D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[tetrasodium]

I crewed on a 52' tall ship in the late 90s for a bit. Crew of . . . six, I think? I can't imagine squeezing that many people, plus the supplies they would have needed, into a vessel only 10' longer. The Santa Maria did have multiple decks, of course, but still.

As a datapoint to compare against, the USS constitution is about feet, built in the 1790s, had a crew of 60+ 50 marines, 55 guns, & is now a museum in boston, & has a 51min covid virtual tour here

 

[Weiley31]

Somebody already beat me to mentioning how Adventures in Middle-Earth 5E rewards players with like Inspiration for seeing the sun rising, after emerging from a cave, and what not.

 

[Lanefan]

I crewed on a 52' tall ship in the late 90s for a bit. Crew of . . . six, I think? I can't imagine squeezing that many people, plus the supplies they would have needed, into a vessel only 10' longer. The Santa Maria did have multiple decks, of course, but still.

Cool!

Were your voyages day-sails or long-haul overnighters?

Also, squaresail rig or sloop/ketch/yawl rig? The latter, being much easier to operate, requires fewer crew.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, the Santa Maria was only 62 feet long. And, it was a carrack, not a cog. That would be pretty cutting edge technology in a D&D world.

Not to that much extent - I mean, if the setting can have 1500s-era armour and weaponry surely it can have 1500's-era ships.

Personally, I'm fine with having full-on Trafalgar-era ships of the line in my setting; only they use 'tween-deck-mounted ballistae instead of cannons for their armaments.

Crew of 40 though. But, let's be honest, it wasn't like many ships were making that journey before Columbus.

Not that journey, but the ships themselves existed before then.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Cool!

Were your voyages day-sails or long-haul overnighters?

Also, squaresail rig or sloop/ketch/yawl rig? The latter, being much easier to operate, requires fewer crew.

It was a brigantine rig, so a little bit of A, a little bit of B. We took it from Port Townsend, Washington (on the Olympic Peninsula, across from Seattle) down to San Diego. It took . . . about a week and a half, if I remember correctly?

 

[Hussar]

I crewed on a 52' tall ship in the late 90s for a bit. Crew of . . . six, I think? I can't imagine squeezing that many people, plus the supplies they would have needed, into a vessel only 10' longer. The Santa Maria did have multiple decks, of course, but still.

Oh, yeah. Life on those ships would SUUUUUUCCK!!

 

[Mordhau]

Somebody already beat me to mentioning how Adventures in Middle-Earth 5E rewards players with like Inspiration for seeing the sun rising, after emerging from a cave, and what not.

It does and that is one thing that might be interesting in an exploration rules set.

...but Adventures in Middle Earth does not really have exploration rules. What it has is Journey rules.

It's possible that 5e could benefit from such rules but it wouldn't really fix anything about the exploration pillar.

 

[Lanefan]

It does and that is one thing that might be interesting in an exploration rules set.

...but Adventures in Middle Earth does not really have exploration rules. What it has is Journey rules.

It's possible that 5e could benefit from such rules but it wouldn't really fix anything about the exploration pillar.

What AiME has is useful downtime rules, which if ported to 5e can pry downtime activities out of exploration and de-muddy the waters just that little bit more.

 

[Mordhau]

What AiME has is useful downtime rules, which if ported to 5e can pry downtime activities out of exploration and de-muddy the waters just that little bit more.

Yes. On the whole though AIME has a similar concept behind it to 5e's pillarrs but done so much better.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes. On the whole though AIME has a similar concept behind it to 5e's pillarrs but done so much better.

It's likely due to how these concepts were brought over for the One Ring, which itself was about understanding and translating the story elements that make stories like the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings possible for TTRPG play.