D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[iserith]

And people wonder why I view random encounters as punishments.

"You found a way around counting rations, which you find tedious? Have a landshark getting a free shot at ripping out your intestines."

As others have stated, this is a trade-off, not a punishment. It makes the exploration challenge more difficult because the choice to forage isn't "free" and the player needs to decide what to do about that. Things like this make otherwise fairly irrelevant choices meaningful and, in my experience, the more meaningful choices players can make per unit of time make for a better game.

Further, if a player finds counting rations tedious, then that's something to discuss with the DM so they can make an adjustments to the game so that they don't focus on that. Why on earth would I implement something that the players don't find fun for which they have to take backgrounds, classes, spells, or the like just to avoid?

 

[Faolyn]

(1) I'm not sure that it matters that all classes should have some exploration ability, because what matters is that they don't (at least according to your estimation), and (2) the Ranger's exploration abilities are mostly about skipping the exploration content, which is IMO questionable design that doesn't necessarily make the Ranger feel cool at what it should be good at.

Both of these are right. The classes lack exploration ability and should have some, and the ranger's abilities don't actually engage with exploration.

 

[Faolyn]

Spell casting classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer’s, Warlocks, rangers, spell thieves, elderitch knights etc have a plethora of exploration abilities that they can select. A massive amount of choice.

Paladins have divine sense - that an exploration ability.

Rogues have expertise - that allows them to be experts in a wide range of exploration abilities

This is true, but they're not really pegged as exploration abilities. Not in the "explore the wilderness" sense that the term implies. It's more like they're abilities that can be used in exploration.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If a exploration situation eats up an encounter's worth of spell slots, then it's done its job. Most of those are meant to be a bump in the road, not an unsurmountable wall.

 

[Lanefan]

You want to complain about me speeding things along when there are no traps or other gotcha's feel free. I haven't had a non-obviously telegraphed trap in years.

A trap's not much of a trap if you can see it coming.

There is smelling the roses, and then there is six athletics rolls to break down a door that we all know we are going to get through.

Are you? Why are you allowing re-rolls? And even if you are, doesn't there come a point where you-as-DM just say "guys, you've blown this six times; you'd better come up with a different method 'cause it's clear this one ain't gonna work."

I'm not trying to rush through everything, but I'd much rather say "I search the room" instead of "I search the drawers. I search the wardrobe. I search the pockets of the clothes in the wardrobe. I check for a false back. I search the bed. I search under the bed. I lift the mattress and search under there. I search the foot locker. I check the foot locker for a false bottom. I check the book shelf. I check the red book. I check the green book. I check the blue book. I check the brown book. I check the purple book." ect ect ect.

Fine, if you don't mind missing lots of potentially-useful stuff and treasure; while at the same time very likely missing any traps or curses. "I search the room" tells me you're giving it no more than a quick once-over and not really interacting with anything there. If you want to go more in depth, or interact with anything, you have to tell me; otherwise we're into "I never said I was doing that" territory the second something goes wrong.

Look man, I get player agency. But sometimes I don't feel like playing 20 questions.

If you don't ask 20 questions, don't expect to get 20 answers.

I don't see any point in discussing what it should be, I'm simply talking about what it is.

Rulings, not rules, old chap: what it should be is what it is, once you rule it that way at your table.

 

[Yora]

A trap's not much of a trap if you can see it coming.

However, if you can't see it coming then there is no meaningful interaction with it.
The good old arrow and spear traps that deal 1d6 damage don't really allow players any ways to play with them. Once they have gone off, there's nothing left but to shrug and be on your way with 4 hp less.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Further, if a player finds counting rations tedious, then that's something to discuss with the DM so they can make an adjustments to the game so that they don't focus on that. Why on earth would I implement something that the players don't find fun for which they have to take backgrounds, classes, spells, or the like just to avoid?

You know that trope where the dad makes the whole family go camping even though the rest of the family hates it and just absolutely convinces themselves everyone is having fun even after mom set herself on fire, junior had a nest of bees drop on their head and sister is actively inside a bear's stomach?

I feel like a lot of DMs are super-excited about a certain type of exploration where they really like the idea of lots of resource management and random monsters they otherwise could never justify in the adventure, and using encumbrance to force 'meaningful' choices and lots of dice rolls to determine outcomes.

Meanwhile the players are just trying to mitigate damage by taking feats, spells and backgrounds and doing whatever it takes to get a bag of holding so they don't have to deal with Dad's oblivious exuberance for something they'd just rather not pretend to care about but don't want to want to hurt the guy's feelings by asking him to please stop.

 

[Yora]

Not running a campaign with players who don't want to play it certainly helps a lot.
But that's not really something the mechanics can address.

 

[Lanefan]

Side note.... Huh?!

Is this supposed to be a thing in the rules, that if you have thought through a prepared a story it is impossible to use insight and figure out something is wrong? I think that is a very very poor precedent to set.

A hazard of updating a module that predates social mechanics (leaving it completely up to the DM to make the guy's story believable or not) to try and account for their existence.

Never mind that if a party really is that distrusting of the people they rescue that they want to check out their stories, that's hardly going to make their rescuees feel any better.

 

[iserith]

You know that trope where the dad makes the whole family go camping even though the rest of the family hates it and just absolutely convinces themselves everyone is having fun even after mom set herself on fire, junior had a nest of bees drop on their head and sister is actively inside a bear's stomach?

I feel like a lot of DMs are super-excited about a certain type of exploration where they really like the idea of lots of resource management and random monsters they otherwise could never justify in the adventure, and using encumbrance to force 'meaningful' choices and lots of dice rolls to determine outcomes.

Meanwhile the players are just trying to mitigate damage by taking feats, spells and backgrounds and doing whatever it takes to get a bag of holding so they don't have to deal with Dad's oblivious exuberance for something they'd just rather not pretend to care about but don't want to want to hurt the guy's feelings by asking him to please stop.

Yeah, Dad needs to talk to his family about what they find fun and do that.