D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Baron Opal II]

And this is the point I've run into time and time again. I've asked "how do you provide a meaningful exploration challenge" and most of the answers have been "have them fight monsters". Which is not an exploration challenge, that is the same as saying that the only way to give an exploration challenge is to engage the combat pillar. Which should not be the exploration challenges we are relying on.

I feel your pain and will answer your question. However, I can't do it real justice until I have time sketch out a scenario that answers the variety of questions you've posed (it's a long thread). It will be a couple days. Furthermore, your questions are totally valid. The painfully short answer is Man vs. Nature situations, and I don't think you have the stock rules in 5e to do what you are looking for. So if I don't get back to you in a reasonable time PM me and I'll post here.

 

[TheSword]

5e is designed against going back, You can't graft on the old ways of magic items & he talks about why. Too much power was shifted onto the PCs themselves & then wotc went a step further by designing the system math so that they would never be expected to have magic items. Simply fixing attunement & bringing back body slots or some improved version of attunement slots won't fix that without rebuilding d&d into something other than d&d 5e because there's no room left to fit it. Making it so that doing so reduces the dump stat chosen by the player to have no impact or as little impact as possible on the character is exactly the sort of nonchoice 5e enshrines over & over again

Youre speaking increasingly cryptically today. I have no idea what you mean by “designed against going back”.

I’m sorry you don’t like the house rule. It’s more about creating a flaw in the character with saving throws for non proficient stats so tied to ability scores. Taking a couple of -1’s to a save can increase a weakness that could have real effects in play. Satisfying because it’s a weakness the character has already chosen rather than one imposed by a DM. My high level players like it but perhaps it’s not to your taste.

There is no problem adding magic items to 5e. They generally add options not power and where they do increase power, difficulty is a dial controlled by the DM.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Of course it's a challenge, frankly it's just as or more interesting than if the group had succeeded.

I didn't say it wasn't interesting, I said it wasn't a challenge. Choices aren't challenges, otherwise the challenge is over the moment you make a decision.

There's that binary thing again.

The challenge now is figuring out what the heck to do next. Presumably the DM has plans for if the group doesn't get there in time (or can improvise) and the challenge has now shifted to salvage and CYA mode. Challenge doesn't mean direct conflict or direct threat. The princess has died, her family will be pissed and we're right in the middle of it - heck of a challenge!

Okay, see, that is a different presentation that makes all the difference.

"Do you turn back or do you pursue the murderers" isn't a challenge. "How do you deal with the royals blaming you for failing" is a challenge. It may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but what you are presenting makes all the difference.

But, to make sure I drag this back on topic before we get too far afield in the nature of challenges and how to present them, this isn't an exploration challenge. It is definetly a social challenge. And potentially none of the things that delayed the party were exploration challenges either. I'll actually add that another thing that makes the "the royal family is mad at you" challenge particularly good is that you have given the players all of the relevant information, making this more engaging to them. They don't know the outcomes, but they know enough about people, the royals they met, their enemies, and the circumstances to make informed decisions based upon that information.

Counter that with potentially the "challenge" that came before it. Do you take the road or the dangerous forest. One takes 5 days one takes 2.

How long do we have til the ritual? The players might not know, quite often it is kept as a vague "soon"
How dangerous is the forest? You don't know.
Where are they once you are through the forest? The players might not know. If the cult took the princess to a city, they still need to track her in the city.
Do they know we are pursuing them? Don't know.

The less information the players have, the more their decisions feel like they don't matter. Did the princess die because they took the road, or was she always going to die and they were never going to be able to rescue her? You don't know. So when the time comes to make the next choice on the fast but dangerous road or the slow but safe road which leads to where you want? You don't know.

At its core, a good exploration challenge is to simply have an interesting environment and a reason for the party to interact with it - go from there. The DMG, granted often in a confusing manner, provides decent guidance on interesting environments and how to interact with them.

No. I fully disagree with you. The keys are information and rewards. I'll never be able to guarantee that an environment will be interesting, and even if it is interesting in concept that doesn't mean it is interesting in practice. And "a reason" is too weak. They don't motivate enough.

We had an interesting environment (an eternal blizzard raging in the northern-most mountains) and a reason (need to get through to complete our mission to find a dragon) and it was the most boring "challenge" I've had in years, because we had zero information to base decisions on, so none of our decisions mattered. Do we go left, right or forward? From our perspective, the three choices were identical.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Okay, I'm going by just this "princess will be sacrificed" hook (if there were additional details, I'm not aware of them).

There are a number of different ways to approach this depending on play style, but here's one way to implement it.

The evil cultists have kidnapped the princess. The PCs have 5 days to rescue her before the cultists sacrifice her to complete their evil ritual. Getting to the site with a ranger under a pretty severe forced march could be done in a day. Without a ranger, at a relaxed pace, it will take 4 days. The final encounter is hard to begin with, but each day the cultists create an additional witherling, pushing the encounter into deadly by the last day (obviously, if you don't like the default difficulty, adjust as desired).

So you've done nothing to change the clock. At the end of 5 days she is dead. That is the binary choice you said I shouldn't have.

Also, the only consequences are a harder fight, and if you designed this encounter and were sat down at a table with a group that had no ranger, then the fight still has to be winnable, it is just harder. Maybe though, easier than being a party exhausted from a severe forced march.

And, if you arrive in one day and aren't exhausted, then you have basically defeated three enemies already, making the fight quite a bit easier.

So, it is still swingy, just like ti was originally, there is now just a scaling combat that also happens if we don't arrive to find the princess already dead.

 

[Fanaelialae]

So you've done nothing to change the clock. At the end of 5 days she is dead. That is the binary choice you said I shouldn't have.

Also, the only consequences are a harder fight, and if you designed this encounter and were sat down at a table with a group that had no ranger, then the fight still has to be winnable, it is just harder. Maybe though, easier than being a party exhausted from a severe forced march.

And, if you arrive in one day and aren't exhausted, then you have basically defeated three enemies already, making the fight quite a bit easier.

So, it is still swingy, just like ti was originally, there is now just a scaling combat that also happens if we don't arrive to find the princess already dead.

It's not binary. Each day adds to the difficulty of the encounter, with the 6th day resulting in a failure state. That's a gradient, not a straight pass/fail clock.

And if you don't want to have a fail state, then you don't have to add one. Maybe the cultists capture and imprison the princess. Each day the cultists still create an extra witherling, but on the 6th day they start working on something else. So the difficulty simply caps out on day 5 and is the same every day after that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Thing is, if done right something that seems at the time like a one-off adventure might have some serious significance that doesn't become apparent or relevant until years down the road; be it pre-planned going in or something that just happens to fit perfectly in hindsight.

I wouldn't say "if done right". IT can be done, but I've rarely seen it, because a lot of DMs make all the encounters that are important beforehand, and even the DM treats the random encounter like it isn't important, so they forget about it quickly.

It is another reason I don't like them, most of the ones I've encountered, even the DM didn't think they were important. They put them in because they felt they were supposed to.

Where I'm fairly hard-line on if the character doesn't see a big red 17 then the player doesn't either. I want the players to use only the info their characters would have in the fiction; and if that info is inadequate due to my poor narration that's on me, but if it's inadequate because the characters simply couldn't know it then too bad.

I think that is far too hard-lined, it too easily leads to situations where the players are left with nothing to do but guess, and in your game in particular, that can trivially lead to death.

I don't tell them everything obviously, but if the only reason to keep it from them is because "you wouldn't know that" then to me it is the same as hiding their intelligence score from them. No point, and it just makes the game harder to run well.

It matters every time someone wants to bash down a door; it's way easier to bash down a door that opens away from you than it is one that opens toward you.

By enough to ever matter? I've never seen a DC increased or decreased because of that. Seems like this is another homebrew of yours.

That's a fault of 5e. Easily fixed.

To us, defining handedness is every bit as much a part of roll-up as defining age, height and weight; and it's trivially fast: one die roll (if you want a shot at ambidexterity) or a player choice between left and right.

Easily fixed for what? It never comes up, why would it? I just assume all of my characters are functionally ambidexterous.

Flip side: RPGs are the only games in the world where the players get to truly make the game system their own. It's one of their most outstanding features.

The designers can't possibly come up with a finished system that works for everyone. What they can do (and promised to do during 5e playtest before bailing out on it) is design a solid playable baseline framework* and then present independent modular options. Lots and lots of modular options, none of which are required or expected (and some of which alter the baseline framework; they'd not all be straight add-ons) and all of which are open to amendment by houserule or kitbash.

Sure, it is a great feature of the game... but every single time I find a problem in the system I'm told it is my fault because I should homebrew a solution. And I always wonder... how is anyone supposed to run this game if the game doesn't work and we need to constantly patch it?

And... wouldn't it be better if the writers had given us a better product?

* - ideally this baseline framework would be extremely harsh on the players/PCs - a true meatgrinder - with the optional modules intended to generally make things easier on them; following the philosophy that says it's more positive to start hard and ease off later than to do the opposite.

Hard No. If it is too harsh in the basic version, then people will abandon it in droves. Modules should go both ways.

 

[Mort]

I didn't say it wasn't interesting, I said it wasn't a challenge. Choices aren't challenges, otherwise the challenge is over the moment you make a decision.



Okay, see, that is a different presentation that makes all the difference.

"Do you turn back or do you pursue the murderers" isn't a challenge. "How do you deal with the royals blaming you for failing" is a challenge. It may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but what you are presenting makes all the difference.

But, to make sure I drag this back on topic before we get too far afield in the nature of challenges and how to present them, this isn't an exploration challenge. It is definetly a social challenge. And potentially none of the things that delayed the party were exploration challenges either. I'll actually add that another thing that makes the "the royal family is mad at you" challenge particularly good is that you have given the players all of the relevant information, making this more engaging to them. They don't know the outcomes, but they know enough about people, the royals they met, their enemies, and the circumstances to make informed decisions based upon that information.

It could be a social challenge or it could be an exploration challenge, completely depends on how the group decides to approach the situation.

Counter that with potentially the "challenge" that came before it. Do you take the road or the dangerous forest. One takes 5 days one takes 2.

How long do we have til the ritual? The players might not know, quite often it is kept as a vague "soon"
How dangerous is the forest? You don't know.
Where are they once you are through the forest? The players might not know. If the cult took the princess to a city, they still need to track her in the city.
Do they know we are pursuing them? Don't know.

The less information the players have, the more their decisions feel like they don't matter. Did the princess die because they took the road, or was she always going to die and they were never going to be able to rescue her? You don't know. So when the time comes to make the next choice on the fast but dangerous road or the slow but safe road which leads to where you want? You don't know.

Well yes, imparting information is key.

No. I fully disagree with you. The keys are information and rewards. I'll never be able to guarantee that an environment will be interesting, and even if it is interesting in concept that doesn't mean it is interesting in practice. And "a reason" is too weak. They don't motivate enough.

We had an interesting environment (an eternal blizzard raging in the northern-most mountains) and a reason (need to get through to complete our mission to find a dragon) and it was the most boring "challenge" I've had in years, because we had zero information to base decisions on, so none of our decisions mattered. Do we go left, right or forward? From our perspective, the three choices were identical.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with?

An environment where the group has little/no information and no means of getting information isn't interesting and has little chance to be interesting. Part of a "good" (and proper) exploration challenge is that the group picks up relevant /interesting information. And yes, the whole POINT is that the groups decisions matter - otherwise it's just a cut scene /DM dictation.

Going back to the group failing to get to the princess in time. If the abandoned shack that held the princess has enough clues as to what happened /where the killers went for the PCs to pick up on it and pursue (if they want) - then that's interesting. If the shack had that plus evidence of who did it - again interesting. The party interacts with the challenge and goes from there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's not binary. Each day adds to the difficulty of the encounter, with the 6th day resulting in a failure state. That's a gradient, not a straight pass/fail clock.

Okay, technically it is a gradient, but your mission is to stop the cult from killing the princess. That was the time pressure given. Day 1, she's not dead. Day 3, she's not dead. Day 4? Not dead. Day 5 going to die. Day 6, Dead. The number of witherlings have nothing to do with the goals of the mission, except making the combat more difficult when it comes.

And, to harp a bit more on my drum of information... do the players know this? Do they know that you are adding monsters to the fight for every day they take? Because if they don't... then they can't account for that in their plan. They are still in the original scenario, after day 5, princess is dead. Binary pass/fail

And if you don't want to have a fail state, then you don't have to add one. Maybe the cultists capture and imprison the princess. Each day the cultists still create an extra witherling, but on the 6th day they start working on something else. So the difficulty simply caps out on day 5 and is the same every day after that.

Okay great... so there is no time pressure, except that the fight gets harder and harder every day.

But, now here we have something interesting. Something superior to the original mission. Because the Cult doesn't want the Princess dead. 4 days or 30 days, it doesn't matter. So now, if the fight gets too tough, they can retreat, having dealt a blow, and deal with how the cult responds.

Your goal is to rescue the Princess and without the time pressure of her dying if you don't get there fast enough, you can know start implementing other plans. Let the cult know you are in town and try and grab her while they try smuggling her out of the city. Spending time gathering allies.

We've now gone from the time pressure leading to "rush there and kick down the door as soon as possible" in a (IMO) misguided attempt to add pressure to suddenly being in a dynamic situation where multiple parties are jockeying for an advantage. This is far more interesting, far more engaging, and doesn't involve a lick of an exploration challenge.

The challenge is now no longer "how do we get there fast enough" and now has shifted to "how do we rescue the princess"

 

[Chaosmancer]

It could be a social challenge or it could be an exploration challenge, completely depends on how the group decides to approach the situation.

I don't really see tracking people as an exploration challenge. At least with the rules given it isn't.

Well yes, imparting information is key.

I agree, but the majority of "exploration challenges" seem to be built under the assumption that the less information the party has, the better. I disagree.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with?

An environment where the group has little/no information and no means of getting information isn't interesting and has little chance to be interesting. Part of a "good" (and proper) exploration challenge is that the group picks up relevant /interesting information. And yes, the whole POINT is that the groups decisions matter - otherwise it's just a cut scene /DM dictation.

Ah, most of the time when I've heard people talking about an "interesting environment" they are talking in very broad terms, like "a crystal forest" or "an ancient temple". They rely on the environment being something that is interesting in a cut scene, thinking that is a driver of player engagement.

Maybe an "interactive environment" would be more clear, but I don't think it is a much better descriptor.

Going back to the group failing to get to the princess in time. If the abandoned shack that held the princess has enough clues as to what happened /where the killers went for the PCs to pick up on it and pursue (if they want) - then that's interesting. If the shack had that plus evidence of who did it - again interesting. The party interacts with the challenge and goes from there.

Okay, but here we are back to an issue. You have the shack, and you have the clues, but how to the PCs pick up on them?

Generally they would roll investigation right? Well, they have four people, so they are going to use the help action and get advantage. Maybe they have access to guidance or bardic inspiration. If they are high enough level and have a rogue then they might have a minimum result of 10+Investigation mod.

If I as the DM know that they missed the cultists by days, and this shack is abandoned... then they have all the time they need to search it thoroughly. There is no actual challenge in getting this information. In fact, I wonder if I would even have them roll, considering the unlikeliness of them failing.

And, is automatic success interesting? I don't think it always is. So... how do we handle this? We want the PCs to have the information, but a pass/fail die roll isn't helpful, or if they are smart even likely to slow them down.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Okay, technically it is a gradient, but your mission is to stop the cult from killing the princess. That was the time pressure given. Day 1, she's not dead. Day 3, she's not dead. Day 4? Not dead. Day 5 going to die. Day 6, Dead. The number of witherlings have nothing to do with the goals of the mission, except making the combat more difficult when it comes.

And, to harp a bit more on my drum of information... do the players know this? Do they know that you are adding monsters to the fight for every day they take? Because if they don't... then they can't account for that in their plan. They are still in the original scenario, after day 5, princess is dead. Binary pass/fail



Okay great... so there is no time pressure, except that the fight gets harder and harder every day.

But, now here we have something interesting. Something superior to the original mission. Because the Cult doesn't want the Princess dead. 4 days or 30 days, it doesn't matter. So now, if the fight gets too tough, they can retreat, having dealt a blow, and deal with how the cult responds.

Your goal is to rescue the Princess and without the time pressure of her dying if you don't get there fast enough, you can know start implementing other plans. Let the cult know you are in town and try and grab her while they try smuggling her out of the city. Spending time gathering allies.

We've now gone from the time pressure leading to "rush there and kick down the door as soon as possible" in a (IMO) misguided attempt to add pressure to suddenly being in a dynamic situation where multiple parties are jockeying for an advantage. This is far more interesting, far more engaging, and doesn't involve a lick of an exploration challenge.

The challenge is now no longer "how do we get there fast enough" and now has shifted to "how do we rescue the princess"

You complain when there is a failure state that there is a failure state. When I tell you to feel free to remove the failure state, you complain about that.

There are rarely, if ever, perfect solutions in life. Most everything has pros and cons. If you let the fact that everything has tradeoffs stop you, then you will never do anything.

A better approach, IMO, is to pick the approach with the pros you like and the cons you can live with. To do nothing but complain because a perfect solution doesn't exist accomplishes exactly that. Which is neither beneficial in life, nor in this thread.