D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[turnip_farmer]

Sure an hour to find a trap to save someone’s life is fine. What about the other twenty corridors that don’t have traps that you insist on checking? Only to walk into a trap that unseen servant doesn’t trigger the next time. After empty corridor number 3, I’m forming a new party.

More's the point, by the time you've finished searching the fifteenth corridor you've already burned through all your resources on wandering monsters, and it's irrelevant anyway since the evil ritual was completed an hour ago and the world's already doomed.

Maybe I've missed the point of this conversation.

 

[Asisreo]

All those questions you asked about the room are great, that can lead to good stories, but there is no pillar here to engage with. The question of "What is behind the Iron Door?" exists as soon as you introduce the iron door, but if the answer is as easily found as opening the door... then while it was a fun mystery for 30 seconds, it isn't offering anything. I can't engage with it beyond the storytelling.

You're missing the in-between from the mystery and the reveal. Its like schrodinger's cat. In the player's perspective, its both a trap and a reward until the mystery is uncovered. The way a party processes both those possibilities discern whether or not they want to engage and how they engage.

Actually, even worse sometimes. I'll say something like "I'll go investigate the desk" and the DM will tell me that I find a book on the desk... then stop and stare at me. And after a few seconds I need to say "I pick up the book and try reading it." There isn't exactly anything else for me to do with the information that I found a book except try to see what it is, so why do I have to specify that. And then one of two things happens. 1) They tell me the information in the book. Meaning that they could have simply skipped me saying I picked it up to just tell me what was in it. 2) It blows up. And boy don't I have egg on my face for falling for an exploding book trap. I'm done 15 health and have wasted 15 minutes doing nothing.

Assuming the book is a physical item and not some abstract improvised object created to punish players, there actually is more you could've done with the book to prevent yourself from getting hurt.

For instance, investigating it for traps. You have to tell the DM what you do with new information because its your character and what you do may not be obvious. You could decide you don't want to read the book. Maybe you use a spell or feature to read it without touching it. Perhaps you tell everyone to step aside so they aren't in a blast radius. Maybe you pour water on it.

What you think is a logical step-by-step scenario makes assumptions on the player's end.

The point is more that after the first time the Unseen Servant fails to detect a trip wire, the players will give it a hooked stick for all future attemtps to avoid the problem.

Great. And that hooked stick gets latched onto a trip wire and activates the trap. Hurray! But now the corridor is filled with blades and flames and noxious gas and it has a sharp right turn so you can't even reliably teleport to the other side.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to trip everything...

And these are the reasons why having a "one-size-fits-all" solution simply doesn't work as well as one may suppose.

 

[TheSword]

More's the point, by the time you've finished searching the fifteenth corridor you've already burned through all your resources on wandering monsters, and it's irrelevant anyway since the evil ritual was completed an hour ago and the world's already doomed.

Maybe I've missed the point of this conversation.

Apparantly Unseen Servant is a big ‘win button’ that trivializes exploration.

I’ve never seen it that way in 30 years of playing, but I’ve been wrong before.

 

[Asisreo]

I mean... what's the point of putting treasure somewhere the party will never look, never see, and if they are playing the game with a sense of trying to stay alive and accomplish their goals, will try and skip past?

Because they might look and they might see it.

Maybe the barbarian says something like "hm...well I want to climb down and see what's in there." Or the fighter says "I have tons of HP, I'll probably be fine if I hop down." Or the Druid says "I want to turn into a bat and check out the chasm."

Again, you're making assumptions about how the players play but every player is different and they may enjoy exploring and seeing new things.

 

[NotAYakk]

If the players don't know the treasure is there... then so what? Do you tell them later "You know, I put a +5 Holy Avenger down in the chasm. Man, this fight would have been so much easier if you guys had fallen in it and found that treasure."

I mean... what's the point of putting treasure somewhere the party will never look, never see, and if they are playing the game with a sense of trying to stay alive and accomplish their goals, will try and skip past?

Because the module is intended for a tournament, where multiple parties seek to finish the adventure in the least time.

The hidden treasures you place are rewards for PCs who explore creatively.

At least, that is why many OSR modules where structured that way.

 

[Yora]

Apparantly Unseen Servant is a big ‘win button’ that trivializes exploration.

I’ve never seen it that way in 30 years of playing, but I’ve been wrong before.

Have you seen a dungeon crawl in those 30 years?
I believe those went out of fashion back in 1984.

 

[TheSword]

Have you seen a dungeon crawl in those 30 years?
I believe those went out of fashion back in 1984.

Lol. Well corridors do exist in locations other than dungeons. In fact I have one at home and more than a few at work.

… Some are even trapped!

 

[Yora]

Do you use mage hand to deal with all the traps you encounter?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sure an hour to find a trap to save someone’s life is fine. What about the other twenty corridors that don’t have traps that you insist on checking? Only to walk into a trap that unseen servant doesn’t trigger the next time. After empty corridor number 3, I’m forming a new party.

In this circumstance as DM I would say, “So everybody, while you wait 30 minutes for Bob the wizard to do this, what are you doing?”… every time, until Bob got the hint.

As a player, when the DM asks me this, I’d be gauging how hard it would be for my fighter to shove the wizard down the corridor he’s probing.

So, because the DM is trying to prevent me from finding traps, and forcing us to just walk face first into them... Unseen servant isn't an effective method of detecting traps?

When the Bard is using persuasion to haggle the price, does the DM say "So everybody, while you wait 30 minutes for Clyde the Bard to do this, what are you doing?" with the hope that Clyde will stop using their skills to benefit the party? Or, if they really don't want to do it do they just stop allowing haggling?

And what would that say if the DM just came up and said "Guys, stop looking for traps. If I want you to see them, then you'll see them." ?

 

[Chaosmancer]

More's the point, by the time you've finished searching the fifteenth corridor you've already burned through all your resources on wandering monsters, and it's irrelevant anyway since the evil ritual was completed an hour ago and the world's already doomed.

Maybe I've missed the point of this conversation.

That exploration is only challenging if you have combat pillar do the heavy lifting, or force a time limit on every single one.

Honest question. We know that the game can run on pure combat. May not be the most exciting, but it can be done and people have fun with arenas and things like that. We know that the game can run on pure social encounters, political intrigue games are a lot of fun for some people.

Has anyone ever actually run a pure exploration game in modern DnD? No monsters. No time limits. Just having the party explore an ancient ruin and get treasure.