D&D 5E [+]Exploration Falls Short For Many Groups, Let’s Talk About It

[Hussar]

This seems a bit abstract, but what if we did something like Adventuring Days. You have X adventuring days to reach the wilderness mcguffin. Each time you long rest, -1 adventuring day. Adventuring days represent a mix of endurance, food and water, healing resources, all the things we don't want to track. You can buy adventuring days in town. If you run out of adventuring days, start making increasingly difficult CON checks to avoid dying of fatigue and exposure and illness. If you move through hostile terrain (desert, mountain, the gray waste), maybe it saps -2 or -3 adventuring days per rest. Wilderness characters can restore adventuring days on the road (goodberry gives +1 adventuring day, but no more than that).

IDK, I think it's not super necessary, but maybe I'm just content with HP/HD as the thing we're spending in the wilderness...

What would make a DM's job easier is a book of wildernesses, just like a book of dungeons would be valuable.

Heh. Ok, I lied. I'm back.

This is similar to the system I posted a few pages back in the pdf. I'll post the long description here in spoilers, because, well, it's long...

Spoiler

1. Exploration Rules for Travel in the Stream in the Gyre Ver 2.0Winning: Reach the end of the travel grid before any player runs out of Travel TokensSet up:
   1. Place a token for each player on the left side of the grid, one per square. This represents the party.
   2. Place three (2-5 (d4+1)) Challenge Tokens on each time period square.
   3. Grant each PC 1 Travel Token to start.
   Proceedure:
   1. At the beginning of each period, each player makes a DC 10 Constitution Saving throw. Success gains 1 Travel Token.
   2. After each 24 hour period, each PC makes a DC 9 (plus modifiers) Constitution save. Failure results in one level of exhaustion.
   3. PC’s may spend a Travel Token to take a Short Rest. Note, extended rests are not possible while traveling in the Stream.
   4. During each period, characters may spend Travel Tokens to interact with Challenge Tokens.
   a. Each Challenge Token has a DC of 13.b. Player makes the skill check. On a success, the challenge is discarded.c. Unrevealed Challenge Tokens after each player has made their skill checks are then revealed and must be dealt with by the party.
   1. After the Second Period of each travel day, if any PC does not have any Travel Tokens, the Ship falls out of the stream. See “Falling out of the Stream” below.
   
   
   
   
   
2. [10:56 PM]
   Challenge Tokens:There are three types of Challenge Tokens.
   1. Morale: This represents the general mood of the crew and passengers of the ship.
   a. Skills: Social skills like Persuasion or Intimidate or Insight. Additionally, skills like performance or other potential social interaction skills.b. Potential Results: friction between crew members, gambling, birthdays, homesickness, ennui, medical emergencies, spotting a ghost ship that scares the crew, nearly averted disaster, things like that.
   1. Attentiveness: This represents the stress of sailing in the Gyre which requires constant adjustments and careful mindfulness.
   a. Skills: Arcana, Perception, Survival, Sleight of Hand or Dexterity checks plus potential tool use of applicable tools.b. Potential Results: Collision with debris, miscommunications between crewmembers, unbalanced loads, lost equipment, falling overboard, finding a lost tool, better ways to perform tasks, crew proficiency.
   1. Lookout: This represents mostly the stuff that wants to eat you as you travel the Streams, but also potential hazards and whatnot. This is rarely good.
   a. Skills: Perception, Nature, Investigation,b. Potential Results: Nearly always something that wants to eat you.
   
   
   
   
   
3. [10:56 PM]
   Constitution Saving Throw Modifiers:The DC of the Con Save required after each 24 hour period raised by 3 for each Morale or Attentiveness result that was not revealed during the period. Lookout Challenges do not raise the DC for this save since Lookout Challenges cause the party to use other resources such as spells and HP which cannot be recovered while traveling.Falling out of the StreamIf at the end of the second period of any day, any PC is out of Travel Tokens, the Ship falls out of the stream. This represents an accidental, uncontrolled exit of the Stream. Considering that the ship is traveling at about a million miles per hour, the crew will take some time to find the entrance back into the Stream. The DM will roll a d6: 1-4 results in the ship entering a void.
   5-6 results in a biome of some sort.The Void is simply an empty part of space. There are no planets or other bodies nearby. The void is (usually) devoid of life. The party must then spend 2d6 days searching for the entrance back into the Stream, spending oxygen and food resources as normal.A Biome will be some sort of body or environment to interact with. It may be possible to regain resources while within a biome. Again, the party must spend 2d6 days searching for the entrance back into the Stream.
   
   
   
   
   
4. [10:56 PM]
   Note:The PC’s may intentionally drop out of the Stream at any point. When intentionally dropping out of the Stream, roll a d6 as usual to see if there is a void or a biome. The Party can find the entrance back to the Stream immediately.Effects of Reentry into the Stream:
   1. Each PC is granted one Travel Token.
   2. The ship re-enters the stream in Period 1 of the travel day that the ship fell out of the stream. Thus a crew that runs out of Travel Tokens at the end of Day 3 will return to the beginning of Day 3, with new randomly determined events for the day.
      
      
      
   Play progresses until the party reaches the destination or decides to turn back.
   Turning Back:Retracing your steps is easier than trail blazing. The party may choose to return to their origin node at any point. When traversing days in this manner, each day has only one period, with 2-5 potential events. Each player may make a Constitution save at the beginning of the day (DC 10) with advantage to gain a Travel Token.

1. Essentially what this does is create an abstract track. Your track length can be any length, depending on how long your trip is. Now, this is specifically for Spelljamming along my homebrew Spelljammer universe where you can only traverse specfic "streams" through Wildspace. But, it could pretty easily be abstracted to any sort of exploration. I need to fiddle with it a bit more, just to get the balance right. But, I do believe that it's functional.
   
   

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What are we trying to achieve with this exploration stuff anyway? Do we want to emulate fiction?

Lord of the Rings
Most of the time several weeks pass between encounters, although there are occasionally a couple in quick succession. We can assume that the party is generally at full strength at the start. The main exception is Sam and Frodo's journey through Mordor, where attrition and fatigue become a big factor, and occasionally travel is very quick and easy (e.g. Gandalf and Pippin ride to Minas Tirith). The conclusion I would draw is that there is a place for "challenging" travel, but it should be the exception, not the rule.

The Hobbit
Travel here is mostly "we spent several present weeks riding through the woods, until it rained and we got wet and grumpy (apart from the wizard who cast a spell to keep the rain off)." Peter Jackson tried to liven it up with constant orc attacks, and it all felt rather silly. Lesson 1: wizards have always been OP. Lesson 2: don't overegg the pudding.

REH
Conan never seems to have any difficulties striding across Hyboria.


Or maybe we want realism? Most real life expeditions that get into difficulties do so because of issues with food and drink, weather, and disease. But the big killer are errors in planning before the expedition even sets out. And we tend not to hear stories about the many expeditions that pass off without a hitch.


Finally, I would mention the concept of the Deathworld. This is a location where everything is trying to kill you. This is really the only situation where I would find the party fending off multiple attacks every day plausible.

 

[TheSword]

What are we trying to achieve with this exploration stuff anyway? Do we want to emulate fiction?

Lord of the Rings
Most of the time several weeks pass between encounters, although there are occasionally a couple in quick succession. We can assume that the party is generally at full strength at the start. The main exception is Sam and Frodo's journey through Mordor, where attrition and fatigue become a big factor, and occasionally travel is very quick and easy (e.g. Gandalf and Pippin ride to Minas Tirith). The conclusion I would draw is that there is a place for "challenging" travel, but it should be the exception, not the rule.

The Hobbit
Travel here is mostly "we spent several present weeks riding through the woods, until it rained and we got wet and grumpy (apart from the wizard who cast a spell to keep the rain off)." Peter Jackson tried to liven it up with constant orc attacks, and it all felt rather silly. Lesson 1: wizards have always been OP. Lesson 2: don't overegg the pudding.

REH
Conan never seems to have any difficulties striding across Hyboria.


Or maybe we want realism? Most real life expeditions that get into difficulties do so because of issues with food and drink, weather, and disease. But the big killer are errors in planning before the expedition even sets out. And we tend not to hear stories about the many expeditions that pass off without a hitch.


Finally, I would mention the concept of the Deathworld. This is a location where everything is trying to kill you. This is really the only situation where I would find the party fending off multiple attacks every day plausible.

You’re taking too narrow a definition of exploration. All the following are exploration pillar.

• Travelling through an old forest and getting trapped by tree roots
• Climbing the stair of Cirith Ungol as fortress of Minas Morgul lies beneath you
• Escaping the Elf kings dungeons in barrels.
• A map with elven runes that is only revealed by moonlight
• A secret door that only opens once a year.
• A forest that clouds the mind of those that travel through it.
• An ancient dwarven city mysteriously abandoned and desolate

Exploration is not just finding food and travelling.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You’re taking too narrow a definition of exploration. All the following are exploration pillar.

• Travelling through an old forest and getting trapped by tree roots
• Climbing the stair of Cirith Ungol as fortress of Minas Morgul lies beneath you
• Escaping the Elf kings dungeons in barrels.
• A map with elven runes that is only revealed by moonlight
• A secret door that only opens once a year.
• A forest that clouds the mind of those that travel through it.
• An ancient dwarven city mysteriously abandoned and desolate

Exploration is not just finding food and travelling.

No I'm not. All of those things happen in LotR - over a period of about 12 months. So that's an average of about one encounter every 6-7 weeks. The rest of the time is just travelling (don't need to worry about food so long as you have a ranger in the party).

 

[M_Natas]

Hahaha, yeah, it encapsulates the issue quite well. Montage travel!

I think that if you want to take exploration seriously, it needs to be part of the main plot. @doctorbadwolf 's examples are things linked to the story (or maybe side-quests). Reasons to go into the wilderness. Reasons it's treacherous to do so.

And that means giving it space, time, and attention. Letting it be something the party can fail at, that challenges them. Not just a bump in the road that the Daily-rationed characters steamroll.

Because a dungeon isn't something you just do one encounter in before moving onto the treasure, either!

When designing the Wilderness route to the dungeon, you need to design it as if it were part of the dungeon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

When designing the Wilderness route to the dungeon, you need to design it as if it were part of the dungeon.

You can do that. You don't need to. If the region where the dungeon is located is inhabited by zero level commoners, there aren't going to be many deadly monsters around.

 

[Hussar]

You can do that. You don't need to. If the region where the dungeon is located is inhabited by zero level commoners, there aren't going to be many deadly monsters around.

But, even in a dungeon, you are still exploring. Exploring isn't limited to outdoor travel. Simply moving through the dungeon (as opposed to killing stuff once you find it) is also a big part of exploration. As is interacting with the stuff you find in various locations in the dungeon (apart from the stuff that's actively trying to eat you of course).

Which can become a problem when so much of the mechanics are rather lackluster.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But, even in a dungeon, you are still exploring. Exploring isn't limited to outdoor travel. Simply moving through the dungeon (as opposed to killing stuff once you find it) is also a big part of exploration. As is interacting with the stuff you find in various locations in the dungeon (apart from the stuff that's actively trying to eat you of course).

Oh, absolutely. Which is why I think it's important that dungeons aren't just a string combat of encounters. Sometimes you should be finding interesting and curious things, social encounters, clues etc

Actually, I have a small dungeon coming up which is largely plot info-dump, spread around a bit.

 

[M_Natas]

If it has some impact on the next fight, the next fight is going to be harder. And the next one harder still, since more resources will need to spent to defeat the harder battle. Eventually you will reach the point that the fight becomes impossible. Death spiral is will always happen eventually.

So they cannot run away from a monster, so they die.

So the monster takes one more round to die. And the party dies.

Anything that reduces effectiveness means the subsequent battle is going to consume more resources. If, due to simple bad luck, an early fight leads to a permanent injury, the party won't survive the final challenge. Or the difficulty was set so low that there was never any real challenge in the first place.

That's why you have several encounters which use up ressources so the party has to decide of they want to push on or retreat. It is a strategic decision.

But at the moment this strategic decision is limited to one day, because after that day you got all ressources back and everything is healed. That's why Wilderness exploration has no real mechanical challenge on the strategic level, because it usually doesn't have 6-8 (medium) encounters a day that are needed to challenge a party on the strategic level.

 

[M_Natas]

This seems a bit abstract, but what if we did something like Adventuring Days. You have X adventuring days to reach the wilderness mcguffin. Each time you long rest, -1 adventuring day. Adventuring days represent a mix of endurance, food and water, healing resources, all the things we don't want to track. You can buy adventuring days in town. If you run out of adventuring days, start making increasingly difficult CON checks to avoid dying of fatigue and exposure and illness. If you move through hostile terrain (desert, mountain, the gray waste), maybe it saps -2 or -3 adventuring days per rest. Wilderness characters can restore adventuring days on the road (goodberry gives +1 adventuring day, but no more than that).

IDK, I think it's not super necessary, but maybe I'm just content with HP/HD as the thing we're spending in the wilderness...

What would make a DM's job easier is a book of wildernesses, just like a book of dungeons would be valuable.

I like it. That is basically Baldur's Gate 3 - you need to have X amount of Supplies in order to long rest.
A simple change to RAW would be: you need the normal amount of food and water as described in the Food and Water Section to gain the benefits of a long rest.