D&D 5E Do You Delve?

[Imaro]

It’s not that any specific, individual rules make it necessarily about delving. It’s just that, the effect of all of the rules in aggregate, if you actually follow them, produce a game about delving. All the stuff that’s in there that people tend to ignore - the 6 to 8 encounter work day, the travel rules, random encounter tables, encumbrance, rations, etc. If you run the game using all of the rules, the way they were written (i.e. the way the game is designed), the result is a delving game.

I think you can pick and choose rules to create a delving game, but when looking at the rules in their entirety... social interaction rules, madness rules, divine boons, weather effects, inspiration, honor, traits, flaws, & bonds... and so on. I don't think it inherently leads one to play a delving game.

Coincidentally, the angry GM just posted an article this very morning about what I’m getting at (the game-as-designed part, not necessarily the delve part.)

Exploring by the Rules

Today’s lesson about how you all break your games and then ask me to fix them. Specifically, it’s about how all the little, fiddly rules that don’t seem to do anything are actuall…

theangrygm.com

Yeah, he seems to be advocating for using all of the rules given in the books where they apply to see what their emergent effects are before judging/changing the game... I agree with that to some extent but I don't agree that using all those rules leads to a delving game.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you can pick and choose rules to create a delving game, but when looking at the rules in their entirety... social interaction rules, madness rules, divine boons, weather effects, inspiration, honor, traits, flaws, & bonds... and so on. I don't think it inherently leads one to play a delving game.

Apart from the optional madness and honor add-ons, I think all of those are good, useful rules to have in a delving game, as it’s being defined here.

 

[Imaro]

Apart from the optional madness and honor add-ons, I think all of those are good, useful rules to have in a delving game, as it’s being defined here

How is delving being defined here? Perhaps I'm bringing my own understanding of the word into this discussion...

EDIT: Also to clarify my point a little better... every rule you have stated could be used to create a delving game could also be used for a sandbox game, or a hexcrawl or any of a few types of other games...

 

[Maxperson]

All of my campaigns will have 2-3 traditional dungeons over the course of the campaign. Of course they also go to the high teens or 20th level, so most of the campaign is spent outside of them.

 

[Charlaquin]

How is delving being defined here? Perhaps I'm bringing my own understanding of the word into this discussion...

@doctorbadwolf can correct me if I’m misunderstanding, but I believe “delve” here is being used to describe a play procedure that involves the players uncovering hard details determined, usually in advance, by the DM. As opposed to the players and the DM creating those details together through play. A delve would also generally involve location-based adventuring rather than event-based, and often involves map and key.

EDIT: Also to clarify my point a little better... every rule you have stated could be used to create a delving game could also be used for a sandbox game, or a hexcrawl or any of a few types of other games...

See, from my understanding of how “delve” is being used here, I would actually consider a hexcrawl to be a type of delve. Either a delve or… whatever we want to call its counterpart, can be done as a sandbox.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm sort of surprised by the idea that so many people don't do dungeon crawls.

Do you mean you don't use the fictional dungeon environment? Or that you never explore a location based on a map with more than about 2 or 3 rooms?

Both. Even my “kinda delveish” adventures are less than 5 total locations/rooms.

Sure. I mean, I think a lot of the conflict in the "6-8 encounter per day" topic comes from the fact that 6-8 encounters is actually pretty reasonable if you're in a delve environment, like what a lot of WotC's modules look like (the few I've looked at, anyway). But when you're doing what I described earlier, or what @doctorbadwolf described, then those assumptions really don't work very well.

I don't watch Critical Role, but from what's been described to me, they're much more scene-based that delve-based, which I also think informs a good portion of the player base as to what play should look like. It wouldn't shock me if the recent move to "Prof mod per long rest" abilities is based on players doing less encounters per long rest than initially anticipated because of scene-based play.

Makes sense to me. I will say that most of the popular actual play podcasts, including Acquisitions Inc, also tend to have the occasional setpeice battle, and the equally occasional minor transitional battle, and otherwise focus on roleplaying and exploration. Maybe 1-3 fights in a given day. A lot of times minor fights are on the way to the setpeice, largely serving to drain some resources in the immediate term so that fight is harder.

Yeah, I think 5E has a bit of a personality/design conflict on this score.

I agree that the 6-8 encounter adventuring day definitely seems like it was designed with delving in mind. But OTOH the DMG still lacks a nice dungeon exploration rules framework like B/X gives us. If it had that too, I'd agree wholeheartedly that 5E is designed primarily for delving, but in practice it seems like it's only partially designed for that.

I think that what 5e does is, it gives you what you need to delve. the encounters per day guidelines aren't rules in any sense, they’re just a balance note for games that involve several sequential encounters per day and a tension about resources and resting. That playstyle requires that there be a balance point in terms of number of encounters, and difficulty of those encounters. Nearly no other playstyle needs the encounters per day balance, they just require that each encounter is fairly balanced. And 5e does that as well.

I think the reason we are getting more “equal to your proficiency bonus per day” abilities is actually that they’ve found that 1-2 encounters per day works less well than they thought due to a lot of the short rest abilities just feeling like you should be more able to use them more often in a day that will only have 1 short rest, at most.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@doctorbadwolf can correct me if I’m misunderstanding, but I believe “delve” here is being used to describe a play procedure that involves the players uncovering hard details determined, usually in advance, by the DM. As opposed to the players and the DM creating those details together through play. A delve would also generally involve location-based adventuring rather than event-based, and often involves map and key.

Yep. A delve is a series of “rooms” or equivalent spaces, explored somewhat procedurally, with encounters, secret stuff to find or not find, etc. A location or map based adventure.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yep. A delve is a series of “rooms” or equivalent spaces, explored somewhat procedurally, with encounters, secret stuff to find or not find, etc. A location or map based adventure.

I don’t love the use of the terms “rooms” or “spaces” here, because I believe the type of play you’re describing here could easily be done without tying the scenes to physical locations. That’s why I describe the key difference as exploring DM-created details as opposed to creating details together through play, and location-based play and map-and-key as merely typical of this type of play, rather than definitional.

 

[TwoSix]

I don’t love the use of the terms “rooms” or “spaces” here, because I believe the type of play you’re describing here could easily be done without tying the scenes to physical locations. That’s why I describe the key difference as exploring DM-created details as opposed to creating details together through play, and location-based play and map-and-key as merely typical of this type of play, rather than definitional.

I'd argue the spatial linkage into a smaller geographic area is important to be defined as a delve. A hexcrawl has procedural similarities to a dungeon delve (map-and-key, DM-defined locations), but still has thematic and mechanical differences.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that what 5e does is, it gives you what you need to delve. the encounters per day guidelines aren't rules in any sense, they’re just a balance note for games that involve several sequential encounters per day and a tension about resources and resting. That playstyle requires that there be a balance point in terms of number of encounters, and difficulty of those encounters. Nearly no other playstyle needs the encounters per day balance, they just require that each encounter is fairly balanced. And 5e does that as well.

The thing is, so much of 5e is built around several sequential encounters per day and tension about resources and resting. The exp system, the CR system, the equipment lists, the rules around resting, exhaustion, hit points and their recovery, random encounters… All this design work around the resource attrition game at the core of D&D. Certainly you can choose not to use these tools, and in my experience many groups do so. But if you use them all, what you have is a delvy, resource management game.