D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Fanaelialae]

Exploration to me isn't an encounter. It's finding out about something new by exploration. If you go into a room you've never been in, you're engaged in exploration. If someone says to you, "Do you want to see my room?" and you respond with "no," it's not exploration despite the potential to be. You never explored it. You have to actually engage in the exploration for it to be exploration.

It would be exploration if you found that room yourself and decided not to investigate further. You did find out something new via exploration.

When you travel down the road and the DM describes what you see, you're finding out something new by exploration (assuming you haven't been down this road before, or that nothing has changed if you have).

 

[Maxperson]

It would be exploration if you found that room yourself and decided not to investigate further. You did find out something new via exploration.

When you travel down the road and the DM describes what you see, you're finding out something new by exploration (assuming you haven't been down this road before, or that nothing has changed if you have).

But not because of your choice. It would be exploration because you explored and found the room in the first place. It's not exploration because of potential. It's exploration because it was found in the process of exploring. You explored and found the room. You chose not to explore the room.

And yes, whenever you are finding information on a new place, even if it's DM narration, exploration is happening.

 

[Aldarc]

Oh, you'd be very surprised. I think a majority of play is signing up for a good bit of GM storytime.

Agreed. My partner prefers more GM/Adventure-curated stories, which I suspect has to do with their greater familiarity with MMORPGs and unease with exerting agency in TTRPGs.

 

[Oofta]

Nothing at all about passive checks suggests that the character does nothing. We have two cases -- one where the character is performing an action continuously and the other when the GM wishes to secretly resolve an action by the character. Nothing at all about passivity on the character's part.

Passive checks are poorly named -- they have nothing at all to do with being passive as defined.

It's not used this way. Instead, the assumption there is that the passive check applies when the PC is continuously doing an action (and looking out for danger is an established baseline action while moving through dangerous environments) or if the GM needs to secretly resolve an action. At no point is it just something the character does without effort or trying.

No, the PC declared an action, and the GM resolves it, including narrating the results of the action. If you declare an action to step out over a pit, then the result is up to the GM to resolve. I'm not sure why you think I've indicated that nothing can happen to a PC without permission. Falling into a pit is not a declared action for the PC (or, perhaps, not a commonly declared action). The GM resolving an action that has falling into a pit as a possible outcome isn't puppeting the PC and declaring actions for them, they are resolving declared actions.

You seem to have a very odd definition of passive abilities. It's assumed that people get passive values all the time.

A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn't involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden monster.​

​

This is just a convenience - instead of rolling a dice every 5 foot to find a secret door (or a trap) we use passive values. It saves a lot of time and keeps the game moving along. Unless you think it's for when the PCs state that they state that they sit and actively stare at the same 5 foot section of wall to detect secret doors?

I assume that passive values are always in use unless there's some reason not to do so, otherwise the PCs would never see that hidden monster.

 

[Fanaelialae]

But not because of your choice. It would be exploration because you explored and found the room in the first place. It's not exploration because of potential. It's exploration because it was found in the process of exploring. You explored and found the room. You chose not to explore the room.

And yes, whenever you are finding information on a new place, even if it's DM narration, exploration is happening.

Right, but choosing to walk down the road because the party is traveling to Waterdeep is exploration, unless the DM skips the montage and just declares we're at Waterdeep after a few days of travel. Unless the DM doesn't describe what they see on the journey, it's exploration.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, but choosing to walk down the road because the party is traveling to Waterdeep is exploration, unless the DM skips the montage and just declares we're at Waterdeep after a few days of travel. Unless the DM doesn't describe what they see on the journey, it's exploration.

It's exploration either way. Either you are exploring the road in detail, in montage, or skipping that and exploring Waterdeep. It's all exploration.

The DM cannot describe everything you see during a journey, so he has to determine where the fun lies. Is it in being detailed and coming across some ruins, a cave system and a castle while you walk(more detailed)? Is it a montage of a few things and then you're there(less detailed)? Or is it skipping the trip and exploring the destination(no detail)? All of that is exploration.

 

[Aldarc]

IMHO, the PCs being exposited to by the GM fills less like Exploration Pillar and more like Exploration Filler. I suppose while it may feel "active" from the GM-side of things, it doesn't necessarily feel like something I am actively doing as a player.

This is again, IMHO, one reason why I don't particularly find the paradigm of the "Three Pillars" all that helpful, useful, or supportive for understanding how the game works. It feels a bit too Aristotelian, almost like debating whether something should be understood as a Vegetable, Animal, or Mineral or, in this case, Exploration, Combat, or Social.

 

[robus]

The initial math on 4e skill challenges wasn't anywhere close to this brutal and it had to be dialed back hard with revisions to bring it into line. Granted, that was aimed at creating more successes at the challenge than failures, so a different approach might find the original math better suited, but this? This approach (and, don't get me wrong, I very much like the concept here, it's the math I don't like) will generate failure, and bad failure, most of the time it's used!

Cool, I was inventing my own version of skill challenges when I came across this. I've not run it at the table, and I'm no mathematician The key part for me was ensuring there was some time pressure on the challenge (along with the possibility of failure). Basically "Accomplish X before Y happens".

 

[Swarmkeeper]

IMHO, the PCs being exposited to by the GM fills less like Exploration Pillar and more like Exploration Filler. I suppose while it may feel "active" from the GM-side of things, it doesn't necessarily feel like something I am actively doing as a player.

Good point - when we’re talking about the pillars we’re categorizing the activities of the characters (at least that’s what the PHB has to say). It’s these activities - which come from the player’s imagination not the DM’s - that determine the pillar. Not to mention that the DM just shouldn’t be expositing what the PCs are thinking, saying, or trying to do - but rather just narrating the outcomes and the (potentially) changed scene that results. A valuable tip I learned on these boards is for the DM to avoid the word “you” as much as possible when running a game.

“Adventurers can try to do anything their players can imagine, but it can be helpful to talk about their activities in three broad categories: exploration, social interaction, and combat.” PHB p8

This is again, IMHO, one reason why I don't particularly find the paradigm of the "Three Pillars" all that helpful, useful, or supportive for understanding how the game works. It feels a bit too Aristotelian, almost like debating whether something should be understood as a Vegetable, Animal, or Mineral or, in this case, Exploration, Combat, or Social.

And “can be helpful” sometimes just isn’t all that helpful. IMO, we’re collectively suffering from overthinking the whole thing (don’t get me wrong, it can also be fun to deeply examine a part of the game).

Seems all a new player needs to know is:
Combat = fighting creatures
Social interaction = talking with creatures
Exploration = interacting with stuff

If a DM can create challenges in each of these pillars using the core rulebooks, great.
If a DM needs additional resources to create challenges in one or more of these pillars, that’s fine too.

Or, ignore the idea of pillars and just focus on the play loop. That works, too.

 

[Lanefan]

Y'know, I'm actually trying to think of the last time the players talked to a shopkeeper, in game, that wasn't related to what the players were doing.

OK then, how about times when the PCs were talking to each other - roleplaying their chat around the campfire one night, discussing things like long-term future plans or telling old war stories or even just engaging in some good old-fashioned gossip.

IOW, talking to the shopkeeper, for other reasons than the NPC in question had some information about the adventure. I'm really drawing a blank here. It's been a LOT of years, either as a DM or a player. I remember, vaguely, a DM back in early 3e days that did this kind of thing where he wanted you to actually RP out every single interaction with an NPC. But, it's been twenty years or so since I've seen it.

So, as far as I'm concerned, no, Social interactions are almost never not-challenges. They are part and parcel of the adventure and, we haven't played out mundane shopping in I don't know how long. Again, the whole advice about skipping the town guards wasn't a surprise to me. It was how I had been playing for years before 4e came out.

The game world is - one hopes! - made up of more than just adventures and things connected to adventures. That "skip the gate guards" advice seems to be suggesting that anything not connected directly to adventuring be ignored, which is awful if a DM is trying to present (and-or the players are trying to inhabit) a world that has more depth to it.

I won't sacrifice depth and detail on the altar of speed-of-play.

But, the fact that you call it cheating to simply assume the group has reasonable gear is pretty telling really.

I try not to assume anything. If you want reasonable gear there's loads of opportunity to buy it while in town, and the basic gear pieces are pretty much universally available. It's on the players to take the (not-much) trime and put in the (not much) effort to gear their PCs up, though; and I hardly think this is unreasonable.