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L&L December 16th Can you feel it?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6233716" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>It wasn't any better in 1E.</p><p></p><p>Exploration can be made fun, but it's hard, because you have neither an active antagonist nor any support from the rules to help you keep the players challenged and engaged. Without those, there is a tendency for players to quickly settle into a routine: Announce everything you can think of to poke with sticks, knock on, listen to, examine with a magnifying glass, peer behind, and cast divination spells on. Roll a whole bunch of d20s. Then move a bit and do it again. In most cases, you are punished for not being exhaustive enough in listing off things to poke/knock/listen to/examine/peer behind/divine, but there is no penalty for being too exhaustive, so the incentive is to throw dice at the exploration scenario until you knock loose all the traps and treasure.</p><p></p><p>An additional problem is that in many cases, failure at the exploration scenario brings the adventure to a halt. DMs who don't think to plan for this often end up being ridiculously lenient, allowing players to try everything under the sun, because the alternative is no game. Result: No chance of failure, which means no tension.</p><p></p><p>IMO, most good exploration scenarios add an element of time pressure and provide for failure. When you don't have time to try everything, you have to set priorities and make decisions, which is what makes the game exciting. If you've only got five minutes before the next shift of guards comes on duty, and a search takes one minute, what are you going to search? You only get five chances, better make them count! If you make good decisions, you either find what you're after or find a clue that will help you in subsequent checks. If you make bad decisions, you'll have to pull out and try something else.</p><p></p><p>But building a whole adventure around scenarios like this is difficult to say the least. In my experience, combat and social encounters make up the bulk of most adventures.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6233716, member: 58197"] It wasn't any better in 1E. Exploration can be made fun, but it's hard, because you have neither an active antagonist nor any support from the rules to help you keep the players challenged and engaged. Without those, there is a tendency for players to quickly settle into a routine: Announce everything you can think of to poke with sticks, knock on, listen to, examine with a magnifying glass, peer behind, and cast divination spells on. Roll a whole bunch of d20s. Then move a bit and do it again. In most cases, you are punished for not being exhaustive enough in listing off things to poke/knock/listen to/examine/peer behind/divine, but there is no penalty for being too exhaustive, so the incentive is to throw dice at the exploration scenario until you knock loose all the traps and treasure. An additional problem is that in many cases, failure at the exploration scenario brings the adventure to a halt. DMs who don't think to plan for this often end up being ridiculously lenient, allowing players to try everything under the sun, because the alternative is no game. Result: No chance of failure, which means no tension. IMO, most good exploration scenarios add an element of time pressure and provide for failure. When you don't have time to try everything, you have to set priorities and make decisions, which is what makes the game exciting. If you've only got five minutes before the next shift of guards comes on duty, and a search takes one minute, what are you going to search? You only get five chances, better make them count! If you make good decisions, you either find what you're after or find a clue that will help you in subsequent checks. If you make bad decisions, you'll have to pull out and try something else. But building a whole adventure around scenarios like this is difficult to say the least. In my experience, combat and social encounters make up the bulk of most adventures. [/QUOTE]
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