D&D 5E Only three pillars?

[Paul Farquhar]

Architecture suggests that four pillars are perfectly stable.

Four is stable but unnecessary.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Four is stable but unnecessary.

I think the things that fall out of combat, exploration, or social are pretty necessary.

 

[Reynard]

I like "Downtime" as the 4th pillar, including everything from domain management and war to raising your family and establishing your business. It isn't as common a pillar for today, which is too bad, because it adds something to the "end game" that higher CR monsters don't.

 

[Charlaquin]

In D&D 5E the three pillars are combat, exploration, and social interaction.

Are there any other pillars to typical D&D-style play? In the old days we had things like domain management, mass combat, and seeking immortality.

Are there other pillars? If so, what are they? What other pillars should get attention?

I think “pillars” is a weird way to categorize D&D gameplay, and “combat, exploration, and social interaction” are a weird set of activities to identify as said “pillars.” I think a better framework would be modes of play; as in, activities that are governed by different rules systems. I think under that framework, the major modes of play would be combat, exploration, travel, and downtime. Note that hexcrawling would fall under travel, not exploration. There may be better names for these modes of play, but point is, there’s the mode of play governed by initiative and turns and action/bonus action/movement economy, there’s the mode of play governed by the conversation of play, typically involving hidden information and describing actions to try to uncover that hidden information, there’s the mode of play governed by movement pace and ongoing tasks, and there’s the mode of play governed by reoccurring expenses and periodic activities. This would be where domain management would fall, in editions where that was a thing.

Social interaction, in my opinion, is a thing that can occur during any of those modes of play, and is therefore misplaced in being identified as a “pillar” of play. I think this misidentification may also be part of why the latter two modes of play are much more anemic this edition.

 

[Reynard]

I think “pillars” is a weird way to categorize D&D gameplay, and “combat, exploration, and social interaction” are a weird set of activities to identify as said “pillars.” I think a better framework would be modes of play; as in, activities that are governed by different rules systems. I think under that framework, the major modes of play would be combat, exploration, travel, and downtime. Note that hexcrawling would fall under travel, not exploration. There may be better names for these modes of play, but point is, there’s the mode of play governed by initiative and turns and action/bonus action/movement economy, there’s the mode of play governed by the conversation of play, typically involving hidden information and describing actions to try to uncover that hidden information, there’s the mode of play governed by movement pace and ongoing tasks, and there’s the mode of play governed by reoccurring expenses and periodic activities. This would be where domain management would fall, in editions where that was a thing.

Social interaction, in my opinion, is a thing that can occur during any of those modes of play, and is therefore misplaced in being identified as a “pillar” of play. I think this misidentification may also be part of why the latter two modes of play are much more anemic this edition.

That is a pretty good way of thinking about it, in my opinion. I might only add that the lines between the modes are often fuzzy and you might find yourself making exploration type actions during travel right before it devolves into combat.

 

[Charlaquin]

Mass combat is something of a cross between downtime and combat though. Not sure where I'd put it. Probably downtime.

In my “modes of play” framework, mass combat would probably be part of the “downtime” mode, though I could see it being its own separate mode of play, if you wanted to develop a dedicated system for it.

 

[Reynard]

In my “modes of play” framework, mass combat would probably be part of the “downtime” mode, though I could see it being its own separate mode of play, if you wanted to develop a dedicated system for it.

Mass combat is probably its own mode, but domain management is surely a downtime activity.

 

[Charlaquin]

That is a pretty good way of thinking about it, in my opinion. I might only add that the lines between the modes are often fuzzy and you might find yourself making exploration type actions during travel right before it devolves into combat.

Agreed! While different systems may take precedence in different modes of play, they are all still fundamentally parts of the same supersystem that is D&D, so transitions between modes of play can be smooth enough as to be nearly invisible when done well.

 

[Charlaquin]

Mass combat is probably its own mode, but domain management is surely a downtime activity.

I think you could absolutely design mass combat to work within a downtime system if you wanted to. But yeah, it could easily merit its own independent mode of play. Just depends on design goals.

 

[Reynard]

I think you could absolutely design mass combat to work within a downtime system if you wanted to. But yeah, it could easily merit its own independent mode of play. Just depends on design goals.

When we would use War Machine to resolve mass combat, it usually dominated a session, which is why I feel like it is probably its own pillar (assuming it shows up at all in a given campaign).