RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Fighting is tiring. Can you imagine if a boxing match lasted 9 hours? For sheer realism, there's nothing at all wrong with traveling and adventuring only during the ~12 hours of daylight and camping for the other 12. It's dangerous to blunder around in the dark in unknown terrain. Plus you need time to set up and tear down camp, cook meals, etc.
Yeah, I play in a weekly game where this is the norm. It's usually a sign of the GM enjoying prepared ambushes by capitalizing on poor night vision options or less than ideal perception scores. Oh, and starting enounters asleep and prone every time is super fun.
That being said, our GM usually does what you said, 12 hours down, three watches of four hours apiece.
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My players generally take the casters out of their watch rotation. Sometimes they have the casters go on the back end - so they get their full sleep and then they prep/pray with a strong 2nd on active watch. If something happens it just pushes their prep time later on into the morning - so far they seem to be happy with the system they came up with.
I do run encounters at dusk, night and dawn - some actual fights but most of it just weird mood events (noises, howls or screaming the distance, weather events, etc).
I don't force a rotation just to be a hardass/exploit a party weakness - it's more so they can see a night and day cycle in the game (immersion), plus the downtime and exchange between the players and some of the NPC is the group (say, on a shared watch) provides some good role-playing and dialogue time.
Also works as a good mental closer for the previous day and mental prep for the next one (as the players awake discuss some options). Try not to spend more than a few minutes narrating each watch unless something happens, so the whole night can run from a few minutes to half an hour (depending on rp) barring a fight of course.
I had a paranoid PC in my game who insists if the party's outside of town they have a watch. They do only single watches and so far they've only had a couple random encounters, none of which amounted to anything. However one of them interrupted his sleep so that they were delayed the next day so he could rest and recover spells. His primary beef was "at low levels, how are we POSSIBLY expected to stay awake to cover the watches AND get enough rest to heal and get spells?"
This guy had an owl familiar. I got really sarcastic once and said "wouldn't it be nice if you had someone with great nightvision, who stayed awake ALL night, but at the same time was near-invisible in the wilds at night? Maybe then you could all get some shut-eye while this person kept watch the whole time, then to alert you if there's danger." He didn't understand that owls were nocturnal predators.
I had a paranoid PC in my game who insists if the party's outside of town they have a watch. They do only single watches and so far they've only had a couple random encounters, none of which amounted to anything. However one of them interrupted his sleep so that they were delayed the next day so he could rest and recover spells. His primary beef was "at low levels, how are we POSSIBLY expected to stay awake to cover the watches AND get enough rest to heal and get spells?"
This guy had an owl familiar. I got really sarcastic once and said "wouldn't it be nice if you had someone with great nightvision, who stayed awake ALL night, but at the same time was near-invisible in the wilds at night? Maybe then you could all get some shut-eye while this person kept watch the whole time, then to alert you if there's danger." He didn't understand that owls were nocturnal predators.
LOL!
They can spot a gazebo at 100 yards, too. Arr.
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Whoa, a few minutes narrating each watch? I usually just go, "night passes uneventfully, you break camp and move on." Unless, of course, something actually happens.
Yeah, if I just say "night passes uneventfully" all the time then they would know something is up when I do take the time out to narrate in greater detail - as in an encounter is going to happen.
My style is to focus on immersive; I try to put the players in the moment. So they don't know what’s going to happen and when since I don't provide meta clues (try my best actually).
All this immersive treatment has a secondary consequence. Casters do not blow all their spells in a given day, since they don't know what is coming next.
It's the same thing when they check a door or room, I usually go into heavy detail evenly, or light detail evenly (as they explore a dungeon).
So the plain door gets the same description detail as the trapped one.
If we are running through an area quickly (pressed for RL time) everything gets the "same" light detail - and the players actually dislike this since it's in these brief descriptions and quick movement that important details are lost (or missed).
I do my best to avoid giving them meta clues: double checking stats on my laptop, looking up a spell they are about to get hit with, pulling minis for an encounter. This also extends to narration - the "lack of/or the extra emphasis on" is a hat-tip to smart players that something is about to happen.
I tried but half the party got rings of substance and made my brain hurt. Such a simple item than cause sooo much headache for me.
They need to be worn for a week, and if taken off then they don't work again until worn for a week.
Solution: provide better ring choices as treasure - they will want a default Protection Ring as one and maybe something else that would trump the attraction of a Ring of Sustenance. If they want to switch out rings they can't (due to the week atunement for the Ring of Sustenance).TL;DR version - make them regret giving up a ring slot for a crappy ring that lets them sleep less.
We generally assume at least 12 hours to camp. In some cases our wizards don't stand watch, in some they do. When they do we tend to hand wave the "uninterrupted" rest and allow time to be spent on watch without negating their spell recovery.
We also do other things at camp, even to the point of brewing potions, making new arrows, research, or other things.
We typically have one person on watch at a time. But we also set alarms around the camp and will sometimes use illusions to divert potential attackers, depending on our level and resources.
8 hours of travel is a fair assumption, with exceptions of course. That still leaves plenty of time to sleep, make food, scout around the camp site, repair weapons and armor, and whatever else. 12 hours to rest and prepare is reasonable.
yeah, we tend to have a similar time to camp as well. In our 5 person party, we have 3 shifts with 1-2 people per shift. Not everyone does a shift all the time, sometimes we have NPC Mercs who can help stand guard.