D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Vaalingrade]

Isn't the whole point of adventuring... trouble? I mean honestly what kind of characters do you play in D&D? A content farmer? a conservative tax collector? A mild mannered stablehand?

I'm really tired of people insinuating that anyone that doesn't like the type of challenges they like or the lethality level they like or simply play someone who has more survival instinct than Walt Disney allowed a lemming is boring or off genre.

Maybe I don't like a burden placed on me by an NPC. Maybe my characters need actual motivation to act and maybe they also would rather not die. And maybe I don't want to generate a new character every other session.

 

[Hussar]

One possible takeaway from that video is that exploration challenges... if they aren't a conceptual false step, are only one portion of the pillar.

"Challenge" may be considered to be a tactical scenario the characters face (and, in D&D, from which they may get XP). Combat is usually such. Social interaction is sometimes such. Exploration often isn't. Thus Swarmkeeper's reference to the definition of "exploration" being too narrow - focused on the challenges, but ignoring those things that aren't tactical scenarios.

And fair enough. I think I've been pretty specific all the way along here about talking about challenges. If the majority of the exploration pillar is basically just DM narration, then, well, fair enough. There's no real problem there. I mean, sure, we all have to describe what the characters see and hear and whatnot. That's fundamental of course.

But, then, if narration is the majority of exploration, then, why the pushback about challenges? After all, virtually none of the complaints I've made about rituals or spells or whatnot, have anything to do with the DM setting the stage or narrating things. Create Water doesn't stop the DM from describing the world. Create water does, however, bypass what should be a pretty serious environmental challenge - namely safe drinking water. Goodberry doesn't have any impact on describing that desert, but, it sure does make walking across it a WHOLE lot easier.

So, sure, if people mean that most of the exploration pillar doesn't involve challenges and is mostly just narration, then, fine. Sure, no problem with the pillar. But, it seems odd that two of the pillars are defined by the challenges the PC's face within that pillar, but, exploration isn't. Which, I suppose does dovetail nicely with the original post of this thread - that exploration, from a game standpoint, is largely a non-starter. After all, if most exploration doesn't involve challenges, then, well, it isn't much of a third pillar to base the game on.

 

[Hussar]

Here’s the other thing that the exploration pillar offers the game: variety of pacing. If the PCs are constantly being challenged the players are going to burn out. Exploration offers a break from high stakes do or die moments and allow deeper aspects of the world to be brought into focus. Those deeper aspects leading inevitably to challenges and conflict because hey, it’s an adventure. But the ebb and flow of tension is important.

But, that's presuming that the stakes in any challenge are always death. I just tried to run the following very fun little module - Judgment in the Lower Courts by notsupposedtogetjigs - adapted to the Faewild. It's based on Kafka's The Trial. I set it up flat out that the PC's could kill anyone they wanted to. There was nothing in there that was more than just a 2 HP commoner. But, since they cannot actually do anything - no one will talk to them or sell them things - until they resolve the adventure, they have to keep moving forward.

Now, I wouldn't call this an exploration adventure at all. It's mostly social encounters with a bit of light combat. There's certainly no exploration challenges in it.

See, here's the thing. Like that little module there, it's pretty easy to create an adventure with little or no exploration challenges in it. It's virtually impossible to create an adventure with no combat or social challenges.

 

[Hussar]

Do your players or you feel this way anytime they have to rescue an NPC?

Nope. And you know why? Because my NPC's aren't there to screw over the players by "making challenges" and generally being blindingly stupid. And, because my players know that my NPC's won't be used this way, let's call it the Walking Dead NPC, where the NPC will blunder into danger after danger, expecting the players to bail them out, they actually engage NPC's and spend time with them. NPC's are no longer an albatross around their neck but an actual resource and possible source of information and exposition.

So, no, my NPC's don't try to make friendly with the zombies. My NPC's don't wander off from the group in dangerous areas. My NPC's hit the floor when the midden hits the windmill and my players know that.

But, again, can we please stop with the Oberoni stuff? Howzabout a little good faith arguing and trying to actually engage instead of making massive presumptions about how my game is run? Just for a change.

 

[tetrasodium]

Finding food and water falls under the rules for Foraging and, if you're doing that while traveling, the Activities While Traveling rules. Similar to the ranger automatically succeeding on navigation in favored terrain (as long as there's not a magical effect causing them to get lost), the outlander automatically succeeds on the check to forage (as long as the land offers food and water).

The trade-off is that as the outlander forages while traveling, the outlander does not contribute passive Perception to noticing hidden threats and is thus surprised if a monster tries to sneak up on the party or possibly runs right into a trap if they are at the front of the marching order. Now, an outlander ranger can both forage and stay alert to hidden threats while in favored terrain and find twice the food, but someone else will need to navigate to avoid getting lost. It's also notable that the outlander's feature seems to suggest a kind of bonus to navigation in certain situations (up to DM, perhaps advantage) so it might be better in some party compositions or scenarios to navigate than forage. The character can't do both while traveling and will have to choose.

So, yeah, if you want to prioritize keeping your food and water stocked up, outlander is a good choice. But like most things it comes with trade-offs. It's also worth nothing that if someone is taking outlander because they hate dealing with ration-counting, that's really just something to talk about with the DM so the DM can avoid presenting content the players don't like.

For my part, I often create a roll table for foraging that has on it valuable herbs, spices, flowers, animals, and whatnot. This creates more incentive to forage since it means gold or trade goods in the PCs' pockets or potentially things that can deal with poisons or disease. The forager might just find food and water and that's often good enough, but sometimes they hit upon a score! The question is - is it worth letting your guard down to find these things? The players must make this meaningful choice themselves.

You are not the first person to claim that is a cost. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you yourself even tried to claim it was a cost earlier in the thread. Perception is one of the most important skills for and build and because of the way the background rules are set up to allow at least any skill choice option almost certain for most logical combos it's not even difficult. It would be very unusual for a group to only have one player with the perception skill and even then its still not really a cost to the group because of how 5e handles surplus mitigates lethality overloafs players with gas in the tank for excessive numbers of encounters and trivializes recovery.

 

[Lanefan]

A DM did this to me once. They expected we'd find the clues we needed to find out that the jail we were in wasn't controlled by the sorcerer king. We failed every single check, we learned nothing. Not that the guards were weaker than they appeared. Not that the items had a noble family crest on them. Nothing.

So, when my character's personal nemesis who set this trap came to collect my sorcerer from the anti-magic cell I was in to be executed, the rest of the party did nothing. They stood by and played cards through the cell bars while my character fought for their life, was beaten unconscious, dragged off, and executed.

Sorry, but I'm not sure how failing to find those clues relates to the party hanging your character out to dry like they did (which sucks, by the way, unless your character had previously somehow earned their dislike).

I say be VERY cautious about just saying that they never find the clues. It is one of the most common pitfalls of DMs ever. It grinds things to a halt and makes the game far less fun.

I guess it depends whether you-as-DM are willing to have outright mission failure be an option, because that's the most likely outcome of failure to find clues.

Me, while I usually want them to succeed at whatever mission they're on I'm not going to hand that success to them, and if they fail for whatever reason then they fail. So be it.

 

[Lanefan]

Looking for an exploration challenge??

The exploration challenge here is finding and watching this unavailable video.

 

[Eubani]

The exploration challenge here is finding and watching this unavailable video.

Watch out, without a Ranger you might get lost in them interwebs. Ranger - New Favoured Terrain: Cyberspace.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Sure, attacking the cult is still a challenge. But the journey to get there was the point, that was the challenge we were hoping to improve... and much like in the game itself it seems the best answer is to skip it.



Very much depending on your playstyle, but I've had this conversation dozens of times. And other than water you can carry weeks worth or supplies and tools, with encumbrance limits, and after that you can start some very easy survival rolls. As long as you have a way to reliably fill up on water (water is far heavier than everything else), there is nothing here that is a challenge. And even that is defeated if you have a spare spell slot by the end of the day, or encounter a body of water. We've talked about exhaustion and the various ways the game gives it to come up, but again, water cancels hot weather, winter clothes cancel cold weather, and with no time pressure forced marches are off the table, so exhaustion doesn't come into play.

You guys have listed these rules time and again, but when I turn to actually engaging the rules, you clam up and don't say anything about them, so I don't see how they are of any use.



It shouldn't be so trivial to skip the exploration steps. It shouldn't keep happening that when we dig down, we find that there is nothing but DM fiat holding it together.

The best answer for some people is to skip it. Others will prefer a different approach, such as leaning into exploration, which makes up a significant portion of my own groups' games.

There are lots of ways to make the game more survival oriented, which I'm fairly certain plenty of folks have already discussed. If you don't like the baseline, then you can modify things to make them more front and center. For example, you might say that long resting during a journey requires a week of uninterrupted rest. This make exhaustion far more serious, since you can't simply lose a stack overnight. Other ways include removing spells that negate those features that you want to focus on (like how my friend, who I mentioned earlier in the thread, made spells that create food or water not work in his desert campaign). Of course, survival doesn't need to be a focus for your campaign if you don't want it to be, and that's fine.

You can focus more or less on exploration, as you like. You can make it central to the campaign if you remove spells that circumvent it. You can make it an afterthought if you skip most exploration and just cut from one combat/social scene to the next. You can leave it at the baseline, which allows players to opt in based on what resources they want to allocate toward it.

This isn't really much different from running a combat or social focused game. You ideally want to adjust things there too, else it will likely result in a less than ideal experience (ie, a barbarian or fighter in a campaign where combat is rare or nonexistent, or a social bard in a hack-and-slash game).

D&D has a baseline, which allows you to opt out of a lot of exploration obstacles through your choices. You can easily modify the baseline to get your desired play. It would have been pretty laughable if, instead of simply saying that spells that make food or water don't work, my friend who ran the desert campaign had thrown up his hands and declared that such a campaign is impossible in D&D. Instead, he made the tweaks he needed for the desired result and ran a very memorable campaign.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The best answer for some people is to skip it. Others will prefer a different approach, such as leaning into exploration, which makes up a significant portion of my own groups' games.

There are lots of ways to make the game more survival oriented, which I'm fairly certain plenty of folks have already discussed. If you don't like the baseline, then you can modify things to make them more front and center. For example, you might say that long resting during a journey requires a week of uninterrupted rest. This make exhaustion far more serious, since you can't simply lose a stack overnight. Other ways include removing spells that negate those features that you want to focus on (like how my friend, who I mentioned earlier in the thread, made spells that create food or water not work in his desert campaign). Of course, survival doesn't need to be a focus for your campaign if you don't want it to be, and that's fine.

You can focus more or less on exploration, as you like. You can make it central to the campaign if you remove spells that circumvent it. You can make it an afterthought if you skip most exploration and just cut from one combat/social scene to the next. You can leave it at the baseline, which allows players to opt in based on what resources they want to allocate toward it.

This isn't really much different from running a combat or social focused game. You ideally want to adjust things there too, else it will likely result in a less than ideal experience (ie, a barbarian or fighter in a campaign where combat is rare or nonexistent, or a social bard in a hack-and-slash game).

D&D has a baseline, which allows you to opt out of a lot of exploration obstacles through your choices. You can easily modify the baseline to get your desired play. It would have been pretty laughable if, instead of simply saying that spells that make food or water don't work, my friend who ran the desert campaign had thrown up his hands and declared that such a campaign is impossible in D&D. Instead, he made the tweaks he needed for the desired result and ran a very memorable campaign.

But, your friend did throw up their hands and declare his campaign impossible in 5e. Which is why they choose to alter the rules so that their campaign worked.

5e gets a pass that many other games do not (well D&D in general does). And that pass is that the game gets the credit for our work. Here, your friend did work, and changed rules to enable the game they want to play, and you're giving that credit to 5e. Further, you're using your friend work to defend 5e against charges that it doesn't support that kind of play well by saying that if you do the work to take out the parts of 5e that fight against that, then 5e comes through for you and 5e does a great job of doing this kind of play. Yay 5e! It's great that it allows you to fix it, right! I mean... this is primary evidence against your point -- 5e does not support this kind of play, it actively fights against it, but the defense of the 5e system here is to point out how you can ignore the 5e system. That's you, not 5e. That's work you have to do because of 5e. 5e doesn't allow you to make houserules, you have that ability. 5e cannot stop you, just like Monopoly can't stop you from having a rule that Free Parking is a lotto for all payments to the bank to date.