D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[tetrasodium]

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.

That goes bac to the original problem. If not for the ranger allowing the party to ignore difficult terrain to arrive with plenty of time the party would have needed to rush & was never able to succeed in the first place if the doom clock was set for a ranger and the route was blocked.

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).


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.

Luckily any troubles monsters might pose outside the dome located in what was formerly a bad unsafe place to rest can be dealt with after completing a long rest, alternately burrowing & incorporeal monsters are super common. Tiny hut is only one of many spells that exist to trivialize & nullify challenges in the exploration pillar. Those spells are not new, but they are most certainly dialed up a few notches. Just ban a bunch of stuff doesn't change the fact that 5e & wotc offers zero support a GM could point to & say "we are using this optional sidebar rule"

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

Yes it does depend on how often and how it's done, but when the system is setup to trivialize & outright nullify the thing these kind of "annoying and adversarial" complications it forces the gm towards doing that

 

[Hussar]

Can you point me to the posts where you actually explained why this is different?

No.

 

[Hussar]

Even description has the potential to include a check. "oh, hey, you guys go past Beautiful View Point on this trail, let me describe the vista, and give me a Perception check". The check is to determine whether they notice sunlight glinting off the ancient metal plinth that stands in the forest below.
/snip

Take this up with others then, because that's NOT the way I was absolutely, 100%, no take-backs told that 5e skill checks work. It's ALWAYS, Player makes declaration, DM calls for a skill check if needed, check is made, DM narrates result. At no point does the DM do that. Is the metal plinth visible? What's the passive Perception of the party? If it's less, then they see it, if it's more, then they don't.

But, even if we go with this - if everyone fails the check, which no one knows why they are making, then what happens? They move on and the ancient metal plinth might as well not exist. Or, someone succeeds, and now they go possibly go look for it. What was the challenge here? What did the players do to explore?

 

[Hussar]

What if you describe a lush forest and one of your players interrupts and says, "I leave the road to take a closer look at the forest"? Outside of a very linear game, that possibility ought to exist.

The only reason such montages occur is because the GM presumes what the players will do (continue down the road to their stated destination).

But now we've proceeded to step two - action declaration. Which obviously leads into step 3 - resolution.

Nothing in step one, description of a scene, automatically engages step 2.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not sure the length of the DM's description of the environment matters to A) when Step 1 ends and B) what pillar you are in. The DM might describe a travel montage but eventually the description ends with an actionable environment which will end Step 1 and engage the players in one (or more) of the three pillars. Could be that the travel montage is interrupted by a Step 2 declaration by a player (h/t @Fanaelialae) that puts us squarely in exploration mode.

Or, one could say the completed travel montage is (and very much should be) such a small part of the time spent at the table that it is a true outlier. The odd purple crayon that @Umbran mentions upthread that is not necessary to categorize. Notice it, then move on to the good stuff before people start mucking around on their phones. (Nothing against purple crayons, of course).

Then again, at the end of the day, I don't really care what label the interstitial descriptions carry. All that matters is that the DM does a good enough job in Step 1 so that when they are done with the environmental description the players have some interesting thing(s) to engage with in Step 2.

So, boiling all that down, you agree that just description is not exploration. That without something that ends in Step 2, it's not really part of any pillar at all.

 

[Hussar]

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.

I play 3(ish) hour sessions 1/week. There is zero chance that my players are going to waste that very valuable free time that we've managed to carve out of our schedules to "gossip" in character. It does happen, typically during something else going on, but, to just sit around the campfire? No thanks. We have email for that. And, even then, it's almost never happened.

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.

Whereas I have zero problem taking depth and detail out behind the barn and putting a gun in its ear in service to speed of play. There might just be a reason why my campaigns take about 1/10th the time yours do. Not that I'm right and you're wrong. I certainly don't mean that. But, like I've said many times, we really, really don't share playstyles.

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.

Whereas I don't sweat the details. Does your character have ink and quill? Yup. Does he have lamp oil? Yup. Does he have parchment? Yup. I treat equipment exactly the same way that D&D treats Spell Component Cases:

A component pouch is a small, watertight leather belt pouch that has compartments to hold all the material components and other special items you need to cast your spells, except for those components that have a specific cost (as indicated in a spell's description).

I just raise the value a bit to about 10gp. A backpack is the adventurer's equivalent of a spell component pouch.

 

[Hussar]

"As you walk through the grasslands, you pass by several villages until you reach the dungeon." Also bad. You indirectly told them that their characters ignored the towns when their characters very well could have wanted to inspect each town.

Meh, you passed by several villages where there was nothing of note, nothing to do with the adventure, and stopping at any of them will not, in any way, advance the game.

Skip.

A player that bogged the game down like this would be very kindly asked to find a new game at my table. Sorry, like I said, skip the gate guards and get to the stuff that matters.

 

[Mordhau]

The GM always has to frame the scene. If the players leave their inn to go buy some armour the GM doesn't normally stop them to ask which streets they go down to get to the shop.

It's all about reading the room, and the situation and you can always make sure the players know to stop you if they want to zoom in on something you're inclined to skip.

Of course if a player is stopping you continuously on the off-chance that a random village has something of note in it then you have a communication problem. (Now if the players want to stop at the village because they are thinking it might prove useful to hire some porters then that's a different story).

 

[Hussar]

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.

I would agree, except that "a cliched trope" has been the response to every single criticism brought up.

 

[Hussar]

The GM always has to frame the scene. If the players leave their inn to go buy some armour the GM doesn't normally stop them to ask which streets they go down to get to the shop.

It's all about reading the room, and the situation and you can always make sure the players know to stop you if they want to zoom in on something you're inclided to skip.

Of course if a player is stopping you continuously on the off-chance that a random village has something of note in it then you have a communication problem. (Now if the players want to stop at the village because they are thinking it might prove useful to hire some porters then that's a different story).

But, apparently, going to buy armor would be the exploration pillar... because reasons.

Again, this is why I always try to frame it as challenges. Combat, Social or Exploration, doesn't matter. If you are engaging the play loop, then you are talking about challenges. Otherwise, it's just exposition or free form and that's outside of the issue that I think needs to be addressed.

The issue that I am focused on primarily is that Exploration Challenges are easily trivialized in 5e. D&D has always had things that made exploration easier, but, 5e has turned it up to 11.