What to do about the 15-minute work day?

[Lanefan]

If a DM tried to pull that kind of thing on me I'd walk away from the table and never play a game with him ever again...

Seriously, something like "the world will explode in 5 years" needs to be laid out on the table explicitly from the beginning, before the game even starts. Keeping the central premise of a campaign a secret from the players is a DMing sin. It's unforgivable and utterly despicable.

So, in other words, you would rather know how the book ends before you read it.

It's the same thing. I admit I used an extreme example, but the premise remains.

Can't speak for you, but as a player going into a campaign I don't want to know what ideas the DM has for what will happen 5 years down the road - I'll either find out through play or I won't; and if the world blows up because I and my party screwed up either through ignorance, bad luck, or bad intention then so be it. (I've actually been in a campaign just like this - as a party we knew we had to either do something or prevent something from being done but we weren't sure which, or what (we weren't that good at information gathering) - so we did what we could and thought we'd fixed things, but we hadn't; and next full moon the world blew up. End of a 10-year campaign. I still play under that same DM, and have for the 20-odd years since this happened.)

"I'll keep it a secret so I can ramp up the tension later, but it's not my fault if no one learns about it, so I'll just destroy whatever they do enjoy playing out if spite" is simply being a pathetic and petty human being. It breaks every rule of storytelling and the entire premise of the DM/player social contract.

Sorry, but in that example, the thing that needs to give is the DM's ego. Absolutely no question at all. Not even close to being ambiguous.

The DM absolutely needs to make the premise of a campaign clear to the players from the beginning. After all, he's asking them to dedicate a lot of time and energy to the campaign. Who cares if the DM invests "more" time if its built on deception and a disregard for the time and interests of the other players? This is why having the group sit down and talk about what they want to do with the campaign and what they want from it is absolutely essential before the DM even starts planning anything.

So letting the plot unfold (and morph, they always do) on its own, with the players learning about it as they go, isn't good enough?

It's not ego, it's maintaining a mystery.

I'm not sure, but I rather suspect if I took a poll of the players and DMs in our crew they'd prefer not knowing the ending (assuming a "hard" ending is even planned) ahead of time either. But, I'll ask, and get back to you in a few days.

Lanefan

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

*chuckle* Such chain of events happen all the time. You know you really turned the game world upside down when your GM request a toilet break and takes his game books with him.

I think I've been there. But for less than LostSoul's example.

 

[TwinBahamut]

So, in other words, you would rather know how the book ends before you read it.

It's the same thing. I admit I used an extreme example, but the premise remains.

Can't speak for you, but as a player going into a campaign I don't want to know what ideas the DM has for what will happen 5 years down the road - I'll either find out through play or I won't; and if the world blows up because I and my party screwed up either through ignorance, bad luck, or bad intention then so be it. (I've actually been in a campaign just like this - as a party we knew we had to either do something or prevent something from being done but we weren't sure which, or what (we weren't that good at information gathering) - so we did what we could and thought we'd fixed things, but we hadn't; and next full moon the world blew up. End of a 10-year campaign. I still play under that same DM, and have for the 20-odd years since this happened.)

So letting the plot unfold (and morph, they always do) on its own, with the players learning about it as they go, isn't good enough?

It's not ego, it's maintaining a mystery.

I'm not sure, but I rather suspect if I took a poll of the players and DMs in our crew they'd prefer not knowing the ending (assuming a "hard" ending is even planned) ahead of time either. But, I'll ask, and get back to you in a few days.

Lanefan

First off, I'll say that I'm probably one of the most spoiler-averse people you will ever meet. I despise knowing the endings to books or shows or whatever. I despise even knowing what happens in the first episodes of a show before watching it. I prefer to go into stories as blind as possible.

Of course, that has nothing to do with D&D, which is why your analogy fails at the most fundamental level.

D&D is not a book or movie or whatever. D&D is not a story. D&D is an act of cooperative storytelling. It isn't even possible to know the ending to a D&D campaign ahead of time, because that ending won't even exist until the players have played through it. The story is being created by the players and DM, and is something that can and does change dramatically from moment to moment. I don't think the DM should even attempt to write an ending ahead of time, since all that does is detract away from the entire point of the game.

The real point behind my comments isn't about "knowing the ending", it's about having everyone at the table agree to the basic premise of the game. "The world is doomed and you're all going to die if you don't save it" isn't the ending, it is the basic premise of the story. This isn't something you keep hidden as a big mystery, it's something you make crystal clear in the very first scene of the game. This is really a very basic principle of storytelling...

Indeed, this really is more comparable to knowing whether the book you are going to be sitting down to read is a murder mystery or a romantic comedy. This isn't the ending of the book that must be kept a total mystery, the is the basic concept that should be clearly laid out on the back of the book so people will know what the book is even about. You don't want people to walk into a movie expecting to watch a peaceful romantic drama and then turn the whole thing into a graphically violent horror film filled with protracted torture scenes without warning. You want people to walk into such a movie knowing that the horror is lurking behind the facade of the peaceful drama and that it isn't a movie for people who don't like gruesome horror.

You comments are particularly silly if you consider the fact that, unlike a book or movie, the DM can change his or her mind about the ending of the story at any time. If the players are enjoying a totally different kind of game, the DM is completely free to just drop the entire world-destruction plot and pretend it never existed. On the other hand, if the DM insists on destroying the world, the players are hard-pressed to ignore it. This means that any DM who does insist on such a thing is pretty much just doing so to be a jerk and ruin everyone else's fun. The "mystery" or "ending" should never be so sacred that a DM should sacrifice everyone's good time or ability to choose their own path.

 

[MarkB]

Okay, here's the germ of an idea I've been considering for countering nova tactics: A game mechanic that makes it difficult to spam mutliple high level spells. Call it Focus.

A spellcaster begins combat with a Focus score equal to his level, representing his level of concentration upon controlling magical energies. Each spell he casts deducts a number of points equal to its level from his Focus, and he cannot cast a spell whose level is higher than his current Focus.

Each round, the caster regains 1 Focus automatically. Additionally, each At-Will spell he casts helps to keep him centred and actually generates an additional point of Focus. Finally, he can spend an action to Refocus, which gains him back half his level in Focus.

This system would make it difficult for a caster to nova, as he couldn't expend more than one or two high-level spells in a row before resorting to low-level spells or at-wills to recharge.

It might even be practical to use this system in conjunction with a non-Vancian spellcasting system, using it in place of limited spell resources.

 

[Elf Witch]

They retreat, they fluke a victory or they suffer a defeat. Sometimes things just get too tough and the PCs have to work out how to get out of a bad situation. Requiring a caster to Nova just suckers the PCs in to keep fighting when they should bug out. Extending the range of the PCs into "Nova" range gives too much discrepancy between a party at their best and a party at their average. This is the factor I believe is at the heart of the whole 5MW thing - being a central issue for some but not others.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

And what if it is the big boss fight and retreating means letting him finish his plans and open the gate to hell and allow demons to run freely over the material plane?

This happened in a game I played in we had to use everything we had to defeat him some of us died but failure and running away was not an option. I would have hated being in that situation where the wizard was limited to how may spells he could cast in a day based on some mechanic to stop 15 minute adventuring issues.

It seems to me that some of this is wanting mechanics to stop players from making tactical unsound plans.

 

[Elf Witch]

First off, I'll say that I'm probably one of the most spoiler-averse people you will ever meet. I despise knowing the endings to books or shows or whatever. I despise even knowing what happens in the first episodes of a show before watching it. I prefer to go into stories as blind as possible.

Of course, that has nothing to do with D&D, which is why your analogy fails at the most fundamental level.

D&D is not a book or movie or whatever. D&D is not a story. D&D is an act of cooperative storytelling. It isn't even possible to know the ending to a D&D campaign ahead of time, because that ending won't even exist until the players have played through it. The story is being created by the players and DM, and is something that can and does change dramatically from moment to moment. I don't think the DM should even attempt to write an ending ahead of time, since all that does is detract away from the entire point of the game.

The real point behind my comments isn't about "knowing the ending", it's about having everyone at the table agree to the basic premise of the game. "The world is doomed and you're all going to die if you don't save it" isn't the ending, it is the basic premise of the story. This isn't something you keep hidden as a big mystery, it's something you make crystal clear in the very first scene of the game. This is really a very basic principle of storytelling...

Indeed, this really is more comparable to knowing whether the book you are going to be sitting down to read is a murder mystery or a romantic comedy. This isn't the ending of the book that must be kept a total mystery, the is the basic concept that should be clearly laid out on the back of the book so people will know what the book is even about. You don't want people to walk into a movie expecting to watch a peaceful romantic drama and then turn the whole thing into a graphically violent horror film filled with protracted torture scenes without warning. You want people to walk into such a movie knowing that the horror is lurking behind the facade of the peaceful drama and that it isn't a movie for people who don't like gruesome horror.

You comments are particularly silly if you consider the fact that, unlike a book or movie, the DM can change his or her mind about the ending of the story at any time. If the players are enjoying a totally different kind of game, the DM is completely free to just drop the entire world-destruction plot and pretend it never existed. On the other hand, if the DM insists on destroying the world, the players are hard-pressed to ignore it. This means that any DM who does insist on such a thing is pretty much just doing so to be a jerk and ruin everyone else's fun. The "mystery" or "ending" should never be so sacred that a DM should sacrifice everyone's good time or ability to choose their own path.

On the whole I agree with everyone being on the same page but I have played in games where an Apocalypse happens that was not originally in the DMs mind but came along later. As were playing we started getting clues of it coming and ways to stop it. We failed stopping it and then had to deal with a world that had been changed because of it.

I remember in that game the DM said hey any one want to try out the new edition which was third? We were just getting ready to take a break from Shadowrun.

He really didn't discuss much ahead of time. As a matter of fact most of the games I have played in the DM didn't really say more than I am running a game either a module or a homebrew want to play.

 

[El Mahdi]

It seems to me that some of this is wanting mechanics to stop players from making tactical unsound plans.

Interesting point. I don't know if that is an intentional motivation for this, but it may be subconscious or just an unwanted side effect.

This just reinforces for me how much I want more At-Will type aspects.

 

[Elf Witch]

Interesting point. I don't know if that is an intentional motivation for this, but it may be subconscious or just an unwanted side effect.

This just reinforces for me how much I want more At-Will type aspects.

At Wills is one way to do it it is not my preferred way of doing things.

I think there is a difference between I want to be able throw difficult challenges at my players and have them have the ability to handle them and still be able to continuing adventuring and facing some more challenges. That is where changing how vancian works can fix that.

As opposed to the wizard goes nova and then demands the entire party rest when it is not needed. Yes at wills can solve this too but so can other methods.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It seems to me that some of this is wanting mechanics to stop players from making tactical unsound plans.

I think it's more about keeping things flowing even if the players do make the occasional tactically unsound plan (or conversely, even if they're a bunch of Sun Tzus). That is, it's great for an RPG to have a tactical/strategic aspect and reward good planning, but it's not so great for it to over-reward it to the point that it becomes all about planning, with actually playing through and resolving challenges being a mere formality.

 

[Elf Witch]

I think it's more about keeping things flowing even if the players do make the occasional tactically unsound plan (or conversely, even if they're a bunch of Sun Tzus). That is, it's great for an RPG to have a tactical/strategic aspect and reward good planning, but it's not so great for it to over-reward it to the point that it becomes all about planning, with actually playing through and resolving challenges being a mere formality.

My players are no Sun Tzus and they manage to keep the game flowing just fine.

I think there are two issues being discussed here not one.

To me when someone complains about a 15 minute day as a problem my first thought is that the wizard has gone nova just because he can and didn't need to. I think it is easy to fix this by rewarding good tactics and letting bad ones bite the PC in the butt. This is more of a resource management issue and maybe a newbie player or player with bad tactics. Changing the mechanics of the game to deal with this issue is like putting a tourniquet on a paper cut.

But that is not what others are saying they are saying that they don't like the idea of one class being able to go nova and want to bring a more balanced approach or they want the PCs to face more challenges where the power for the day stays some what constant. Or they simply don't like how long it takes to get spells back. This issue is the one that needs the rule change.

If the issue is number 2 then all the advice that the rest of are giving for waht we think is issue number 1 is not going to be what they are looking for.