D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Yora]

What script?

The adventure. Either published, or written by the GM in the style of published adventures.

 

[Aldarc]

Alright with the snark. Yikes.

I apologize for any excessive snark, but I didn't find your assertions particularly helpful or true IME. I don't think that it pans out descriptively, either as the intented design or praxis of the game.

Generally, again IME, people most often distill the game of D&D as "killing monsters and taking their stuff."

I'm just struggling to understand the expectations of players with regard to encounters that feature social interaction and combat if they're not exploring. Are their characters just standing around and waiting for those opportunities to come to them?

Again IME, an unsignificant amount of players are like that. They phase out their game focus until it's time to roll initiative. For others, exploration is the necessary evil to get to the fun stuff: i.e., combat. For these players, exploration or even social encounters represent the GM-designated hoops the PCs have to jump through for the treat at the end.

What script?

For starters, all that world-building and prep you mentioned before. It can easily become the script, especially with GM-curated adventures or adventure paths.

 

[Mort]

That was hyperbole.

It's a common enough complaint (which I believe is completely misplaced) that, without context, it's impossible to tell.

Essentially the same as Poe's Law.

 

[Hussar]

What script?

You don’t have keyed encounters in your adventures? You’ve never run a module?

But, yeah this is just running around in circles. I’ve made my point and there really isn’t much else to say. Endless naysaying is boring.

 

[Mort]

For starters, all that world-building and prep you mentioned before. It can easily become the script, especially with GM-curated adventures or adventure paths.

But it, in no way, has to.

5e doesn't force this style of play and can easily incorporate a strong exploration component.

There are decent 5e adventures with a strong exploration component - for ex. Tomb of Annihilation.

 

[mrpopstar]

The adventure. Either published, or written by the GM in the style of published adventures.

I understand. When I hear "script" I think "railroad." It's very true that published adventures do have a general course of action and prescribed direction, which has its place.

Personally, I only engage with published adventures in public play.

I apologize for any excessive snark, but I didn't find your assertions particularly helpful or true IME. I don't think that it pans out descriptively, either as the intented design or praxis of the game.

Generally, again IME, people most often distill the game of D&D as "killing monsters and taking their stuff."

I've taken from my interactions with this community that my experience playing Dungeons & Dragons is... different? I don't know what the right word is.

Again IME, an unsignificant amount of players are like that. They phase out their game focus until it's time to roll initiative. For others, exploration is the necessary evil to get to the fun stuff: i.e., combat. For these players, exploration or even social encounters represent the GM-designated hoops the PCs have to jump through for the treat at the end.

I think this is all very dependent upon the Dungeon Master. This has not been my experience.

For starters, all that world-building and prep you mentioned before. It can easily become the script, especially with GM-curated adventures or adventure paths.

If you follow the book, it instructs you to create a home base (a fully fleshed out settlement), create a local region (at province scale that would include at least one town and roughly eight to twelve villages), and then craft a starting adventure.

From there the players should have free rein to explore the area, interact with all of the NPCs you've populated the settlements with, and delve into the dungeons you've created. There's no script.

While they're doing that you focus on building out the larger kingdom they'll explore as they reach a higher tier. This includes mainly towns and cities and multiple terrain types, really leaning into exploration. You populate all those places and prep all the bigger, meaner dungeons they'll discover. There's no script.

There may be a larger plot, or something world-shattering that's taking place, but a campaign doesn't have to be "we're 1st level and have to do this one thing until we reach 11th level." The big bad evil villain could be masterminding a great deal, and the eventual climax may be destroying them, but it doesn't have to be so formulaic unless you want it to be. There's no script.

In many ways, it bums me out to hear that. I'm sorry that people have to slog through something that has a prescribed course of action.

Edit: Formatting.​

 

[mrpopstar]

You don’t have keyed encounters in your adventures? You’ve never run a module?

But, yeah this is just running around in circles. I’ve made my point and there really isn’t much else to say. Endless naysaying is boring.

I do, but there's multiple opportunities to go in multiple directions. I'm not married to any particular dungeon. I have a ton of them ready to go should the players seek them out or stumble upon them in their travels, but I don't prescribe that they go where I want them to.

I don't place them on the map in tied down areas unless there's a reason for them to be in a designated location. I almost always have a cool dungeon relevant to the area on my random encounter tables. That way I get to put all the ideas I'm inspired by on rotation.

I'm good at jotting down inspirations. Anytime I'm like "wouldn't that be cool!" I pump out a dungeon. -- Isn't that what being a Dungeon Master is all about!?

 

[Aldarc]

I think this is all very dependent upon the Dungeon Master. This has not been my experience.

Why is it dependent on the DM? Don't players have their own expectations and desires for what excites them in play?

If you follow the book, it instructs you to create a home base (a fully fleshed out settlement), create a local region (at province scale that would include at least one town and roughly eight to twelve villages), and then craft a starting adventure.

From there the players should have free rein to explore the area, interact with all of the NPCs you've populated the settlements with, and delve into the dungeons you've created. There's no script.

While they're doing that you focus on building out the larger kingdom they'll explore as they reach a higher tier. This includes mainly towns and cities and multiple terrain types, really leaning into exploration. You populate all those places and prep all the bigger, meaner dungeons they'll discover. There's no script.

There may be a larger plot, or something world-shattering that's taking place, but a campaign doesn't have to be "we're 1st level and have to do this one thing until we reach 11th level." The big bad evil villain could be masterminding a great deal, and the eventual climax may be destroying them, but it doesn't have to be so formulaic unless you want it to be. There's no script.

The bold, particularly "should," is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

In many ways, it bums me out to hear that. I'm sorry that people have to slog through something that has a prescribed course of action.Edit: Formatting.

This goes back to what @Ovinomancer has described as the core resolution system of D&D: "the GM decides." Combat (and spells in combat and elsewhere) is generally where players have more structure and concrete tools at their disposal to express agency over the state of the fiction.

 

[mrpopstar]

Why is it dependent on the DM? Don't players have their own expectations and desires for what excites them in play?

Of course they do, and I said it's dependent upon the Dungeon Master to recognize that the players don't want to jump through all of his hoops. If they want combat, give it to them. It has not been my experience that DMs are insistent upon what they want at the expense of what the players want. -- That's what I said.

The bold, particularly "should," is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Oy.

This goes back to what @Ovinomancer has described as the core resolution system of D&D: "the GM decides." Combat (and spells in combat and elsewhere) is generally where players have more structure and concrete tools at their disposal to express agency over the state of the fiction.

I don't really understand this. There are plenty of concrete tools for navigating exploration and social interaction. What are you saying, exactly? The DM decides to put monsters in front of you, the DM decides to put a difficult task in front of you, the DM decides to put a hostile NPC in front of you... what is it that the DM is deciding that challenges your agency as a player? How exactly are DCs, NPC attitudes, etc, etc, etc, not concrete?

And what does this "agency of the player" (something I've literally never heard in all my years of gaming at an actual table) have to do with exploration? We're drifting away from the thread topic.

 

[Retreater]

It isn't?

Boy, the party mage must be feeling petty good about his decision to charge the crossbow sniper and getting pincushioned.

I've had no problems with making 5e combat pretty dangerous. It DOES (if playing RAW) have more safeguards than prior editions, but incapable of killing PCs? Hardly!

It's strange. D&D from 3rd edition and earlier seemed to be ok with characters dying from bad decisions like the example you posted, even in standard encounters. In 4e I never saw it happen. In 5e it has only happened at 1st level.
The game is certainly less thrilling during combat as a result. Anyone can survive a standard encounter.
This easy level means there's little reason to explore to avoid encounters, find new tools and information to defeat them (plus you don't need magic item rewards anymore). Just walk up to an encounter, auto win - that's my experience with 5e. (PF2 is largely the same way, unless it's a TPK.)