Tuesday, April 08, 2008
RPG Design: The Fifteen Minute Adventuring Day?
One of the complaints which I've heard leveled at Dungeons & Dragons third edition (and 3.5) is the "fifteen minute adventuring day" (among other names I've heard). I hadn't heard of that before third edition, though I suppose it could have been an issue in previous versions. Part of me suspects it came about after MMORPGs became popular. The third edition's emphasis on encounter balance and challenge rating probably exacerbated things, however.In a nutshell, the problem is this: Many of the players' resources (like magic spells and special powers) are limited to a certain number of uses per day. So they get into a combat or two, blow all their resources, and retreat to rest up, replenish the resources, and fight the next battle or two tomorrow.
This was present in computer RPGs as well. Old-school gamers may recall 1st edition D&D magic-users as one-shot cannons in both pen & paper and computer RPG incarnations, or recall how forays into the Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord or into the wine cellar allowed you to only get to the first door before running back to the nearest inn for rest. More recently, Neverwinter Nights addressed this issue by making it trivially easy to rest up at any time - which in practice meant, "after every combat."
Players and designers bring up this problem as something to be addressed by the upcoming 4th edition D&D game, and Paizo's own upgrade to the system, Pathfinder RPG. Except there are some crazies out there who maintain that this isn't a problem at all. And - with some caveats, I'm among the crazies.
We used to play Fantasy Hero, the fantasy RPG constructed out of the Champions system (soon to be a major MMORPG!) Excepted for powers with "limited use" limitations, player characters would usually fully recover just about everything within about 24 seconds following any combat. The end result was that any encounter that didn't require everything the players could throw at it in order to challenge them was trivial and ... well, boring.
What I found myself missing was the "resource management" aspect of games like D&D. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Aveyond 2: Ean's Quest or Eschalon: Book 1 (Aveyond 2 is for Windows only - Eschalon runs under Windows, Mac, or Linux). In these games, travel or a dungeon-delve is, in part, an endurance run. You can't just obliterate the incidental foes constant volleys of your most powerful spell, or you'll find yourself at the end of the road fighting some impressively nasty monster or boss or group, and you'll have nothing left. Sure, there are options to back off and rest and try it again tomorrow - but that's often not an easy task. You may have to fight your way back out again... or, in Eschalon's case, risk being attacked in your sleep.
Suddenly those minor encounters that don't give you a real run for your money are much more interesting. They may be "speed bumps," but they are speed bumps that provide you with a long-term risk if you aren't careful to conserve your forces. In theory, in the old-school pen & paper games the players weren't expected to brute-force their way through every encounter. Bribing and negotiating with monsters, hiding from enemy patrols, and bypassing more dangerous foes were common tactics as well.
Maybe that aspect of gaming is lost on players. Maybe the current generation of gamers want nothing else but having everything cranked up to 11 at all times. These sorts of subtleties and variety mean nothing to them. And maybe third edition Dungeons & Dragons encouraged that, by downgrading the reward value of anything of an inferior challenge level to the players. In fact, I seem to recall reading design notes that suggested the game was developed with the expectation that players would fight only around four encounters in a row before being allowed to rest and recover resources.
A simpler way to address the "fifteen minute adventuring day" problem is to simply promote the use of lower-level, less difficult encounters as actual long-term attrition factors rather than being "useless" encounters. Sure, a band of goblin archers may not be a true threat to your party and the combats may be resolved in one tenth of the time of a significant battle. But three or four encounters with them may mean the party fights the goblin king with fewer hit points, spells, and potions.
Ideally, there should be consequences for the party retreating and coming back when fully rested. This is tough to pull off in pen & paper games, admittedly... and about ten times harder to pull off in a computer game. Having the game dynamically respond to the player's actions like that requires a high level of interactivity. Too bad we've only focused on making them prettier over all these years.
(Oh, and what's Frayed Knights doing about this problem? Not as much as I'd like. There's a fatigue factor that gradually wears down the maximum endurance levels of the party as they adventure, until they get a good night's rest at an inn or similar safe location. They can take a short rest within a dungeon to bring up their endurance to (reduced) maximums, at the risk of encountering monsters while resting. And the more interactive bad guys? Umm... next game, maybe. Mea culpa. Though I do have some semi-clever scripted logic based upon how enemies approach the boss in the first dungeon...)
So what do you think? Do you prefer every battle to be a knock-down drag-out with your party at full strength? Do you prefer to husband your resources across multiple battles? Is the "fifteen minute adventuring day" really a problem with some game systems? What would you like to see in CRPGs to make the enemies more responsive to player actions not only in combat, but before the combat even takes place?
(Vaguely) related posts of dubious ancestry:
* RPG Design: Items and Economy
* RPG Design: Quest Abuse
* RPG Design: The Brute Force Problem
Want to talk about it or see what other people are saying? You can discuss it on the CRPG Forum!
Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:09 AM (Permalink)
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The problem with 3.x is, as you stated, that it deprecated the value of speed bumps: even if you wanted to use them, combat takes such a long time (at least for a group that's tactically savvy but not completely rules savvy) that you save your time budget for interesting encounters. On top of this, the 4-encounter day really just means that you have three encounters that are pretty easy and then an actual challenge in the final one where you find out whether you used too many resources on the first three.
But the real problem I have, personally, with systems based on day-long resources is that not every day is a dungeon crawl. If I can only come up with one fight that makes sense for any particular day, it will be trivially easy if I make it a typical encounter. So I have to bump up the CR to make it interesting, but the higher you go, the harder it is to gauge the fine line between a real challenge for a party's full resources that doesn't seriously risk a TPK.
My group played 4e last week with the 1st level D&D Experience characters and what information we had, and it seemed to be a good balance of what you're looking for: each fight was self-contained and we were able to keep going on through several battles without feeling like we had to rest, but the gradual attrition of healing surges and daily powers still made resource management for the later fights an interesting tactical concern. Meanwhile, I expect the siloing of encounter powers to mean that it will be much easier to run once-per-day fights that are predictable in their challenge.
But the real problem I have, personally, with systems based on day-long resources is that not every day is a dungeon crawl. If I can only come up with one fight that makes sense for any particular day, it will be trivially easy if I make it a typical encounter. So I have to bump up the CR to make it interesting, but the higher you go, the harder it is to gauge the fine line between a real challenge for a party's full resources that doesn't seriously risk a TPK.
My group played 4e last week with the 1st level D&D Experience characters and what information we had, and it seemed to be a good balance of what you're looking for: each fight was self-contained and we were able to keep going on through several battles without feeling like we had to rest, but the gradual attrition of healing surges and daily powers still made resource management for the later fights an interesting tactical concern. Meanwhile, I expect the siloing of encounter powers to mean that it will be much easier to run once-per-day fights that are predictable in their challenge.
If I can only come up with one fight that makes sense for any particular day, it will be trivially easy if I make it a typical encounter.
Heh - that was made a joke in Order of the Stick, where the wizard unleashed his/her most powerful spells on a lame wandering monster encounter in the wilderness - just because of the metagaming rule that the DM will get bored after one encounter, so you only get one wilderness encounter per day.
My preference for spell usage and so forth still goes in the direction of White Wolf's "World of Darkness" style, if anything. I'm thinking specifically of Mage and Vampire (the two games I am most familiar with) - where the limitations are much more organic and a matter of risk and reward more than hard numbers. Replenishing blood points or risking paradox is a lot more flexible of a system. AND it doesn't yield Gandalf shooting beams of fire out of his fingers every single round, if you prefer a more low-magic campaign style.
Heh - that was made a joke in Order of the Stick, where the wizard unleashed his/her most powerful spells on a lame wandering monster encounter in the wilderness - just because of the metagaming rule that the DM will get bored after one encounter, so you only get one wilderness encounter per day.
My preference for spell usage and so forth still goes in the direction of White Wolf's "World of Darkness" style, if anything. I'm thinking specifically of Mage and Vampire (the two games I am most familiar with) - where the limitations are much more organic and a matter of risk and reward more than hard numbers. Replenishing blood points or risking paradox is a lot more flexible of a system. AND it doesn't yield Gandalf shooting beams of fire out of his fingers every single round, if you prefer a more low-magic campaign style.
IME, the interesting tactical decisions in Mage often revolved around paradox accumulation: particularly because no matter how much time you had to bleed it off it was still bad to get a whole lot at once. Players would typically keep to low-key effects even when they knew they would have plenty of time post-fight to recover, because a really vulgar effect could set off a surge and impose long-term consequences, eliminating the ability to safely bleed off later.
In essence, it's a change from a resource-based system to a gambling-based system. I wonder how that kind of system might translate to a more traditional sword-and-sorcery, hit-point-based CRPG: combats where you can use as much mojo as you want, but the more you use, the more likely you are to permanently alter or reduce your character.
It would, unfortunately, probably just extend gameplay by causing a lot of players to reload pre-fight saves until they beat the odds.
In essence, it's a change from a resource-based system to a gambling-based system. I wonder how that kind of system might translate to a more traditional sword-and-sorcery, hit-point-based CRPG: combats where you can use as much mojo as you want, but the more you use, the more likely you are to permanently alter or reduce your character.
It would, unfortunately, probably just extend gameplay by causing a lot of players to reload pre-fight saves until they beat the odds.
As the very lucky child of nerdy parents, I was given D&D 2nd Edition rulebooks as a hand-me-down when I was a kid. When I grew up and encountered 3.x, I was pretty shocked at the CR ratings. I mean, when I had played 2nd as a mage, I spent a lot more time stabbing things than casting my sweet, sweet single magic missile. I knew my party would be chewing through several enemy parties before reaching the requisite daily big bad. In 3rd, when I played, my (more up-to-date) party members yelled at me for not pumping out my spells by the third or fourth fight. I was used to long attrition battles, not this high-speed fighting.
Personally, 15-minute days drive me nuts. I'm more role-player than roll-player and the feeling of "You enter the castle. You fight a group of guards in the main hall. You fight the evil master's elite henchmen. You battle the evil master's horrible pet demon, you battle the evil master." feels less like a protracted exploration than a shopping list of fights. There's nothing wrong with it, and certain scenarios seem perfect for it (smash-and-grab artifact recovery, lead the peasants in an invasion of their cruel overlord's mansion, etc.) but when I'm exploring mysterious ruins, well shoot, I thought "abandoned ruins" didn't have a lineup of creatures waiting to take turns at us every short day.
Personally, 15-minute days drive me nuts. I'm more role-player than roll-player and the feeling of "You enter the castle. You fight a group of guards in the main hall. You fight the evil master's elite henchmen. You battle the evil master's horrible pet demon, you battle the evil master." feels less like a protracted exploration than a shopping list of fights. There's nothing wrong with it, and certain scenarios seem perfect for it (smash-and-grab artifact recovery, lead the peasants in an invasion of their cruel overlord's mansion, etc.) but when I'm exploring mysterious ruins, well shoot, I thought "abandoned ruins" didn't have a lineup of creatures waiting to take turns at us every short day.
# posted by 
: April 08, 2008 4:46 PM
: April 08, 2008 4:46 PM
This "problem" only happens because DMs allow their players to control the pace of encounters.
If you allow the players to pull back and disengage from the adventure at any time, then there is absolutely no reason they won't blow all their resources on each encounter and then rest up. In other words, when you do that, the entire strategic portion of the game is eliminated and the only thing you have left are a series of tactical encounters.
Frankly, it gets even worse when the DM then concludes that (a) since they can only have one encounter per day; they should (b) make that encounter "interesting"; and (c) "interesting" means "the PCs resources will be completely exhausted and they will be pushed to the edge of utter defeat before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat".
That's certainly one way of getting an interesting encounter, but frankly it's not something you should actually be aiming for. Try to find other ways to make encounters interesting and those near-death experiences will take care of themselves (either due to a design mistake; a player mistake; or just bad luck with the dice rolls).
All of this, frankly, is bad DMing. An a lot of this bad DMing apparently came about because DMs didn't actually bother to read the rules for CRs before trying to use them. (For example, the belief that every single encounter should have an EL equal to the party's level drives me nuts because that's precisely what the rulebooks tell you not to do.)
All I can testify to is my group's experience: We typically sessions about 6 hours long. We can easily fit 6-8 meaningful and interesting combat encounters into that time period -- along with lots of dungeon exploration. (We'll also have sessions, of course, when no fighting takes place at all.) So it can be done.
If you allow the players to pull back and disengage from the adventure at any time, then there is absolutely no reason they won't blow all their resources on each encounter and then rest up. In other words, when you do that, the entire strategic portion of the game is eliminated and the only thing you have left are a series of tactical encounters.
Frankly, it gets even worse when the DM then concludes that (a) since they can only have one encounter per day; they should (b) make that encounter "interesting"; and (c) "interesting" means "the PCs resources will be completely exhausted and they will be pushed to the edge of utter defeat before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat".
That's certainly one way of getting an interesting encounter, but frankly it's not something you should actually be aiming for. Try to find other ways to make encounters interesting and those near-death experiences will take care of themselves (either due to a design mistake; a player mistake; or just bad luck with the dice rolls).
All of this, frankly, is bad DMing. An a lot of this bad DMing apparently came about because DMs didn't actually bother to read the rules for CRs before trying to use them. (For example, the belief that every single encounter should have an EL equal to the party's level drives me nuts because that's precisely what the rulebooks tell you not to do.)
All I can testify to is my group's experience: We typically sessions about 6 hours long. We can easily fit 6-8 meaningful and interesting combat encounters into that time period -- along with lots of dungeon exploration. (We'll also have sessions, of course, when no fighting takes place at all.) So it can be done.
I agree with you, if only because the Neverwinter Nights rest system (which is modified, thankfully, by the geniuses who made Mask of the Betrayer) made the game so easy and trivial that I found myself quitting after 15 minutes of play time.
I think you can chalk this phenomena up as yet another negative consequence of the consolization of our hobby and the final victory of the min-maxers over the role players that the dominance of MMOs cemented.
In pen-and-paper DnD, a think a good DM should be thinking about the other side in an adventuring campaign; if a few goblin guards are found massacred at their look-out post twice, the third time the adventurers return there should be a trap or ambush awaiting them. Or perhaps the bad guys get tired of waiting around for them and instead mount a raid on the nearby human town's inn, where said adventurers happen to be staying....
As for CRPGs, as you note, this is much more difficult, but I don't see why it would be impossible. Maybe the guard post encounters double each time the map is loaded, or perhaps there is a cut scene upon re-entering the same area a third time that tells you that you're ambushed and then pushes you into a fight.
In any case, the power gamerz won't be happy, and they certainly won't shut up, until their new Bioware console RPGs have a big red button that, when pushed, gives you uber gear and everyone dies and you get a certificate in the mail that says you are the best PvP player evar.
Perhaps then they'll go find some other hobby to ruin and leave us PC gamers in peace.
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I think you can chalk this phenomena up as yet another negative consequence of the consolization of our hobby and the final victory of the min-maxers over the role players that the dominance of MMOs cemented.
In pen-and-paper DnD, a think a good DM should be thinking about the other side in an adventuring campaign; if a few goblin guards are found massacred at their look-out post twice, the third time the adventurers return there should be a trap or ambush awaiting them. Or perhaps the bad guys get tired of waiting around for them and instead mount a raid on the nearby human town's inn, where said adventurers happen to be staying....
As for CRPGs, as you note, this is much more difficult, but I don't see why it would be impossible. Maybe the guard post encounters double each time the map is loaded, or perhaps there is a cut scene upon re-entering the same area a third time that tells you that you're ambushed and then pushes you into a fight.
In any case, the power gamerz won't be happy, and they certainly won't shut up, until their new Bioware console RPGs have a big red button that, when pushed, gives you uber gear and everyone dies and you get a certificate in the mail that says you are the best PvP player evar.
Perhaps then they'll go find some other hobby to ruin and leave us PC gamers in peace.
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