What is meant by Exploration play?

kiltedyaksman said:

There were some pretty strange ideas expressed at the start of this post. how the heck do you play D&D without dungeon crawling?

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No dungeons is normal for me.

I have temples, ships, warehouses, towers, forests, swamps, hills, bridges, roads, towns, cities, magical planes, cloud kingdoms, and many more locations.

My players rarely go looking in a hole in the ground for something to do.

My latest adventure is the first time in a long while that I have had anything like a 'dungeon'. The top floor is an ordinary two story home in the town that the players have followed 'bad people' carting 30 chickens and 6 monkeys to deliver (and they've heard this is delivered every two days).

They cleared the two floors of the home (a watch force of guards) and found a secret way down to a set of stairs. The stairs leads to a hidden temple. The end of the temple sanctuary leads to a forest environment.

The temple is basically a bridge point for the players and a chance to determine whether they want to stay in the city or move out to the wilderness. The portal is being held open by a person who has had their heart pulled from their chest and is slowly dying (evil temple people).

The opening is a limited opportunity forcing moral choice of how to handle the person in mid sacrifice and physical dilemma as they don't know where they'll end up and didn't start the day with provisions and supplies to be out in the middle of a forest adventure.

Regularly I have ambushes in town streets with all the complications of innocents. I've had merchant meetings broken up by a third party breaking in and had rituals performed in a warehouse within the town.

I blame my Shadowrun days for getting me out of the dungeon and using common locations for battle zones.

kiltedyaksman said:

There were some pretty strange ideas expressed at the start of this post. how the heck do you play D&D without dungeon crawling?

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Very easily. You don't use them. Think about fantasy movies, fantasy novels, westerns, mysteries, pirate movies, etc. and use them for inspiration for adventures.

I have used only one or two dungeons since 1987. I, usually, DM, but even the few DMs that I have played under since then almost never used dungeons either.

kiltedyaksman said:

There were some pretty strange ideas expressed at the start of this post. how the heck do you play D&D without dungeon crawling?

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(a) It's easy to minimize "dungeon crawling" in a D&D game.

However,

(b) Nobody at the start of the thread said anything about about playing D&D "without dungeon crawling."

Mattachine said:

Combat Play: players vs. monsters: attacks, damage, saves

Exploration Play: players vs. environment: maps, traps, secrets

Social Play: players vs. NPCs: negotiation, information, intrigue


All three include as much or as little roleplay as you wish, despite claims to the contrary.

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Well, you're either quoting me or we share a brain!

http://shatterworldbts.blogspot.com/2012/02/three-pillars-of-d.html

Exploring = exploring the environment. Finding out stuff. Normally as opposed to combat or talking.

Exploration is very good for inculcating the Sense of Wonder that many people value.

Lifting this from another thread:

I think there are many kinds of exploration. Since DDXP, and the seminars and playtests that took place there, I have been meditating on what sorts of exploration have been supported by the different versions of D&D--and more importantly how those exploration bits have been supported. I put my thoughts in a Critical Hits article: Exploring D&D at DDXP : Critical Hits

Exploration was perhaps the best part of the AD&D campaigns I played and ran over the years. Exploration is more than just making a way through a dungeon map. For my groups, it is learning about the world: the geography but also the political, social, religious, historical and philosophical makeup. Deciding which adventure to pursue is exploration for my groups as well.

I've enjoyed my 2e, 3e, and 4e games, but it is clear that the focus has moved more toward making combat work better, sometimes at the expense of the exploration portion of the game.

Rechan said:

What is meant by Exploration play?

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Everything that takes place after you stop talking but before you start attacking (and is not downtime)

kiltedyaksman said:

There were some pretty strange ideas expressed at the start of this post. how the heck do you play D&D without dungeon crawling?

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I think some people are equating "dungeon" to a "dark, scary hole in the ground, in which one might find hoards of treasure guarded by various monsters, where the scenery is mostly old ruins, and the stench of mildew emanates from the wet walls."

I see a "dungeon" as any place that is designed for the purposes of encountering enemies. It could be an old-school ruins, or it could be a temple, or a house, or even a bit of thick forest. It all comes down to how you define the word.

That said, I tend to save "crawling" for rare occasions. My dungeons are usually small areas with a few encounters inside. I don't usually make sprawling complexes filled with monsters to kill. Just last night, my "dungeon" was a single-encounter area that was simply a sacrificial ritual room accessed via someone's basement. No real crawl involved, but the dungeon was there.