Exploration: My concerns for the new edition

[bryce0lynch]

I'm very worried about this element. It had a very strong presence in the very early versions (OD&D/Holmes, maybe 1E) and seems to have been on the decline since then.

The core element was facing & exploring The Unknown. This extended not only to the environment but to the creatures as well. I'm going to use a dungeoncrawl in my examples.

Exploring is about resource management. Going slow lets you detect traps and search for secret doors, but also expends your torches and food and increases the number of wandering monster checks. Do you press your luck when your resources are expended or retreat out to a basecamp or try and sleep where you are? More wandering monster checks! or maybe the monsters are now more ready for you if you left to rest in a camp nearby. Or maybe they raid you at night! Without these controls the players can simply take their time in a VERY cautious exploration, with no risk to manage at all.

In support of this there must be a core decisions the players make that have consequences. Does the wizard take exploration spells or combat spells? Do I detect magic now or save it for later? These sorts of decisions result in raising the tension of the game. Making searching easy (from a time standpoint) or minimizing the agony over which spell to take will help eliminate the RIsk Management portion of the exploration game, which is a core element of Discovering the Unknown. In 4E terms, if the wizard has "detect magic" and "find secret doors" as an at-will then a significant portion of the risk management mini-game has been eliminated, along with the associated Exploration element. This extends to healing. There has to be consequences for getting in to a fight, or being stupid in one When the party gets low on HP then they have to decide: push in further, retreat outside, or make camp? If healing is free, as it tends to be in 4E, then that aspect of the resource management game is significantly reduced. Any no, I don't buy the "controlling your surges" as a resource management issue. This element, more than anything else in this note, is critical to the exploration element of the game..

This extends in to magic items as well. There needs to be a major shake-up in these. They need to be as non-standard as possible as no one knows what they do. +1 swords and potions of water breathing as not interesting. Other sword powers and goldfish you have to swallow to breathe water are much more interesting and reintroduce that element of the unknown in to that aspect of the game. This element, in particular, needs to be emphasized in the published modules, Encounters, and rulebooks. People take their leads from the published products.

With regard to monsters, first time you face a Gibberring Mouther you're horrified. What are it's attacks? What's it vulnerable to? Is it very strong or are our attacks ineffectual? I was very disappointed to see a recent poll inquiring what monsters should be featured in the first adventures: Kobolds, goblins, orcs, skeletons. The featured monster should be something no one has seen before and that the PLAYERS don't know how to deal with.

 

[Yora]

This is a very strongly defined and unique meaning of the word exploration. I don't think there has been any mention what the designers think about when they use it.

 

[Henry]

First of all, I don't really count resource management in my list for the main draws of exploration. Discovering the unknown, yes, facing unheard-of threats, yes, but counting your torches and rations was always the negative aspect of resource management to me. (Conversely, spell resource planning and limited use character abilities are the fun and strategic part of resource management to me.)

As for unknown monsters, I would prefer to see the basics covered first. Why? Because for new players, they're going to be new and unknown regardless; for old players, we want to be sure that some of the most basic tales of adventure and exploration can be told, and D&D without orcs at first is like someone rewriting the orcs out of Lord of the Rings and replacing them with Deathclaws from Fallout.

For a DM who wants to make those challenges new, however, there should be a good deal of coverage of the concept of reskinning monsters and hazards - it doesn't matter if the orc has 1 hit dice and amazing strength, because if he has steel-grey skin, no snout, huge shark-teeth, and glowing violet eyes in the dark, he goes from "aw, another orc" to "what the hell is THAT?!?!?" in seconds.

 

[Fanaelialae]

If healing is free, as it tends to be in 4E, then that aspect of the resource management game is significantly reduced. Any no, I don't buy the "controlling your surges" as a resource management issue.

Look, you might not like healing surges, and you're definitely free to do so.

Suggesting that 4e healing is free, or that surges are not a resource that need to be managed, however, is factually incorrect. 4e healing almost always requires you to spend a surge. Surges are a resource that must be carefully managed, because once you're out of them it becomes impossible (outside of limited daily magic) to regain hp.

A 4e party where folks are out of healing surges is akin to a 1e party that's out of healing magic. The resource simply was redistributed from the cleric to the rest of the party making it a resource that everyone, not just the healer, has to manage.

Different, yes; nonexistent, no.

 

[ExploderWizard]

My biggest concern with exploration is that it not be reduced to die rolls. This applies to social/roleplaying areas as well. No more dice fests regardless of what you are doing.

 

[bryce0lynch]

This is a very strongly defined and unique meaning of the word exploration. I don't think there has been any mention what the designers think about when they use it.

May I ask then what Exploration means to you? When they mention this element what do you think of?


I refer to torches & food only as an example. The core concept here is that there needs to be a control on resources in order to create the tension, and thus wonder of discovery, that Exploration allows for. Something like a Raggi Encumbrance system for resources would be interesting and possible. If there is no constraint on Exploration, either by time (traditionally) or something else, then the opportunities for that tension are greatly reduced.


I will concede on the Surges; I believe my distaste for them influenced my comments. This is no different from having a magic items that lets you heal X number of times per day, and then the management of that resource. The ... distancing? of the healing mechanic bothers me, but I certainly understand why it was done.

I agree that reskinning monsters is important (after all, what the difference between a bandit, Kobold, Goblin, Orc, Hobgoblin, Gnoll, Bugbear, Ogre, etc? It's a reskin of a human bandit with more HD/damage. But the real wonder comes from the special attributes, and the not knowing.

It will be interesting to see if the Random & Esoteric Creature supplement can be used with the new edition.

 

[the Jester]

In support of this there must be a core decisions the players make that have consequences.

I think this is the most core, most basic thing about D&D, at least for me, and one of the things that appears in 3e and 4e that I strongly dislike is a distancing from this concept. The way 4e handles treasure is a perfect example of this; 3e wasn't quite as bad, but it still annoyed me that the treasure value of a monster was based on the monster's CR (or rather, the encounter's EL) rather on the nature of the monster itself. (Remember when certain monsters collected gems- treasure type Q- and others had only a few thousand each of the cheaper coins, copper and silver (type O)? I loved the treasure types in 1e (and 2e, but the 2e types didn't have the awesome pics that were on the facing pages in the MM and FF).

I am a huge proponent of the idea that pcs should be able to seek stronger monsters in order to gain bigger treasures. If you're a 1st level party and you attack a group of kobolds, you should get a pittance, mostly in copper (and perhaps a few kobold gadgets or alchemical items); if you're bold enough (and successful enough!) to take out the local thieves' guild, you should rake in thousands of gps, lots of stolen goods and a ton of miscellaneous gear.

You should not get the same "1 first level treasure parcel" from each of these encounters.

Now, I recognize that two parcels of the same level might have very different values, even if they're just money/goods parcels; but if the party takes out an encounter 8 levels higher than they are, they ought to get better loot than that, on average.

Likewise, if the 1st-level pcs know about 1. the local haunted house, where the town's kids dare each other to spend the night but end up scared away, swearing they saw ghosts; and 2. the abandoned mine up on the hill where a trio of chimerae live, where the local baron sent in fifty of his best men and they all died; and they decide (again, at first level) to go to the place that kills small armies instead of the place that scares off children, they should probably end up dead, unless they are very clever or resourceful.

PC choices in a campaign should be meaningful, with consequences. If they spare surrendering foes, maybe those guys end up working for the pcs. If they never spare an enemy, maybe their rep gets out and nobody surrenders to them any more. If the pcs keep offending the baron between forays into the Keep on the Shadowfell, they are exiled, adventure interruptus, and now they are traveling the world while Kalarel's plans come to fruition back home. If the party's fighter is always whoring it up between adventures, maybe when he's 8th level a woman shows up with a baby, claiming it's his.

Exploration work best, IMHO, when the pcs have a clue of the general danger level of an area or can pick up such information before they're in over their head; but it also works best when the pcs can choose to go ahead and jump in the deep end in full armor.

I guess to me, exploration-based games work best when the dm isn't afraid of a tpk.

God I love exploration-based games.

 

[Hassassin]

In support of this there must be a core decisions the players make that have consequences.

I think this is the most core, most basic thing about D&D, at least for me, and one of the things that appears in 3e and 4e that I strongly dislike is a distancing from this concept. The way 4e handles treasure is a perfect example of this; 3e wasn't quite as bad, but it still annoyed me that the treasure value of a monster was based on the monster's CR (or rather, the encounter's EL) rather on the nature of the monster itself.

I agree, but I'd just note that different monsters have very different treasure in 3e. For example, dragons have triple treasure, while animals of course have none. A hydra has "1/10 coins; 50% goods; 50% items" and so on. The CR is just a convenient basis for calculations.

 

[Yora]

May I ask then what Exploration means to you? When they mention this element what do you think of?

Entering places, discovering their layout, studying their artifacts and inhabitants, and trying to learn about their purpose and how they work.
Either under pressure or at all times leasure.

Which to be fair, many old modules were seriously lacking. In particular Keep on the Borderland, which was the module used in the playtests. However in the perception of many people, D&D is dominated by "go inside, kill everything, take what's valuable, and get out". That locations are not just the stage where combat happens, but can also be a great part of interacting in the world is something I assume is meant to see some more attention.

 

[Li Shenron]

Exploring is about resource management. Going slow lets you detect traps and search for secret doors, but also expends your torches and food and increases the number of wandering monster checks. Do you press your luck when your resources are expended or retreat out to a basecamp or try and sleep where you are? More wandering monster checks!

Exploration is probably my favourite phase of a typical D&D adventure.

I agree that going slow and careful vs going fast and bold should be a strategic decision for the PC group and should carry its consequences.

However I have to say that I've never seen the exploration phase as significantly about resource management... For me resource management is mostly about HP, spells, consumable items (potions, scrolls...) and a few other limited tools. Clearly, torches and food are also consumable items, but perhaps it would be too much of a "gritty" game for me to keep track of torches burning out. Maybe I'm just not "old-school" enougn, but typically it's already too much for me to keep track of ammunitions...

Food has practically never been as issue in our games in the exploration phase, because they way we've always seen it, exploration is almost always something that takes place within the day. If it gets longer, you need to rest, and if you need to rest, you retire or camp. But to keep track of food & water just doesn't seem to me to apply to exploration; I would rather bring the issue up in case of travel, if it takes a long time and takes place in uncivilized territory.