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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 9257298" data-attributes="member: 3586">Exploration is almost entirely based on what the scenario offers. Survival-based gameplay (that is, gathering resources, keeping track of supplies, etc.) is not part of many people's games. There are rules for gathering food in the wilderness, and they're mentioned in the PHB. (The DMG has the details). Likewise, you can get lost in the wilderness. Do you keep track of every arrow and every ration? I don't do that, not because I don't know the rules, but because it's not part of the type of adventure I'm trying to run. As I've been reading through Uncharted Journeys, it occurred to me that those rules only really made sense in one of three forms of travel. The forms of travel I devised:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The party have a destination, and they know where it is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The party have a destination, but they don't know exactly where it is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The party are just exploring.</li> </ul>These forms of travel require different techniques. (Uncharted Journeys is great at the first).The third form is closest to what we describe as a Hexcrawl: exploring the (blank) map, seeing what we can find. Using hexcrawl techniques on a journey from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate because you have an urgent mission doesn't work so well. Interactions go like this:DM: "You see the shattered ruin of a old castle, a green light pulsing from a tower."Players: "We'd love to investigate, but the world will end if we delay. On to Baldur's Gate!"I've recently been running some Castles & Crusades adventures (A Stranger Among Us, The Ebon Staff) and they have this last problem in spades. They set up a mission that needs to be dealt with quickly, and then put in a bunch of side content in the wilderness travel that doesn't relate. Why are the players delaying their mission to explore? Oh wait, they're not. Let's bypass half the content!Understanding the actual structure of your adventure is key!But when you get to things like traps and tricks, there are underlying problems there with the mechanics and explanations of D&D that date back to the start. From reading the rulebooks (and just those, not the adventures), you'd get the impression that the way you deal with a trap is the thief makes find/remove traps rolls. And this has become even more pronounced over the years: You make dice rolls to resolve things.However, the interest there is in the decisions the players make. Perception/Disable Device checks often remove that decision-making, instead of augmenting it. The interest in "exploring" a trap comes when the players are faced with a situation and then have to make meaningful decisions. Consider a pit in the floor. Open, no concealment. No disabling either! How does the party deal with it, especially when not everyone can jump it safely? I've watched my players take ten minutes on such a simple device, just because they had to look at their equipment and spells and work out the best way of getting over. Far more engagement than "there's a covered pit" "I disable it so it won't open. I rolled a 20" "you walk over safely". There certainly is a role for mechanics, but the presentation of scenarios is key to getting exploration to work well.Cheers,Merric</blockquote>

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