D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Faolyn]

Winning the fight because of a lucky critical is something the group will high five about and talk about afterward. The party's ranger turning to the DM and saying, "We're here" is never something the group will give the slightest toss about.

I just finished my weekly game. Our DM for this game does a pretty good job of both narrating events and asking the PCs exactly how they're going about doing things, or even asking how they know certain things. Even things that are effectively automatic successes. I try to do the same when I run.

Maybe your DM needs to just do better at giving descriptions and interacting with the players.

And, here we have Exhibit A of DM leveraging the campaign resources to railroad the party into doing what the DM wants. Because I will GUARANTEE that a wizard would NEVER have spell components stolen otherwise.

I guarantee that it can happen. Some DMs--including everyone at my table--will roll randomly to see what gets taken, should something be stolen or lost, so it will be fair. Just like if we have a bad guy attacking or a strange effect affecting the party, we'll roll to randomly determine who its targeting (unless, of course, there's a legitimate reason it would focus on a particular party member).

But these elements are specifically NOT being included to showcase what the ranger can do. They are specifically being added to STOP the ranger from doing what the ranger can do. These aren't challenges, these are roadblocks to force the party into "exploration pillar" challenges that would normally be 100% bypassed by the character's class abilities.

Alright, so answer this: There's a ranger in the party. There's a flood blocking the path. Does the DM actively say "no, even though you're a ranger, there's absolutely no way you can cross this flood" or dismiss every idea the ranger comes up with and say it won't work? Or does something else happen? And if so, what?

See, in any game I've been in, here's where the ranger's player would either start coming up with ideas on how to cross or get around the flood (or another player would come up with an idea to give to the ranger), or would ask the DM if they can roll to come up with an idea. But that's because the DMs in our group, myself included, are trying to work together.

If your DM is deliberately targeting people just to railroad them, then you have an antagonistic jerk of a DM and you might want to think about getting a different one. And honestly, everything you've posted so far seems to suggest that your DM is very antagonistic.

Edit: Or barring getting a new DM, have you ever considered telling the DM that you would like to have interesting exploration challenges without the DM going out of their way to nerf the DM? You've said you DM--do you try to model non-antagonistic exploration?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'm sure someone must have said something like this in this thread already, but as a DM I find myself sometimes wanting to incorporate rules like rations, encumbrance, and more closely keeping time only for these things to fall by the wayside as the time investment (and making sure the players understand these rules) becomes more tedious than it seems to be worth.

I'd be interested to play in a game that used these rules so I can see how they're supposed to work in practice.

 

[Lanefan]

Because why not, your goal is to kill the PCs, might as well.

If my goal was to kill the PCs I could, obviously, do so on a whim. Not much fun for anyone, there.

It's a bit more subtle than that, however. My goal is to - fairly - challenge the PCs such that their survival (with commensurate benefits e.g. treasure, xp etc.) is an earned reward, not an expected right.

On average there'll be a couple of party deaths each adventure, of an average party size of 6-8. Sometimes there's none. But the party as an entity nearly always survives: in the well-over-2000 sessions I've DMed since starting in 1984, I've had exactly one (1) TPK; and that mostly due to sheer bad luck (their main Fighter got dominated against them and wiped them out; said Fighter then became a puppet of the dominator until he died of starvation a few months later).

They are dead. "Well, technically being trapped for eternity and unable to do anything ever isn't dead" doesn't sway me. They are dead, roll up a new character and never wear an item that hasn't been identified ever again.

Seriously, no one should ever experiment by putting something on in your game, unless they are truly fine with it being a coin flip of death. It is utterly pointless.

I've lost numerous characters over the years via field-testing cursed items. Does it stop me from field-testing? Never!

Then it might be worth the risk. But see, this is the difference between this item and the boots. I can make an informed decision here. I can weigh risks and rewards, I can check with you via this "small body of knowledge" and maybe figure out those DCs.

If I used DCs they'd be DM-side info only.

Just for laughs? I mean, why have an item like that that you can never know what it does? Again, this is removing a player's ability to make a meaningful choice.

Firstly, if I was in your game and had a magic ring I couldn't figure out what it did... I'd never wear it. Trash heap or sell it, because it could be another instant death item. Then, if someone did wear it... it could still be an instant death item, because they say the wrong thing in-character. Poof, guess you shouldn't have said "I wish I could see their face" you didn't know about that secret magic item you were wearing, and now you are all going to die.

And sure, it could be beneficial. But it isn't a choice, it is just random luck.

Most often it just ends up humourous; which is kind of the point. And all it takes is one character trying to sleep on a rough stone floor wishing she had a feather bed and having it >>poof!<< appear in the middle of a dungeon to get people to watch their words a little.

In the game I play in, we're currently in just this situation. We found a chest containing five items of clothing. Field-testing showed four were very useful but one - the cap - lost all enchantment on being donned. That character is really being careful what she says now, just in case the thing gave her a hidden wish; even more so as all four other items had curses trigger the next time we got into combat!

Chaos sure, but why deceive and trick your own players? What do you hope to gain. High risks can lead to high rewards, but not knowing the risks just makes it random chance. And no, I don't mean, "You know you risk dying" I mean actually being able to make a decision based off real information.

If by "real information" you mean actual mathematical odds then sorry, you won't get those here. Same as it'd be if you were the actual PC looking at this stuff - you-as-PC don't know the odds of something being corrupted, so why should the player?

See, there are two problems with this.

1) No one would make this item. It is completely nonsensical. There is no single reason to make a potion that is a better healing potion, and disguise it as a giant strength potion. It makes no sense.

2) It is such a waste. Sure, if you drink it hoping to get strength, and you were low on HP, then at least you got something. But if you weren't low on hp, you just wasted a resource to get... nothing. Seriously, this item bothers me more than any other item on your list, because it is just so mean-spirited. It is meant only to deceive the players into wasting it. There is no situation where it makes for an interesting decision or a useful resource, because it can only be wasted. And the only time it can't be wasted... is when if it was just a normal healing potion it would likely have been used anyways, or used to better effect.

If the cast an actual Identify on it they'd get the right answer; but in my game casting ID costs a 100 g.p. pearl every time and knocks the caster back for 8 hours, so they tend to cast them rarely if ever in the field.

Just because there is precedent doesn't mean it is a good idea. Again, with these sort of items being common, you just literally touch as few things as possible, until you've used magic to identify everything, because doing literally anything else is just asking to be killed.

And if you don't die you've earned xp for taking the risk, and also learned something for the party. (this is one of the many reasons I dislike any xp method other than individual; I want to specifically reward the risk-takers)

Yes, the game has a lot of luck involved... and it doesn't need more. We don't need to set things up to have the game even more unpredictable. In fact, I think we need the opposite. We need players to have more information, so they can actually do something by choice, instead of being left to either turtle and distrust everything, or flip a coin to see whether they live or die.

There's a middle ground between these two; where the main choice - as seen through the eyes of the PCs - is whether to take a risk or not. I do my best to ensure player info is the same as character info; after that they're on their own to do what their characters would do.

No. I don't do that. If touching something has a serious risk of death, then I tell the players. Sometimes they touch it anyways, other times they avoid it, but I'm not going to trap random items with deadly-poison and just wait and see if the PCs are dumb enough to pick it up and die.

Where I describe what they see (and feel, and smell, etc.) as best I can, answer any in-character questions they might have, and then leave it to them to figure it out.

I had fun, because the guy was doing a good job, and we were willing to go along with it. It was only like his 2nd or 3rd campaign ever too, so we cut him a lot of slack.

We started to stop having fun towards the end though, and start getting annoyed. And, again, if you have to do that for every bit of travel... then you are going to start getting people more and more annoyed.

Was his next adventure going to be something along the same lines, or something different? If it was going to be the same again, I could see it getting dull; but if it was to be something different then having one journey-as-adventure isn't all bad.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I base my games on what the rules tell me to do. The tools are there and I prepare and present accordingly. I doubt anyone would say my games aren't engaging.

Cool for you. But, from what you've presented to me, I would assume that is because your players like combat and high stress situations. And that can be fun, but my players don't always want to go racing the clock every single time they sit down.

But obviously, if something doesn't work perfectly right away, you should give up immediately. It's like the old saying goes, "If at first you don't succeed, give up and blame everyone and everything but yourself."

After how many attempts should someone stop and look at the tools instead of blaming themselves?

See, this sort of insulting dismissal is a serious problem. You think I tried once? I've been a DM for 5e since it came out. I've tried multiple times, I've read multiple articles, I've watched multiple video essays, I've been in multiple discussions exactly like this one, with people who share my experiences.

If on the twentieth time you don't succeed, maybe you aren't the problem. Same for the thirtieth. By the Fortieth, maybe there is something else going on. Because it has never worked. Seven years of 5e DMing. Nine years of DMing multiple systems, and "exploration" has never quite worked. It has always had issues.

But no, go ahead and judge me inadequate and a whiner, because it can't possibly be that the system isn't serving the needs of the community.

 

[Chaosmancer]

DMG pg 256 “The diseases here illustrate the variety of ways disease can work in the game. Feel free to alter the saving throw DCs, incubation times, symptoms, and other Characteristicsof these diseases to suit your campaign.”

Uh huh, I know. Just because the game gives you permission to homebrew doesn't mean you aren't.

Most diseases are home brewed there are only 3 in the book. If PCs are being blasé about diseases then have them start to spread to other people around them. See how blasé they are then.

Depends on the party, the people, and why they are around them.

If they are two weeks into a jungle trek, somehow I don't think they are worried about spreading it to others. If they are in the middle of a city, somehow I don't think treatment or safety to rest is going to be hard to find.

Who said anything about random? The disease is there because the DM has determined its there. Mosquito bites, parasites in food, or from contact, airborne diseases. Lots of fun to be had with the blessings of papa Nurgle.

Giving the players zero choice in risk vs reward. "Well, turns out you got bit by a mosquito, something you never noticed and I just decided was here"

Might as well be random, because the players have zero control over any part of it.

I run it that you start to get symptoms and then the disease saving throw happens. I have a similar rule with stealth checks that when scouting you roll the stealth check when you come into contact with something not when you first decide to sneak…. Cause rolling first can change your behavior when in truth you wouldn’t know if you were hiding well or not.

I might steal that rule. That isn't a bad idea.

 

[Azzy]

Some of the players in this thread are at the "Adjust" step. Got any adjustments to offer?

Withot a concrete idea of what they actually want, no, I don't think we can help. We've tried suggesting things, but apparently not what they want.

 

[Chaosmancer]

IME such things happen sometimes, irrespective of whether there is a ranger in the party.

The flooded river was simply there to illustrate that it's not an automatic win button. Obviously, the players should frequently be able to leverage their abilities to win. That's fun, and good DMing.

Okay, but... how does the flooded river actually change anything?

Is this part of the river impassable? Then we just travel five days downriver to the other bridge and cross that. Or we travel seven days upriver and cross at a narrower point that isn't flooded. Or we wait three days for the flood water to recede and make the river passable again.

You haven't stopped us from crossing the river, or stopped us from reaching our destination. You've delayed us, forced us to detour, but that doesn't mean anything. It accomplishes exactly zero goals in providing a challenge for the party or the ranger.

 

[iserith]

After how many attempts should someone stop and look at the tools instead of blaming themselves?

See, this sort of insulting dismissal is a serious problem. You think I tried once? I've been a DM for 5e since it came out. I've tried multiple times, I've read multiple articles, I've watched multiple video essays, I've been in multiple discussions exactly like this one, with people who share my experiences.

If on the twentieth time you don't succeed, maybe you aren't the problem. Same for the thirtieth. By the Fortieth, maybe there is something else going on. Because it has never worked. Seven years of 5e DMing. Nine years of DMing multiple systems, and "exploration" has never quite worked. It has always had issues.

But no, go ahead and judge me inadequate and a whiner, because it can't possibly be that the system isn't serving the needs of the community.

When you reject out of hand attempts to explain what the rules say and how they can be applied to make satisfying challenges or even agree on basic concepts, you don't leave me with much reason to conclude otherwise.

Also, as to "serving the needs of the community," you can only really speak for yourself, particularly as I just finished playing in a game of Rime of the Frost Maiden using the very overland travel rules you decry. We even had a ranger with Natural Explorer (plus me, a scout rogue). And it was difficult and engaging with punishing weather, random encounters, and exploring a dungeon (which also had a preceding exploration challenge to find an alternate route into it rather than the front doors). So I don't know what to tell you. It works fine.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If my goal was to kill the PCs I could, obviously, do so on a whim. Not much fun for anyone, there.

It's a bit more subtle than that, however. My goal is to - fairly - challenge the PCs such that their survival (with commensurate benefits e.g. treasure, xp etc.) is an earned reward, not an expected right.

On average there'll be a couple of party deaths each adventure, of an average party size of 6-8. Sometimes there's none. But the party as an entity nearly always survives: in the well-over-2000 sessions I've DMed since starting in 1984, I've had exactly one (1) TPK; and that mostly due to sheer bad luck (their main Fighter got dominated against them and wiped them out; said Fighter then became a puppet of the dominator until he died of starvation a few months later).

But you aren't challenging them. Maybe some of the time you are, but things like those boots, or the necklace of strangulation are not challenges. They can't be.

Items that harm or kill you for touching them are not a challenge by themselves. A door handle that kills you if you touch it isn't a challenge. A door handle that kills you if you touch it, and you know that, and you need to open the door anyways is a challenge.

I've lost numerous characters over the years via field-testing cursed items. Does it stop me from field-testing? Never!

It would stop me after a single time. And frankly, that's assuming I bother to make a new character to continue playing.

If I used DCs they'd be DM-side info only.

Why? What value is there in keeping that information secret from the players?

Most often it just ends up humourous; which is kind of the point. And all it takes is one character trying to sleep on a rough stone floor wishing she had a feather bed and having it >>poof!<< appear in the middle of a dungeon to get people to watch their words a little.

In the game I play in, we're currently in just this situation. We found a chest containing five items of clothing. Field-testing showed four were very useful but one - the cap - lost all enchantment on being donned. That character is really being careful what she says now, just in case the thing gave her a hidden wish; even more so as all four other items had curses trigger the next time we got into combat!

Yeah, while the humor is mildly amusing, it isn't worth having to carefully monitor all my words for the rest of the game, trying to remember that I may have something going on that will activate, maybe, with no possible known trigger.

And seriously, why get people "watching their words" in the course of normal play? If talking to a fey or a genie or a dragon, sure, watch your words, but while just hanging out at the tavern? Pointless. Seemingly with the intent of just getting them to waste something they don't even know they have. You might as well have an invisible fairy following them to grant their next wish, don't even give them the clue that there is an item involved.

If by "real information" you mean actual mathematical odds then sorry, you won't get those here. Same as it'd be if you were the actual PC looking at this stuff - you-as-PC don't know the odds of something being corrupted, so why should the player?

No, I mean stuff like "this is a potion of healing" or "this item has a death curse". Real information, not fake information meant to deceive them.

I mean, honestly, you literally are setting it up so that the players can't even trust the information they learn by investigating. Maybe it is a potion of giant strength, maybe it is a potion of exploding heads, no way to know except drinking it, or by spending 100 gp, 6 constitution points (30 hp) and being in a secured lab in a safe location where no monsters can get you.

Oh, and when you try that with the next item, it turns out it was a pearl of nuclear winter that only activates when someone casts magic on it.

I'm not saying you don't have fun at your table, but from where I am sitting, you seem to almost be actively discouraging people from playing the game. Investigate everything, take every precaution, then still get the booby prize because even that isn't enough. At some point... I'd just be done with it. If I can't trust anything and everything is going to kill me, then that isn't worth the investment of sixteen hours a month.

If the cast an actual Identify on it they'd get the right answer; but in my game casting ID costs a 100 g.p. pearl every time and knocks the caster back for 8 hours, so they tend to cast them rarely if ever in the field.

Because you seem to actively despise the players learning anything concrete. And I don't know why. Lack of information isn't supposed to be the challenge.

And if you don't die you've earned xp for taking the risk, and also learned something for the party. (this is one of the many reasons I dislike any xp method other than individual; I want to specifically reward the risk-takers)

Right, just keep penalizing people for trying to roleplay. Because, I'm sorry, but even the craziest people don't constantly risk their lives for no reason. I'm not roleplaying someone who is suicidal.

I mean... I honestly can't imagine why you would do this. Cut off anyway to do anything except flip the coin, and then reward them more for flipping the coin, so that even if they find a way not to just risk death at every turn, you punish them for it and incentivize them to churn through characters at a breakneck speed. I can obviously tell you would hate to do any other method of XP, because you couldn't force people to take this risks otherwise.

There's a middle ground between these two; where the main choice - as seen through the eyes of the PCs - is whether to take a risk or not. I do my best to ensure player info is the same as character info; after that they're on their own to do what their characters would do.

And they get punished for it if that decision isn't to take the risk of death or maiming, the very high it seems risk of death or maiming, because that's the best way to get XP, which is something the player knows, and wants, while I'd say the character would.. want to live. And field testing anything or directly touching anything in this world seems like a quick way to death.

Where I describe what they see (and feel, and smell, etc.) as best I can, answer any in-character questions they might have, and then leave it to them to figure it out.

Which they can't honestly do, unless they play 20 questions, which they have to do to even have a chance, and even that might be a lie, because maybe they smell roses, but they don't know that the item was enchanted so the scent of the death poison appears like the scent of roses. Oops, roll a new character, guess you should have been more careful and asked 40 questions, but hey, if you hadn't have died you'd have got a lot of XP to level up with.

Was his next adventure going to be something along the same lines, or something different? If it was going to be the same again, I could see it getting dull; but if it was to be something different then having one journey-as-adventure isn't all bad.

The group wanted to explore some ruins on a map we found, so we kept traveling to more random dungeons and fighting random things, he was starting some sort of plot with these dragons but the game fell apart because we were getting to be about a year and a half in and he was burning out.

 

[Chaosmancer]

When you reject out of hand attempts to explain what the rules say and how they can be applied to make satisfying challenges or even agree on basic concepts, you don't leave me with much reason to conclude otherwise.

And you've been dismissive almost this entire time that anyone could have a problem. I've talked to you about what the rules say, and other than a disagreement on how targeting works through a window, we've never had an actual rules disagreement.

And, no, wandering monsters aren't a satisfying challenge for exploration. They aren't. Neither are ticking clocks. And those have been the only solutions you offered. You have offered nothing else.

did someone else offer diseases up? Yes they did. I pointed out that there aren't a lot of diseases that would apply without homebrewing. They took offense and pointed me to the rules that say they are allowed to homebrew because there aren't a lot of diseases that apply... Wonder why that didn't disprove my point.

They offered exhaustion. I pointed out that the overland travel rules that I've seen offer almost no way to give exhaustion. I asked how they could apply them, I was never given an answer, they wanted to focus on the DM having a mosquito give the players the plague and start a pandemic.

We've discussed rangers and overland travel. And no one has been willing to actually answer this beyond putting a single obstacle and saying "see, a challenge" and not bothering (so far) to speak to how the party can't just... walk around it. Sure, it might add weeks to their travel time, but if you don't have a ticking clock, then that isn't a problem. And if you do have a ticking clock, well, there is issues with that as well, if you don't curate the game.


So, rather than insisting that I must be a crap DM if I have an issue with the rules, maybe look at the content of the discussions.

Also, as to "serving the needs of the community," you can only really speak for yourself, particularly as I just finished playing in a game of Rime of the Frost Maiden using the very overland travel rules you decry. We even had a ranger with Natural Explorer (plus me, a scout rogue). And it was difficult and engaging with punishing weather, random encounters, and exploring a dungeon (which also had a preceding exploration challenge to find an alternate route into it rather than the front doors). So I don't know what to tell you. It works fine.

And my fellow DMs I've talked to.
And other people in this thread that agree with me
And the people who ask these questions so many times that is has spawned multiple articles, mutliple video essays and multiple unique discussion threads.

But yea, it's only me.

So, Rime of the Frost Maiden huh? Does it have special rules for "punishing weather" because if I use the rules in the DMG then I don't see how there could be any such thing. Unless you couldn't afford winter clothing, or you desperately needed your passive perception for some reason. Because with Winter Clothing the only effect you could have been suffering is the area being lightly obscured and disadvantage on perception checks.

We are never going to agree that wandering monsters are exploration challenges. So, I don't know why you keep insisting on them.

And "exploring the dungeon" is what we've been talking about, so I can't really add anything without details. Though I am curious about the "challenge" to find an alternate way in. Curious why you felt the need to do that, and what the nature of this challenge was. Did you know where this entrance was?