What to do about the 15-minute work day?

[SteveC]

If it is not a problem for some of us, it means it doesn't really need to be a problem for anyone. Unlike your example, the only resource you need is a resourceful GM.

I dare to think that most GMs are able to plan ahead for resource management issues and, with a slight change of perspective, manage to keep the PCs in the game for more than one encounter a game day. Not saying that every game day needs more than one encounter, of course.

To me it seems that part of the problem might be the expectation of the players that their PCs will get rest after each and every encounter. Once you let that happen, you may have a harder time weaning them off it again, but it is either that or stop complaining about what is a matter of GMing and player cooperation.

Simply put, this notion does not follow at all.

For certain types of playstyle, and certain players, this is not an issue. What if you as a GM don't want to run that kind of game, or what if your players don't see eye to eye? A game system that runs a narrow set of games well is not going to bring in as many players or GMs as one that's more inclusive.

Saying "just run it this way, and players: just play like this!" is, well, it's a solution, but it's not one that's going to get me to run or play in that kind of game.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

But would your example mean that your GM will only have all your games around that base of yours?

Without railroading, how can the DM force you to leave your base?*

And once you get mid-level transportation magic, how can he stop you from going to-and-fro?

* Not considering, of course, the metagame, "Hey, guys - I'd like to run an adventure where you travel to [etc.] ..." method.

 

[dagger]

I voted other since in our 1e and PF games we don't have this problem and never have.

 

[Tony Vargas]

"Provide Mechanics to discourage it" was close enough, but the best answer, IMHO, would have been: "Do not provide mechanics that disproportionately reward it."

The problem with the 5 minute workday isn't that some days have only one encounter, the problem is that the mechanics of every ed reward parties that choose to minimize encounters/day - and that older editions rewarded certain classes with wildly more power than others when that happened.

It's a problem of mechanics stepping on play style and campaign pacing.

 

[the Jester]

Both advice and mechanics (the mechanics should be in a module, however).

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I voted for both mechanics and advice.

I notice two attitudes that concern me here:

1) People saying that they've never noticed it and so why bother addressing it.
2) People acknowledging it as something the DM is doing wrong, as if they are not keeping their world believable.

My 5MW experiences that you are more than welcome to debate:

In a 3.x Age of Worms campaign, the wizard/archmage became so strong that encounters were basically run at two speeds - the wizard at full and the wizard slightly less than full. [Now remember we are talking very high level here (up to 19th) but the issues started becoming pronounced around the 13th level mark]. The disparity in party level between these two situations was incredibly noticeable.

As such, picking a median level meant that an encounter was a walkover for the party at full but very dangerous if the party was down on resources with the wiz/arch being the most obvious factor. Now the advice (that seems quite trite to me having been in the above situation) is that one should have time sensitive scenarios as well as believable encounters (and wandering monster encounters to boot). Now this is fine to a point at lower levels. But there becomes a point in power level where this no longer works because:

a) You can only run so many time sensitive scenarios before the group get sick of being pulled from one situation to the next (loss of player agency).
b) The group becomes so powerful that they effectively determine the "when" 9 times out of 10 encounters they face. There is too much powerful magic and powerful defensive magic where the PCs effectively decide whether they fight or not.

Now you could contrive scenarios to combat this but they would not be believable. You can artificially create time sensitivity or you can artificially create an enemy that can get through the party's defenses to force an encounter but neither of those things are something I like to pull on players just to challenge them. By contriving such a thing, I feel that I'm loosing the DM curtain from its rod and revealing the man behind the screen - which to me is effectively giving up on providing that believable world. Admittedly high level 3.x is its own beast but the 5MW is pretty much a given if you are trying to maintain a believable world. [4e addressed this for me but did not completely fix it; I think 5e can do better again if they try.]

And so, this is why I would like mechanics that reduce the range of a party at their best and a party at their worst so that they don't feel the need to stop unless it is due to their health, and I don't feel the need to challenge their resources just to have a combat where the mundane guys get to have a turn. I would hope for advice on the system so I can have some measure of DM agency to keep things going - so I know what expected levers I have to maintain my world.

I suppose the big issue here is the Vancian mechanics. An idea:

What if rather than getting all your spells back in a one hour study session, you instead spend a greater amount of time studying to prepare a single spell but this could be done at any time, rather than just after an extended rest (with the higher the level, the longer the time - let's say 10 minutes per level of the spell). In this way, the wizard can have a break and prepare their big spell(s) and keep going. It is only when the wizard dries up all their resources that they are going to have to have some serious time off to get them all back. I'm sure you could play with the rate here to catch the sweetspot. I see two advantages with this:

1) Lower level casters have more control over their resources and do not runout as often.
2) The power disparity between a group at max resources and a group at a lower resource level is lessened as it is easier for a wizard to keep their power level up. [The assumption is that a wizards highest spell is significant but not over-powered.]

Food for thought anyway.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Ahnehnois]

But there becomes a point in power level where this no longer works because:

a) You can only run so many time sensitive scenarios before the group get sick of being pulled from one situation to the next (loss of player agency).
b) The group becomes so powerful that they effectively determine the "when" 9 times out of 10 encounters they face. There is too much powerful magic and powerful defensive magic where the PCs effectively decide whether they fight or not.

It seems to me like you are saying that high-level magic is game-breaking. This is obviously true. There is no logical reason why a double-digit level party would fight more encounters in a day than they chose to, unless there was some serious business going down that needed to be dealt with right away (which should happen sometimes but not constantly in most games).

I'm just not seeing where it's a big problem. High-level D&D is a style unto itself that gets towards superhero fiction, where the same convention (i.e. the heroes fight on their terms) applies. In what scenario would it be important that the PCs *not* rest after every battle on a regular basis?

Moreover, you've left out the other point about high-level play, which is that PCs have so many resources they rarely run out at that point.

In a 3.x Age of Worms campaign, the wizard/archmage became so strong that encounters were basically run at two speeds - the wizard at full and the wizard slightly less than full.
...
As such, picking a median level meant that an encounter was a walkover for the party at full but very dangerous if the party was down on resources with the wiz/arch being the most obvious factor.

Seems to me like you're describing a pretty tactically interesting and enjoyable game.

I suppose the big issue here is the Vancian mechanics.

I would expand that to per-day mechanics. Having more flexible spell-point systems and the like means that characters aren't out of resources for quite a while. Using warlocks and nonmagic characters also works. D&D magic is kind of a hackneyed style that does impose annoying limitations. I don't think the 15 MAD is the big reason to change it, but it certainly could stand to be changed.

 

[LostSoul]

But would your example mean that your GM will only have all your games around that base of yours? Would you always be able to retreat there and have your safe 15 min workdays?

If my players throw a big firework of moves and spells close to their base and then retire, I'm fine with it. But 99% of their adventures won't be very close to where they stay in their downtime.

I like to set goals for my PCs instead of having the DM set them. If I want to tame the wilderness and turn my little fort into a tower that rains doom and despair across the land, then that's what the game is going to be about. I doubt that I'd always be able to retreat (or even that I'd achieve that goal!), but I want that option to exist if there's a reasonable chance that it could exist.

I don't mind the 15-minute adventuring day, but I want it to be a real choice. That means that I have to balance that option against my other options. I don't want resting to always be the best option available, but I do want it to be an option.

I expect a game that contains limited resources and the ability to refresh them to have a balance between refreshing those resources and going on without them. Or at least help to provide that balance.

 

[Elf Witch]

I've never gone hungry either, but that doesn't mean that people aren't starving somewhere in the world. It's still a problem to be acknowledged and hopefully solved some day.

I had to shake my head at this come on comparing game rules to hunger.

You realize that there are people out there who have issues with some aspect of the game if you try and fix everything that some people complain about you end up with a game no one really wants to play.

 

[LostSoul]

a) You can only run so many time sensitive scenarios before the group get sick of being pulled from one situation to the next (loss of player agency).
b) The group becomes so powerful that they effectively determine the "when" 9 times out of 10 encounters they face. There is too much powerful magic and powerful defensive magic where the PCs effectively decide whether they fight or not.

An aside...

After playing high-level 3E I have the desire to write a book that helps DMs come up with some kind of idea of the resources available to high-level NPC organizations. In my game I messed up and got the whole (Forgotten Realms) nation of Mulhorand after me. Which is pretty cool. The problem is that neither I nor the DM has any idea how to figure out how many resources they have on hand, and what the cost of using those resources would be.

You could run the NPC demographics from the DMG for every settlement throughout the land, but that still wouldn't do it - not every NPC is going to be available to the leaders, and some of it will have to be used for day-to-day events. (Such as a war with a neighbouring country.) Then the DM would have some kind of place to start from, and I could have my PC try to gather information about what's going on.

I guess in a way this is related to the 15-minute adventuring day, because that's my favourite way to deal with it - have the game detail appropriate resources for NPCs and let them use it in any way they see fit. Then there's a cost to hanging out and getting your spells back, because your enemies are active. Basically: Take the advice that the game world should be in motion, then help DMs put it into motion.

It'd be a big project, but that's why you pay for it.