D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[iserith]

And you've been dismissive almost this entire time that anyone could have a problem. I've talked to you about what the rules say, and other than a disagreement on how targeting works through a window, we've never had an actual rules disagreement.

And, no, wandering monsters aren't a satisfying challenge for exploration. They aren't. Neither are ticking clocks. And those have been the only solutions you offered. You have offered nothing else.

did someone else offer diseases up? Yes they did. I pointed out that there aren't a lot of diseases that would apply without homebrewing. They took offense and pointed me to the rules that say they are allowed to homebrew because there aren't a lot of diseases that apply... Wonder why that didn't disprove my point.

They offered exhaustion. I pointed out that the overland travel rules that I've seen offer almost no way to give exhaustion. I asked how they could apply them, I was never given an answer, they wanted to focus on the DM having a mosquito give the players the plague and start a pandemic.

We've discussed rangers and overland travel. And no one has been willing to actually answer this beyond putting a single obstacle and saying "see, a challenge" and not bothering (so far) to speak to how the party can't just... walk around it. Sure, it might add weeks to their travel time, but if you don't have a ticking clock, then that isn't a problem. And if you do have a ticking clock, well, there is issues with that as well, if you don't curate the game.

So, rather than insisting that I must be a crap DM if I have an issue with the rules, maybe look at the content of the discussions.

First, I'm not dismissive about your claim that you have a problem. I believe you! I'm saying the problem is actually not with the rules that cover exploration in D&D 5e. Based on your comments, I think it's in your understanding of those rules, your preparation, presentation, and implementation. This doesn't make you or anyone else a "crap" DM, no more than it makes me a "crap" linguist that my Spanish isn't as good as it could be. It's just something to work on. Nobody's born with the ability to run D&D 5e exploration challenges well!

Overland travel rules include forced marching which can cause exhaustion. It happened to my character tonight, in fact, when we pressed on further than we can normally in order to find a safe place to long rest. We didn't, as it turned out, and I didn't want to risk another level of exhaustion pushing further. So we didn't regain any hit points or hit dice that night which was not great.

As for diseases and simple wilderness obstacles, I'm not responsible for other people's arguments, only my own. But I think you really need to be less dismissive of time as a limited resource in the game. It matters and it makes everything work better and gives meaningful choices and teeth to challenges of all sorts. I think you would also benefit from discontinuing this thing you have with separating the pillars to no good result. They work together to their mutual benefit. Leverage that.

And my fellow DMs I've talked to.
And other people in this thread that agree with me
And the people who ask these questions so many times that is has spawned multiple articles, mutliple video essays and multiple unique discussion threads.

But yea, it's only me.

So, Rime of the Frost Maiden huh? Does it have special rules for "punishing weather" because if I use the rules in the DMG then I don't see how there could be any such thing. Unless you couldn't afford winter clothing, or you desperately needed your passive perception for some reason. Because with Winter Clothing the only effect you could have been suffering is the area being lightly obscured and disadvantage on perception checks.

We are never going to agree that wandering monsters are exploration challenges. So, I don't know why you keep insisting on them.

And "exploring the dungeon" is what we've been talking about, so I can't really add anything without details. Though I am curious about the "challenge" to find an alternate way in. Curious why you felt the need to do that, and what the nature of this challenge was. Did you know where this entrance was?

No, I didn't say it's only you that may have an issue, just that you can only speak for yourself.

Heavy precipitation and strong wind is punishing. Penalties to Perception and disadvantage to ranged weapon attacks is not great. It means stealthy monsters like yetis can more easily get the drop on us and the ranger and my rogue scout have to switch from ranged attacks to melee which isn't always ideal. On days with particularly bad weather, we could just not travel, but then there's this ticking clock. We have to weigh if it's worth sitting around when bad things are happening. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it's not. As an example, in my forest/swamp hexcrawl, the players stayed in town for a full month doing downtime activities because the weather was continually terrible. The players decided they'd let whatever events would unfold do so rather than risk it. Things are now worse and they're dealing with the repercussions.

Avoiding wandering monsters by sneaking past them is by definition an exploration challenge. So is following their tracks back to their lair, if they have one. Or being tailed by some and picking up your pace from slow to fast, say, to keep ahead of them while risking a penalty to passive Perception and not being able to move stealthily. If you're only thinking about wandering monsters or random encounters as fights, then you are limiting yourself to no good end. And again, that's still just you separating the pillars in the game to no benefit. Use them all, more than one at a time perhaps to reinforce each other and your game is more dynamic as a result.

As to your question about finding the alternate entrance, we had been in this dungeon before, but went through the fortified front gate, having been let in by the monsters guarding it. We explored only a small part of it at the time before wearing out our welcome and decided to return this session. Figuring they'd not be best pleased to see us at the front gate this time (which would put us at a distinct disadvantage tactically), we declared we would explore the mountains around it to see if we could find a chimney, sewer pipe, or some other means of entry. After some searching, climbing, and balancing our way on narrow icy paths, we found ourselves on the top of the structure where we could lower ourselves down using ropes into an upper window. We had to use over 100 feet of our rope which we were not able to collect on the way out. I also nearly fell off a path while traversing it, taking some damage while being rescued, which was embarrassing because my rogue, Icewind Dale, is actually really good at balancing given he's a legendary ice skater.

 

[Hussar]

Just to go back to the Waterdeep to Neverwinter example. According to this site: Forgotten Realms (Faerun, Sword Coast) Interactive Map that's a trip of about 350 miles (it's 330 as the crow flies, and the road follows the route pretty closely. Now, there are several things I'd bring up before this campaign even started.

1. Why are we traveling overland? We can travel by water (both Waterdeep and Neverwinter ARE major ports after all) in half the time and a heck of a lot more comfortably.

2. Why in hell would that take 16 sessions?!?! We're talking 13 days of travel, on a major road with multiple communities along the way. We cannot get lost. Heck, we would only be sleeping outside of a town maybe half the time, and that's only looking at the major communities - there are small towns all along that route - it is a major, well maintained trade route after all.

3. How is this even remotely an "exploration"? We're on a road. A well maintained, pretty civilized route between two of the largest cities in Faerun.

Withot a concrete idea of what they actually want, no, I don't think we can help. We've tried suggesting things, but apparently not what they want.

I've seen a lot of counter arguments, but, precious few suggestions. "Hey, a ranger's abilites bypass many exploration challenges" "Well, place impassible barriers in the way and force the group to deal with them" is not really much of a suggestion. "Choose to interpret everything in such a way that it screws over anything that you don't personally approve of (every flagstone counts as a separate "object" to be interacted with by an unseen servant for example)" is also spectacularly unuseful.

What would I actually want? Well, to be honest, 4e does do this a lot better than 5e with it's skill challenge mechanics. I guess what would make me happy would be either of the following two things, or, even better, both:

1. Advice in the DMG that is actually concrete about creating exploration challenges that takes into consideration the abilities that a group can easily have. Many of the challenges in the DMG are so easily trivialized by very basic character options.

2. A skill system that is actually more than just simple pass/fail. One system I recall from a game I used to play (Sufficiently Advanced - an SF game) gave characters a pool of resources to draw upon when attempting something. If you failed, your pool was reduced. Run out of the resource pool and you can't try to do that thing any more. So, in D&D terms, I'd base it on your stats. You want to climb a mountain? Ok, here's your pool based on your Str score (modified by athletics skill). Every time you fail, you do not make progress and your pool is reduced. Fail too many times, or simply give up before you run out of resources, and you have to wait until those resources replenish over time to attempt again. The system that that game used gave the challenge it's own dice pool and modifiers, so it was always contested rolls to win each attempt. Deplete the challenge's pool and you succeed.

To me, even a very simple system like that would go SO far towards making exploration actually interesting in the game. Instead of pass/fail rolls or just bypassing the challenge entirely, you have to actually leverage your character resources each time. Additionally, put it on the player to narrate events. You know how big the pool of the opposition is. You know how much you've depleted it. Tell me how close you are to completion. Or, conversely, let the DM narrate. I'm not terribly fussy on that part. I just like the idea of engaging the player that way.

But, as it is? Exploration is the filler stuff between the things that people actually remember and talk about after the game. Nobody ever talks about the fifteen thousandth time your rogue has rolled an Investigation check on yet another door to look for traps. Nobody gives a naughty word. But, we have to do it, because if we don't - AHA! Gotcha! You didn't check for traps, so, that trap gets you. Never minding that I had to screw around with the last thirty doors that weren't trapped and waste all that table time just so I can actually be useful that one time.

No thanks.

 

[MichaelSomething]

looking for some exploration aid??

5E Hexcrawl

The hexcrawl is a game structure for running wilderness exploration scenarios. Although it was initially a core component of the D&D experience, the hexcrawl slowly faded away. By 1989 there wer

thealexandrian.net

 

[TheSword]

Just to go back to the Waterdeep to Neverwinter example. According to this site: Forgotten Realms (Faerun, Sword Coast) Interactive Map that's a trip of about 350 miles (it's 330 as the crow flies, and the road follows the route pretty closely. Now, there are several things I'd bring up before this campaign even started.

1. Why are we traveling overland? We can travel by water (both Waterdeep and Neverwinter ARE major ports after all) in half the time and a heck of a lot more comfortably.

2. Why in hell would that take 16 sessions?!?! We're talking 13 days of travel, on a major road with multiple communities along the way. We cannot get lost. Heck, we would only be sleeping outside of a town maybe half the time, and that's only looking at the major communities - there are small towns all along that route - it is a major, well maintained trade route after all.

3. How is this even remotely an "exploration"? We're on a road. A well maintained, pretty civilized route between two of the largest cities in Faerun.

I've seen a lot of counter arguments, but, precious few suggestions. "Hey, a ranger's abilites bypass many exploration challenges" "Well, place impassible barriers in the way and force the group to deal with them" is not really much of a suggestion. "Choose to interpret everything in such a way that it screws over anything that you don't personally approve of (every flagstone counts as a separate "object" to be interacted with by an unseen servant for example)" is also spectacularly unuseful.

What would I actually want? Well, to be honest, 4e does do this a lot better than 5e with it's skill challenge mechanics. I guess what would make me happy would be either of the following two things, or, even better, both:

1. Advice in the DMG that is actually concrete about creating exploration challenges that takes into consideration the abilities that a group can easily have. Many of the challenges in the DMG are so easily trivialized by very basic character options.

2. A skill system that is actually more than just simple pass/fail. One system I recall from a game I used to play (Sufficiently Advanced - an SF game) gave characters a pool of resources to draw upon when attempting something. If you failed, your pool was reduced. Run out of the resource pool and you can't try to do that thing any more. So, in D&D terms, I'd base it on your stats. You want to climb a mountain? Ok, here's your pool based on your Str score (modified by athletics skill). Every time you fail, you do not make progress and your pool is reduced. Fail too many times, or simply give up before you run out of resources, and you have to wait until those resources replenish over time to attempt again. The system that that game used gave the challenge it's own dice pool and modifiers, so it was always contested rolls to win each attempt. Deplete the challenge's pool and you succeed.

To me, even a very simple system like that would go SO far towards making exploration actually interesting in the game. Instead of pass/fail rolls or just bypassing the challenge entirely, you have to actually leverage your character resources each time. Additionally, put it on the player to narrate events. You know how big the pool of the opposition is. You know how much you've depleted it. Tell me how close you are to completion. Or, conversely, let the DM narrate. I'm not terribly fussy on that part. I just like the idea of engaging the player that way.

But, as it is? Exploration is the filler stuff between the things that people actually remember and talk about after the game. Nobody ever talks about the fifteen thousandth time your rogue has rolled an Investigation check on yet another door to look for traps. Nobody gives a naughty word. But, we have to do it, because if we don't - AHA! Gotcha! You didn't check for traps, so, that trap gets you. Never minding that I had to screw around with the last thirty doors that weren't trapped and waste all that table time just so I can actually be useful that one time.

No thanks.

So while I agree that 16 days of fully detailed road travel seems a lot. Chaosmancer explained that there were all sorts of adventures along the way. If the PCs have an module at each stop over that could be more than possible. He did say he went up several levels and gained 1000’s of gold, so something must of happened.

I have to take issue with you hating on the exploration pillar. Exploration is everything apart from combat and roleplay. It isn’t just whether you navigate your way. There can be a whole heap of exploration on the road. As can anyone who has ever done a road trip can tell you. So if combat and roleplay is all you talk about then good for you. That definitely isn’t the case for me. It’s the places we saw that I find memorable as well as the things we saw there. Strahd is far more interesting with his castle and the castle is more interesting in the setting of Barovia. Acerak is made more interesting by the Tomb of Annihilation which is in turn more interesting because of its setting in Chult.

D&D is not going to adopt an abstract exploration pool system when there are lots and lots of people that enjoy the travel and exploration. They want to Hex Crawl they want to search. And DMs want the freedom to be able to drop encounters and adventures in when it suits them. If you want it, homebrew it or 3rd party it. If Chaosmancer’s DM writes a campaign made up of short adventures that the PCs experience on the way to Neverwinter then I see no reason why that can’t be a cool campaign if the PCs are enjoying it. It’s obviously going to be very different to hex crawling across Chult but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun.

 

[Lanefan]

It would stop me after a single time. And frankly, that's assuming I bother to make a new character to continue playing.

By this I'm guessing you're also not a fan of Roguelike computer games, where most of the point is simply to see how far you get before you die - and you 99.9+% likely will die; actually winning the game is extremely difficult and-or takes many hours (or days, weeks, months!) of grinding and-or a lottery-ticket-crazy run of good luck. Die, and you start over from scratch; there's no save points.

I play these all the time.

I see playing a D&D character in a similar light as playing in a Roguelike - I'll run it till it drops, and see how far it gets. Then I'll roll up another (or get the first one revived; this doesn't map to a Roguelike as it kind of is a save-point) and try again.

Why? What value is there in keeping that information secret from the players?

Do the characters know the numeric odds? No. The the players shouldn't either.

No, I mean stuff like "this is a potion of healing" or "this item has a death curse". Real information, not fake information meant to deceive them.

I mean, honestly, you literally are setting it up so that the players can't even trust the information they learn by investigating. Maybe it is a potion of giant strength, maybe it is a potion of exploding heads, no way to know except drinking it, or by spending 100 gp, 6 constitution points (30 hp) and being in a secured lab in a safe location where no monsters can get you.

side note: just for the record, losing Con (or gaining Con) doesn't change your h.p. total in my game; your hit points are locked in when rolled.

Oh, and when you try that with the next item, it turns out it was a pearl of nuclear winter that only activates when someone casts magic on it.

I'm not saying you don't have fun at your table, but from where I am sitting, you seem to almost be actively discouraging people from playing the game. Investigate everything, take every precaution, then still get the booby prize because even that isn't enough. At some point... I'd just be done with it. If I can't trust anything and everything is going to kill me, then that isn't worth the investment of sixteen hours a month.

It is when you survive against all those things that were trying to kill you, and come home with a whack o' loot, more xp, and a heightened reputation.

Because you seem to actively despise the players learning anything concrete. And I don't know why. Lack of information isn't supposed to be the challenge.

Right, just keep penalizing people for trying to roleplay. Because, I'm sorry, but even the craziest people don't constantly risk their lives for no reason. I'm not roleplaying someone who is suicidal.

Yes you are, otherwise your PC would be a tavernkeeper or a stonemason or a sailor instead of an adventurer.

Worth noting that not all the items in my game are anywhere near as dangerous as the example chest I gave; that was mostly to make a point. I've never used those boots, for example; I made them up while typing that post (though a variant might appear someday that give the wearer the ability to turn into a tree now and then...).

But magic in general is and always has been high risk, high reward.

And they get punished for it if that decision isn't to take the risk of death or maiming, the very high it seems risk of death or maiming, because that's the best way to get XP, which is something the player knows, and wants, while I'd say the character would.. want to live. And field testing anything or directly touching anything in this world seems like a quick way to death.

What's a bit ironic here is that years ago, in-character as Lanefan the Fighter, I wrote a guide on how to safely field-test magic items. One of these days I'll post it here somewhere just for fun, if I can figure out how.

Which they can't honestly do, unless they play 20 questions, which they have to do to even have a chance, and even that might be a lie, because maybe they smell roses, but they don't know that the item was enchanted so the scent of the death poison appears like the scent of roses. Oops, roll a new character, guess you should have been more careful and asked 40 questions, but hey, if you hadn't have died you'd have got a lot of XP to level up with.

A simple Detect Magic tells you if the item's enchanted, and the strength of said enchantment; and if something's strongly enchanted some caution is advised, yes.

The group wanted to explore some ruins on a map we found, so we kept traveling to more random dungeons and fighting random things, he was starting some sort of plot with these dragons but the game fell apart because we were getting to be about a year and a half in and he was burning out.

Too bad - it sounds like it had potential.

One bit of advice I'll offer any prospective DM: if you're not willing or able to commit for the long haul - and by that I mean several years, minimum - and pace yourself accordingly, then think twice about whether to start. A player burning out doesn't sink the campaign; a DM burning out does.

 

[Lanefan]

And you've been dismissive almost this entire time that anyone could have a problem. I've talked to you about what the rules say, and other than a disagreement on how targeting works through a window, we've never had an actual rules disagreement.

And, no, wandering monsters aren't a satisfying challenge for exploration. They aren't. Neither are ticking clocks. And those have been the only solutions you offered. You have offered nothing else.

did someone else offer diseases up? Yes they did. I pointed out that there aren't a lot of diseases that would apply without homebrewing. They took offense and pointed me to the rules that say they are allowed to homebrew because there aren't a lot of diseases that apply... Wonder why that didn't disprove my point.

They offered exhaustion. I pointed out that the overland travel rules that I've seen offer almost no way to give exhaustion. I asked how they could apply them, I was never given an answer, they wanted to focus on the DM having a mosquito give the players the plague and start a pandemic.

We've discussed rangers and overland travel. And no one has been willing to actually answer this beyond putting a single obstacle and saying "see, a challenge" and not bothering (so far) to speak to how the party can't just... walk around it. Sure, it might add weeks to their travel time, but if you don't have a ticking clock, then that isn't a problem. And if you do have a ticking clock, well, there is issues with that as well, if you don't curate the game.

So, rather than insisting that I must be a crap DM if I have an issue with the rules, maybe look at the content of the discussions.

I think the issue with providing decent exploration challenge might lie in the 5e rules themselves:

Disease:
Am I right in remembering that one of you said disease in 5e can only be caught through combat? So much for that challenge.

Time was, disease was an environmental hazard, a known risk if exploring (or even just staying too long in) particularly dirty or corrupted areas; and while mid-high level groups can usually deal with this easily, low-level parties could not. This has at times led to some very nasty choices as to whether or not to race back to town before the sick character dies, where doing so could mean failure in the mission; or to keep going and hopefully succeed at the mission while consigning the sick character to - maybe - die.

Attrition:
The main type of challenge in exploration almost revolves around some form of medium-to-long-term attrition: attrition of hit points, of resources, of equipment, of spells, in some cases of in-game time, or some combination of these; with the idea being that you lose more than you can recover over a given period of time.

Of these, attrition of hit points (which is where traps, environmental hazards, and wandering monsters come in) has been nullfied by 5e's overly-generous resting and recovery rates. Attrition of spells has been almost completely nullified by at-will cantrips and ritual casting. Attrition of resources and equipment has been nullified by encouraged laxity in tracking rations, ammo, etc., and by easier access to spells and abilities that replace or replenish said resources.

Attrition of in-game time (the "ticking clock") is the only one to remain largely unchanged through the editions. This is probably why it keeps coming up in the thread as an example of a challenge: it's one of the very few that are left.

Navigation:
This one covers getting lost, on various scales. Being lost isn't a direct challenge in itself, but it can greatly enhance the threat of some attrition challenges noted above.

Once, the standard was that if the party (i.e. the players) didn't make a map or otherwise mark their trail they'd automatically become lost on trying to retrace their steps out of a dungeon. Sadly, at-table mapmaking fell out of favour, and so did the associated challenge in dungeon-crawling.

Outdoors, time was when a party - even with a Ranger - might sometimes get so badly lost they couldn't even find the adventure! But now that a 5e Ranger can (much of the time) simply not get lost eases the challenge considerably, for parties that have a Ranger along; and even parties without a Ranger have other options and abilities to help. The only real way to get characters lost now is if they're at sea beyond sight of land and somehow mess up their navigation or get shunted off course by current or storm.

Summary:
5e has gone to considerable lengths to make the game easy* on its characters and its players; and this shows through most clearly on the exploration side. To make exploration challenging again probably means porting in some ideas from older editions.

* - relative to older versions of the game.

 

[Lyxen]

From 40+ years of D&D with exploration done in lots of various environments both in and outside of game, exploration only works if a number of conditions are met:

• The DM wants to run it, and will provide appropriate thrills and challenges
• The majority of the players want to do it
• At least one player is willing to take care of the management of resources for the group, hopefully someone who has fun doing that
• The party is low level enough for the challenges to actually matter
  • I would say that, after level 3-4, most of the challenges can be met by magic in one way or another, rather than by cleverness and management of resources.

It's not a question of the edition of the game, this was valid from BECMI (The Isle of Dread) to 5e (Tomb of Annihilation), with all the groups/tables that I have played with. If one of the conditions above is not met, you will have trouble running exploration at your table for more than a few sessions, and even then some players will disengage and complain.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Okay, but... how does the flooded river actually change anything?

Is this part of the river impassable? Then we just travel five days downriver to the other bridge and cross that. Or we travel seven days upriver and cross at a narrower point that isn't flooded. Or we wait three days for the flood water to recede and make the river passable again.

You haven't stopped us from crossing the river, or stopped us from reaching our destination. You've delayed us, forced us to detour, but that doesn't mean anything. It accomplishes exactly zero goals in providing a challenge for the party or the ranger.

It changes things in the same way that any hurdle changes things. Which is to say, we don't know until the players decide how they will address the hurdle and we see whether they succeed or not, as well as any consequences that arise as a result.

Maybe they decide to look for a ford downstream, and in the process run across a different adventure site/hook, which they might or might not pursue instead. Maybe they build a raft and either successfully cross the river, or they all drown. Maybe they just decide to give up and go home. Maybe they do something entirely different.

By your reasoning, pretty much every encounter that isn't a big game changer is pointless. However, I would argue that it's your reasoning that's flawed. Most combats won't stop you from achieving your goal, so does that make most combats pointless? IMO, absolutely not. They present the players with a (hopefully) fun challenge to overcome. It's a hurdle they must surpass along the way, without which victory would be meaningless. You could just "let" your players "win" without presenting them without any challenge whatsoever, but I daresay that most players would not enjoy such a game.

 

[Hussar]

From 40+ years of D&D with exploration done in lots of various environments both in and outside of game, exploration only works if a number of conditions are met:

• The DM wants to run it, and will provide appropriate thrills and challenges
• The majority of the players want to do it
• At least one player is willing to take care of the management of resources for the group, hopefully someone who has fun doing that
• The party is low level enough for the challenges to actually matter
  • I would say that, after level 3-4, most of the challenges can be met by magic in one way or another, rather than by cleverness and management of resources.

It's not a question of the edition of the game, this was valid from BECMI (The Isle of Dread) to 5e (Tomb of Annihilation), with all the groups/tables that I have played with. If one of the conditions above is not met, you will have trouble running exploration at your table for more than a few sessions, and even then some players will disengage and complain.

I would agree with this 100%

 

[Hussar]

when there are lots and lots of people that enjoy the travel and exploration.

Oh good. We've moved on from Oberoni to appeals to authority. Good to see that people are so in touch with the feelings of millions of gamers they've never met or spoken to.

These discussions get a lot more productive when people just speak for themselves instead of trying to tell others how wrong they are based on what some fictional group of people apparently like or dislike. I mean, if exploration is THAT popular in the game, how come it's such a minor part of the rules and is pretty much entirely left up to freeforming?

Combat's pretty popular. And, oh look, an entire abstract system for resolving combat conflicts. Interacting with NPC's is pretty popular. Oh, look, an entire abstract system for dealing with social encounters. But, apparently, despite exploration being popular with lots and lots of people, in forty years of the game, no one has bothered coming up with systems for resolving challenges.

Funny how that goes. Almost like stuff that isn't really very popular barely appears in the game and is only really liked by a very vocal minority that figures that the rest of us should just get with the program. Reminds me of something, but, I've only got half of the idea.