D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Faolyn]

My experience as a player in a few maritime adventures is that they tend to take away player agency. The captain makes you tend to mundane tasks, you get blown far off course and stranded, you watch fellow party members get keel hauled, you get trapped in tight quarters combats by raiding parties and can't escape short of diving into shark infested waters, you leave behind all the contacts you had on the mainland and connection to that campaign world, you're basically trapped in a floating hamlet where everyone knows you (bad for rogues), you're usually at sea for months with little happening, it typically involves several boring sessions of preparation just to launch the expedition, there aren't good rules for it in the core books (and thus it's out of the scope the core game can handle), heavily armored characters sink and drown easily. I could go on.
I have yet to play in a good nautical adventure, and I'd be wary about signing up for one after the horrible ones I've played in. I know they can be done well by a DM who has done the work to avoid situations like the ones I mentioned above, but I'd really have to trust that DM.

We're doing a maritime adventure in one of my games right now) and handled the "with little happening" aspect by the DM asking us what downtime activity we want to work on during the trip.

 

[Faolyn]

@Hriston I guess I see roleplaying different than combat. Sure you can say something in character during a fight, but when a player starts "role-playing" their character in the midst of a dangerous fight, that's when I get miffed.
"I'm going to heal the monsters during the fight because I'm a pacifist."
"I'm going to grapple the cleric because it would be funny."
"My character is paranoid and I think your character could be a doppelganger (even though there's no evidence) so I'm going to attack a fellow party member."
All of these have happened in my games. It's annoying. Get that crap out of my combat.

Those things aren't roleplaying. Those are players doing things to actively screw with the part and disrupt things.

 

[dave2008]

@Hriston I guess I see roleplaying different than combat. Sure you can say something in character during a fight, but when a player starts "role-playing" their character in the midst of a dangerous fight, that's when I get miffed.
"I'm going to heal the monsters during the fight because I'm a pacifist."
"I'm going to grapple the cleric because it would be funny."
"My character is paranoid and I think your character could be a doppelganger (even though there's no evidence) so I'm going to attack a fellow party member."
All of these have happened in my games. It's annoying. Get that crap out of my combat.

I gotta agree with @Faolyn , those are not examples of role-playing. A player may be using that as an excuse, but that is not role-playing.

 

[Yora]

As I have said in other threads one of the biggest problems with exploration is the abilities, skills and spells that engage that space, they are either skip buttons or one and done. Abilities, skills and spells need to be designed in a way that they interact with the space to make it more interesting, not one use/roll and the problem is either skipped or solved.

Despite the DMGs claim to the contrary, WotC D&D is a combat game that goes out of its way to not have to deal with other aspects of fantasy RPGs.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't know about "the worst pillar," but Exploration is certainly my favorite pillar of D&D. I'm all about secret doors, traps, investigation checks, and murder mysteries. I put in XP awards for finding certain clues, for disabling certain traps, and for tracking down certain things, and if things start getting slow, I add all sorts of backstory and details for even the most mundane things.

Another boring +1 rapier you found in that cave? Oh no no, that won't do. That there is Redbeard's Razor, a cutlass that belonged to one of the most infamous pirates of the last three centuries! His last treasure was never found, but there might be a clue to its whereabouts carved into the sword's ivory handle...does anyone know how to read Triton?

We eat that stuff up at our table.

 

[Yora]

Exploration is what D&D was originally designed for. Many elements of the game were created and introduced to make a better exploration game. And then they had their purposes negated, making people think they are useless, leading to the mechanics getting even more stripped down in later editions to get them out of the way.
Assuming that PCs get all or most of the XP for defeating enemies was the cause for exploration becoming a redundant relic with mechanics everyone ignores.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's an excellent point, @Yora . If the only way to get XP and gold is Combat, then Combat will become the only thing that matters, the only thing that will ever really motivate the players.

A solution to this problem would be to change the distribution of gold, XP, and magic items across all tiers, instead of just lumping them all under Combat. Redistribute 1/3 of the expected XP and gold for the Combat tier, 1/3 for the Social tier, and the remaining 1/3 for Exploration tier.

Take the classic "kill all the trolls in yonder cave" adventure plot. The characters are expected to earn a certain amount of XP and gold for each troll they kill, according to the rules. But maybe the characters only get 1/3 of that gold and XP for killing all of the trolls in that lair. They get another 1/3 of it only if they manage to uncover the clues that link the trolls to a rival merchant with powerful connections in town. And they get the last 1/3 of the money and XP if they deliver enough evidence to the Captain of the Guard, and manage to convince him to arrest the man responsible.

 

[Zardnaar]

New campaign gonna be more exploration heavy. They're gonna get xp for exploring hexes.

 

[Yora]

Though then you have to define at what point a hex counts as explored. Even 1-mile hexes are huge areas.

 

[Zardnaar]

Though then you have to define at what point a hex counts as explored. Even 1-mile hexes are huge areas.

I'll be using 12 mile hexes.