D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Swarmkeeper]

See, this frustrates me though, because if we think of exploration as land and travel and discovery... you can't make a lot combats or social encounters harder with these elements. I'm not talking about terrain in combat, because that is a clearly combat effect. Just like Strong winds pretty much are exclusively a combat challenge.

I sense part of your frustration lies in the narrow definition of exploration you seem to be espousing here.

I'll post this again as it may help you (or someone else) reframe:

 

[Hussar]

Yep because it's totally not a trope in adventure fantasy... not at all...

And it's generally considered a bad one there too.

But, ok, so, you do this once. Now, the next time the same group has to deal with NPC's, in a similar situation, what do you think will happen? All you've done is teach players that NPC's are far more trouble than they are worth. It's far better to never bother interacting with them beyond the bare minimum, because, any interaction will be used against them to create a "challenge" over which the players have zero input or control.

And then the DM's start complaining about how players won't interact with their settings, won't engage in anything other than combat. It's because of approaches like this that just such the joy out of play. "Oh, hey, you have an NPC? Guess what? That NPC will be nothing but an albatross around your neck. Oh, you don't save the NPC? Well I guess now everyone hates you here's your penalty".

Yeah, no thanks.

 

[Eric V]

There's not a lot of meat on the exploration rules in 5e (AiME notwithstanding).

There seems to be a decent level of creativity amongst DMs here to make up for that lack, making exploration in their games fun.

Both statements are true. One can't use the second statement to refute the first one, though.

So when someone says "The game is missing X," and the response is "Make X yourself," well...yeah. I have to. Because the game I purchased doesn't address it adequately.

And I guess that is what some people are put off by? They bought a game, and the game is supposed to provide adequate rules for X. When it doesn't, it's ok to be put off by that. For an RPG, since you aren't buying a board, minis, etc...you really are just buying a ruleset. That's it. Nothing else (the minis are extra, but hardly required). So if it's lacking, it can be annoying. Surely people here have had a similar experience with a board game or somesuch? House rules for board games can be fun, but we'd never look at them and say "Thank goodness this scenario that's supposed to be part of the game has such poorly designed rules we made our own."

As for the actual issue of exploration, in previous versions of the game, one could interact with the environment and depending on how well you did, there could be consequences that were meaningful (loss of healing surges in a fail forward 4e skill challenge, for example.) 5e has some consequences...but they are too easily avoided or dealt with.* I suppose if you suffered a level or two of exhaustion and then immediately had a fight, it would matter; multiple exhaustion levels are hard to deal with, IIRC.

Someone further back suggested the better division was Journeys, Battles, and Downtime, and that makes good logical sense to me (and again, AiME does this).

It seems like exploration in 5e is really more about highlighting how cool some PCs are; let the ranger player describe how he guides the party through the dense forest, gathering berries, etc. If she does a particularly good job, give her inspiration. Let the Outlander go off on how he guided them through the Orc Mountains, avoiding patrols, etc. If Chaosmancer is right and most of the options are actual inevitable situations, let the players take over the descriptions and have their PCs shine. Then, do the same when the wizard hits the library looking for information, the rogue when she interrogates her underworld contacts, etc. Exploration pillar = PC shine time. Why not?

*I suppose tracking is an exploration pillar activity that has potentially serious consequences?

 

[Hussar]

I sense part of your frustration lies in the narrow definition of exploration you seem to be espousing here.

I'll post this again as it may help you (or someone else) reframe:

Blah blah blah. I'm two minutes in already and he hasn't said anything.

His point that there isn't any framework for combat or social pillars is a joke. I mean, as soon as you stop looking at D&D and look at any RPG, there's a ton of different frameworks.

Now 5 minutes in, he still hasn't actually talked about a single challenge. He's talking about narrating a scene as "exploration". Sorry, this is a complete miss of the point. We're talking about Exploration CHALLENGES. Setup react resolution is great advice, but, it's not actually addressing the issues brought up in this thread.

Yeah, this is pretty good advice but, it does not address any of the actual issues we've been talking about.

 

[Imaro]

And it's generally considered a bad one there too.

But, ok, so, you do this once. Now, the next time the same group has to deal with NPC's, in a similar situation, what do you think will happen? All you've done is teach players that NPC's are far more trouble than they are worth. It's far better to never bother interacting with them beyond the bare minimum, because, any interaction will be used against them to create a "challenge" over which the players have zero input or control.

And then the DM's start complaining about how players won't interact with their settings, won't engage in anything other than combat. It's because of approaches like this that just such the joy out of play. "Oh, hey, you have an NPC? Guess what? That NPC will be nothing but an albatross around your neck. Oh, you don't save the NPC? Well I guess now everyone hates you here's your penalty".

Yeah, no thanks.

Isn't the whole point of adventuring... trouble? I mean honestly what kind of characters do you play in D&D? A content farmer? a conservative tax collector? A mild mannered stablehand? These type of sentiments really don't make sense to me? Seriously why is your character adventuring if they do not want adventure? Do your players or you feel this way anytime they have to rescue an NPC? If not why does this particular NPC suddenly make them give up on the world in general? Is it because children in general are known for their rational and well though out decision making?

EDIT: And for this to be such a bad trope... it certainly has persisted. I would call it classic as opposed to bad, but hey you're entitled to your opinion.

EDIT 2: What control was taken away from the players in this situation... they can choose not to go after the child or they can choose to go after him/her.

 

[iserith]

The outlander background feature solves that entire problem about create food & water's slot cost & purify food/water slot cost/component need provided the party size is no more than 6 people per outlander (self plus 5=6 per)

Finding food and water falls under the rules for Foraging and, if you're doing that while traveling, the Activities While Traveling rules. Similar to the ranger automatically succeeding on navigation in favored terrain (as long as there's not a magical effect causing them to get lost), the outlander automatically succeeds on the check to forage (as long as the land offers food and water).

The trade-off is that as the outlander forages while traveling, the outlander does not contribute passive Perception to noticing hidden threats and is thus surprised if a monster tries to sneak up on the party or possibly runs right into a trap if they are at the front of the marching order. Now, an outlander ranger can both forage and stay alert to hidden threats while in favored terrain and find twice the food, but someone else will need to navigate to avoid getting lost. It's also notable that the outlander's feature seems to suggest a kind of bonus to navigation in certain situations (up to DM, perhaps advantage) so it might be better in some party compositions or scenarios to navigate than forage. The character can't do both while traveling and will have to choose.

So, yeah, if you want to prioritize keeping your food and water stocked up, outlander is a good choice. But like most things it comes with trade-offs. It's also worth nothing that if someone is taking outlander because they hate dealing with ration-counting, that's really just something to talk about with the DM so the DM can avoid presenting content the players don't like.

For my part, I often create a roll table for foraging that has on it valuable herbs, spices, flowers, animals, and whatnot. This creates more incentive to forage since it means gold or trade goods in the PCs' pockets or potentially things that can deal with poisons or disease. The forager might just find food and water and that's often good enough, but sometimes they hit upon a score! The question is - is it worth letting your guard down to find these things? The players must make this meaningful choice themselves.

 

[Umbran]

We're talking about Exploration CHALLENGES.

One possible takeaway from that video is that exploration challenges... if they aren't a conceptual false step, are only one portion of the pillar.

"Challenge" may be considered to be a tactical scenario the characters face (and, in D&D, from which they may get XP). Combat is usually such. Social interaction is sometimes such. Exploration often isn't. Thus Swarmkeeper's reference to the definition of "exploration" being too narrow - focused on the challenges, but ignoring those things that aren't tactical scenarios.

 

[iserith]

I sense part of your frustration lies in the narrow definition of exploration you seem to be espousing here.

I'll post this again as it may help you (or someone else) reframe:

I took the time to watch this video and I have to say it's quite good and applicable to this discussion. Thanks for posting it!

 

[robus]

Here’s the other thing that the exploration pillar offers the game: variety of pacing. If the PCs are constantly being challenged the players are going to burn out. Exploration offers a break from high stakes do or die moments and allow deeper aspects of the world to be brought into focus. Those deeper aspects leading inevitably to challenges and conflict because hey, it’s an adventure. But the ebb and flow of tension is important.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Looking for an exploration challenge??