I would love to have real time progression & day/night cycles in the game, but I doubt that would happen as it requires a huge overhaul.

Originally Posted by Stabbey
Here is my idea, it is my take on the best idea I heard. This is essentially a combination of the OP's 3 and 5 ideas.

Th game would have some sort of hidden fatigue meter, which increases based on the average number of steps the party has taken since the last long rest, and also increases when receiving any sort of healing. You would not be allowed to long rest until a certain amount has been passed. Once the fatigue meter has passed the mark, it becomes visible, and if you continue to neglect it for, say another 25-33% past the fatigue point, the party will get a level of Exhaustion - much like how pressing forward without long rests in 5e will make the party take one as well.

Continuing to neglect Exhaustion more will eventually cross a second threshold and reduce movement speed by half. This might not necessarily grant a second point of exhaustion immediately, as that should be enough of a clue to players "you should really rest right now". But if they keep going...


If you cross an Exhaustion threshold in combat, it won't take effect until the combat ends, then take effect immediately.

The tricky part is figuring out how many steps and how much healing it should require to reach those levels.


1. The average number of steps would be the combination of all the steps taken by everyone you've had in the party since the last long rest, and divided by 4. So if you're all traveling together, everyone will have about the same. If you have one person scouting ahead and sneaking and moving, they'll do more than other people, but if they do an extreme amount of sneaking, it'll eventually average out.

2. Healing which takes your hit points past maximum doesn't count the overflow towards the fatigue meter.

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This is better than a method based around consuming resources to long rest, because it prevents you from being blocked for lack of resources - you can walk around some more. You also can't stock up on resources to trivialize long rests.

This is better than a random encounter system because if you're really on your last legs and NEED the long rest, you won't be attacked at your weakest. (Or you won't need to long rest immediately after a long rest because the random encounter went badly for you.)



I think this is a very workable idea. It would a proxy for "time" in-game that doesn't interfere with existing game mechanics too drastically. You can just keep track of total distance traveled in feet/meters. To avoid people being frustrating by "having to walk around" before being able to rest you could disable or reduce the threshold on lower difficulties.

You could also factor "actions taken" or other stuff into the algorithm to simulate the exertion of battle.

I would still prefer if it was combined with a long rest limit for certain quests, as you mention as well. The world need to be responsive!

Discouraging exploration might be a valid concern with this approach though, but it would also create a clear sense of urgency while on "timed" quests. And worst case you can always push each day a little bit further (into exhaustion) to "win exploration time".