D&D 5E Three pillars: what is "exploration"?

[Libramarian]

I was looking at the explanation of the "three pillars" of D&D (5e PHB, p.8), and I was disappointed to find that exploration is not well-defined at all.

"Exploration includes both the adventurers' movement through the world and their interactions with objects and situations that require their attention, Exploration is the give-and-take of the players describing what they want their characters to do, and the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result. On a large scale, that might involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or an hour making their way through caverns underground. On the smallest scale, it could mean one character pulling a lever in a dungeon room to see what happens."
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This doesn't help very much to differentiate exploration from social interaction and combat. In particular, the bolded part is just the basic pattern of D&D play (p.6) that happens during any kind of interaction or encounter.

It looks like exploration is just a catch-all for everything that happens between social and combat encounters. And yet it seems like when people use the term here, they have something more specific in mind. I've even seen references to exploration pillar encounters (traps? navigational challenges?).

What does the exploration pillar mean to you?

 

[Satyrn]

Well, I think it really is everything that isn't a social encounter or combat encounter.

So yeah, most of the game.

 

[Schmoe]

Succinctly put, to me it means interacting with the environment with the primary reward being discovery of new and interesting things. This can cover skill challenges, puzzles, wilderness exploration, etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

"Rock climbing, Joel, rock climbing..."


[video=youtube;EJolhpz57RI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJolhpz57RI[/video]


Ironically, if you saw it in a movie, a lot of exploration scenes would be 'padding,' but in RPGs, and in D&D in particular, it's a meaningful part of the game. Exploration is traversing obstacles & discovering things in the environment, often things you're specifically looking for or looking to avoid - treasure & traps in a traditional dungeon crawl, which is very exploration-heavy, for instance.

Combat should be pretty obvious. Interaction (or 'social' - NOT 'RP,' it's all RP), is any non-combat interaction with other creatures to achieve a goal (or avoid a problem, like combat).

Anything that isn't just pointless that doesn't fall into either of those is probably exploration.

It's well worth noting that both Interaction and Exploration can easily lead to combat. Negotiations break down, there's a fight. You disturb an undead's tomb or touch the item a golem is guarding in the course of your exploration, there's a fight. Thus combat is often viewed as the most-important or more prevalent pillar or the pillar of last resort.

 

[iserith]

I was looking at the explanation of the "three pillars" of D&D (5e PHB, p.8), and I was disappointed to find that exploration is not well-defined at all.

"Exploration includes both the adventurers' movement through the world and their interactions with objects and situations that require their attention, Exploration is the give-and-take of the players describing what they want their characters to do, and the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result. On a large scale, that might involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or an hour making their way through caverns underground. On the smallest scale, it could mean one character pulling a lever in a dungeon room to see what happens."
​

This doesn't help very much to differentiate exploration from social interaction and combat. In particular, the bolded part is just the basic pattern of D&D play (p.6) that happens during any kind of interaction or encounter.

It looks like exploration is just a catch-all for everything that happens between social and combat encounters. And yet it seems like when people use the term here, they have something more specific in mind. I've even seen references to exploration pillar encounters (traps? navigational challenges?).

What does the exploration pillar mean to you?

I think the bits you didn't bold are probably the key sentences.

I'll take a crack at this by way of an example since it's fresh in my mind having read it again last night - my short form scenario, "Shroom to Grow."

The combat challenges involve overcoming the threat of the gas spores, beholder zombie, and violet fungus, if you stir them to violence.

The social challenge is about calming and befriending the paralyzed druid, Lily Larkspur, who is a useful resource for the PCs.

The exploration challenges are, in addition to just moving about and such:

• figuring out which are the gas spores and which is the beholder zombie;
• noticing the shriekers and avoiding them so they don't awaken the dormant gas spores or beholder zombie;
• determining what's wrong with and healing Lily so the social interaction challenge can begin;
• opening the swollen, stuck doors without making a lot of noise (which may awaken the gas spores or beholder zombies);
• assessing the threat posed by moving too quickly through mushrooms, which are poisonous;
• dealing with the hindrance of difficult terrain;
• deducing that some odd dust on the ground was due to a powerful and dangerous magical effect (disintegrate);
• identifying the slime mold as something that poisons you, but also makes you invisible to the beholder zombie;
• climbing the well shaft safely without falls and, hopefully, with your quest items (two gas spores) in tow.

Note that rolling dice isn't the challenge part of the exploration pillar. A player should never want to roll ability checks! It's about paying attention to the DM's description of the environment and making meaningful, informed decisions by moving about, gathering information, and using that to improve your chances of success at other challenges. That is the exploration pillar in my view.

 

[robus]

It does seem like many of the published adventures so far don't emphasize the exploration pillar apart from providing a variety of locations. There aren't many puzzles or contraptions that the players need to figure out in order to achieve some objective. The maze at Xonthal's tower is a good exception, but generally i think it would be good for there to be more of those kinds of things.

 

[guachi]

I came here to write "it's everything that isn't combat or a social encounter" but someone beat me to it!

If you aren't killing it or talking to it, it's exploration.

Searching a room, reading a dusty tome, wandering around a city, sailing a ship to the 'X' on the treasure map, the aforementioned rock climbing.

Personally, I'm all for more exploration and less combat in my games.

 

[Satyrn]

I came here to write "it's everything that isn't combat or a social encounter" but someone beat me to it!

That would be me the OP.

 

[BoldItalic]

There's another book that explains some of the more esoteric words that are used in the PHB. It's called the dictionary.

explore verb (explored, exploring) 1 to search or travel through (a place) for the purpose of discovery. 2 to examine something carefully - explore every possibility. exploration noun. explorative adj.
ETYMOLOGY: 16c: from Latin explorare to search out.

The first part of Chapter 8 of the PHB - the sections on Time, Movement, and The Environment but not those on Social Interaction, Resting, or Between Adventures - relates to the exploration pillar.

The exploration pillar has scenery. You can't talk to mountains and you can't fight them but you can try to get to the other side through mysterious hidden passes in blinding snowstorms. Dungeons have twisty-turny passages full of strange smells and mysterious banging noises in the distance; you can't fight smells and you can't talk to them but you can wonder what they signify. Dungeons have doors you might want to open and maybe wish you hadn't. It's all exploration.

I guess I don't understand the problem.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think the OP is looking for more specific examples.

Some more guidelines and rules concerning traveling could help people who don't know how to make exploration interesting.