Satyrn
First Post
Aye. It's a loop:
While (I'm not dead yet){
I do this crazy stupid thing that sounds like it would be fun;
Maybe roll some dice;
DM tells me if I live through it;
}Maybe roll some dice;
DM tells me if I live through it;
D&D 5E Three pillars: what is "exploration"?
- Thread starter Libramarian
- Start date
While (I'm not dead yet){
Ganymede81
First Post
The three pillars can be broken down pretty simply this way: Nonviolent interaction with NPCs, violent interaction with NPCs, and interaction with the environment.
Tony Vargas
Legend
The pseudo-code equivalent of a haiku, awesome!
Libramarian
Adventurer
Hm, yes OK. It can be fun, depends how it's handled. But I still think this kind of thing should 'compete' for adventure space within the combat pillar. If someone were writing an adventure with a guide of equal parts all three pillars, they shouldn't think "OK need more exploration, better make the PCs climb a cliff". They should think "what's more fun, climbing this cliff with climb checks or a demon who will fly the PCs to the top if they defeat it in combat", in which case I think the answer is usually obvious.
I think you tend to do a bit too much telegraphing.
I think I agree. My thinking now is that exploration happens when it's not immediately apparent what the PCs' goal is. When the PCs are dealing with a known unknown, it's an encounter. When they're dealing with an unknown unknown, they're exploring. Exploring is interpreting signs, gathering intel, reconnaissance, feeling things out.
So mapping a huge megadungeon with more content than the PCs are ever expected to see is exploring. But clearing a small lair dungeon is not.
Talking with an NPC you're not sure is a friend or foe is exploring. Convincing an NPC to do something you need done is not.
Climbing a cliff or swimming across a river when you know what's on the other side and just need to get there is not exploring.
Exploration is an essential aspect of D&D I think, but you have to be careful it's actual exploration not just an encounter with the same scenery or transcript as typical exploration. That is to say the players should be exploring, not just the characters.
Greed I can somewhat understand, but I don't see how XP for treasure contributes to an atmosphere of paranoia.
I think the main criticism of treasure XP back in the day was simply that it didn't "make sense" that acquiring treasure would make you a better fight/thief/spellcaster, which just reflects ignorance of the value of metagame currency in games. It's unfortunate this criticism was not ignored.
I think that's a really good point. To support exploration, the primary source of XP should be not just gated or guarded, but hidden in some way.
If most XP comes from killing monsters, monsters should be rare and hard to find. The default D&D setting of course is nothing like that. The PCs mostly defend themselves from monsters hunting them, rather than the other way around, so awarding XP for that feels perfunctory. Milestone levelling has the same problem but its less busywork so people prefer it.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
And yet there's no lack of exploration or challenge in the example I provided, despite knowing what threats might exist in the adventure location. You're still exploring, for example, when moving about the area looking for the shriekers that may or may not be present.
Your definition of exploration - dealing with unknown unknowns - is a bit too narrow in my view. The description in the Basic Rules has it right as I see it.
And the Mearls spake, saying, First shalt
thou use the Holy Pillars of D&D.
Then, shalt thou count to three, no more,
no less.
Three shalt be the number thou shalt
count, and the number of the counting
shalt be three.
Four shalt thou not count,
nor either count thou two, excepting that
thou then proceed to three.
Five is right out.
Once the number three,
being the third number, be reached, then
playest thou thy Holy RPG of
D&D with thy friends, who seeking
enjoyable escapism, shall enjoy it.
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth (He/him)
Ah, so you find my definition of Exploration as basically synonymous with role-playing and encompassing the other two pillars to be circular. I think the problem we're having (and why the rulebooks seem somewhat ambiguous on the subject as well) is there seem to be two interrelated but distinct aspects of the game that we and the PHB are referring to as Exploration. I'll differentiate them below as Exploration (with a capital E) and the exploration pillar. I think the relationship breaks down like this:
Exploration, aka GNS Exploration/Role-playing/the "basic pattern" (or cycle if you will) of gameplay. This is something that happens between the game-participants at the table and, in D&D, takes place in the following steps:
1. The DM describes the environment (including setting, situation, color, and NPCs).
2. The players describe the activities in which their PCs engage in response to the environment. These activities fall into three categories, called "pillars", which are:
a. The "social interaction pillar", in which the PCs interact with the environment by having conversations with NPCs.
b. The "combat pillar", in which the PCs interact with the environment by engaging in armed conflicts with NPCs.
c. The "exploration pillar", in which the PCs interact with the environment in any way that isn't one of the aforementioned two pillars.
3. The DM narrates the results of the PCs' activities (system) and describes any resulting changes to the environment by returning to step 1.
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Tony Vargas
Legend
That sounds like you're defining an alternative to the 3 pillars. It's certainly possible to divide up a complex pastime like D&D any number of ways.
Both are clearly social in the three-pillars model.
I'm glad you can somewhat understand how making treasure into a trippled-up reward (wealth, power in the form of buying magic items, and advancement in the form of exp) could encourage 'greed' for a study in greed leading to paranoia, see Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or Chaucer, for that matter.
The idea of exp for gp as a way of focusing the game on the 'unknown unknown' could also tend towards an atmosphere of paranoia.
It didn't make sense, of course but neither did exp/class/levels as a model of learning, in the first place. If that were the point, RQ's system would have been a much better way to go.
Rather, some of the point of exp was to reward success, with more/deeper play, much like earning extra lives and unlocking levels in a video game. Exp for gold, combat, milestones, or just about anything else beyond just showing up is just fine for that.
Exp also rewards 'right' play, so if you want a game of diplomacy, you reward it for making allies and exerting influence, a wargame, for victory, an heroic game for overcoming challenges, a puzzle game for solutions. and so forth...
I'm not sure if circular is precisely right - maybe 'fractal' - but, yes, the pillars divide D&D RP into 3 categories, so to say that one is synonymous with RP and thus encompasses the other two invites the same division, ad infinitum, and is essentially worthless.
I see strong reasons to think the PH uses exploration in the pillar sense coined by WotC specifically to facilitate it's development, none to sugest the GNS sense coined by the Forge for their extensive elaboration on the false Role vs Roll dichotomy.
Also, this thread is about the 3-pillar sense of 'exploration,' quite explicitly.
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Li Shenron
Legend
If I had to summarize the concept of exploration, I would say "non-social investigation and problem-solving".
There is a very distinctive feeling about the exploration phase of an adventure: it's an out-of-character conversation between the players asking questions and the DM providing answers, then players making decisions and the DM describing the outcome.
The focus is not on the rules but on narrative descriptions. Rules kick in more or less often depending on DM's style, but they are not usually the starting point; even in a game where players think heavily in rules terms (i.e. they constantly go "I will make a check to search for traps", "I use my ability X to do Y") the overall feel is free-form and unstructured description. This is very different from combat, when almost every player starts thinking in terms of the structured rules framework.
Investigation and interaction are non-social and therefore mostly out-of-characters, even if descriptions are of course given by the DM through the eyes and ears of the PCs. So for instance, the players are not thinking in terms of language as being used by their PC in first person (as they would during the social interaction phase), but they are using language to ask questions / state intents directly to the DM and therefore just as they would do IRL.
Overall they are 3 quite different ways of thinking!
That said, just because the authors have summarized the game as being based on these 3 pillars, this does not mean we have to worry about fitting every single thing that happens at the gaming table into one and only one of those :/
There is a very distinctive feeling about the exploration phase of an adventure: it's an out-of-character conversation between the players asking questions and the DM providing answers, then players making decisions and the DM describing the outcome.
The focus is not on the rules but on narrative descriptions. Rules kick in more or less often depending on DM's style, but they are not usually the starting point; even in a game where players think heavily in rules terms (i.e. they constantly go "I will make a check to search for traps", "I use my ability X to do Y") the overall feel is free-form and unstructured description. This is very different from combat, when almost every player starts thinking in terms of the structured rules framework.
Investigation and interaction are non-social and therefore mostly out-of-characters, even if descriptions are of course given by the DM through the eyes and ears of the PCs. So for instance, the players are not thinking in terms of language as being used by their PC in first person (as they would during the social interaction phase), but they are using language to ask questions / state intents directly to the DM and therefore just as they would do IRL.
Overall they are 3 quite different ways of thinking!
That said, just because the authors have summarized the game as being based on these 3 pillars, this does not mean we have to worry about fitting every single thing that happens at the gaming table into one and only one of those :/
[MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION], [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] - interesting thoughts.
(I've nothing else very substantive to contribute, though I can relate the "unknown unknowns" theory of exploration to some - but certainly not all - skill challenges that I've run in 4e. Also, I'm intrigued by the idea of "climbing the cliff" competing for the same functional space as "fighting a demon".)
(I've nothing else very substantive to contribute, though I can relate the "unknown unknowns" theory of exploration to some - but certainly not all - skill challenges that I've run in 4e. Also, I'm intrigued by the idea of "climbing the cliff" competing for the same functional space as "fighting a demon".)
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