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

[Hussar]

As much as it might be a hassle for a particular DM to do... both in terms of the work and in getting your players to go along with it... I do think one of the most successful ways to get a game to work the way you would want it to work is by just creating condensed spell lists for each class/subclass. That way you can just take out the spells you don't want to use from the game (especially ones that remove Exploration obstacles) without making the players think that's specifically why you are curtailing their spell lists.

As I think might have been mentioned earlier in this thread (or perhaps one of the other ones) back in Basic D&D the Cleric and the Magic-User has like 8 spells to choose from at each level. That's it. The amount of stuff characters could do with magic was curtailed so much more than what is possible today. And there's no reason why a DM couldn't just go back to that today if they wanted to just put in the work and deal with the possible player complaints. You don't want Comprehend Languages or Tiny Hut or Create Water or any teleport or Fly spells because they all just bypass Exploration challenges? Create new class spell lists for your game where none of those spells are included.

It's no different than what we would say to the DM who says they wished D&D would just go back to the Core Four classes with everything else being subclasses. We'd tell them "Just do it!" You don't have to wait for WotC, you can make that exact type of game for yourself right now with a little bit of work. And the same holds true for "too much magic" in the game. Don't wait for WotC to do it... just take it out yourself.

At the end of the day, I think you're right. But I could see my players screaming bloody murder if I tried. I mean, I'm running a light hearted, fun Phandelver campaign right now. So, I simply banned all full casters. I just didn't want to deal with them for a while. Not forever, just for a while. And two players immediately quit. :/

I guess it's all down to finding the right players too I suppose.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

At the end of the day, I think you're right. But I could see my players screaming bloody murder if I tried. I mean, I'm running a light hearted, fun Phandelver campaign right now. So, I simply banned all full casters. I just didn't want to deal with them for a while. Not forever, just for a while. And two players immediately quit. :/

I guess it's all down to finding the right players too I suppose.

They friends or pick up game players?

If the DM wasn’t like an actual friend, I’d bounce if they banned a whole type of class for a campaign set in a world with all the kinds of classes, but if it was a buddy I’d at least hear them out.

 

[Hussar]

They friends or pick up game players?

If the DM wasn’t like an actual friend, I’d bounce if they banned a whole type of class for a campaign set in a world with all the kinds of classes, but if it was a buddy I’d at least hear them out.

We’d been gaming together for more than a couple of years. So it really pick up players.

But yeah, that’s the trick with “oh well just ban stuff”. You wind up having to rebuild groups.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We’d been gaming together for more than a couple of years. So it really pick up players.

But yeah, that’s the trick with “oh well just ban stuff”. You wind up having to rebuild groups.

Yeah. There is a whole other thread of conversation we could have on this, and on full casters generally, but I think we both know that no matter our intentions someone would derail it and turn it into the same dumb arguments we’ve been having for a decade.

It would be nice tho, to be able to talk about curating campaigns, and about 5e full casters being basically incompatible with some styles of play.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I guess it's all down to finding the right players too I suppose.

Heh... this is the universal statement when it comes to anything RPG related.

No matter what any of us wish to play, no matter what system we want to use, no matter what changes to the system we feel like we have to have for ourselves to be happy... none of that ends up mattering if we don't have the right mix of players to make the situation work. And sometimes it ends up coming down to either turning over our playerbase to get a better combo that fits our stylings better, or else just sucking it up and playing the game in a style we ultimately do not prefer but which works for the players we have. Both of those ways have their difficulties, and we have to decide what is the most likely to work out for us.

At least in your case, my hope is that those two players who quit on you ultimately ended up being a good thing... because I'm sure part of the issue with your distaste for full casters was how they got played by those players you had. Their way of playing casters just did not mesh with how you hoped the game would go. So by losing two of them, you eliminated at least some of that full caster playstyle that caused you so much grief. And hopefully you were able to replace them with two new players who perhaps do not and will not play full casters in the same way and thus your issues get lessened the next time you allow them to be played.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I do think one of the most successful ways to get a game to work the way you would want it to work is by just creating condensed spell lists for each class/subclass.

I've done this. Three lists for wizards and clerics, each. Plus a curated druid list. 12 spells each for spell levels 1-6, 9 spells for cleric spell level. It took some work, but the classes have much stronger themes.

That said, all of the "problematic " spells are still there but often segregated into different lists. There are changes to some, but I think I only outright banned one spell, forcecage.

 

[CandyLaser]

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.

The 4e version of Dark Sun introduced semi-abstract "survival days" to represent the supplies that the PCs had with them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thinking about it more survival aspects of exploration in 5E is a waste of time without house rules or rewriting stuff.

In harsh environments or magical effects I could see 0 hp=exhaustion level being used.

Don't pick fights in arctic, sahara or extra planar locations.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah. There is a whole other thread of conversation we could have on this, and on full casters generally, but I think we both know that no matter our intentions someone would derail it and turn it into the same dumb arguments we’ve been having for a decade.

It would be nice tho, to be able to talk about curating campaigns, and about 5e full casters being basically incompatible with some styles of play.

One curated game I had was you can only be a primary caster muticlassing into it at level 3.

Basically they were all dead, undead or in hiding.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One curated game I had was you can only be a primary caster muticlassing into it at level 3.

Basically they were all dead, undead or in hiding.

As long as there is an actual concept, I have no issue with curated campaigns. I’ve run a few myself.

I just ones that are just “I don’t want to deal with XYZ” ones to be outside my tastes