I have a sneaking suspicion that telling players how many encounters there will be in a session may end up with an improved Dungeons & Dragons experience.

D&D began with explorations into a dungeon, where the players went for long as they felt able, then returned home. As this continued, players developed the concept of using all expendable powers and spells in the first encounters and then leaving. This became known as the 15-minute or 5-minute workday and dominated a lot of discussion about the game in the early 2000s around the release of D&D 3E.

This strategy is less effective in story-based (linear) adventures, where narrative determines when the players can rest. But at that point, the players can end up saving powers for encounters that never come. “I won’t use my rage until the final battle”, “Oh that was it”.

4E tried combatting this with the strategy of making most powers encounter-based, so it didn’t matter which encounter of the day you were in, you were always at close to peak effectiveness. Which was one way of doing it, though daily powers did still exist.

Now, obviously, just telling players the encounter structure of the session (and when their short rests can occur) won’t apply to every campaign. D&D is not just one thing. But for running something like Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which is more linear than most?

I feel, especially for barbarians (limited rages) and bards (limited inspiration uses) it may make a big difference. I do enjoy resource management, but I don’t enjoy it as much when it leads to sub-par experiences.

When I end a session with uses of my bardic inspiration left, I feel like I haven’t been as effective as I could be.

When I get halfway through a session and can no longer inspire people, then I feel like I haven’t paced myself.

Is a solution to reveal beforehand the adventure’s pacing?