D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Hussar]

And as long as it's only some of the time, that's not a big deal. Same idea as a Fighter one-shotting some opponent or other with a major crit-hit - sometimes things like that just happen.

No, it doesn't. Not in 5e. At least nothing over CR 1 anyway. A fighter, at best, could do about 30 points of damage with a critical hit. And, again, we're talking about a 1 in a several thousand event vs "inevitable" where the ranger should be bypassing about 50% of these challenges, at the very least.

And, it ignores that the ranger doesn't actually have to do anything. That fighter, at least, has to attack something. The ranger does this just by being there. There's zero engagement with the game. Winning the fight because of a lucky critical is something the group will high five about and talk about afterward. The party's ranger turning to the DM and saying, "We're here" is never something the group will give the slightest toss about.

 

[Faolyn]

You say that these things that stop the ranger are inevitable. And I'm the one making the DM adversarial? There is absolutely nothing "inevitable" about washing out the bridge. And, when it only happens when the group has a ranger and it happens every time (being inevitable and all that) then, yup, that's the DM railroading the group to protect his precious adventure.

Maybe you just have a crappy DM.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You say that these things that stop the ranger are inevitable. And I'm the one making the DM adversarial? There is absolutely nothing "inevitable" about washing out the bridge. And, when it only happens when the group has a ranger and it happens every time (being inevitable and all that) then, yup, that's the DM railroading the group to protect his precious adventure.

That's not what he said. He said some things would prevent the inevitability of the ranger reaching their destination.

 

[Hussar]

You could have had your pearls lost or stolen; you could have only just gotten the spell.

And, here we have Exhibit A of DM leveraging the campaign resources to railroad the party into doing what the DM wants. Because I will GUARANTEE that a wizard would NEVER have spell components stolen otherwise.

 

[Hussar]

So: if the DM includes exploration challenges so that the ranger can actually use their class skills, it's only done to railroad. It couldn't possibly be because parties that don't have rangers or other outdoorsy types wouldn't stand a chance against a flood or forest fire and so it wouldn't be fair to use those hazards against that sort of party, right? It couldn't be because the ranger's PC asked for more exploration challenges?

I guess if you have a wizard in the party and the DM decides to include a wizard's duel in an adventure, it must be railroading because they wouldn't have included such a duel if there weren't any wizards in the party.

I wasn't aware that having a DM create adventures that allow individuals to show off their skills was a bad thing.

But these elements are specifically NOT being included to showcase what the ranger can do. They are specifically being added to STOP the ranger from doing what the ranger can do. These aren't challenges, these are roadblocks to force the party into "exploration pillar" challenges that would normally be 100% bypassed by the character's class abilities.

Having a Wizard duel might be fine - although I find it a rather weird example, but whatever. At least there's engaging with the enemy wizard, there's all sorts of things that can happen here. In the example, the ranger is traveling from A to B because he cannot get lost - but, he cannot travel to B because the DM has gotten out the magic pencil of editing and changed the setting to remove the path to B. This is not showcasing the ranger at all. This is deliberately blocking the ranger for the sole purpose of forcing the group to engage with the DM's challenge.

 

[Hussar]

Maybe you just have a crappy DM.

And, well, here we are back to the Oberoni fallacy section of the discussion again. We just don't understand the game well enough, so, if we were just a bit better DM's, we'd have no problems. Yeah, that's about par for the course.

 

[Hussar]

That's not what he said. He said some things would prevent the inevitability of the ranger reaching their destination.

And these things will ALWAYS happen whenever there is a ranger in the group. Remember, this whole line was brought up when we started talking about how ranger abilities largely become an I Win button in exploration challenges. If these sorts of things don't happen, or happen rarely, then, well, that means that the ranger has an I Win button except when the DM decides to play the "Let's screw over the Ranger" card.

Changing the world to force the group to behave in a certain way is the textbook definition of railroading. It's the, "Well, there are four roads leading out of town, but, three of them are impassible" approach to gaming.

No, it's not, "Well, I'm just setting challenges for the group because that's what a DM does." It's deciding that because the DM wants to have these specific challenges, nothing the party can do will bypass these challenges in anything other than the DM prescribed way. It's railroading plain and simple.

There's a very, very good reason players hate this sort of stuff.

And before anyone starts getting all condescending about how I "just hate DM's" or any crap like that. I'm both a DM and a player. So, unlike permanent DM's, who I think become ossified in their approaches or permanent players who simply don't have a clue, I try to learn from my DM's and incorporate that into how I run games.

 

[Fanaelialae]

And these things will ALWAYS happen whenever there is a ranger in the group. Remember, this whole line was brought up when we started talking about how ranger abilities largely become an I Win button in exploration challenges. If these sorts of things don't happen, or happen rarely, then, well, that means that the ranger has an I Win button except when the DM decides to play the "Let's screw over the Ranger" card.

Changing the world to force the group to behave in a certain way is the textbook definition of railroading. It's the, "Well, there are four roads leading out of town, but, three of them are impassible" approach to gaming.

No, it's not, "Well, I'm just setting challenges for the group because that's what a DM does." It's deciding that because the DM wants to have these specific challenges, nothing the party can do will bypass these challenges in anything other than the DM prescribed way. It's railroading plain and simple.

There's a very, very good reason players hate this sort of stuff.

And before anyone starts getting all condescending about how I "just hate DM's" or any crap like that. I'm both a DM and a player. So, unlike permanent DM's, who I think become ossified in their approaches or permanent players who simply don't have a clue, I try to learn from my DM's and incorporate that into how I run games.

IME such things happen sometimes, irrespective of whether there is a ranger in the party.

The flooded river was simply there to illustrate that it's not an automatic win button. Obviously, the players should frequently be able to leverage their abilities to win. That's fun, and good DMing.

If the wizard takes Forcecage as their spell, it's not cool if the DM just makes every monster immune to Forcecage. But it's fine if the DM sprinkles in monsters that are immune (ie, a Beholder). That's simply providing the players with variety and challenge, which is (IMO) one of the marks of a good DM.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Read the DMG. Prep the game. Run the game. Continue with what was fun. Adjust what was not. Repeat.

Some of the players in this thread are at the "Adjust" step. Got any adjustments to offer?

 

[iserith]

Some of the players in this thread are at the "Adjust" step. Got any adjustments to offer?

It's not my judgment that those folks want to learn anything. We can't even agree on basic concepts like a rule existing in the DMG when it's quoted directly with a page reference.