Fate is a general purpose RPG that doesn’t have any assumptions about a rest cadence. There are more specific games that use its rules (I think there’s a dresden files one that’s popular). Just the core rules work fine, but do require players to be more narratively minded and synchronized for it to really sing.
I don’t know gurps very well but I don’t think it’s built around rests at all.
I don’t think pbta games are generally built around a long rest cadence, either. They tend to have a lot of mixed success on ability use, rather than a hard limit.
The wod/cofd games aren’t centered around long rests, either. In vampire: the requiem, for example, the cool vampire powers are pretty much all at-will, require blood, or sometimes willpower. Blood is mostly narratively limited - you can get it whenever you can find someone to bite, generally. Willpower comes back over time but faster if you hit narrative beats. But generally if you have, say, Dominate, you can just do the vampire dominating gaze on people. The games typically aren’t played as dungeon crawlers though, and the limits tend to be more social or “should you?” rather than DND’s “can you?”.
One of the problems with the long rest cadence is the first fight is typically not a real threat. It’s only the last one where you’re strapped for resources that has real at hand tension. That kind of sucks, honestly. You see posts sometimes where people complain about filler fights that are just there to drain resources are kind of boring.
Making everything per-encounter is probably the easiest fix for a dnd-like game. Make some classes ramp-up, some ramp-down, and some steady.
4th edition had a lot of that, but it doesn’t really fit for the dungeon crawler gameplay, which they were trying to make more possible again with 5th edition. Part of that story archetype is seeing resources whittled down as you get deeper and deeper into the dungeon, always wondering if you should go back up or if you should push deeper to get that big score. That’s where the tension comes from for that style of play. Same thing for wilderness travel expedition-type games.
Those types of games aren’t for everyone, but DnD 5th edition has always been about trying to be everything for everyone. “Everyone’s 2nd favorite edition.” indeed lol.
You touch on an important point. The D&D long rest resource resource management system can make sense when you’re doing a dungeon crawl and you’re actually into the whole “do we have enough supplies to go deeper or do we turn back thing?” But my understanding is that’s not how most people actually play. There was a poll going around a couple months ago that revealed most D&D groups do one fight per long rest.
If you’re just doing one fight per long rest, you’re doing per-encounter powers badly. That screws over the on-paper short-rest classes, and forces the story’s pacing to be slow to account for the “ok you sleep for another day” thing.
Haha ya, I actually do it properly and I’ve had players think my style nerfed spellcasters too much by spacing out long rests between encounters. No, I’m just playing it as designed and giving chances for everyone to shine, the fights where spellcasters can nova and the fights where martial classes or warlocks can pull their weight, too.
Fate is a general purpose RPG that doesn’t have any assumptions about a rest cadence. There are more specific games that use its rules (I think there’s a dresden files one that’s popular). Just the core rules work fine, but do require players to be more narratively minded and synchronized for it to really sing.
I don’t know gurps very well but I don’t think it’s built around rests at all.
I don’t think pbta games are generally built around a long rest cadence, either. They tend to have a lot of mixed success on ability use, rather than a hard limit.
The wod/cofd games aren’t centered around long rests, either. In vampire: the requiem, for example, the cool vampire powers are pretty much all at-will, require blood, or sometimes willpower. Blood is mostly narratively limited - you can get it whenever you can find someone to bite, generally. Willpower comes back over time but faster if you hit narrative beats. But generally if you have, say, Dominate, you can just do the vampire dominating gaze on people. The games typically aren’t played as dungeon crawlers though, and the limits tend to be more social or “should you?” rather than DND’s “can you?”.
One of the problems with the long rest cadence is the first fight is typically not a real threat. It’s only the last one where you’re strapped for resources that has real at hand tension. That kind of sucks, honestly. You see posts sometimes where people complain about filler fights that are just there to drain resources are kind of boring.
Making everything per-encounter is probably the easiest fix for a dnd-like game. Make some classes ramp-up, some ramp-down, and some steady.
4th edition had a lot of that, but it doesn’t really fit for the dungeon crawler gameplay, which they were trying to make more possible again with 5th edition. Part of that story archetype is seeing resources whittled down as you get deeper and deeper into the dungeon, always wondering if you should go back up or if you should push deeper to get that big score. That’s where the tension comes from for that style of play. Same thing for wilderness travel expedition-type games.
Those types of games aren’t for everyone, but DnD 5th edition has always been about trying to be everything for everyone. “Everyone’s 2nd favorite edition.” indeed lol.
You touch on an important point. The D&D long rest resource resource management system can make sense when you’re doing a dungeon crawl and you’re actually into the whole “do we have enough supplies to go deeper or do we turn back thing?” But my understanding is that’s not how most people actually play. There was a poll going around a couple months ago that revealed most D&D groups do one fight per long rest.
If you’re just doing one fight per long rest, you’re doing per-encounter powers badly. That screws over the on-paper short-rest classes, and forces the story’s pacing to be slow to account for the “ok you sleep for another day” thing.
Haha ya, I actually do it properly and I’ve had players think my style nerfed spellcasters too much by spacing out long rests between encounters. No, I’m just playing it as designed and giving chances for everyone to shine, the fights where spellcasters can nova and the fights where martial classes or warlocks can pull their weight, too.
Nice reply. Good content