TIME must always have a COST - no 5-minute workdays

I've written a longer post here; this is the short version, more or less.

(I really like that post; I encourage you to read it).

Time must always have a cost.

Resting for one hour in the dungeon is dangerous. But so is resting for one day in the wild.

Resting for a month in a peaceful city should ALSO have a cost.

The cost is usually DANGER. 

It can also be money, until the PCs are too rich to care. Or anything else the PCs might lose.

In any case, there must be a risk that the cost lasts longer than the time spent. 

I.e., if the cost of resting for a day is an encounter that does nothing except take a few HP, they'll just rest another day or two.

If there is no cost, the PCs will ALWAYS fall back to the free/safe state after they have spent some resources, thus creating the "5-minute work day": the PCs enter the dungeon, spend all their spells, and get out of the dungeon to recover them.

Same can be said of HP. It does not matter if the PCs fully recover in one day, one week, or one month if there is no cost to that.

Even after a month, it is unlikely that the monsters will "re-spawn" (although I love to add certain undead that rise again every night until the source of the curse is destroyed).

But maybe they should just leave (with all the treasure) or call for reinforcements. 

Otherwise, the PCs can always "reset" their losses with no costs for the opposition.

It is like they are playing chess, and they can always reset their clock arbitrarily - and even replenish lost pieces - but their foes can't.

Until, of course, they suffer a check-mate (or TPK). 

This is hard to happen if the PCs can just choose to leave at any time, but it can still happen against opposition that is much stronger.

I'm tempted to say the game ends whenever the PCs reach safety (or, again, in a TPK). You can start the game again with the same PCs after a day of after after a season, but then it will be a different game. If they go back to the dungeon, the dungeon will have changed.

Having a game without any risk feels a bit boring.  The only way to have a meaningful campaign that never really "stops" is to keep that in mind.

Note: the New Year, New Game sale is on. I'm thinking of getting Crypts and Things Remastered - let me know if you have read it! But there are tons of other games on sale.

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