D&D 5E How should I run optional exploration rules?

[machineelf]

So I am running a game this week based on the latest public playtest rules. I'll be running them through The Legacy of the Crystal Shard. I'd like to run the exploration rules, including the optional wilderness exploration rules. But it still seems a little clunky to me, particularly the exploration tasks they offer.

One of my main areas of confusion is how sneak is supposed to work and what it's supposed to accomplish. If a person successfully sneaks, are they the only person in the group who gets a bonus toward their readiness, or does it affect the entire group?

Are their particular ways that any of you have found to run the exploration rules that make them run smoothly? And am I misunderstanding the sneak rule at all? Thanks for the help.

 

[GX.Sigma]

In my experience, the exploration rules don't work at all. I just make a wandering monster check whenever I feel it's appropriate.

 

[Shiroiken]

I only used them once, and they worked... fairly well.

The PCs were exploring a ruin, with pre-planned events (railroad city). I used the exploration rules (dungeon mode) to break up the events, and it helped make that scene a bit better. The Exploration Rounds became a bit monotonous, but that's the way it is with any repeated event. Overall, I can't say how useful they are.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In my experience, the exploration rules don't work at all. I just make a wandering monster check whenever I feel it's appropriate.

Pretty much. Exploration feels more natural if the players simply state what they are doing without turning the whole thing into a big, choose menu option/roll die fest.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I've spent a good deal of time decrypting the intended meaning of the rules, and I think I more or less have it.

I'm currently applying my take on passive perception to the mix, but that has little overall effect on the structure of the system.

Do you have any specific questions, or would you just like to see an overview of how it would go down, with some up to date examples? (The example in the DM Guidelines document in obsolete and doesn't actually follow the text in the current packet.)

Note also that stealth has no direct effect on your readiness, so you are misunderstanding that aspect.

 

[gweinel]

The current optional wildreness exploration rules are actually heavy borrowed by The One Ring game. As it stands now, these rules are not offering anything to the game because if you fail to your intented actions there isn't actually a real consequence. If you fail the game can continue as if the aren't such rules. They are just to spice the things a bit.

Where The One Ring succeeds and DnDnext fails?

a)In The One Ring the journey rules are taking bigger part in the game and have real impact in the story since the journeys last longer. The characters have a fatigue number which on fail navigate checks (dnd term) this number rises. Fatigue influence combat too, so you don't want to see this number rise.

b)If you roll on these checks "1" on d12 (the standard dice rolls of The One Ring) then a hazard occurs which could be from an environmental hazard to an encounter. It depends of your role: for example if a forager fails with an "1" then the consequences will be different for the party than the failure of an navigator.

c) The knowledges someone has can help the journey (if he succeeds the knowledge roll) or will hindrance the party (if the knowledge roll fails). It is optional for a pary member to roll knowledges skills.

The roles in The One Ring are more meaningfull the in DnDNext as it stands now. As GX.Sigma says right now (for me too) is better to run the game with the traditional way (2e-3e).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Oh, I don't know about it being useless. I like what they're doing in theory--it just needs some filling out and clean-up.

I think the goal is primarily to facilitate AD&D style exploration and encounters, and I think it's a good start. I would like to see an additional level of abstraction where you only roll for encounters a couple of times a day, rather than hourly, to better represent long journeys in an exploration style game.

I do think I'm the target audience on this sort of thing, so I'm very happy they are at least giving it a shot.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Oh, I don't know about it being useless. I like what they're doing in theory--it just needs some filling out and clean-up.

I think the goal is primarily to facilitate AD&D style exploration and encounters, and I think it's a good start. I would like to see an additional level of abstraction where you only roll for encounters a couple of times a day, rather than hourly, to better represent long journeys in an exploration style game.

I do think I'm the target audience on this sort of thing, so I'm very happy they are at least giving it a shot.

I agree--I want a robust exploration system, but the one from the public playtest was just boring and tedious in actual play. It just boiled down to "everyone roll... now everyone roll again... now everyone roll again... now everyone roll again..."

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I agree--I want a robust exploration system, but the one from the public playtest was just boring and tedious in actual play. It just boiled down to "everyone roll... now everyone roll again... now everyone roll again... now everyone roll again..."

Yeah, that is what I was experiencing in practice. I decided to implement passive Wisdom (Perception) for Keeping Watch. That should cut out a major part of it. Hopefully they'll expand the parts that need expansion and streamline the parts that need it in the finished product.

 

[Li Shenron]

Unfortunately I haven't had yet the chance to try them out... both my playtesting group and PbP game have focused on dungeons rather than wilderness, so we didn't use the exploration rules module.

I think the exploration rules are potentially a great addition, but they feel unfinished to me. Probably there is a need to put them better in perspective, asking when are these rules going to be really useful? IMO they are really useful when you have to describe a trip through a mostly featureless or feature-poor area, therefore trying to run the game in "detailed mode" (by detailed descriptions of PC's actions) is probably too boring for most gaming groups, but at the same time rushing to the interesting points might sometimes require too much giveaway.

Perhaps, clearing the perspective may lead to have just one flexible exploration module, instead of a dungeon exploration module + a wilderness exploration module. In particular, the first one is IMHO very misleading (and also is currently very poor with options), because some people may think this is useful for the typical D&D dungeons pack-full of features and dangers every other room, but that's not the case... Instead, the system is useful if you have huge monotonous dungeons such as a cave complex, a region of the Underdark, or a true labyrinth. That's when I wouldn't want to spend hours asking the players if they go left or right, but I would very much appreciate a system that abstracts everything into "turns" for skipping the details.

Such system is there (in the wilderness exploration rules), it only needs more options on the possible actions that can be taken by each PC during her turn, or how to naturally fit a PC's normal actions and capabilities into a turn, to make things more interesting.