D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Fanaelialae]

It's a problem for the DM as well if-when she's trying to run a published module built around a premise like this (and IMO far too many are); yet the PCs just won't stay on schedule. They're either early, which is good for them but bad for running the big set-piece climax ending; or late, which is just bad period unless the DM contrives to delay the climax point until they arrive.

A bad module is just a bad module. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Lanefan]

This is because the "play your character like a stolen car" doesn't mesh well with the usual approaches to 5e. Your examples show this out, because they assume that the challenges aren't related to the PC's goals, but rather the usual party-challenging GM curated challenge set. If your dealing with a literal death trap was directly tied to your goal of whatever, such that it was directly in your way, then how you approach it changes. Also, death being the only serious consequence to PCs is another factor, also from the usual way D&D is framed.

Take, for example, my character in the Blades game I'm playing in. This character has the Trauma (unwanted flaw, if you will, earned by stressing out) "reckless." So, the character's mindset is that the character is reckless, which can be very detrimental. But, I, as a player, get to use this as a cue for how this character acts, and so if I'm leaning into playing my character strongly, then I'm going to declare the occasional reckless action. This came out in the last session, as during the score we had fully accomplished our mission but there was a chance to earn some more coin via engaging with some dangerous shades and attempting to capture them. This hit a number of my character's interest point -- they were shades of his nationality, killed during an attack, and I was an ex-solider, plus I am very money oriented, with a primary character vice of luxury, so coin is important, and one of the crew's motivations is to be ambitious, which coin allows us to engage. And then my PC is reckless. So, no hesitation, my PC immediately engaged the shades, and did so while the rest of the crew was occupied and could not immediately help (one was collecting the objects of the score and the other was guarding against the return of some Deathlands monstrosities she had chased off). THIS is playing like your character is a stolen car -- it's leaning into everything the character is about and jamming the pedal down on them. And it doesn't really work in D&D mostly due to the party focus and the fact that consequences are usually death or nothing much.

I like that character!

And I could play it in D&D (1e, anyway) just fine. Money-oriented, reckless, has a sense of loyalty - I think I've already got a few long-serving characters that fit this bill; one of whom shares my username here. And yeah, I jam that pedal down to the floor.

 

[Lanefan]

Going through the forest of random encounters isn't 'the adventure I want'. I'm presenting it as a choice because I design adventures so that they contain choices! That's the whole point of the game.

More importantly, you-as-DM are willing to run the forest part of the adventure if the PCs choose to go there and willing to skip it if they take the road instead.

This is key: to be willing and able to adapt to whatever choices the PCs make.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, we don't use XP

Can't help you there, sorry. No xp, no me-as-player.

and if the DM already made the challenges past the woods, then we aren't going to be getting too many more resources or anything. Or, we do, and it makes the mandatory part of the adventure easier and potentially too easy.

In which case, good on you: you've successfully leveraged one challenge (the forest monsters) to reduce the threat of another challenge (the adventure). Nicely done! (and if the DM arbitrarily adjusts the adventure to make it harder, bad DM!)

 

[Mort]

Okay, but that isn't a challenge. You've failed the mission, how do you deal with failure, that isn't a challenge in and of itself.

Of course it's a challenge, frankly it's just as or more interesting than if the group had succeeded.

You seem to be conflating decision points with challenges, and I don't know why. Choosing Apple juice or Orange Juice is a decision point, but it isn't a challenge. We failed the mission, do we go home and face the consequences or try and at least get vengeance, there is no challenge in this decision, it is a matter of priorities and fears of punishment.

There's that binary thing again.

The challenge now is figuring out what the heck to do next. Presumably the DM has plans for if the group doesn't get there in time (or can improvise) and the challenge has now shifted to salvage and CYA mode. Challenge doesn't mean direct conflict or direct threat. The princess has died, her family will be pissed and we're right in the middle of it - heck of a challenge!

I'm seperating them because we are trying to discuss the exploration pillar, but people keep conflating it with combat and ignoring the lack of exploration challenges.

For example, strong winds mean you make ranged attacks at disadvantage. If you aren't making ranged attacks, strong winds provide zero challenge. Being in a thick fog means you can't see very far. If your only challenge in that lack of sight is that monsters can sneak up on you... then there isn't really a challenge here for you to engage with as exploration, it is a combat challenge.


And this is the point I've run into time and time again. I've asked "how do you provide a meaningful exploration challenge" and most of the answers have been "have them fight monsters". Which is not an exploration challenge, that is the same as saying that the only way to give an exploration challenge is to engage the combat pillar. Which should not be the exploration challenges we are relying on.

At its core, a good exploration challenge is to simply have an interesting environment and a reason for the party to interact with it - go from there. The DMG, granted often in a confusing manner, provides decent guidance on interesting environments and how to interact with them.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Then how would you design that clock? It was an example from Iserith, not my own, and he seems to think you can always add a clock, so how would you approach "the princess will be sacrificed" (a classic adventure hook) without making it a binary clock?

Okay, I'm going by just this "princess will be sacrificed" hook (if there were additional details, I'm not aware of them).

There are a number of different ways to approach this depending on play style, but here's one way to implement it.

The evil cultists have kidnapped the princess. The PCs have 5 days to rescue her before the cultists sacrifice her to complete their evil ritual. Getting to the site with a ranger under a pretty severe forced march could be done in a day. Without a ranger, at a relaxed pace, it will take 4 days. The final encounter is hard to begin with, but each day the cultists create an additional witherling, pushing the encounter into deadly by the last day (obviously, if you don't like the default difficulty, adjust as desired).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I like that character!

And I could play it in D&D (1e, anyway) just fine. Money-oriented, reckless, has a sense of loyalty - I think I've already got a few long-serving characters that fit this bill; one of whom shares my username here. And yeah, I jam that pedal down to the floor.

Yes, you've said this before without knowledge or understanding of the differences in the games and how that impacts how you can play a character like this.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, we're definitely different players.

I'd take the woods every damn time. If nothing else, the party will have more xp when we get there, and maybe more resources as well depending what we can loot off the monsters.

Never mind that unless the original mission was hella urgent (many are not) I'd almost always be open to spending a lot more time in the woods and clear 'em out proper, if we could, so the next travellers could pass through safely.

That bolded bit touches on another big self inflicted wound 5e creates, colville talks about it a bit here. 5e was designed to dump a ton of power onto the base PC itself & ensure that everything was balanced so you could play level 1-20 using just starting gear without issue. That leaves very little room for gaining cool stuff as loot or buying cool stuff with looted valuables

 

[TheSword]

That bolded bit touches on another big self inflicted wound 5e creates, colville talks about it a bit here. 5e was designed to dump a ton of power onto the base PC itself & ensure that everything was balanced so you could play level 1-20 using just starting gear without issue. That leaves very little room for gaining cool stuff as loot or buying cool stuff with looted valuables

Interestingly the encounter in which Matt describes gaining Crusader is a great example of exploration. There is no combat, as combat doesn’t work. There’s no real roleplay, it’s a case of accepting the gift or not… there is no conversation to be had. It’s a case of take a risk swimming into the lake then make a decision based on the information in front of you. I like it.

Though as cool as this is, Intelligent Holy Avengers +5, account for a tiny fraction of magic items. The coolness of Crusader is matched by the banality of the magic Christmas tree. Where items hang from set body parts like fairy lights.

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Edit: I do think attunement goes a bit too far in restricting this. I did have an idea for a house rule around attunement. It’s totally unrelated to this topic but as we’re talking about magic items…

When you attune a 4th magic item, your lowest ability score is reduced by 1 for as long as you have the additional item attuned. This effect is cumulative, reducing your lowest score by a further 1 point for each additional item attuned. Where multiple stats are the same, the PC chooses which stat is reduced. Losing stat points this way causes the PC to take on a trait that becomes more pronounced, the more points are lost.

Strength: The effort of maintaining attunement can be tiring, leaching your energy.

Dexterity: The multiple magical auras occasionally cause you to shudder as the energy courses over you.

Constitution: Carrying so much magic taxes your health making you prone to sickness.

Intelligence: The overlapping auras can result in occasional distraction, making you prone to forget small details.

Wisdom: Its hard not to throw caution to the wind when you’re carrying so much magic, you’re less cautious than you should be.

Charisma: Your vanity is stoked displaying such magical power. That vanity can easily turn to narcissism.

 

[tetrasodium]

Interestingly the encounter in which Matt describes gaining Crusader is a great example of exploration. There is no combat, as combat doesn’t work. There’s no real roleplay, it’s a case of accepting the gift or not… there is no conversation to be had. It’s a case of take a risk swimming into the lake then make a decision based on the information in front of you. I like it.

Though as cool as this is, Intelligent Holy Avengers +5, account for a tiny fraction of magic items. The coolness of Crusader is matched by the banality of the magic Christmas tree. Where items hang from set body parts like fairy lights.

*********

Edit: I do think attunement goes a bit too far in restricting this. I did have an idea for a house rule around attunement.

When you attune a 4th magic item your lowest ability score is reduced by 1 for as long as you have the additional item attuned. This effect is cumulative, reducing your lowest score by a further 1 point for each additional item attuned. Where multiple stats are the same the PC chooses which stat is reduced. The effect is linked to a trait that becomes stronger the more points are lost.

Strength: The effort of maintaining attunement can be tiring, leaching your energy.

Dexterity: The multiple magical auras occasionally cause you to shudder as the energy courses over you.

Constitution: Carrying so much magic taxes your health making you prone to sickness.

Intelligence: The overlapping auras can result in occasional distraction, making you prone to forget small details.

Wisdom: Its hard not to throw caution to the wind when you’re carrying so much magic, you’re less cautious than you should be.

Charisma: Your vanity is stoked displaying such magical power. That vanity can easily turn to narcissism.

5e is designed against going back, You can't graft on the old ways of magic items & he talks about why. Too much power was shifted onto the PCs themselves & then wotc went a step further by designing the system math so that they would never be expected to have magic items. Simply fixing attunement & bringing back body slots or some improved version of attunement slots won't fix that without rebuilding d&d into something other than d&d 5e because there's no room left to fit it. Making it so that doing so reduces the dump stat chosen by the player to have no impact or as little impact as possible on the character is exactly the sort of nonchoice 5e enshrines over & over again