D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[mrpopstar]

This is an unhelpful truism rather than a profound statement.

I don't seek to be profound. Ultimately its about blending the three pillars and finding a balance that meets the needs of your players and the needs of your campaign. That's all.

I don't know. What is the GM doing with all their prep? It's certainly not exploration.

Creating adventure environments that support the adventure (where combat and social interaction take place) is what I'm up to when I'm the Dungeon Master.

I fully support creating an endless string of combat encounters, but that's not what the game intends.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't seek to be profound. Ultimately its about blending the three pillars and finding a balance that meets the needs of your players and the needs of your campaign. That's all.

Creating adventure environments that support the adventure (where combat and social interaction take place) is what I'm up to when I'm the Dungeon Master.

I fully support creating an endless string of combat encounters, but that's not what the game intends.

And that's ultimately your doing and not a function of the game either, and that also doesn't mean that exploration is the core game experience either. So congratulations on disproving your own assertion.

 

[mrpopstar]

And that's ultimately your doing and not a function of the game either, and that also doesn't mean that exploration is the core game experience either. So congratulations on disproving your own assertion.

Alright with the snark. Yikes.

 

[Nefermandias]

There seems to be a pretty wide consensus among OD&D players that combat is a secondary element though. To the point that many even express that if you are in a fight with something, then you really did a lot of thing wrong in a row, though putting it that extreme is somewhat controversial.

But this is the idea behind making the collecting of treasure the primary source of experience. Fighting monsters always gave some XP to surviving players, but most rules of thumb go that fighting should contribute some 20 to 25% of the XP players get. That's the whole reason why random encounters are used to put pressure on players to optimize their progress through dungeons, since they increase the amount of danger considerably while barely adding to the rewards.

That's on the GM. The rules system doe not put obstacles in the players' path.

I bet parties would try to avoid fights more often if 5e combat was actually capable of killing PCs.

 

[mrpopstar]

I'm just struggling to understand the expectations of players with regard to encounters that feature social interaction and combat if they're not exploring. Are their characters just standing around and waiting for those opportunities to come to them?


The Dungeon Master's Guide lists the rules for running exploration before the rules for running social interaction, and the rules for running social interaction before the rules for running combat. The intro to the rules for running combat says "This section builds on the rules in the Player's Handbook and offers tips for keeping the game running smoothly when a fight breaks out." -- This says to me that combat punctuates an otherwise smoothly running game of exploration and social interaction.

Edit: Not social social, just social. Heh​

 

[Mort]

I bet parties would try to avoid fights more often if 5e combat was actually capable of killing PCs.

It isn't?

Boy, the party mage must be feeling petty good about his decision to charge the crossbow sniper and getting pincushioned.

I've had no problems with making 5e combat pretty dangerous. It DOES (if playing RAW) have more safeguards than prior editions, but incapable of killing PCs? Hardly!

 

[Yora]

I'm just struggling to understand the expectations of players with regard to encounters that feature social interaction and combat if they're not exploring. Are their characters just standing around and waiting for those opportunities to come to them?

No. The players go to where the script tells them to go and have the social interactions or fights that are waiting there for them.

 

[mrpopstar]

No. The players go to where the script tells them to go and have the social interactions or fights that are waiting there for them.

What script?

 

[Nefermandias]

It isn't?

Boy, the party mage must be feeling petty good about his decision to charge the crossbow sniper and getting pincushioned.

I've had no problems with making 5e combat pretty dangerous. It DOES (if playing RAW) have more safeguards than prior editions, but incapable of killing PCs? Hardly!

That was hyperbole.

 

[Hussar]

Passwall exists, so it's surely pointless to have walls on your dungeon, right?
That's how most of your arguments sound, really.

Is passwall a ritual or a cantrip? Is it even a first level spell widely available to multiple casters? No? Then this is a pretty spurious example. And it’s pretty much part and parcel to the “debunking” that is going on.

Sure, if we act like every renewable or minor resource in the game doesn’t exist then no worries, they have no impact on exploration.