Has this ever happened to you?
"Alright, that was a grueling encounter. Let's camp out on this level of the tower, heal up and get all those big abilities we just used back because that next encounter's probably going to be the boss fight."
This attitude hadn't sunk into my D&D game until just recently, when one of the players switched to a wizard. Now after using their daily spells, the party is ready to call it for the day/night to try and keep their biggest guns loaded.
It's a natural impulse for players: the DM is throwing really hard stuff at us and possibly out to kill at least one of us to 'put the fear back in them' (which is so totally NOT what I was doing), so we should keep our hardest-hitting powers available as much as possible.
It's that moment when the warm, fuzzy immersion of roleplaying lifts and all that's left is the cold logic of character sheets, dice and statistics. It's when DMs that care about story (or care obsessively about it, like I do) start casting about for anything to keep the party from gaming the system.
So what can you do to keep the action going?
First, we need to understand the decision-making process from the player's side: the reason most D&D players have (or claim to have) for "serial camping" is survivability. In 4E an extended rest gets you to full health, restores your healing surges and gives you back your daily abilities, the biggest bangs in a player's toolkit. This is a bit of a holdover from past editions that required spellcasters to sleep in order to prepare their spells again, so once a low-level wizard or cleric ran out of spells (which happened way too quickly) the party had a big motivation to find a safe corner of the dungeon to lock themselves in and catch 40 winks so one of their most-powerful characters wasn't a liability in upcoming fights.
When designing 4E, Wizards of the Coast tried to give players more powers that they could use throughout the day while still keeping the big "show-stopping" once-per-day abilities that made it cool to play those classes. The goal was to keep players effective for longer, thus encouraging them to adventure longer between rests. The difficulty comes when players (especially power gamers) want to use those powers as often as possible to maximize their effectiveness, or make sure they always have their ace in the hole.
In my game, the players started at first level by holding onto their daily powers as long as possible in case they ran into the big boss of the dungeon. In this week's game, the players (now sixth level) tried to take extended rests at each level of the wizard's tower they were clearing. Part of the reason was that the tower's construction presented ample opportunities to rest, a problem I realized when they took their second extended rest with only three floors cleared, and half the tower still to go.
So how do you as the DM keep the players moving? The simplest solution would be to rule that they simply can't: either they have to wait a certain amount of time in-game before resting again, or they can only take one extended rest per gaming session, or they don't get the full benefits of resting again so quickly. If you're so inclined, the house rules I'd suggest would be not restoring healing surges for parties that rest too frequently, and limiting them to one extended rest per session. However, like most house rules, applying them midway through a campaign can be contentious at best for the players, and are better if presented at the beginning of a new campaign.
Another option is to take advantage of the party's vulnerability while they sleep. Prepared DMs usually have a random encounter or patrol in their back pocket, and having one stumble across the players' campsite and interrupt their rest can be a strong motivation to keep the party moving. If the players take several precautions to hide their camp, such as by locking themselves in a dungeon chamber or using rituals to sleep in extradimensional spaces, then have the patrol waiting in ambush for the players to come out once they've had their nap.
Depending on the dungeon, an extended rest could act as a 'reset' for some of the chambers the players have already cleared: fresh guards fill the rooms where their kin were slaughtered with traps and barricades, or new monsters have moved in to claim the previous tenants' territory. Once the players see it happen often enough they'll be more inclined to push their limits rather than have to deal with additional threats.
In my game, the players were traveling between two portals in a section of the Feywild that belonged to the Winter Prince. They had defeated a band of eladrin Winter Knights in the area and during the combat had talked about camping next to the portal so they could get their powers back before moving on to the next area. In order to encourage them to keep moving, once they killed the most powerful knight I described his body being burned from within and the fire then shooting into the sky, bursting into a dazzling display like a signal flare. The eladrin member of the party knew (from a History check I prompted him to make) that it was a signal to any nearby Winter Knights that one of their brothers had been slain, and they were to investigate with overwhelming force.
They decided it was better to get through the portal as soon as possible.
The issue players have with those methods is that they can seem like punishments if over-used. The challenge for a sneaky DM now becomes designing adventures and providing hooks that make the players choose to press on instead of taking an eight-hour nap every other encounter.
The most success I've had with that is by including a 'race against time' component in some adventures. Make sure you let the players know they're racing against time, and could face disaster if they take an extended rest every five minutes. At the same time, have a reward prepared for when they do manage to beat the clock.
In a previous session, my players were investigating the killings of humans and elves on the edge of a nearby forest. The human farmers swore up and down elves had been killing them and burning their homes, while the elves that the players found said humans had invading their camps and slaughtering them. The players discovered a necromantic cult was behind the attacks using very life-like zombies of elves and humans, but by the time they discovered that the humans were already marching out to burn the forest. The players had a choice: find the necromancers while the elves tried to hold off the humans, or stop the humans while the elves went to deal with the necromancers. Both had time components: the faster the players completed them, the better the outcome would be for the other group.
The players chose to go after the cult, and began exploring a dungeon complex deep in the forest. They soon learned the head necromancer planned to sacrifice an elven princess in order to invoke a spirit of vengeance, which would drive the rest of the elves insane with anger. The players had to reach the necromancer before they completed the ritual, or else the elves would go crazy and kill all the humans trying to burn their forest down. As an added reward, by saving the princess before she was sacrificed they received a permanent boon.
If your players are more interested in rewards than story, consider swiping a good idea from video games: the 'survival' mode, in which players are rewarded more and more for surviving longer and longer without quitting or failing. In 4E players reach 'milestones' every two encounters and are rewarded with an action point, which is supposed to be another incentive to adventure longer between rests. Consider giving them actual rewards, such as bonus experience, bigger amounts of gold or magic items for reaching certain milestones.
All Good Things Must Come to an End
While you're designing hooks and pitfalls for your players in order to keep driving them forward, don't forget that eventually they will need to rest and replenish their health and abilities, so try to estimate where the players will use their biggest abilities and include rest points where appropriate. They're especially helpful at the end of a gaming session, so the players (and you) know that next week they'll have a clean slate and won't have to remember which powers have been used and how many healing surges they have left.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take a nap and recover some 3rd-level spells. Wake me if there's an ambush.
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