D&D General Ranking the Pillars of Play

[CleverNickName]

Most folks will agree that there are three pillars of play: Combat, Exploration, and Social.
Few people will agree on how much of each pillar they would like in their games, though.

So how would you rank them, in order of importance?

For example, vote for "Combat > Exploration > Social" if you feel that Combat is most important, Exploration is second-most important, and Social is least important. If you like them all equally, vote for the option with the equal signs.

 

[iserith]

I voted for all being equal because I think the game benefits from having an equal opportunity for all, depending on what the players want to do. In terms of importance, exploration covers more ground than either combat or social exploration - given the actual definition of the exploration pillar in the D&D 5e rules - and will likely be more present in any game.

 

[CleverNickName]

@iserith it's true, the game does need all three in order to be complete. But not everyone enjoys them in equal amounts: not many gaming groups would like to spend an hour picking locks and an hour shopping for gear, for every hour spent in combat.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

Social is irrelevant to the rules, therefore not a pillar.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Social > Combat > Exploration

I play roleplaying games to roleplay, and the Social pillar is the best and easiest way to do that. Of the other two... one has really extensive rules with which to play it, the other has very little. So for the board game part of RPGs, I go with the one with the most interesting ruleset.

 

[CleverNickName]

Social is irrelevant to the rules, therefore not a pillar.

I said that most folks would agree that there are three pillars of play. I was sure there would be outliers, this being the Internet and all, so that's what the "Who cares, let's play!" option is for.

 

[CleverNickName]

I voted for Exploration, then Combat, then Social. I'd easily prefer to spend more time in the dungeon than in the town. And when I'm in the dungeon, I'd rather spend more time sneaking around the monsters than plowing through them.

 

[Scribe]

I thought about it, like this.

Combat > *, because I enjoy that aspect the most.

Then I was stuck with Combat > Exploration > Social or Combat > Social > Exploration, because there is no Combat > Exploration = Social.

Then I thought, well Exploration may be needed to get to my next Combat.

Therefore: Combat > Exploration > Social.

 

[iserith]

@iserith it's true, the game does need all three in order to be complete. But not everyone enjoys them in equal amounts: not many gaming groups would like to spend an hour picking locks and an hour shopping for gear, for every hour spent in combat.

I think that's a bit of a different thing though. If we break adventures and campaigns into discrete challenges, I would say it's best to make these more or less equitable in my opinion. But the time spent on one challenge or another is going to vary. Certain, by virtue of combat often being a bit of a lengthier process, an equitable distribution of challenges across all pillars probably still results in more time being spent on combat in many games.

 

[Fenris-77]

Somebody needs to give ENworld a good fumigating. We've got trolls in the baseboards again.

Edit - I ranked them equal, not that that's reflected in the mechanical heft the system assigns to them.