Turns and Rounds - relooking at exploration

[GnomeWorks]

Could you extrapolate? In this context, I am referring to time moving at a pace decided by what is going on, what needs to happen, what the players are trying to accomplish, and so on.

Okay, I think I'm okay with that.

I think my knee-jerk reaction was due to that the phrase is usually used in regards to how fast movement is accomplished - ie, if the players need to get somewhere and the DM wants it to take two weeks, their mode of transportation will take two weeks, even if in other instances it would take one week, or a month.

However, if you're in a situation where the PCs need to just sit around for a couple months waiting for something else to happen, generally handwaving that time-period in some fashion is, IMO, acceptable. I'd prefer less handwaving, but also understand that dealing with the intricacies of day-to-day living while just waiting can be mind-numbingly boring.

Exploration and social classes are niche concepts.

So is combat.

Most games are 50% combat, 25% exploration, 25% social.

But is this because that is what players want, or is it because that's what the system allows for, in terms of character focus?

I would argue that D&D has always lent itself to a stronger combat-based approach, because - as I've pointed out - every class has a combat aspect. Not every class has an exploration or a social aspect. If this were changed, I imagine your percentages would, as well.

Most normal classes have exploration and social sides to them.

As the side-dish to the entree. They're not the focal point. Even the ranger and the rogue, the most explorer-y of the classes, have strong combat aspects.

I mean, we don't need a suite of magical powers for social and exploration stuff.

We also don't need a suite of magical powers for combat, yet here we are.

They aren't needed, but imagine what the game would look like if they were there. I think it would be significantly more balanced among the pillars, and allow for a wider breadth of play.

We have nature, diplomacy, track, intimidate, ect...

No reason the combat aspects of classes couldn't be turned into skills. *shrug*

You're rarely going to have to roll a diplomacy check for every question you ask, though this too depends on the game.

I'm not going to say that you should, because that would be ludicrous. We don't ask for a skill check to tie your shoes; asking a question of someone willing to answer shouldn't call for a skill check, either.

The rules for social and exploration are a lot "looser" because approaches to them are much more subjective. Some guys take the methodical 10' pole approach. Some guys just start picking up trinkets and seeing what they do. We have skill checks to match up appropriately to that, but I can't really see the need for rules beyond what we've got.

You just have to reframe the concepts of exploration and social encounters in a way that makes them similar to combat, which has a definite beginning and definite end.

In any given challenge, there are two outcomes - you succeed, or you fail. In combat, success means you win and your enemies are defeated; failure means you are defeated, whether that means you're dead, unconscious, taken prisoner, whatever.

In exploration, the goal is to get from Point A to Point B. Success means you arrive, failure means you don't. Failure might mean that you die (you decided to go through a mountain pass closed for the winter, and got avalanche'd on), or it just means you have to try again from a new Point A after recuperating and getting more supplies. Failure is significantly less definite, but success isn't.

Social encounters are, I'll admit, a lot trickier in terms of defining them in this kind of framework. However, if you take a social encounter to mean trying to convince someone to see something your way, then success means they agree with you, and failure means they don't (or they even wind up making you agree with them! Though that's a lot harder to do when you're dealing with PCs). There's no reason this couldn't be represented by a more indepth system than just simple bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate.

Sure, but in-game mechanics for this stuff will be very hit and miss. What if the game says a day is an hour of IRL time? How do we reconcile that with combat rounds being 6 seconds in-game but your average combat taking 20min to an hour. I think time is simply one of those things that needs to be left up to the game in question. Days can come and go on a fixed schedule, as the plot decides, or based on in-game actions.

I... don't know where this tangent came from?

I don't know about anybody else in the thread, but I'm not talking about doing a strict IRL:IC time comparison. I'm more for having definite units of time being used in-game, that can be referenced by in-game mechanics, not the marriage of real time to game time.

 

[trancejeremy]

It really depends on how people play.

The old school way was more of a sandbox and so keeping track of time (and things like provisions and wandering monsters) was important.

So in a way, should the game try to emphasize exploration more, rather than story based stuff, where everything is handwaved in between scenes or encounters? Yes. But it shouldn't require it, for those that don't like exploring.

 

[tlantl]

I think that tracking time and resources is valuable to the game. I like to use training times research and healing over time in my campaigns.

I encourage players to hire henchmen and hirelings and to play them when their primary character is otherwise occupied.

Sometimes the group will want to keep playing while a character has to sit out an adventure or two. Tracking time is very important in these situations.

Should something like this exist in the game? Sure, but it really doesn't need to be in the DMG unless the game relies on these rules. I don't see it happening since the vast majority of players and DM's will likely ignore them to focus on the combat and striving to complete there ideal characters in record time.

I remember a play test outline where a dm mentioned having the party spend a week healing. Oh gods the shouting and reviling of the rules because of it. How barbarically archaic of them.

 

[Libramarian]

Exploration and social classes are niche concepts. Most games are 50% combat, 25% exploration, 25% social.

Whoa whoaaa. This is certainly not true for me. My 1e game is more like 50% exploration, 30% social, 20% combat. A game where you literally spend half the playing time in deadly combat would be serious hack & slash by my standards. You don't even do that in most videogames.

Incidentally the social rules in 1e for morale/loyalty/encounter reactions are very good and imo more sophisticated than diplomacy/bluff/intimidate skill rules.

The exploration rules in 1e are alright; I think 5e could actually improve in this area. You know, if we're allowed to imagine that 5e might actually be better than our favorite edition at something, rather than just hoping it won't be worse.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I always found turns to be an unnecessary measure in prior editions. Assign actual time to activities that do not require a game term instead.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It certainly does depend on the sort of game you're running.

I'd note that the 'classic' AD&D segment -> round -> turn did bring up various issues. 1 minute rounds were a bit mind bending, as movement rates and such made no sense at all in that system. It was at least something when it came to gritty play where your torch ran out after exactly an hour, etc. but otherwise it was rather awkward. Still, if you're going to track things at that level you need something.

OTOH a more story-based approach has little need of this sort of tracking. The torches run out when it is dramatically appropriate. If it isn't going to really matter how many torches you used today then there's little point in tracking them.

 

[nomotog]

Having a non combat turn system is kind of a nice thing. At the very least it makes the players take turns and means that everyone has the opportunity to participate. I just of picture a board where their is a map of the room and the players take there turns moving around there minis and investigating diffrent parts of the room. (A turn would be loosely defined amount of time allowing you to move anywhere in the room and use one ability.) Like the rouge goes over to the door and tries to pick the lock. The wizard goes over to a painting and used a knowledge check on it. Meanwhile the fighter uses a str check to try and brake open a chest. Then maybe different monsters could have abilities that take a turn to use.

 

[howandwhy99]

I mean, we don't need a suite of magical powers for social and exploration stuff.

I know I'm cherry picking and that isn't cool. I simply want to point out that in D&D almost all of the magical spells were about exploration. I'd grant you the cleric's spells were vastly more about socialization or diplomacy, but that was more of the cleric's deal too. That players took every one of these and attempted to find some utility for each in combat (even Find Familiar in one game I was in back in middle school) is just indicative of the play preferences or style those players had. It wasn't right or wrong. A lot of stuff was used out of context, out of the box so to speak. Such play meant not seeing any one spell or power as a one trick pony. Anything might be useful in any given situation if one were creative enough. Only later did balancing become exclusively a concern in regards to combat and not everything also outside of encounters.

Having a non combat turn system is kind of a nice thing. At the very least it makes the players take turns and means that everyone has the opportunity to participate. I just of picture a board where their is a map of the room and the players take there turns moving around there minis and investigating diffrent parts of the room. (A turn would be loosely defined amount of time allowing you to move anywhere in the room and use one ability.) Like the rouge goes over to the door and tries to pick the lock. The wizard goes over to a painting and used a knowledge check on it. Meanwhile the fighter uses a str check to try and brake open a chest. Then maybe different monsters could have abilities that take a turn to use.

If the game goes to player turn by player turn play, sharing the DM from one pov, the whole thing is bound to slow inexorably down.

The OD&D games I play and run do this, but it simply isn't mandatory. My players have tired of me telling them that group initiative, group actions, and working together make things go much faster ...but, this is never mandatory. Each player chooses to work together or apart. Talking amongst players is actually a sign of progress in my experience. Even if they are arguing out each one's preference, it comes down to both caring about what to do in the game. Allowing both group and individual actions (public and private) means play is as fast as the players can account for. It places direction, manner, and pacing on them.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't easy and I've rarely seen it happen quickly like in a one off convention game, its simply hard to gel with strangers in that amount of time, but teams that work together and have developed their own repartee do come to tournaments and can run a DM through the paces.

 

[Blackwarder]

When I first thought about resurecting turns the general scenario was instances when the module or the DM say that "if the guards are dead the ogres in the next room will come investigating in three turns" or things like "the dungeon is being filled with water at the rate of 2' feet per turn" things that will allow the DM to know where the players are in relation to other stuf in the dungeon.

I don't think that the main idea behind turns should be to have the players play by turns though, although that will probably fall to play styles, just like the round is the basic unit of measure when it comes to combat the turn will be the basic unit of measure when it comes to exploration or socialization if the group choose to use it. So if the group choose to move on down the dungeon, you know where they will be next turn when you roll for a random encounter and if they are in a room and the characters want to take a closer look at it than the DM can say that it takes half a turn because it's a small room and the guys who taken the closer look can now do somthing else, and of course it's one of the more convenient ways to track consumables for the groups who's choose to do so.

Warder

 

[Kynn]

I don't see why "turns" -- blocks of 10 minutes -- are as important as just saying "in 30 minutes the ogres will investigate" or "the water is filling up at a rate of one foot every five minutes."

The real world somehow gets along without a special name for a block of ten minutes, why can't D&D?