D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

Hriston

Dungeon Master of Middle-earth (He/him)
The point is which pillar is this happening in, not who's responsible. I searched on the words "tedious", "boring" and "dull" in the 1e DMG. They are only ever applied to activities in the exploration pillar, never combat or social interaction.
I think it's a real problem, especially in the context of Gygaxian skilled play where "Exploration" largely consists of exploring the DM's pre-stocked and static dungeon, that Gary was trying to address. In such play, the DM's power to move things in a less boring direction is somewhat curtailed by the obligation to be a neutral referee and stick to the prepared dungeon key. I think pushing the consequences of their behavior back onto the players is an appropriate response in that context, one which I think doesn't hold as much for 5E, although its legacy can still be seen in many play-styles.
 

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Asisreo

Patron Badass
One of the least seen advice for exploration is to make it a net positive to explore, almost always. If the players are continuously punished for exploring, they'll seriously want to avoid it. A "nothing happens" statement is also a punishment. They'll feel like they slowed the game down for absolutely nothing.

Every time a player goes out of their way to explore, they should be rewarded with something desirable and useful. It doesn't have to be gold, it can be magic items or formula for magic items. Traps should either occur at a direct path to the goal or after you've presented an exploration reward, and only if it was easy to get to from the start. They should walk away with a net positive.

Shortcuts and easier points of entry also count as good exploration rewards. You want players to feel like there's much to be discovered.
 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules
You know who it's new to though? People who haven't read 30+ years worth of D&D/FR lore for whatever reason.
At my table I have 5 players + myself.
Me: I've been doing this for a looong time. My book shelves are full. I've read (and forgotten) WAY more FR detail than I'll EVER use.
#1: Has been playing since mid 2e. He's read so much stuff it's actually getting in his way.
#2: Been playing since somewhere in 3x. Knows a smattering of FR stuff, mostly from computer games. Two weeks ago? He (not his character) learned that there's a giant mega-dungeon! located beneath the Yawning Portal tavern....
When he was picking a deity for his cleric? He had to google the details.
#3: Started with 5e about 3 months after it's launch. Knows only what he's read in the 5e core + SKT + stuff he's picked up by playing OOTA & CoS.
#4: Started with 5e 3 years ago. Is much like #3
#5: Started about 6 weeks ago. If you asked her "What major FR city is your character in right now?" She'd look at you blankly for a moment. If she thought to look at the map on the wall that we reference often she'd probably say "Waterdeep?" (Yes, as a question.)

For my players #3-5? And #2 to a degree? The FR map might as well be blank. Could they Google anything they pleased about the FR? Yes. Could they get copies of the books/PDFs? Yes. Will they? No. Or if they do it'll only be because one of them is making something specific (player #3 needing info on FR pantheon) or running a game themselves & wonders about a spot on the map.
Guess what? They're hardly unique. There's millions & millions of D&D players who're not at all concerned with the in-depth lore of the FR. Or how many times it's been published.


Sure, to people like you who're just old & jaded it's "again".
But for my players #3-#5? 5e is their 1st trip across the FR map (Sword Coast in particular for the moment). They don't have any anti-FR prejudice. Yet. And they won't catch it from me.
Everything you say here is all quite true. For new (or even casual-but-not-new) players, all settings are most likely just as new as each other - exception being if one runs one's game in Middle Earth, Westeros, or some other setting that's been big in pop culture.

I was speaking strictly from my own perspective as a long-time player (and DM), and using FR merely as an example - could just as easily have been Greyhawk, Mystara, etc., or even a recycled homebrew. If I've seen it before, exploring it and learning about it again loses much of its appeal.
 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules
One of the least seen advice for exploration is to make it a net positive to explore, almost always. If the players are continuously punished for exploring, they'll seriously want to avoid it. A "nothing happens" statement is also a punishment. They'll feel like they slowed the game down for absolutely nothing.

Every time a player goes out of their way to explore, they should be rewarded with something desirable and useful. It doesn't have to be gold, it can be magic items or formula for magic items. Traps should either occur at a direct path to the goal or after you've presented an exploration reward, and only if it was easy to get to from the start. They should walk away with a net positive.

Shortcuts and easier points of entry also count as good exploration rewards. You want players to feel like there's much to be discovered.
Agreed, but with a very significant kicker: not every time.

There should be significant rewards for exploring - sometimes. Other times, even most of the time, not. Same psychology as gambling - the occasional big win is remembered far more than all the losses, and keeps the gambler coming back for more.

And if "nothing happens" is seen by the players as a punishment or negative rather than just a neutral result I have no sympathy at all for them.
 

Gradine

🏳️‍⚧️ (she/her) 🇵🇸
Loathe as I am to otherwise link to him, this is a point at which the Angry GM hits the nail on the head.


When we apply the Eight Aesthetics of Play (a video game design theory but applies well to all forms of games) to D&D and three pillars especially, we see that the Exploration pillar fits really well with Discovery, but takes work to fit in Fantasy or Challenge, and I would guess struggles mightily to include any other Aesthetics. The base mechanics of 5e certainly don't support expanding upon Exploration, because the Combat and Role-Play pillars can combine to cover pretty much everything on their own. In that sense, the Exploration pillar is practically vestigial to 5e; a paean to editions past where it played a much larger role.

The "dungeon" is really the last vestige of the pillar in 5e, but even this is being streamlined out of the core experience, and where it does play a role it is mostly as part of the Combat Challenge moreso than Discovery, where the Exploration becomes a game of resource management more than anything.
 

Asisreo

Patron Badass
Agreed, but with a very significant kicker: not every time.

There should be significant rewards for exploring - sometimes. Other times, even most of the time, not. Same psychology as gambling - the occasional big win is remembered far more than all the losses, and keeps the gambler coming back for more.

And if "nothing happens" is seen by the players as a punishment or negative rather than just a neutral result I have no sympathy at all for them.
It isn't about getting them addicted like a gambling kick or feeling no remorse for them. The reason why gambling works is due to a lost cost fallacy that they already put something of value into it to try to get something of value out of it.

If they put nothing in it and get nothing or worse out of it, it's just a loss of time.

In my experience, "nothing happens" is a terrible thing to say to a player when they do nearly anything. They're showing signs that they want to engage in the world and saying that their actions bear no fruit make it seem like they weren't supposed to do so anyways. If they try to open a door and nothing works for them opening it, it makes it seem like they weren't supposed to open the door in the first place.

And to me, that's the core of exploration. Opening doors that lead to better opportunities than the straight-and-narrow. Or at least something cool.

Every room in a dungeon should have something beneficial hidden in it, but don't tell the players that. But you want to reward them for taking the time to check the rooms you carefully designed. When they search, if they fail, give them a smaller reward like an individual's treasure worth of gold. If they succeed, grant them something like the key to a locked door or a hint to one of the BBEG's weaknesses as well as the individual's treasure. The constant rewards keep them from continuously trying. Of course, if there's absolutely no pressure, then they should get everything of interest in the room from the sheer fact that they thought to check something.

You want your players to feel like they're constantly winning, because that's how combat works, no? Nobody is having fun if everytime a fight happens, the DM hands the party's arse to them and makes them feel incompetent. A dangerous battle they can't win here or there is fine, but the party really came to the table to overcome challenges together, not to constantly be defeated. If they don't feel like they'll ever win a combat, they'll dread the thought of rolling initiative because it's another opportunity for the DM to bully the party.
 

Reynard

Legend
Supporter
Loathe as I am to otherwise link to him, this is a point at which the Angry GM hits the nail on the head.


When we apply the Eight Aesthetics of Play (a video game design theory but applies well to all forms of games) to D&D and three pillars especially, we see that the Exploration pillar fits really well with Discovery, but takes work to fit in Fantasy or Challenge, and I would guess struggles mightily to include any other Aesthetics. The base mechanics of 5e certainly don't support expanding upon Exploration, because the Combat and Role-Play pillars can combine to cover pretty much everything on their own. In that sense, the Exploration pillar is practically vestigial to 5e; a paean to editions past where it played a much larger role.

The "dungeon" is really the last vestige of the pillar in 5e, but even this is being streamlined out of the core experience, and where it does play a role it is mostly as part of the Combat Challenge moreso than Discovery, where the Exploration becomes a game of resource management more than anything.
That last paragraph doesn't track. They have done nothing but expand on the exploration pillar over the life of 5E, from the "open world sandboxes" in most of the adventures, to downtime activities and various adventure rule expansions like Saltmarsh sailing.
 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules
It isn't about getting them addicted like a gambling kick or feeling no remorse for them. The reason why gambling works is due to a lost cost fallacy that they already put something of value into it to try to get something of value out of it.

If they put nothing in it and get nothing or worse out of it, it's just a loss of time.

In my experience, "nothing happens" is a terrible thing to say to a player when they do nearly anything.
Odd, in that I say it in combat on roughly half the attempted actions, phrased as some variant on "you miss".

They're showing signs that they want to engage in the world
Yes.
and saying that their actions bear no fruit make it seem like they weren't supposed to do so anyways.
No.

Only in a "ribbon for participation" context does this make any sense, a context to which I do not subscribe.

Saying their actions bear no fruit this time doesn't and IMO shouldn't discourage trying again next time.

If they try to open a door and nothing works for them opening it, it makes it seem like they weren't supposed to open the door in the first place.
If they try to open a door and for whatever reason cannot, so be it. They'll likely never know if they were "supposed" to get past it or not; and if they're that keen on getting through they'll go back to town and load up on some more resources that'll be more likely to succeed.

And to me, that's the core of exploration. Opening doors that lead to better opportunities than the straight-and-narrow. Or at least something cool.
The core of exploration is to see what's there, even if it's nothing.

Every room in a dungeon should have something beneficial hidden in it, but don't tell the players that. But you want to reward them for taking the time to check the rooms you carefully designed. When they search, if they fail, give them a smaller reward like an individual's treasure worth of gold. If they succeed, grant them something like the key to a locked door or a hint to one of the BBEG's weaknesses as well as the individual's treasure. The constant rewards keep them from continuously trying. Of course, if there's absolutely no pressure, then they should get everything of interest in the room from the sheer fact that they thought to check something.
Yeah, that's 'ribbon for participating' again.

The reward for checking all the rooms can be as simple as not feeling later like they might have missed something. And-or not having to go back later to finish off threats they missed the first time through; I've seen this several times both as DM and player.

When I design a typical dungeon-based adventure I put in the treasure in full expectation that about 1/2 of it will be found for sure*, about 1/4 of it might be found if they search, and the other 1/4 will be found only if they're very diligent and-or rather lucky.

* - assuming they don't destroy the treasure en route to finding it (e.g. by dropping a lightning bolt into the treasure room), something else I've seen happen on more than one occasion

You want your players to feel like they're constantly winning, because that's how combat works, no? Nobody is having fun if everytime a fight happens, the DM hands the party's arse to them and makes them feel incompetent. A dangerous battle they can't win here or there is fine, but the party really came to the table to overcome challenges together, not to constantly be defeated. If they don't feel like they'll ever win a combat, they'll dread the thought of rolling initiative because it's another opportunity for the DM to bully the party.
Personally I prefer it if now and then they come to dread rolling initiative, as it means they'll (in theory!) look for ways of accomplishing their goals that involve things other than just sheer brute force.

That said, though they're probably going to win their combats most of the time (even though it might not appear so at first) and thus earn the reward of both the win and the xp that go with it, by no means does that say or imply they're going to hit on every swing nor does it say that an individual PC won't die or have some other major Bad Thing happen to it.

In comparison with that exploration is (usually) much lower-risk, with the trade-off being the tangible rewards - be they treasure, information, whatever - are less frequent.
 

Asisreo

Patron Badass
Only in a "ribbon for participation" context does this make any sense, a context to which I do not subscribe.

Saying their actions bear no fruit this time doesn't and IMO shouldn't discourage trying again next time.
I'd agree it shouldn't but it's a matter of psychology. If you want to encourage behavior, you reward the behavior. If you want to discourage a behavior, you punish it.

Participation Trophies work, but there's a bit more to it than reducing it to participation trophies.

If they try to open a door and for whatever reason cannot, so be it. They'll likely never know if they were "supposed" to get past it or not; and if they're that keen on getting through they'll go back to town and load up on some more resources that'll be more likely to succeed.
A party is more likely to just ignore a door they aren't supposed to open. And if they ignore it, what was the point of putting it there in the first place? It'll also confuse the players, because they'll think your descriptions are less interactive and more narrative. There's a door there, but is really a door or is it another stage-set?

The core of exploration is to see what's there, even if it's nothing.
Nobody really likes to look at nothing, though. It's boring and it wastes time on describing the nothing rather than actually playing the game.

Yeah, that's 'ribbon for participating' again.

The reward for checking all the rooms can be as simple as not feeling later like they might have missed something. And-or not having to go back later to finish off threats they missed the first time through; I've seen this several times both as DM and player.
Gaining something for searching a room isn't necessarily giving them a participation trophy because they won't know they didn't truly earn it. You don't tell a child they'll get sweets everytime they play, you tell them they get sweets everytime they play well. That not only reinforces that they got the sweets of their own power, despite you planning on giving them the sweets regardless, it gives you power to go back on the idea of rewarding everything since it was never an agreed upon condition anyways.

It's not like they can re-search a room over and over to find infinite gold, you tell them they didn't earn it. Likewise, if they roll so pathetically low because they had the guy with terrible perception search, they don't find anything because they didn't earn it, even if the criteria for earning it was hardly an inconvenience.

When I design a typical dungeon-based adventure I put in the treasure in full expectation that about 1/2 of it will be found for sure*, about 1/4 of it might be found if they search, and the other 1/4 will be found only if they're very diligent and-or rather lucky.
I structure my dungeons fairly similarly. Despite my constant rewards, players tend to miss 1-2 treasure hoards in a dungeon because they either forgot to inspect something or they didn't think about it.
Personally I prefer it if now and then they come to dread rolling initiative, as it means they'll (in theory!) look for ways of accomplishing their goals that involve things other than just sheer brute force.
By dread, I don't mean fear. It's perfectly fine if a player hears your description of a crimson dragon opening it's maw and preparing to unleash a shower of flames. That's awesome. It's not awesome when players hear you say roll initiative for the group of mooks and the players audibly groan and bang their head on the table while a player turns on the shredder preparing to recycle the leftover of their characters.

That said, though they're probably going to win their combats most of the time (even though it might not appear so at first) and thus earn the reward of both the win and the xp that go with it, by no means does that say or imply they're going to hit on every swing nor does it say that an individual PC won't die or have some other major Bad Thing happen to it.
Most attacks from a balanced fight are designed to hit based on the bounded accuracy. AC doesn't get all that high even at high levels while to-hit goes into the +11's to +13's. It's rare to come up against an enemy whose AC drops your hit percent below 55%. Spells almost always do some form of damage as a guarantee. Even if the enemy succeeds against the save, the caster will get to roll their damage dice.

In comparison with that exploration is (usually) much lower-risk, with the trade-off being the tangible rewards - be they treasure, information, whatever - are less frequent.
Of course, exploration needn't be low risk-low reward. Traps up the ante for collecting treasure. It makes it very tense when the party finds an obviously booby-trapped cache where they must find the mechanism, disarm it, then grab the treasure without activating the trap. And it won't feel like they merely participated since they did have to make hard decisions and perform difficult tasks to acquire what they earned, and with a risk of damage or worse.
 

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
The point is which pillar is this happening in, not who's responsible. I searched on the words "tedious", "boring" and "dull" in the 1e DMG. They are only ever applied to activities in the exploration pillar, never combat or social interaction.
This is because it's easier to make the mistake in the exploration pillar. The real issue here is if the game is cutting to the interesting parts. In combat, this is largely done for you as it doesn't even start until you've hit an interesting part. Social is similar, in that most people equate it with acting, which is fun. It gets less so when you're leaning on the social pillar for every shopkeep or stableboy, so there's some risk here, but it's largely offset by the pretend part being fun for most players.

Exploration, on the other hand... you can do long stretches of boring material and confuse this with what you should be doing. It's not the fault of the exploration pillar -- exploration isn't required to do this -- but rather of the way the GM structures the game they present. If you do exploration by glossing the 'transition' parts and drill down into the interesting things that happen, then exploration doesn't have this problem of boring just like the other pillars. The problem here is that GM's are often poorly taught (the rules have done a poor job of this for awhile now) and/or fixate on mechanically applying the mechanics of the game, like making a check to see if you get lost every hour with the result meaning you get an extra hour added onto the journey and another chance to roll. Boring. If you make one check, but have it have teeth -- getting lost has a cost or adventure -- then you're back out of boring and doing exploration in an entertaining way. It's really the same problem as forcing social encounters with all NPCs -- you have to shmooze the barkeep, the innkeep, store clerk 1, store clerk 2, the stableboy, and the random street encounter, but almost none of it actually matters. It's just easier to see the problem in exploration, it's not solely there.
 

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