D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Fanaelialae]

Yes, you've said this, but it doesn't make sense. Why is choosing to walk away from a sighted orc exploration but not the other things. You've just asserted, not explained. The explanation we have for how it could be exploration is that they could choose to do something explorationy, but choose to not, so that puts that not-choice into exploration. But this doesn't change if we swap out for combat or social -- it's the same argument. Yet, you say it isn't.

I haven't discarded anything as "not exploration description." I've said that such description isn't part of the exploration pillar, because it's standing alone -- it's insufficient.

See my challenge to @Lanefan -- is this acceptable in any other pillar? Are extended resolutions of combat, where the result of the first action is run all the way through to combat completion but with thrilling descriptions sufficient for combat? Or similarly for social encounters? What makes exploration different that extended, disconnected descriptions of different moments on a trip fall into resolution of an action but the others don't?

It's exploration because you just discovered something new about your environment (which I also stated previously). You're already in the gameplay loop. You can choose to change the pillar you're engaging with by talking to or attacking the orc, but that doesn't change that you learned something about your environment and are responding to it, which is exploration.

Sure, this happens all the time in certain styles of play with social. The player says something like, "I want to convince the innkeeper to let us stay for free in exchange for us giving a performance". The DM then might ask for a roll and narrate the result.

There have been times where I had to excuse myself from the table during combat and asked another player to roll for me, telling them that I'll just keep attacking.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is an exaggerated take of exactly what we do in those other pillars. Obviously we don't have a single attack or sentence resolve everything, but we have resolutions that last until the next meaningful choice can be made.

A player says he swings his sword and the DM says "The orc narrowly dodges out of the deadliest part, taking a graze." We could dress it up even more if we want "The orc wipes the blood and, oddly, smirks at you. He growls and...yada yada." But none of this is actionable up until the DM finally says "Okay, then next turn."

So if you resolve a whole travel sequence, the implication is that there was no turn for the players to take action until you stop. Maybe interruptions can change that, but if you truly want players to explore, you really should stop every time you set up a new situation.

Yes. I get this exactly -- it's the crux of my point. If these things are not player turns, then they're just places the GM tells you things and don't involve the play loop. The implication that it's all just resolution of the action declaration to travel is eliding that it's not optional stuff, here -- that there could be lots of player turns, but there aren't any. The skipping of turns is what changes this from just resolution to something else.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

I always operate that if some asks me if I want to see their room, I am engaged in a social encounter.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's exploration because you just discovered something new about your environment (which I also stated previously). You're already in the gameplay loop. You can choose to change the pillar you're engaging with by talking to or attacking the orc, but that doesn't change that you learned something about your environment and are responding to it, which is exploration.

So choosing to attack is also exploration, because I've learned something about the environment and I'm responding to it. Talking to the orc is also exploration, because I've learned something about the environment and I'm responding to it. Interesting, it's all exploration. Except, I feel, when it isn't.

Sure, this happens all the time in certain styles of play with social. The player says something like, "I want to convince the innkeeper to let us stay for free in exchange for us giving a performance". The DM then might ask for a roll and narrate the result.

There have been times where I had to excuse myself from the table during combat and asked another player to roll for me, telling them that I'll just keep attacking.

You do you, man.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but not the exploration pillar of the game. Just exploration is whatever definition you really like -- this is exploration.. of the topic. It's not, however, part of the exploration pillar of the game.

Possibly, but then we're okay with combat being a single declared swing of the sword and then a long description of the fight playing out, or a social encounter starting with, "Good morn, my Goodman Bob!" and then the GM narrating the rest of the conversation to you, yes? Good? Just resolution?

Sigh.

The declared action of "I fight the Orc" has a single lengthy resolution leading to an outcome, with that single resolution broken down by game mechanics into a much more granular series of smaller resolutions that eventually produce the overall outcome of whether I win or the Orc does.

"Good morn, my Goodman Bob" hides an action declaration within it, that being "I speak with Goodman Bob". Even though game mechanics very likely don't need to be engaged, that declared action still leads to a possibly-lengthy resolution that may or may not lead to a definable outcome, that being the ensuing give-and-take conversation which in theory would be role-played in character at the table.

"We travel from Hickstown to Waterdeep" also has a resolution leading to an outcome, that outcome being you either get there or you don't. Here, though the mechanics are fuzzier (and, as acknowledged, the game somewhat gets in its own way) there can still be a longer resolution process which might in some cases consist of nothing but freeform description; as in your 12-vista example.

 

[Fanaelialae]

So choosing to attack is also exploration, because I've learned something about the environment and I'm responding to it. Talking to the orc is also exploration, because I've learned something about the environment and I'm responding to it. Interesting, it's all exploration. Except, I feel, when it isn't.

You do you, man.

Now you're just being absurd.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Now you're just being absurd.

I feel your argument is similar. You're just declaring a thing to be exploration without examining the underpinning of why -- it just is. The problem is that the argument made doesn't really work. I can see finding an orc a matter of exploration, but you have to complete the play loop to find out -- it's not at all based on finding out some new information. It's what's done with it. That same encounter appears to me to be something that can fall into all of the pillars, based entirely on what the players choose to do. It's not just automatically exploration.

And I back this up because we learn new things about the fiction in combat and in the social pillar and when the GM is doing a lore dump on us. None of these align to exploration, so exploration can't just claim "learning new things" as a defining characteristic.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Its just a case of bad DMing, then. Really, there's already a bit of guidance warning people about how encounters are not designed to be actively hostile to players. Past that guidance, the DM can do whatever they want in terms of how they present challenges and if they're bad at their job, you should really just leave.

Its like the guidance for encounter design. The DM can put any monster in the game against any level player, but if the DM puts an ultra-aggressive Ancient Red Dragon against a level 1 party, there's something clearly hostile going on.

The DM is meant to be fair. I don't think discussing the cases where the DM is intentionally unfair really proves or disproves whether exploration is bad because a poor DM makes a game bad no matter how granular the system?

Need proof? If you've ever been in combat with a poor DM and they suddenly come up with weird reasons why your features and spells don't work, that's poor DMing despite the rules. And technically, they can still be within the rules because they're the arbiters of the rules and can interpret even the most concrete rules in the most hostile way.

Hard rules for exploration doesn't help a hostile DM and strict rules for exploration will likely make the situation worse.

While you are right about this, it also has literally nothing to do with the discussion of the exploration pillar directly.

Instead, it is a response, in part, the Lanefan who says that what you have identified as Bad DMing is necessary for some aspects of exploration.

Now, I don't agree with Lanefan, but I also wouldn't say he has made any claims that anyone else should play the way he does.

 

[Lanefan]

And I back this up because we learn new things about the fiction in combat and in the social pillar and when the GM is doing a lore dump on us. None of these align to exploration, so exploration can't just claim "learning new things" as a defining characteristic.

This is why I say it's possible to be operating in more than one pillar at once.

If I'm fighting an Orc and he's taunting me in hopes of making me lose my cool and do something stupid, we're in Combat and Social simultaneously.

If I'm chatting with the Baron and in so doing I'm learning new things about his realm and-or how his realm relates to others, I'm in Social and Exploration at the same time. And note here it's possible the Exploration side is completely passive and-or unintentional: I might not have intended to learn anything and in fact may have been trying to convince him of something else entirely (e.g. to let me woo his daughter), but I learned it anyway and thus was in Exploration without intending to be.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation where I'm in all three pillars simultaneously, but I'm sure it can happen.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I feel your argument is similar. You're just declaring a thing to be exploration without examining the underpinning of why -- it just is. The problem is that the argument made doesn't really work. I can see finding an orc a matter of exploration, but you have to complete the play loop to find out -- it's not at all based on finding out some new information. It's what's done with it. That same encounter appears to me to be something that can fall into all of the pillars, based entirely on what the players choose to do. It's not just automatically exploration.

And I back this up because we learn new things about the fiction in combat and in the social pillar and when the GM is doing a lore dump on us. None of these align to exploration, so exploration can't just claim "learning new things" as a defining characteristic.

The pillars can overlap and transition between each other.

There can be one character who is fighting, while another tries to negotiate a truce. There's no reason exploration can't be involved in combat.