D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Asisreo]

I dislike how the rules treat the exploration pillar, but I don't require a more granular system, just A system.

In specific terms and with examples, what would you consider to be an exploration system? To me, it still sounds tangential to wanting a more granular system, just in the form of having the granularity allotted to resolution mechanics.

 

[Imaro]

The major difference is this.

When you set up a combat, you have devised a set space and set of rules. And those are generally not going to change, even if players utilize a new ability.

I don't understand this... Have you never had a combat where for whatever reason (noise, waiting in ambush, betrayal, etc.) new combatants enter the fray? Have you never had opponents who have faced your PC's on more than one occasion... or have henchmen who faced them and were able to relay their tactics and general capabilities to the BBEG so that he/she was prepared for them? The fact that surprise is a part of combat means the space and rules can change...

But, when we discussed exploration challenges, that isn't how things went. For example, we said a Ranger couldn't get lost in their favorite terrain, they always know the route. So, in the "challenge" "Get to Point A from Point B, without getting lost" the ranger always succeeds. However, then posters challenged us, the ranger doesn't always succeed, what if there is an impassable river on that route?

Okay putting aside the fact that lost is defined in the D&D DMG as inadvertently travelling in the wrong direction and spending 1d6 hours before being able to check to see if you travel in the correct direction... and doesn't mean... "always knows the route". In fact being lost or not only deals with whether one spends time going in the correct direction not anything around a specific route... Let's put the actual rules aside and...

What if there is? What if there is an impassable river or magical interference or a number of other things that could plausibly be in the wilderness of a world where magic and monsters exist?? The ranger's ability in no way guarantees totally safe passage. the fact you've chosen to homebrew it into that is a self-made problem.

The challenge shifted, in direct response to the players abilities.

I would consider tailoring your challenges to your players good advice... and I believe, though I could be worng that 5e espouses that philosophy.

That said the "challenge" shifting is an assumption you are making... it easily could have also had a complication added to it or it could have been set up beforehand.

OR, for the example of the Tiny Hut. It was said that the challenge of finding a safe place to rest was a viable challenge. We refuted saying that Tiny Hut creates a safe place to rest, wherever we happen to be. You then put forth "what if you are escorting an NPC, who despite knowing the dangers and despite the players having a watch, runs into the dangerous territory?"

You're addressing the specific example but instead try addressing the principle of putting the players in a situation where they can choose between that safe hut or something else... an NPC, treasure, knowledge, etc. The specific doesn't matter... What do they value? Put it at risk or up for grabs and suddenly that hut isn't ALWAYS a safe haven no one will venture out of.

And there are two problems with this. One, it is clearly a direct DM action against the hut the way you described it. However, the second problem is more fundamental... it doesn't even change anything. You go, get the kid, then go back to resting in your Tiny Hut. It was a ritual anyways, so you can just create it again.

Every challenge you create for the PC's is a direct action against some ability they have. Seriously you are challenging their capabilities, that is kind of the point of the game. My example doesn't neutralize anything... it offers a choice, that's the challenge.

Additionally, you hit upon a pretty serious faux pas. Have the NPC run into a clearly dangerous situation and force the party to choose between them dying or going to rescue the NPC. Sometimes this can be worked in a good manner. But more often that not it is a galling and overt action. Because the player's know you control the NPCs, and so they know you set it up so that the NPC would run into danger, to force their hand. Therefore it has to be done very very carefully, if at all. And your example wasn't careful, and was a direct response to a player ability.

Again let go of the specific example... it's not the point.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't understand this... Have you never had a combat where for whatever reason (noise, waiting in ambush, betrayal, etc.) new combatants enter the fray? Have you never had opponents who have faced your PC's on more than one occasion... or have henchmen who faced them and were able to relay their tactics and general capabilities to the BBEG so that he/she was prepared for them? The fact that surprise is a part of combat means the space and rules can change...



Okay putting aside the fact that lost is defined in the D&D DMG as inadvertently travelling in the wrong direction and spending 1d6 hours before being able to check to see if you travel in the correct direction... and doesn't mean... "always knows the route". In fact being lost or not only deals with whether one spends time going in the correct direction not anything around a specific route... Let's put the actual rules aside and...

What if there is? What if there is an impassable river or magical interference or a number of other things that could plausibly be in the wilderness of a world where magic and monsters exist?? The ranger's ability in no way guarantees totally safe passage. the fact you've chosen to homebrew it into that is a self-made problem.


I would consider tailoring your challenges to your players good advice... and I believe, though I could be worng that 5e espouses that philosophy.

That said the "challenge" shifting is an assumption you are making... it easily could have also had a complication added to it or it could have been set up beforehand.



You're addressing the specific example but instead try addressing the principle of putting the players in a situation where they can choose between that safe hut or something else... an NPC, treasure, knowledge, etc. The specific doesn't matter... What do they value? Put it at risk or up for grabs and suddenly that hut isn't ALWAYS a safe haven no one will venture out of.



Every challenge you create for the PC's is a direct action against some ability they have. Seriously you are challenging their capabilities, that is kind of the point of the game. My example doesn't neutralize anything... it offers a choice, that's the challenge.



Again let go of the specific example... it's not the point.

If the "challenge" only exists to defeat the ability of a player as many of the various goalpost shifts to avoid exploration pillar nullifying & trivializing abilities you as a gm aren't tailoring the challenge to your players. Instead you are invoking this looks like a job for aquaman to ensure the ability is nullified in some way.

 

[Imaro]

If the "challenge" only exists to defeat the ability of a player as many of the various goalpost shifts to avoid exploration pillar nullifying & trivializing abilities you as a gm aren't tailoring the challenge to your players. Instead you are invoking this looks like a job for aquaman to ensure the ability is nullified in some way.

Who claimed it existed to defeat the ability of a player... the purpose is in the word itself... challenge. Where has anything I've suggested called for a nullification of an ability? Instead I've shown ways to challenge the PC's with those abilities.

 

[tetrasodium]

Who claimed it existed to defeat the ability of a player... the purpose is in the word itself... challenge. Where has anything I've suggested called for a nullification of an ability? Instead I've shown ways to challenge the PC's with those abilities.

Take the problem posed by the ranger travel ability. Either the group arrives with gobs of time because the ranger is in the party or the bridge to a river that can't be crossed elsewhere is washed out. Tiny hut trivializes the challenge of needing to find safe & secure enough places to rest, easy-peasy the players are saddled with an NPC who embodies the worst elements of an artificial stupidity laden escort quest... There have been quite a few examples like this through the thread & these are just a few I recall off the top of my head. Doing that kind of thing is transparent adversarial GM'ing & will just annoy player players continually finding their strengths nullified as opposed to being able to feel awesome when their strengths are spotlighted.

 

[Ovinomancer]

In specific terms and with examples, what would you consider to be an exploration system? To me, it still sounds tangential to wanting a more granular system, just in the form of having the granularity allotted to resolution mechanics.

Well, the immediate pivot to dismissing any ideas I might have certainly seems like a good approach to make me think this ask is going to have any good faith consideration.

Let's instead look at what's already in 5e. We have a system where we know how much you have to eat and drink, how much that weighs, a system that interacts by saying how much you can carry(encumbrance), and a system that interacts in what happens when you fail to eat and drink(resting). Added to this, we have a system that determines how you recover from lots of possible things. We also have a system that determines how far, in miles, PCs can travel in a day, that has a subsystem that interacts with exhaustion. We also have a system of "jobs" while traveling, that interacts with the ability check system as to what can be done on a trip and whether or not certain passive scores are enabled or have dis/advantage. Okay, that's the start. Now we have backgrounds that can interact with all of that, we have class features that interact with all of that, and we have the spell system which has very heavy interaction with all of that. However, all of these interactions are to negate, mitigate, or eliminate the need to pay attention to or to care about consequences of these systems. And then you have magic items, which do the same.

So, that seems pretty granular and allotted to resolution mechanics already, except that a lot of these interactions are to moot or mitigate other resolution mechanics. It's a mess, and GMs are left with no discussion or help on how to deal with this mismatch, which is quite granular and allotted to resolution mechanics.

So, the call that whatever I might like would be to make this worse seems very odd, because there's a lot of much simpler approaches that don't have near this complexity of interaction, and lack the incoherence of the already provided systems. 5e is already built to have highly granular survival style interactions be a core part of exploration, but then to rapidly make that moot and not worth the bother. Which leaves nothing much at all except GM says.

 

[Mort]

Take the problem posed by the ranger travel ability. Either the group arrives with gobs of time because the ranger is in the party or the bridge to a river that can't be crossed elsewhere is washed out.

You're assuming the bridge washout wasn't planned before the ranger. Further even assuming this obstacle -if the ranger is in his favored terrain he can contribute quite well with getting around the bridge. But lets say no bridge, the party likely gets to the goal faster (if there was significant difficult terrain and/or assuming a few missed survival checks the ranger doesn't have to make) - which again great - the ranger was useful.

I'm really not seeing the problem.

Plus, if you absolutely hate natural explorer. Tasha's gives us Deft explorer - takes away ALL of these issues (I personally think it leaches a bit of flavor from the ranger - but it certainly solves the issue).

Tiny hut trivializes the challenge of needing to find safe & secure enough places to rest, easy-peasy

Well that's a bit of an exaggeration no? If there are intelligent hostile creatures, they can certainly organize and make a very difficult time for the party after the rest. Tiny hut ensures their sleep can't be disturbed, but if they have horses, pack animals etc.? Those are decidedly NOT safe- and as a matter of fact might be in MORE danger because I've seen parties with Tiny Hut tend to get careless.

Also, that's one spell. If it detracts from the type of exploration you want to run, ban it.

the players are saddled with an NPC who embodies the worst elements of an artificial stupidity laden escort quest... There have been quite a few examples like this through the thread & these are just a few I recall off the top of my head. Doing that kind of thing is transparent adversarial GM'ing & will just annoy player players continually finding their strengths nullified as opposed to being able to feel awesome when their strengths are spotlighted.

This depends on the execution. Yes it can be annoying and adversarial - especially if overused. But it can also be fun and interesting.

 

[J.Quondam]

If the "challenge" only exists to defeat the ability of a player as many of the various goalpost shifts to avoid exploration pillar nullifying & trivializing abilities you as a gm aren't tailoring the challenge to your players. Instead you are invoking this looks like a job for aquaman to ensure the ability is nullified in some way.

The problem with this (and several other arguments around here, though certainly not all) is that it's actually a meta-issue, not a rules issue. Armed with exactly zero idea of what is in any particular GM's mind or what any particular table agreed to, this argument default assumes the worst of the DM: that they're trying to be adversarial, and are out specifically to nerf any and every PC, just because they are meanies. But that's not a helpful or relevant base assumption when the topic is rules.

I mean it's easy to break a particular situation. But the campaign doesn't happen in a vacuum. Sure, the ranger's unerring navigation might be shut down in this particular enchanted forest, because the hag coven was clever. So what? The player will find other ways for their PC to shine for the time being. And rest assured, that very same ranger's ability functioned just fine before this particular adventure, and it will function just fine again after.

The point is that strategies to trip up PC abilities now and then* are no cause for hysterics, "OMG MY PRECIOUS PC ABILITY HAS BEEN VIOLATED BY A CLICHED TROPE!!!" That's just horse hockey. It's just a one-off effect to make a particular encounter a bit different. There's nothing nefarious or incompetent about it.

And if there is? If the GM actually is adversarial, or going against table expectations, or provoking play-style conflict?
Well, sorry.
But that's not a problem with the rules; that's a problem with the group.

* Yep, this obviously depends on the table's expectations for the game. Your table might not buy into such thing. Cool. Plenty of other tables do.

 

[Imaro]

Take the problem posed by the ranger travel ability. Either the group arrives with gobs of time because the ranger is in the party or the bridge to a river that can't be crossed elsewhere is washed out. Tiny hut trivializes the challenge of needing to find safe & secure enough places to rest, easy-peasy the players are saddled with an NPC who embodies the worst elements of an artificial stupidity laden escort quest... There have been quite a few examples like this through the thread & these are just a few I recall off the top of my head. Doing that kind of thing is transparent adversarial GM'ing & will just annoy player players continually finding their strengths nullified as opposed to being able to feel awesome when their strengths are spotlighted.

How does having to figure out how to cross a river nullify the ability to avoid becoming lost?

Did the NPC dissolve the Tiny Hut?

Finally go back and read what I posted to Chaosmancer... the specific examples aren't the point... Don't use a stupid NPC replace it with literally anything the characters value and they still need to make a choice between the safety of the Tiny Hut or the thing they value.

 

[tetrasodium]

How does having to figure out how to cross a river nullify the ability to avoid becoming lost?

That's only part of the abiliy. The problem was that "Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel." means that The two extremes are A: the party needs to rush to barely make it or B: someone has a single level in ranger and gets to ignore the difficult terrain for the party to arrive with gobs of time. Here is the example that started it. but but but rivers washed out the bridge forest fires etc came [

Did the NPC dissolve the Tiny Hut?

NPC doesn't need to, it's a improved force cube not a full force cube... "Creatures and objects within the dome w hen you cast this spell can move through it freely".

Finally go back and read what I posted to Chaosmancer... the specific examples aren't the point... Don't use a stupid NPC replace it with literally anything the characters value and they still need to make a choice between the safety of the Tiny Hut or the thing they value.

Now your stretching. You've gone from tiny hut trivializes the difficulty involved in needing to find a suitable/safe place to rest or power through making do without the rest to ignore that & use a different tranparently adversarial solution to stop the group from resting