D&D General Ranking the Pillars of Play

[Weiley31]

You can't mean... Snarf is already dead!!!??

I mean, Kenshiro usually doesn't stutter when he says the line so...

 

[TheSword]

This is like saying which component of bolognaise is best… spaghetti, mince or tomato sauce.

The reality is, the dish doesn’t work without all three components.

Fighting faceless creatures with no personality or history gets boring fast. So does endless talking without knowing the background of who you’re talking to or a punch up every so often. So does exploring in a benign land without the spice of danger or some interesting characters to meet along the way.

All in all, while we may prefer different quantities, nobody just wants to eat a plate of mince.

 

[guachi]

I chose Exploration > Social > Combat. The unfortunate thing about this is I think it's also the order of what's hardest to pull off. Perhaps that's why I chose this order because good Exploration sticks out when I play.

As of this post the 1st/2nd/3rd votes are

Combat: 11/23/7
Exploration: 19/9/13
Social: 11/9/21

Exploration is polarizing but more in 1st place, Combat is middle-of-the-road, and Social brings up the rear with more placing it 3rd than 1st or 2nd combined.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'm into all that but I want it to take 5 minutes.

One game I had a downtime action that could be taken during level up. Choose an action, roll dice, and then get a bonus. That added 5 minutes onto downtime. Wouldn't want more than that.

Levelling up does tend to take more time than I want it to. Ideally players would do it between sessions but in practice they don't.

You don't want to roll a DC15 investigation check to see if you can find an inn? (no really, I had a dm who made us roll to find anything in a any town, and it was tedious.)

I don't mind the occasional interesting shopkeeper-with-a-random-accent (social pillar) interactions, but I've run into a couple dm's who try to do this for every commercial interaction, and they run out of voices fast.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Now for the big long answer: I don't like the three pillar model at all. After all, it's not a revealed truth of gaming in general, it's a design philosophy for 5e DnD.

I think there should be two pillars: Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons is the interesting, exciting, mysterious, and treasure-filled locations where adventures can happen: yes, caves and castles, but also forests and deserts and mountains and elemental planes and fey wilderness and the pits of Hell - and cities large and small and small out-of-the-way villages and caravans and circuses and really anywhere w=something that could be called an 'adventure' could take place. By thinking of settings this way, you can focus your mind on making them good for adventure - which means more than traps and tunnels, but also means there are absolutely traps and tunnels and all the other fun things to find.

Not that there shouldn't be safe places to rest - but these only serve the game through the contrast they provide.

Dragons are the weird, dangerous and occasionally evil beings you find along the way - but most importantly, they're not there to fight and there not there to talk to: both of those things (and sneaking around and running away) are clearly options to try. It should have a statblock - but it should also have listed motivations and assets and everything else the dm needs to roleplay the creature set up (or at least suggested) ahead of time. Some might lend themselves very heavily to a certain approach (you can't negotiate with golems) but you should also plan in terms of multiple means of interaction.

I got the idea form the intro to Zipperon Disney's YouTube video on exploration. It's a throwaway line, but it stuck with me.

(The downtime pillar wouldn't be a pillar on its own - it would be set up in relation to how it can support doing dungeon stuff.)

 

[Mordhau]

On what basis are we ranking them?

 

[schneeland]

On what basis are we ranking them?

My understanding (based on the second part of the title and the introductory posting) is: personal preference (within the context of a D&D game).

 

[Li Shenron]

Wow... I voted "Exploration > Combat > Social" without looking at results and thinking it would be the least or second-last voted, but instead it's the most (well for now at least, can of course change completely over time).

Truth is, while it's hard for me to choose between Combat and Social, it's easy to say Exploration is my favourite.

 

[Li Shenron]

Theory: amount of control is proportional to the amount of satisfaction.

...

Dungeon Masters are the inverse: they have the least amount of control over Combat and the most control over Exploration...so DMs tend to enjoy hiding things and inventing stuff for the players to solve, and see combat as something that slows (or even prevents) the party from 'making progress.'

Good observation. I am mostly a DM and Exploration is my favourite. However, it is still my favourite also when I am a player.

 

[Yora]

"Exploration" is the default mode of play. Encounters, whether they are hostile or civil, are sporadic interruptions of that mode, after which the game fall back into the default mode of "this is what you see, what do you want to do?".