Those other two pillars

[Ahnehnois]

But I'm not talking about character design here - I'm talking about rewarding the players for whatever it is they want to do. If the rules allow a wandering adventurer with a bent for music, shouldn't they also make sure that the character - and player - are rewarded appropriately for doing so?

No. That's not the rules' job. The rules' job is to describe musical skill and its uses, not to ensure that they have any practical value within any particular example of actual play. Rewarding players is what the DM does (or chooses not to do, depending on his style).

 

[adamc]

In my games I give experience even if there is no fight (or if the characters use diplomacy to avoid the fight). For my the point is cooperative story-telling and player agency, more than it is any particular mechanic.

That said, some of the players get bored if they go too many sessions without a fight.

 

[The Human Target]

For years now, when I GM, I reward XP by fiat, not for combat success.

Not trying to say that my games don't feature plenty of combat, but it is true that they specifically don't reward combat to the exclusion of any other activity in game.

This is, to me, what all RPGs should do.

 

[Derren]

People who play D&D for the other two pillars get direct enjoyment from discovering new things, and solving problems through diplomacy. But does the game actively reward this? Especially in the most recent editions? The assumption that treasure and experience is earned through combat is almost hard-wired into 3rd edition, quest experience or no. (Not to mention that "congratulations, you get a 1000 xp story award" isn't much of an exciting reward, especially if your campaign levels up whenever the DM wants.)

Even more, what are the rewards you usually get in D&D for? Combat.
So even when you are rewarded for exploration or diplomacy, the reward first and foremost increases your combat power (in the case of XP, items or just gold). Sure, it can be a role playing reward like a title, etc. but no DMG I have seen gives advice on to handle it (excluding Birthright) and when following the default assumption of how D&D is to be played, non combat rewards are negligible.
Some editions are of course better than other when it comes to non combat rewards (in 3E it is possible to spend a lot of things you get on level up on exploration/diplomacy like skills, feats, spells, etc.) while in others the only thing which gets better by XP/level gain are combat abilities.
But in the end, so far D&D sadly has never done a good job of presenting other "pillars" than combat and I do not see that 5E, despite advertising this concept so much, is doing any better of a job. Non combat simply gets ignored and relegated to freeforming without support from either rules, guidelines or advice.

 

[Meatboy]

snip... so far D&D sadly has never done a good job of presenting other "pillars" than combat... snip

I don't agree with this at all. Present editions may be subpar in this regard but earlier editions treated combat as a failure, its what got you killed, being a savvy explorer with a quick wit kept you in the game a lot more than being the toughest fighter because you were only a few bad rolls away from death most of the time.

 

[howandwhy99]

Now, I am willing to consider that this is a DMing problem, not a rules problem. Maybe it's just that DMs should be instructed to place/prepare rewards for non-combat behavior commensurate with the interests of the players.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I think all 3 pillars will be in the D&DNext game. I mean, it's not hard to have an orc to talk to or fight in a room to explore. Forget whether or not they are commensurate with player interest. Let players decide in moment and prep for all. Also, using XP based upon player accomplishment would be a wonderful throw-back to early D&D, at least as an option. I'm an old schooler, but not one to give XP for treasure; I take game resources to be their own reward. But experience gained by achieving goals? (class-related ones at least) That does improve ability, at least in D&D.

As for suggestions on how here's a link to a recent post I made on this.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

When it comes to exploration, a lot of the rules are just there to avoid boredom. You really don't want to fail a skill check that results in PC getting lost. In effect, a use of the Nature skill (avoiding getting lost) is pointless, as it's too fun-sapping to fail it.

If people had good guidance on how to design such encounters, the encounters need not be fun-sapping. Dramatic consequence and threat to player goals simply need to be employed.

 

[pemerton]

People who play D&D for the other two pillars get direct enjoyment from discovering new things, and solving problems through diplomacy. But does the game actively reward this? Especially in the most recent editions? The assumption that treasure and experience is earned through combat is almost hard-wired into 3rd edition, quest experience or no. (Not to mention that "congratulations, you get a 1000 xp story award" isn't much of an exciting reward, especially if your campaign levels up whenever the DM wants.)

Even more, what are the rewards you usually get in D&D for? Combat.

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't 4e already provide one model for this?

Social interaction is rewarded with XP on the same scale as combat encounters. And exploration is awarded via quest XP, which is also on the same scale as combat encounters. So within the XP rules, at least, there is no particular bias in favour of combat.

The recovery of treasure is also disconnected from combat - it can be linked to skill challenges, or completing quests, or just be found lying around. The treasure metric is "parcels per level", not "monster treasure tables".

 

[Derren]

Social interaction is rewarded with XP on the same scale as combat encounters. And exploration is awarded via quest XP, which is also on the same scale as combat encounters. So within the XP rules, at least, there is no particular bias in favour of combat.

And what do you get for more XP? Mostly combat power because there isn't all that much non combat stuff to begin with. Same with treasure. How many none combat treasure is there in 4E? Or how much advice is there how to incorporate other rewards than magic items into the game (all editions, not only 4E).

 

[Guest 85555]

And what do you get for more XP? Mostly combat power because there isn't all that much non combat stuff to begin with.

I don't think this is an indication the game is less about this stuff though. It is just because a lot of gamers (less so now, but there are still a lot of us who feel this way) don't find we need as many mechanics for things like social interaction as we do for combat. It isn't that combat is taking center stage in our games at all, it is that we need combat rules because combat is where you see more disagreement over outcomes. In social scenarios, many of us find it easier to operate without mechanics. This isn't true for everyone of course. There are lots of people who like skills such as Diplomacy or who enjoy Social Combat mechanics. But a good chunk of the gaming community is just as happy to play without this stuff. This is one of the reasons I think you can't really say a game is all about combat simply because it has lots of combat crunch in it.