Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5845340" data-attributes="member: 22779">Hussar's Reasons Why "Describe your Actions" Doesn't Work The biggest reason why we've moved away from the "setting exploration" that EW is talking about, IMO, is pacing.  The players can never know what needs to be explored and what contains nothing of interest, so, they have to explore everything or risk missing rewards.  So, every single feature needs the same level of attention.  You find a desk in room one.  So, you search the desk, look under the desk, pull the drawers out, look under the drawers, check for false bottoms, search the chair, pull the chair cushion apart, and then move on to the next thing.  In the next room, you find another desk.  So, you search the desk, look under the desk, pull the drawers out, look under the drawers, check for false bottoms, search the chair, pull the chair cushion apart, and then move on to the next thing.  Then, in the third room, you find yet another desk, so, you search the desk, look under the desk, pull the drawers out, look under the drawers, check for false bottoms, search the chair, pull the chair cushion apart, and then move on to the next thing.Meanwhile, there never was anything in any of these desks.  So, the group just spent half an hour of real time on fruitless searching.  But, they can't let up, because there just might be something of value in that fourth desk.Is it any wonder why people loathe dungeon crawls?  Half of the name of the game is reviled by a fairly large segment of fandom who proudly claim that they would never, ever use a dungeon in play and generally look down their noses at anyone who would.The point of all this is, what is important?  Is searching every chest, desk, bed and rug important?  Is it fun doing so?  And don't tell me you're just going to start piling on wandering monsters.  YOU want me to explore your setting.  I'm doing what you want me to do.  Don't punish me for that by forcing me into meaningless fights whose only purpose is to stop me from doing what you wanted me to do in the first place - explore your setting.I would argue that the searching bits, while they might be fun for a while, lose their shine pretty quickly.  Groups form standard operating procedures and social contract agreements to gloss over the stuff that really doesn't matter and get on with the stuff that the group finds fun.Now, if your group LIKES this level of interaction, then great for you.  It's sort of the old Sierra Quest Games approach to RPG's.  I don't enjoy it in the slightest.  I really, really don't.  Tapping the bottom of a chest to find the secret bottom is fun... once.  The fifteenth time, it's just a waste of my time. So, no, it's not that groups are any less engaged in the game world than they were previously.  For one, some groups never liked that kind of engagement in the first place.  For another, some groups have found other things in the game world that they find more engaging.</blockquote>

Verification