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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmartkdr2" data-source="post: 9090912" data-attributes="member: 7017304">There's a Zipperon Disney video where he's talking about the exploration pillar, but before he gets to that he discusses the idea of pillars of play in general. He notes, very correctly, that pillars are not a theory of game design, just a way of framing the design goals of DnD 5e. So you can pick whatever you want to be the pillars of the game.Which would mean that downtime not being a pillar doesn't say anything about downtime, it just tells us that the initial design of 5e didn't consider downtime as important as combat, exploration, or social interaction.He did throw out an alternate pillar structure of two: Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons are the interesting locations where adventures happen, dragons are the interesting beings you face in dungeons. Downtime happens in not-dungeons. It's not unimportant, but at least for DnD I expect downtime to be about dungeons: recovering from or preparing for the next one. Dragons doesn't include all monsters (a bunch of skeletons is a type of hazard) but does imply that they're not just there for combat. Dragons (whether winged dinosaurs or beholders or necromancers or goblin chieftains) can be reasoned with, lied to, stolen from, or snuck past as well as fought, and the dm should be prepared to handle all of that from a standard writeup. I like this pillar system a lot, myself.</blockquote>