D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[tetrasodium]

The reference isn’t clear so I can’t really put what youve said into context.

You said and were quoted saying

The absence of rules in one specific part of a theoretically infinite pillar doesn’t mean there is lack of rules in general. The lack of combat stats for platypus doesn’t mean the game lacks combat stats

Before having problematic rules that exist to trivialize downplay and obliviate exploitation being more of the problem then question the relevance? It directly contradicts your statement about the absence of rules about an infinitely wide area of gameplay not meaning an absence of rules in general with rules that exist to cleave the infinite down to something the designers could allow players drown in a bucket.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If we discard time and complications as inconsequential (which I don't agree with), then the ranger ability to avoid being lost is equally inconsequential. After all, if you become lost you can always eventually retrace your steps. Eventually, you'll get where you want to go, whether or not you have a ranger.

This is also true.

So, getting lost isn't a real exploration challenge. Complications can vary but the game doesn't provide us with a good baseline for complications.

So, how do we make overland travel a challenge, without making it majority combat or risking the fickleness of a time limit? I don't see anything int he rules that gives a good answer to this.

Edit: and to be clear, this is sort of the insidious problem with rangers and their abilities in regards to clocks.

Let us say that the cult of ultimate evil will complete their ritual in one month's time. A party without a ranger will need to hurry and rush to barely make it within that month's time.... But if they have a ranger it will only take them two weeks (because they ignore difficult terrain)

So, a DM with a ranger in the party, who wants a meaningful clock, needs to change it so the Cult is going to complete their ritual in two weeks, because now the clock is ticking again, accounting for the increased speed of the ranger.

And if you set it up that the ritual is going to happen in a week, regardless of anything, then the ranger's abilities and the everything else don't matter, because you'll never make it in time, so the clock isn't ticking, it has run out, and there is no point in rushing. This is the problem with ticking clocks, you need to account for the party's actual speed to make a meaningful clock, and the ranger speeding you up therefore also needs accounting for, or you will arrive with two weeks to spare, and there really was no ticking clock

 

[TheSword]

You said and were quoted saying
Before having problematic rules that exist to trivialize downplay and obliviate exploitation being more of the problem then question the relevance? It directly contradicts your statement about the absence of rules about an infinitely wide area of gameplay not meaning an absence of rules in general with rules that exist to cleave the infinite down to something the designers could allow players drown in a bucket.

Yeah I still have no idea what you’re talking about.

 

[TheSword]

Obviously, YMMV, but I'm not sure if I would call that a "great thing about 5e."

IMHO, it amazes me how a number of other published games manage to cover more ground with less page count than it seemingly takes 5e D&D to accomplish the same thing in its ever expanding catalog and 3pp products. It may be that WotC has the privilege and luxury of being able to pump out all these books knowing that people will buy them whatever while other TTRPG publishers have to make the most of their limited publishing opportunities.

I'll be honest with you, @TheSword, but my budget is tighter than it once was. Being able to buy the wide range of a game's catalog of books or even the 3pp products is no longer a luxury that I may have once enjoyed, though maybe I have also become more selective. Who knows? So I have really come to appreciate a game that gives me a lot of bang for my buck.

Yes, I definitely aren’t in the position to buy every product that gets released. I’m a bit choosier.

It’s good that 3pp usually release in pdf which works out considerably cheaper. Particularly when a DM I really just want the rules in some cases. MC’s Strongholds for instance was a good investment for not a lot of money that had some very cool ideas in it.

Nevertheless WOC and 5e specifically encourage 3pp (for their own benefit too) there have been plenty of editions in the past that haven’t shown such foresight.

 

[Chaosmancer]

"You can take the road, which would be pretty safe. It will take about five days to get there. Or, you can take a shortcut through the Woods of Dangerous Random Encounters and get there in two... if you survive."

Okay great, if we want combat instead of exploration we go through the woods. If we just want to get to the destination to begin the adventure we take the road. We like the main adventure and would rather not waste time on random encounters just to fight more (we'll get plenty of fighting in anyways) so we take the road.

A 30-second DM montage and we are back on track.

"There's an interesting shiny thing in the distance off to the left of the path. Shiny things often contain useful magical items or sources of information that may just happen to give you clues on how to stop the Ritual of Evil Ritualing. But it would be a two-day detour to check, and you know the ritual is being prepared..."

Let's run with this for a second. Let us say that the ritual is going to be done in 15 days. And it is a five day journey. Then a single two day detour is no problem, but more importantly, let us say the the party does decide to skip all the shiny things and just rushes to the site of the Ritual of Evil Ritualing... then they arrive 10 days before it is done. How could we possibly not stop it with 10 days to act to stop it?


Well, obviously you couldn't actually let us arrive with 10 days to spare, could you? Because then there is no challenge when we arrive, the cultists are clearly unprepared to even start the ritual and we have stopped it with ease.

This is the problem with time pressures, either they end up being an illusion, because the party will always arrive "just in time" or they are serious and if the party actually does take them seriously and rushes... they could arrive with so much time to spare, that there is no real challenge or rush to complete the mission.

 

[Mort]

This is also true.

So, getting lost isn't a real exploration challenge. Complications can vary but the game doesn't provide us with a good baseline for complications.

So, how do we make overland travel a challenge, without making it majority combat or risking the fickleness of a time limit? I don't see anything int he rules that gives a good answer to this.

Edit: and to be clear, this is sort of the insidious problem with rangers and their abilities in regards to clocks.

Let us say that the cult of ultimate evil will complete their ritual in one month's time. A party without a ranger will need to hurry and rush to barely make it within that month's time.... But if they have a ranger it will only take them two weeks (because they ignore difficult terrain)

So, a DM with a ranger in the party, who wants a meaningful clock, needs to change it so the Cult is going to complete their ritual in two weeks, because now the clock is ticking again, accounting for the increased speed of the ranger.

And if you set it up that the ritual is going to happen in a week, regardless of anything, then the ranger's abilities and the everything else don't matter, because you'll never make it in time, so the clock isn't ticking, it has run out, and there is no point in rushing. This is the problem with ticking clocks, you need to account for the party's actual speed to make a meaningful clock, and the ranger speeding you up therefore also needs accounting for, or you will arrive with two weeks to spare, and there really was no ticking clock

Party with a ranger gets there faster and has that much more time to plan and disrupt the ritual.

Party without a ranger gets there slower and has significantly less time to disrupt the ritual.

Yay, the Ranger has proven really useful in this instance.

I really don't see the problem.

 

[Lyxen]

The thing is that, if you consider the three areas of the game, you can certainly try to order them in terms of amount of rules provided:

1. Combat: Tons of rules, and tools for encounter building
2. Exploration: Quite a few rules and a few tools (DCs)
3. Social: Almost no rules and absolutely no tools

When you look at this, I'm wondering why people complain so much about the exploration pillar...

Especially since you consider that, in terms of time taken by players to resolve a situation, at least at our table, combat takes the longest per amount or preparation, then probably exploration. Social is a bit of a special case, our tables spend hours on social encounters and roleplay, but it's as much planning and discussion as actual resolution anyway.

And, although I like it best by far, I find it hard to create social encounters, where I need to define the NPCs, the intrigue, what all the NPCs are doing behind the PCs backs, etc. Fortunately the players discussions help a lot formulating new plots and improvising, but still.

Whereas honestly an exploration challenge is not that hard if you have a bit of imagination. Just imagine the situation from any movie or book of the genre, present it to the players, and ideas will start flying, just select the ones that make sense and look cool.

 

[Mort]

Okay great, if we want combat instead of exploration we go through the woods. If we just want to get to the destination to begin the adventure we take the road. We like the main adventure and would rather not waste time on random encounters just to fight more (we'll get plenty of fighting in anyways) so we take the road.

A 30-second DM montage and we are back on track.



Let's run with this for a second. Let us say that the ritual is going to be done in 15 days. And it is a five day journey. Then a single two day detour is no problem, but more importantly, let us say the the party does decide to skip all the shiny things and just rushes to the site of the Ritual of Evil Ritualing... then they arrive 10 days before it is done. How could we possibly not stop it with 10 days to act to stop it?


Well, obviously you couldn't actually let us arrive with 10 days to spare, could you? Because then there is no challenge when we arrive, the cultists are clearly unprepared to even start the ritual and we have stopped it with ease.

This is the problem with time pressures, either they end up being an illusion, because the party will always arrive "just in time" or they are serious and if the party actually does take them seriously and rushes... they could arrive with so much time to spare, that there is no real challenge or rush to complete the mission.

No, it's just a bit of a different challenge depending on when the party arrives - I see this as a good thing.

 

[Fanaelialae]

This is also true.

So, getting lost isn't a real exploration challenge. Complications can vary but the game doesn't provide us with a good baseline for complications.

So, how do we make overland travel a challenge, without making it majority combat or risking the fickleness of a time limit? I don't see anything int he rules that gives a good answer to this.

Edit: and to be clear, this is sort of the insidious problem with rangers and their abilities in regards to clocks.

Let us say that the cult of ultimate evil will complete their ritual in one month's time. A party without a ranger will need to hurry and rush to barely make it within that month's time.... But if they have a ranger it will only take them two weeks (because they ignore difficult terrain)

So, a DM with a ranger in the party, who wants a meaningful clock, needs to change it so the Cult is going to complete their ritual in two weeks, because now the clock is ticking again, accounting for the increased speed of the ranger.

And if you set it up that the ritual is going to happen in a week, regardless of anything, then the ranger's abilities and the everything else don't matter, because you'll never make it in time, so the clock isn't ticking, it has run out, and there is no point in rushing. This is the problem with ticking clocks, you need to account for the party's actual speed to make a meaningful clock, and the ranger speeding you up therefore also needs accounting for, or you will arrive with two weeks to spare, and there really was no ticking clock

I agree with @Mort. The party with the ranger has more time to deal with the cult, and that is a good thing. The feature is benefiting the party, which is what those features are intended to do.

It's only a problem for the DM who insists that the players need to interrupt the ritual at the last possible second, but also insists on using a clock. In which case the only problem is the incompatibility of those two agendas. It can still be done, but you can't be hamfisted about it. For example, you could have the ritual nearing completion whenever the PCs bust in, but the clock determines some other factors, like how many demons the enemy has been able to summon.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My issue - and as a player I'm every bit as guilty of doing this as anyone else, so not pointing fingers - with exploring a character's perspective and story is that it's almost only ever relevant to that character's player; which means any table time spent on its development is time not being spent on the party as a whole.

Doing this stuff one-on-one with the DM during the week? Sure, all day long. Trying to do it during the session? In general, let's not.

I'll step in here for a moment. Not always, but I'd say the majority of the time, I'm just as invested in the stories of the rest of the party as I am in my own.

Just for an example, I've got a play-by-post game that is actively running and that we end up split off and doing our own things fairly regularly. At the moment one character is talking to her evil reflection and trying to resolve her upbringing as a cleric of Light with her nature as an infernal being. I'm loving every minute of it. Another character is soon planning on giving a wish (we each got one) to their patron, which could be all sorts of massive shenangins, I'm eating it up. Another player is dealing with relationship issues and struggling with balancing her orc and human instincts.

Sure, it isn't all the time, and some people's stories end up being things I don't care about. But, I can just as easily get invested in the story they are crafting with the DM and be a spectator as I am with my own stories. Maybe I'm just weird that way, but I know I'm not the only one.

I suppose much of the time as a player I play more for the here-and-now, and let the big-picture story take care of itself (in part because half the time I'm not even sure what the big-picture story is or which part of it we're dealing with!).

Sure, each individual adventure has its own story - here we're rescuing refugees, there we're destroying a nasty temple, etc. - but that to me is here-and-now stuff, in a campaign that spans literally decades in real time and has built up maybe a dozen of sometimes-interweaving big-picture story arcs.

For me, ignoring the bigger picture story is... I don't think I could. I'm always trying to keep our context and the larger story in mind. I love that stuff. Now, I've never been in a decades long game, longest single campaign I think I was ever in was probably three years, so maybe it ends up coming down to game play pressures.

Actually, thinking about this more, this would explain a lot about how you don't seem to grok the pressures I'm talking about. And individual adventure that in no way ties to the larger plot is mostly a distraction to me, a filler just taking up space. It could be a fun filler, or not, but I always feel an urge to get us back on track.

While I know there's variant RPGs where that's the norm, I'm not sure how well it works in practice.

It probably wouldn't. So, just because the character doesn't know a numerical score doesn't mean the player shouldn't. So, why should a player not know the DCs to shatter these crystals? What is the value of keeping this information from them? Yeah, their character doesn't see a big red 17 etched into the crystal, but I'm not asking about the character, I'm asking about the player.

Which flies in the face of viewing and interacting with the setting through the eyes of your character. Some numbers, such as stats, serve as player-side informers as to how in general your character would perceive itself and-or be perceived by others. Other numbers, such as DCs, do nothing but hard-code things that in the characters' view would (nearly always) not be anywhere near so cut-and-dried. No need for the players to see those.

I disagree. The players seeing some of those numbers gives them more information to use to make decisions. It allows them to feel like they have more of a handle on the choices they are making, because they are making them with intentionality. The character doesn't need to know if the risk is relatively low or relatively high, it is a risk of death, it doesn't matter if it is high or low, you take precautions because you don't want to die. But the player can make a slightly more informed decision based on that information, rather than just having to guess.

As an example, the chance of you being struck by lightning and killed is 0.0065% , it is insanely low, probably the equivalent of rolling three 1's in a row. And yet, you probably don't go dancing outside during thunderstorms. But, if you needed to make a run to a shed to grab something during a thunderstorm... you might, because the chances of injury are very low. But knowing the chances doesn't change your actions that much. Even if it does let you make a more informed decision.

"Which way does the door open?" is an easy enough question to ask if the DM forgets to tell you; not just push or pull but which side the handle/hinges are on, which can make a difference if characters want to line up their weapon-hand or shield-hand closer to the opening side. (amusing side note: one famous old-school module notes in its default description for dungeon doors that the handle and hinges are always on the left, which read literally means doors in that dungeon are mighty hard to open...)

Why would the DM have to tell us? Does it really matter that much? To the point that if we don't hear if the door pulls open or pushes open we should stop the game and ask? This was literally the only time in nearly ten years that a door being pushed or pulled ever mattered, and it was because the DM wanted to laugh at us for saying the wrong word and looking like fools.

Also, what do you mean their weapon-hand or shield-hand? That isn't a thing in DnD 5e, we don't specify the handedness of our characters. I've never told the DM once which hand I was holding something in, because it never mattered.

Ye-es, I see on reading it that 5e has taken out the strength-of-enchantment piece. Another dubious nerf.

And I think highlighting a major hurdle in our discussion, there are a lot of assumptions of how things "should work" or "have always worked" that are not true in DnD 5e.

Thing is, whenever someone suggests changing the rules as a fix you jump on that too.

Can't have it both ways.

I'm not trying to have it both ways. I'm trying to highlight that running the game as written we have a lot of problems that the game as written doesn't have solutions for.

So yes, if you want to change the rules, you can, but that doesn't help anyone who buys the books and doesn't buy a pack of your homebrew rule supplements that solve all the problems in the rules. And, for a lot of us, it is clear that this pillar is sorely lacking.

I'm kind of sick of having this poison pill choice. Either there is no problem with the rules, it is with me. Or there is a problem with the rules, and I should stop being lazy and fix the rules myself, because it doesn't matter if the rules are bad if I put on my game designer hat and fix them.

RPGs are the only gaming in the world where poor game design seems to not matter, because the answer is always for the players to act as game designers.