb has been there for thousands of years. It never used to affect the outside, why would it start to now?

What prevents the PCs from investigating a bit of it, and then retreating back to a safe point for the night? The DM could prevent this by having patrols of undead start coming out, but when that has never happened before, it feels arbitrary, like the DM is doing it just to mess with the party.

Because the Golden Sarcophagus contains magic that will protect your home city, so you must acquire the object quickly and it can only be found in the labrynth beneath the pyramid ruins.

The secret of the golden sarcophagus is open to more than just your adventuring group and its become a race against time to be the first one's to get the treasure and if your opponents get it they will be able to overthrow your home city because of the dark magic of the pharoah...

Of course if you don't place any time pressure, it doesn't exist, but then the problem is with the DM again, of course.

GP

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If that is true, then I submit that making combat "the entire point" of adventuring is a root cause.

I won't disagree with that.

Agreed. I said as much when I talked about hoarding $$$ to get resources to expend in adventuring.

You wrote what I quoted, and what I wrote directly contradicts that.

Howso?

In any FRPG- heck, nearly any RPG- wealth is used for one of 2 reasons: gaining in-combat advantages or gaining out of combat advantages (including stuff that's just for show: houses, cars, grownup toys of all kinds). This is because PCs don't have 401(k)s.

So, either your PCs are hoarding $$$ to save up for something they want, or they're spending it. If there are no significant out-of-combat benefits to be purchased with wealth, then it will all get dumped into combat stuff. But the thing is, spending on training has no impact on the 15MWD because that is a non-depletable resource, and buying gear just increases the quality or quantity of gear, not how you manage it.

Just like SAN, wealth has little effect on the 15MWD.

All that controls the 15MWD is:

1. What key resources you have that are expendable?
2. How long does it take for you to replenish those resources?
3. What happens during the time you replenish?

That's it. Those are the only variables in the mental equation of whether a party starts operating on that kind of schedule, and the last one is the most important variable of all. If you have few key resources that are expendable, you probably won't do the 15MWD. If it takes too long to replenish, you probably won't do the 15MWD.

But if the DM doesn't have some kind of consequence for "taking too long" to replenish your resources- if he "puts the world on pause" while you do so-then the first 2 variables become vanishingly less important.

Moreover, what Doug McCrae asserted was that certain processes avoid the 15-minute day. You seem to be treating that as an assertion that the inclusion of any such processes automatically negates the influence of all other processes that give incentives for the strategy.

Ummm...no.

What I'm saying is that as long as there are ANY significant expendable but rapidly renewable resources available to a party, and a GM does not keep the world moving while the party replenishes, then the temptation for and the possibility of the 15MWD is going to be present.

For example, Doug talked about Wands- Wands are awesome- and he suggested replacing the entire Vancian system with them. Great.

But Wands then just become another form of ammo. It doesn't eliminate the problem if the party can use their wealth to circumvent their limitations by buying them in large quantities OR, especially relevant to the 15MWD, the GM lets you go back to base and buy/create new ones while the adventure simply sits in stasis.

Things like that are why I say this is not a system issue, but a playstyle issue.

Then we agree on that. Is it not obvious that a predicate is the existence of significantly relevant resources upon which one can reload with opportunity to retreat and return at leisure?

The existence of resources that run out and need to be replenished is probably going to be a fact of life in any remotely simulationist RPG. Unless your Cowboys have "Hollywood Six-Guns", they'll need to track things like ammo, possibly also food and water.

It is the "at leisure" part that creates the 15MWD.

"I'm out of bullets" is beside the point unless shooting is what one aims to undertake. If there is a good chance that shooting may come up, but there are other matters at hand, then one does not go out of one's way to waste ammo and so has a reserve for the contingency. If one is close enough to certain not to need guns, and one has plenty of resources for other enterprises, then doing those sooner tends to have the advantage of reaping whatever worms accrue to early birds.

That doesn't contradict anything I've been saying. It actually resonates with what I've been saying for years.

Like I said upthread (and elsewhere), we don't see the 15MWD because our spellcasters rarely cast spells when a dagger thrust or crossbow bolt- or the front-line combatants- will get the job done. They don't waste their "ammo": why obliterate a foe with disintigrate when the fighter and the rogue are carving him up? Instead, hold your fire, on guard for the foe who has not yet showed up.

A bomber has been shot down, the pilot bailed out behind enemy lines. A helicopter comes in, guns and rockets blazing, and drives back the enemy. Then it turns right around and flies away. Why? Because the crew has the "15 minute workday" mentality. The men "went nova" with their weapons, so now they are short on munitions (especially rockets). They care only about that, not about completing the mission today by rescuing the pilot!

Again, like I've been saying throughout the thread, that only happens with GM complicity. If the helicopter can do that, reload, and find the pilot they were sent to rescue still in place with no more enemy forces coming in to replace those defeated earlier; if he's not suffering more from exposure, blood loss, animal predation or the like by dint of not being rescued, the blame for the 15MWD doesn't belong on the shoulders of the players but on the GM who is letting the scenario play out this way.

As mentioned above, I think that is no less than what Doug McCrae suggested.

What affects the 15MWD is the dread of its being the Last Day before the inauguration of the reign over Earth of horrors from beyond.

But SAN doesn't affect that. It is immaterial to the decision process.

In most systems, SAN measures how nuts your PC is becoming from exposure to otherworldly events, emanations and entities. When you're going out to stop "Kidthulhu", you won't decide whether to take a 15MWD based on your SAN because that has no way to be replenished in short enough of a time period to make any difference. Your decision will be based on whether you have the stuff on hand to complete the adventure, because you either will or won't go crazy, and you have no real control over that.

If your GM lets you simply go back to Chateau Outsmouth for a month to recover some SAN because, inexplicably, Kidthulhu has taken up sudoku puzzles to pass the time, putting his plans of reality devouring on hold, then yeah, SAN might be a factor. But really, who runs that game?

To put it differently, if you have gear, and you're sane, you're going to try to complete your mission.

If you're sane, and you blow all your party's resources in the Contemplation Garden of Doom, are you going to advance into the Temple of Doom with nothing but your bare knuckles? No, you're probably going to retreat to get more gear, if the GM lets you. If he doesn't, though, you will advance.


If you have gear but you're going coo-coo, you're still probably going to advance, not just because you're nuts (and don't care, on a certain level), but because you can still complete the mission.

If you're borderline insane and have no gear, you may advance because, even though you may not believe you can complete the mission, you probably don't see any alternatives. OTOH, you may skitter away in doomed, fatalistic despair. Or you may decide to HELP Kidthulhu. (Which all depends on how insanity is handled in the system by your GM.)

What you WON'T do is go; "We need to retreat until I'm a little less crazy!"

 

[Doug McCrae]

For example, Doug talked about Wands- Wands are awesome- and he suggested replacing the entire Vancian system with them. Great.

But Wands then just become another form of ammo. It doesn't eliminate the problem if the party can use their wealth to circumvent their limitations by buying them in large quantities OR, especially relevant to the 15MWD, the GM lets you go back to base and buy/create new ones while the adventure simply sits in stasis.

I was considering wands that can't be easily replenished, a more old school setup whereby one can only get them from dungeons, and rarely. As you say, if the party can just go back to town to restock then going back to town becomes much akin to having a night's rest under a Vancian magic setup. That spells can be easily recovered in D&D is an important factor in the 15-minute day.

Likewise SAN in Call of Cthulhu is hard to recover. A CoC PC wizard can't just fire off half-a-dozen spells quickly and then get the SAN back in a day.

However, as you say, it is still possible to 'go nova' with a hard to replenish resource, and I'm sure there are some players that always will. I used to game with a guy called Brian, who was of an extremely jittery disposition, and had no sense of buildup or holding back. If, in a 20 session campaign, you gave his PC a once per campaign Meganuclear Blast power, Brian would use it in the first encounter of the first session. And if you asked him why I think he'd say he thought his PC would've died if he hadn't.

So player tactics and personality will always be an important factor in the 15MD. Nonetheless I believe that making powers harder to recharge will render the 15MD less likely, provided the PCs have some other kind of power(s) with which to solve encounters, such as normal weapon attacks. I believe this because I've seen players, myself included, who tend towards the cast-a-spell-every-round play style, refrain from using resources that are harder to replenish.

Now you may say, well 15MD oriented players will wait as long as it takes for the resource to recover. If it takes six months to get back the lost SAN then they will wait six months. I think this won't happen because I've witnessed players who are magic spendthrifts in D&D become parsimonious in CoC. I guess this is because it's quite reasonable, in many situations, to wait for a day, but it's usually much less reasonable, in the type of situations that occur in rpgs, to wait six months.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Now you may say, well 15MD oriented players will wait as long as it takes for the resource to recover. If it takes six months to get back the lost SAN then they will wait six months.

I think they may TRY- but unless the GM let's them, it's no dice.

My favorite system is HERO, and while it's entirely possible to remove the mechanics favorable to the 15MWD, I wouldn't be surprised to find some campaign out there with a GM contemplating why his players keep retreating...

 

[Ariosto]

Using up SAN in CoC is like using up HP -- if you basically got only so many Hit Points ever, a one-time allotment. (There are chances to regain points before hitting zero: mission accomplished, defeating monsters, getting a skill to 90%, and psychoanalysis. These are all uncertain, with risk of more loss.)

Investigators reaching zero sanity points go permanently insane.

Insanity due to the Mythos (vs. that from other causes) tends to be career-ending. "An investigator who lacks an arm or a leg can succeed in the Call of Cthulhu game world. An investigator without ethics or a moral sense cannot, since his or her reasons for fighting the Mythos are not ones of profit and personal gain."


Therefore, "going nova" has just the opposite of the effect that the 15MAD guys expect from unloading a lot of spells. It does not provide security, does not avoid defeat. It brings the character closer to ultimate defeat.

 

[Ariosto]

Magic items can be similar. Use 'em up now, and what do you get in return now? If the only way to get them is by facing perils, the only way to "replenish the resource" is by getting on with adventure, then waste is very poor strategy.

We have 12 magic items. We can "supernova", using them all at once -- and get only 3 back as treasure. What an advantage, eh? (The proper question is whether whatever else we got is worth the cost in magic.)

We blow those 3, and get 3 back. We blow 2 for nothing. Now we're down to just 1 magic, instead of the 12 we started with!

Is it even going to be useful any time soon? Why did we not spend it earlier, eh? Odds are, we will wish we had some of those others when we run into problems they could really have helped solve!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Using up SAN in CoC is like using up HP -- if you basically got only so many Hit Points ever, a one-time allotment. (There are chances to regain points before hitting zero: mission accomplished, defeating monsters, getting a skill to 90%, and psychoanalysis. These are all uncertain, with risk of more loss.)

Investigators reaching zero sanity points go permanently insane.

Insanity due to the Mythos (vs. that from other causes) tends to be career-ending. "An investigator who lacks an arm or a leg can succeed in the Call of Cthulhu game world. An investigator without ethics or a moral sense cannot, since his or her reasons for fighting the Mythos are not ones of profit and personal gain."


Therefore, "going nova" has just the opposite of the effect that the 15MAD guys expect from unloading a lot of spells. It does not provide security, does not avoid defeat. It brings the character closer to ultimate defeat.

I know all of that, which is why I said SAN does not affect the 15MWD equation at all. It is essentially non-renewable at the time-frame of the adventure, so there is no point in considering it when you're deciding whether to advance or retreat for a short period of time to reload.

Again, the only things 15MWD practitioners consider is renewable resources coupled with a lack of consequences for taking a "time out" to renew them. SAN mechanics, as essentially non-renewable resources, are thus irrelevant to people with that playstyle.

Magic items can be similar. Use 'em up now, and what do you get in return now? If the only way to get them is by facing perils, the only way to "replenish the resource" is by getting on with adventure, then waste is very poor strategy.

And again, this is not a fix, since the mechanic is going to have to deal with a DM & player playstyle thing.

The wands you're talking about essentially get treated as ammo. A rare & powerful ammo, but ammo nonetheless. As such, the following will happen:

1) if easily replaced, it will factor into the 15MWD calculations of the players. This is no fix.

2) if NOT easily replaced, it will be hoarded for use at maximal effectiveness and will NOT figure into the 15MWD calculations of the players. This is no fix.

3) if availability is variable, it will be treated variably, but mostly like 2.

Keeping in mind, of course, that the other main part of the calculation is what happens in the world if the party pauses for a reload.

And if, as you posit, adventuring is the ONLY way to gain wands, then it's just like the SAN mechanic- immaterial to the equation. The'll look at their other ammo & resources making the decision, because wands wont be viewed as a true renewable resource, but as an adventuring benefit like XP. 15MWD players don't think about gaining XP when they do their gaming calculus, they think about how they can make gaining that XP easiest. They'll consider how they can retreat to get the resources that will make it more likely to get those wands.

 

[Balesir]

All that controls the 15MWD is:

1. What key resources you have that are expendable?
2. How long does it take for you to replenish those resources?
3. What happens during the time you replenish?

And:

4. What do you lose by replenishing, or what do you gain by continuing on without replenishment?