D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Retreater]

It sounds like you need to be drastically increasing the level of your encounters?

Or put in secondary challenges within the encounters to increase both the challenge and interest /fun level.

I run the adventures as written, for a group of standard, non-optimized characters. The worst thing is a slug fest where they can't die and can't achieve their objective either (which has happened several times in Rime of the Frostmaiden).

Like my paladin, who was around 6th or 7th level when he was ripped apart by gnolls.

Was your paladin wearing armor? Attempting to fight without any access to healing?
Fighting a paladin in my group, that gnoll would need a 15-16 to hit and do a scratch of 4 HP damage even if a lucky shot landed.
Sure, a horde of gnolls could do it if the paladin had no backup and refused to fight back.
But in general, monster ACs are way too low, attack bonuses are too low, and damage output is too low.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Was your paladin wearing armor? Attempting to fight without any access to healing?
Fighting a paladin in my group, that gnoll would need a 15-16 to hit and do a scratch of 4 HP damage even if a lucky shot landed.
Sure, a horde of gnolls could do it if the paladin had no backup and refused to fight back.
But in general, monster ACs are way too low, attack bonuses are too low, and damage output is too low.

My paladin was rocking a very respectable 21 AC. The party was performing a strategic withdrawal because we were in danger of a TPK, so the only healing he had was his own, which he'd exhausted. And the DM rolled very well. I had been quite confident that my paladin could hold the line, right up until he hit zero HP. (Also, I didn't mean all basic gnolls, I think there were some higher CR gnolls mixed into the group.)

That said, he's hardly the only PC I've seen die in 5e, just the one that stands out in my memory because he was my first to die in 5e (in the first 5e campaign I played in).

If you want to say that it's harder to die in 5e than in most previous editions, I'm inclined to agree. If you want to argue that it's practically impossible, I'm inclined to say that the DM isn't making an effort to challenge the players.

 

[iserith]

Does unfamiliarity with terminology or jargon somehow invalidate it?

What it does it make the people throwing the jargon around less comprehensible. I can already feel the Forge waffle starting to make its way into the conversation.

 

[Aldarc]

What it does it make the people throwing the jargon around less comprehensible. I can already feel the Forge waffle starting to make its way into the conversation.

The concept of player agency is hardly unique to the Forge, so trying to dismiss it as "Forge waffle" at the outset is a bit rude IMHO.

 

[iserith]

The concept of player agency is hardly unique to the Forge, so trying to dismiss it as "Forge waffle" at the outset is a bit rude IMHO.

I'm aware of what agency is and that it's not unique to that particular theory of RPGs. But when my left knee starts to ache, I just know that a storm of Forge waffle is on the way any minute now to turn a simple conversation into a flood of in-group jargon. I'd love it if people proved me wrong on this prediction.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm aware of what agency is and that it's not unique to that particular theory of RPGs. But when my left knee starts to ache, I just know that a storm of Forge waffle is on the way any minute now to turn a simple conversation into a flood of in-group jargon. I'd love it if people proved me wrong on this prediction.

Of course you may be inadvertantly inviting discussion of it and thereby turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy that never would have come true if you never bothered to mention "Forge waffle."

 

[iserith]

Of course you may be inadvertantly inviting discussion of it and thereby turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy that never would have come true if you never bothered to mention "Forge waffle."

Nah. This isn't my first time on these forums. Late in the thread? Particular posters turning up? Storm's coming. Again, please prove me wrong.

But to get things back on track, I will say that it's a little hard to figure out the current objections to exploration in D&D 5e in this thread. I feel as though people like myself have shown where this is covered in the source material and even how the supposed player options that "skip" over exploration are actually just a series of trade-offs that the party might not even have access to depending on group composition. So what's the problem left to discuss?

 

[Aldarc]

Nah. This isn't my first time on these forums. Late in the thread? Particular posters turning up? Storm's coming. Again, please prove me wrong.

(1) It's not my place or responsibility to prove you wrong, and (2) It might be easier for me to do so, if you weren't so keen to make veiled insinuations about them that are bound to rile them up unnecessarily. If you do, that storm will likely be of your own making.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't seek to be profound. Ultimately its about blending the three pillars and finding a balance that meets the needs of your players and the needs of your campaign. That's all.


Creating adventure environments that support the adventure (where combat and social interaction take place) is what I'm up to when I'm the Dungeon Master.

I fully support creating an endless string of combat encounters, but that's not what the game intends.

Unless we're talking about certain 4th ed products, which were literally strings of combat encounters

 

[Micah Sweet]

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'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.


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


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.​

To be fair, nearly every published adventure (playing comprises a large portion of player, especially new player, experience) are based on world-shattering events that the PC deal with largely exclusively for virtually their entire careers. WotC has been doing better with that lately, but they created that "script" as a assumed experience.