worldbuilding and DMing quandaries: how to balance the environment and other issues

[dehro]

I'm a long time player whose group has last year moved from 3.5 ed to 5th edition. This has prompted me to decide to finally put together a setting/campaign and try my hand at DMing instead of relying on one of the other 3 players who take turns.

I will have a few issues and questions on how to tackle certain aspects of the game, which I would love an imput about from you.
I fully expect to make rookie mistakes, so feel free to point them out to me.

To begin: I aim to start my players from level 1, (with individual sessions 0 to lay down the groundwork and define the characters' ambitions and traits). I would like to take levelling up really slow even at the early levels... working primarily with milestones (individual milestones or group ones) and throwing either roleplaying opportunities or resources in as rewards rather than levels.
I am putting together a world where characters or NPCs that are level 5 are already seen as very extraordinary people. There aren't many NPCs or monsters around at those levels or higher and for the PCs to rise above the average it will take quite a lot of play-time. Magical items and resources will be equally scarce.
The overwhelming majority of the npcs will be very low level if of any level at all and will pose a threat to the party primarily by confronting them in larger numbers (and because the party itself will be level 1/2 for quite a long time).

Eventually however, I expect the PCs to rise to the levels and beyond the level of even the strongest "local" NPCs.
How do I balance making the interactions (fights or "civil") challenging and interesting without scaling the local populace up, with inserting more powerful opponents?
Ideally I aim to avoid the situation where there's an absolute and obvious gap between background npcs and "powerful ones" that are on par with the party (think of those videogames like Dragon Age where your average PC is decked out in a way that makes him stand out even visually from the NPCs...)... but at the same time, I don't want the party to return to the village they started out from 10 levels further up the progression ladder and suddenly find that Jeff the Pikeman can stand his ground against them just like he did in session one.

How do you balance that out?

P.S. I know I'm probably not making a lot of sense.. it's a bit of a stream-of-consciousnes-sy process.

[J-H]

Based on the NPCs listed at 5esrd.org, I think it's reasonable to have NPCs up to about 5th-10th level as typical. Keep in mind that the power levels are somewhat lower. Thanks to bounded accuracy, a level 1 fighter has a reasonable chance of landing a hit (+4 to-hit) on a 10th level rogue (dex+5/armor+2 = ac 17, maybe 17 with a magic item?). The difference between levels is in capabilities, hit points, and to some extend damage output (based on class abilities).

Even at higher levels, casters aren't super-powerful. Anyone casting Wish, for example, has a 33% chance of losing the ability to cast it ever again if they do anything other than use it to recreate a lower level spell.

[Unoriginal]

Well, you want some contradictory things, but for the most part, you just have to:

-block the CR of monsters and NPCs to 3 maximum (unless exceptional ones)

-increase the number of enemies rather than their CRs

And that's it. There is enough creatures of CR 0 to 3 that you can have varied challenges even with those limitations.

Now, you should make VERY sure you're not simply transposing 3.X assumptions on 5e or thinking the two are the same. They're not.

Early levels are lethal, and even weak mooks stay relevant at higher levels in 5e. Blocking the PCs' progression during the first 3 levels is likely to not be fun unless your players like that kind of "goblin mook can beat you in 1-vs-1 for most of your career" tone... but at this point you're probably better off with a game system that support that kind of gameplay rather than one that opposes it like 5e.

[Rukelnikov]

If you are just coming to 5e from 3.5 maybe you haven't yet experienced the bounded accuracy that 5e has that so many people talk about.

What it means is that if Jeff the Pikeman attacked at +5 when they were lvl 1, and still attacks at +5 when they are level 11, Jeff still has a 25% chance of landing a hit on a full plate + shield defensive style character (who would have 21 AC)

AC is pretty stagnant in 5e, it doesnt increase that much if at all without magic items. So will Jeff still be the same threat? Obviously not, because the party will have far more HP than the did, and Jeff still hits for the same damage. However, the Jeff club of fighting produced another 10 commoners, with identical stats to Jeff! And the 11 of them attacking the ftr at once will deal him a good chunk of damage before falling.

This obviously doesn't work against a spellcaster who will fling a fireball and call it a day. But point is, high level "mundane" invulnerability is not really a thing in 5e.

[dehro]

I'm not dead set on any of this yet, and much depends on the characters my players will create and what that want to do with them.
I'm hoping to create something of a sandbox where things happen independently of what the party does and the direction of their story will be heavily influenced by character arch, impacted by plot derived from their backgrounds.
Depending on the characters created and players ideas, there might be entire episodes where no weapons are drawn.

Edit for clarification: so far, in 5e, we've run through hoard of the dragon Queen and started a new campaign.
I have a fairly good idea of the dynamics so far, but have never, not even in 3.5, sat in the driver's seat.

[WilliamHuggins]

Have you checked in with your would be players about having a campaign that is going to spend a long time pre level 5? Because those levels are the ones where combat is extremely boring with martials just attacking once each turn as resources are spent extremely fast, while casters are just casting mediocre spells to stay alive so they can cantrip spam, I would advise you to run the major part of your campaign between levels 5 and 11, at those levels fights are much more interactive with martials attacking multiple times and having enough resources for every fight to do some cool stuff while caster have some big spells at the same time they still can not cast all day without worry.

Also around these levels you can put some iconic monsters like different kinds of giants, or lesser dragons (young ones or maybe even a solo adult one of a lesser color), vampires, ilithid, hydras, and even some demons or devils. Of course if you can create your own monsters like I do, you can have these even at lower challange ratings but considering you are just starting as a DM I assumed you would not.

As for NPCs this level bracket is also pretty suitable as if you are able to check the Appendix B of the Monsters Manual you can see that example NPC "monsters" there have challange rating suitable for this bracket. For example "Guard" NPC with CR 1/8 who would be moderately dangerous to solo for the players at level 1, would later on be easy but it would still be a threat when a player is surrounded by 10 guards, while on the other hand that wizard who would occasionally visit the village from his nearby tower could be represented as the Archmage NPC with CR12 who would be that wondrous omnipotent figure at the beginning while later on when they return to their village mid campaign they might actually be able to handle him if they band together.

[Throne12]

Just throwing this out there. As a DM I ask my self in a world with magic and monsters why are the PC's the only ones. That are powerful why couldn't Jeff the pikeman defend the village from a few goblins or fending off a few bandits or maybe the hole village militia fought off a owlbear. Why did this old man wizards that spent the last 60 years studying and performing magic is only lv 3. Towns folk should not have levels.


You can have a campaign all planned out where they go from lv 1 to 10 and npc and such are low lv but its has to be a story based campaign. No one like to spend half a year going from lv 1 to lv 2 if your have a game weekly or biweekly.

[Man_Over_Game]

This is a bit off topic for what you're original looking for, but there's one particular part of the 5e system that a lot of DMs have trouble with:

The Combat-Per-Rest quandary.

DnD 5e, as a whole, is balanced around the fact that an average adventuring day has multiple (around 7) stressful scenarios before getting a Long Rest, with two Short Rests in between. That's "Average". As in, the game is designed around the potential of having anywhere between 1-3 short rests, and many DMs don't even put in 1. In my last campaign, I got to level 3 without ever needing a short rest, over the course of about 5 sessions.

It should look something like this:

Long Rest Ends (Morning)
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Short Rest
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Short Rest
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Long Rest Begins (Night)


But usually ends up looking like this:

Long Rest Ends (Morning)
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Long Rest Begins (Night)



More short rests/combat per Long Rest will mean that more "endurance" style classes will shine more, like Rogues, Fighters, Warlocks and the such.

Fewer short rests/combat per Long Rest will mean that more "burst" style classes will shine more, like Clerics, Paladins, or Wizards.

Many DMs will not have multiple stressful, resource-consuming scenarios in a day in order to fit the narrative they want for their world, but this inadvertently impacts several classes into being much weaker. If you choose to have fewer stressful events (and by stressful events, I mean something as lethal or consuming as combat, like a trap of some kind), then have a backup plan in case you happen to have an endurance-based character in your group.

One such example is my Adrenaline Surge homebrew in my signature. Basically, it makes boss fights more epic while triggering Short Rest benefits for everyone, used for "This Isn't Even My Final Form" moments. That way, people still can have only one fight per day and make everyone feel rewarded.

Another example is to alter the term "Short Rest" and "Long Rest" to have longer durations. For example, you can make a Short Rest take 8 hours instead of 1, and make the Long Rest be an entire day of resting (32 hours). There are other examples of modifying the system in the Dungeon Master's Guide, which includes suggestions on how to alter the rest system to fit your world (including making a Short Rest only take 5 minutes, for a fast-paced dungeon crawl).

[Vogie]

If you don't want to level up all of the populace, you can add abilities to the existing creatures

For example, the Gnoll has a spear, a longbow, and a bite attack, but only one attack. They'll almost never use the Bite attack, so grab the Gnoll ability from 4e that allows them to bite as a bonus action on any target with half or less health.

Another example is the Leadership ability from the Knight (and similar monsters), which gives a no-concentration Bless aura. Slap that on any type of other "Lord" or 'captain' style creature increases the power of the group without individually cranking up the CRs of the mobs.

[Ganymede]

Statting NPCs up should only be necessary if they are meant to represent some sort of challenge to the PCs (or, maybe, in the rare case they fight at the PCs' sides).

Unless your players decide it is more fun to murder everyone than to go on exciting fantasy adventures, it really shouldn't be a problem that the average shopkeep is not a threat to a tier three PC.

[MaxWilson]

If you are just coming to 5e from 3.5 maybe you haven't yet experienced the bounded accuracy that 5e has that so many people talk about.

What it means is that if Jeff the Pikeman attacked at +5 when they were lvl 1, and still attacks at +5 when they are level 11, Jeff still has a 25% chance of landing a hit on a full plate + shield defensive style character (who would have 21 AC)

AC is pretty stagnant in 5e, it doesnt increase that much if at all without magic items. So will Jeff still be the same threat? Obviously not, because the party will have far more HP than the did, and Jeff still hits for the same damage. However, the Jeff club of fighting produced another 10 commoners, with identical stats to Jeff! And the 11 of them attacking the ftr at once will deal him a good chunk of damage before falling.

This obviously doesn't work against a spellcaster who will fling a fireball and call it a day. But point is, high level "mundane" invulnerability is not really a thing in 5e.

WotC's website no longer has it, but I saved a copy of the post from Rodney Thompson (5E designer and coiner of the term "bounded accuracy") about how bounded accuracy shaped 5E's design. Link: http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/06/bounded-accuracy.html

Obviously they didn't hold completely to this ethos because the game they eventually published wound up giving everyone +proficiency bonus to pretty much everything they do in practice (unless your wizards want to wield non-proficient weapons like greatswords), but most of the benefits Rodney talks about still exist in 5E as published. Anyone who has never read the post and is interested in 5E should read it.

Some key snippets (emphasis added):


Now, note that I said that we make no assumptions on the DM's side of the game about increased accuracy and defenses. This does not mean that the players do not gain bonuses to accuracy and defenses. It does mean, however, that we do not need to make sure that characters advance on a set schedule, and we can let each class advance at its own appropriate pace. Thus, wizards don't have to gain a +10 bonus to weapon attack rolls just for reaching a higher level in order to keep participating; if wizards never gain an accuracy bonus, they can still contribute just fine to the ongoing play experience.

This extends beyond simple attacks and damage. We also make the same assumptions about character ability modifiers and skill bonuses. Thus, our expected DCs do not scale automatically with level, and instead a DC is left to represent the fixed value of the difficulty of some task, not the difficulty of the task relative to level.

We think the bounded accuracy system is good for the game for a number of different reasons, including the following:

Getting better at something means actually getting better at something. Since target numbers (DCs for checks, AC, and so on) and monster accuracy don't scale with level, gaining a +1 bonus means you are actually 5% better at succeeding at that task, not simply hitting some basic competence level. When a fighter gets a +1 increase to his or her attack bonus, it means he or she hits monsters across the board 5% more often. This means that characters, as they gain levels, see a tangible increase in their competence, not just in being able to accomplish more amazing things, but also in how often they succeed at tasks they perform regularly.

...

The DM's monster roster expands, never contracts. Although low-level characters probably don't stack up well against higher-level monsters, thanks to the high hit points and high damage numbers of those monsters, as the characters gain levels, the lower-level monsters continue to be useful to the DM, just in greater numbers. While we might fight only four goblins at a time at 1st level, we might take on twelve of them at 5th level without breaking a sweat. Since the monsters don't lose the ability to hit the player characters—instead they take out a smaller percentage chunk of the characters' hit points—the DM can continue to increase the number of monsters instead of needing to design or find whole new monsters. Thus, the repertoire of monsters available for DMs to use in an adventure only increases over time, as new monsters become acceptable challenges and old monsters simply need to have their quantity increased.

It opens up new possibilities of encounter and adventure design. A 1st-level character might not fight the black dragon plaguing the town in a face-to-face fight and expect to survive. But if they rally the town to their side, outfit the guards with bows and arrows, and whittle the dragon down with dozens of attacks instead of only four or five, the possibilities grow. With the bounded accuracy system, lower-level creatures banding together can erode a higher-level creature's hit points, which cuts both ways; now, fights involving hordes of orcs against the higher-level party can be threatening using only the basic orc stat block, and the city militia can still battle against the fire giants rampaging at the gates without having to inflate the statistics of the city guards to make that possible.

It is easier for players and DMs to understand the relative strength and difficulty of things. Under the bounded accuracy system, a DM can describe a hobgoblin wearing chainmail, and, no matter what the level of the characters, a player can reasonably guess that the hobgoblin's AC is around 15; the description of the world matches up to mechanical expectations, and eventually players will see chainmail, or leather armor, or plate mail in game and have an instinctive response to how tough things are. Likewise, a DM knows that he or she can reasonably expect players to understand the difficulty of things based purely on their in-world description, and so the DM can focus more on the details of the world rather than on setting player expectations.

[Rukelnikov]

This is a bit off topic for what you're original looking for, but there's one particular part of the 5e system that a lot of DMs have trouble with:

The Combat-Per-Rest quandary.

DnD 5e, as a whole, is balanced around the fact that an average adventuring day has multiple (around 7) stressful scenarios before getting a Long Rest, with two Short Rests in between. That's "Average". As in, the game is designed around the potential of having anywhere between 1-3 short rests, and many DMs don't even put in 1. In my last campaign, I got to level 3 without ever needing a short rest, over the course of about 5 sessions.

It should look something like this:

Long Rest Ends (Morning)
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Short Rest
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Short Rest
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Long Rest Begins (Night)


But usually ends up looking like this:

Long Rest Ends (Morning)
Stressful Scenario
Stressful Scenario
Long Rest Begins (Night)



More short rests/combat per Long Rest will mean that more "endurance" style classes will shine more, like Rogues, Fighters, Warlocks and the such.

Fewer short rests/combat per Long Rest will mean that more "burst" style classes will shine more, like Clerics, Paladins, or Wizards.

Many DMs will not have multiple stressful, resource-consuming scenarios in a day in order to fit the narrative they want for their world, but this inadvertently impacts several classes into being much weaker. If you choose to have fewer stressful events (and by stressful events, I mean something as lethal or consuming as combat, like a trap of some kind), then have a backup plan in case you happen to have an endurance-based character in your group.

One such example is my Adrenaline Surge homebrew in my signature. Basically, it makes boss fights more epic while triggering Short Rest benefits for everyone, used for "This Isn't Even My Final Form" moments. That way, people still can have only one fight per day and make everyone feel rewarded.

Another example is to alter the term "Short Rest" and "Long Rest" to have longer durations. For example, you can make a Short Rest take 8 hours instead of 1, and make the Long Rest be an entire day of resting (32 hours). There are other examples of modifying the system in the Dungeon Master's Guide, which includes suggestions on how to alter the rest system to fit your world (including making a Short Rest only take 5 minutes, for a fast-paced dungeon crawl).

The problem with the "multiple fights per short rest" mentality is that, most often it's the players that are in control of the tempo. Unless they have some strict time constraint, or are on the defensive, they can decide how much to fight. And maybe it varies from group to group, but in mine, if a short rest is not enough to leave most of the party at near full capacity, that it, we call it a day, take the necessary precautions, rest and keep going afterwards.

Of course this can be subverted sometimes, but still most of the times its the players that are deciding how many fights they wanna tackle between rests.

[dehro]

lots of food for thought.. much appreciated and by all means, keep it coming.

as for my players.. they're fairly experienced. We're shifting a little, in no small part thanks to the edition shift, from a gung ho kill (or try to kill) anything that moves approach to a more roleplay and situational awareness based aproach... I'm aiming to encourage that shift a little further, but I'm also ready to adapt with the flow should I notice (or be told) that it's not really working for them. Much will depend on the characters they'll build.
I'd like to really base the initial part of the campaign on what they come up with in terms of the identity and goals of their characters, rather than, say, have the party go through a set of scenarios or questions that come about independently from party composition. In fact I'm more than happy to create entire plotlines and background elements based on their character's stories and what comes up in session 0.

As for levels.. I appreciate that the first levels are kinda boring and, depending on whether I can manage to make them less so or not, am more than willing to shift the "long game levels" to say, levels 3-5.. 2 and 3 being the levels where most characters grow into their own by specialising and such.
I'd like to see that happen ingame rather than on the PC sheets.

Jeff the Pikeman will most likely feature prominently in the world lore :smalltongue:

[Unoriginal]

The problem with the "multiple fights per short rest" mentality is that, most often it's the players that are in control of the tempo.

The DM is the one saying when the PCs can rest. If the PCs take the rest or not is up to them, but they don't get to decide "we take a Short Rest now".

Getting benefits from resting actually require one to be tired enough for the rest to make a difference.

[MaxWilson]

The problem with the "multiple fights per short rest" mentality is that, most often it's the players that are in control of the tempo. Unless they have some strict time constraint, or are on the defensive, they can decide how much to fight. And maybe it varies from group to group, but in mine, if a short rest is not enough to leave most of the party at near full capacity, that it, we call it a day, take the necessary precautions, rest and keep going afterwards.

Of course this can be subverted sometimes, but still most of the times its the players that are deciding how many fights they wanna tackle between rests.

Frankly, in a dungeon crawl scenario where you're in control of your own tempo, it should be the short rest-oriented classes like Moon Druids and warlocks that are somewhat-overpowered. If you've got e.g. seven days to explore/loot the Ancient Citadel of Chaos before the Rune Gates close until next century, it's a lot nicer to get your abilities back every hour than every day. Who wants to wait 24 hours for the wizard to get back the Wall of Force he blew on a measly Chuul? So if you want to explore as much of the ruins as possible, the wizard needs to save his spells for the big fights, but the warlock can toss around Armor of Agathys and Dance Macabre in every single fight, and the druid can shapeshift pretty much as much as he wants.

Many scenarios will not be dungeon-crawl like, and the wizard will be relatively stronger in those scenarios (e.g. urban espionage or wilderness exploration where it's rare for multiple challenges to occur in a 24-hour period), but as long as you have a good mix of scenario types, both players will be relatively happy.


The DM is the one saying when the PCs can rest. If the PCs take the rest or not is up to them, but they don't get to decide "we take a Short Rest now".

Er, that's backwards. The DM says, "What do you want to do?" and the players can say, "We take it easy for an hour and have lunch/meditate/etc.," and then the DM tells them what happened, which might include "monsters attack" or "okay, that counts as a short rest." But it's not the DM's job to say "You take a Short Rest now." The players are the ones who play their PCs, not the DM.

[Man_Over_Game]

Scrubbed, don't want to continue this and derail it into another Encounter vs. Short Rest vs. Long Rest thread.


lots of food for thought.. much appreciated and by all means, keep it coming.

as for my players.. they're fairly experienced. We're shifting a little, in no small part thanks to the edition shift, from a gung ho kill (or try to kill) anything that moves approach to a more roleplay and situational awareness based aproach... I'm aiming to encourage that shift a little further, but I'm also ready to adapt with the flow should I notice (or be told) that it's not really working for them. Much will depend on the characters they'll build.
I'd like to really base the initial part of the campaign on what they come up with in terms of the identity and goals of their characters, rather than, say, have the party go through a set of scenarios or questions that come about independently from party composition. In fact I'm more than happy to create entire plotlines and background elements based on their character's stories and what comes up in session 0.

As for levels.. I appreciate that the first levels are kinda boring and, depending on whether I can manage to make them less so or not, am more than willing to shift the "long game levels" to say, levels 3-5.. 2 and 3 being the levels where most characters grow into their own by specialising and such.
I'd like to see that happen ingame rather than on the PC sheets.

Jeff the Pikeman will most likely feature prominently in the world lore :smalltongue:

One recommendation I've seen work well is earning "experience" based on session attendance, and the number of sessions it takes to level up is equal to your current level.

So to level from 1 to 2 takes 1 session.
To level from 2 to 3 takes 2 sessions.
To level from 3 to 4 takes 3 sessions, etc. If you want people to take longer to level up, just change it into requiring a number of session equal to your next level. This is the difference of hitting level 4 after 6 sessions vs. 9 sessions.

[Beleriphon]

s for levels.. I appreciate that the first levels are kinda boring and, depending on whether I can manage to make them less so or not, am more than willing to shift the "long game levels" to say, levels 3-5.. 2 and 3 being the levels where most characters grow into their own by specialising and such.
I'd like to see that happen ingame rather than on the PC sheets.

Jeff the Pikeman will most likely feature prominently in the world lore :smalltongue:

I'd recommend 3-5 being slower, most classes don't get a lot of their base abilities until level 3.

[dehro]

I'd recommend 3-5 being slower, most classes don't get a lot of their base abilities until level 3.
thinking things over, that's probably what I'll be aiming for.

Scrubbed, don't want to continue this and derail it into another Encounter vs. Short Rest vs. Long Rest thread.



One recommendation I've seen work well is earning "experience" based on session attendance, and the number of sessions it takes to level up is equal to your current level.

So to level from 1 to 2 takes 1 session.
To level from 2 to 3 takes 2 sessions.
To level from 3 to 4 takes 3 sessions, etc. If you want people to take longer to level up, just change it into requiring a number of session equal to your next level. This is the difference of hitting level 4 after 6 sessions vs. 9 sessions.
This could actually work as a pacing concept, but I'll still try to draw leveling up out a bit.. we have a rule in place whereby the session is cancelled when 2 or more players are not attending, but on the whole, we're fairly consistent and play almost every week. Our sessions run some 3-5 hours, 5 hours being a rare occasion. I'm fairly confident that I can draw things out without feeling like I'm dragging my feet. I can always let them find some nice treasure/equipment, in lieu of a level up.

[Rukelnikov]

I'd recommend 3-5 being slower, most classes don't get a lot of their base abilities until level 3.

I second this, many concepts don't feel like themselves until they get a/the specific subclass they need (Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Tomelock, etc), that may end up feeling like a very long session 0 until my regular fighter, finally became a gish.

EDIT:
I can always let them find some nice treasure/equipment, in lieu of a level up.

Check out the DMG starting at page 227, has a section called "Other rewards", it ranges from tithes and lands to divine blessings, it may give you some ideas, I am particularly fond of charms (limited use non equipable spells), like "partaking in the seelie court's feast left your characters filled with magical energy, you can use it to cast Conjure Woodland Beings once", a one time use of a 4th level spell is a pretty nice reward at low levels, its basically a get out of this situation coupon.


The DM is the one saying when the PCs can rest. If the PCs take the rest or not is up to them, but they don't get to decide "we take a Short Rest now".

Getting benefits from resting actually require one to be tired enough for the rest to make a difference.

The players can just say we stay at the inn until we are tip top shape, or we keep making tiny huts until we are tip top shape, etc.

Ofc, this can be thwarted once in a while, but in general there is no real justification for it besides the DM not wanting the players to recover their resources.


Frankly, in a dungeon crawl scenario where you're in control of your own tempo, it should be the short rest-oriented classes like Moon Druids and warlocks that are somewhat-overpowered. If you've got e.g. seven days to explore/loot the Ancient Citadel of Chaos before the Rune Gates close until next century, it's a lot nicer to get your abilities back every hour than every day. Who wants to wait 24 hours for the wizard to get back the Wall of Force he blew on a measly Chuul? So if you want to explore as much of the ruins as possible, the wizard needs to save his spells for the big fights, but the warlock can toss around Armor of Agathys and Dance Macabre in every single fight, and the druid can shapeshift pretty much as much as he wants.

Many scenarios will not be dungeon-crawl like, and the wizard will be relatively stronger in those scenarios (e.g. urban espionage or wilderness exploration where it's rare for multiple challenges to occur in a 24-hour period), but as long as you have a good mix of scenario types, both players will be relatively happy.

Yeah, you need to put the party under some kind of time constraint, or in a scenario where they can't guarantee any kind of safe resting place, like being hunted by assassins, ghosts, what have you.