D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Imaro]

Yeah, if there is one thing this thread has shown me it is that the three pillars model the designers were trying to frame the game with just fundamentally does not reflect the reality of the game. There have been a few things people have posted that I've read and thoughts "there is no way that is exploration" but at the same time, are clearly not combat or social interactions, so I think one key issue is that there is either a lot of unnamed material floating around the pillars, or Exploration is trying to be far too broad to make for a useful discussion.

Or maybe your concept of exploration is too narrow. It's funny how your first assumption is that what others are calling exploration, isn't exploration...

 

[tetrasodium]

Or maybe your concept of exploration is too narrow. It's funny how your first assumption is that what others are calling exploration, isn't exploration...

Going to tell us how surprise works yet again and claim thst a momentary one round inconvenience to one character that nullifies the food & water complivstiom for 5 others if they are attacked and[/surprised again? .. that's not making exploration matter and it's such a low cost that it simply has no impact

 

[Asisreo]

Which is basically are restatement of the base point we've been making all along. 5e does not really have much in the way of an exploration pillar. But, we got told in no uncertain terms that not only is exploration a part of the game, but, it's apparently the KEY part of the game, more important than any other part of the game.

That's still survival, not the full encompassing premise of exploration. There's not in the way of survival challenges just like there's no social HP, AC, and social attacks.

Exploration and Social are a key part of D&D but its not the most rigorous part. Namely because dying from either of these two pillars would usually be anti-climatic and antithetical to the theme of the baseline heroic fantasy assumption 5e uses.

 

[Yora]

Exploration and Social are a key part of D&D but its not the most rigorous part. Namely because dying from either of these two pillars would usually be anti-climatic and antithetical to the theme of the baseline heroic fantasy assumption 5e uses.

And that's the cause of all the problems. 5th edition says exploration is a key part of the game, but at the same time its basic concept does not want it to be part of the game.

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, if there is one thing this thread has shown me it is that the three pillars model the designers were trying to frame the game with just fundamentally does not reflect the reality of the game. There have been a few things people have posted that I've read and thoughts "there is no way that is exploration" but at the same time, are clearly not combat or social interactions, so I think one key issue is that there is either a lot of unnamed material floating around the pillars, or Exploration is trying to be far too broad to make for a useful discussion.

Part of the problem rests in how exploration, as we are reminded by others in this thread, amounts to "everything else" that is neither Combat nor Social.

 

[Imaro]

Going to tell us how surprise works yet again and claim thst a momentary one round inconvenience to one character that nullifies the food & water complivstiom for 5 others if they are attacked and[/surprised again? .. that's not making exploration matter and it's such a low cost that it simply has no impact

What are you talking about?

 

[Imaro]

And that's the cause of all the problems. 5th edition says exploration is a key part of the game, but at the same time its basic concept does not want it to be part of the game.

It is a key part of the game and the genre... but it is treated in the same way it is in heroic adventure fiction... as an inconvenience, a drain on resources, for mixing up pacing, as a minor challenge and sometimes only to showcase the capabilities of adventurers.

 

[Asisreo]

And that's the cause of all the problems. 5th edition says exploration is a key part of the game, but at the same time its basic concept does not want it to be part of the game.

It also states exploration is the back-and-forth between the DM explaining the surroundings, the players acting, and the DM reacting. Exploration in 5e is a "keyed-term" like the word NPC. It has a set definition and Exploration is integral when viewed using its set definition.

There has been a total of 0 games I have ever played or DM'd in that did not have a segment that involved the DM describing the scene and letting us act with a reaction occurring. Quite frankly, I've never played a TTRPG that didn't have this back-and-forth.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This thread sure is going. One observation I have, is there are very much different sets of preferences around this. I don't know how easily you bridge that. But I am curious what peoples introduction to exploration was in RPGs, and what struggles they went through to make it work, as well as what 'aha' moments they have had. I do think exploration is one of the more challenging aspects of RP and one that is probably hardest when you first start (I distinctly remember trying to wrap my mind around how to do it, how much time to skip in travel, how to empower players to make choices about what directions they are going, etc). Would be interested in hearing other peoples experiences with this over time form the moment they started playing RPGs

 

[Ovinomancer]

For exploration to be a key pillar of the game, then it needs to be gamified in some way. This means for something to be in the exploration pillar of the game, it must have some kind of resolution mechanic. This can be as simple as GM says, but there needs to be something that engages in a resolution. As such, descriptions of things aren't the exploration pillar. Finding a new vista isn't the exploration pillar. These may be part and parcel of exploration, but aren't part of the exploration pillar of the game.

Thing must be resolved via a mechanic (again, GM says is the simplest of these) for it to be part of a pillar of the game. Just like talking to the shopkeeper while buying bread isn't part of the social pillar if there's no resolution, just exposition, finding a cool new tree and hearing it's lore isn't part of the exploration pillar, it's just exposition.

My $.02.