D&D General Ranking the Pillars of Play

[Scott Christian]

I am in the who cares category. Mostly because the pillars are so heavily reliant on the DM and adventure. Some DMs can make roleplaying more fun than combat. Some make combat more fun. A select few can make exploration as fun, but they are out there. And then the adventure certainly can determine how much fun each pillar is. An end fight where you have truly come to despise the antagonist can outshine everything, just as finding the last piece of a love letter that suddenly puts everything you've been exploring together.

 

[ad_hoc]

"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?".

Yeah.

I think when some people think of the pillars they think in terms of encounters.

So exploration becomes exploration encounters rather than just the act of discovering the world and environment.

 

[Aldarc]

These are excellent points...I think you might have changed my mind regarding Downtime as a "pillar" of the game. There are many, many ways to play a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game, after all. Perhaps Downtime is a fourth pillar of the game: it handles a lot of interaction between the characters in the story and the setting/NPCs, has its own risks and rewards, and engages a variety of character options, backstory, and abilities.

Which makes me wonder: is there a fifth pillar of the game, Creation? Rolling up a character, writing a backstory, planning out your character advancement, interacting with your fellow players and the DM to create a role within the group and within the story...I consider character creation as much a part of "playing D&D" as I do rolling dice and calling my actions. And the same on the DM side of the screen: writing stories, drawing maps, crafting encounters, rolling up monsters and NPCs...my fellow DMs spend hours and hours each week dreaming up the adventures for their players. That, to me, is how most DMs "play D&D" most of the time.

Maybe there are five pillars of the game: Combat, Creation, Downtime, Exploration, and Social.

I would potentially combine a few pillars: encounters (social, combat, exploration), journeys, downtime, and potentially creation though the latter is possibly part of downtime. Encounters being about environmental interactions, which may include combat interactions, social interactions, or environmental interactions.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yeah.

I think when some people think of the pillars they think in terms of encounters.

So exploration becomes exploration encounters rather than just the act of discovering the world and environment.

That's because if exploration is a pillar, it shouldn't encompass the other pillars. Otherwise the analogy makes no sense.

It's like say the key parts of a meal are proteins, vegetables, and food.

 

[CleverNickName]

Borrowing an analogy from video games:

Combat > Exploration > Social: Doom. The object of this game is to basically shoot everything that moves, and occasionally open a secret door. There are no social interactions at all.

Exploration > Social > Combat: The object of this game is to explore the open world and solve puzzles. You occasionally interact with NPCs (in the form of holograms, or ghosts) to get clues, and you never fight a single battle.

Social > Combat > Exploration: There are many goals in this game, but most of them revolve around making friends and finishing quests. A solid 1/3 of the game (and up to 2/3, depending on how you play it) is combat, and while there are a few "secret" places to find and puzzles to solve, they aren't really the focus of the game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"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?".

I feel like 'exploration' doesn't mean 'lacks a GUI'.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I like a good mix of the 3 pillars. Roleplay is the corner stone of my D&D along with exploration, what thrills me the most, wether it is to socialize with other party members, and creatures you come across, investigate rumors, find lore of a lost magic item, chart new land or newly discovered tomb complex. In between, you happen to fight for your life against other creatures, monsters or traps. As much as i like combat, they're speed bumps to the rest.

So i voted social > exploration > combat

 

[Yora]

I feel like 'exploration' doesn't mean 'lacks a GUI'.

That's what people seem to mean by it.