Why is it so important?

[wgreen]

I don't get that either. Neither case seeems particularly significant in the overall narrative.

7:00 AM: PCs wake up, break camp, and continue on their journey.
7:15 AM: PCs encounter some monsters, and have a rousing good fight!
7:16 AM: PCs make camp and sleep for eight hours.

You don't think anything's weird about that?

(As a side note, what exactly is the "narrative" related description of an "encounter". At least "8 hours" has some sort of game-world reality to it.)

I'm not talking about the in-game rationale for recovering resources. I'm saying that "The adventurers paused for a few minutes after the battle to catch their breath" feels a lot better than "the adventurers made camp yet again, despite having been awake for all of twenty minutes."

So if rope trick is a problem (and I think it is) then just redesign the spell. The spell occurs at a level where the typical monsters have no recourse against it, then it's inappropriately leveled.

Sure, that would be one option. Teleport could still be a problem.

In 3E, here's a possible good narrative: PCs attempt to rescue the princess from the evil wizard. PCs fail to get by the mooks and are forced to rest. Princess gets sacrificed to Set. Granted, this is failure, and interpreted by some as "unfun". Others I guess would prefer that the only kind of failure is a TPK.

Sure, if there's time pressure, there isn't really a problem (in this context). I'd prefer it if time pressure weren't absolutely required, though.

-Will

 

[gizmo33]

For that to work the DM has to make it 100% clear to the players there is a time limit. And then repeat it for the one who wasn't listening and the one who was out the room.

It actually works, IME, under a broader range of experiences.

Imagine IRL if you robbed a bank. You go home to hide with a big bag of money, waiting for someone to sneak you out of the kingdom. I bet 99% of people would be up all night, pacing the floor, wondering if the cops are going to come down on them. They didn't have to be "told" by some celestial DM that this would happen, it's just common sense. And since the real world has great amounts of versimilitude, you worry about these things.

But as a player of a game, if you realize after some time that the NPCs in the world go into stasis every time you're not around, you're going to become correspondingly lazy in the way you play. Maybe certain spells have reduced/eliminated uncertainty in these situations, but then the solution IMO is not to revamp the structure of the game.

The players in my campaign don't really need to be told what's going on like that. Simply knowing that an NPC holds a hostage means time is not on your side, that's just common sense and someone who doesn't get that IMO is not taking the versimilitude of the campaign world seriously, which is a fixable problem.

In fact, them not knowing is part of the motivation for not resting. Let's say Sauron raided a village and you're going to go into his dungeon and kill him. You don't even know that Sauron isn't working on a doomsday device that means there won't be a tomorrow. You don't know that one of the villagers is still alive and will be sacrificed tomorrow. If the DM prepares such contingencies, *and lets the chips fall when the decisions are made*, then over time (relatively short, IME) the player's won't be so cavalier about assuming everything just stays put while they get their beauty sleep.

In the rare instances where the players can be certain of no consequences from resting, then it plays out almost exactly as I would expect an "encounter-based" resource situation to play out. "PCs: We go outside and rest. DM: Ok, next day - here's what's going on..." In the case where there are no consequences to resting, then I don't see what the negative consequences are to the narrative.

 

[gizmo33]

Sure, that would be one option. Teleport could still be a problem.

By the time the PCs have teleport you would think the monsters would be able to adapt. Teleport opens up as many possiblities for adventure as it reduces, it's basically a matter of the DM adjusting his design strategy. The alternative is that the capabilities of the PCs aren't fundementally different from 1st to 30th level.

Sure, if there's time pressure, there isn't really a problem (in this context). I'd prefer it if time pressure weren't absolutely required, though.

It's not required. IME PCs will always wonder if it's there even in situations where it's not. And IMO it's unrealistic for it never to be there given that the bulk of adversaries faced by PCs are intelligent and connected.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

(As a side note, what exactly is the "narrative" related description of an "encounter". At least "8 hours" has some sort of game-world reality to it.)

Dude, seriously? It's getting annoying that you keep ignoring this.

"Per encounter," in all applicable d20 rules in which it's come up, means "Meditate / rest for a minute to get your powers back."

If you can handle "rest for 8 hours to get power X back," you can handle "rest for 1 minute to get power Y back."

 

[Celebrim]

Were all you guys actually sticking with 4 encounters/day in 3e? We'd mostly switched to one or two tough ones to make them more interesting for precisely the reason James Wyatt gives. Three pointless encounters is, well, pointless. Also we found it practically impossible to enforce 4/day anyway. The PCs are almost always the invaders, which means they can leave whenever they want and rest. Yes, I know the monsters can sometimes attack them but 90% of the time they can't, in my experience, due to lack of sentience, organisation, tracking, or the PC's base being too well hidden or defended. And we just didn't use big dungeons much, finding them to be both implausible and boring. Time limits were also very rare, being hard for the DM to justify.

This returns us back to the way that I think Mr. Wyatt was looking at the problem wrong.

First of all, a 'pointless encounter' is any encounter that doesn't advance the story in some way. It's not 'pointless' because it is easy. If the encounters are pointless, then its either because of bad dungeon design, bad dungeoneering by the PC's where they waste resources on unnecessary combats. I don't ever recall wandering through the ToH and thinking, "This door with the spear trap is pointless." Not every encounter needs to be "OMG!11!! That roxor." Not every fight needs to be turned up to 11.

Mr. Wyatt said that the reason that the game had evolved toward one big encounter per days was that according to the design the first three were boring, and only the fourth was challenging. But that wasn't the problem at all. The problem is as you say, that its almost impossible to get the PC's to try that fourth encounter in the first place. If the fourth encounter per day is the only one with risk, then the tendancy for smart players is to avoid the fourth encounter per day. As a result of being unable to challenge the players, DMs tend to ramp up the challenge, which results in the players taking on few challenges, and eventually you evolve to one ecounter per day (or really, however long it takes for the players to recouperate. At low levels, this might take more than a day.)

The thing is, the same thing is going to play out with a 'per encounter' design. Yes, the players will recover more resources after every encounter, and that theoretically might compel them to move on. But so long as ANY resources aren't recovered after one encounter, the smart players are going to choose to stop as soon as they lose any critical resource (even if only hit points). Because, why risk it? And the meta game problems of "lack of sentience, organisation, tracking, or the PC's base being too well hidden or defended" will continue as well so long as you don't design for them. So long as the DM doesn't impose time limits and doesn't have long journeys between the PC's haven and thier goal, they are still going to stop and rest at every chance they get because that's tactically the smart decision. It doesn't matter if they are 50% or 80% or 99% after an encounter, its still going to be smart to rest.

Per encounter won't change that at all. The only solution to this problem is good DMing.

The hardest module TSR ever published wasn't Tomb of Horrors. With the exception of the skull, theoretically an 'pointless' encounter, ToH is very beatable. Just rest after every room. Go slow. Take your time. A smart group of players with characters of the suggested level should do just fine because they aren't under a time constraint. So long as they don't blunder into a TPK with no saving throw (and they shouldn't if they are smart), the module is 'easy'. No, the hardest module TSR ever published was Ravenloft. Ran by a ruthless DM and at the suggested character levels for the module it is simply impossible to win. The reason is pretty simple. Although it isn't made explicit, the PC's are under a really really harsh time limit. Kill Straad between sunup and sundown, or die. The reason that you have to do the main dungeon crawl in a single day is that Straad always always always wins the war of attrition. He has regeneration. He has level drain. He has more spells per day than the PCs. He has more information than the PC's. He is proactive and will hunt them down and they have no where they can run. He can play hit and run better than they can.

And the reason that the adventure is unwinable is that Ravenloft is simply too huge of a dungeon with too many potential distractions for the PC's to get through it in a day. As soon as they do the 'smart thing' and rest to try to recover, its pretty much all over.

I'm not at all suggesting that adventures be as hard as Ravenloft, but if your adventurers aren't up against some sort of clock, then it is ridiculous to expect that changing the mechanics of the game will encourage them to stop taking thier time, being cautious, and playing it safe.

 

[Treebore]

I think it is interesting to note that there is currently a poll on the 4th ed page asking what rumoured aspects of 4th ed people like. Currently around 64% of the people who have responded like the defocus on Vancian magic. That seems to indicate there are quite a few ENworlders who favor a change in the magic system.

I favor change in the magic system, if it makes sense, and doesn't take the game into Dragonball Z land.

Thats the frustrating thing about these "glimpses", you don't know if your going to like it or not.

 

[ruleslawyer]

See, this is my problem with your argument, Celebrim: It's too binary.

The thing is, the same thing is going to play out with a 'per encounter' design. Yes, the players will recover more resources after every encounter, and that theoretically might compel them to move on. But so long as ANY resources aren't recovered after one encounter, the smart players are going to choose to stop as soon as they lose any critical resource (even if only hit points). Because, why risk it?

I disagree that this is really the expected scenario. IME, even serious D&D tacticians back off only once significant or critical resources are expended. Your argument appears to be (and in fact you phrased it almost literally this way earlier in this thread) that "dropping to 99% of resources is going to force a rest." Again IME, the calculus is neither so extreme nor so linear. A party typically (again IME) retreats and rests when hp are low, buffs are exhausted, and the mages have no really decent combat capability to bring to bear. Add to that "essential defenses" like death ward, mind blank, and protection from spells. It's not a case of "Okay guys, Joe is down 10 of his 200 hp and I've got only one 9th-level spell left, so let's leave." A per-encounter system DOES address this issue by allowing critical or significant resources to be replenished to the point that the party doesn't feel the need to retreat.

Moreover, those players who feel a single cantrip or 5 hp damage to be sufficient reason to retreat and rest aren't going to be worse off in a per-encounter/per-day hybrid; they're going to play it exactly the same. Thus, at worst, there's not an iota of difference between a per-encounter/per-day hybrid system and and a straight per-day system. The difference with a hybrid system, to use your example, is that a timed adventure like Ravenloft can be played with the understanding that the party will be weakened, but not entirely gimped with respect to spellcasting and other essential party roles, by the climax of the adventure.

 

[gizmo33]

Dude, seriously? It's getting annoying that you keep ignoring this.

Ignoring what? This is the first time I've seen this definition. "Per encounter" means after 1 minute of rest. That's cool, question answered.

 

[Mkhaiwati]

I'm not at all suggesting that adventures be as hard as Ravenloft, but if your adventurers aren't up against some sort of clock, then it is ridiculous to expect that changing the mechanics of the game will encourage them to stop taking thier time, being cautious, and playing it safe.

A clock is only part of the equation in my games. The PCs don't live in a static world. Perhaps they are trying to retrieve an item from someone else, orcs or some other group. If a party does the break in, kill a few orcs, leave and come back the next day, they might find traps waiting for them, increased patrols, and other surprises. Another group of villians might just move somewhere else if they get the idea that another group is hunting/killing them down.

Another option is if a party takes too long in a task, it can be accomplished by another, NPC party that will accept all the rewards.

Keeping everything static contributes to the 9:00 to 9:15 problem.

 

[Celebrim]

A clock is only part of the equation in my games. The PCs don't live in a static world. Perhaps they are trying to retrieve an item from someone else, orcs or some other group. If a party does the break in, kill a few orcs, leave and come back the next day, they might find traps waiting for them, increased patrols, and other surprises. Another group of villians might just move somewhere else if they get the idea that another group is hunting/killing them down.

Another option is if a party takes too long in a task, it can be accomplished by another, NPC party that will accept all the rewards.

When I spoke of a 'clock', I meant it in the most abstract terms. Essentially, by 'clock' I meant only a way to adjust the math so that waiting was not as attractive of a tactical decision as pushing on. There really is no actual clock counting down in 'Ravenloft' either, its just that the more chances they give Strahd to recover, the worse things get for the players. Thus, while there is no actual timelimit after which the scenario is lost, there is effectively a time limit. What Mkhaiwati lists are a few excellent ways to put a 'clock' on the party. With all the different techniques for putting time pressure on the party, a DM really has no excuse for being unable to do so. It's not always desirable, but its usually desirable. You'd be hard pressed to find an action/adventure movie where the hero wasn't under time pressure. If you are looking for cinematic feel, perhaps you should be looking more in that direction.

ruleslawyer: My argument isn't too binary. We have just been focusing on a special case underwhich the logic is really binary.

The logic goes, "If benefit I get from waiting minus the cost of waiting is greater than the benefit I getting from pressing on minus the cost of pressing on, then I should wait."

The special case in question is, "There is no cost associated with waiting." There is as I've put it, 'No clock'. If there is no cost associated with waiting, and there are any resources that can be recovered by doing so, then its always best to wait. A party might still choose to push on even then, but if they do so it isn't for any tactical reason. For example, they may push on because they feel vaguely uneasy about the 5 minute adventuring day and don't want to break versimilitude. But that's really a different issue.

If there is some cost to waiting, some risk or resources that are expended, then the math gets less binary.

I think you are on safer ground when you suggest that the per encounter system can't make this problem worse, and that I fully agree with. I'd add to that that one thing it can do is help deal with that unease about the story not flowing right by making the imaginary rest period more plausible. However, my guess on how it will actually play out in practice is that the game will go even stronger toward one single big encounter because a 'per encounter' system puts even more pressure on the DM to 'ramp it up' if he wants to challenge the players.

As for Ravenloft, its one of my favorite modules for so many reasons I won't list here. I just think that the recommended levels for the module are too low if the module is not being run as a tournament module. It certainly can be run as written, and I've seen skilled parties (those that realize that a vampire enherently means time pressure, and can avoid going in circles in the castle, and stay out of unnecessary fights) get close to achieving victory.