D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Chaosmancer]

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.

This is because you are trying to look at this as a distinct problem - solution instead of a conversation. Take a minute, step back. Look at the whole.


I asked originally "how do I make exploration and overland travel interesting with exploration challenges" and Iserith among many others responded with "Time pressure. Make it so they have to arrive at the location in time to stop the princess from being killed, this will prevent them from taking the safe path and lead to them fighting more monsters, which is an exploration challenge that is interesting."

I, after getting this answer a few times, pointed out that a ticking clock like this has issues. For one, the challenge of the time pressure fails if the party takes too long, you simply fail the mission automatically. Secondly, This doesn't actually provide new exploration challenges, it simply prevents solutions and forces the players to take otherwise unnecessary risks. Third, I have to manipulate events to make sure that the time pressure feels real, they have to be arriving just in time after their choices, or late and they fail. And finally, if I don't curate and manipulate the timeline, then I could have a situation where they arrive and blow through the climax, because there is no challenge if they arrive too early.

You stepped in and said that a lot of this was because I was given a binary clock. I have to make is a gradient. Add new monsters to fight at the climax for every day that passes until the clock runs out. I pointed out that still had most if not all of the same problems. Which is when you told me to remove the time pressure entirely.

The original premise, that the time pressure makes the exploration more engaging and makes for a better experience seems to be undercut if the solution to the issues of ticking clocks is to remove the clock entirely. So, it looks like, I was never actually given a solution at all.

And look, I get that no solution is perfect, but these aren't really minor flaws. The hard truth seems to be that not only does this involve gaslighting the players about the nature of the clock, but additionally at no point did anyone offer a real challenge for the actual journey.

You'll note that at the end of the post you quoted, I was actually saying that the princess and the cult when they don't want her dead is a great adventure. That has some real potential. The problem is though, that is the destination. Nothing interesting is happening on the journey to the destination, it is only after they arrive that we start engaging in the game and in something they will likely find fun. So, the part of the game I have been asking about, the actual journey, is best just skipped. Sure, keep track in vague terms of how long it takes to make the cultist hunting in the city more dynamic, but really, nothing interesting was happening on the way to the objective. That's the problem I've been trying to solve, and I'm trying to solve it without "throw more monsters at them". And it seems, we've now circled time pressures and shown they are somewhat lacking as a universal tool to make all exploration better.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In 5e, if the stated goal and approach of the player has a chance for success, a chance for failure, and a meaningful consequence for failure, then it would be appropriate for the DM to call for a roll. If the party needs this information to proceed with the adventure, then success with a cost is the tool you would use for a failed roll.

Fair enough.

What is the cost for a failed roll, searching an empty and abandoned shack for clues? I can't think of anything that makes sense as a cost of failure except... throw a monster at them for combat. Or a trap that does some meaningless damage while they are in a safe location and not using resources.

So, what costs other than damaging trap or monster would you try and use here?



Edit:

As @Swarmkeeper stated, it's not pass/fail.

The success is automatic but there are degrees of success and possible setbacks. And those degrees and setbacks are determined by how well they party interacts with the situation /environment (quite possibly through rolling).

I'm a big fan of eventually exposing all the cards but when and at what cost- that's often on the PCs.

I didn't see that this question followed, so I'll ask you the same thing Mort. What are the costs then that we should be using in this scenario?

 

[Lanefan]

The three ways of dealing with character advancement are: Regular Experience Points, Milestone Experience points and Advancement Without XP.

Actually there's more like eight.

Individual XP by PC, Group XP (everyone always gets the same), Milestone Levelling (i.e. based on reaching specific points in the story), and DM-Fiat Levelling (i.e. session-based, or whenever the DM feels like it) are four; doubled to eight when you also consider the yes-no option for whether training is required.

 

[Hussar]

Only if you blow resources

This has been shown to not be true. Create Water is a cantrip. Purify food and drink is a ritual. We've been over this. Multiple times.

And, sorry, I'll admit to missing your point about breathe water. Could you repeat it please?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Fair enough.

What is the cost for a failed roll, searching an empty and abandoned shack for clues? I can't think of anything that makes sense as a cost of failure except... throw a monster at them for combat. Or a trap that does some meaningless damage while they are in a safe location and not using resources.

So, what costs other than damaging trap or monster would you try and use here?



Edit:




I didn't see that this question followed, so I'll ask you the same thing Mort. What are the costs then that we should be using in this scenario?

Sound to me like there's none, so just let the check succeed.

 

[Hussar]

The three ways of dealing with character advancement are: Regular Experience Points, Milestone Experience points and Advancement Without XP.

"Encumbrance" is the variant carry weight rule which disregards the STR requirements for using heavy armor, but imposes a -10ft penalty to your speed when your carri e weight exceeda 5 times your STR score.

Yes, but none of those rules are in play at the same time. You don't have groups where one player is doing regular XP, another is doing milestones and three others are doing advancement without XP. Note, you have one rule and two optional rules. One would think that the players would default to the rule unless told otherwise. Same with encumberance.

In the Find a Secret Door example, BOTH rules are in play a the same time. The answers I got were actually, literally, conflicting.

There is a difference between having multiple OPTIONS, and have two rules that apply to the same thing and give different results. To the point where you can't actually answer the basic question, "How do I find a secret door" with anything other than, "ask your DM".

 

[Lanefan]

Sound to me like there's none, so just let the check succeed.

The cost of failure is that they don't find the clues they need.

Edit to add: or worse, they find "clues" that are outright wrong, irrelevant, or misleading.

 

[J.Quondam]

Fair enough.

What is the cost for a failed roll, searching an empty and abandoned shack for clues? I can't think of anything that makes sense as a cost of failure except... throw a monster at them for combat. Or a trap that does some meaningless damage while they are in a safe location and not using resources.

So, what costs other than damaging trap or monster would you try and use here?

"Finding the clue" often indicates a bottleneck point, so might be best to just skip the check and give out the clue. But if something is absolutely needed on a failure, then:

Getting an incomplete clue?
Or two contradictory / misleading clues?
Or a clue you can't interpret immediately?
Or potentially interesting- but unrelated- information?
Or trip an alarm?
Or get caught by the real owner of the shack?
Or find a tempting- but cursed- gewgaw instead?
Or exit the hut only to discover a whole day has passed?

There are plenty of non-combat, non-trap possibilities.

 

[Mort]

This has been shown to not be true. Create Water is a cantrip.

No, it's a 1st level spell. Which means it uses resources that the party could use elsewhere.

Purify food and drink is a ritual.

Sure, but you need food that was once edible for it to work. it doesn't necessarily make the inedible, edible. Certainly has it's uses (don't have to worry about spoilage) but it's not a panacea. It's again, a good but tool not the be all end all.

We've been over this. Multiple times.

It's hard to discuss when you have this much contempt/snark, especially when you get basic facts like the levels of spells wrong.

And, sorry, I'll admit to missing your point about breathe water. Could you repeat it please?

Water Breathing allows the group to breathe water that's it. It's basically the bare minimum to even have an underwater adventure. It certainly doesn't obviate/negate any challenge that happens to be under water - it just allows it to even happen. A group that relies on Water Breathing and not much else? Is going to be very hampered underwater.

 

[Hussar]

Darkvision: does not allow one to see color and in total darkness grants disadvantage to perception checks. Play on these factors to create a challenging situation. The PC's find themselves forced to climb a sheer cliff face on a moonless night where the natives have color coded the safe hand holds they use for ascent... Suddenly darkvision isn't an overwhelming advantage anymore (But also refer to 1 as the darkvision should at times bypass or make things trivially easy because they chose a race with darkvision).

Leomund's Hut : Give the party a challenge that has them choose between the safety of their spell or leaving the area of it. Perhaps one of the rescued children they are escorting wanders out of the dome. Perhaps they can see a traveler being assailed by a band of brigands that they could stop. Do the conditions they are seeking protection from always let up in 8 hrs?? Also use time constraints to make the spell less effective... and so on.

See, both examples, to me, are just the DM railroading the players. The ONLY reason you are doing this is because the players have these capabilities. The only reason to have color coded hand holds is to screw over the players. It's gotcha DMing. And, realistically, it doesn't actually matter that much because, sure, you can make darkvision a disadvantage ... once. Once you do that, you can't do it again. At least not with that group. Not without it becoming abundantly obvious that you're only doing it because you want to bypass their character advantages.

Same with the whole "Oh well, you'll just get ambushed if you use Tiny Hut schtick. It's really, really heavy handed. And, frankly, if the DM was that bothered by this, the DM should just pull it out of the game. Don't leave it in the game and then start screwing around with it. It's really heavy handed and blatantly obvious what's going on.

But, again, we're not talking about the game we wish it was, but, rather the game as is. So, the game as is, allows the players to bypass or trivialize exploration elements. Heck, the fact that you have to come up with specific counters proves that. If these abilities weren't trivializing exploration, the DM wouldn't have to start pulling out stuff to nerf it.