# The One Hour D&D Game



## Fanaelialae (Mar 19, 2012)

New L&L is up:

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The One-Hour D&D Game)

The design goals don't seem bad to me. I was just thinking I'd like to see a system that could support both one, large fight or many, smaller fights over the course of one adventure.


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## Hassassin (Mar 19, 2012)

Sounds excellent!


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## Mattachine (Mar 19, 2012)

One hour is a bit of a short time frame, but I absolutely want this type of game. In fact, if 5e doesn't really support streamlined gameplay where an adventure can happen in a couple hours, I won't buy it, or buy into it. 

I already have two versions of D&D that are intricate and feature detailed and time-consuming combat and non-combat resolution (3.5 and 4e). I don't want another one like that.

I want something with the simplicity of Basic, but with the options of 3e or 4e.


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## delericho (Mar 19, 2012)

I thought this was an excellent article. I agree with it 100%, especially with the bit that noted that this should not be the _only_ way to play.


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## KidSnide (Mar 19, 2012)

The one hour game is really a stress test.  A good GM can cram more into a session than an average GM.  If a good GM can make a one hour game work, then the average, tired, adult, weekday night GM can run a satisfying session in the two-and-a-half hours they have to run.

But, yeah, a great idea.

-KS


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 19, 2012)

I think the simple 1 hour adventure is a great building block.  You can add complexity and tactical modules to the base as desired depending on the desires of the group and the time available.


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## GM Dave (Mar 19, 2012)

It does help that they were running a party of 3 players and one GM.

I've always found a small group runs through challenges faster.  You have several advantages for this;

-- less herding cats as it takes less time for the group to discuss and evolve a course of action
-- less players usually means the GM has cut down the size of the opposition.  This reduces the overall size and length of combat.
-- interaction scenes and problem solving are more to the point with only one rogue in the party it follows that the thief leads on the puzzle scene and one of the three would have led on the interaction (who ever was more the party leader).
-- this is 1st level Basic where the Wizard has 1 spell to cast in the entire game night (if it is sleep then it can be a battle ender or a charm then it can be an interaction ender).  There is really only one main active player in the fights (fighter) while the mage might toss a dagger or two and the thief is likely maneuvering on the first round or two to get in a 'backstab' unless this rule has been modified.
-- if this is a basic module (like they used to produce at TSR) then the battle space is usually pretty bare with no environmental hazards.  It is pretty much move and hit the things.

Also, this is not a 5e gameplay.

It is Mearls usage of 1981 Basic with some of his ideas that are a version of what might be in 5e or tests of ideas.

The aim is good but I would not extrapolate conclusions from the test without knowing how similar the two objects are that the one is testing (a bad test is worse than no test because it can lead to false assumptions or beliefs).

I mean, I've run battles in PF with no terrain where the players (group of 9 players plus me as GM) basically tell me there actions and destroy the opposition in a single round (total time is around 10 min to get their plan and 5 min to resolve).

I've also run battles like Sat night which featured the opposition holding a hill with 10 defenders with armour and shields, 3 ninja (disguised initially as warriors), 3 cannon raining fire every other round on a group that was pinned down (inside a cave where they depended on their light source for seeing and the opponents/ratlings/skaven had darkvision).  Two thirds of the players were in the rescue group (they had played the week before) and the other third of the group (missed that week for various reason) along with 3 NPCs were in the group pinned down needing rescue.  The group pinned down were at a lower level trapped amongst rocks and one of the NPCs was an enemy/rival of one of the players in the rescue group.

I had one other element to drop on the players as 'trap' (a pair of doomwheels based on Warhammer Skaven like the guns were basically Jezzarails) but figured the players already had their hands full and didn't need an extra wave.

This was a big complex battle that took 5 full turns for the players (with a 6th fudged to mop up) to play out over 2.5 hours (using PF rules).  There was plenty of variety and enough battle space for people that were stealth types to move with shadows.  There was a variety of opposition types so even people with AoE attacks covered and blasted only a portion of the opposition meaning everyone had opportunities.  There was even the final problem when some of the players turned on their own NPC commander for leading them into such a bad spot and the rival player having to make a choice on whether to support his companions or his duties to church and justice.


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## Scribble (Mar 19, 2012)

It's been a LONG time since I've been able to sit down with a group and complete a short adventure in even 4 hours... I HIGHLY support this goal.


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## Caster (Mar 19, 2012)

> Ideally, focusing on the adventure as the basic unit of DM design also helps us cover different campaign styles.




I REALLY enjoy this particular quote from the Mearls article because I agree with this concept design-wise.  4e was explicitly built around using the Encounter as the basic unit of DM design - which I though it did an excellent job of - but did skew and limit aspects of the game outside of this narrow focus.

By making the Adventure itself the basic unit, it allows for a wider use of the Three Pillars (Combat, Exploration, Interaction) to work together as an organic whole along with the rules necessary to facilitate this style of gameplay.

If this iS their De Facto Mission Statement of what they hope to achieve in DNDNEW then it is exactly the kind of thing I need to hear to garner my interest.

Basically, this sold me on giving it a chance when, at the moment, my gaming group and I are quite happy sticking to our 4e campaign.

Dave


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## Minigiant (Mar 19, 2012)

I support the goal.

I just don't know how you can play an adventurer hook in an hour with more than 2 PCs without the game being ridiculously simple and boring.


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## Scribble (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> I support the goal.
> 
> I just don't know how you can play an adventurer hook in an hour with more than 2 PCs without the game being ridiculously simple and boring.




Well- one man's simple and boring is another mans quick and fun. I think what he's saying is the option needs to be there for those that want it, not that that's how all games will be run.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Mike Mearls said:
			
		

> The DM needs rules that can allow for adventures with as many fights as needed, from a single big brawl to a number of shorter fights. I'd like to see an adventure design system that gives me a suggested total XP value for monsters and traps to use so that I can push the characters to the limit of their abilities. I can then spend that XP for one battle, lots of little battles, or just sprinkle monsters in an environment as I choose.




Problem with this is there's a huge difficulty difference between some amount of XP spent on a single fight, and that same amount spread across individual monsters encountered one at a time.  So I don't think a simple per-adventure XP pool accomplishes much of anything.  If you want balanced fights, it really has to be per-encounter design.

But, old-school D&D isn't about balanced fights.  And if you don't care about balanced fights, then there's little point in having an XP pool at all.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 19, 2012)

I think 'encounter' vs 'adventure' focus is a matter of presentation though. I also think that speed of combat is more a matter of tuning than anything else (and I don't see with 3e or at least 4e that anything outside of combat is slow). You could make combat fast in 4e with basically just tuning the existing rules a little differently. As for XP budget for adventure, I already do that. In fact it is a well-discussed concept here and in other forums at this point, so not even notable.

I think my point is really that I don't get why we have to have a whole entirely new set of core rules to accomplish this goal. It is overkill. Might be a nice way to sell more books, but I'm getting tired of total rewrites of the system for reasons that aren't compelling.


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## infax (Mar 19, 2012)

I doubt I'll ever find a one hour game interesting as anything else than an introduction to an actual adventure.

That said, I'm more interested in Mearl's proposition of allowing for a variable number of combats in a single adventure. When I GM, I like to have a flexible flow and use as many combats as seem appropriate, that means I sometimes have one big battle, sometimes I have two setup battles and a larger finale and, sometimes, I just have several skirmishes leading to a complex social encounter at the end.

Where the system fails, I believe, is how it handles the refreshing of abilities. If I have several skirmishes before the final complex social encounter in a single day, its alright, but if it is meant to represent several ambushes during a journey to meet some NPC, the dynamics are completely different, instead of small ambushes, it has to be several complex and demanding battles or the PCs just nuke their way through. So, Mike's suggestion to have an XP budget for the adventure is interesting, but I believe it fails to address the bigger problem with the number of combats per adventure.


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## Ahnehnois (Mar 19, 2012)

It sounds so simple, but playing a game in an hour and getting something meaningful done and feeling satisfied is really quite a radical idea. I have a hardtime imagining it happening. Would be nice to shoot for that though.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 19, 2012)

That's a fantastic benchmark. I hope they can achieve it.


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## Gargoyle (Mar 19, 2012)

The one hour adventure sounds hard to do, but if you've played BECMI (or probably OD&D) you would understand that it is perfectly feasible.  Back when:


Character sheets were on one page and you even had room to draw a picture of your character.
There were only one or two rule books, and people knew the rules or learned them quickly.
Combat was quick, without the need for a battle grid to adjudicate rules like flanking or opportunity attacks.
The DM had to make more decisions on the fly, and couldn't rely on the rules as much.

The downsides are obvious: less detail, fewer options, less tactical gameplay, and more of a chance of a DM making bad decisions.  

But a modular system would allow all that detail if you wanted it, and still allow players to master the rules if the DM doesn't try to use too many optional systems at the beginning.

I like where Mearls' head is at.   Then again, I always have, it's just the execution of his ideas by his team that leaves something to be desired sometimes.


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## kitsune9 (Mar 19, 2012)

This sounds great, but it runs the risk of being anticlimactic. One on end of the gaming experience, you'll have very fast games, but no sense of tension that builds up and the other end, you have combat grind where you're slogging through hp just to end the thing. The tension was there, but now you've gone waaaaaaaaaaaay past it.

I want my combats to be fast, scenarios to play out fairly quickly, but I need tension to build up in the mechanics of the game that gives BBEG "staying power" so that they won't blow us out of the water in the first round or for us to do the same.

It's a tough order to fulfill. My idea of that "perfect combat" length is going to be different than someone else's, but I think what they are doing now for the next iteration is definitely a step in the right direction.


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## TerraDave (Mar 19, 2012)

I will join the chorus in saying: *YES!*

Best L&L in ages.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think 'encounter' vs 'adventure' focus is a matter of presentation though.




I think there's a pretty clear distinction.  An Encounter is a scene.  An Adventure is the chapter, or perhaps a whole book.

A scene is, usually, some set number of actors interacting with each other, essentially simultaneously.  In a combat encounter, an XP pool helps ensure that the NPCs are balanced with the PCs.

But over the course of an adventure?  Without assumptions on the distribution of XP (which Mike did not make, and it seems to be the point of his idea to not make), I'm not seeing the value.



> As for XP budget for adventure, I already do that. In fact it is a well-discussed concept here and in other forums at this point, so not even notable.




But what are you getting out of that XP budget, aside from predictable advancement rates?  Is it really getting you much in the way of building balanced challenges?  Can you spread that XP across an adventure and be confident of a balanced challenge?  Because that's what encounter XP pools get in 4E, for the most part.  Follow the encounter building guidelines, use that XP, and as long as you don't do weird stuff with terrain, etc., it's quite likely that you'll end up with a balanced encounter.  Do that with Adventure XP pool, and the difficulty will vary wildly between "big battle" adventures, and "a monster in each room" adventures.  What is that pool getting you then?  Are you making assumptions about the adventure structure when you use that pool?

Ultimately, a adventure XP pool is like an encounter XP pool, but only if there's an assumption that "wave" encounter designs are just as challenging, for the same XP, as "all at once" designs.  That's obviously not true.  4E's DMG2 discusses wave design, and what it boils down to is that there should be more XP in the pool in an encounter with waves, but it's really a judgement call.  That encounter pool gives a reasonable baseline for 2 waves, but past that, it's more DM judgement than rules.  And once that happens, there's little point to having those rules.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 19, 2012)

The advantage of getting the basic system in place that allows for the 1-hour adventure is that (just like with modular design) it is much easier to add stuff to the basics to expand it, than it is to try and strip things away to condense it.

Yes, 3E and 4E can be built and run in such a way to reach the 1-hour goal... but it's not something that occurs naturally through normal gameplay.  The DM really has to work at it, and the players have to be on their game to help accomplish it.  So using that as a benchmark is probably not the best foundation on which to build.

Start small and simple.  And believe me... once you then layer in the tactical miniatures module and the "martial exploits" module... that 1-hour adventure will swell to a 3-hour adventure easy.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> The advantage of getting the basic system in place that allows for the 1-hour adventure is that (just like with modular design) it is much easier to add stuff to the basics to expand it, than it is to try and strip things away to condense it.




My main concern is that Core will be basically an OSR game.  And be rife with old-school game balance problems.  Which is OK for that style of game, but it makes it difficult to take that, and add tactics modules, and somehow arrive at a well balanced game.  And without balance, all that fancy tactics is for naught.


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## KidSnide (Mar 19, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think 'encounter' vs 'adventure' focus is a matter of presentation though. I also think that speed of combat is more a matter of tuning than anything else (and I don't see with 3e or at least 4e that anything outside of combat is slow). You could make combat fast in 4e with basically just tuning the existing rules a little differently. As for XP budget for adventure, I already do that. In fact it is a well-discussed concept here and in other forums at this point, so not even notable.
> 
> I think my point is really that I don't get why we have to have a whole entirely new set of core rules to accomplish this goal. It is overkill. Might be a nice way to sell more books, but I'm getting tired of total rewrites of the system for reasons that aren't compelling.




I think it's fair to criticize WotC for creating a whole new rules system when a revision is an alternative, but I think it's important to note that (1) it's not like the encounter-to-adventure change is the only think they are doing with D&DN and (2) WotC gets a lot of flack for "revision" style updates too.

Also, I think the encounter-to-adventure focus is a big deal.  I play 4e and I think it solved a number of 3.x problems that were driving me mental, but I agree with the sentiment that it was too encounter-focused at the expense of the adventure, and I'm happy to see Mike agree in L&L.  I love a good set-piece fight, but I want that to be the climax of an adventure, not the beginning, the early middle, mid-middle, late-middle, early-end, pre-climax and climax of an adventure.

As to the point of being able to take an xp budget for an adventure, I don't know what version of 4e you're playing.  IME, a single 4000 xp encounter is _completely different_ than four 1000 xp encounters.  I don't think "adventure xp budget" is an especially useful concept in 4e, unless it's an "xp budget for N encounters."

-KS


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## Mengu (Mar 19, 2012)

Don't care for the approach... I am not likely to run an adventure for my group in one hour. And I don't want to be told by the masses, "that's how we're doin' it these days." True or not, it influences perceptions and expectations. Currently, I might have 4-5 hour sessions with no combat, that completes maybe 1/6th of a sub-plot. The important part is, those 4-5 hours of no combat can still be quite intense, and everyone has a good time.

But then again, I don't run "adventures". I run campaigns. So maybe I'm playing it wrong.

I'm not particularly fond of combat speed of 3e or 4e at high levels. There's certainly lots of room for improvement there. But I like the tactical options. I think the key is simpler to use character sheets, and simpler/faster action resolutions. I don't need time clamps on exploration and interaction.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> My main concern is that Core will be basically an OSR game.  And be rife with old-school game balance problems.




And somehow the designers of the game will just forget everything that's been learned in the past 40 years of game balance in design?  Okay.  If you want to think they're just idiots, I suppose that's your right.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 19, 2012)

Mengu said:


> But then again, I don't run "adventures". I run campaigns. So maybe I'm playing it wrong.




Yes, of course you are.  Didn't you read that first paragraph in Mearls' article that said "we're using the 'adventure' as a baseline specifically because Mengu uses 'campaign' and we want to make sure this game is not EXACTLY like his."?


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> And somehow the designers of the game will just forget everything that's been learned in the past 40 years of game balance in design?  Okay.  If you want to think they're just idiots, I suppose that's your right.




First, considering they only got even remotely on top of balance 4 years ago, and it lead to an edition that has (much to my chagrin) apparently failed enough to warrant a new edition this soon, I don't think my concerns are unwarranted.  That wasn't 40 years of progression, in terms of game balance.  That was 36 years of increasingly imbalanced editions, and one revolutionary edition the last 4 years.

And they wouldn't have to be "idiots" to have an imbalanced Core.  There is a sizable community that do not care about having well-balanced encounters, or solid balance between classes.  They tend to be the ones that favor old-school-style games, and every indication I've seen is that Core will be modeled after old-school D&D.  A game that focuses on simulating the literary, and classic D&D, tropes, and isn't focused on game balance, is a not necessarily a _bad_ game.  As long as the DM can produce a game with as much balance between players as the players desire, it can work fine.  It just isn't a game that makes much sense to have deep tactical options and complex character building.


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## froth (Mar 19, 2012)

hellish


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## gloomhound (Mar 19, 2012)

Nothing I have read or seen anywhere has instilled in me more confidence in the next version of D&D than this article.


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 19, 2012)

kitsune9 said:


> I want my combats to be fast, scenarios to play out fairly quickly, but I need tension to build up in the mechanics of the game that gives BBEG "staying power" so that they won't blow us out of the water in the first round or for us to do the same.





This is where well integrated modularity comes in. Imagine a simple basic game that moves fast. You can run combats with scrubs using this engine. The characters have stats that support more tactical play so that when the big battles occur, perhaps minis and a lot more tactical focus gets included in those parts of the game.

Its kind of like a throttle. You can speed up or slow down to suit your desired pace. 

This model has worked well for GURPS for a long time. Basic combat, with advanced options there whenever you want to use them.


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## KesselZero (Mar 19, 2012)

Regarding the discussion between Encounter XP budgets and Adventure XP budgets, I have to chime in that this is a very 4e distinction. In 4e, if I had one 1,000-XP encounter for a party of five first-level characters, they'd have a very tough time with it. But if I threw ten seperate 100-XP encounters at them, they would wipe them up without breaking a sweat.

Why? Encounter powers, encounter healing, and short rests. My experience of 4e has been that anything less than a well-balanced encounter is basically a meaningless cakewalk, because it costs the PCs nothing in resources-- at the end of an easy encounter plus short rest, they have exactly the same resources as at the beginning, with a few more XP. Maybe one or two characters has to spend a healing surge, or maybe not. Imagine your 4e PCs taking on two guards outside the door to the citadel. All they have to do is throw down all their encounter powers on the two poor guards then take a five-minute breather. Aside from concerns about making noise and having an alarm raised, this is basically free XP for them.

I think what Mearls is talking about is a system where you can choose to wage a war of attrition against your PCs, where healing and big powers aren't as easy to come by, so those ten 100-XP encounters would actually use up PC resources to approximately the same extent that one 1,000-XP encounter would. This also means that traps would return to being more meaningful scattered throughout a dungeon as opposed to parts of a set-piece encounter. I strongly support the design ideology that Mearls lays out in the article, and I really hope that 5e follows this in its basic game.

I also think such a game would be much more attractive to new players. On Saturday night I spent a few hours helping four brand-new players through 4e character creation. All we did was race, class, and at-will powers, and it still took a long time since I had to explain every little quirky rule that came up. We barely had time for a very simple "test combat" before bedtime. I just kept wishing for a simpler system so I could have helped them make characters and run through a whole adventure in a couple hours. I can't help but believe that that would be a play experience much more likely to hook them into the game.


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## Minigiant (Mar 19, 2012)

Scribble said:


> Well- one man's simple and boring is another mans quick and fun. I think what he's saying is the option needs to be there for those that want it, not that that's how all games will be run.




My point was that I don't see how it could be done. An hour is not a long time and I have barely seen a game close to a hour before even with prewritten fluff, descriptions, and characters. 

I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing. 

I love the goal. I just don't think it is possible as stated.


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## Alan Shutko (Mar 19, 2012)

kitsune9 said:


> I want my combats to be fast, scenarios to play out fairly quickly, but I need tension to build up in the mechanics of the game that gives BBEG "staying power" so that they won't blow us out of the water in the first round or for us to do the same.




In my experience, I want a combination of this, too. For me, that means there are a bunch of combats that are quick. But there's still room for big set-piece battles as the climax of an adventure. The difference in time between different combats, the different level of tactical decisioning, makes for variety that spices things up for me.


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## Li Shenron (Mar 19, 2012)

My personal target nowadays is to fit an adventure _in an evening_, including characters generation. If they can make it happen _in an hour_ then then better! I can take care of adding complexity or just extending the adventure to reach the end of the evening


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 19, 2012)

kitsune9 said:
			
		

> One on end of the gaming experience, you'll have very fast games, but no sense of tension that builds up




I don't think that necessarily follows. TV shows manage to build and release tension in 20-40 minute bursts on a weekly basis. I don't think it's too much to see that the collective decision-making/rules-referencing portion of the game take about as much or less time than commercial breaks in an hour-long TV drama. 

I think the main choice is going to be between speed and verisimilitude or options, not speed and storyline.

Take the OA rules in 4e and 3e: you provoke if you move to a square adjacent to an enemy. Provoking means that, *if* the monster has the actions available, they can opt to attack you, rolling to hit and dealing damage before your turn resumes. 

It's a tactical option that certainly adds verisimilitude (running past a guy isn't usually a safe move!), but that slows down that game to a sudden crawl. That crawl might be worthwhile for groups that want that tactical dimension, or that realistic combat, but it's not always worth it for those who like a more cinematic game. 

So the choice for a "fast game" would be to drop them -- they spiral the duration of a turn into the stratosphere. But that does remove some tactical elements, and some realism-based elements from the game. So which do you want? 5e sounds like it might want to give you both. YAY.


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## kitsune9 (Mar 19, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> This model has worked well for GURPS for a long time. Basic combat, with advanced options there whenever you want to use them.




I like the GURPS model on modularity. It works really well for that system.


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## Dausuul (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> My point was that I don't see how it could be done. An hour is not a long time and I have barely seen a game close to a hour before even with prewritten fluff, descriptions, and characters.
> 
> I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.
> 
> I love the goal. I just don't think it is possible as stated.




Obviously it's possible since Mearls did it. I'm willing to bet I could do it too. I've already had the experience of running a BD&D adventure in 3 hours (including chargen) with people who didn't know the edition, and that was a moderately meaty adventure with mid-Expert-level PCs, eight combats, exploration, and RP. If I had people who knew the system, playing characters in the 1-3 range, and trimmed the number of fights down to 3 or so? I'm pretty sure we could fit an adventure into 1 hour.

In fact, I kind of want to give it a try now. It sounds like fun.


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## Scribble (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> My point was that I don't see how it could be done. An hour is not a long time and I have barely seen a game close to a hour before even with prewritten fluff, descriptions, and characters.
> 
> I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.
> 
> I love the goal. I just don't think it is possible as stated.




Yeah but are you thinking in terms of the basic sub system?  

That's what I meant about it not being the whole game striving for 1 hour length adventures. Like if you were playing the game with a bunch of complex options and battles and stuff, I doubt they will make a game that plays the entire thing in 1 hour.  (But it seems they will probably pay attention to minimizing "drag" as much as possible even in complex games.)

But the option, for those that want it, to have a stripped down quick running game should be there at the core. 


This is something I really like, because it also speaks to the idea that it doesn't have to be  binary. Hopefully we won't have to choose either long adventures or short adventures, but we can tailor them to the speed/styles we want.


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour. I can barely get through most single player rpg video game intro in an hour without rushing.




The game this was accomplished in was B/X D&D. It is my favorite version of the game published and with players who are not total newbs it is completely possible.


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## Henry (Mar 19, 2012)

The main obstacle to running shorter games, in my experience, is ourselves. Most of us (rpg tabletop gamers) get together to "shoot the breeze," relax with friends, and game somewhere in there, so that even during solid gaming time, someone might break up the table with a funny moment in-game, crack a joke about a cinematic move someone did in-game, or (I'm worst for this) making a 20-second aside about how similar some gaming situation is to something from TV, movies, or real life that I saw recently.

Also, if we don't spend much time looking on our character sheets for skill scores, verifying how ability damage has altered four or five stats, or checking the wording of a moderately complex feat, then we can be rather surprised how much gaming we can squeeze in.

Me, I want a D&D option (that says "D&D" on the cover, to quell skittishness) that I can break out to new players who have never played an RPG before, when I say, "Have you ever played D&D before?" and they "no", I can say "would you like to play? It only takes about an hour to show you how. we'll play a game."

When I say, "about four hours" to play anything, people tend to glaze over -- even world of warcraft or poker can be played in an hour's time.


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## Crazy Jerome (Mar 19, 2012)

I'd  be pretty stoked with a one hour baseline.  That means when I run my large groups, I will be able to pull the same material in under two hours, except on my very worst days.  

I do hope that the means to accomplish the one hour baseline are not too tied to number of players.  That is, you can make some speed improvements with simplifications of how you "move around the table" from player to player.  After awhile, though, getting more improvement is like trying to get blood from a turnip--and such solutions tend to mulitple time spent by the number of players almost exactly.  

Other speed improvements are anything in the system that lets players act somewhat in parallel.  Then your only absolute bottleneck is player communication with the DM.  I used a side by side initiative variant in 4E last week.  We had 4 fights that averaged 20 minutes each, and only one of those fights was easy.  It would have been 15 minutes each, but swarms against not much area or close attacks can take awhile.


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## Zaukrie (Mar 19, 2012)

Best news on 5e so far.


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## Odhanan (Mar 19, 2012)

*reads column*

Totally, yes. I really hope they can make this happen.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

KesselZero said:


> I think what Mearls is talking about is a system where you can choose to wage a war of attrition against your PCs, where healing and big powers aren't as easy to come by, so those ten 100-XP encounters would actually use up PC resources to approximately the same extent that one 1,000-XP encounter would. This also means that traps would return to being more meaningful scattered throughout a dungeon as opposed to parts of a set-piece encounter. I strongly support the design ideology that Mearls lays out in the article, and I really hope that 5e follows this in its basic game.




If we assume a simple system where there's a set Adventure XP pool, and monsters have a set XP, and that's it (which is what I think Mike was going for), ignore unquantifiable things like ambush setups and terrain advantage, and assume the game looks anything like any edition of D&D, I don't see how 10 100XP encounters could be anywhere close to similarly as challenging (or resource consumptive) as 1 1000XP encounter.  Facing 10 times as many monsters all at once is just inherently massively more difficult than facing them one at a time.  It's not due to Encounter powers.  A 4E "Encounter" could be built as 10 waves of 100XP, and it would still be trivial compared to the 1000XP all at once Encounter.  DMG2 advises as such, that a Wave-structured encounter should have more total XP to be challenging.

I feel like this is self-evident, but I'll give an example.  Suppose we expect that the party can kill one monster per round (and assume a simple per-side initiative).  Assume 10 identical monsters, each dealing D damage per round.

In the 10 separate monsters case, we can expect 5*D damage dealt to the party.  Half those encounters, the party goes first, and kills the monster without taking damage.  Other half, the monster gets in 1*D of damage.

In the one big combat case, we can expect 9.5*D the first round (50% chance of killing one monster first, so .5*D, rest get in 9*D), 8.5*D the second, and so on.  This comes out to 44.5*D damage.  Almost 9 times as much expected damage as the 10 encounters case.  Or 90 times more than a one lone-monster encounter.

Now, obviously, this is an idealized scenario.  There might be AoEs available to kill more at once, and party damage absorption isn't the only resource that might be drained.  But it illustrates the issue.  Dealing with 10 monsters at once simply isn't as resource intensive as dealing with them individually, unless the game deviates radically from traditional D&D (i.e., all PC attacks being AoE, covering all enemies at all times, and/or all PC attacks being a finite resource, while healing is infinite).

This isn't a 4E issue.  Take any edition of D&D, and the players would be fools to attack 10 monsters at once, instead of picking them off one at a time.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:
			
		

> This isn't a 4E issue. Take any edition of D&D, and the players would be fools to attack 10 monsters at once, instead of picking them off one at a time.




Welcome to the world of Combat-As-War!  If you're smart enough to isolate individual monsters and take them out, you might very well _deserve_ to get the game's rewards by spending less.  If you have smart villains, they have ways to avoid getting isolated. If you have dumb villains, they don't. This reflects reality.

And if your DM likes Combat-As-Sport instead, they can set up things so that combats only mostly happen against appropriate quantities of monsters.


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## KidSnide (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> This isn't a 4E issue.  Take any edition of D&D, and the players would be fools to attack 10 monsters at once, instead of picking them off one at a time.




Your conflating two issues.  As you say, in every edition of D&D, it's better to face 10 monsters one at a time instead of all at once.  That's just because the PCs can concentrate file more effectively with individual monsters without giving the others monsters extra time to attack the PCs.

In 4e, you get encounter powers, healing surges and action points that take this "easier in small groups" and make the tendency even greater.  If the encounters are broken up, the PCs not only get the benefit of concentrating fire, but they also get free powers, more efficient healing and extra actions. 

That kind of stuff (particularly the more efficient healing) makes a big difference in comparison to a game where the healing resources are limited to cleric spells and a limited supply of potions.  It makes small encounters and traps more meaningful, which allows the adventure to focus more on the exploration aspect of the game and less on large set-piece combats.

-KS


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## Mercurius (Mar 19, 2012)

Man, this sounds good. I'd be happy to get a complete adventure in during one 3-4 hour session...one hour sounds greedy to me and, as Henry said, is pretty unrealistic if you're hanging out with friends.

Should it be possible? Yes. Should it be the default? No. I think an adventure in a 3-4 hour session should be the goal, and by "adventure" I mean character creation and a simple quest to a location, not an in-depth Adventure Path scenario.

I played in my 4E game a couple nights ago and the entire three hours of actual play time was taken up by a single encounter. Yes, a single encounter. OK, there was a bit on the front that wasn't fighting, but it literally was _two and a half hours _of combat. 

Don't get me wrong: 4E combat is fun, but it just takes too damn long, and the main culprits are too many HP, too many weird conditions to keep track of, the time it takes to pick out powers, and the time it takes to figure out every possible modifier. For instance, I used the 15th level ranger daily power Blade Cascade, hit my opponent five times, who was my Hunter's Quarry, plus I had Prime Punisher, plus I got a bonus for some attacks being after the creature was bloodied...and it could have been much worse; good thing none were crits!

My personal preference would be to have a "blitz" option for combat where a minor fight can be over in 5-10 minutes, and then a "tactical" option if you want greater detail and a two hour finale...and all in the same campaign, even adventure. 



dkyle said:


> My main concern is that Core will be basically an OSR game.  And be rife with old-school game balance problems.  Which is OK for that style of game, but it makes it difficult to take that, and add tactics modules, and somehow arrive at a well balanced game.  And without balance, all that fancy tactics is for naught.




I hear you but don't think you need to worry about it. I don't think they're going for OSR mechanics but OSR _feel._


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Welcome to the world of Combat-As-War!  If you're smart enough to isolate individual monsters and take them out, you might very well _deserve_ to get the game's rewards by spending less.  If you have smart villains, they have ways to avoid getting isolated. If you have dumb villains, they don't. This reflects reality.




I should be clear that I meant "issue" in the sense of "problematic for an Adventure XP pool system", not issue as in "a problem with the game design".  10 individual-monster encounters absolutely _should_ be easier than all those monsters put together, and they always have been.  But if the adventure/encounter building guidelines don't recognize that, then I don't see much point to them.

My argument is whether the Adventure XP pool is a useful tool for helping the DM figure out reasonable challenges for the party.  There are essentially two cases:

1) The DM cares about setting up "reasonable challenges".  I don't think the XP pool helps in any meaningful way, if both "big combat" and "room-by-room" use the same pool, with the same XP costs for monsters.  If one is a "reasonable challenge" according to the XP pool rules, then the other would be either incredibly easy, or incredibly difficult, with the same XP pool.

2) The DM doesn't care about setting up "reasonable challenges", and just wants to play out "what would happen".  In which case, an XP pool mechanic is useless.  It's besides the point.

So, in both cases, the Adventure XP pool doesn't do anything useful.  It would need major modification, and I believe in a way that recognizes encounters, to make sense.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> Your conflating two issues.  As you say, in every edition of D&D, it's better to face 10 monsters one at a time instead of all at once.  That's just because the PCs can concentrate file more effectively with individual monsters without giving the others monsters extra time to attack the PCs.




I'm not conflating them.  I recognize that they are two separate issues.  My point is that even without 4E's encounter powers, 10 single-monster encounters compared to one 10-monster encounter is a huge difference, and one that a simple Adventure XP pool system would not recognize.  I don't deny that Encounter-powers compound the difference, but they are not even close to solely responsible for it.

You're post suggested that my issue with Adventure XP pools was grounded entirely (or at least almost entirely) in 4E.  I don't think it is.  The same issue comes up with wave-based encounters in 4E, and in every past edition of D&D.  It would be folly for them to ignore it.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 19, 2012)

I'm fine with quick games even though I don't really play them, I am concerned however that Wizards is able to make the distinction between "quick and easy" and "no real choices".  Sure, it's easy to make a level 1 wizard that gets 5 spells and 1 feat when there are only 5 spells and 1 feat.


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## Radiating Gnome (Mar 19, 2012)

I'm really attracted to the "throttle" idea -- being able to limit the use of minis and tactical encounters to major scenes, being able to quickly handle less significant scenes in 10-30 minutes -- but still have those encounters be interesting and worth playing.  

In my 4e game I've experimented from time to time with variations on skill challenges to replace these less complex encounters -- that moves through them quite quickly, but it is a little flat.  But if you could play them out quickly, that would be cool. 

I'm pretty excited to see what they're working on. My only disappointment so far is how long we've had to wait to see a playtest version (for those of us who haven't been to a con this year, anyway). 

-rg


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## Minigiant (Mar 19, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> The game this was accomplished in was B/X D&D. It is my favorite version of the game published and with players who are not total newbs it is completely possible.



I guess if the bare bones basic system of 5e game with no modules and very limited role play and almost no out of character talk... maybe... maybe you could do it under an hour.

But I wont be playing it that way. I need to act silly, do more than the same action over and over, and roleplay everything.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Radiating Gnome said:


> I'm really attracted to the "throttle" idea -- being able to limit the use of minis and tactical encounters to major scenes, being able to quickly handle less significant scenes in 10-30 minutes -- but still have those encounters be interesting and worth playing.




I've contemplated doing something like this from time to time, but it ultimately felt like I couldn't actually have any significant consequences, or else they would feel like DM fiat, because I took away a lot of the options they built their characters with, instead of something truly earned, or deserved.  And if there aren't any real consequences, then what's the point of playing it out?

If the system was actually designed to support that kind of throttling within a campaign (as opposed to being a set of per-campaign options), like giving most advanced tactical character options a "simple combat" component to them, that would neat.  But that doesn't seem to be their focus.


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> I guess if the bare bones basic system of 5e game with no modules and very limited role play and almost no out of character talk... maybe... maybe you could do it under an hour.
> 
> But I wont be playing it that way. I need to act silly, do more than the same action over and over, and roleplay everything.




Roleplay isn't limited. The beauty of minimal mechanics means you get _more_ roleplay time without giving up progressing with in-game activity rather than less.  Old school D&D was all about the silly. 

Out of character banter and just fooling around will add time to any session,that isn't system specific.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 19, 2012)

Gargoyle said:


> The one hour adventure sounds hard to do, but if you've played BECMI (or probably OD&D) you would understand that it is perfectly feasible.  Back when:
> 
> 
> Character sheets were on one page and you even had room to draw a picture of your character.




I think this is a detriment of 4E (or at least the WotC CB online generated 4E character sheets).

There's nothing worse than flipping through 4 to 8 pages as a player. And there was no reason for 9 powers per page instead of 50 powers per page. 4E could easily fit on 2 pages every time.

One thing that I have not seen any discussion on for 5E is regardless of how complex a player and group makes their game, can it be done with a significant majority of the needed PC info on a one or two pages max character sheet?


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## grimslade (Mar 19, 2012)

*Photomat style game*

In about an hour you and friends can build characters, explore a dungeon, battle monsters, and start a career of adventure. Would be perfect copy for the Basic Next Box/Book. 

The adventure as a unit is interesting. The encounter focus was better from a rules perspective but disjointed from a play perspective. Encounters became individual islands of intense and focused action nestled in a sea of relaxed story and rp moments. This was true for the last couple of editions.
Shifting to an adventure length focus allows for some different design and a true blending of the three pillars into a cohesive whole. It is a difference in designing for scenes vs. designing for Acts. There are lots of stuff impacted by this change in focus, XP allotment is only one. I'm looking forward to seeing how they address adventure design.

An hour for a short 1st level basic adventure with character creation is not a stretch and a worthy goal. I think having system that can support a one hour game is infinitely more accessible than a game that requires an hour just to roll characters. Think of how robust and fulfilling an adventure you could have in a 3 hour session? Each of the 3 'adventures'  would be chapters in a larger arc and each of those play sessions can be part of a larger arc and so on.

I hope that options are options and not anchors. Complexity should not be slower by much.


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## Radiating Gnome (Mar 19, 2012)

For 4e DMs who might be interested, I was inspired by this conversation to start a thread in the 4e forum about a system I used to abstract down less important combats so I could try to capture the feel of smaller encounters without the time sink. If you're interested, check it out:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4t...cted-combat-minor-encounters.html#post5855701


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## Crazy Jerome (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> 1) The DM cares about setting up "reasonable challenges". I don't think the XP pool helps in any meaningful way, if both "big combat" and "room-by-room" use the same pool, with the same XP costs for monsters. If one is a "reasonable challenge" according to the XP pool rules, then the other would be either incredibly easy, or incredibly difficult, with the same XP pool.
> 
> 2) The DM doesn't care about setting up "reasonable challenges", and just wants to play out "what would happen". In which case, an XP pool mechanic is useless. It's besides the point.




This is like the difference between "dead" and "mostly dead".  It isn't much difference in some ways, but huge in its implications.    Anyway, it is at the confluence of the two points that you can get some reasonable milage out of an XP pool mechanic, even with those limits.

If your XP pool is 10,000 XP, and it is divided up among 10 "encounters" roughly evenly, then where it can be useful is giving the DM a rough idea of it being balanced--when the default conditions are met.  Ideally, you'd like those default conditions set well away from the extremes--all creatures at once or all 10 groups separate.  So say that the default presumption is that you'll have 3-5 encounters, of no more than three of the "encounter groups" at once.  If you stick fairly close to the default conditions, you'll get something close to "fair fight" most of the time.  If you crowds the creatures into fewer fights, it will be tougher.  If you spread them out, it will be easier.

Where I think you are correct is that such a system is going to do a fairly poor job of telling you how much easier or tougher for X amount of crowding or spreading.  That is going to depend so much on circumstances, resources, exact party mix, etc. as to make the variables too much to manage.  However, that makes such an "adventure budget" system limited, not entirely useless.

What individual groups do about express crowding or grouping is where table preferences need to enter, anyway.  Perhaps the amount if fixed, earn it best you can (divide and conquer is a prime goal).  Alternately, perhaps easy or hard fights get an XP adjustment.  Maybe the DM simply eyeballs it, with an eye towards maintaining the pace the group wants--"Man, that was a little harder than I expected.  That puts us just a bit shy of 8th level.  So what the heck, just bump 'em on up."


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## Mark CMG (Mar 19, 2012)

No poll = non-negotiable part of the game?

Obviously, since many folks are using various rulesets manage to play fast-moving games everyday, it's a design goal that is attainable.  I think we're starting to see core ideas that out of the gate can keep 5E from driving lapsed players away.  Now they need to make it better than what lapsed players are already playing.  Even something that is better organized and written more accessibly can probably draw those lapsed players in to give it a good chance.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> If your XP pool is 10,000 XP, and it is divided up among 10 "encounters" roughly evenly, then where it can be useful is giving the DM a rough idea of it being balanced--when the default conditions are met.  Ideally, you'd like those default conditions set well away from the extremes--all creatures at once or all 10 groups separate.  So say that the default presumption is that you'll have 3-5 encounters, of no more than three of the "encounter groups" at once.  If you stick fairly close to the default conditions, you'll get something close to "fair fight" most of the time.  If you crowds the creatures into fewer fights, it will be tougher.  If you spread them out, it will be easier.




But Mike's stated goal is a system that handles that all-in-one, or separate, just by spreading around Adventure XP.  If it ends up being DM judgement if it deviates from a narrow assumption, then it really does nothing of the sort.

Your suggestion is really almost identical to 4E: 3-5 encounters, with some amount of XP per encounter.  DMs deviate at their own risk.  If you assume a set amount of encounters, per pool of adventure XP, and balance on that assumption, it's really no different than assuming a set amount of XP per encounter, and number of encounters per adventure.  The only real difference from 4E being expected Encounters per Adventure instead of expected Encounters per Day.  And if Daily resources are going to be as important as it looks like, I don't see that as an improvement at all.  It just makes it even harder to predict a party's performance.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 19, 2012)

They've been talking about making D&D more like TV off and on, so this move makes sense. They also have lots of board games they're probably getting inspired from. Weren't they already playing lunch hour games with an abbreviated version of 4E over at WotC?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 19, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> This is like the difference between "dead" and "mostly dead".  It isn't much difference in some ways, but huge in its implications.    Anyway, it is at the confluence of the two points that you can get some reasonable milage out of an XP pool mechanic, even with those limits.
> 
> If your XP pool is 10,000 XP, and it is divided up among 10 "encounters" roughly evenly, then where it can be useful is giving the DM a rough idea of it being balanced--when the default conditions are met.  Ideally, you'd like those default conditions set well away from the extremes--all creatures at once or all 10 groups separate.  So say that the default presumption is that you'll have 3-5 encounters, of no more than three of the "encounter groups" at once.  If you stick fairly close to the default conditions, you'll get something close to "fair fight" most of the time.  If you crowds the creatures into fewer fights, it will be tougher.  If you spread them out, it will be easier.
> 
> ...




Actually, here's how it works... 

I decide to write an adventure that will cover a level. I know that I thus need to give out say 10k XP for the PCs to progress that one level. I also know that the game BASICALLY is built around a vanilla level being 10 encounters, so each one is roughly 1k XP each. I also know that the expectation is that there will be a few bigger encounters and maybe one or two smaller ones, and the total will more reasonably be around say 7 encounters total, including SCs and plot XP (quests). 

So, lets say 9k of that is adventure XP. I start out and say OK, I'll have 7 encounters 9000/7 is whatever, 1200xp each roughly. I can now move some of that around to make say an 800xp encounter, a 1600xp encounter, and 5 1200xp encounters, or whatever. Within reason I can plan things out that way and it WILL work pretty well.

Of course, if I make one giant 9000xp encounter it will be fail. If I make 27 300xp encounters it will be fail too. You still have to follow the encounter guidelines basically. You can also amp up a couple of the weaker encounters if you split things more by making them waves of 2 encounters, etc. 

The point is, if you have looked into the whole thing some, you can use the XP guidelines in 4e adventure-wide. All that would be needed in the DMG is a couple paragraphs on explaining that concept.


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## Hassassin (Mar 19, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The point is, if you have looked into the whole thing some, you can use the XP guidelines in 4e adventure-wide. All that would be needed in the DMG is a couple paragraphs on explaining that concept.




You'll still have to slot in rests somewhere. Maybe that's what MM's getting at?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> My main concern is that Core will be basically an OSR game.  And be rife with old-school game balance problems.  Which is OK for that style of game, but it makes it difficult to take that, and add tactics modules, and somehow arrive at a well balanced game.  And without balance, all that fancy tactics is for naught.



There is no reason that a simpler game should be harder to balance than more complex ones. Quite the reverse, in fact. If there are OSR games that are unbalanced, that's not due to their simplicity.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> There is no reason that a simpler game should be harder to balance than more complex ones. Quite the reverse, in fact. If there are OSR games that are unbalanced, that's not due to their simplicity.




Yes, simpler games tend to be easier to balance.  _If encounter/class balance is an actual design goal._  Which is often not really the case in OSR games.  And even if it is, balance for a CaW-focused game (heavy exploration/interaction and strategy, light on tactics) is very different than for a CaS-focused game (heavy on deep tactics).

I'm concerned that old-school D&D ideas like "Wizards are awesome because they're _magic_" and "Wizards use Vancian casting" will be backed into Core, and it will be hard to turn that into a game focused on tactically deep, well-balanced combat encounters.


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## Li Shenron (Mar 19, 2012)

Henry said:


> Me, I want a D&D option (that says "D&D" on the cover, to quell skittishness) that I can break out to new players who have never played an RPG before, when I say, "Have you ever played D&D before?" and they "no", I can say "would you like to play? It only takes about an hour to show you how. we'll play a game."




That's totally my feeling... I've got a long list of non-gamer friends whom I'd love to play D&D with, but the entry barrier has always been too high.


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## Mark CMG (Mar 19, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> They've been talking about making D&D more like TV off and on, so this move makes sense.





Yeah, a movie that was just a single 2 1/2 hour combat might not do too well.


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## Crazy Jerome (Mar 19, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The point is, if you have looked into the whole thing some, you can use the XP guidelines in 4e adventure-wide. All that would be needed in the DMG is a couple paragraphs on explaining that concept.




Right.  So in other words, exactly like treasure parcels are meant to work.  If someone tries to use them exactly as written, as a rule instead of a baseline approach, they are a terrible straight-jacket.  At best, following them exactly is a way for a beginner to practice until they get a feel for the system--training wheels, if you will.  Then when you feel confident, you vary things as you want--*within reason*. It's that last bolded part that keeps tripping people up, when it comes to mathematical guidelines. 

[MENTION=70707]dkyle[/MENTION], note that I did not say that such a system would be perfect in every way, and have no mathematical issues.  I was answering your objection that such a system is functionally useless.  It's not useless, but it does require a hefty dose of DM judgment.  The cruise control in my car is still useful, even if it doesn't work well on steep hills, much less function as "auto pilot".


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## Incenjucar (Mar 19, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Yeah, a movie that was just a single 2 1/2 hour combat might not do too well.




Aside from DBZ. 

Overall I'm ambivalent about this. I worry that they might take too much out of the core game in order to make this idea work, but if they can do this without affecting the rest of the game, hey, win for people who want this.


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## Mark CMG (Mar 19, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> Aside from DBZ. .





Well, I cannot say that I'm a follower or fan of DBZ.  What little I know of it didn't attract me as a viewer.  Do you think that 5E should, or some version of D&D does, emulate DBZ well?




Incenjucar said:


> Overall I'm ambivalent about this. I worry that they might take too much out of the core game in order to make this idea work, but if they can do this without affecting the rest of the game, hey, win for people who want this.





It might be that "core" means something different to some folks.  This is a new game, so they aren't taking anything out of its core though they might not be putting everything into it that some might feel should be core.  I think the plan is to make sure the options are there so that if someone feels something should be added that wasn't, they can add it themselves.  However, maybe I am not understanding your post?  Do you think that if something is available as an option that you could add to the core that would be worse than if others found it a struggle to try and remove the portion(s) you thought should be core?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 19, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Yeah, a movie that was just a single 2 1/2 hour combat might not do too well.



No one tell Michael Bay.


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## Tallifer (Mar 19, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> The one hour game is really a stress test.  A good GM can cram more into a session than an average GM.  If a good GM can make a one hour game work, then the average, tired, adult, weekday night GM can run a satisfying session in the two-and-a-half hours they have to run.




A one hour game is definitely good for little children or preoccupied adults. We played a Labyrinth Lord session in about two hours (and the much of the first was spent getting organized on Google plus).

However I do not want to see the Fifth Edition hampered too much by such considerations. I think that the D&D board games are better for such a market. Pathfinder is thriving among dedicated roleplayers, and it consumes enormous amounts of time to build characters, build encounters and run fights, as much as the Third or Fourth editions.


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## Minigiant (Mar 19, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Roleplay isn't limited. The beauty of minimal mechanics means you get _more_ roleplay time without giving up progressing with in-game activity rather than less.  Old school D&D was all about the silly.
> 
> Out of character banter and just fooling around will add time to any session,that isn't system specific.




Oh I know. I have great deals of fun playing Old School. But even then we never did everything in an hour.

I don't want to buy Old School D&D + New School Modules. I am just afraid that core might be going back to sacks of HP with some ability scores attached to them. And some characters can choose to use a smaller sack of HPs for some spells. Those games exist already.


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## mach1.9pants (Mar 19, 2012)

I love the idea, and even if not an hour just 2 or 3 for a fully fledged adventure would be great. As long as we can do simple combats on the less important fights and dial up the complexity for set pieces, that would be great!


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> [MENTION=70707]dkyle[/MENTION], note that I did not say that such a system would be perfect in every way, and have no mathematical issues.  I was answering your objection that such a system is functionally useless.  It's not useless, but it does require a hefty dose of DM judgment.  The cruise control in my car is still useful, even if it doesn't work well on steep hills, much less function as "auto pilot".




I don't expect it to be perfect.  But the problem with your suggested modification is that it makes it effectively the same as 4E's encounter design, just in a roundabout way.  That doesn't really argue in favor of Mike's Adventure XP pool idea as being viable, if the only way to make it work is to turn it into an encounter-based design.  I said a particular system was useless, and that it needed to account for encounters to work.  So, I guess, we're in agreement, since your counter argument was to make it account for encounters.

To continue the analogy with cruise control, it isn't that I think it's imperfect.  It's like if someone suggested that cars should have something where you can input an arrival time, and destination, and you'll just get there.  But, of course, we can't do automatic steering or turns yet, or collision avoidance, so the driver has to do that.  So we'll just assume those things, and have the car just figure out the right speed to maintain when on highways, and then we've just reinvented a more awkward to use cruise control.  The essence of the original vision was lost.  Your revision to the Adventure pool concept makes it fundamentally different, and not what I think Mike was suggesting.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 19, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Well, I cannot say that I'm a follower or fan of DBZ.  What little I know of it didn't attract me as a viewer.  Do you think that 5E should, or some version of D&D does, emulate DBZ well?




Hah, no on both accounts. DBZ has a few mechanics that D&D has always lacked (charging up attacks, etc), and its battles are infamously long (as in, several episodes long). 5E sounds more like Final Fantasy than DBZ.



> It might be that "core" means something different to some folks.  This is a new game, so they aren't taking anything out of its core though they might not be putting everything into it that some might feel should be core.  I think the plan is to make sure the options are there so that if someone feels something should be added that wasn't, they can add it themselves.  However, maybe I am not understanding your post?  Do you think that if something is available as an option that you could add to the core that would be worse than if others found it a struggle to try and remove the portion(s) you thought should be core?




The main thing with "core" is that the farther from the core system you go, the harder it is to bring people along with you, especially if digital tools are involved, unless the tools do ALL of the work for you. People love mods, but mods are automatic once applied and don't require modding your mind.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:
			
		

> You're post suggested that my issue with Adventure XP pools was grounded entirely (or at least almost entirely) in 4E. I don't think it is. The same issue comes up with wave-based encounters in 4E, and in every past edition of D&D. It would be folly for them to ignore it.




I think you're onto something. I think the problem might come in this:

XP can never be an accurate measure of a monster's challenge.

If XP is a precise measure of monster challenge, a monster alone should be worth less XP than a monster in a group, period. One orc? 25 XP. Four orcs? 100 XP each (or whatever). That's an issue with 4e right now: if you don't include the recommended quantity of critters, things get easier. 

This is part of D&D's general problem of trying to measure an encounter's toughness by individual monsters therein. It's nearly impossible. Four mages with fireball in a small room are more challenging than four mages with fireball in an open field. A big solo monster is less challenging in a party with 3 strikers than the exact same XP quantity of minions. Two monsters with synergistic abilities (say, a skirmisher and a controller that can inhibit movement, or a lurker with insubstantial and a controller that imposes weakness) are a much bigger challenge than two other random monsters. A creature with Vulnerable Radiant is much less of a challenge in a party with a laser cleric than in a party full of martial characters. There's so many variables that affect an individual encounter that even in 4e (which probably gets it the most right), XP value is only a rough approximation. 

So giving a precise measure of an individual entity's challenge is, clearly, a problem with no easy solution. To get it more accurate, you'd have to have a different XP total for every possible encounter, which is clearly a Sisyphean task: there are limitless possible encounters.

I'm not sure XP (or anything else) can be a measure of difficulty, reliably. It can be a rough approximation, but it can't get the details right.

So what if XP was a flexible reward, rather than a budget? What if the DM adjudicated the level of challenge overall, rather than with each specific monster? So the adventure guidelines would state that this is a Level 1 Adventure worth 300 XP, and the rules tell a DM what a level 1 Adventure's DC's an monster levels are, and the DM populates his adventure with as many skill checks and mosnters as he things should be "worth" that level of XP?

Since a DM is probably the best judge of what is actually a challenge for her particular party, I think that giving some broad guidelines and letting them figure out what happened might be a viable approach...perhaps...


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## KesselZero (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> If we assume a simple system where there's a set Adventure XP pool, and monsters have a set XP, and that's it (which is what I think Mike was going for), ignore unquantifiable things like ambush setups and terrain advantage, and assume the game looks anything like any edition of D&D, I don't see how 10 100XP encounters could be anywhere close to similarly as challenging (or resource consumptive) as 1 1000XP encounter. Facing 10 times as many monsters all at once is just inherently massively more difficult than facing them one at a time. It's not due to Encounter powers. A 4E "Encounter" could be built as 10 waves of 100XP, and it would still be trivial compared to the 1000XP all at once Encounter. DMG2 advises as such, that a Wave-structured encounter should have more total XP to be challenging.
> 
> I feel like this is self-evident, but I'll give an example. Suppose we expect that the party can kill one monster per round (and assume a simple per-side initiative). Assume 10 identical monsters, each dealing D damage per round.
> 
> ...




I see your point, and I will admit that my saying that the two variations on the 1000-XP budget could be identical in resource use was reductive. Of course it will be easier to take on smaller groups of monsters. But my experience has been that in 4e, it's even easier-er. That is, 4e is set up with the expectation that every encounter will be challenging; hence encounter powers, short rests, etc. So it tilts the balance even farther in the direction of the PCs totally dominating a lone foe or small group. Then the PCs get a short rest and are returned to full HP most of the time. If we think of something like 3e, where there are no encounter powers and far less healing, resources get spent at a much higher rate. So maybe the party will dominate against the first few lone monsters, but at a certain point the wizard's spells and the cleric's healing get used up, and then the math shifts so that the lone monster has a better chance of doing more than .5*D damage. This tilting point doesn't occur in 4e, at least not for quite some time, because anybody can spend healing surges at will between combats, and encounter powers will never run out.

Another issue is the huge number of hit points in 4e. It's necessary for exciting, engaging set-piece encounters, but again the ready availability of out-of-combat healing (not even taking into account encounter healing powers that give more than a surge's value) means that most PCs enter most encounters at or near full HP. Imagine if HP were cut down again-- if, as in your example, a monster's 1*D damage were enough to seriously hurt or kill a PC on a high roll. The party may only take a few hits, but if those hits account for a significant percentage of HP and can't be healed as easily, they'll add up. For example, I recently played Pathfinder after four solid years of 4e. Our caster used her single spell in the first combat, we ran out of healing quickly after that, and I was left praying that I didn't get hit for 3 damage because I'd be unconscious with no means of getting back up. In fact, the party ended up running from a single monster because we just didn't have the resources to take the chance that it would do its bit of damage before we killed it-- every HP counted.

Again, I do see your point, and I don't mean to be saying that there could ever be total parity between ten lone monsters and one group of ten. But some of the ways in which 4e is set up make a lone monster encounter far less meaningful than it has been in the past.


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## Ratskinner (Mar 19, 2012)

I really like this as a testing policy on their part. If the most stripped-down basic version can run through a simple adventure (including character gen) in an hour, then it makes it that much easier to run an adventure in 2-4 hours with some of the more complicated modules turned "on."  Its even better if (as has been suggested) the detail vs. speed dial can be turned up and down during an evening or adventure. 

I'm not what those who suggest that this is "too fast" are getting at. Seems to me that if one adventure can take an hour and I have three hours....three adventures works, yes?  That's not even taking into account table-talk, goof-offery, using more complicated modules, etc.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> I just don't see how you could even fit character creation, talking to the quest NPCs, exploration to the adventure site, exploration of the adventure site, a few little battles, and a boss battle all in an hour.




Well, 3E and 4E character creation takes forever without a computer program and quite a while with one.

When a player has to pick 1 of 50 feats and 4 of 50 powers, it takes some people a long time to figure that out.

If a lot more abilities of first level PCs are class features and fewer of them are spells or powers or feats where a selection process is required, then character creation at least can be sped up quite a bit.

But, the price one pays for having a lot of options is that it takes a long time to read through those options and select them. By definition.


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## KesselZero (Mar 19, 2012)

Reading over the posts here, there seems to be a slant to some that I don't totally get. That is, some folks seem to be reading Mike Mearls's original L&L post to mean that "one-hour adventures" are some sort of requirement, or mechanical benchmark, or fundamental unit. Folks are then saying "Well there's no way to play in an hour because of RPing and table talk," or "One-hour adventures would be too limiting to my play-style" and things like that.

I don't think MM has any intention of making one-hour adventures any sort of requirement. All I think he means when he says he wants the system to be able to support them is that they should be possible. A one-hour adventure in 4e, including character creation and multiple combats, isn't possible. (Maybe if you're playing with a small group of very experienced players who agree to speed combat along as much as possible.) Functionally impossible, let's say. All Mike is saying, as far as I can tell, is that the ability to do that, to have that option, is missing from the current version of D&D, and he'd like the upcoming version to have that capability. I don't think he means every DMG is going to ship with a stopwatch.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 19, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I'm not sure XP (or anything else) can be a measure of difficulty, reliably. It can be a rough approximation, but it can't get the details right.
> 
> So what if XP was a flexible reward, rather than a budget? What if the DM adjudicated the level of challenge overall, rather than with each specific monster? So the adventure guidelines would state that this is a Level 1 Adventure worth 300 XP, and the rules tell a DM what a level 1 Adventure's DC's an monster levels are, and the DM populates his adventure with as many skill checks and mosnters as he things should be "worth" that level of XP?
> 
> Since a DM is probably the best judge of what is actually a challenge for her particular party, I think that giving some broad guidelines and letting them figure out what happened might be a viable approach...perhaps...



I'm confused. Isn't this the way D&D has operated since the beginning, with DMs modifying XP rewards to more accurately reflect the challenges overcome?


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## Incenjucar (Mar 19, 2012)

It has some possible implications regarding the design of the overall system that might lead to a degraded experience for some players. If the game starts off a super-simple, super-fast game, it can take significant work to make it a complex, casual-paced game. Could, might, maybe, etc. But it's a valid concern.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 19, 2012)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I'm confused. Isn't this the way D&D has operated since the beginning, with DMs modifying XP rewards to more accurately reflect the challenges overcome?




Some people have a mental block when it comes to adjusting rules to suit particular situations. Some lack confidence, others find comfort in authority, some just don't think to do it, and so on.


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## Caster (Mar 19, 2012)

> "It is a difference in designing for scenes vs. designing for Acts."






> "Each of the 3 'adventures' would be chapters in a larger arc and each of those play sessions can be part of a larger arc and so on."




BINGO!  My interpretation of what Mearls is saying here is that whereas the Encounter (usually combat in 4e but maybe a skill-challenge or NPC encounter) was the previous focus design point, the Adventure will replace this vision.

Just like 4e play was a string of Encounters linked together to tell a single story, DNDN will string Adventures together to achieve the same effect.  The (important) differences will be that the Adventure baseline includes more events or options than does the 4e Encounter.

Look at his example - in about an hour (for the moment let's not include character creation (as it won't happen EVERY session will it?) and the normal side chatter that makes these games a social experience as well) his players characters:

- Bought a treasure map from a halfling. (Interaction)

- traveled through a forest to the purported location of an orc lord's tomb. (Exploration)

- Dodged a few traps in the tomb and solved a puzzle needed to gain access to the inner sanctum. (Exploration)

- Battled skeletons that ambushed them. (Combat)

- And then defeated the vengeful spirit of the orc lord and the animated statues that guarded his tomb. (Interaction (?)/Combat)

- With the orc lord laid to his final rest, the characters claimed his magical axe and a small cache of gems. (XP rewards)

Now, is this the end of the story as a whole?  I'd wager probably not.  It is merely one piece in on ongoing narrative.  An Encounter was a very narrowly defined piece but an Adventure is going to be a much broader one.

If you look at the 4e system you can see that it is chock full of Encounter related rules because the entire premise is that Encounters are going to be the bread and butter of your gameplay.  They decided that the Encounter was king and went with that.

What excites me is thinking about how making the Adventure king will change everything from character creation (and how characters interact mechanically with the game world) to combat and exploration (and everything else) across the board.

I also think that we can take his "D&D in an hour" premise with a pinch of salt.  Maybe those no-nonsense Uber-Design Gurus can do all that in an hour but if it took me and my friends two hours or even an evenings play to accomplish all of the above then I'd be a happy camper.

Dave

P.S. Just in case I wasn't 100% clear the real game changer is making the Adventure the basic component in DNDN and building the ruleset to reflect that premise.


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## Minigiant (Mar 19, 2012)

[MENTION=6689976]KesselZero[/MENTION]

I don't think anyone is saying that the game is forcing one hour games. Many are just guessing that the only way a hour hour adventure is possible is if the core is very very bare of rules and complexity.

If so, there are serious implications to this.


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## dkyle (Mar 19, 2012)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I'm confused. Isn't this the way D&D has operated since the beginning, with DMs modifying XP rewards to more accurately reflect the challenges overcome?




Quest XP was pretty standard, I think, but I didn't think adjusting combat XP was all that common.  But my experience with early D&D is very limited.

Of course, very early on, most XP was from treasure, and that was tied directly to what treasure table the monster you fought had.

But the salient issue is that XP wasn't always an "encounter design" tool.  It was a reward, nothing more or less.  Creating "fair" encounters wasn't really the point.  If the random encounter table says you encounter "Orcs", then you roll for how many.  It could be 1.  Or it could be hundreds.

In 3.5, we got the CR system, but it didn't work very well.  It was confusing, and general game balance problems made it rather superfluous.

XP as measure of challenge was new for 4E.  And I think it works quite well.  But it relies on a few important assumptions: an encounter will have total XP of (standard monster XP of level [party level +/- 4]) * party size, that monsters will not deviate more than 7 levels from the party, that monsters are present and free to act from the start, and that parties will get short rests between them.  Those are important assumptions, because it forms a context the monster will be used in; how big of an encounter it'll be part of.

The problem in the L&L article is with trying to generalize that to Adventure XP pools, and have that XP value make sense whether the monster is alone, or in a group with a bunch of others.  And I don't think that really works.  Once you take away that encounter context, a simple XP amount is not a good measure of challenge.  Adding in some kind of "overhead" XP, counted against that Adventure pool, for additional monsters per encounter could work, but then we're basically back to Encounter-based design, which is what a lot of traditional D&D players don't like, and what I think Mike was trying to avoid.

In addition, if that Overhead XP is purely DM judgement, then I don't think there's much point in having the system.  If you standardize on assumptions of monsters per encounter and encounters per adventure, then you're basically just back to 4E-style encounter design.


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## trancejeremy (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> Quest XP was pretty standard, I think, but I didn't think adjusting combat XP was all that common.  But my experience with early D&D is very limited.
> 
> Of course, very early on, most XP was from treasure, and that was tied directly to what treasure table the monster you fought had.
> 
> But the salient issue is that XP wasn't always an "encounter design" tool.  It was a reward, nothing more or less.  Creating "fair" encounters wasn't really the point.  If the random encounter table says you encounter "Orcs", then you roll for how many.  It could be 1.  Or it could be hundreds.




Well, the one thing that I think it missed in modern D&D, is that you weren't supposed to fight everything.

That's one of the big shifts of the game (along with giving Clerics healing spells every single level, rather than just 1 and 4th-6th) that didn't look obvious at first.

Because XP was largely tied to treasure, and you didn't get all that much from just fighting, you tried to avoid wandering monsters (and unnecessary fights).


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## KesselZero (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> @KesselZero
> 
> I don't think anyone is saying that the game is forcing one hour games. Many are just guessing that the only way a hour hour adventure is possible is if the core is very very bare of rules and complexity.
> 
> If so, there are serious implications to this.




I totally agree, but I take this as a positive rather than a negative. It will be quite different from 4e, which is very complex from the get-go. Assuming that 5e succeeds at its stated goals, we'll have a system with both simple and complex options, both of which should work well for the sorts of games folks want to play with them. 4e doesn't have a simple option. What I'm responding to in my original post is the idea that 5e having a simple core will harm the ability to play complex adventures or encounters. Again, assuming that the designers do what they say they intend to do, it shouldn't matter that the core is very rules-light and you want a complex game-- you should just be able to add it on.


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 19, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> I don't want to buy Old School D&D + New School Modules. I am just afraid that core might be going back to sacks of HP with some ability scores attached to them. And some characters can choose to use a smaller sack of HPs for some spells. Those games exist already.




No other D&D is really any different. The only changes are the time it takes to deflate those bags of hitpoints. D&D combat is abstract. The choice you have is to handle it quickly or drag it out over a longer period.


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## Hassassin (Mar 19, 2012)

dkyle said:


> Quest XP was pretty standard, I think, but I didn't think adjusting combat XP was all that common.




Can't remember what AD&D books say, but 3e DMG certainly tells you to adjust the EL and/or XP award for encounters that are easier or more difficult than expected due to something outside the PCs' control. (As opposed to encounters that they overcome easily due to smart strategy.)



dkyle said:


> But it relies on a few important assumptions: an encounter will have total XP of (standard monster XP of level [party level +/- 4]) * party size, that monsters will not deviate more than 7 levels from the party[...]




Actually, monsters are supposed to be no more than four levels lower or seven levels higher. The average of the range is above the party level, because the math is slanted in the PCs' favor.



dkyle said:


> Once you take away that encounter context, a simple XP amount is not a good measure of challenge.




Don't tell me there aren't (sometimes significant) differences in the difficulty of e.g. 1k XP encounters in 4e. There are always a lot of factors that play into it, so it is only a baseline. As a baseline it should work even for adventures, as long as that's how they design it.


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## Radiating Gnome (Mar 19, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> No other D&D is really any different. The only changes are the time it takes to deflate those bags of hitpoints. D&D combat is abstract. The choice you have is to handle it quickly or drag it out over a longer period.




For me, the key to fun is player choice.  If we abstract the game down the the point where it's just a matter of taking turns, rolling attacks and seeing who gets to a destination number of HP fastest, I'm convinced that is not a good time for players.  They need to have choices to make.

Choices, though, give the players the opportunity to be creative.  Even if it's incredibly simple, and it's a choice between two different possible attacks, the opportunity to make the choice is the key.  

The full-blown 4e set-piece encounter is a festival of player choices.  Where to move, how to get there, what resource to use, whom to attack, and so on. 

The trick is that not ever combat needs to be that sort of set-piece.  In 4e, we end up often ignoring smaller encounters because we don't want to invest the time it would take to play it out. So, this lower-complexity encounter idea is great so long as it preserves some choices for the players to make. 

-rg


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## KidSnide (Mar 20, 2012)

Radiating Gnome said:


> For me, the key to fun is player choice.  If we abstract the game down the the point where it's just a matter of taking turns, rolling attacks and seeing who gets to a destination number of HP fastest, I'm convinced that is not a good time for players.  They need to have choices to make.
> 
> Choices, though, give the players the opportunity to be creative.  Even if it's incredibly simple, and it's a choice between two different possible attacks, the opportunity to make the choice is the key.
> 
> ...




I completely agree that player choice is the key part of combat, although I'll add the caveat that it's the presence of an _interesting_ player choice that matters.  "Heads or tails" is a choice, but it's rarely an interesting choice since you lack the knowledge to make an informed decision.

Combat length interacts with the "interesting choice" issue in two ways.  First, the choices made in the combat are only interesting if they matter.  Because many 4e combats have foregone conclusions and many of the resources reset (e.g. encounter powers), many tactical choices that could be interesting cease to be that way because they don't really matter.  Yes, a more efficient defeat of the enemy might leave you with one more healing surge, but if you're a character who's not going to run out anyway, who really cares?

Second, it doesn't matter how many interesting choices you have _per combat_.  What matters is how many interesting choices you have _per hour of play_.  Sure, your tactically interesting combat may have 12 really cool interesting choices over the two hours you spent playing it out.  But if I can manage 5-6 encounters in that time with 4-5 interesting decisions each, I can deliver a game experience with more fulfilling player choice even if each individual encounter is less interesting.

It's this second part that really does it for me.  I would love to have combat that is half as satisfying, if I can run through it in a quarter of the time.  Also, speaking just for myself, I like the 4e combat mini-game, but I enjoy the decisions involved in interaction and exploration more than I enjoy the decisions involved in even an interesting tactical combat.  So for me, a game that lets me spend more time interacting and exploring is a big win.

-KS


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## Buugipopuu (Mar 20, 2012)

I'm skeptical of 'one hour adventures' as a design goal.  In a four player game, even fitting in a session of the simplest games (indie RPGs whose entire rules fit on five sides of A4, and character sheets that would fit in a text message) into an hour is difficult.  Even with no rules at all, four players introducing their characters and the DM introducing the setting and setting the scene and describing the starting location will eat up a lot of your one hour regardless of what system you're playing in.


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## Radiating Gnome (Mar 20, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> Combat length interacts with the "interesting choice" issue in two ways.  First, the choices made in the combat are only interesting if they matter.  Because many 4e combats have foregone conclusions and many of the resources reset (e.g. encounter powers), many tactical choices that could be interesting cease to be that way because they don't really matter.  Yes, a more efficient defeat of the enemy might leave you with one more healing surge, but if you're a character who's not going to run out anyway, who really cares?




By and large I agree, but I think many players -- including me as a player -- enjoy the challenge of trying to eke out a little more damage, the super cool combination, the unexpected move -- and it's a reality that the more you throttle down the tactical complexity of the encounter, the more difficult you make that particular challenge.  If we're playing an encounter without minis and a map, it's a lot less satisfying to tumble into a flank for an action point fueled double sneak attack. You may still be able to do it, with the DM's permission, but it's a lot less satisfying when you haven't _earned _it with tactical maneuvering.  



KidSnide said:


> Second, it doesn't matter how many interesting choices you have _per combat_.  What matters is how many interesting choices you have _per hour of play_.




As I said above, I think there's a quality issue here in addition to quantity.  It's one thing if it matters, but you need to start asking how much it matters.  

I know that, at least for our group -- majority very wargamy group -- they love the highly tactical encounters because they can study the tactical situation, and squeeze out cool maneuvers and make things happen essentially outside of the DM's control.  The more tactically detailed the system, the more the power at the table shifts towards the players.  They probably never quite get to 50% control over the action at the table, but in a very abstract, no minis system the players and their tactics are subject to the limits and vagaries of the DM's imagination.  In your case, that may be totally fine, but I'm less interested in playing a game that's all in the DM's head than I am one that that's more concretely modeled for me (through minis, etc). 




KidSnide said:


> It's this second part that really does it for me.  I would love to have combat that is half as satisfying, if I can run through it in a quarter of the time.  Also, speaking just for myself, I like the 4e combat mini-game, but I enjoy the decisions involved in interaction and exploration more than I enjoy the decisions involved in even an interesting tactical combat.  So for me, a game that lets me spend more time interacting and exploring is a big win.




See, we're very close -- I want to be able to run about half my encounters at a quarter the time so I can tell more story with them, and still be able to have my big deal slugfests 1-2 per session. 

-rg


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## howandwhy99 (Mar 20, 2012)

article said:
			
		

> In about 45 minutes of play, we created an entire party of adventurers (dwarf fighter, human magic-user, halfling thief), kicked off an adventure with the characters just outside of a ruined keep, and explored six different rooms in a small dungeon. That exploration included two battles with goblins and hobgoblins. We played at a fairly relaxed pace. There was plenty of roleplaying between the characters and frequent questions on the rules as the players navigated both basic D&D and my house rules.





> You should be able to play a complete adventure in an hour.




I like the article, but that's not an adventure in my mind. That's one hour of a nice game session where the players were focused on playing throughout.

B2 Keep on the Borderlands has the bog standard town & wilderness & dungeon design. 6 rooms, 2 combats, and some conversation does not mean we've sussed out enough of the module starting design to get bored and move on. If it did, we found we weren't really interested in the first place. Short module then, short night.


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## Fanaelialae (Mar 20, 2012)

dkyle said:


> Quest XP was pretty standard, I think, but I didn't think adjusting combat XP was all that common.  But my experience with early D&D is very limited.
> 
> Of course, very early on, most XP was from treasure, and that was tied directly to what treasure table the monster you fought had.
> 
> ...




In all fairness, DM judgment will always play some role, but I think you're right in that it isn't sufficient. While an experienced DM might be able to eyeball the difficulty of a non-standard encounter, a newb will almost certainly be unable to do so. 

That said, I think it is feasible to create a system that reasonably balances 10 fights in the same day with 1 big fight. I don't expect it to be perfect, but as long as it works most of the time, I'd be happy. 

The reason IMO that XP works better than CR is that it is more nuanced. One CR up or down is a large jump in power; you could even often add extra lower CR creatures to an encounter for "free". 

As I said, XP is more nuanced. A low xp creature might be a low level creature or a higher level minion, for example. If you add a lower level creature into an encounter, the xp total still increases (unless the DM rules that the creature's presence is negligible). Of course, although it's pretty good, 4e encounter design is by no means perfect. 

Perhaps then, what we need is an even more nuanced approach to encounter design. It might be a table, it might be a formula, I don't rightly know. But the way I envision it, this method would distinguish between the big fight and numerous little fights, and adjust xp accordingly. 

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that 10 encounters with 5 creatures drains roughly the same resources as 1 encounter with 25 creatures. You'd then decide what kind of encounter you want to run, look it up in the table, and find the xp value (which you'd then deduct from the adventure total). So you might decide on two 5 creature encounters (100xp per encounter), and one 15 creature encounter (500 xp), with some xp left over for non-combat challenges.

In a sense, it's like layering aspects of the CR system over the xp system, in order to (hopefully) come away with a more precise metric for judging the difficulty of encounters.


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## Minigiant (Mar 20, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> No other D&D is really any different. The only changes are the time it takes to deflate those bags of hitpoints. D&D combat is abstract. The choice you have is to handle it quickly or drag it out over a longer period.




Weeeelll...Hit point damage is the chump method to victory after level 5 or so in 3.5.

I like the goal but I don't think more than maybe 10% of the 5E players will ever play the raw blankness needed to play a 1 hour game.


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## KidSnide (Mar 20, 2012)

Radiating Gnome said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > It's this second part that really does it for me.  I would love to have combat that is half as satisfying, if I can run through it in a quarter of the time.
> ...




Very close indeed.  I love ending my adventures with a massive, tactically-ineresting slugfest too.  It's the non-climatic, 4th-in-a-row slugfests that I could do without.

In any case, I completely agree that a satisfying D&DN needs to include the ability to have these long-lasting, complicated, tactical combats.  I just think that resolving less important combats faster can be super-valuable for the overall adventure experience.

And, yes, "how many combats are important" is going to be a question that will vary table-by-table.  If combat isn't a big deal for your game, you might decide that no combats are important enough to be worth the trouble of learning the more complicated rules.  If combat is the center of your game, you might choose to use tactical resolution for everything.  I suspect that most of us are in the middle, where we prefer some tactical combat and some faster-resolving non-tactical combat.

Either way, I think being able to run a 1 hour adventure is a good way of testing the fast-and-light version of the rules.

-KS


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## KidSnide (Mar 20, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> I like the goal but I don't think more than maybe 10% of the 5E players will ever play the raw blankness needed to play a 1 hour game.




I don't think more than 10% of the 5E GMs will ever have the mental focus and time management skill to get through a 1 hour game in less than 90 minutes.  

-KS


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 20, 2012)

Bingo, man. Bingo. Seven Minute Abs!


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## GM Dave (Mar 20, 2012)

Did people notice the 'Race' 'Class' combos?

This is standard thinking now but for 1981 rules the dwarf would not need to be the fighter or the halfling be the thief.  They were closely associated with these roles but they were separate race and classes.

This would show some of the modeling that has occurred with the generation rules to make sure 1st level is a selection of a race separate from class.


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## Lanefan (Mar 20, 2012)

A "budget" for how much XP an adventure will be worth is, to me, way too much pre-planning.  XP should only come from what the characters actually do, both in terms of challenges defeated (or avoided, in some cases) and missions accomplished...and going in to any adventure - unless it's an absolute railroad - there is no way of knowing what the characters will do with it, whether they'll explore everything or not, and so on.

As for the one-hour game, while it sounds nice in principle I hope this is all merely the designers' way of saying "the game will play faster", as I want the game to be able to support multi-year campaigns and long adventures within same.  In other words, if it plays faster I can get 80 adventures into a 10-year campaign instead of 60. 

Lan-"4 years and counting on the current one"-efan


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## Kynn (Mar 20, 2012)

I must be weird or something, because I don't see one-hour adventures as desirable in any way.


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## Caster (Mar 20, 2012)

Kynn said:


> I must be weird or something, because I don't see one-hour adventures as desirable in any way.





I really just think this is a wording issue - and I agree that they can come up with a better term for what they are hoping to achieve.  But, as I understand it, what they mean by 'Adventure' is NOT a complete campaign or even, say, a complete old-school 'module' but a building block, a design concept, that includes the Three Pillars (Combats, Exploration, and (NPC) Interaction.)

So, if they get the ruleset tweaked right, it should be possible to complete a single Adventure Block in about an hour (grain of salt there).  However, if you should like it to play slower for you and your group then that is fine also.

It's a design goal and a guideline but not the law as it were.

A single gaming session may consist of players running through two, three, or even four or five Adventure Blocks.  Each built around consistent XP maximums available to be earned by the PC's and used as a (measurement of) difficulty level for the DM in the construction phase.

The underlying idea seeming to be whereas, with 4e, a single gaming session may have only consisted of one or two combat Encounters exclusively, a DNDN session will be built around including a little bit of everything, making for a more varied and fun gaming experience.

I'm a bit of a loss as to nomenclature at the moment.  'Encounter' primarily seems to be equated with combat as does 'Delve' conjure up Dungeon Crawling.  'Adventure' seems to be to all-encompasing as evidenced by the confusion in this thread.

I can well imagine blocking out the outline of a story with adventure hooks, making a map and seeding it with Adventure Modules chock full of Three Pillars goodness and letting the PC's roam the map freeform advancing from levels 1 to 5 in the process.

Will this be a 5e possibility?  Here's hoping.

Dave


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## Incenjucar (Mar 20, 2012)

It's basically just superfast D&D encounters. There was, what, two actual encounters and some minor skill challenges? You could probably do that in 4E with the right group and the right setup.


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## Caster (Mar 20, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> It's basically just superfast D&D encounters. There was, what, two actual encounters and some minor skill challenges? You could probably do that in 4E with the right group and the right setup.




Actually, I don't think that is an accurate assessment at all.  4e is ENTIRELY designed and built around the conceit that the (primarily combat) Encounter is the single most important element of the game.  EVERYTHING else in the rules from character design to gameplay and adventure/campaign construction follows from that basic premise.

Now imagine what the rules (yes, all of them) of 5e will have to look like to support the idea that the Three Pillars collectively - as conceptualized by the One-Hour Adventure - is the single most important element in the game.

I think they will look like something that is very different from what currently makes up the ruleset for 4e.

If you have time, go back and re-read all the blogs and columns regarding 5e mechanics that we've seen so far with the new knowledge of what the Design Team's Mission Statement seems to be (i.e. the One-Hour Adventure premise.) It was a bit of an eye-opener for me as the logic behind things that confused me before clicked into place.

Dave


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## Incenjucar (Mar 20, 2012)

I've read all the blogs and entries.

The 1-hour thing just makes it sound like they plan to gloss over everything like it's a checklist rather than get deep into it.

4E's rules are mostly about encounters - scenes, really. Like a movie. Or a novel. Or life. 5E seems to be about what amounts to a cliff notes or soundbite method.


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## Mattachine (Mar 20, 2012)

I didn't take away that they want the "1 hour" adventure as the design space, but the "short adventure". They had a 1 hour adventure using a simple rules set with a well experienced and focused group.


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## Hassassin (Mar 20, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> 4E's rules are mostly about encounters - scenes, really. Like a movie.




Do you think most movies are "about" scenes?


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## Blue (Mar 20, 2012)

I don't mind speeding up combats, but this sounds like they stripped everything else down to a bare-bones format as well.  RP to introduce characters?  RP with the halfling about the map?  Various ways to search for information about the map ("smart play", as Monte put it recently talking about Vancian magic)?

An hour could easily be used up with the RP and search more more information, especially with the rogue using streetwise and the DM laying pipe for another adventure, the mage going to a library or sage and finding out something important, and the cleric consulting the holy archives and meeting an important NPC for later in the campaign.

Basic D&D character creation was roll 3d6 six times, pick a race/class, buy equipment, roll HPs, and maybe pick a spell as opposed to richer character creation experiences any modern RPG needs to deliver.  This is an interesting experiment of what was state of the art 30 years ago and could help us remember our roots, but not something that should be realized in a fully-fleshed-out RPG of today that's a worthy successor of 3.5 and 4e, both excellent games with different strengths.  If that's the game we want to play, it's already available as Basic D&D for anyone who wants it.


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## Blackwarder (Mar 20, 2012)

I think that there is one major thing that we are missing with MM comment about advantures budget vs. encounter budget.

To my understanding, the main idea behind an advantures budget is to promote gameplay that is built around the three pillars of D&D, so for example having traps in a dungeon decoupled from major battles could make a come back, or that being able to talk your way out of combat should also be a viable option. But if that's is true that it suggest that the entire resource model of 5e need to be able to make sure that scattered encounters like that be meaningful.

I have no idea how they intend to do it, how do you make sure that the 1d6 points of damage your PC suffered when it fell into the pit trap won't be surge off with no appearing harm? 

I think that basic 5e is not going to use encounter powers and healing surges to the extant we've seen in 4e, it will probably make an appearance as a module but it won't be part of the core game.

Warder


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## Scribble (Mar 20, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> I've read all the blogs and entries.
> 
> The 1-hour thing just makes it sound like they plan to gloss over everything like it's a checklist rather than get deep into it.
> 
> 4E's rules are mostly about encounters - scenes, really. Like a movie. Or a novel. Or life. 5E seems to be about what amounts to a cliff notes or soundbite method.




Well one portion of 5e possibly.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 20, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> I have no idea how they intend to do it, how do you make sure that the 1d6 points of damage your PC suffered when it fell into the pit trap won't be surge off with no appearing harm?
> 
> I think that basic 5e is not going to use encounter powers and healing surges to the extant we've seen in 4e, it will probably make an appearance as a module but it won't be part of the core game.




This is exactly right.

Traps and random encounters suffered a bit in 3E and to a much greater extent in 4E because their effects could be "fixed" right afterwards.  In 3E it was the extremely cheap 50-charge Cure Light Wounds wand, and in 4E it was the healing surge.  In both cases, any damage suffered from the trap or random encounter could be healed away, bringing the PC back to full.  All that was lost was a resource that would eventually cause problems at some unknown point down the line.  The wand would run out of charges, or the PC would run out of healing surges.  But when that would happen and how many encounter into the adventure the party would get was hard to say.

For traps and random encounters to be truly useful... they have to be scary in their own right as well as a possible way to get actually hurt that can't be washed away.  And the rules have to be set up that that PCs will have to live with the hurt until the end of the day/extended rest.  Thus, the trap/random encounter has actual consequences.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 20, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> This is exactly right.
> 
> Traps and random encounters suffered a bit in 3E and to a much greater extent in 4E because their effects could be "fixed" right afterwards.  In 3E it was the extremely cheap 50-charge Cure Light Wounds wand, and in 4E it was the healing surge.  In both cases, any damage suffered from the trap or random encounter could be healed away, bringing the PC back to full.  All that was lost was a resource that would eventually cause problems at some unknown point down the line.  The wand would run out of charges, or the PC would run out of healing surges.  But when that would happen and how many encounter into the adventure the party would get was hard to say.
> 
> For traps and random encounters to be truly useful... they have to be scary in their own right as well as a possible way to get actually hurt that can't be washed away.  And the rules have to be set up that that PCs will have to live with the hurt until the end of the day/extended rest.  Thus, the trap/random encounter has actual consequences.




I disagree. I am fond of traps. I use them all the time in my 4e adventures, and they are perfectly useful and significant. Losing a healing surge is not insignificant. Sure, the main consequence of that may be down the road, but so is the main consequence of losing some hit points! Of course you could be implying that traps should be deadly or disabling. OK, but nothing in 4e prevents that, nor in 3e either.

Traps can have 'operational' significance. This includes losing surges, but it could also include all sorts of other things. It could include alerting the enemy to your presence. It could include being forced to take a different path. It could include large consequences. Traps can also have 'tactical' significance within an encounter. They could even have 'strategic' significance when setting them off sends the adventure off in a significantly different direction (say a teleporter trap or something like that). 

What 4e minimizes is something that you probably don't want anyway. That is the "oh, that door was trapped, gotcha!" nonsense. Those WILL still drain resources by causing damage of course, but they were never really a very good way to design things. If you're going to have stand-alone traps they should either represent an interesting and significant challenge in and of themselves, like a stress trap or something or they should present a tactical challenge. The tactical challenge can come in a few different flavors. For instance a trap could set up for other traps, or it could be that later on you'll have a fight in that area, etc. Consider the traps in the famous Indiana Jones temple sequence. They're not really significant except atmospherically until they're turned into a gauntlet later in the scene. At that point they're entirely significant.


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## KidSnide (Mar 20, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I disagree. I am fond of traps. I use them all the time in my 4e adventures, and they are perfectly useful and significant. Losing a healing surge is not insignificant. Sure, the main consequence of that may be down the road, but so is the main consequence of losing some hit points! Of course you could be implying that traps should be deadly or disabling. OK, but nothing in 4e prevents that, nor in 3e either.
> 
> Traps can have 'operational' significance. This includes losing surges, but it could also include all sorts of other things. It could include alerting the enemy to your presence. It could include being forced to take a different path. It could include large consequences. Traps can also have 'tactical' significance within an encounter. They could even have 'strategic' significance when setting them off sends the adventure off in a significantly different direction (say a teleporter trap or something like that).




Good design can always get around the limitations of the system, but it's still fair for DMs to want 15 points of damage between encounters to have _some_ effect.  It's always better when a dungeon has enough internal logic that setting off a trap affects the rest of the environment, but a boring mediocre trap shouldn't be a nullity.

For what it's worth, I tend to think that random damage traps were more meaningless in 3.x (at least 3.x with CLW wands) than 4e.  But even if 4e, there tend to be characters for whom healing surges are a meaningful resource and characters who have enough that they're never the ones running out.  I've had players who have been playing the same PC since 4e came out without ever running out of healing surges.  Doing a healing surge worth of damage to a characters with "plenty" isn't really meaningful.

-KS


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 20, 2012)

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> 4E's rules are mostly about encounters - scenes, really. Like a movie. Or a novel. Or life. 5E seems to be about what amounts to a cliff notes or soundbite method.




I can watch a complete episode of Adventure Time in eleven minutes with more D&D goodness than I actually get playing D&D for eleven minutes in 4e.

While I don't expect a game involving 6 people to be quite as efficient as a cartoon in delivering the awesome, I need to get much closer than a 45-minute combat will let me get. Ain't got time for that.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 20, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> Good design can always get around the limitations of the system, but it's still fair for DMs to want 15 points of damage between encounters to have _some_ effect.  It's always better when a dungeon has enough internal logic that setting off a trap affects the rest of the environment, but a boring mediocre trap shouldn't be a nullity.
> 
> For what it's worth, I tend to think that random damage traps were more meaningless in 3.x (at least 3.x with CLW wands) than 4e.  But even if 4e, there tend to be characters for whom healing surges are a meaningful resource and characters who have enough that they're never the ones running out.  I've had players who have been playing the same PC since 4e came out without ever running out of healing surges.  Doing a healing surge worth of damage to a characters with "plenty" isn't really meaningful.
> 
> -KS




Yeah, it can. I think mostly it is a question there of what is more valuable? The ability to make less interesting traps have an immediate effect easily, or providing an elegant way of both dinging the PC's resources and yet generally keeping all the PC's 'in the game' for most of the action.

Lets imagine that the rogue muffs a 'check for traps' and gets whacked and falls down dead from a trap on a door. What really happened there? One of the players just got booted from the scenario and it wasn't exactly a dramatic exit. If all that happened is they were 'wounded' then at a general level the situation isn't really different in one edition from another. Play goes on and said character has less resources, or the healer has less, etc. 

It seems to me that the question here is more about HOW MANY resources the character's have. I mean I can see arguments for having more or less HS or whatever. If 5e wants to bring those numbers down some, well, that could certainly work. I just don't think I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 20, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I disagree. I am fond of traps. I use them all the time in my 4e adventures, and they are perfectly useful and significant. Losing a healing surge is not insignificant. Sure, the main consequence of that may be down the road, but so is the main consequence of losing some hit points! Of course you could be implying that traps should be deadly or disabling. OK, but nothing in 4e prevents that, nor in 3e either.




Believe me, I used traps in my 4E games as well... but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that unless traps are powered up _to be_ deadly or disabling (in other words, designed to possibly disable or kill a PC outright)... any damage suffered doesn't get "washed away" once the trap has gone off (provided the group has a few minutes afterwards to recover.)

The main difference between lost healing surges 'down the road' and lost hit points 'down the road' is that those lost hit points from the trap lower the total pool of hit points in the party you need to design your next fight around.  The same encounter the party next faces becomes more of a threat, because their hit point pool is less.  As a DM, you don't have to wade through ALL of the party's hit points in an effort to make an encounter seem challenging (which basically means trying to get them to 0).  Thus, anything that can be done to help speed up combat (at least in my opinion) is a good thing.

So for example... if the party is invading a cave with a trap followed by a band of orcs... if the two encounters _combined_ cause damage together that might be a significant challenge (because damage suffered during the trap is still there when facing the orcs)... that makes the combat with the orcs faster.  As opposed to a trap which causes damage but which is instantly erased by the spending of healing surges, followed by the orc fight with the PCs back to full hit points.

Dealing with the trap in both cases took the same amount of time... but the fight versus the orcs was longer in the second scenario, because the DM had to use more powerful or a higher number of orcs to challenge them.  Thus the monsters _also_ have more hit points the party has to whittle down to end the encounter.  What might've been a 3 round fight because both the party and monsters had lower HP pools... now has to be a 5 round fight because of all the extra HP floating around.

********

It all comes down to the total number of hit points a PC or party has at their disposal between 'days' or 'extended rests'.  In 1E/2E... you had the PC's HP total and the couple(?) of healing spells the cleric might have prayed for for the day.  In 3E, you had the PC's hit points plus whatever hit points regained from the cleric's healing spells plus what you got from the use of healing wands.  In 4E, it's all of the PC's hit points plus anywhere from 6 to 12 healing surges of HP per character, of which 1 Second Wind per PC and 2 Healing Words _at minimum_ are probably expected to show up.  That's a LOT of hit points to have to wade through in an effort to make an encounter seem challenging.  It's not insurmountable by any means... but it's also not usually _quickly_ done.


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## KidSnide (Mar 20, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Lets imagine that the rogue muffs a 'check for traps' and gets whacked and falls down dead from a trap on a door. What really happened there? One of the players just got booted from the scenario and it wasn't exactly a dramatic exit. If all that happened is they were 'wounded' then at a general level the situation isn't really different in one edition from another. Play goes on and said character has less resources, or the healer has less, etc.
> 
> It seems to me that the question here is more about HOW MANY resources the character's have. I mean I can see arguments for having more or less HS or whatever. If 5e wants to bring those numbers down some, well, that could certainly work. I just don't think I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.




I think that's right.  With regards to traps, it's about how many resources and how they regenerate.  In different ways, 3e and 4e both had problems where healing was sufficiently plentiful to make damage between encounters mostly irrelevant to the PCs.  Compare to BECMI / 1e / 2e, where healing resources were limited enough that the players wouldn't shrug off that kind of damage.  If D&DN is seeking to gather the best elements of the various editions, I would go back to more limited healing.

(As an aside, 3.x plays fine with respect to healing if your PCs don't make use of CLW wands.  For whatever reason, that meme never reached my group and so I only experienced "damage irrelevancy" in Living Greyhawk.)

-KS


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## Incenjucar (Mar 20, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I can watch a complete episode of Adventure Time in eleven minutes with more D&D goodness than I actually get playing D&D for eleven minutes in 4e.
> 
> While I don't expect a game involving 6 people to be quite as efficient as a cartoon in delivering the awesome, I need to get much closer than a 45-minute combat will let me get. Ain't got time for that.




Adventure Time consists almost entirely of minions, and usually only has two PCs and an NPC of the week. It also uses battle montages liberally, in place of actual combats, which are basically skill challenges.


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## TheFindus (Mar 20, 2012)

To go through a small adventure like the one Mr. Mearls described in only one hour is a desireable goal in my opinion. If you don't have much time to play you can do something like this and still feel like you have accomplished something.
That is something to build on and is good for attracting new players who want to learn "what rpging feels like" in a short amount of time.

What I find interesting is that he did not say *how *the game was played. I am sure that I might not like the idea that much if I read the actual gameplay. In what way was tactical movement involved, how did they narrate the exploration of 6 rooms, etc.?

It will be interesting to see if the goal of a "1 hour adventure" can be sustained with some of the modules that they want to introduce to satisfy every kind of player. 

So the 1-hour-thing sounds all good, but I am not really sure of what it contains. There is always a price to be paid.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 20, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> I think that's right.  With regards to traps, it's about how many resources and how they regenerate.  In different ways, 3e and 4e both had problems where healing was sufficiently plentiful to make damage between encounters mostly irrelevant to the PCs.  Compare to BECMI / 1e / 2e, where healing resources were limited enough that the players wouldn't shrug off that kind of damage.  If D&DN is seeking to gather the best elements of the various editions, I would go back to more limited healing.
> 
> (As an aside, 3.x plays fine with respect to healing if your PCs don't make use of CLW wands.  For whatever reason, that meme never reached my group and so I only experienced "damage irrelevancy" in Living Greyhawk.)
> 
> -KS




There is really a significant difference between 3e and 4e though. In 3e the CLW wand is, at least for the purposes of the current adventure, effectively an infinite resource. 4e PC's healing surges are NOT infinite. They aren't even close to it. I see PCs down to or below their last surge quite often, pretty much in every adventure. Now, maybe the backrank warlock who put all his resources into being hard to hit and was shadow walking EVERY round for 5 levels didn't suffer from that too often, but just say 'stirge' around him and you'll find out real quick about the times it did. I could have easily beat on him more, but he liked playing that way and most monsters were happy enough to go beat on someone else with weaker defenses most of the time.

My point is I have yet to see 'damage irrelevancy' in 4e. I think its quite possible to reduce the incidence of healing further, and I think moving in that direction would be fine. I just think that you certainly did not have traps being irrelevant as some people would like to make it out as. Losing hit points was not just some incidental thing you brushed off. You might not be panicked because you lost 5 hit points, but you better pay attention or pretty soon you'll be imitating a certain rogue in my game who recently discovered that healing don't work so good when you have 0 surges... (the paladin obliged him, he survived, barely. The party went out of its way to get the paladin a Cloak of the Walking Wounded right after that to make sure she could soak damage all the time, lol).


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## LostSoul (Mar 20, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> 4e PC's healing surges are NOT infinite. They aren't even close to it. I see PCs down to or below their last surge quite often, pretty much in every adventure.




What do you do to keep the PCs from taking Extended Rests?

*

edit: Thinking about the "one-hour adventure", a good design goal (in my opinion) would be to go through a resource cycle in an hour.  By resource cycle I mean when you get to the point where your resources are low and you need to refresh them somehow - Extended Rest in 4E, a night's rest in 3E, multiple days in AD&D, etc.  The reason I think that would be a good goal is because, at that point, you can see the consequences of the choices you've made: "If I hadn't cast _Sleep_ early on we'd be able to keep going", etc.


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## KidSnide (Mar 20, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There is really a significant difference between 3e and 4e though. In 3e the CLW wand is, at least for the purposes of the current adventure, effectively an infinite resource. 4e PC's healing surges are NOT infinite. They aren't even close to it.




I don't deny that there is a significant difference between the CLW wand and the healing surge.  But that depends on game style.  

I haven't played or run many 4e games with more than 3-4 encounters in a day.  In that context, running out of healing surges is the type of thing that only happens to low-con melee strikers.  With slow combats and limited time, stressing PC endurance just isn't in the cards.  But if you play 3.x without CLW wands, clerics become worried about running out of spells (spells they would like to cast offensively!) a lot sooner.

-KS


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 20, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> I don't deny that there is a significant difference between the CLW wand and the healing surge.  But that depends on game style.
> 
> I haven't played or run many 4e games with more than 3-4 encounters in a day.  In that context, running out of healing surges is the type of thing that only happens to low-con melee strikers.  With slow combats and limited time, stressing PC endurance just isn't in the cards.  But if you play 3.x without CLW wands, clerics become worried about running out of spells (spells they would like to cast offensively!) a lot sooner.




I also experience what KS does in terms of the PCs rarely running out of surges.  It just does not happen with that much frequency unless I specifically design adventures that do not allow for extended rests.  Sometimes, sure, the party goes through a gauntlet and cannot stop... but that by no mean happens all the time (and not that we'd want to do that anyway, because a 'forced march' through like 8+ encounters between every extended rest each and every adventure gets just as boring as any other repetitive thing.)

So a trap encounter or wandering monster encounter that ultimately results in the PCs in the exact same state as they were beforehand except down maybe 2 surges, feels more like just an hour-long delay of the story than any real meaningful event.  Because there's a good chance the loss of those 2 surges could have absolutely _no impact_ on them the rest of the day if they get to an eventual extended rest.


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## Mattachine (Mar 20, 2012)

I "stop" the party from taking extended rests in two ways:

1. I don't design all encounters to be challenging the PCs to their utmost. No more 3e encounter design. A lot of encounters are just wearing them down a bit. Remember adventures in AD&D? 

2. More importantly, extended rests have to make sense in-character. Why doesn't the party take an extended rest in the depths of a dangerous cave complex? Because nobody would do that--it would be foolish. I demand that my players play with a bit of verisimilitude. I don't need artificial time tables (though I occasional use in-story time tables), because the players need to play their characters in a way that makes sense.


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## Greg K (Mar 20, 2012)

Gargoyle said:


> I like where Mearls' head is at.   Then again, I always have, it's just the execution of his ideas by his team that leaves something to be desired sometimes.




What a coincidence. With the exception of Book Iron Might's combat maneuver system which I love, I think Mearls has good ideas, but his own execution often leaves something to be desired. I just also happen to feel that way about his team as well.


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## Balesir (Mar 20, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> I don't deny that there is a significant difference between the CLW wand and the healing surge.  But that depends on game style.



I think the CLW wand went beyond game style in 3.5E. I played a Shifter Barbarian in Eberron and a single level of Ranger to get tracking (using my already-good Nature skill, IIRC) _*and*_ the use of CLW wand healing was way, way too good to pass up.



KidSnide said:


> I haven't played or run many 4e games with more than 3-4 encounters in a day.  In that context, running out of healing surges is the type of thing that only happens to low-con melee strikers.  With slow combats and limited time, stressing PC endurance just isn't in the cards.  But if you play 3.x without CLW wands, clerics become worried about running out of spells (spells they would like to cast offensively!) a lot sooner.



Mileage clearly varies. We normally have 3-4 encounters between extended rests and four of the seven characters are regularly low on surges by the time the rest arrives. The Paladin gives away some surges and just about always finishes low, the "Hombre Defender" fighter regularly gets through most or all of his because he acts as a damage soak (deliberately) for the "squishies". The Ranger sometimes keeps a store, but has a habit of getting into trouble and ending with none (or less*). The Warlock has good CON, but still sometimes suffers from making "rescue/strike" missions by teleporting into the midst of the enemies.

The other characters often have surges to spare, but that is partly due to design choices. I haven't used solo traps and minor fights much to drain surges, but I think nabbing a few from the Rogue via traps could work well to keep her on her toes and will certainly be ramping up that sort of thing in the game I DM.

*: ...by which I mean "has been out of HP with zero surges left and saved by the Paladin laying on hands".


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## LostSoul (Mar 20, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> I "stop" the party from taking extended rests in two ways:
> 
> 1. I don't design all encounters to be challenging the PCs to their utmost. No more 3e encounter design. A lot of encounters are just wearing them down a bit. Remember adventures in AD&D?
> 
> 2. More importantly, extended rests have to make sense in-character. Why doesn't the party take an extended rest in the depths of a dangerous cave complex? Because nobody would do that--it would be foolish. I demand that my players play with a bit of verisimilitude. I don't need artificial time tables (though I occasional use in-story time tables), because the players need to play their characters in a way that makes sense.




1. Like it.

2. I think it would be good if that were part of the game.  That is, instead of having to choose between maximum effectiveness (taking an Extended Rest after every encounter - 4E doesn't make time a resource) and playing in-character, there was a line about making sure that it makes sense to take an Extended Rest.  Even if it was something simple like "The DM should only allow an Extended Rest when it makes sense to the ongoing story of the campaign."  Or they could relate Extended Rests to in-game consequences, e.g. "When you take an Extended Rest, the DM complicates your PC's life."

I say this as someone who feels that Extended Rests are, by far, the worst aspect of 4E.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 20, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> I "stop" the party from taking extended rests in two ways:
> 
> 1. I don't design all encounters to be challenging the PCs to their utmost. No more 3e encounter design. A lot of encounters are just wearing them down a bit. Remember adventures in AD&D?
> 
> 2. More importantly, extended rests have to make sense in-character. Why doesn't the party take an extended rest in the depths of a dangerous cave complex? Because nobody would do that--it would be foolish. I demand that my players play with a bit of verisimilitude. I don't need artificial time tables (though I occasional use in-story time tables), because the players need to play their characters in a way that makes sense.




It simply does not occur to anyone I play with that they should play such a meta-game. I give them fun encounters and they play it cool. If someone dies, well, at least there is a little drama to it. 

I think really, we all people who have enjoyed 4e just want to see even better stuff. I'm convinced there is a perfectly reasonable game at the intersection of our desires. I think now is getting to be a good time to see what you have WotC! C'mon. Just because some people are going to complain...


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 20, 2012)

LostSoul said:


> 1. Like it.
> 
> 2. I think it would be good if that were part of the game.  That is, instead of having to choose between maximum effectiveness (taking an Extended Rest after every encounter - 4E doesn't make time a resource) and playing in-character, there was a line about making sure that it makes sense to take an Extended Rest.  Even if it was something simple like "The DM should only allow an Extended Rest when it makes sense to the ongoing story of the campaign."  Or they could relate Extended Rests to in-game consequences, e.g. "When you take an Extended Rest, the DM complicates your PC's life."
> 
> I say this as someone who feels that Extended Rests are, by far, the worst aspect of 4E.




Eh, did you need to be told? I seem to recall that the first thought out of my head about it was that it happened when I thought it would be good to happen, and maybe a lot of times the players DO have a choice. They can hole up and face tougher opposition. Most of my adventures are written so that you can take different approaches. Now and then there's a gauntlet. My Tuesday (now Thursday) group has to get to the Shadowgate at the Vuul Barrow and perform a ritual by moonrise. I can make it as tough as I want, they will press on.


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## Stormonu (Mar 21, 2012)

howandwhy99 said:


> I like the article, but that's not an adventure in my mind. That's one hour of a nice game session where the players were focused on playing throughout.
> 
> B2 Keep on the Borderlands has the bog standard town & wilderness & dungeon design. 6 rooms, 2 combats, and some conversation does not mean we've sussed out enough of the module starting design to get bored and move on. If it did, we found we weren't really interested in the first place. Short module then, short night.




This last weekend, I ran B2 at a Con, using the B/X ruleset.  Characters were premade (2nd level) so we could skip that part, and in about an hour's play we had a complete "adventure" - though the party died by TPK (it's not a good idea to invade the evil temple and get caught between skeletons and zombies and their evil cleric leader).  It ended at a good stopping point - had the players won, they would have taken out the "boss".  There were about 4 fights  (3 PCs vs. 2 bandits, 3 PCs vs. 6 skeletons, 3 PCs vs. 8 zombies, 3 PCs vs. 10 skeletons, 3 zombies [from the last fight] and an evil cleric), some exploration, and some RP between the characters and NPCs.

In the end, we were able to get in about 3 hours of play over the total 4 hours.  After the first part, a couple of extra players showed up, rescued the 1st party and then ventured through some of the other caves and even back to the keep to pick up another PC (my son, playing a M-U), interact with the NPCs there before the group finally returned to the evil temple to steal a trio of 500 gp gems to finish the four-hour slot.

After this weekend, "D&D in an hour" sounds like a feasible goal - exploration, RP and combat - though I'd still prefer playing a good 2-4 hours at a stretch.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 21, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> While I don't expect a game involving 6 people to be quite as efficient as a cartoon in delivering the awesome, I need to get much closer than a 45-minute combat will let me get. Ain't got time for that.



Are you saying "I ain't got time to bleed"?


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## LostSoul (Mar 21, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Eh, did you need to be told? I seem to recall that the first thought out of my head about it was that it happened when I thought it would be good to happen, and maybe a lot of times the players DO have a choice. They can hole up and face tougher opposition. Most of my adventures are written so that you can take different approaches. Now and then there's a gauntlet. My Tuesday (now Thursday) group has to get to the Shadowgate at the Vuul Barrow and perform a ritual by moonrise. I can make it as tough as I want, they will press on.




Two points: One, it's poor game design to allow resources important to the game to refresh without any consequences.  Yes, you can add them, but the game as written doesn't spend much time on it.  Two, the game is built around the assumption of balanced encounters, so what counts as "tougher opposition"?  Since you get XP for encounters and treasure based on character level, you're only rewarded for facing more encounters.

Story consequences would seem to be a good way to go, yet I don't recall much text in the DMG about that sort of thing.  I could be wrong.  Anyway, most of the game doesn't seem to care about the campaign story much - it doesn't influence the Paragon Paths you can take, for instance.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 21, 2012)

LostSoul said:


> Two points: One, it's poor game design to allow resources important to the game to refresh without any consequences.  Yes, you can add them, but the game as written doesn't spend much time on it.  Two, the game is built around the assumption of balanced encounters, so what counts as "tougher opposition"?  Since you get XP for encounters and treasure based on character level, you're only rewarded for facing more encounters.



Well, I take the whole treasure parcel thing with large doses of NaCl personally. I mean it is good to establish a baseline that will work within the game. OTOH it really should only be a starting point. 

I think the problem with the whole resting thing is, you don't want to just up front make it really gamist. It has to flow organically out of the story. Otherwise you're really just railroading in a sense. Mostly resting once a day DOES work pretty well. There will be those times when you'd like to put a different pace to things and then you do. I don't think it is straightforward to explain it in terms of a rule, and whatever is in books tends to get interpreted that way. Look at the 'wishlist', which has taken on some huge life far beyond its remit.  



> Story consequences would seem to be a good way to go, yet I don't recall much text in the DMG about that sort of thing.  I could be wrong.  Anyway, most of the game doesn't seem to care about the campaign story much - it doesn't influence the Paragon Paths you can take, for instance.




I think the DMG does talk a lot about story arcs, plots, and how there are consequences to actions. It is very lose on trying to impose how the story works on the PCs mechanically because why do you WANT the rules telling you that? I don't think they should. Each PP and ED has a good hunk of background info on what concept it is intended to fill out. Presumably the DM and the players will use that information to fit it into their game.

Really, 4e DMG aimed at explaining the hows of the basic skills of building encounters and stories, and motivating players, etc. The 1e DMG OTOH goes totally the other way and kind of just assumes you'll take care of the 'campaign stuff' yourself, and throws a lot of 'use this' and 'do this' at you that is at a detail level, but you never get what a campaign IS. Nor anything much in the way of setting ideas, etc. A new DMG might kind of aim to hit somewhere in the middle.


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## KidSnide (Mar 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I think the CLW wand went beyond game style in 3.5E. I played a Shifter Barbarian in Eberron and a single level of Ranger to get tracking (using my already-good Nature skill, IIRC) _*and*_ the use of CLW wand healing was way, way too good to pass up.




YMMV, obviously.  I'm not sure I've ever played in a home game where a PC used a CLW wand.  Do PCs usually buy them, or does someone convince the cleric/bard to take Craft Wand?

Then again, my PCs were never about maximizing their use of the rules.  I remember a great negotiation in 3.0, where I promised to give the (high level) PCs a bunch of stat boosting items if they all promised to stop casting Bull's Strength (etc) unless someone was just about to use an appropriate skill.  Rolling those damn d4s and recalculating all of the combat stats took forever...

-KS


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## grimslade (Mar 21, 2012)

*Adventure focus vs Encounter focus*

A couple of things
Encounter based design can work fine but the focus on individual scenes makes adventures seem very choppy. There is a lot of work to be done to help it form a smooth story. The filler between encounter design is not something that is shown very well in the core books or in pre-made adventures.

Adventure based design, first of all, is more inclusive of older edition's play style (pre 3E) and is not as big a shift from encounter focus as people are making out. You still need to plan cool engaging encounters, an orc confectioner guarding a Boston cream pie in a 10' x 10' walk-in cooler for ex. But now you design that orc/pie encounter in a larger context. You have a whole 'Assault on Gruumsh' Finest Bakery' with a couple of orc/pie battles, some exploration of the kitchen, and some roleplay haggling over the recipe for One Eye's, a fine orcish pastry. The "Assault" takes about an hour and is a fine chapter in the 'Cupcake Wars' adventure path/ adventure arc. The next adventure goes into 'Corellon's Confections'.

Can you do this exact same thing in 3E or 4E with encounter based design? Heck yeah. It's not reinventing the wheel, it is just a refocusing of the goal. There should be a satisfying group of encounters with a good conclusion in a one hour's time. It is a worthy goal and not a repudiation of what has been done previously. It is a shift to making player time a consideration in the Next's design not just game time. This is good.

The big thing is taking the scaling of option bloat in a modular system to keeping this goal a reality as the game matures.


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## GX.Sigma (Mar 21, 2012)

Blue said:


> Basic D&D character creation was roll 3d6 six times, pick a race/class, buy equipment, roll HPs, and maybe pick a spell as opposed to richer character creation experiences any modern RPG needs to deliver.  This is an interesting experiment of what was state of the art 30 years ago and could help us remember our roots, but not something that should be realized in a fully-fleshed-out RPG of today that's a worthy successor of 3.5 and 4e, both excellent games with different strengths.  If that's the game we want to play, it's already available as Basic D&D for anyone who wants it.




Some of us don't want a successor of 3.x and 4e. Some of us want a successor of Basic D&D, and some of us want a successor of AD&D. I think we all want a system that can be all of those things.

What I find disconcerting is that some people believe that 3.x and 4e were the only versions of D&D that had any merit (or that 3.5 is the "classic D&D experience"). In reality, BD&D and AD&D had existed for 26 years before Third Edition came out. 3e advanced some aspects of AD&D, but abandoned others. It was a significant refocusing of the game. It was, and still is, the new kid on the block. It is _not_ everything that D&D ever was or ever will be.

"If that's the game you want to play, just play that game" is fallacious. What if someone told you, "if you just want to play 3.5, just play 3.5"?


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## Aoric (Mar 21, 2012)

I'm a role play heavy kind of player and DM. I don't like long drawn out combat sessions they get old fast. Single combat should resolve quickly, mass combat battles should take longer much more to handle. A 1hour session is not an adventure IMO maybe a session or a side-trek at best.

However, I am very interested in what the new iteration of D&D will bring.

Later

Aoric


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## Caster (Mar 21, 2012)

> A 1hour session is not an adventure IMO maybe a session or a side-trek at best.




I will continue to harp on this point until it sinks in to everyone on the forum.  I don't mean to come across as a jackass but this blindingly obvious concept seems to have passed quite a few of you by.

Instead of stringing Encounters (that were predominately but not exclusively of the combat variety) together to form a larger narrative as was the design paradigm for 4e.  DNDN (or 5e) suggests a paradigm shift wherein the larger narrative will consist of Adventures strung together.

An Adventure is a more meaty version of the Encounter that supports all 3 Pillars (Combat, Exploration, Interaction) and becomes the DM's basic building block of storytelling.

I think a few examples are needed to illustrate this so let's pull some from a source most of us are familiar with, The Hobbit.  This may contains spoilers.

The Hobbits tells an epic fantasy story but can be broken down into smaller pieces.  (Side thought - maybe instead of Adventure we can us the term Chapters to describe this building block.)

What follows is a simple breakdown of how one DM may adapt the story and use it as a foundation for a DNDN story.

With a little help from Wikipedia:

Adventure (or Chapter) One 

Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "burglar". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself.
The group travel into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map.

Adventure (or Chapter) Two

Passing over the Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase but the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of Beorn.

Adventure (or Chapter) Three

The company enter the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves.

Adventure (or Chapter) Four

Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travel to the Lonely Mountain and find the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and learning of a weakness in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A noble thrush who overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability reports it to Bard, who slays the dragon.

Adventure (or Chapter) Five

When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's dynasty, and steals it. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the mountains of the North, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is intransigent. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable.

Adventure (or Chapter) Six

Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men, and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit.

Obviously this is very quick and dirty and you can probably break The Hobbit down into fifteen or twenty chapters but I think it does illustrate what is meant by Adventure in the DNDN context.  Each stands on it's own but collective they tell a greater story.  And because each contains all 3 Pillars there is a width and breadth to them that was missing in the 4e Encounters.

Thanks for listening,

Dave


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## LostSoul (Mar 21, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the DMG does talk a lot about story arcs, plots, and how there are consequences to actions. It is very lose on trying to impose how the story works on the PCs mechanically because why do you WANT the rules telling you that? I don't think they should.




I want the game to produce interesting consequences organically, without the DM having to work hard at it.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 21, 2012)

LostSoul said:


> I want the game to produce interesting consequences organically, without the DM having to work hard at it.




Any overarching theme or direction, and the vast majority of major pieces of setting content though is going to come from the DM. 'Consequences' are one thing, but they're far from everything. I'm also not really sure what the rules have to do with that really. They can sometimes provide a starting point for something, but is one set of rules really somehow drastically different from another in that respect? IME consequences are mostly a consequence of what the players chose to do or how they chose to do it.


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## Hassassin (Mar 21, 2012)

My experience with 1 hour adventures: our previous session was only 1½ hours, due to life interfering with gaming. 

1 quest/adventure
2 combat encounters
3 exploration encounters (chase, tracking challenge and trap) + general exploration
2 interaction encounters (one avoided third combat) + interaction with friendly NPCs
1 week of downtime

All in all quite satisfying for so short a session, except I timed it a bit wrong: the quest ended in about one hour, so the rest was general exploration and interaction, because there was no time to get a new quest going.


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## LostSoul (Mar 21, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Any overarching theme or direction, and the vast majority of major pieces of setting content though is going to come from the DM. 'Consequences' are one thing, but they're far from everything. I'm also not really sure what the rules have to do with that really. They can sometimes provide a starting point for something, but is one set of rules really somehow drastically different from another in that respect? IME consequences are mostly a consequence of what the players chose to do or how they chose to do it.




In my experience, different sets of rules can provide very different results.  We'd probably have to get into specific examples though.


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## Uder (Mar 22, 2012)

I think it will be much easier to monetize a one-hour game than a four-hour one.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 22, 2012)

Just a thought I had, that I'm sure _many_ have had and voiced, but I think we could make greater use of the inverse law of ninjitsu here.

In games with a larger number of players, you could reduce the HP of the targets by a set percentage, based on the number of additional players, but otherwise you increase the number of enemies as per usual. On round one, you still have more or less the same threat against the players, but when victory is in sight, it takes much less time to get there. I'm not sure on the ideal rate of HP drop, and of course it needs to plateau so AOE doesn't take over the place, but even a modest drop could save a round in an 8-person party.

This is also pretty much edition-neutral. I plan on trying it this weekend


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## Caster (Mar 22, 2012)

It seems to me that a lot of you are concerned that DNDN will lose a certain amount of it's complexity in regards to combat tactics & resolution and character creation (and possibly character advancement choices) with nothing to show for it in return due to the (largely assumed) limitations of the One-Hour Adventure model.

From my perspective 4e's character creation complexity stems from the fact that players are actually maximizing their PC's stats, skills, feats, etc. so that they are the most effective in combat encounters as they can be at the expense of being equally effective outside of combat situations.  Nor need they be as the rules governing those elements are scanty indeed and can be handled by a few sub-systems in a decent manner. 

However, By placing equal emphasis on all 3 Pillars (Combat, Exploration, Interaction), you require that the rules be balanced to handle each kind of activity fairly.  It actually creates MORE choices and complexity across all 3 areas and not solely on combat.

Handled correctly we should see beefed up rules for all kinds of Exploration and Interaction scenarios that will only ratchet UP the drama and suspense and storytelling and NOT diminish it as some of you suspect.

Now we should be able to have character possibilities where they can be strong, average, or weak in one Pillar over another and yet still be important additions to a group of adventurers.  Perhaps character roles will be defined by which Pillar a character is built around rather than the current Combat Roles version.

Will tactical combat be somewhat simplified in order to accommodate this paradigm shift?  Maybe so.  But surely with nothing to show for it in return.

Dave


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## Incenjucar (Mar 23, 2012)

Caster said:


> From my perspective 4e's character creation complexity stems from the fact that players are actually maximizing their PC's stats, skills, feats, etc. so that they are the most effective in combat encounters as they can be at the expense of being equally effective outside of combat situations.




A fair number of people consider non-combat options to be valuable. You get XP for succeeding in an encounter, not strictly by creating pile of corpses wherever you go. In every long-ish game I've ever gotten involved in as player or DM, in two different states, people had to fight wanting to adopt half the monsters they came across.



> Nor need they be as the rules governing those elements are scanty indeed and can be handled by a few sub-systems in a decent manner.




The thing with skill-oriented challenges is that when you start applying rules to them, they have to get very very gamey or very very narrow. You can add a mini-game for every little thing, but detailed rules on forging documents isn't going to interest many people. People are annoyed enough with the hacking and lock-picking mini-games in videogames.



> However, By placing equal emphasis on all 3 Pillars (Combat, Exploration, Interaction), you require that the rules be balanced to handle each kind of activity fairly.  It actually creates MORE choices and complexity across all 3 areas and not solely on combat.




Combat, Exploration, and Interaction are already covered. They could give people more EXAMPLES, but unless they want to bog down the game in minutiae, there isn't much you'd want to add.

Adding complexity increases time requirements. Suddenly people who can't choose between their encounter powers will be paralyzed trying to figure out whether to kick the lock or pick the lock.



> Handled correctly we should see beefed up rules for all kinds of Exploration and Interaction scenarios that will only ratchet UP the drama and suspense and storytelling and NOT diminish it as some of you suspect.




I fail to see how beefed up rules for how to grope statues for knobs and levers is at all compelling. Examples of how to keep people from just saying "I make a Search check?" Absolutely. But if you codify it you'll end up with rules bloat.



> Now we should be able to have character possibilities where they can be strong, average, or weak in one Pillar over another and yet still be important additions to a group of adventurers.  Perhaps character roles will be defined by which Pillar a character is built around rather than the current Combat Roles version.




This remains one of the worst ideas I have heard in gaming since FATAL. 4E's class skill lists are bad enough. Every character should have the ability to function in all buzzword categories. Some particular events may favor one character over another, just as a minion battle favors AOE and a solo battle favors single target damage, but everyone should be able to contribute equally over the course of a campaign.



> Will tactical combat be somewhat simplified in order to accommodate this paradigm shift?  Maybe so.  But surely with nothing to show for it in return.
> 
> Dave




Nothing GOOD to show for it, is the key concern.


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## Caster (Mar 23, 2012)

Incenjucar,

I simply don't care enough or have the time to respond on a point by point basis to someone who picks apart every single sentence I may write but I do appreciate that you took the time to read through my post and give heartfelt feedback on it!

Obviously we can only guess at what the final DVDN ruleset will look like so anything I may speculate on will remain just that, speculation, until it is released.

I do have one question for you though as I am new to this forum, do you currently play any edition of D&D, if so, which, and are you happy playing it?

I'm 43 now and started with the Blue Book rules in the 80's, dabbled with BECMI, but mostly played AD&D as a player.  I skipped 2nd, 3e, 3.5 and picked up the game again with 4e as a DM and D&D ambassador to a younger generation of players.

We are quite satisfied with the two current campaigns I run, including an all female player one that is ever expanding.

All in all I'm excited and interested in seeing what DNDN will look and game like and enjoy putting in my two cents to the topics discussed here.

Thanks again for your input, glad to know at least one person is reading my ramblings!

Dave


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 23, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> In every long-ish game I've ever gotten involved in as player or DM, in two different states, people had to fight wanting to adopt half the monsters they came across.



Are you playing Muppet Babies or D&D?


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## Incenjucar (Mar 23, 2012)

Caster said:


> Incenjucar,
> 
> I simply don't care enough or have the time to respond on a point by point basis to someone who picks apart every single sentence I may write but I do appreciate that you took the time to read through my post and give heartfelt feedback on it!
> 
> ...




2nd edition is my first RPG, and I played that for about four years - stopped because I moved to nowheresville. I kept up with 3E, but I only ever got to run it, and only for a few sessions. I've been playing 4E since Keep on the Shadowfell, and currently play or DM almost every single Saturday, and I'm involved in Encounters - when my work hours don't let me play, I bring minis the day before, and show up to help the DM with rules.

4E is my favorite edition, hands down, though I have noticed many of its flaws since day 1. I have an exceptionally good time playing it and running it and designing for it. Admittedly, 4E seems to be designed for people who think the way I do, and I understand why some without that mindset find it less fantastic, but I DO think the way I do, so it's been an amazing game for me, and anyone I game with gets the benefit of my perspective.

I was actually comfortable with the notion of 5E up until the Legend & Lore articles began. While a few good ideas have cropped up, I've mostly heard things that worry me as a gamer, a hobbyist designer, and someone who wants to help his FLGS thrive. So much of what I see strikes me as a threat to the franchise, even ignoring my personal preferences.

That all said, an abbreviated one hour D&D game is not inherently bad, and I have no issue with it. I'm just concerned that they think they can actually cover everything a real game does in that span of time - it suggests they have a really shallow view of what those "pillars" actually are, and that bodes ill for the game as a whole.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 23, 2012)

Caster said:


> Incenjucar,
> 
> I simply don't care enough or have the time to respond on a point by point basis to someone who picks apart every single sentence I may write but I do appreciate that you took the time to read through my post and give heartfelt feedback on it!
> 
> ...




See, I kind of agree with Incenjucar, more and more detailed rules for how to search, how to use a boat, how to charm a princess, etc rapidly becomes both unwieldy and turns into a straightjacket. You could have 100's, if not 1000's of these detailed mini-games, and still not cover all the things people regularly do in D&D games. Chances are any given addition or option to the rules will also have unforeseen knock-on effects in at least some subset of them. It rapidly becomes harder and harder to maintain that.

Worse, IMHO, is the way it channels the game into resolving things in certain ways. Each mini-game brings in more and more assumptions about how the world works in a given game, the level of detail that a specific type of activity warrants, the kinds of results to expect, etc. Such a system is great if it happens to meet with the needs and expectations of a given group in a given situation, but if not then it is just an impediment. It can create player expectations that may be violated, tends to inhibit DM creativity, and just takes up space in the books with material that as it is more and more niche is less and less likely to be useful to a given DM.

I feel that the best approach really was the 4e approach. Give the DM a very strong base rules platform with a highly generalized resolution mechanic that can be tied into consistently in any given situation, and a basic framework system for dealing with more complex conflicts. The rules themselves stay short and sweet, but the game can apply them to anything. To a certain extent this is really a 3.x innovation, moving a lot of stuff onto a list with consistent mechanics for instance. 4e just streamlined it and got rid of a lot of rather dubious subsystems like crafting that didn't add any real value and often produced absurd and inappropriate results because the guy writing the crafting rules knows zip about crafting much of anything and has no idea how the game he's writing that subsystem for will actually be run. 

I'd MUCH rather see sections that talk about how you might approach something like crafting. Talk about what sorts of characters might want to do it, various ways they can accomplish these things, and different resolution mechanics that can be used in different situations. So we might see that "making a living" can simply be cast as a simple skill challenge to see if the character makes enough to get by, with maybe an option for if they succeed really well that the DM might give them a treasure parcel or something and how this activity can generate plot hooks. It can then talk about how PCs might use crafting to solve problems and what sorts of conflicts that might relate to and what to do. You can then talk about how in some situations there IS no conflict and there need not be dice tossed to resolve anything, and in another situation using a skill like that can be applied like any secondary skill in an SC to enhance the chances of success, etc.


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## Ratskinner (Mar 23, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> YMMV, obviously.  I'm not sure I've ever played in a home game where a PC used a CLW wand.  Do PCs usually buy them, or does someone convince the cleric/bard to take Craft Wand?
> 
> Then again, my PCs were never about maximizing their use of the rules.  I remember a great negotiation in 3.0, where I promised to give the (high level) PCs a bunch of stat boosting items if they all promised to stop casting Bull's Strength (etc) unless someone was just about to use an appropriate skill.  Rolling those damn d4s and recalculating all of the combat stats took forever...
> 
> -KS




This is close to my experience as well. Rarely do my parties ever spend a lot of time maximizing their potential. Many of the problems people have with 3e are things I only heard about on the internet. (Of course, I also tend to eschew high-level play.)


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## KidSnide (Mar 23, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> That all said, an abbreviated one hour D&D game is not inherently bad, and I have no issue with it. I'm just concerned that they think they can actually cover everything a real game does in that span of time - it suggests they have a really shallow view of what those "pillars" actually are, and that bodes ill for the game as a whole.




These guys have played a lot of D&D.  There is no possible way they think that you can -- _in one hour_ -- cover the range of experience provided by a multi-year campaign.  That they can appreciate a one hour experience (the "lunch break" session), doesn't mean that they have somehow lost track of the 4-hour, 80-hour or 1600-hour experience.  

-KS


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 23, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> YMMV, obviously.  I'm not sure I've ever played in a home game where a PC used a CLW wand.  Do PCs usually buy them, or does someone convince the cleric/bard to take Craft Wand?




We made them.  And we didn't need 'convincing' to take Craft Wand, because all of us casters saw just how useful and how much financial sense it made to do so.

A 1st level spell made at a 1st level caster level cost 750 GP.  That's it.  So basically any 1st level spell any of the casters had which was still effective at a 1st level caster level were made into wands, rather than wasting spell slots memorizing them each and every morning.  A spell with a 1 minute per level duration was effectively 10 combat rounds worth of buff.  So that's all we needed.

So for 750GP we got 50 charges of 1d8+1 healing from _CLW_.

We got +2 deflection bonus to our ACs for most of every encounter from _Shield of Faith_.

As a wizard, I got a +4 to AC from _Shield_ every encounter.

We always had a 10 minute burst worth of _Comprehend Languages_ at our fingertips.

Basically, all the typical 1st level spells that had a duration of 1 minute or 10 minutes per level we made into wands, because they were cost effective, plus it made sure we always had their abilities instantly at hand.  This then let us save our 1st level spell slots for those spells which were not as effective cast at a 1st level spell level (like Magic Missile for example).

Was that 'gaming' the system?  We didn't think so, because these prices were set _in the fiction_ via the rules of the game itself.  So our PCs discovered these pricing issues within the world just like us players did within the game.  I think it ended up being one of the real problems with the 3E magic item crafting system, as pricing was set exponentially based on spell level and caster level.  Really low level stuff was super cost effective on a mass production scale, whereas anything above like 3rd level spells or 3rd level casting level never was.


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## Zaran (Mar 23, 2012)

What I would rather see is more of "How many hours to level" than "1 Hour Game is the baseline"  I think it should take at least 8 hours of game play before PCs level.  That would mean 8 of those tiny one hour adventures.  

I'd much rather 1 short adventure = 4 hours.


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## Savage Wombat (Mar 23, 2012)

I'm re-reading *Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan* for no real reason, and I couldn't help but notice that the intro states that the players of the tournament had two hours to complete the entire module.

Puts it in perspective, doesn't it.


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## Endur (Mar 24, 2012)

I'm all for the one hour adventure.  I remember AD&D groups that used to play at lunch in middle school/high school.

If your goal is one hour, it helps if your characters are 1st level.  Fewer rules, character abilities, and monster abilities at 1st level.  

The more abilities the characters and monsters have, the longer the combats.

A 1st level 3e/4e combat can be wrapped up in five minutes.  Leaves more time for story-telling, etc.  

On the other hand, a 10th level 3e/4e combat can take 3+ hours.

AD&D could significantly reduce that combat time for the 10th level combat.  Few AD&D combats lasted over an hour.


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## Blue (Apr 16, 2012)

GX.Sigma said:


> Some of us don't want a successor of 3.x and 4e. Some of us want a successor of Basic D&D, and some of us want a successor of AD&D. I think we all want a system that can be all of those things.
> 
> What I find disconcerting is that some people believe that 3.x and 4e were the only versions of D&D that had any merit (or that 3.5 is the "classic D&D experience"). In reality, BD&D and AD&D had existed for 26 years before Third Edition came out. 3e advanced some aspects of AD&D, but abandoned others. It was a significant refocusing of the game. It was, and still is, the new kid on the block. It is _not_ everything that D&D ever was or ever will be.
> 
> "If that's the game you want to play, just play that game" is fallacious. What if someone told you, "if you just want to play 3.5, just play 3.5"?




Sorry for the delay in reply.

Well, if someone told me that if I wanted to play 3.5, then play 3.5 ... well, considering that I'm still running a bi-weekly 3.5 campaign that started not long after those books came out, I'd say "sure".

I've been playing since red box D&D.  This isn't saying "I've got more experience", just giving context for your claim of "some people believe 3.5 and 4e are the only versions".  There already are revisions of older versions of D&D like OSRIC for AD&D.  I'd like to see the new version of D&D to build on concepts and expectations that have matured with the whole RPG hobby instead of a lowest common denominator that tries to cater to a wide spread.

I like chocolate and I like steak.  It doesn't follow that I'd like chocolate-covered steak.  The favorite campaign I played in was run in AD&D 2nd ed because of a great DM, but that doesn't mean I think the system was the best or that even a new system could be improved by bringing back demi-human racial level limits, separate cleric and wizard spells of the same name, multiclassing vs. dual classing, and other points that have been done better in newer version of the rules.


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## jshaft37 (Apr 16, 2012)

Is there any definition of "adventure" that they are shooting to be able to play in 1 hour?  

I can agree that I would like to see a 1 hour adventure ala Dungeon magazine (4e example: Hook, 1 SC, 2-3 Encounters, resolution, minimal roleplaying), but how could you play through Keep on the Borderlands or Dragons of Despair in 1 hour?


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## Mattachine (Apr 16, 2012)

I think some short AD&D modules would be examples of adventures that could be played in a couple hours:

1. Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan
2. Ghost Tower of Inverness
3. Slave Pits of the Undercity
4. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (each part taking 2 hours, perhaps)

An old adventure like Pharoah is, in a way, three of these short adventures, of 1-2 hours each: wilderness, the temple, and the pyramid.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> I think some short AD&D modules would be examples of adventures that could be played in a couple hours:
> 
> 1. Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan
> 2. Ghost Tower of Inverness
> ...




Hmmmm, I remember A1-A4 Slave Pits taking weeks to play all the way through.


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## ren1999 (Apr 17, 2012)

I'd also like to see more of these ideas for limited hour games. 

How about a d&d game that lasts as long as a movie?

How long are your play sessions? Mine last an evening. 5 hours. 

How about a game limited to 5 hours? 

My Dungeons & Dragons Hybrid Game for Firefox and Chrome kira3696.tripod.com/CombatTracker.rar


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## Mattachine (Apr 17, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Hmmmm, I remember A1-A4 Slave Pits taking weeks to play all the way through.




Slave Pits is only A1, and the abbreviated, tournament version (noted on the cover/map) only takes a couple hours, if that.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 17, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> Slave Pits is only A1, and the abbreviated, tournament version (noted on the cover/map) only takes a couple hours, if that.




I don't recall an abbreviated option, but then I haven't cracked the module in 20 years. I do remember it took us a good 6-8 hours, at least, to play through it. Maybe we were slow... Then again, I am not of the school that holds AD&D to have been exceptionally faster in play than later editions. That was never my experience, lol.


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## TarionzCousin (Apr 17, 2012)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't recall an abbreviated option, but then I haven't cracked the module in 20 years. I do remember it took us a good 6-8 hours, at least, to play through it. Maybe we were slow... Then again, I am not of the school that holds AD&D to have been exceptionally faster in play than later editions. That was never my experience, lol.



Play sped up a lot when at least half of the party (including all of the henchmen, torchbearers, lackeys, etc.) died in the first room. 

Hey! I hope that's not what they're planning for 5E!


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## Mattachine (Apr 17, 2012)

My group, if I recall, played it in an afternoon, which would have been about 4 hours back in the day. We played the full version--the short, tournament version was noted by shading on the map.

In any case, a lot of the AD&D modules were either short and designed for single sessions, or broken into distinct sections, each as long as a short adventure. I liked that design aspect a lot. Sure, there is also room for sandbox, long-form stories, and such, but consciously going for short adventures yields a tangible benefit without necessarily ruining other types of adventures.


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## Blackwarder (Apr 17, 2012)

One thing that I would really appreciate in each advanture is a page or two of "how to run this advanture" kind of intro for inexperience DMs or for DMs who never ran that kind of advanture, for example, I never ran an outdoors sandbox advanture and would love some pointers in an advanture that is aimed for that kind of play.

Warder


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