Quote from: deadDMwalking;562605I think some of the disconnect is people on these boards assume that everyone can contribute in a meaningful way.

I assume that because in around 99% of the games I've ran or played in since 1975, that is true -- at least as I and the other players in the game define "contribute" and "meaningful."  The cases when this has not been true either the GM was a dick (and I never played in that campaign again) or the situation was unusual for a in-adventure/in-campaign reason.  Note, however that I really mean "contribute as expected" I do not expect an AD&D thief to contribute to a melee combat as effectively as a fighter just as I don't expect the fighter to contribute to a trap situation as effectively as a thief -- as I reject the idea that all characters should be able to contribute equally to all situations.

Yes, it is trivial to think up encounters when only a character or two would have any chance contribute anything at all. However, as I don't play with dick GMs or with dick players who insist that their character do everything, these situations come up about as rarely as finding a ring of three wishes on a dead goblin found by the side of the road. I very seldom play in RPGA/convention type game where I'm playing with random players I'm stuck with and when I do, I certainly don't count those experiences as normal.

QuoteAnd if I want to waste my time, I can come here instead of playing the game.

The solution to these problems in game is to NOT play with dick GMs or players. No rules solutions are needed. Including rules to try to prevent dickish behavior by GMs or players does not actually stop such behavior and limits the options of non-dickish GMs and players to options the "powers that be" consider safe enough that they could not be abused by anyone. Especially as dickish players and GMs will find ways to abuse even the limited and tied down "safe enough" stuff.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;562510More generally, here are my observations based on actual play:

(1A) In the absence of all other considerations, the PCs will generally extend an adventuring day until they have expended their resources to "capacity". How they define "capacity" will generally depend on the group, but it can be generally summarized as "they'll keep adventuring until they don't feel like the next encounter is a sure-thing".

(1B) As the urgency of their goals increase, the players will generally increase the number of encounters they're willing to seek out.

(1C) The more dangerous each individual encounter is, the more conservative the players will become in the number of encounters they're willing to seek out.

(2A) The more control the PCs have over the number of encounters they face, the more likely it is that they'll burn strategic resources early and often.

(2B) Conversely, the less control the PCs have over the number of encounters they face, the more likely it becomes that they'll conserve their strategic resources.

(3A) The less knowledge the PCs have about the types of encounters they might be facing, the more likely it becomes that they'll conserve their strategic resources.

(3B) The opposite is not necessarily true: In the presence of "perfect" information, the PCs will conserve their strategic resources for the most difficult encounters.

(3C) But if the PCs have perfect knowledge of their encounters and they're all of equal difficulty, there's no need to conserve their strategic resources and they'll blow through them quickly.

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I must meditate on this, but if I'm reading correctly, the optimal solution is to have a (random) mix of hard and soft fights, with the unpredictability of wandering monsters... presumably dominating the 'soft' fight catagory?


The ideal state being a party that both conserves resources without being overwhelmed but isn't afraid to use them if the fight seems particularly challenging.

Quote from: Spike;562611I must meditate on this, but if I'm reading correctly, the optimal solution is to have a (random) mix of hard and soft fights, with the unpredictability of wandering monsters... presumably dominating the 'soft' fight catagory?

That's working in my campaigns since 1975. I've never had a "15 minute workday" problem. I'd never heard of the "15 minute workday" problem until I started posting to web forums 4-5 years ago.

I never actually saw it until I joined a group a few years ago as a player. It wasn't a 'textbook example', but the rest of the party tended to be slaved to the wizard player's spell book/memorization routine.

I do vaguely recall an AD&D game many many MANY years ago (er... 25?) involving a vampire's castle that did involve lots of 'fight-rest' cycles, but I'm not entirely sure that was the MUs fault...

I liked 2nd edition I liked 3-3.5 edition.  I really enjoy pathfinder. 4th edition was neat but it had its problems.  I like the idea of having multiple encounters per day.  

And the only time a group SHOULD be able to do the one and done thing is if the group is in a town. ex The undead will escape from the tomb. You will never get anywhere on the road.  Enemies will find you in the dungeon.  The group will be more prepared for a second attack. These are all the reasons a single encounter won't work.  And the whole 24 hrs before the casters can regain spells.  

I liked the premade characters in the first fifth edition beta.  It felt alot more like 3.5/pathfinder.  I think the problem with the 5 minute work day is that is how it is for Low levels.  The high levels I almost never see wiz/sorcs run out of spells in 3.5/PF.  maybe in 3-4 encounters they are.  I like the infinite cantrips it helps wizards out in low levels.   It also helps if the spell caster is smart enough not to blow all of his/her good spells the first encounter.

Quote from: jackspeed;562644I liked 2nd edition I liked 3-3.5 edition.  I really enjoy pathfinder. 4th edition was neat but it had its problems.  I like the idea of having multiple encounters per day.  

And the only time a group SHOULD be able to do the one and done thing is if the group is in a town. ex The undead will escape from the tomb. You will never get anywhere on the road.  Enemies will find you in the dungeon.  The group will be more prepared for a second attack. These are all the reasons a single encounter won't work.  And the whole 24 hrs before the casters can regain spells.  

I liked the premade characters in the first fifth edition beta.  It felt alot more like 3.5/pathfinder.  I think the problem with the 5 minute work day is that is how it is for Low levels.  The high levels I almost never see wiz/sorcs run out of spells in 3.5/PF.  maybe in 3-4 encounters they are.  I like the infinite cantrips it helps wizards out in low levels.   It also helps if the spell caster is smart enough not to blow all of his/her good spells the first encounter.

Welcome to theRPGSite!

Quote from: Spike;562611The ideal state being a party that both conserves resources without being overwhelmed but isn't afraid to use them if the fight seems particularly challenging.

That pretty much nails it, IMO.

QuoteI must meditate on this, but if I'm reading correctly, the optimal solution is to have a (random) mix of hard and soft fights, with the unpredictability of wandering monsters... presumably dominating the 'soft' fight catagory?

That's certainly my assessment of what the most effective "typical day" is for D&D, with a couple provisos:

(1) Wandering monsters are one way of delivering encounters that the players can't predict, but they're not the only way. For example, I rarely use wandering monster tables in my 3E campaign. But I do use rosters to efficiently run entire dungeon complexes in real time; scheduled events to manage proactive villains; and so forth.

(2) Increasing the urgency of goals is also an important part of the mix. (In other words, having the bad guys come to the PCs is one way of increasing the number of encounters in a day. But

(3) Variety is the spice of life: Sometimes you just have one epic encounter where the wizard blows his load. Sometimes the PCs will carefully plan a strategic strike using a huge chunk of their resources in order to achieve one goal which would normally be out of their reach. Sometimes they'll just cruise through a large number of easy encounters without ever feeling particularly challenged at the tactical level (but, presumably, making a lot of progress towards strategic goals). All of that is, obviously, totally cool. Not every adventuring day should look like every other adventuring day (since that, too, increases predictability).

(4) Variety is still the spice of life: It ain't all about combat. One of the quickest ways to reduce the effective firepower of the wizard is to spread out the wizard's resources across many different types of encounters. And this, again, comes back to predictability: If the wizard can predict with a high degree of accuracy what spells they need for the day, then all of their spells will be useful that day and they'll have a much bigger impact. If the wizard can't predict exactly what they'll need, it's more likely they'll get to the end of the day having left spells on the table.

As an extreme example, I've had occasional days in my Ptolus campaign where the wizard has prepped their spells based on the needs of a carefully orchestrated strike team... only to have the bad guys attack their allies on the other side of town (due to a scheduled event), forcing the party into a completely different defensive action for which the wizard is utterly unprepared. This has, on rare occasion, rendered the wizard almost completely useless for entire sessions. (Which is OK because there are other sessions where, yes, the wizard dominates.)

Quote from: jackspeed;562644*snipped*

Welcome to the adult swim.