The One Rule

After my honeymoon phase with 5th Edition and its litany of exciting player options ended, each week started to drag. Despite having more than too many possible "character builds," each session and the encounters within felt the same. Whether I played as a PC or the DM, the players were always in control of the situation.

Now I don't mean they always won or always lived. Shockingly, characters die in 5th Edition campaigns, too. I mean that players were always in control of their next move. They always have a good option to use from their class or subclass. Even if they did get creative, using their class feature was always the optimal choice. So, why bother trying to think of inventive solutions?

However, it's those inventive solutions that make one session feel different from the next. We sneaked past Monster A like this, trapped Monster B like this, and so on. Scenarios feel unique based on the environment, the tools at your disposal, and the players involved. 5th Edition, as its commonly played, rarely results in that kind of game. The environment hardly matters due to character power levels and the tools are always the same because they are class abilities.

Enter "the One Rule." I call it the One Rule not because it's the First Rule or the Most Important Rule, but because it's the one rule that brought a fun creative and inventive spirit back into my fantasy role-playing.

Characters can only gain the benefits of a long rest in a sanctuary, or any place where they have a roof over their heads, a place to sleep safely, and time to rest.

I also explained it to my players this way: if you would have to set a watch, you don't get a long rest.

Heroes camping and probably regaining all of their class abilities (art by Larry Elmore)

The 5th Edition rules implicitly contradict the One Rule when they define a long rest as "a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours." If they expect you to take a watch during a long rest, the imply that a long rest occurs during any 8 hour stretch of staying put, and that's how most people play their 5th Edition games.

The One Rule is neither novel nor innovative. Many people already play this way. It does, however, change the quality of the game more than any other rule or rule change I have made. The roots of the hobby grew from this foundation: everything is a resource, and how you manage those resources - your spells, hit points, and abilities - forms the core of the game. The One Rule helps you return to those roots.

When implementing the rule, stay true to the intent. An empty cave in the woods isn't a sanctuary. An abandoned guard tower isn't a sanctuary. And you will never find a sanctuary in a dungeon. Sanctuaries are "base camp." A town, village, fort, or castle.

I wrapped up my first full campaign to use this rule yesterday, and the memories I have from the adventures aren't all epic battles. They're also the ways my players outsmarted their enemies: giants and gnolls and the gods themselves.

This is the one rule that changes the game.