D&D 5E Exploration Rules You'd Like To See

[Primitive Screwhead]

Which is rather perplexing.
People ignored exploration in the past but now want more exploration content?

So the wizard spending actual resources on something is worse than a thief rolling a skill check?

I think people ignored exploration because it wasn't supported by solid, easy/fun rules. Next should address exploration and try to return the challenge of exploration without turning the game into something bland and boring....

Exploration should be less about dice rolls and more about meaningful choices. For example, the group needs to travel from Sharn to visit the temple of the Silver Flame. They can:
- Travel by Lightning Rail, which costs money but is fast and protected by the House
- Travel with a caravan, cost money or must hire on as guards. Risk of raids on the caravan. Delays with the caravan can slow the party down.
- Travel on horse via the main road. Pay tolls, cost for staying at inns, but relatively safe and fast
- Travel off-road to avoid the tolls and taxes. Less safe, harder to find secure locations for rests
- Travel by Air.. really expensive but fast and safe

Now the group has a choice to make and how the travel plays out is altered by their choices. Each choice has a different cost inherent to it as well as puts the party at risk of differing challenges. A party with a Bard and Paladin would prefer to follow the road while a group with more rangers would prefer the direct overland route.

The same should go with using spells vice skills. Spells like Knock should be fast, easy, and assured ways of opening the lock. I recall in 2e the spell emitted a clear ringing of a bell. In 3e there is a verbal component {open sesame!}

So the choice the group should have is to either:
- Spend a couple moments while the Thief does his/her thing and eventually opens the lock without tripping alarms and being very quiet
- Spend a second while the Mage does his/her razzle dazzle.. not so quietly but fast and spending a daily resource..and more likely to miss those pesky alarms.
Note: the 3e version linked above clearly states limitations that can make the use of the spell void.

Ideally the Knock spell would be written as Sean Reynolds writes in his article about Fewer Absolutes and grant an insight bonus of 10 + 1/2 caster level to an open locks check {and change to 'personal' with a duration of 'next skill check' within x rounds}
Tie this with open lock DCs set 10 points higher than normal and granting the Thief an automatic +10 to open lock means anyone can try to open locks, but you need a thief to handle the fancier ones and can fall back on the Mage in times of trouble

 

[GnomeWorks]

People ignored exploration in the past but now want more exploration content?

I have found new editions of D&D to be rather exciting times. The announcement of 4e, and all the discussion about the game that came up around it, opened my eyes to entirely new ways of thinking about gaming. 4e wasn't the game for me, but it expanded my horizons and made me think about things in a new light.

5e is a similar breeding ground for new ideas and new ways of looking at things. So maybe people did ignore exploration rules in the past... but 5e's idea of "three pillars" might be making people consider exploration and interaction aspects of gaming more closely, leading to these kinds of discussions.

Exploration should be less about dice rolls and more about meaningful choices.

I disagree to a point. Combat has plenty of meaningful choices, and also features dice rolls. Using dice is an indicator that you're bringing character skill into the equation, which should always be a factor. I'd argue that exploration should feature around the same amount of dice rolling as combat - perhaps less, and probably not more, but certainly not significantly less.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Combat has plenty of meaningful choices, and also features dice rolls. Using dice is an indicator that you're bringing character skill into the equation, which should always be a factor. I'd argue that exploration should feature around the same amount of dice rolling as combat - perhaps less, and probably not more, but certainly not significantly less.

I think this is a big part of the reason why exploration is such a tough nut to crack. Past editions have been all over the board on whether exploration is a PLAYER CHALLENGE or a CHARACTER CHALLENGE. I suspect that the target audience for an exploration module would be all over the board on this question too.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

By less dice rolls, I was speaking to the 'skill challenge = exploration' thought. Yes, there should be dice rolls that determine success/failure once the exploration gets to the level where skills are important. Because rules for exploration are not as granulated as combat is, you need to rely more on narration and less on dice rolls. A given combat has lots of opportunity for failure, with every attack made. Climbing a given cliff shouldn't be modeled by skill rolls for every 5' of distance traversed. The happy medium where the skill numbers and dice roll matters, plus the narrative selection between meaningful options matters, is the sweet spot to aim for.

Continuing my example from above, the party that travels by the road faces challenges that {mostly} can be overcome through diplomacy. There is little chance of getting lost, altho weather and bandits can cause problems.

The party that travels overland in a direct line faces more survival type challenges, potentially getting lost or re-directed, finding safe havens for rest, wandering into a monsters territory, etc.. weather is more of a problem as the weather might make getting lost easier.

At those levels the dice rolling via a structured mechanic {skill challenge} allows the players to use their skills to overcome the challenge, with a risk of failure.

The hardest part of that is to define the 'failure'. In most cases the failure is simply delaying the journey. You get lost and spend an extra day getting back on track.. you have a fight with a bug-bear and have to rest and heal up before continuing. In some cases this will be critical, in others a delay is simply adding to the story.

A great example of this is the hill troll encounter in the Hobbit. It is basically a wandering monster encounter that results in a delay, but when overcome the group gains treasure and experience {instead of being eaten}.

I want Next to provide a good framework and the space to play through the exploration portion of the game. To me this means solid skill challenge mechanics and the inclusion of a hex-crawl conceit into adventure design and published modules. {or perhaps a better way to describe that is to color in the world surrounding the dungeon by at least a days travel in all directions}

 

[calprinicus]

I'm going to share with you the gem I've been using for about the last 6 months to handle exploration framework and I could not be happier with it. I've been working on it during game nights and here on enworld. I have used this system in other roleplaying systems outside of DND and Pathfinder including MouseGuard, Call of Cthulhu, and World of Darkness: Changling. It's a pretty universal system.

I call it the Event system and this works for me and my play group. However you and your playgroup might not find it useful as other alternatives like Skill challenges or other homebrew.

i'm really sorry for the length of this post.

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EVENT SYSTEM:
In a nut shell... PCs are given a Goal and a Duration of time. Within The duration of time the PCs must complete the goal by earning enough points to complete the Goal. Points are only awarded to players that perform helpful actions that progress the party or themselves to the goal, the more helpful the action the more points they are awarded. If the PCs collectively earn enough points to match the goal, they succeed with a Win condition, If the don't collect enough points by the end of the last round of the duration they receive a lose condition (failing foward).

=====SETUP=====

when creating an event this is what you need to set up.

THE GOAL: This is what they are working towards. This can really be anything you wish and can vary greatly. Election campaign for high priestess, escape a burning build, explore lost ruins to find an ancient artifact, climb a cliff, etc.

GOAL (POINTS): This is how many points the PCs need to acquire to complete the goal before the duration ends. (more on this below)

DURATION: Events use rounds to keep track of passing time, however these are unlike rounds of combat in dnd which a round is always 6 seconds long. the length of time for a round in an event can vary greatly. one round for an event might be tracked in seconds or minutes as you sneak past guards or chase after a criminal that escaped. however in the next event one round can be days or weeks as you campaign for an election or trek up a mountain for example.

There is always a set number of rounds. I normally use a number between 2-5 (I normally use 3). This acts like a deadline to the players in which if the goal isn't completed. All events have this contraint.

THE WIN CONDITION: This is the reward the PCs gain if they succeed the Event. Ex: Did the heros find the artifact before their nemesis?

THE LOSE CONDITION: This is a penalty the PC incur if they fail the event. IMPORTANT: the lose condition should not halt the adventure, it should only add to it. maybe the nemisis found the artifact right as they were about to reach it, now they have to fight the nemisis with it's newly acquired power.

DIFFICULTY: Each event has a difficulty, this is how hard the given circumstances are for the overall event. The baseline difficulty doesn't change throughout the event, however it might vary depending on player choices or advancements given by the DM (see below). Difficulty varies depending on the game. In DND this is measured by rolling higher numbers. So difficulty will be the base DC or target number the player needs to reach to succeed at the task. 12 is easy, 15 is hard, 18 is very hard etc.

CALCULATE GOAL POINTS: For this forum post I'll say we want the adventures to go through an Event where they are "Searching the dark forest for an ancient long lost temple". To calculate how many goal points they need simply multiple the duration by number of players.

EX:
If I say the duration of the "forest trek" event is 3 rounds (each a few hours long long) and we have 4 players in this event, I simply multiple them (3 rounds * 4 Players) to get a total of 12. This is how many points the Heros need to acquire before the end of the last round. (Difficulty only makes acquiring these points harder for the PCs and thus not calculated into the equation)(DMS: feel free to fudge a point here or there.)

=====PLAY=====

During each round of the Event (in this example 3 rounds, each a few hours long) there are 3 steps: Planing, Do, and Advance.

STEP 1: PLANNING:

Players as a collective decide what they want their hero to do to help reach the Goal. There are two options.

DO: Do something that they think will be helpful to completing the goal. This probably requires a roll Vs the set Difficulty. However is might also use resources like spells, rations, items, etc. However if a player wants to 'rally the troops' and roleplay in character an inspiring speech off the cuff, I would allow that without rolls needed.

AID: Help someone, giving them a bonus to their roll (in DND I give a +2 bonus, in other systems like mouseguard it might be additional dice or the like.) please note that some aiding might require checks to perform, normally at a lower difficulty. I also allow multiple people to aid the same person.

There is no time limit for this step, as a DM let them discuss and when you think they have had enough time, hop in and progress to the 'DO' Step.

STEP 2: DO:

Each player plays out what their Hero will do (any order, no initiative needed). The players tells the DM what they want to do and how they want to do it. Then use a resource (spell, item, etc), roll a skill check, or roleplay to perform the action. If they succeed the action, the DM rewards points to that player based on the 'HELPFULNESS' of that action towards their goal.

(Ex: For finding the lost temple in the ancient forest)

1 point = NOT VERY HELPFUL
(Finding north or wander aimlessly)
2 points = HELPFUL (default helpfulness, if successful against Difficulty)
(Climb a tree to survey the land or Referencing bought maps)
3 points = VERY HELPFUL
( Drag a rope behind you so travel in straight line / avoid traveling in circles.)

Then the DM rewards that player with that many points thus inching the whole party closer to the goal. If a player choose to aid someone during the Planning step and the person they aided succeeded, the aider acquires 1 point.

DIMINISHED RETURNS: If the PC wants to try the same thing again lower the points rewarded by 1 each time. Thus is so they don't gain the same amount and start trying something new.

(We currently have the player who acquired the most points during the event gain a little bit more xp (25% more). This encourages cool and helpful ideas to complete the task at hand)

STEP 3: ADVANCE:

When each player in the event has either done something or aided someone else, the round ends. Now the DMs needs to advance the story to the next round. The DM narrates the event's progression. something new interesting should take place. This advancement should ideally do 3 things, add drama, challenge the players, and introduce new things for the players to do. These however easily can be planned during 'session prep time' and don't need to be though of on the spot. Below are a few examples for the treking the forest event.

Advancement #1:
"The players reach a raging river that blocks them on their path, the river is 20 feet wide and the current is strong showing white rapids." This opens up new skill checks and spells to use, and creative solutions for crossing. The same can be done for a steep cliff or a large cravass.

Advancement #2:
"An insect or poison plant causes one player (selected at random, or someone you (as the DM) want to see more interaction with) to cause a large painful rash or bite wound. This player now alone now has an increased penalty (probably severe like -5 to rolls) until removed. (someone needs to perform a 'DO' to remove it during the event or maybe healing surges will be lost (4e)). This opens up new resources to use like potions or spells, or another player shows off their awesome heal skill prowess)

Advancement #3:
"As you steer deeper the path tappers until you're walking in undergrowth. the forest light grows dimmer, but the undergrowth grows thicker. " One characters might use endurance checks to start hacking away at the vines clearing the way for the others. A knowledge nature might find an easier route through the undergrowth.

=====RINSE AND REPEAT=====
Repeat the play process until a lose or win condition is triggered. either the party wins when they acquired enough points to match the goal amount. or lose once the last round has ended and fell short of the goal amount. The DM should then describe what's happening as the adventure progresses.

NOTE: again if fail con is triggered, Always 'Fail foward' so the adventure doesn't lose momentum or stop dead in it's tracks. Maybe they reached the temple but at a sever cut to their healing surges (dnd 4e), maybe there are guards at the front door (combat). etc.


=================================

Events real beauty is for a DM. It has quick prep time and plays very smoothly. for prep think of goal, duration, win/lose con, a few possible advancements, and your done within 10 minutes. and it's a good long time to roleplay.

LINKING AND NESTING EVENTS

You can also link events together one right after the other just like combat. as well as easily mix combat and events together.

In the first or second post someone here did exploring a dragon mountain. (I like your take on skill challenges but can't XP). it could however also be done using this event system:

ENTERANCE exploration event > SHALLOW exploration event > DEEP Section exploration event > DRAGON combat.

Each event maybe 4-6 rounds in duration, increasing difficulty as you progress. advancement might be a trap, puzzle, or even combat the PC now have to face.

but that's not all! Events can also nest inside of each other. using smaller events as the advancements. I did this with a campaign in changling when someone wanted to become a high priest in the winter court. The arcing goal of the main event was becoming the high priestess, however each advancement I created another smaller event where the goal was to sway another council member in your favor.

seriously thanks for reading this if you made it this far. hope you find this helpful . I plan to use since I find it runs very smoothly.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I wonder if the baggage of bad presentation in 4e (and associated system cliquishness) has made the name "Skill Challenge" an impediment to the concept being accepted...

To go with the two non-combat pillars, you could use "Social Challenge" and "Exploration Challenge"

 

[I'm A Banana]

Some of these ideas are a little too abstract maybe, but I think we're thinking in the right direction.

I was thinking a bit recently about what each dice roll represents, because I think that's kind of where the abstraction breaks down for me at least. Rolling dice is necessary for rules variety, but I need to have a clear view of what that roll actually is in the game world, and be able to strategically make decisions about which game-world elements to use.

So I wondered, if we set it fairly abstract, we have one die roll representing one day's worth of travel (an 8 hour march) through difficult terrain, maybe about 24 in-game miles of travel. Much like you don't roll an attack roll if the thing is the broad side of a barn, you don't make any sort of skill check if the terrain poses no real obstacle: walking a well-trod path doesn't incur any sort of die roll. You just do it.

At the end of each day, if the party has enough supplies, they take an extended rest, use some of them, and continue on the next day.

"Supplies" could be more specific, but lets just put it in GP terms. 5 gp buys you "daily supplies," which include clothes, tents, bedrolls, tinder, firewood, food, drink, cloaks, whatever repairs you need done, etc. Each "Daily Supply" has some sort of encumbrance rating so that maybe an average character can only carry 1-5 Daily Supplies on them at any one time (encouraging the use of donkeyhorses and draft animals and hirelings! Perhaps your Encumbrance threshold is 1 + STR bonus?). Optionally, you could drill down to more detail, but it isn't necessary: "Daily Supply" carries all your abstract food, drink, and camping needs.

So on a well-trod path, the party moves 24 miles in a day, and spends 5 gp per character on upkeep (gotta buy it before you set out, obvs), as a baseline

The interesting part comes when the DM rolls for a "random encounter" (or just picks one they had pre-planned). The exact method of generating these is open to a lot of flexibility (how many times do you roll? How random is it? What % is dangerous, what % is just annoying? do you even bother to roll "peaceful" encounters?), but the idea would be that whenever you move through difficult or dangerous territory, there's a chance of getting involved in something dangerous or difficult. It might be a raging river, it might be a bridge out, it might be angry orcs, it might be a ruined temple to Asmodeus, it might be an eerie song drifting through the twilight forest...whatever.

Here, you could apply specific class abilities. Rogues, for instance, could use Stealth to avoid random encounters with creatures (though perceptive woodland beasts would be tougher!). Druids could use Natural Lore to avoid random encounters with fey, plant creatures, and animals. Rangers might move faster in forested terrain, while rogues might move faster in dungeons. The idea would be to keep to the minimum number of potentially dangerous encounters, because potentially dangerous encounters cost you things you can't get back.

That's why it's important that this encounter be optional. IE, it's something you can avoid, and something that you might get more of in more difficult places, and it's something you can control as a player to a certain degree if you get into it or not.

In each of those encounters, there's at least a chance of getting a Complication. A complication might be an injury (head wound! broken leg! disease!), or it could be a loss of resources (Your pack mule gets swept away in the rapids! All the days of supply you have on that critter are gone!), or both. Possibly your characters have ways to avoid or mitigate these complications if they are hit with them (clerics can make some food and water...rangers can hunt...fighters might not get injured so easy...rogues can climb over most of the obstacles...etc.). If the party runs out of resources (ie Daily Supplies), they risk further problems from exposure, starvation, thirst, etc.

We determine if a character suffers a complication by playing through the "encounter" (even if it's with a washed-out bridge or a poisonous squirrel!), either free-form or through more rigorously balanced checks-and-rolls (I nominate 1 success/party member as a minimum threshold for success, with any failures resulting in possible complications). Either way employing unique character abilities. Now the wizard uses spells like levitate to help the party over the river, and the fighter uses a specific intimidation ability to freak out the squirrel.

Traps, in this model, can be random encounters that have a high chance of injury. Might not kill you outright, but it'll lay you up and make you less effective for a while.

And in "grittier" games, you can up the rate of injury, or up the severity of it, while in more heroic games you can ignore the whole swath if you want, or just lessen the injuries, or whatever.

And spending extra days on the road are a problem, because it increases the likelihood of having extra encounters (and thus incurring extra complications, extra injuries, extra expenses...). So time becomes a factor even without some artificial time limit: you naturally do not want to sleep in the wilderness or in the dungeon if the DM is going to roll again to see if something untoward happens to you in the night.

But then we have three possible parts where specific character abilities can come into play:

a) In avoiding the possible encounter entirely, (controller/defender?)
b) In completing the encounter successfully, (striker!)
and
c) In avoiding or mitigating complications that arise from failing (leader!).

You can compare what a d20 roll is capable of compared to what a spell can do pretty easily in this mode. Okay, if Teleport helps you avoid encounters, and so does Stealth, we can make sure that a high-level rogue and a high-level wizard are capable of ignoring about the same amount of encounters.

So then we have a rogue, whose ability suite is specialized in avoiding encounters (trap finding, spot, stealth) and completing non-combat ones successfully (climb, bluff, open lock, disable device).

Injury mechanics themselves might impose penalties, restraints, or even limit your max HP (which is a pretty cool way to retain the old-school feel of whittling HP away over the longer term -- injuries stack, so if a broken leg gives you -5 max HP and a broken arm gives you -10 max HP and you have normally 15 max HP, you're going to be VERY HESITANT about wading into that fight with orcs later).

And I might be able to be happy with that.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] That sounds a lot like our normal D&D sessions when the PCs are exploring (just minus the resource tracking). What's different about what you're proposing? I mean, Druids are friendly with animals and rangers hunt anyway. What makes your system idea different? Is it the inclusion of gritty injury rules?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Mostly, it's the hooks for hanging specific rules on, and the possibilities that creates.

For instance, looking at my original list of rules I'd like to see:

• Starvation and thirst are accounted for by requiring supplies, but at a level that's more manageable than the detailed accounting for individual pounds of food and drink and rope and boots, so at a level more conducive to use in play. This lets us model things like druids finding food and water, and translate that into specific game rules that can be compared to others: druids are 5 less GP each day in the wilderness than other characters. In comparison, maybe a bard can do that in urban environments, and a priest can do that in an area with one of their temples. Maybe the fighter can go for longer without food. A cleric's create food and water then can be compared to what a druid can do. Using the "disease track" as a model for things that persist past an extended rest allows things like CON checks to feature into how your character survives. It's possible to get more variation, uniqueness, and strategy out of it when it's explicitly accounted for.
• Making encumbrance units bigger makes them easier to use (and interfacing with the rules for daily supplies makes encumbrance relevant when stocking up for a long journey) and more subject to variation with other rules, too. For instance, a fighter might be able to carry more, while a horse or a cart might be able to carry even more. This encourages a more detailed account of how the party is distributing its load, without requiring fiddly bits of pound-accounting. In interfacing with rules for food and water, it allows a variation to occur. For instance, the party fighter carrying more of the load and also being more resistant to starvation and thirst means that the party fighter plays a big "support" role in exploration.
• Weather hazards can be modeled by a "random encounter" system which also allows the use of player abilities to neutralize encounters, so that we can directly compare a druid's control weather to the ranger's Wisdom check to build a shelter for the night. Using measurable and manageable units for daily supplies allows us to account for damaging and losing them in more varied ways. Rain can now ruin 1d3 days' worth of supplies without bothering to specify that specific items got ruined or decayed, and in a way that can be codified and controlled.
• Random encounters (and maps and lairs) are a deliberate option that allows the use of unique character abilities in varied ways to negate or lessen. Stealth and Bluff can now be used to avoid random encounters with certain creatures, while Natural Lore can be used to avoid other encounters, and these don't have to be die rolls, they can just be declared effects: DM says "There's bandits ahead," rogue says, "I use Stealth," wizard says "I use Invisibility," and these can be comparable effects without one dominating the other. There is tactical choice: a rogue who can find traps (a subset of random encounters) can be more useful in a trapped tomb, while a ranger who can predict the weather is going to be more useful in the open wilderness. No longer is it simply a DM judgement call, or a prohibited effect, but a direct comparison of abilities used to avoid something that threatens them. It's a defense against the hostile world, rather than a "skip this encounter" button.
• Obstacles become interesting because they do codified things, rather than leaving it up to DM judgement and binary reactions. If you fail a check to cross that bridge, you don't have to die, but you can have some lasting impact. This lets you compare abilities for overcoming obstacles fairly well, weighing the ability to disable traps against the ability to charm monsters against the ability to climb walls, and make a tactical decision about what challenges you're likely to face. Weaving obstacles into the "random encounter" chart helps them actually occur, and using unique character abilities to overcome them helps reinforce the character archetype that you're playing.
• The last two points are kind of sub-points of stuff I talked about above, but briefly, random encounters means that you can avoid combats without ruining a DM's game, and...
• Obstacles being considered the equal of other encounters means that you can have them be engaging and dangerous and still mandate that everyone have a weight to pull in them. It's not impossible to sit out navigating around that trap, but if you "fail" you also take a lasting penalty that is potentially deadly.

"Druids are friendly with animals and rangers hunt" is, for me, way to abstract, fluffy, and loose. I don't know what that means mechanically, and what it means mechanically is usually "whatever the DM wants it to mean, along with maybe some input from how high you roll on a d20" which is really disempowering for me as a player and really a hassle for me as a DM. It also wangs on my "fence between gameplay and mechanics" chung, because it means I, as a ranger, don't know what I can actually do to functionally hunt at the table, I'm just told in a sort of fluffy, distant way, "Oh, you're a ranger, you hunt. Roll a d20."

"Druids have an ability called Animal Empathy that lets them charm an animal and make it friendly toward them, and Rangers have an ability called Wild Game that gives them 1d3 days' supplies in the wild" is more concrete, more grounded in rules (assuming "friendly" and "days' supplies" are codified), and thus more in my hands as a player (and more not my problem as a DM). It reinforces my role-playing because when the party encounters a group of wolves, I can speak up as a druid player and get them to let us pass, and when my party is running out of food in the wilds, I can speak up as a ranger player and supply that. And it's different from a bundled skill challenge because those differences matter in play: the bard can't help out with that group of wolves, no matter how high his Perform skill is, and the cleric can't create enough food & water by herself to supply us with only a few spells per day. Meanwhile, as a cleric, I can maybe do more than HP healing, I can heal broken bones and tend to gangrenous wounds and perhaps offer a prayer to the gods of the rain to save our supplies.

It makes those things relevant in the actual gameplay, and gives a lot of possible hooks to hang actual gameplay distinctions on.

Good encumbrance rules, good long-term complication rules, good "avoidable encounter" rules...those are all things that DMs can do on the fly, but they're all things I want to be able to use to give my groups the thrill inherent in exploration.

 

[Mallus]

What I'd like to see re: exploration is a set of simple tools to help the DM generate interesting consequences/complication from exploration-related task resolution.

I'm not so concerned in the task resolution itself; simple skill checks or even fixed percentages a la AD&D would be fine.

Picture a series of tables, grouped by type of non-combat/"exploration" activity; negotiation (haggling, political, romantic), pursuit (urban. mounted, naval), investigation/search (detective work, archaeological looting), travel (wilderness, desert, jungle) which yield concrete results ("lost at sea for a week, 1-6 crew develop scurvy unless precautions were taken", "discover hidden treasure but attracts party of rival adventures", "target falls in jealous love with PC".

There results would only be suggestions, tools to inspire the DM, written with the clear understanding that the die rolls aren't binding; results deemed inapplicable or uninteresting would re-rolled/ignored. The goal is to continually generate new and tangible problems for the PCs to solve (or not).

Exploration systems can very simple, and very abstract, so long as their results aren't.