Level Up (A5E) You don't hate exploration, you hate survival

[PJ Coffey]

The region based exploration from Arora by Ghostfire might be of interest, if hexcrawling has lost its lustre for you.

There's certain players and groups who love planning and preparing, but most prefer to have the encounters delivered to them. Being able to long rest "for free" every day in base 5e also makes it largely a waste of time to play out the encounters on the way to the dungeon. So we have a culture now of ignoring survival elements.

A culture of ignoring random combat encounters in journeys I would say. Heck a short rest will often address these problems.

I personally would love to play in hexcrawl but you know how it goes. You always run the games you want to play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I hate exploration when there's a decent chance that exploration will reveal "well, this is basically an empty hex. That's 10 out of the last 12. Crazy! Hey, where are you all going?"

I think there's a Stockholm Syndrome thing going on, where we have to pretend that's fun, because that's how Isle of Dread played out in practice most of the time and because one does not speak ill of Isle of Dread. (It's OK. It was an old adventure and we've learned a lot since then.)

I love the Isle of Dread. I'm adapting it for my Level Up game right now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you're totally right, that's hex crawling and an old fashioned style. I think the advantage of A5e is that we have the journey rules. I would never want to see an empty hex, I'd put a bit of scenery in at least, which is amazing for world-building.

You can do that in a good hex crawl system.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The region based exploration from Arora by Ghostfire might be of interest, if hexcrawling has lost its lustre for you.

There's certain players and groups who love planning and preparing, but most prefer to have the encounters delivered to them. Being able to long rest "for free" every day in base 5e also makes it largely a waste of time to play out the encounters on the way to the dungeon. So we have a culture now of ignoring survival elements.

Very sad. I'll continue to wave the flag in support of survival and hexcrawls.

 

[Xethreau]

So I rather like both exploration and survival.

What I don't care for are superheroes. Increasingly, I am convinced that 5e and its spin-offs are about creating a bespoke fantasy-aesthetic superhero and showing off their cool attacks. (I am one bad afternoon away from calculating how many actions it takes to go from lvl 1 to 20.)

As I have discussed previously, 5e breaks resource management at a fundamental level because PCs level-up more frequently than they need to take long rests. That is true for combat, but is all the more so for any kind of non-combat resource management.

Even in a game like A5e (and this blog post) which tries BOLDLY to address the absence of content for the exploration pillar, the involved procedures of exploration/resource management and the lack of (presumed) interest in it by the MCU/Critical Role generation have already done irrevocable harm to the 5e-family of rulesets. We are trying to add wheels to the wings of a Boeing.

All this to say, it appears to me that, with the overall system as it stands, there is no ammount of tracking Supply that could ever produce anything more than a surface-level emotion. And that is unexpected (or IMO desired), since exploration and survival are core human experiences which strike our deepest emotions.

 

[lolsworth]

MCU/Critical Role generation have already done irrevocable harm to the 5e-family of rulesets

This is a bit over dramatic, I think. Enjoying different types of game isn't damaging or harming anything. People just like different things. It's fine to like exploration and it's fine to like narrative and it's fine to like combat

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

So I rather like both exploration and survival.

What I don't care for are superheroes. Increasingly, I am convinced that 5e and its spin-offs are about creating a bespoke fantasy-aesthetic superhero and showing off their cool attacks. (I am one bad afternoon away from calculating how many actions it takes to go from lvl 1 to 20.)

As I have discussed previously, 5e breaks resource management at a fundamental level because PCs level-up more frequently than they need to take long rests. That is true for combat, but is all the more so for any kind of non-combat resource management.

Even in a game like A5e (and this blog post) which tries BOLDLY to address the absence of content for the exploration pillar, the involved procedures of exploration/resource management and the lack of (presumed) interest in it by the MCU/Critical Role generation have already done irrevocable harm to the 5e-family of rulesets. We are trying to add wheels to the wings of a Boeing.

All this to say, it appears to me that, with the overall system as it stands, there is no ammount of tracking Supply that could ever produce anything more than a surface-level emotion. And that is unexpected (or IMO desired), since exploration and survival are core human experiences which strike our deepest emotions.

There is nothing about 5e that prevents exploration style play IMO. The core rules may not provide the best guidelines, but such games are 100% possible. We have also run some type's of survival games with 5e, but if you want it to be a threat you need to go with some house rules. However, it still definitely works with the base 5e engine.

 

[Xethreau]

There is nothing about 5e that prevents exploration style play IMO. The core rules may not provide the best guidelines, but such games are 100% possible. We have also run some type's of survival games with 5e, but if you want it to be a threat you need to go with some house rules. However, it still definitely works with the base 5e engine.

I think its pretty wildly agreed that if you need home rules to run a certain style of gameplay, that that game engine does not support that style of gameplay. That said, I think I agree with your statement about the "base 5e engine" not being at fault, but it depends on how you define that phrase.

To create this functionality, you need to issue major overhauls across the system. Any addon or fully-backwards-compatible system would be hard-pressed to meet that goal. Core assumptions of resource management must be addressed.

This is a bit over dramatic, I think. Enjoying different types of game isn't damaging or harming anything. People just like different things. It's fine to like exploration and it's fine to like narrative and it's fine to like combat

I came off a little strong there, and for that I apologize. I was trying to place the blame on the designers who think they have to cater to a certain audience, not the players (and certainly not our next generation). Obviously, the strength of RPGs is the play the game you want to play. Some game engines support some play styles better than others.

I like all of the things you describe. I like exploration, and narrative, and combat, and resource management. Unfortunately, 5e RAW trivializes resource management except for in very early gameplay.

 

[Xethreau]

As per title. Let me explain in the post.

Apologies for not responding to your blog post right out.

As you might have discerned, I like a lot of what you wrote. 4e style skill challenges are a pretty good piece of general tech, makes sense to delpoy it in exploration. Using Supply as currency requiring extra spending in bad environments is a straightforward and commonsense add-on to A5e's exploration rules. Maybe you could explain to me the Journey system and hex crawl rules so I could actually understand them!

As much as I like your addons, I don't beleive they are nearly enough to fix the system. As I have said, it is like adding wooden wheels to a Boeing 757---on the one hand entirely insufficient, yet perhaps an improvement!

To fix survival, you need to fix the adventuring day. To fix the adventuring day, you need to fix resources per day and XP to next level. That would require an overhaul so extensive that no class or player supplement would go untouched.

 

[SteveC]

I thought this was a pretty interesting article. And I have to agree that I hate survival in games but exploration can be exciting, providing there's something to find.

And I also get how you were just using hyperbole with your title.